Samuel Fales Dunlap on the Ancient Origin of Names of Great Gods, Cities, Rivers and Countries

In Samuel Fales Dunlap’s work The Origin of Ancient Names of Countries, Cities, Individuals, and Gods (Cambridge, 1856), he argued that the proper names of countries, cities, individuals, and gods, drawn from regions including Greece, Italy, Asia Minor, Babylon, Egypt, Phoenicia and Judaea, are generally compound words incorporating the names of ancient sun-gods. This reveals a shared conception across ancient systems (often labeled as “pagan,” alongside the Hebrew) of a singular Hidden God manifesting under varied names, evidenced phonetically through connections to ancient cities, rivers, nations, and more (Preface, pp. 3–5).

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“Ogygia me Bacchum vocat;
Osirin Ægyptian putat;
Mysi Phanacem nominant;
Dionyson Indi existimant;
Romana Sacra Liberum;
Arabica Gens Adoneum.”

“Ogygia calls me Bacchus;
Egypt thinks me Osiris;
The Mysians name me Phanax;
The Indi consider me Dionysus
The Roman Sacra calls me Liber;
The Arabian race, Adonis.”

The Roman poet Ausonius (Decimius Magnus Ausonius: 310 C.E.–395 C.E.) of Burdigala (modern Bordeaux) thus declares that the various “great gods” of ancient nations were manifestations of one deity under different names (Preface, p. 4). An oracle of the city of Rhodes, on the Greek island of Rhodes, equates the Phoenician-Hebrew Adonis (also Adonai, Adan, Adoni the Zadik or Just One, and a fire-god or Primal Sun) with Dionysus, who is also Bacchus, the Phrygian Attis (or Atys), and the Assyrian Baal (Bel, Adon) (Preface, p. 5). It is through the younger Greece that many ideas from older Asia Minor, Phoenicia , Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Palestine were transmitted, much as the younger America draws from Europe and earlier civilizations.

The ancients west of the Pamir plateau (encompassing India, China, and beyond) exhibit ideals akin to the Vedic systems, particularly as related in the Atharvaveda, resolving the principle of the “many in one” through phonetic and conceptual unity. Dunlap references broader Eastern borrowings, e.g., Sanskrit Ina as a form of Ani, p. 11; and the “many in one” is implied in the shared sun-god derivations across cultures (pp. 3–8).

Dunlap demonstrates in The Origin of Ancient Names (1856) that the names of the “great gods” across ancient nations, whether Greece, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Rome, Bactria, and others are often: (1) compounds of other names of one or two syllables, with vowels frequently interchanged (e.g., a/o/au/i shifts); and (2) reducible to eight monosyllabic names of sun or fire-gods. These are: Ab (Av, Ap, or Op), Ak, Am, Ar, As, At (Ad), El (Æl, the chief deity of Semitic nations), and On (Ani, Og, Od, Oc) (Preface, pp. 5–6; detailed in Chapter on Primitive Names, pp. 11–12).

They Form Names of Fire-Gods

Through a systematic linguistic analysis, Dunlap unveils the names of ancient cities, planets, gods, kings, rivers, countries, and individuals, showing them as configurations of these eight monosyllabic sun-god names, alluding to a common solar mystery or worship (pp. 8–27). The multiplicity of names arises not from idolatry, but from the historical spread of religious ideas and languages from a central origin (Mesopotamia or Babylon as the “first-born” cultural hub), leading to localized adaptations in nomenclature for nations, cities, and geographical features, much like naming monarchs, celestial bodies, or natural landmarks after the worshipped deity (pp. 26–27; examples include cities like Salapia from Sol+Ab [sun+Ab], p. 13, and rivers like Don from Adan [Ad+On], p. 20).

These mystery-gods were frequently veiled under titles of celestial bodies and constellations, reflecting ancient concerns with agriculture, sciences, cultural ideas, and the forces of nature, though Dunlap emphasizes their solar (fire) essence over esoteric veils (pp. 13–23; e.g., Venus as Aphrodite/Abar+Adad [Ab+Ad sun compounds], p. 18).

Dunlap connects biblical figures like Noah indirectly through broader solar etymologies, but does not explicitly link Noah to the Indian Manu (a progenitor figure). Manu appears in related Vedic contexts through Am (day-sun) derivations (e.g., Jama in Hindu, p. 16), and similar names appear among old Germans (e.g., Teutamus from At+Am, p. 19), in Crete (Elon as El+On, p. 12), and old Arabia (Ad tribe, p. 15) all under vowel interchanges.

This phonetic unity suggests the Hebrew system, like others, incorporates symbolic layers beyond literalism, with names like Elijah (Eli sun-god, p. 12) or Israel (Phoenician Saturn from As+Ar+El, p. 14) deriving from the same solar roots. Roman polytheism, according to Dunlap, bases its “great gods” principally on two primordial deities being Caelum (or Caelus, Heaven) and Terra (Earth), from which others derive (Preface, p. 4; linked to solar compounds like Caelum echoing El variants).

The generic term for the Supreme Being, “God,” traces to transformations of solar-heavenly ideas among European nations, centered on Heaven and Earth concepts, as paralleled in ancient Chinese cosmology (though Dunlap focuses on Western and Asiatic derivations; e.g., El as chief Semitic/Helios, p. 12; Heaven-Earth pair explicit in Roman section, p. 4).

That the primordial god Caelus (or Caelum) is the Roman counterpart of Uranus (Heaven, Eternal Sky, Eternal Space, Eternal Time) and Terra of the Titan Gaia, the father and mother of Saturn (the Roman Cronus in mythology) is evident without deep etymology, demonstrating the shared Indo-European solar-heavenly framework (Preface, p. 4; compounds like Saturn from Chon/Ak+Ani, p. 17).