The Tiles of Ramses III: Another Answer
Joe Canepa
Three solutions have been offered to the problem created by the
Greek letters appearing the back of the tiles which made up the
Temple of Ramses III. Flinders Petrie (1905) thought that the
Greek alphabet may have had its origins in the 12 century B.C.
An Egyptilogist, M. Hamza (1930), thought perhaps the "Greek"
letters were not Greek but hieratic signs.
In 1977, Velikovksy made short work of the two prior theories,
and advanced his own: Ramses III should be placed in the 4th
century BC. not the 12th. This radical reconstruction has
received little if no support by scholars, leaving the whole
problem unresolved.
Last week in a casual conservation with a young lady,
librarian/art historian at The Frick Collection, I may have been
given the answer. The young lady said many times monuments were
built many years after the historic event.
Through out the debate as to the dating of the tiles it was
assumed that the Ramses III monument was contemporary with the
life of Ramses III. Maybe not. If the monument was built some
eight centuries after the event then Ramses III lived when most
thought he did and the Greek letters were indeed Greek. Bravo,
Frick!
--
Joe Canepa
can...@mercury.interpath.com
James Conway
In a previous article, can...@mercury.interpath.net (Joe Canepa) says:
Date: 23 Dec 1996 20:22:45 GMT
Copies of monuments are common but not palaces. No King would
build a palace for the memory of an ancestor. A new copy of an old
tablet or public monument, yes. A building to live in, no. No
other example exists which is presented to get out of a difficulty
of when classical letters existed. Even old style did not come into
use until the eighth century BCE. Explain a so called 12th century
use of newer classical letters that did not exist until after the
eighth century BCE.
--
James Conway bb...@scn.org
Seattle Washington USA
Chronology: http://www.knowledge.co.uk/xxx/cat/kjh/
Jonah Reynolds
Sety the first built a temple for Osiris, about 3 thousand years after
Osiris was on the Earth!
Katherine Griffis
"Jonah Reynolds" <eart...@taos.newmex.com> wrote:
>Sety the first built a temple for Osiris, about 3 thousand years after
>Osiris was on the Earth!
Point?
Alan Shaw
I wonder if we can use probabilities to make an attempt to estimate
the degree of confidence we should place in the proposition that
Ramses III lived in the fourth century BC. This would seem the obvious
conclusion to be drawn from the classical Greek letters in the tiles
from his palace. But we should avoid assigning P=1 (complete
certainty) and P=0 (complete disbelief) in order not to rule out in
advance any further evidence that may emerge.
Let us estimate the probability of Nectanebo I, for example, or
Alexander or one of the few other fourth century kings with the
necessary resources and authority, building a memorial palace for a
king who lived eight centuries before. How many ancient palaces are
there? Hundreds? Throw in monuments if you like. Say a thousand for
the sake of argument. Now excluding the cases where a son finished off
a building for his father, how many of the thousand were built for
long dead kings? I do not know of any. That makes the putative case
of Ramses III unique. So the odds are a thousand to one against, that
is, a probability of 0.001.
Now for Hamza's suggestion that the signs were hieratic but just
happened to resemble Greek letters as written eight centuries later.
(I have reservations about the resemblance, by the way, but I let that
pass.) G.Moller's Hieratische Palaeographie contains 2145 hieroglyphic
signs and about 10000 corresponding hieratic forms. Nine of these are
alleged to match the Greek letters on the tiles. So the odds of anyone
writing a hieratic sign which by chance resembled a Greek letter are
10000 to 9 against, say a probability of 0.001. We would have to count
the tiles with Greek letters to know how many times these odds
supposedly came up, but I will be conservative and suggest 10. My
calculator suggests Hamza is betting on a solution that has a
probability of 1.e-30 of being correct. That is as near to zero as
makes no difference. How can he be serious?
I do not know if it is possible to quantify Flinders Petrie's solution
to the problem, that the Greek alphabet had its origins in twelfth
century Egypt. The theory lacks corroboration. I think a probability
of 0.001 would be accepted as generous today.
Is this really the sum total of serious solutions to the problem that
have been proposed in over a hundred years since the tiles were found?
It adds up to a probability of approximately 0.002 against. Even
another eight such suggestions would only reduce the odds to 99 to 1
on Ramses III being a fourth century king.
A proposition that has a probability of 0.99 deserves to be taken
seriously. Why the general reluctance to do so?
Alan Shaw
August Matthusen
Alan Shaw wrote:
> I wonder if we can use probabilities to make an attempt to estimate
> the degree of confidence we should place in the proposition that
> Ramses III lived in the fourth century BC. This would seem the obvious
> conclusion to be drawn from the classical Greek letters in the tiles
> from his palace. But we should avoid assigning P=1 (complete
> certainty) and P=0 (complete disbelief) in order not to rule out in
> advance any further evidence that may emerge.
>
> Let us estimate the probability of Nectanebo I, for example, or
> Alexander or one of the few other fourth century kings with the
> necessary resources and authority, building a memorial palace for a
> king who lived eight centuries before. How many ancient palaces are
> there? Hundreds? Throw in monuments if you like. Say a thousand for
> the sake of argument. Now excluding the cases where a son finished off
> a building for his father, how many of the thousand were built for
> long dead kings? I do not know of any.
You don't know of them, therefore they don't exist. How
many monuments exist to Jesus, "King of the Jews?"
I gathered from the earlier discussions that only
some of the tiles had markings. Was this correct?
If so, what was there to have prevented these
marked tiles from being a later addition as a repair?
Regards,
August Matthusen
AriWyler
I haven't seen or heard anybody argue about Velikovsky for quite awhile.
Yet those tiles rang a bell and I knew I had seen them before. Surely
enough, there was the book in my storage closet--"Peoples of the Sea"!
The markings on the backs of the tiles aren't typically 4th Century B.C.
Greek. In fact, they don't look particularly Greek, unless they are of a
very archaic Greek type. Anyway, the "lambda", especially, was normally
formed quite differently circa 400 B.C.
Alan M. Dunsmuir
In article <32c57233...@nntp-server.bcc.ac.uk>, Alan Shaw
<cca...@ucl.ac.uk> writes
>I wonder if we can use probabilities to make an attempt to estimate
>the degree of confidence we should place in the proposition that
>Ramses III lived in the fourth century BC. This would seem the obvious
>conclusion to be drawn from the classical Greek letters in the tiles
>from his palace. But we should avoid assigning P=1 (complete
>certainty) and P=0 (complete disbelief) in order not to rule out in
>advance any further evidence that may emerge.
>
Hey Alan. You never did reply to my post asking what precisely your
relationship with University College is. Your simplistic effort above at
applying probability theory to boost your nonsensical claims reinforces
my assumption that you are likely a physics, or perhaps an engineering,
undergraduate, easily swayed by what you read in books on subjects you
have little or no grasp of.
The obvious conclusion, when you find later writing on earlier
artifacts, is that the writing was added at a date later than that of
the artifact's manufacture. Or would you consider it to be the 'obvious
conclusion' that most exhibits in the British Museum are of 19th century
English origin, because they have a 19th century BM identification mark
inked on them?
--
Alan M. Dunsmuir
Were diu werlt alle min von deme mere unze an den Rijn
des wolt ih mih darben,
daz diu chunigen von Engellant lege an minen armen!
Alan Shaw
On Sat, 28 Dec 1996 13:07:00 -0800, August Matthusen
<matt...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>Alan Shaw wrote:
>
>> I wonder if we can use probabilities to make an attempt to estimate
>> the degree of confidence we should place in the proposition that
>> Ramses III lived in the fourth century BC. This would seem the obvious
>> conclusion to be drawn from the classical Greek letters in the tiles
>> from his palace. But we should avoid assigning P=1 (complete
>> certainty) and P=0 (complete disbelief) in order not to rule out in
>> advance any further evidence that may emerge.
>>
>> Let us estimate the probability of Nectanebo I, for example, or
>> Alexander or one of the few other fourth century kings with the
>> necessary resources and authority, building a memorial palace for a
>> king who lived eight centuries before. How many ancient palaces are
>> there? Hundreds? Throw in monuments if you like. Say a thousand for
>> the sake of argument. Now excluding the cases where a son finished off
>> a building for his father, how many of the thousand were built for
>> long dead kings? I do not know of any.
