Scrivener: a copyist of documents; a clerk, scribe or notary [from OldFr. escrivein from L. scriba (“scribe”)]
Sebastomania: religious insanity or mania [ [Gk. sebastos, (“reverence”) + -mania]
Sermocination: the practice of making speeches; the habit of preaching constantly [from L. sermo (“speech”; “conversation”) + -ion]
Sermocination (photo: David Henry)
Sicarian: a murderer, especially an assassin; mercenary fighter [from Sicarii a group of Jewish zealots/insurrectionists opposing the Roman occupation of Judea; cloak-and-dagger assassination unit [from sicae (“small daggers (sickles) concealed in the sicariis’ cloaks”]
Sicarian (image: EBay)
Sillograph: writer of satires [from the book Gk.Sílloi by Timon of Phlius, (flourished ca.280 BC)+ -graphe]
Sillograph (Timon)
Smatchet: a small, nasty person or child; a contemptible, unmannerly person [Scot. Eng. probably from MidEng. smatch + -et]
Somatoparaphrenia: (Psych. ) a type of monothematic delusion where one denies ownership of a limb or an entire side of one’s body [from Gk. sôma, (“body”) + -para (“beside”) + –phrenia]
Staurophobia: pathological aversion to the cross or crucifix (eg, cinematic portrayals of Dracula) [Gk. staurós, (“cross”) + -phobia]
Stentorphonic: speaking very loudly [from Stentōr, a Greek herald in the Trojan War (Homer’s Iliad)]
Stentorphonic (image: tumblr.com)
Stramineous: strawlike; valueless; consisting of straw [L. stramineus (“of straw”) from sternere (“to strew”; “spread out”; “lay flat”)]
Subderisorious: mocking gently and with affection; ridiculing with moderation [L. sub (“below”; “under”) + L. –dērīdeō (“I deride”) + -ous]
Subintelligitur: a meaning or understanding (as of a statement) implied but not expressed [from L. sub- (“secretly”; “under”) + intelligere (“to understand”) + -al]
Succussion: the action or process of shaking the body or the condition of being shaken especially with violence [L. sucussio, from -cussus, (“to shake up”)]
Supernumerary: (person) in addition to usual or necessary number [L. super- (“above”) + number]
Susurrant: gently whispering and rustling [from L. susurrare (“to whisper”)]
Syncretistic: seeking to identify common features of different belief systems, philosophies or civilisations and assimilate them or merge them into a single system [from syncretise (“to attempt to unite and harmonise”), from Gk. synkrētismos (“joining together of Greeks”)]
Synethnic: of (or together with) same race or country [Gk. syn (“same”; “with”; “together”) + –ethno (“people”; “race”; “tribe”; “nation”)]
The culmination of archaeological excavations on the island state of Bahrain during the 20th century (see endnote) saw the emergence of a fully-formed Bronze Age city that had been buried for 4,000 years. The Saar settlement, as it is known, was found to comprise two sections, a residential zone and some distance away a “honeycomb” cemetery. Archaeologists working at the site described Saar as having all the elements of a modern city including houses, restaurants, commercial outlets and a place of worship [Sylvia Smith, ‘Bahrain digs unveil one of oldest civilisations’, BBC News, 20-May-2013, www.bbc.com].
Excavated sites on Bahrain (image: archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/)
The great Qal’at tell: Saar is the not the only Bahraini site to yield evidence of ancient civilisation. Located at the northern point of the island is Qal’at–al-Bahrain (Fort of Bahrain), a vast tell (artificial mound) 18-hectare in size, which when excavated revealed three early Dilmun cities (dating to 2,800BC) and one later Greek city (200BC), all built on top of one another!(ᗩ) Like Saar, Qal’at–al-Bahrain had multiple human uses, public, residential, religious as well as military, and was in all likelihood the capital of the ancient Dilmun state. There are also approximately 170,000 burial mounds, in Bahrain occupying some 5% of the of the island (Smith)(ᗷ)…including the royal tombs at A’ali which are 15 metres in height.
The Fort , Qal’at al-Bahrain (source: UNESCO World Heritage Centre)
The archaeological finds pieced together testify to the existence of an ancient civilisation known as Dilmun (also rendered as Telmun), which means in the Akkadian language “the place where the sun rises”. The Dilmun region in antiquity—populated by an East Semitic people—stretched over an area comprising Bahrain, the islands of Failaka (today part of Kuwait) and Tarout (now part of Saudi Arabia) and a coastal strip on the East Arabian mainland.
