Phœnicians, and the עלמה olme of the Hebrews, which both mean Virgin, or young woman, were the same as the Latin Alma. The Om or Aum of India is evidently the Omh of the Irish Druids, which means He who is.[1] It is a very curious circumstance that in almost all etymologies, when probed to the bottom, the Celtic language is found along with the Hebrew.
There was in Syria or Canaan a place called Ammon, the natives of which were always at enmity with the Israelites. This was spelt עמון omun in the Hebrew, and by the Greeks was called Heliopolis. This seems to shew that it was dedicated to the same God as the Αμον of Egypt.
This word is used in the writings of the Hindoos precisely as we use the word Amen, which I have no doubt, both in its meaning and use, comes from this word.
6. The name of the son of Noah was חﬦ Hm, called Ham. The name of the solar orb was חמה Ame the feminine of חם Hm. It appears to me that, from misapprehension, the Ham of Noah has been confounded with the Ham, or Hm or Om of Egypt—the Jupiter Ammon or Amon, the God with the Ram’s head, adored at the ἱερον Ομανου. The word חﬦ Hm, the patriarch, and the חמה Hme, the Sun, being the same, were the cause of the mistake. Suppose the LXX. meant to say that Egypt was given to Ham, it by no means follows that this was the Ham or Am of the temples of the Sol Generator. As we have another much more probable way of accounting for the Om of the temple than that of supposing the deification of a man living a thousand miles from the temple of the Oasis, I think we are bound to take it. But if the history of the flood was a sacred mythos, the two words might have the same meaning without being copied from one another. I know no reason for believing that the son of Noah was deified—a mere fancy of modern priests; but I have many reasons for believing that Amon was the Sun as the generating power, first in Taurus, then in Aries. “Belus, Kronos, Apis, were solar symbols, and Nonnus ranks Amon with these:
Απις εφυς Νειλωος, Αραψ Κρονος, Ασσυριος Ζευς.
Amon was clearly understood by the mythologists to represent the Sun in Aries.”[2] Sir W. Drummond has given many other satisfactory reasons for Amon being the Sun: then how absurd is it to go any farther! All difficulties are easily explained by attending to the circumstance of the fundamental doctrine, that, in fact, all the Gods resolve themselves into the Sun, either as God or as emblem of the Triune Androgynous Being.
Wilkinson, in his Atlas, has placed on the Eastern shore of Arabia, on a river named Lar, a town called Omanum, which was also called Om. Here a moderately fertile imagination may perhaps find a second or third Ammon—and thus several Ammons, several Heliopolises, several Memmons, &c., &c.[3] Some important words are connected with or derived from the word Om. Mr. Niebuhr says, “The Umbri were a powerful people previous to the Etruscans.”[4] He also says, that the Greeks detected in the name of these people, which they pronounced Ombrici, an allusion to a very remote antiquity. The reader will not be surprised that I should go to the East for the origin of the Om-brici and of Om-brica, and consequently of our Umber—North-umberland and C-umberland.
7. Mr. Niebuhr does not pretend to explain the meaning of the word Italia, but he informs us that the ancient Greeks referred it to Heracleian traditions, and to a Greek word Ιταλος or Ιτοῦλος,[5] signifying a Bull. This recalls our attention in a very singular manner to the most ancient superstition. Pliny[6] says, “The people of Umbria are supposed, of all Italy, to be of greatest