>
>You don't know of them, therefore they don't exist. How
>many monuments exist to Jesus, "King of the Jews?"
>
I know my knowledge is limited and I am here to learn from the
experts. I asked the question. Answer it and I will recalculate the
probability.
I arrived at a probability of 0.99 in favour of the proposition that
Ramses III was a fourth century BC king. Perhaps you will be able to
reduce it. Let me ask you, what threshold would you set below which
the proposition can safely be ignored?
>I gathered from the earlier discussions that only
>some of the tiles had markings. Was this correct?
Yes. "There is a curious fact about the disks which have been found in
such a large number; some of them are inscribed on the back with Greek
letters, while others bear Egyptian signs." E.Naville.
>If so, what was there to have prevented these
>marked tiles from being a later addition as a repair?
>
1. FL Griffith examined the tiles with this possibility in mind
and concluded "I do not see how the classes can be kept distinct as to
date. The hieroglyphic and figure tiles relate to Ramses III, but the
figure tiles bear Greek letters". I understand "figure" to refer to
the designs on the face of the tiles. It does not seem likely that
replacements manufactured eight centuries later would have matched
sufficiently to have fooled Griffith when he was specifically looking
for a way out of what he recognised as "a great difficulty". It is
relevant to point out here that although Naville and Griffith
disagreed over dating their joint excavations at Tell el-Yadhudiah, it
was Griffith who championed the early date.
2. To demonstrate a mechanism by which the facts might be
explained is not the same thing as proving it did happen that way.
Using Occam's razor we would still have to prefer the simple
explanation. Hamza's hieratic sign solution is an extreme illustration
of what I mean. He thought he had solved the problem, but I showed
that the probability of his solution having actually happened was
practically zero. So to put your suggestion in context we need to come
up with an estimate of probability for it and incorporate it with the
other suggestions in the sum.
Alan Shaw
Alan Shaw
On 28 Dec 1996 23:04:07 GMT, ariw...@aol.com (AriWyler) wrote:
>I haven't seen or heard anybody argue about Velikovsky for quite awhile.
>Yet those tiles rang a bell and I knew I had seen them before. Surely
>enough, there was the book in my storage closet--"Peoples of the Sea"!
There was some discussion a few weeks back in the thread Ramses
III./Velikovsky (sometimes misspelt with i for y).
>
>The markings on the backs of the tiles aren't typically 4th Century B.C.
>Greek. In fact, they don't look particularly Greek, unless they are of a
>very archaic Greek type. Anyway, the "lambda", especially, was normally
>formed quite differently circa 400 B.C.
Unless you come up with some evidence to back up your opinion I am
bound to follow the experts who examined the tiles and concluded that
they were classical Greek letters. They cite the form of the alpha as
having been introduced only then, and sigma written as C. "The Greek
letters, and especially alpha, found on the fragments and disks leave
no room for doubt that the work was executed during the last centuries
of the Egyptian Empire and probably in the time of the Ptolemies"
(Emil Brugsch).
Alan Shaw
Alan Shaw
>In article <32c57233...@nntp-server.bcc.ac.uk>, Alan Shaw
><cca...@ucl.ac.uk> writes
>>I wonder if we can use probabilities to make an attempt to estimate
>>the degree of confidence we should place in the proposition that
>>Ramses III lived in the fourth century BC. This would seem the obvious
>>conclusion to be drawn from the classical Greek letters in the tiles
>>from his palace. But we should avoid assigning P=1 (complete
>>certainty) and P=0 (complete disbelief) in order not to rule out in
>>advance any further evidence that may emerge.
>>
>
>Hey Alan. You never did reply to my post asking what precisely your
>relationship with University College is.
No, I did not reply, because I knew what your game is.
"Another way of reducing dissonance between one's own opinion and the
knowledge that someone else holds a different opinion is to make the
other person, in some manner, not comparable to oneself. Such an
allegation can take a number of forms. One can attribute different
characteristics, experiences or motives to the other person or one can
even reject him and derogate him. Thus if some other person claims the
grass is brown when I see it as green, the dissonance thus created can
be effectively reduced if the characteristic of being colour-blind can
be attributed to the other person. There would be no dissonance
between knowing the grass is green and knowing that a colour-blind
person asserted it was brown." (Leon Festinger).
> Your simplistic effort above at
>applying probability theory to boost your nonsensical claims reinforces
>my assumption that you are likely a physics, or perhaps an engineering,
>undergraduate, easily swayed by what you read in books on subjects you
>have little or no grasp of.
>
You are welcome to your assumption. If it helps you cope with
cognitive dissonance I would not wish to disabuse you.
As for "nonsensical claims" may I point out that it is not always easy
for even the most distinguished expert to say in advance of the
evidence just what is or is not nonsense. Remember it was Sir William
Preece FRS, Post Office Chief Engineer, no less, who said "Edison's
electric lamp is a completely idiotic idea".
>The obvious conclusion, when you find later writing on earlier
>artifacts, is that the writing was added at a date later than that of
>the artifact's manufacture. Or would you consider it to be the 'obvious
>conclusion' that most exhibits in the British Museum are of 19th century
>English origin, because they have a 19th century BM identification mark
>inked on them?
>--
>Alan M. Dunsmuir
>
This ground was covered in the earlier thread.
Alan Shaw
August Matthusen
Alan Shaw wrote:
>
> On Sat, 28 Dec 1996 13:07:00 -0800, August Matthusen
> <matt...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> >Alan Shaw wrote:
> >
> >> the degree of confidence we should place in the proposition that
> >> Ramses III lived in the fourth century BC. This would seem the obvious
> >> conclusion to be drawn from the classical Greek letters in the tiles
> >> from his palace. But we should avoid assigning P=1 (complete
> >> certainty) and P=0 (complete disbelief) in order not to rule out in
> >> advance any further evidence that may emerge.
> >>
> >> Alexander or one of the few other fourth century kings with the
> >> necessary resources and authority, building a memorial palace for a
> >> king who lived eight centuries before. How many ancient palaces are
> >> there? Hundreds? Throw in monuments if you like. Say a thousand for
> >> the sake of argument. Now excluding the cases where a son finished off
> >> a building for his father, how many of the thousand were built for
> >> long dead kings? I do not know of any.
> >
> >You don't know of them, therefore they don't exist. How
> >many monuments exist to Jesus, "King of the Jews?"
> >
> I know my knowledge is limited and I am here to learn from the
> experts. I asked the question. Answer it and I will recalculate the
> probability.
I'd say a few million monuments to the King of the Jews in the
last 1950 years. I'd also suggest that basing a probability
assessment on a lack of knowledge is not valid.
> I arrived at a probability of 0.99 in favour of the proposition that
> Ramses III was a fourth century BC king. Perhaps you will be able to
> reduce it. Let me ask you, what threshold would you set below which
> the proposition can safely be ignored?
>
> >I gathered from the earlier discussions that only
> >some of the tiles had markings. Was this correct?
>
> Yes. "There is a curious fact about the disks which have been found in
> such a large number; some of them are inscribed on the back with Greek
> letters, while others bear Egyptian signs." E.Naville.
>
> >If so, what was there to have prevented these
> >marked tiles from being a later addition as a repair?
> >
> 1. FL Griffith examined the tiles with this possibility in mind
> and concluded "I do not see how the classes can be kept distinct as to
> date. The hieroglyphic and figure tiles relate to Ramses III, but the
> figure tiles bear Greek letters". I understand "figure" to refer to
> the designs on the face of the tiles. It does not seem likely that
> replacements manufactured eight centuries later would have matched
> sufficiently to have fooled Griffith when he was specifically looking
> for a way out of what he recognised as "a great difficulty".
If an artisian were asked to match existing work with
replacements and it was stipulated that he would not be paid
unless they were a reasonable match, IMO the match would
be very good. Consider modern art forgery as an analog.
> It is
> relevant to point out here that although Naville and Griffith
> disagreed over dating their joint excavations at Tell el-Yadhudiah, it
> was Griffith who championed the early date.
>
> 2. To demonstrate a mechanism by which the facts might be
> explained is not the same thing as proving it did happen that way.