Mesopotamia, the Gulf, Dilmun (image: peterborougharchaeology.org/)
Dilmun as entrepôt for north and south: Dilmuth is mentioned in Near Eastern historical sources, in Sumerian economic texts of the Fourth Millennium BC, written on cuneiform clay tablets, which identify Dilmun as a regional commercial centre [‘Dilmun’, Encyclopedia Britannica, www.britannica.com]. Seen from the early Mesopotamian civilisations’ perspective, the key strategic location of Dilmun was central to trade. Sumer (and Babylon) wanted the luxury commodities produced by the Indus Valley civilisations (Meluha) – spices, precious stones, ivory, etc. But to facilitate trade with the Indian merchants and secure these highly desirable goods, the Sumerians sought to avoid the overland route which took them through a habitually hostile Persia…the sea route via the Gulf and Dilmun allowed Sumer to bypass Persian territory altogether [‘The Sumerian Connection’, (Jon Mandaville), Saudi Aramco World, (1980), www.archives.aramco.org]. By this circumstance Dilmun was able to establish itself as the hub for trade between Mesopotamia and South Asia. Dilmun merchants at one point maintained a monopoly over the supply of copper, a precious commodity produced in the mines of Oman (then called Magan), also much in demand in the cities of Mesopotamia as a metal of improved durability for weapons, utensils and tools(ᑕ). Dilmun also had commercial ties with other cities in the Near East, with Elam in Iran/Iraq, Alba in Syria and Haitian in Turkey (Smith).
“Boats from the land of Dilmun carried the wood”, inscription on a relief of Ur-Nanshe (c.2550–2500 BC)
By some time around 2,050 BC an independent kingdom of Dilmun was at the apex of its powers. Control over the Persian/Arabian Gulf trading routes had made Dilmun a very prosperous state. Agriculture played its part in Dilmun’s commercial ascent as well. The countryside was fertile land both for the farming of livestock and the growing of diverse crops due to the presence of artesian springs.
Early Dilmun burial mounds (photo: Danish Gulf Expedition/Moesgaard Museum)
Decline of Dilmun:From the mid-Second Millennium Dilmun started to enter a decline. Beginning before 1,500 BC the kingdom(ᗪ) is conquered by the first of a series of dominant regional powers – the Sealand Dynasty, followed by the Middle Assyrian Empire, the Neo-Assyrian Empire and the Kessite Dynasty (Neo-Babylonian Empire). Dilmun was further weakened after 1,000 BC by the flourishing of piracy in the Gulf. By 800 BC it is no longer a trading power, having entered a Hellenistic period, it becomes Tylos. By the time of the fall of Babylon, 539 BC, the Dilmun civilisation had been abandoned.
Saar site
Dilmun in the Sumerian creation myth:In Mesopotamian mythology Dilmun held special significance to Sumerians, referred to regularly in texts as a paradisal place to the south…a pure, virginal and pristine land which the (Sumerian) god Enki provides with abundant fresh water, a place where its inhabitants are no longer plagued by the ravages of disease and old age [‘Paradise Found? The Archaeology of Bahrain’ www.peterborougharchaeology.org]. The heavenly characterisation of Dilmun has led some scholars to hypothesise that arguably it may be the location of the Biblical Garden of Eden(ᗴ).
Endnote: The key pioneering work on the location and unearthing of Dilmun civilisation was undertaken by archaeologists Geoffrey Bibby and Prof Peter Glob in the 1950s. Bibby and Glob led a Danish expedition which was the first to excavate the ruins of the ancient civilisation at the Qal’at and Saar sites and date it to the early Dilmun era.
