Aventinus 13

Johannes Turmayr's 1520 History of Bavaria, Chapters 13 and 14 - translated and annotated by Ras Feqade, AD 2020.

* Previous Chapter: Aventinus 12
* Next Chapter: Aventinus 15 and 16
* (To Table of Contents)

## 13. How King Tuitsch also invented a different abc and script

### Summary

 In this chapter, Aventinus asserts that King Tuiscon originated a script, that he says was ancestral to the Greek alphabet, and also comparable or similar to Old Slavic (Glagolitic?), Old Frankish, Gothic, and 'Longbardic'. He cites a parchment of Charlemagne written in letters 'not unlike Greek', and quotes Tacitus and Julius Caesar as reporting the Germans to use Greek letters. Finally he claims that German and Greek have around 1000 words in common, of which he lists 44 examples in High German, which may or may not have actual parallels in Greek: tür übertür wildtier ab ap mit met rock hemmat brot knap ämar atmizen atm politei gä voetei echter echten äthax iltis arg faul outhar küssen xeuen seisen schezen læst laccon helos mäni mül veter schetli thytplos auri haither neon tol tolner ax peil hal.

He does not show us here what this allegedly pre-Greek script looked like, but in his later Chronicle, he claims it consisted of the sixteen Greek letters Α, Β, Γ, Δ, Ε, Ι, Κ, Λ, Μ, Ν, Ο, Π, Ρ, Σ, Τ, and Υ. It is almost certain that the actual ancestor of the much later Greek alphabet was the Phoenician, which would not come into use for 1000 years. If anything like an alphabet proper existed at this early time of Tuiscon, it would have been Egyptian and Proto-Semitic hieroglyphic uniliterals. Otherwise logographic pictographs seem to have been in general use, varying from country to country. If Tuiscon had any script this early, it would more likely have been pictographic like other nations at the time.

Similar claims are made for Tuiscon's contemporary Samothes in Holinshed, who says Samothes introduced the alphabet that would be known as Phoenician, long before its recorded use. Ogham according to Irish accounts was invented by Fenius Farsa. And Johannes Magnus actually displays a runestave he says originated under Siggo of Sweden (2208-2143 BC). However, his runes are nearly identical to the Mediaeval Runes as known in Magnus' own day; they are known to be a late development of the original Norse runes, which themselves are thought to be well subsequent to the Phoenician alphabet.

## 14. When Abraham was born.

As one counts from the Deluge 292 years, and of the world 1950 years according to the Jews, Abraham, the father of the Jews, was born in the Babylonian kingdom, in the 161st year of the reign of king Tuitsch or Teutsch, and of Ninus, the third Babilonian king, in the 43rd year on which Eusebius the bishop begins his chronica.

[According to Jubilees, Abraham was born as Abram in Ur, ie in Sumer, in the year 1876 after Adam was created. This would be 568 years after the Deluge, and by my calculation 2187 BC. This would be late in the reign of Tuiscon's son Mannus, and it would fall within the Defloratio Era of Zameis Ninias if correctly calculated, although in fact in that same year Lugal-kinishe-dudu became king of Sumer, while Ninias aka Nanni governed Ur. The data of Jerome in Eusebius thus misaligned Abram's birth too early by 76 years, to the Era of Ninus 43, for subsequent historians, including Aventinus.]