Of course. I was just suggesting another hypothesis which
should be considered which I had not seen mentioned previously.
> Using Occam's razor we would still have to prefer the simple
> explanation.
Opinions may vary as to which is the simplest: replacement
tiles or juggling pharohs.
> Hamza's hieratic sign solution is an extreme illustration
> of what I mean. He thought he had solved the problem, but I showed
> that the probability of his solution having actually happened was
> practically zero.
No, you have suggested that in your opinion the probability
was practically zero, based on certain assumptions.
> So to put your suggestion in context we need to come
> up with an estimate of probability for it and incorporate it with the
> other suggestions in the sum.
While what you are doing is very similar to "expert elicitation"
in decision analysis, it is more usual to have the probabilities
assigned by a panel of experts rather than one individual. I've
usually seen this done to assess the probability of the occurrence
of a possible future event based on past data.
If this question were really a burning issue they could
probably test the hypothesis I proposed and the one you proposed
with archaeometric dating methods for determining the age of the
firing of the tiles.
Regards,
August Matthusen
August Matthusen
Alan Shaw wrote:
> As for "nonsensical claims" may I point out that it is not always easy
> for even the most distinguished expert to say in advance of the
> evidence just what is or is not nonsense. Remember it was Sir William
> Preece FRS, Post Office Chief Engineer, no less, who said "Edison's
> electric lamp is a completely idiotic idea".
Actually, as Edison originally envisioned electric lighting,
his lamp was a rather bad idea because he wanted it to run on
DC. Tesla and Westinghouse got it right with AC.
Regards,
August Matthusen
AriWyler
Alan Shaw wrote:
>Unless you come up with some evidence to back up your opinion I am
>bound to follow the experts who examined the tiles and concluded that
>they were classical Greek letters. They cite the form of the alpha as
>having been introduced only then, and sigma written as C. "The Greek
>letters, and especially alpha, found on the fragments and disks leave
>no room for doubt that the work was executed during the last centuries
>of the Egyptian Empire and probably in the time of the Ptolemies"
>(Emil Brugsch).
Both statements by the "experts" are incorrect. In the 4th Century B.C.,
the sigma was not written as a C. It was written as a matter of course in
the same "zig-zag" fashion we still see today. In fact, the entire Greek
alphabet had reached its modern form by then. If the markings on the
backs of the tiles are Greek letters, they are the poorest possible
examples of the hand of a person writing in Greek at 400 B.C. and I have
never seen anything resembling them from that era.
Researching the thread in Deja News, I perceive that Alan Shaw has quite
made up his mind that Velikovsky is the prophet he means to follow despite
some of the very reasonable responses he has received indicating that
Velikovsky has erred far from the mark.
Alan Shaw
On Sun, 29 Dec 1996 21:01:34 -0800, August Matthusen
<matt...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
I am sure a probability assessment based on "a few million monuments
to the King of the Jews in the last 1950 years" would not be valid and
I think you might agree with that. I think it is worth while
attempting to put a probability on the various solutions, even if it
is only tentative for lack of information. How else to evaluate them?
Now that is a revealing comment. You have introduced the wider issue
of the knock-on effect. You are saying it is simpler to bank on a
hundred to one chance on the tiles than embark on a major
chronological reconstruction. But is not progress achieved by
abandoning hypotheses that are contradicted by the facts?
>> Hamza's hieratic sign solution is an extreme illustration
>> of what I mean. He thought he had solved the problem, but I showed
>> that the probability of his solution having actually happened was
>> practically zero.
>
>No, you have suggested that in your opinion the probability
>was practically zero, based on certain assumptions.
>
I do not see how opinion comes into this. My assumptions were 10000
hieratic signs, and I quoted my source for that, and nine matches with
Greek letters, which derives from Griffith and Hamza. It is not an
assumption that there were at least ten instances of Greek letters
because I see lambda on two tiles in the photograph. If there are more
instances then the effect would be to reduce the probability still
further. It is Hamza's assumption, and one that is crucial for his
hypothesis, that the resemblance to Greek is pure chance.
If I have got my sums right, the practically zero probability follows
inevitably from these premises. Oh, it is a matter of opinion, I
suppose, that the very small number I came up with is practically
equivalent to zero. Is that what you meant?
>> So to put your suggestion in context we need to come
>> up with an estimate of probability for it and incorporate it with the
>> other suggestions in the sum.
>
>While what you are doing is very similar to "expert elicitation"
>in decision analysis, it is more usual to have the probabilities
>assigned by a panel of experts rather than one individual. I've
>usually seen this done to assess the probability of the occurrence
>of a possible future event based on past data.
By all means let us have some expert estimates of probabilities.
>
>If this question were really a burning issue they could
>probably test the hypothesis I proposed and the one you proposed
>with archaeometric dating methods for determining the age of the
>firing of the tiles.
>
Yes, comparative "blind" analyses might establish whether the tiles
are all the same age or not. Eight centuries ought to show up, if the
methods are any good at all. Is anyone reading this able and willing
to have the tests done?
Alan Shaw
Alan Shaw
On Sun, 29 Dec 1996 21:20:21 -0800, August Matthusen
<matt...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
Tell me you do not use an electric lamp and I will believe you think
it was a bad idea. True, when it came to practical electricity
distribution Edison backed the wrong horse, but that was not what
Preece was referring to. In his lecture to the Royal Society Preece
maintained that the parallel lighting circuit that Edison had invented
could never be technically feasible. Yet Edison had lit the streets
around his laboratory with his lamp. Preece was not unique in his
reaction. Professor Henry Morton who lived nearby and was personally
acquainted with Edison did not bother to go and see his lighting but
made a "protest in behalf of true science" that Edison's experiments
were "a conspicuous failure, trumpeted as a wonderful success. A fraud
upon the public."
Alan Shaw
Alan Shaw
On 30 Dec 1996 16:19:52 GMT, ariw...@aol.com (AriWyler) wrote:
>Alan Shaw wrote:
>
>
>>Unless you come up with some evidence to back up your opinion I am
>>bound to follow the experts who examined the tiles and concluded that
>>they were classical Greek letters. They cite the form of the alpha as
>>having been introduced only then, and sigma written as C. "The Greek
>>letters, and especially alpha, found on the fragments and disks leave
>>no room for doubt that the work was executed during the last centuries
>>of the Egyptian Empire and probably in the time of the Ptolemies"
>>(Emil Brugsch).
>
>Both statements by the "experts" are incorrect. In the 4th Century B.C.,
>the sigma was not written as a C. It was written as a matter of course in
>the same "zig-zag" fashion we still see today. In fact, the entire Greek
>alphabet had reached its modern form by then. If the markings on the
>backs of the tiles are Greek letters, they are the poorest possible
>examples of the hand of a person writing in Greek at 400 B.C. and I have
>never seen anything resembling them from that era.
>
If you give me your references to published facsimile editions of
fourth century BC writings I will take a look.
>Researching the thread in Deja News, I perceive that Alan Shaw has quite
>made up his mind that Velikovsky is the prophet he means to follow despite
>some of the very reasonable responses he has received indicating that
>Velikovsky has erred far from the mark.
>
Velikovsky is not my prophet. I am my own man and I have to follow the
evidence as I see it. No doubt you do the same. But if that thread
appears to you to contain reasoned arguments or evidence against my
opinions I would prefer not to enter into discussion with you. We
would be wasting each other's time.
Alan Shaw
August Matthusen
No. They represent monuments built for a "long dead king"
Additionally, how many monuments, palaces, buildings, etc.
are maintained by replacing parts at a later date?
> I think it is worth while
> attempting to put a probability on the various solutions, even if it
> is only tentative for lack of information. How else to evaluate them?
If you don't have information, then the probabilities are
worthless. Trying to turn it into an either/or question
of "How else to evaluate them?" does not obviate that
assessments are only as valid as the information upon
which they are based.
I gave no opinion as to which was simpler. I said opinions
may vary. I suggested another hypothesis as I am a big fan
of multiple working hypotheses, which should be ruled out
by scientific testing.
How did this 1:100 chance for the tiles being
replacements get determined?
> But is not progress achieved by
> abandoning hypotheses that are contradicted by the facts?