Dilmun excavations (photo: cphpost.dk)
(ᗩ) there is also a Portuguese fort at the Qal’at site built during their occupancy of Bahrain in the 16-17th centuries
(ᗷ) prompting one academic to conjecture that perhaps as many as 20,000 people lived in Dilmun at the ancient civilisation’s peak [C.E. Larson, Life and Land Use on the Bahrain Islands (1983)]
(ᑕ) Dilmun itself exported dates and pearls, the latter especially prized for their quality, thought to be the result of the mixing of salt-water and submarine spring-waters (www.ngwa.org)
(ᗪ) Virtually nothing is known of the Dilmun dynasties or rulers other than the names of some of the kings, garnered from discovered cuneiform inscriptions (eg, Yagli-El, Ilī-ippašra)
(ᗴ) also echoed in the great epic poem of the late Second Millennium, the Gilgamesh Epic
As part of the Denazification process (German: Entnazifizierung) after the Second World War and to facilitate the Nuremberg war crimes trial proceedings, the German people were classified into five discrete groups:
• Major offenders (Germ: Hauptschuldige)
• Offenders: activists, militants, or profiteers (Germ: Belastete)
• Lesser offenders (Germ: Minderbelastete)
• Followers (Germ: Mitläufer)
• Exonerated persons (Germ: Entlastete)
Of the five categories, Mitläufer is the most contentious…it absolves the person concerned from having committed any formal Nazi criminal activity but acknowledges that he or she participated in some form of loosely defined, indirect support of Nazi crimes, which might be as minimalist as passively sympathising with Nazi aims and goals [‘Mitläufer’, Wikipedia, en.m.wikipedia.org]. The extent of the offence actually perpetrated however didn’t always equate with the category description – as will clear from the examples below.
Nazi defendants at the International Military Tribunal (Nov. 1945) (source: National Archives and Records Administration)
The German term Mitläufer (fem: Mitläuferin)—literally meaning “with-walker” or “one walking with”—can be defined as “follower” or possibly a “passive follower”. Mitläufereffekt is derived from it, also called the Bandwagon-Effekt (effect), which refers to the effect a perceived success exerts on the willingness of individuals to join the expected success. A characteristic of the Mitläufer is he is not convinced by the ideology of the group followed but merely offers no resistance, such as for lack of courage or for opportunism (ie, giving in to peer pressure) (‘Mitläufer’).
Some observers make a further (slight) distinction from the Mitläufer typology, to allow for the Nazi Mitläufer, a fellow-traveller” (Mitreisende) who sympathised with the Nazis but only indirectly participated in Nazi atrocities such as genocide.
Martin Heidegger: one of the 20th century’s greatest philosophers for his pioneering work on existentialism and phenomenology, all of which has been overshadowed by his controversial association with the German Nazi Party. Heidegger joined the Nazi Party in 1933 – prior to this the philosopher was fundamentally apolitical. As rector of Freiburg University he delivered a number of speeches extolling the Nazi cause and publicly expressed antisemitic opinions. At the end of the world war the knives came out for Heidegger, he was forbidden to teach and lost his West German chair of philosophy (the ban was overturned just three years later). Heidegger, perhaps because of the lofty esteem he was held in as a leading intellectual, was never submitted to any harsher retribution (such as a term of incarceration). Critics have noted Heidegger’s complete failure after 1945 to “honestly reckon with the realities of Nazi Germany’s crimes, including the Holocaust, and his own role in lending support to the regime” [Jürgen Habermas in ‘Heidegger’s Downfall’, Jeffrey Herf, Quillette, 22-Feb-2023, quillette.com]. A very full account of Heidegger’s involvement with National Socialism makes it abundantly clear that he was neither a reluctant fellow-traveller nor (…) a nonpolitical scholar, a ‘child’ who got caught by the juggernaut of hideous political events [‘Heil Heidegger’, J.P. Stern, London Review of Books, Vol. 11 No.8, 20-April-1989 (Review of Martin Heidegger: Unterwegs zu seiner Biographie, by Hugo Ott), lrb.co.uk].
Heidegger, intellectual backing for the Nationalist Socialists (image: simplycharly.com)
Leni Riefenstahl: a Berlin-born actress-turned-filmmaker, one of the few German women to direct a motion picture during the Weimar period. A favourite of Hitler, Riefenstahl was an important instrument of the Nazi propaganda machine, producing highly successful propaganda documentary films like Triumph of the Will and Olympia for the Third Reich. After the war Riefenstahl was arrested and found to be a Nazi fellow-traveller, sympathetic to the Nazi movement but not a party member[ᗩ] She however avoided being charged with any crime. Riefenstahl claimed she was an “apolitical naïf” and denied any knowledge of Nazi racial policies or the Holocaust, describing a concentration camp she had visited where the Roma and Sinti were detained as “a relief and welfare camp”[ᗷ] [‘Burying Leni Riefenstahl: one woman’s lifelong crusade against Hitler’s favourite film-maker’, Kate Connolly, The Guardian, 09-Dec-2021, amp.the guardian.com].
