Twelve Parts of the Earth: The First Four Aethyrs, LIL to PAZ

Occodon stands first among the ninety-one Parts and is placed in LIL, the first Aethyr, with Egypt as its territory under the Zodiacal King Zarzilg of the tribe of Naphtali. The page is the place to learn the first provenance rule of the whole set: the Kings and tribes are in the received material, while the zodiacal signs are a later reconstruction.

Pascomb is the second Part of LIL, with Syria as its territory under the King Zinggen of the tribe of Zebulun. Its page raises the open question of what these names are: the angel Nalvage speaks of ninety-one Princes and Spiritual Governors, while some later readers argue that the name in the table names the Part itself in the angelic tongue.

Valgars completes LIL as the third Part, with northern Mesopotamia as its territory under the King Alpudus of the tribe of Issachar. The page notes that the three Parts of an Aethyr are grouped and not ranked, and that the hierarchical readings common in modern practice descend from the Golden Dawn's use of the material in the 1880s.

Doagnis, given in some transcriptions as Dongnis, opens ARN, the second Aethyr, with Cappadocia as its territory under the King Zarnaah of the tribe of Manasseh. The variant spelling is the point of this stop: the names were taken down by ear from Kelley's dictation and copied by hand more than once, so a single confident spelling usually follows one manuscript.

Pacasna is the second Part of ARN, with Tuscia, the older name for Etruria, as its territory under the King Ziracah of the tribe of Reuben. The stop shows that Dee's geography is that of a sixteenth-century Englishman working from classical authorities, which his large library at Mortlake would readily explain.

Dialioa completes ARN with Asia Minor as its territory, one of the broadest assignments in the tabulation, and shares the King Ziracah with Pacasna because twelve Kings are spread over ninety-one Parts. Read it beside the previous stop to see how uneven the territories are, some vast and some tiny, a feature of the received material and not of its transmission.

Samapha opens ZOM, the third Aethyr, with Hyrcania at the south-eastern corner of the Caspian Sea as its territory, under the King Zarzilg, the same King as Occodon. The page uses the stop to explain how the material was received, with Kelley scrying into a crystal while Dee questioned and recorded, which is why the question of Kelley's honesty has never gone away.

Virooli is the second Part of ZOM, with Thracia as its territory under the King Alpudus of the tribe of Issachar. The page sets out the two historical positions on Kelley: Frances Yates took him for a fraud who deceived a credulous master, while more recent historians of Dee have largely declined to adjudicate and treat the diaries as evidence of what Dee believed and experienced.

Andispi completes ZOM with the territory Gosmam, a name that answers to no identifiable classical or medieval place. The page notes that a number of the ninety-one carry names of this kind, among ordinary entries such as Egypt and Greece, and that nothing in the received text explains them. Its King is Lavavot of the tribe of Gad.

Thotanp opens PAZ, the fourth Aethyr, with the Thebaid of Upper Egypt as its territory, again under the King Lavavot of the tribe of Gad. The page states the most useful provenance distinction in the set: the twelve Kings and their tribes are in the received material, while the signs are not. It also shows Egypt divided between a general entry and a specific one.

Axziarg is the second Part of PAZ, with the territory Parsadal, another name that cannot be matched to a known region, though its shape suggests something Persian. The page points to Dee's own manuscripts, chiefly Sloane 3191 and the diaries in the British Library, as the primary source, with almost everything printed since the nineteenth century being commentary at one or more removes.

Pothnir completes PAZ with Kushan, among the Central Asian lands east of Persia, as its territory under the King Arfaolg of the tribe of Ephraim. Arfaolg governs more Parts than any other King in the tabulation, an imbalance the page says is inherited from Dee and not introduced by later reconstruction, and one the received material does not explain.