Yep. But probability calculations based on lack of data
are not facts.
> >> Hamza's hieratic sign solution is an extreme illustration
> >> of what I mean. He thought he had solved the problem, but I showed
> >> that the probability of his solution having actually happened was
> >> practically zero.
> >
> >No, you have suggested that in your opinion the probability
> >was practically zero, based on certain assumptions.
> >
> I do not see how opinion comes into this.
All expert elicitation is opinion. Informed opinion,
but still opinion.
> My assumptions were 10000
> hieratic signs, and I quoted my source for that, and nine matches with
> Greek letters, which derives from Griffith and Hamza. It is not an
> assumption that there were at least ten instances of Greek letters
> because I see lambda on two tiles in the photograph.
You see what you (and apparently others) interpret as lambda.
> If there are more
> instances then the effect would be to reduce the probability still
> further. It is Hamza's assumption, and one that is crucial for his
> hypothesis, that the resemblance to Greek is pure chance.
>
> If I have got my sums right, the practically zero probability follows
> inevitably from these premises. Oh, it is a matter of opinion, I
> suppose, that the very small number I came up with is practically
> equivalent to zero. Is that what you meant?
You are also inferring randomness by suggesting 9 out of 10000
is pertinent. This may not have been a random function
(e.g., how many times does "s" appear in written english
compared to "z") and all 10000 signs may not need to be considered.
Calculating the "probability" of an event after it has
occurred is also futile. Deal yourself five cards from a
52 card deck. Now calculate the probability of being dealt
that particular hand in the future. The probability against
is astronomical but that does not negate the fact that you
have that hand in front of you.
> >> So to put your suggestion in context we need to come
> >> up with an estimate of probability for it and incorporate it with the
> >> other suggestions in the sum.
> >
> >While what you are doing is very similar to "expert elicitation"
> >in decision analysis, it is more usual to have the probabilities
> >assigned by a panel of experts rather than one individual. I've
> >usually seen this done to assess the probability of the occurrence
> >of a possible future event based on past data.
>
> By all means let us have some expert estimates of probabilities.
Hire them and a decision analyst. You might be able to get
the experts for $500-$600 per day and the decision analyst
for $1000/day.
> >If this question were really a burning issue they could
> >probably test the hypothesis I proposed and the one you proposed
> >with archaeometric dating methods for determining the age of the
> >firing of the tiles.
> >
> Yes, comparative "blind" analyses might establish whether the tiles
> are all the same age or not. Eight centuries ought to show up, if the
> methods are any good at all. Is anyone reading this able and willing
> to have the tests done?
First, permission to do the testing would have to be acquired, then
the tests would have to be paid for.
Regards,
August Matthusen
akau...@aol.com
In article <32C751...@ix.netcom.com>, August Matthusen
<matt...@ix.netcom.com> writes:
>Alan Shaw wrote:
>
>> As for "nonsensical claims" may I point out that it is not always easy
>> for even the most distinguished expert to say in advance of the
>> evidence just what is or is not nonsense. Remember it was Sir William
>> Preece FRS, Post Office Chief Engineer, no less, who said "Edison's
>> electric lamp is a completely idiotic idea".
>
>Actually, as Edison originally envisioned electric lighting,
>his lamp was a rather bad idea because he wanted it to run on
>DC. Tesla and Westinghouse got it right with AC.
>
>Regards,
>August Matthusen
August,
I have been following all sci.archaeology discussions now for a couple of
weeks and you generally post very solid stuff. Don't knock Edison. The
hard disk you are using goes back to principles of information storage and
retrieval established by Edison for the phonograph.Our Gatesian
gramophones today are just a bit more sophisticated.
Edison was once visited by some politicians at his main lab and they asked
him, typcially, "Great inventions! What sort a rules ya got around here to
do this?"
Edison answered " We have no rules. We are trying to accomplish
something".
Let us all bask in the relatively non-ruled world of the internet and be
not too hard on our felow interneters. When the internet becomes part of
the suburbian and political establishment, you can be sure that there will
be rules - many more than now - and you too will look back on today as the
good old days.
As for the Tiles of Ramses III, maybe the temple was moved by Greeks and
the stones marked in some way - just as we moved Abu Simbel.:
Anyway, the chronology of the pharoahs has always been in disarray - as
Sir Isaac Newton accurately pointed out in his Chronology of Ancient
Kingdoms Amended more than 200 years ago. And this chronology is still in
disarray. The Old Kingdom was not so long ago dated by the experts to 4000
BC. Currently, it is dated more than a thousand years later, and the
dating keeps dropping by a 100 or so years every decade. Who knows, maybe
Newton will one day be proven right. He did not make too many mistakes on
things we can actually "check" - graviation, optics, telescopes. No one
has paid any attention to this book on chronology, however, which he based
on astronomical calculations and ancient texts prior to Champollion. The
reason for this neglect is that the chronology regarding Egypt has always
been a bit like fortune cookies with the many "analysts" acting the part
of Charlie Chan... Astronomy and DNA will ultimately give us an accurate
chronology...but this is some years off yet...in my estimation.
Another explanation for Ramses III is that he is known to have copied his
predecessors. (I refer here to Peter Clayton, Chronicle of the Pharaohs,
Thames and Hudson, 1994 where one of these items copied is shown to be a
relief in which Ramses III is shown marching in to conquer peoples who at
that time no longer even existed as political entities. The Egyptologists
explain this by saying that he copied this relief from a relief by Ramses
II - and did Ramses II copy his? Perhaps an even later pharaoh copied them
as well.
Many changes in Pharaonic history, astronomy and chronology are in the
making at the present time and I am sure there are many more surprises in
store.
- Andis Kaulins (J.D. Stanford University, 1971)
August Matthusen
akau...@aol.com wrote:
>
> In article <32C751...@ix.netcom.com>, August Matthusen
> <matt...@ix.netcom.com> writes:
>
> >Alan Shaw wrote:
> >
> >> As for "nonsensical claims" may I point out that it is not always easy
> >> for even the most distinguished expert to say in advance of the
> >> evidence just what is or is not nonsense. Remember it was Sir William
> >> Preece FRS, Post Office Chief Engineer, no less, who said "Edison's
> >> electric lamp is a completely idiotic idea".
> >
> >Actually, as Edison originally envisioned electric lighting,
> >his lamp was a rather bad idea because he wanted it to run on
> >DC. Tesla and Westinghouse got it right with AC.
> August,
>
> I have been following all sci.archaeology discussions now for a couple of
> weeks and you generally post very solid stuff. Don't knock Edison. The
> hard disk you are using goes back to principles of information storage and
> retrieval established by Edison for the phonograph.Our Gatesian
> gramophones today are just a bit more sophisticated.
Who's knocking Edison? FWIW, I own stock in GE.
What I'm pointing out is that in the AC-DC war Tesla and
Westinghouse came out on top and AC is transmitted into homes
and businesses as DC was not as technologically feasible.
This is an historical observation. If pointing out history is
considered knocking someone, then so be it.
Regards,
August Matthusen
Peter Metcalfe
On 30 Dec 1996 akau...@aol.com wrote:
> Anyway, the chronology of the pharoahs has always been in disarray - as
> Sir Isaac Newton accurately pointed out in his Chronology of Ancient
> Kingdoms Amended more than 200 years ago. And this chronology is still in
> disarray. The Old Kingdom was not so long ago dated by the experts to 4000
> BC. Currently, it is dated more than a thousand years later, and the
> dating keeps dropping by a 100 or so years every decade. Who knows, maybe
> Newton will one day be proven right.
Why do you think Isaac Newton has special insights on Ancient Egyptian
Chronology?
--Peter Metcalfe
Alan Shaw
On Mon, 30 Dec 1996 12:30:23 -0800, August Matthusen
<matt...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
Do you seriously think it is possible to compare Jesus with Ramses
III? Do you not think that buildings erected to the former down to
modern times might skew the probability if they were included?
>Additionally, how many monuments, palaces, buildings, etc.
>are maintained by replacing parts at a later date?
>
Nowadays an ancient palace might be repaired by archaeologists like
Evans at Knossos, but I would be interested to know if there is any
classical precedent for a palace being repaired 800 years after it was
first built. Few palaces would have lasted that long for a start.
