The word sibyl probably comes (via Latin) from the Greek word sibylla, meaning prophetess. (Other schools of thought suggest that the word may have come from Arabic.) The earlier oracular seeresses known as the sibyls of antiquity, "who admittedly are known only through legend" (Burkert 1985 p 117) prophesied at certain holy sites, probably all of pre-Indo-European origin[citation needed], under the divine influence of a deity, originally one of the chthonic earth-goddesses. Later in antiquity, sibyls wandered from place to place. Homer seems to have been unaware of a Sibyl. "Frenzied women from whose lips the god speaks are recorded very much earlier in the Near East, as in Mari in the second millennium and in Assyria in the first millennium" (Burkert 1985, p 116). The first Greek writer, so far as we know, who mentions a sibyl is Heraclitus, in the fifth century BC: 'The Sibyl, with frenzied mouth uttering things not to be laughed at, unadorned and unperfumed, yet reaches to a thousand years with her voice by aid of the god.' (Heraclitus, fragment 12) Until the literary elaborations of Roman writers, sibyls are not identified by a personal name, but by names that refer to the location of their temenos, or shrine.In Pausanias, Description of Greece, the first Sibyl at Delphi mentioned ("the former" [earlier]) was of great antiquity, and was thought to have been given the name "sibyl" by the Libyans. Sir James Frazer calls this text defective. The second Sibyl, referred to by Pausanias, and named "Herophile", seems to have been based ultimately in Samos, but visited other shrines, Delphi, etc. and sang there, but that at the same time, Delphi had its own sibyl. Sibylline books The sayings of sibyls and oracles were notoriously open to interpretation (compare Nostradamus) and were constantly used for both civil and cult propaganda. The Sibylline Books are not the same as the Sibylline Oracles. The Roman Sibylline Books were quite different in character from the preserved Sibylline Oracles, which typically predict disasters rather than prescribe solutions. Some genuine Sibylline verses are preserved in the Book of Marvels of Phlegon of Tralles (2nd century CE). The oldest collection of written Sibylline Books appears to have been made about the time of Solon and Cyrus at Gergis on Mount Ida in the Troad. The sibyl, who was born near there, at Marpessus, and whose tomb was later marked by the temple of Apollo built upon the archaic site, appears on the coins of Gergis, ca 400–350 BCE. (cf. Phlegon, quoted in the 5th century geographical dictionary of Stephanus of Byzantium, under 'Gergis'). Other places claimed to have been her home. The sibylline collection at Gergis was attributed to the Hellespontine Sibyl and was preserved in the temple of Apollo at Gergis. Thence it passed to Erythrae, where it became famous. It was this very collection, it would appear, which found its way to Cumae and from Cumae to Rome. Gergis, a city of Dardania in the Troad, a settlement of the ancient Teucri, and, consequently, a town of very great antiquity (Herodotus iv: 122). Gergis, according to Xenophon, was a place of much strength. It had a temple sacred to Apollo Gergithius, and was said to have given birth to the Sibyl, who is sometimes called Erythraea, from Erythrae, a small place on Mount Ida (Dionysius of Halicarnassus i. 55), and at others Gergithia ('of Gergis'). Onother images I want tel thanks to all you that have give me the courage and the strong to continue mine art. I feel your love and your friendship and i want tell at every people that have commented mine last image that it was for me a very bright light of hope for mine future. Thanks mine friends, your commentsand support are in this period of mine life a very gift of the angels..... Thanks I hope also this image like you.. Kisses your Orietta