The river, the lady and the egg

I'll just cut to the chase on this one by first unleashing a data dump of three interesting crosslinguistic word themes ("lady", "egg" and "river") I've noticed that suggest some fascinating substrate influence emerging from the region of the Eastern Mediterranean. I also don't believe that any of these words can be convincingly explained by appeal to Proto-Indo-European as is so often attempted but rather that this is the product of a common package of religious beliefs shared across the area.

*lota 'seed, blossom, bud; egg'

- Greek λωτός lōtós 'lotus', λῶτα lōta 'bloom, blossom', λυταρίς lutarís 'poppy-like flower', λωτάριον lōtárion 'lotus flower'

- Egyptian *lāṭa 'growth, bud, plant' [rd]

(Note Loprieno reconstructs *rāduw 'plant' with *r yet there is Sahidic rōt together with Fayyumic lōt.)

- Hebrew לֹט lōṭ 'myrrh'

- Etruscan luθ 'seed, bud, blossom; egg'

*laṭá ~ *laṭó 'lady, woman'

- Hieroglyphic Luwian and Lycian lada- 'woman, lady, wife'

- Greek Λητώ Lētṓ 'Leto' (Doric Λᾱτώ Lātṓ), mother of Apollo (sun) and Artemis (moon)

- Etruscan lasa 'lady, woman' (usually overspecified as 'nymph')

*lata 'flowing water, flood, river, stream'

- Greek Λήδη Lḗdē 'Leda', mother of Castor and Polydeuces (the Dioscuri).

- Greek Λήθη Lḗthē (Doric λάθα), a river in the underworld (< λήθη lḗthē 'forgetfulness')

- Etruscan laθ 'flood, river, stream' (> Leθams, the god of streams)

When presented this way, we can see the opportunity for clever interplay among speakers of some Bronze Age substrate language containing these three lexemes together. I do believe this substrate to be "Aegean" (ie. the family to which I attribute Minoan and Etruscan among other Cyclado-Cyprian dialects). The fact that we know so little of Minoan merits exploring this idea.

The surviving Greek myths add to this hypothesis. Through Zeus, Leto is the mother of Apollo and Artemis who were considered twins representing the two orbs in the sky, the sun and the moon respectively. The similarly named Leda was by coincidence said to be the mother of Castor and Polydeuces, revered together under the term Dioscuri among Romans and Tinias clenar by the Etruscans. They two are also twin offspring and can be understood to represent the sun and the moon. The father is Zeus as in the story of Leto, this time in the guise of a swan. Surely these stories are the same and contain repeating symbolisms that shed light on Etruscan mythology. Given the external evidence in comparative mythology, the Etruscan Dioscuri must have been the sons of the sun god Tinia, king of all gods, and the mother would have been the "river swan" seen on one mirror (ET OI S.45). In these stories are the curious combination of a "stream" (as a swan), an "egg" and a "lady" that would appear to outsiders as absurd associations. A common set of vocabulary as a source of pun gives us a decent explanation of this odd jumble of images.

This is only a summary of a wealth of other pertinent connections, mind you, but it's best to absorb these ideas in parts so as not to overwhelm discussion and distract from this larger picture of religious symbolism that spans several linguistic and cultural boundaries around the local maritime region.