In that case does the proposition that Ramses III was fourth century
BC qualify for you as a working hypothesis? Alongside twelfth century
of course.
>How did this 1:100 chance for the tiles being
>replacements get determined?
>
Actually it was 1:100 for all the escape routes. 0.001 for the
monument theory plus 0.001 for your repair theory plus 0.0 for
hieratic signs plus 0.001 for Petrie's hypothesis plus 0.007 for any
other similar ideas that might come along. Tentative, of course. But
even if I am out by an order of magnitude it is still nine to one on
Ramses III being fourth century.
>> But is not progress achieved by
>> abandoning hypotheses that are contradicted by the facts?
>
>Yep. But probability calculations based on lack of data
>are not facts.
>
No the facts are the fourth century tiles associated with Ramses III.
>> >> Hamza's hieratic sign solution is an extreme illustration
>> >> of what I mean. He thought he had solved the problem, but I showed
>> >> that the probability of his solution having actually happened was
>> >> practically zero.
>> >
>> >No, you have suggested that in your opinion the probability
>> >was practically zero, based on certain assumptions.
>> >
>> I do not see how opinion comes into this.
>
>All expert elicitation is opinion. Informed opinion,
>but still opinion.
>
The calculation of the probability attaching to hieratic signs as
Greek letters has very little to do with opinion. In my opinion.
>> My assumptions were 10000
>> hieratic signs, and I quoted my source for that, and nine matches with
>> Greek letters, which derives from Griffith and Hamza. It is not an
>> assumption that there were at least ten instances of Greek letters
>> because I see lambda on two tiles in the photograph.
>
>You see what you (and apparently others) interpret as lambda.
>
>> If there are more
>> instances then the effect would be to reduce the probability still
>> further. It is Hamza's assumption, and one that is crucial for his
>> hypothesis, that the resemblance to Greek is pure chance.
>>
>> If I have got my sums right, the practically zero probability follows
>> inevitably from these premises. Oh, it is a matter of opinion, I
>> suppose, that the very small number I came up with is practically
>> equivalent to zero. Is that what you meant?
>
>You are also inferring randomness by suggesting 9 out of 10000
>is pertinent. This may not have been a random function
>(e.g., how many times does "s" appear in written english
>compared to "z") and all 10000 signs may not need to be considered.
>
>Calculating the "probability" of an event after it has
>occurred is also futile. Deal yourself five cards from a
>52 card deck. Now calculate the probability of being dealt
>that particular hand in the future. The probability against
>is astronomical but that does not negate the fact that you
>have that hand in front of you.
>
The probability of getting that particular hand is the same whether
you calculate it before or after the deal: 1/52*1/51*1/50*1/49*1/48.
>> >> So to put your suggestion in context we need to come
>> >> up with an estimate of probability for it and incorporate it with the
>> >> other suggestions in the sum.
>> >
>> >While what you are doing is very similar to "expert elicitation"
>> >in decision analysis, it is more usual to have the probabilities
>> >assigned by a panel of experts rather than one individual. I've
>> >usually seen this done to assess the probability of the occurrence
>> >of a possible future event based on past data.
>>
>> By all means let us have some expert estimates of probabilities.
>
>Hire them and a decision analyst. You might be able to get
>the experts for $500-$600 per day and the decision analyst
>for $1000/day.
>
It is archeological experts we need to tell us for example the
proportion of 800 year old palaces that were repaired in classical
times. We can do the maths ourselves.
>> >If this question were really a burning issue they could
>> >probably test the hypothesis I proposed and the one you proposed
>> >with archaeometric dating methods for determining the age of the
>> >firing of the tiles.
>> >
>> Yes, comparative "blind" analyses might establish whether the tiles
>> are all the same age or not. Eight centuries ought to show up, if the
>> methods are any good at all. Is anyone reading this able and willing
>> to have the tests done?
>
>First, permission to do the testing would have to be acquired, then
>the tests would have to be paid for.
>
Fat chance, if the accepted chronological model is at stake.
Alan Shaw
August Matthusen
Yes, just as seriously as basing a probability calculation lack of data.
> >Additionally, how many monuments, palaces, buildings, etc.
> >are maintained by replacing parts at a later date?
> >
> Nowadays an ancient palace might be repaired by archaeologists like
> Evans at Knossos, but I would be interested to know if there is any
> classical precedent for a palace being repaired 800 years after it was
> first built. Few palaces would have lasted that long for a start.
But the ones that did would probably need maintenence after (and
during) that time.
Perhaps you should look to the orient and ancestor worship and
maintenance
of monuments to ancestors. How long has the Taj Mahal been maintained?
How long have churches, mosques, synogogues, temples, museums,
libararies
been maintained? How long were palaces in Egypt, Rome, Mesopatamia, or
India maintained?
Why not, I don't know enough about it to rule it out.
> >How did this 1:100 chance for the tiles being
> >replacements get determined?
> >
> Actually it was 1:100 for all the escape routes. 0.001 for the
> monument theory plus 0.001 for your repair theory plus 0.0 for
> hieratic signs plus 0.001 for Petrie's hypothesis plus 0.007 for any
> other similar ideas that might come along. Tentative, of course. But
> even if I am out by an order of magnitude it is still nine to one on
> Ramses III being fourth century.
I still don't understand what your probability assessment for the tiles
being replacements is based upon.
> >> But is not progress achieved by
> >> abandoning hypotheses that are contradicted by the facts?
> >
> >Yep. But probability calculations based on lack of data
> >are not facts.
> >
> No the facts are the fourth century tiles associated with Ramses III.
How were the tiles absolutely determined as being 4th century?
I thought that too was debated.
> >> >> Hamza's hieratic sign solution is an extreme illustration
> >> >> of what I mean. He thought he had solved the problem, but I showed
> >> >> that the probability of his solution having actually happened was
> >> >> practically zero.
> >> >
> >> >No, you have suggested that in your opinion the probability
> >> >was practically zero, based on certain assumptions.
> >> >
> >> I do not see how opinion comes into this.
> >
> >All expert elicitation is opinion. Informed opinion,
> >but still opinion.
> >
> The calculation of the probability attaching to hieratic signs as
> Greek letters has very little to do with opinion. In my opinion.
Exactly.
No. When you have the hand in front of you, the probability of
having that hand in front of you is P = 1. It is no longer
probable, it is actual. The probability of getting it again is
what you indicate. As events unfold, probabilities change.
The odds of being dealt a royal flush are 52!/47! (the same as
you mention above). If your first card dealt is an ace the
probability has increased. If your first card is a three,
the probability has decreased to 0.
> >> >> So to put your suggestion in context we need to come
> >> >> up with an estimate of probability for it and incorporate it with the
> >> >> other suggestions in the sum.
> >> >
> >> >While what you are doing is very similar to "expert elicitation"
> >> >in decision analysis, it is more usual to have the probabilities
> >> >assigned by a panel of experts rather than one individual. I've
> >> >usually seen this done to assess the probability of the occurrence
> >> >of a possible future event based on past data.
> >>
> >> By all means let us have some expert estimates of probabilities.
> >
> >Hire them and a decision analyst. You might be able to get
> >the experts for $500-$600 per day and the decision analyst
> >for $1000/day.
> >
> It is archeological experts we need to tell us for example the
> proportion of 800 year old palaces that were repaired in classical
> times. We can do the maths ourselves.
I doubt it. It's easy to crunch numbers with a calculator; it's
an entirely different thing to know when the numbers are valid
and that all factors in the decision tree have been considered.
Even knowing the proportion of 800 year old palaces repaired
does not mean that you do not have an exception to the rule
(tail of the probability distribution).
The most "improbable" things have a tendency to occur
(way out there in the tails of the distributions).
For example, using similar calculations, 60 years ago there
were, say, 4 X 10^9 people in the world. What are the odds that
any two of them should meet and have children? 16 X 10^-18?
Four of them meeting would be even greater? (rounding: 10^-36 ??)
What are the odd that their children should then meet (10^-72 ???)
and have children?
Does this mean that your grandparents never met and that your parents
weren't born and that I'm having this discussion with an improbabilty?
After all if we go back to further generations it "appears" even more
improbable.
