Mine is the Sunlight, Mine is the Morning

In thinking about the Polish Jove Jassa, we came, repeatedly, into contact with the rosette symbol. This is not too surprising because the rosette, particularly the leafed rosette, has appeared throughout centuries all over the world, usually as a religious symbol. Perhaps the earliest rosette symbol is from these Mycenean coins (1600 BC) from some female graves:

For more cool rosette pics, see here. Also a blog devoted to Spanish (!) Asatru has this interesting post (trying to connect the rosette as the hexapedal star with the Visigoths) – see here.

There was, however, little to connect the God of Light with the rosette (or Flower of Life) other than speculation. The thing that seemed most convincing to me, at least in terms of Polish etymologies is the that the Polish name for ash is jesion and this is the picture of an ash (or jesion) leaf:

Now, jesion, again, means ash and an ash is is an ash and askr Yggdrasil is in Norse mythology, the World Tree which is probably an ash and is very similar to the “tree of life.” For more on Yggdrasil as a “star” (gwez or gwozd) tree see here. Now, there is the fact that the above rosette is also called the Flower of Life.

But all of that is speculation. Then, however, is this fine inscription from, of all places, Cherchell, Algeria (that city being, interestingly, an important conquest of the Vandals):

PEREGRINVS[—
QVODESVS*FVIT*IVBEN[—

or, perhaps:

Peregrinus [—] | quod Esus fuit iuben[s—].

Now, I am not sure I see it but if the above interpretation is right (this means “Peregrinus (name or perhaps just ‘A Traveller’) who worshipped Esus”) then this is direct connection between the rosette and Esus. For more on this see here.

Notice that the writer of this blog, correctly, notes that the above symbol looks like a “sand dollar” but can’t be a sand dollar because a sand dollar has five arms or slits not six. This is correct. But the rosette that has six arms or petals is the Flower of Life which is what this image seems to look like.

You can also get more data from this book (which featured this inscription originally): Philippe Leveau, Nouvelles inscriptions de Cherchel, BAA, t. VII, 1, 1977-1979, p. 111-192. Note that Leveau also wrote rather recently this interesting article: Ésus en Afrique : à propos d’une inscription fragmentaire de Caesarea Mauretaniae commémorant l’exécution d’une injunction d’Ésus; which you can see here.

It is curious that various scholars have suggested that the Polish God Yassa has a Tatar, Uralic/Finno-Ugric, Germanic (Aesir) or even a Celtic origin. In the Celtic religion there was the God Esus (primarily known from Lucan though also on two pillars in France/Germany as well as, perhaps, from an incantation).

Here is a nice rosette which clearly shows these rays or slits as leaves:

In Poland, the symbol also frequently appears on coins (for example from Pyrzyce).

Curiously, the symbol also appears in connection with the Star of David (which, also, was a common symbol before becoming associated with Judaism). That David could be read Da-vid and that Vid/Vit means “lord” and Dadzbog essentially means “May God Give” is curious as well. Here are some rosettes and Stars of David from the Coptic area. These are from a work by the Germanized Polish art historian’s Josef Strzygowski’s “Coptic Art” (Koptische Kunst). He sees these as “Arabic” but given his rather loose methodology, perhaps another look is warranted.

However, note that the geometry of this is not altogether that difficult or unique as explained in this article.

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