Leni: “My favourite dictator”
Wilhelm Stuckart: to the casual observer Wilhelm Stuckart’s steady progress up the Nazi hierarchy corresponds with that of the classic career Nazi. The Nazi lawyer and senior Interior Ministry official’s fingerprints were on some of the most nefarious Nazi concoctions against humanity (eg, co-author of the Nuremberg Laws, involved in the planning of the Final Solution). For someone involved fundamentally in the framing of genocidal policies Stuckart was absurdly classified as category IV (follower), copping a sentence of just three years from the tribunal. The leniency shown to Stuckart and other accomplices, Gruner attributes to the sophisticated defence strategies employed by former Nazis and their lawyers. Only a short time after Stuckart regained his freedom he was back drafting provincial German laws, one of which ended Denazification in Lower Saxony [Gruner, Wolf. The Journal of Modern History, vol. 86, no. 3, 2014, pp. 727–29. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.1086/676745. Accessed 10 July 2024].
Wilhelm Stuckart on his SS uniform. (source: Yad Vershem)
Footnote: As illustrated above, classifying someone as Mitlaüer was a good way of allowing them to avoid the more serious categories and their consequences. Some high-profile unofficial servants of the Nazi regime managed to avoid being categorised as a Mitlaüer altogther. One was famous Austrian conductor Karl Böhm. Böhm was never a member of the NSDAP and never brought before the Denazification tribunal. However, as the historian Oliver Rathkolb has remarked, he was the artist who “had presumably been the most active (non-party) member to provide propaganda for the (Nazis)” and was lavishly rewarded with plumb conducting positions, culminating in his appointment as director of the Vienna State Opera [‘Karl Böhm – Salzburg Festival’,salzburgerfestspiele.at].
[ᗩ] Nazi party membership of itself didn’t necessarily result in a more serious classification than Mitläufer…in the case of the celebrated Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan joined the NSDAP twice (membership nos. 1607525 and 3430914), he was exonerated of illegal activity during the Nazi period at his Denazification tribunal hearing and classified as a Mitläufer
[ᗷ] trenchant critics in the West take an unflinching and unforgiving view of her role, labelling her an “unindicted co-conspirator” (Simon Wiesenthal Center), “a Nazi by association” (Sandra Smith) and “the glib voice of ‘how could we have known?’ defence” (Bach, Steven. “The Puzzle of Leni Riefenstahl.” The Wilson Quarterly (1976—), vol. 26, no. 4, 2002, pp. 43–46. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40260668. Accessed 11 July 2024)
Quillet: a subtlety in argument;a subtle distinction [Uncertain, poss from L. quidlibet (“anything”)]
Quinquagesima: pertaining to 50 days [from L. quinquaginta (“fifty”)]
Quisquous: hard to deal with; dubious; of people: having a character difficult to assess [from Scot. Eng. from L. quisquis (“whosoever”)]
Quodlibet: a philosophical or theological point proposed for disputation; a whimsical combination of familiar melodies or texts [from L. qui (“what”) + -libet (“it pleases)”]
Quondam: that once was; (a) former [as that grand dame of words Merriam Webster says: “Looking for an unusual and creative way to say “former”?” Quondam (which came to English in the 16th century from Latin quondam, meaning “at one time” or “formerly”) ~ look no further!]
<Word origin and root formation>
Rampallian: a bold, forward, rampant or wanton woman [Elizabethan term, Henry IV Pt II, Act II)
Rasorial: habitually scratching the ground in search of food [from LateLat. rasor (“one that scrapes”) + -ial]
Rasorial
Recusant: refusing staunchly to comply with some generally accepted rule or custom (Orig. Relig.) [from L. re- + causari (“to give a reason”), from causa (“cause”; “reason”)]
Redivivus: restored to life, or to full liveliness; reborn [L. “reused”]
Remiped: (Zool.) having feet that are adaptable as oars [from L. remiped-, remipes (“oar-footed”)] 👣
Remontado: someone who has fled to the mountains or hills and renounced civilisation; a Northern Philippine’s tribesman; go-back (to the wild) [Galician (Sp.). remontado/remontada]