> >> >If this question were really a burning issue they could
> >> >probably test the hypothesis I proposed and the one you proposed
> >> >with archaeometric dating methods for determining the age of the
> >> >firing of the tiles.
> >> >
> >> Yes, comparative "blind" analyses might establish whether the tiles
> >> are all the same age or not. Eight centuries ought to show up, if the
> >> methods are any good at all. Is anyone reading this able and willing
> >> to have the tests done?
> >
> >First, permission to do the testing would have to be acquired, then
> >the tests would have to be paid for.
> >
> Fat chance, if the accepted chronological model is at stake.
Without writing up a proposal suggesting that it be done, it'll
never get done.
Regards,
August Matthusen
akau...@aol.com
In article <Pine.SV4.3.95.961231151902.20392A-100000@cantua>, Peter
Metcalfe <misc...@student.canterbury.ac.nz> writes:
>Why do you think Isaac Newton has special insights on Ancient Egyptian
>Chronology?
>
>--Peter Metcalfe
>
Peter,
I do not write that Newton had "special insights". Newton challenged the
established chronology of the ancient Near East and of Egypt on the basis
of his massive knowledge of the ancient text sources then available -
combined with his at that time unparalleled understanding of astronomy -
and at a time when no one else even considered this issue. You would have
to read Newton's book and ask if anyone alive today has such a command of
the ancients - I doubt it.
I had the book copied at the British Museum many years ago - you can not
buy it anywhere, so you may find it hard to check what I am saying. Sorry
for that, but I do not determine what old books the publishers,
universities and institutes reprint.
Research subsequent to Newton's time, the "partial" decipherment of the
hieroglyphs (much is still disputed) as well as modern chronological
methods have proven Newton right IN PRINCIPLE (we do not want to argue
here about the specific dates), so Newton must have a good "nose" for the
truth where his colleagues failed. Recall, Newton was probably the
greatest mind of the 17th century - and I thus regard his arguments with
interest. As Newton stated, "the ancients had magnified their
antiquities". Or, as I think to be more accurate, the moderns had
magnified what the ancients had intended by their dating.
I have used Newton's basic idea in my research in the last 25 years and
find that much of what he wrote is true, especially as regards the
Egyptian Dynasties.
Peter Metcalfe
On 1 Jan 1997 akau...@aol.com wrote:
>Peter Metcalfe <misc...@student.canterbury.ac.nz> writes:
>
> >Why do you think Isaac Newton has special insights on Ancient Egyptian
> >Chronology?
>
> I do not write that Newton had "special insights".
No but your post appears to indicate that you believe what what he
thought about ancient history is closest to the truth. I am
wondering why you should think this is so.
> Newton challenged the
> established chronology of the ancient Near East and of Egypt on the basis
> of his massive knowledge of the ancient text sources then available -
> combined with his at that time unparalleled understanding of astronomy -
> and at a time when no one else even considered this issue.
His 'massive knowlege'? His 'unparalleled' understanding of Astronomy?
Perhaps we could have less rhetoric and more facts. Namely what was
wrong about the established chronology in Newton's time that he
challenged and was subsequently verified? What astronomical matters
did he incorporate in his arguments?
> You would have
> to read Newton's book and ask if anyone alive today has such a command of
> the ancients - I doubt it. I had the book copied at the British Museum
> many years ago - you can not buy it anywhere, so you may find it hard to
> check what I am saying. Sorry for that, but I do not determine what old
> books the publishers, universities and institutes reprint.
If you could at least provide the _name_ of the book in question, the
task would be so much easier. Who knows, Cambridge might have seen
fit to print it after you have had the book copied. And you may find
it useful to talk to a professional egyptologist before wondering
whether anyone alive has 'such a command' of the ancients. People
do work at these topics for a living, you know.
> Research subsequent to Newton's time, the "partial" decipherment of the
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> hieroglyphs (much is still disputed) as well as modern chronological
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> methods have proven Newton right IN PRINCIPLE (we do not want to argue
> here about the specific dates), so Newton must have a good "nose" for the
> truth where his colleagues failed.
What is in dispute about the decipherments of the hieroglyphs? And how
was Newton proven correct 'in principle' if his dates do not fit with
current theories?
> Recall, Newton was probably the
> greatest mind of the 17th century - and I thus regard his arguments with
> interest.
But would you view his beliefs on alchemy to be relevant to today's
chemistry? Or his belief that light is solely corpusular to modern
physics? Do you subscribe to his beliefs in the literal truth of
Genesis? Or his views on Catholics? If you answer is no to any of
these then why should his views on egyptology be relevant given
his ignorance of vast amount of the material that is known today?
> I have used Newton's basic idea in my research in the last 25 years and
> find that much of what he wrote is true, especially as regards the
> Egyptian Dynasties.
I must say it makes a change from Velikovsky.
--Peter Metcalfe
alv...@acsu.buffalo.edu
I am writing a paper on the costs and benefits of animal domestication. I
am looking for estimates of body mass for the earliest protodomesticates -
cattle, sheep, pigs, goat and camel. I have found a number of papers that
discuss how body size decreased with domestication (Tchernov,
Grigson....) but no actual estimates of body mass. If anybody could point
me in the right direction, I would appreciate it.
Michael Alvard, Ph.D. Office: (716) 645-2568,
Assistant Professor of Anthropology Dept. Office: (716) 645- 2414
State University of New York FAX: (716) 645- 3808
380 MFAC e-mail: Alv...@acsu.buffalo.edu
Buffalo, NY 14261
Joe Canepa
To try and reach some conclusions from the numerous threads on
this subject, there are still three possibilities:
1. August Mattuson's point that the titles could have been part
of a later repair project.
2. The young lady from the Frick's idea that the building may
have been a monument to an older Pharaoh.
3. Velikovsky's idea that Ramses III time in history is in error.
It was interesting to read of Newton's doubts as the conventional
chronology and I hope others, more knowledgeable than I, can
further reference Newton's thoughts. In that vain I note an
article in _The New Yorker_ by Douglas Preston titled "All the
Kings Sons" (1/22/96. pgs 44-54). Preston said on page 51 was:
"While in Nubia, Weeks [Egyptologist, Kent Weeks,jc] excavated an
ancient working class cemetery, pulling some seven thousand
naturally desiccated bodies out of the ground. In a study of diet
and health, he and a professor of orthodontics named James Harris
X-rayed many of the bodies. The Weeks and Harris persuaded the
Egyptian government to allow them to X-ray the mummies of the
pharaohs, by way of comparison. A team of physicians,
orthodontists, and pathologists studied the royal X-rays, hoping
to determine such things as the age at death, cause of death,
diet, and medical problems. They learned that there was little
difference between the two classes in diet and health.
One finding caused an uproar among Egyptologists. The medical
team had been able to determine ages at death for most of the
pharaohs, and in some cases these starkly contradicted the
standard of the Egyptologists."
Preston goes on to explain that perhaps the ancient priests or,
as recently as the 19th century, parties not identified mixed up
the mummies and the name dockets. Maybe, but then again maybe
Newton was correct and the standard chronology is suspect.
--
Joe Canepa
can...@mercury.interpath.com
Alan Shaw
August Matthusen <matt...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
[My server has let me down again. I have lifted the following out of
email but the extra > is missing from the beginning of each line. AS]
Alan Shaw wrote:
>
> On Sun, 29 Dec 1996 21:20:21 -0800, August Matthusen
> <matt...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> >Alan Shaw wrote:
> >
> >> As for "nonsensical claims" may I point out that it is not always easy
> >> for even the most distinguished expert to say in advance of the
> >> evidence just what is or is not nonsense. Remember it was Sir William
> >> Preece FRS, Post Office Chief Engineer, no less, who said "Edison's
> >> electric lamp is a completely idiotic idea".
> >
> >Actually, as Edison originally envisioned electric lighting,
> >his lamp was a rather bad idea because he wanted it to run on
> >DC. Tesla and Westinghouse got it right with AC.
> >
> Tell me you do not use an electric lamp and I will believe you think
> it was a bad idea.
I don't use an electric lamp which runs on DC (other than a
flashlight). Do you?
AS: Yes, I use a flashlight too. Quite a good idea really. QED.
> True, when it came to practical electricity
> distribution Edison backed the wrong horse, but that was not what
> Preece was referring to. In his lecture to the Royal Society Preece
> maintained that the parallel lighting circuit that Edison had invented
> could never be technically feasible.
The parallel lighting ran on DC.
It was not technically feasible on a large scale.
>Yet Edison had lit the streets
> around his laboratory with his lamp.
Which was a small area. It took AC to be able to effectively
distribute the power to large areas.
> Preece was not unique in his
> reaction. Professor Henry Morton who lived nearby and was personally
> acquainted with Edison did not bother to go and see his lighting but
> made a "protest in behalf of true science" that Edison's experiments
> were "a conspicuous failure, trumpeted as a wonderful success. A fraud
> upon the public."
Yeah, Edison had taken to giving demonstrations in which animals were
electrocuted by AC to demonize the evil AC and extol the virtues of
DC.
Regards,
August Matthusen
Phew! It is getting to be hard work making what I would have thought
to be the fairly uncontroversial point that experts can be
spectacularly wrong upon occasion.
1. There is no dispute that AC beat DC for power distribution.
That is historical fact. Why are you labouring the point? To distract
attention from or minimise Preece's blunder? The fact is that the
electric lamp in principle will work from either AC or DC supply.
2. You have not shown that Preece was talking about the AC/DC
issue (or that Morton was complaining about animal experiments).
Edison's breakthrough was to solve the Christmas tree problem: that
when one bulb burns out all the lights go out. He did it by using
parallel circuits which the experts thought technically infeasible,
but Edison used high resistance filaments and succeeded. I think that
was the issue that prompted Preece's remark, not that he had the
foresight to see that DC would not be practical for power
distribution.
3. If you like, for the sake of argument, I will concede the last
point, and assume that Preece had spotted the DC flaw. Would that
justify the categorical statement "Edison's electric lamp is a
completely idiotic idea"? Even your flashlight, August, gives the lie
to that. I wish Edison had been invited to that Royal Society lecture,
with the opportunity to set up his apparatus beforehand. When he hears
the words "a completely idiotic idea" he turns off the gas lights.
Consternation. Then he switches on the DC. Enough said?
Alan Shaw
August Matthusen
Alan Shaw wrote:
[snip]
> 3. If you like, for the sake of argument, I will concede the last
> point, and assume that Preece had spotted the DC flaw. Would that
> justify the categorical statement "Edison's electric lamp is a
> completely idiotic idea"? Even your flashlight, August, gives the lie
> to that. I wish Edison had been invited to that Royal Society lecture,
> with the opportunity to set up his apparatus beforehand. When he hears
> the words "a completely idiotic idea" he turns off the gas lights.
> Consternation. Then he switches on the DC. Enough said?
Then Tesla cranks up one of his coils and *really* wows
the audience.
Please do not interpret this as me being a Tesla freak or
unduly knocking Edison. They were both brilliant, quirky
individuals. Edison patented the bulb, true enough; neat idea.
However, we do not use flashlights or DC to light homes,
offices, schools, cities, etc. [quod erat commercialize]. The
large scale, commercial feasibility of electric lighting was
dependent upon the use of AC. Edison waged fairly vicious
campaigns against gas lighting and against AC to push the
commercialization of DC (after all, if you can't sell something
you've patented, what good is it to you and you sell more
electricity per bulb than the bulbs cost). He won against gas
and lost against AC.
Regards,
August Matthusen
AriWyler
Joe Canepa wrote:
>"While in Nubia, Weeks [Egyptologist, Kent Weeks,jc] excavated an
>ancient working class cemetery, pulling some seven thousand
>naturally desiccated bodies out of the ground. In a study of diet
>and health, he and a professor of orthodontics named James Harris
>X-rayed many of the bodies. The Weeks and Harris persuaded the
>Egyptian government to allow them to X-ray the mummies of the
>pharaohs, by way of comparison. A team of physicians,
>orthodontists, and pathologists studied the royal X-rays, hoping
>to determine such things as the age at death, cause of death,
>diet, and medical problems. They learned that there was little
>difference between the two classes in diet and health.
Well, this is misleading. There WAS probably quite a difference in diet.
Harris studied the teeth. From teeth of mummies you can't determine
everything the living persons ate. What these mummies did evidence was
lack of dental caries and much wearing. Little or no caries or decay
indicates a diet containing little or no sugar. The excessive wearing was
caused by the gritty sand particles in the bread, a problem that neither
commoner nor pharaoh could escape in ancient Egypt. The wearing led to
abcesses, tooth loss and even systemic poisoning resulting in death.
>One finding caused an uproar among Egyptologists. The medical
>team had been able to determine ages at death for most of the
>pharaohs, and in some cases these starkly contradicted the
>standard of the Egyptologists."
This is a strange statement. The "medical team" was NOT able to determine
ages of death, only ballpark figures based on amount of tooth wear. These
estimates, in most cases, were compatible with the ages at death
previously assigned to the kings in most cases.
>Preston goes on to explain that perhaps the ancient priests or,
>as recently as the 19th century, parties not identified mixed up
>the mummies and the name dockets. Maybe, but then again maybe
>Newton was correct and the standard chronology is suspect.
Reports that the 21st Dynasty priests mixed up the pharaohs is
unsubstantiated. Actually, the priests did a remarkable job. Of all the
kings accounted for, only one, the putative Thutmose I, is suspect on the
grounds that the mummy was too young at death. The royal mummies, as a
group, really indicate nothing to belie the standard chronology. Let us
put this this way: where one gains a few years in age at death, another
loses a few years in turn. It all comes out in the wash.
akau...@aol.com
Peter,
Newton's book is entitled
The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended.
It was published in 1728, the year after Newton's death in 1727.
akau...@aol.com
In article <5agvca$3...@redstone.interpath.net>,
can...@mercury.interpath.net (Joe Canepa) writes:
>It was interesting to read of Newton's doubts as the conventional
>chronology and I hope others, more knowledgeable than I, can
>further reference Newton's thoughts.
Obviously, you understood my posting.
Newton wrote his doubts about Egyptian chronology before a single
hieroglyph had been deciphered, so it would be nothing short of amazing if
the chronology he suggests as a replacement were correct.
The real question of course is not whether Newton's chronology is correct,
but rather the point made was that this very serious and very intelligent
thinker had legitimate doubts about ancient chronology generally - based
on a comparison of dating, astronomical events, etc.as found in ancient
classical sources.
Newton's doubts are then supported when one examines the CURRENT BASIS of
chronology as far as the Kings and Dynasties of the ancient Pharaohs are
concerned.
What the Egyptologists have done in creating Egyptian chronology is to
rely rather blindly on "parts" of sources such as the Turin Canon of Kings
(Turin Papyrus) and Manetho - conveniently ignoring the problems which
these sources and other sources at the same time present for chronology.
For the Old Kindgom, for example, The Turin Canon gives a "length of
reign" only for the kings from Neferkesokar to Atoti and only a "length of
life" for the other so-called Pharaohs. Now why is that? The Egyptologists
conveniently ignore this. When we add up the "lengths of reign" ACTUALLY
given on the Turin Canon for the Old Kingdom then we arrive at a figure of
only 420 years.
Interestingly, this coincides with the 400-year Monument of Mariette
(published by him 1865), found at Tanis and said to originate from the
reign of Ramses II.
As noted by the eminent German Egyptologist, Eduard Meyer, clear back in
1909 in his extremely thorough book on Egyptian Chronology (Aegyptische
Chronologie)
"The strangest thing about the monument...is its date of 400 years after
the King Nubti, whose title is given as if he were a still living king. It
is generally assumed today that this king was not a human ruler but the
God Seth, who ruled under his name Nubti, the ombic one, during the
dynasty of the gods. I can not accept this explanation. It is completely
unthinkable that God Seth...ruled 400 years previous...among...human
rulers, who, as everyone knows, ruled thousands of years ago."
And so, as Eduard Meyer so neatly puts into a nutshell, perhaps this
-thousands of years ago - "as everyone knows" is not so clear....
Interestingly, the date of 400 years is also the period spent by the
Hebrews in Egypt.
Furthermore, the sums of reigns and the sums of the length of life of
"kings" given by Manetho for the Old Kingdom raise serious problems. The
actual sums of the individual listings of the lengths of reign is 1480
years whereas Manetho himself "sums" these dynasties as equalling 1497
years - sums which are subject to interpretation as 1460 (the Sothic Year)
plus callibration for precession and for the date of Manetho's writring -
i.e. these dates may deal with ASTRONOMY.
Manetho's lengths of reign also do not fit his own calculations for
individual dynasties (these are 263 vs 253, 304 vs 302, 214 vs 214, 284 vs
277, 218 vs 148, 197 vs 203). Now, nobody adds THAT badly, so perhaps some
other "thing" was being measured, which had to be "corrected" in the end
sum - such as perhaps stellar realms measured by the heliacal rising and
setting of stars - as I suggest at my website
http://members.aol.com/akaulins/expak/expak1.htm (expak one not the
letter L)
which suggests further that perhaps only some of these kings were ACTUAL
pharaohs at all - i.e. that the kings of the Old Dynasty were in large
part "mythical" stellar kings - and that was Newton's point.
RICHARD L ALLEN
AriWyler
A. Kaulins wrote:
>Newton wrote his doubts about Egyptian chronology before a single
>hieroglyph had been deciphered, so it would be nothing short of amazing
if
>the chronology he suggests as a replacement were correct.
You can say that again!
(snip)
>Newton's doubts are then supported when one examines the CURRENT BASIS of
>chronology as far as the Kings and Dynasties of the ancient Pharaohs are
>concerned.
>What the Egyptologists have done in creating Egyptian chronology is to
>rely rather blindly on "parts" of sources such as the Turin Canon of
Kings
>(Turin Papyrus) and Manetho - conveniently ignoring the problems which
>these sources and other sources at the same time present for chronology.
(snip of a lot of unconnected musing)
In coming up with the present chronology of Egyptian history,
Egyptologists utilized every source available. Newton did not even have
access to these sources, so whatever thoughts he had on ancient Egypt, if
any, can be of no importance. For Newton to maintain that most ancient
chronology is "off" does not exactly indicate an uncommon flash of insight
on his part. It probably is, but to what DEGREE is the tough part to
figure out. I think for anybody to believe that we are going to devise a
means to get an accurate chronology of Egypt is absurd. It was too long
ago and the records are too scanty. Even the records are second-hand
reporting and cannot be relied upon too much. I have to chuckle a little
when someone like David Rohl tries to correct the chronology by, say, two
hundred years. It is all just substituting one wrong chronology for
another. We should consider ourselves fortunate if we're even in the
ballpark.
Don Judy
> 3. If you like, for the sake of argument, I will concede the last
> point, and assume that Preece had spotted the DC flaw. Would that
> justify the categorical statement "Edison's electric lamp is a
> completely idiotic idea"? Even your flashlight, August, gives the lie
> to that. I wish Edison had been invited to that Royal Society lecture,
> with the opportunity to set up his apparatus beforehand. When he hears
> the words "a completely idiotic idea" he turns off the gas lights.
> Consternation. Then he switches on the DC. Enough said?
>
> Alan Shaw
>
Preece was correct. The parallel circuits *would not work* to distribute
electric lighting on a large scale. Edison tried unsuccessfully to do just
this for a while; it was a total failure. The reason we have electric chairs
today is a result of his campaign against AC and Tesla, which he thought was a
delaying tactic until he could work out the kinks, which he couldn't do. And,
this is all slightly tangential to the original tiles/Rameses stuff, except
that it proves someone can be told they're wrong, have it clearly shown, and
still continue to fight the bad fight. Preece right, Edison wrong.
Yours,
Don Judy
Frank Joseph Yurco
Just as in the traditions of other cultures, the later the documents,
the more fantastic the claims about the early rulers and dynasties. On
this principle, no wonder Manetho is most unreliable for the Archaic
Period-Old Kingdom. However, we are fortunate enough to have fragments
of the Old Kingdom Annals, and those are much closer to the events. On
that monument, kings before the unifier, Aha, there, were indicated by
unnamed figures wearing crowns, in the upper register. That was a tacit
recognition that there were rulers before the unification. Now
archaeologists acknowledge this, from the Abydos and Nekhen and Qustul
monuments, and those pre-unification rulers are now called Dynasty 0.
When you get to the Turin Royal Canon, already there's a sharp divide.
Meni is the unifier, and before him reigned the demi-gods. Likewise,
the Turin Royal Canon is least certain about the Archaic Period-Old
Kingdom reigns. Yet, it did sum up dynasty I-VIII, as totalling 955
years and a fraction in total reigns. That suggests that for all the
uncertainties, the Turin Royal Compilers must have known some data
from the Royal Annals, or some similar document. Likewise, Turin
Royal Canon organizes Egyptian chronology into dynasties, and into
the Kingdoms, with the Dynasty I-VIII total equalling what Egyptologists
call the Archaic Period-Old Kingdom.
Last comes Manetho, least reliable especially because we have not
his original, but copies that are seven centuries later in date! Yet,
Manetho did recognize that the kinglist had dynasties, though he failed
to recognize the Kingdoms that the Turin Royal Canon recognized. Yet
Manetho also knew of Menes as the unifier. That same Meni is also
mentioned by Herodotus, who states that a priest unrolled a papyrus
and read off it 330 royal names starting with Meni, for him. Thus that
priest in Herodotus' day, had some document not unlike the Turin Royal
Canon before him, but one updated to 448 B.C. So, clearly, there was
a direct transmission of the Egyptian kinglist from the Royal Annals
to Manetho, through the Turin Royal Canon, and the roll that the priest
whom Herodotus consulted possessed. Lastly, the Royal Annals of Dynasty
One, already show the Egyptians using a 365-day calendar, as the
individual year entries had a small box at the bottom recording the
annual heigth of the Nile Inundation. That Nile Inundation came but
once a year, in mid-July. Later, the Egyptians noted that Sirius rose
anew around the same time that the Nile went into flood. Thus, they
created the Sothic Calendar, as it came to be known.
So, for all the fragmentary nature of the documentation, the system that
underlay this documentation was highly and well organized. The ancients
knew this well. That is why they all cited Egypt's kinglist. Also, Julius
Caesar did not invent the so-called Julian Calendar. He took over the
Egyptian Sothic Calendar, as emended by the early Ptolemies, who added
a leap year to the 365 days every fourth year. That was known as the
Alexandrian Calendar, in Egypt.
Most sincerely,
Frank J. Yurco
University of Chicago
--
Frank Joseph Yurco fjy...@midway.uchicago.edu
Don Judy
In Article<5agvca$3...@redstone.interpath.net>, <can...@mercury.interpath.net> write:
> Path: news1.epix.net!news4.epix.net!cdc2.cdc.net!news.texas.net!news.kei.com!news.mathworks.com!howland.erols.net!cs.utexas.edu!newshost.convex.com!newsgate.duke.edu!interpath!news.interpath.net!news.interpath.net!mercury!canepa
> From: can...@mercury.interpath.net (Joe Canepa)
> Newsgroups: sci.archaeology
> Subject: Re: The Tiles of Ramses III: Another Answer
> Date: 2 Jan 1997 18:39:06 GMT
> Organization: Interpath
> Lines: 44
> Message-ID: <5agvca$3...@redstone.interpath.net>
> References: <Pine.SV4.3.95.961231151902.20392A-100000@cantua> <19970101024...@ladder01.news.aol.com> <Pine.SV4.3.95.970102150105.7287A-100000@cantua>
> NNTP-Posting-Host: mercury.interpath.com
> X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.0 #4 (NOV)
>
>
> To try and reach some conclusions from the numerous threads on
> this subject, there are still three possibilities:
>
> 1. August Mattuson's point that the titles could have been part
> of a later repair project.
>
> 2. The young lady from the Frick's idea that the building may
> have been a monument to an older Pharaoh.
>
> 3. Velikovsky's idea that Ramses III time in history is in error.
>
> It was interesting to read of Newton's doubts as the conventional
> chronology and I hope others, more knowledgeable than I, can
> further reference Newton's thoughts. In that vain I note an
> article in _The New Yorker_ by Douglas Preston titled "All the
> Kings Sons" (1/22/96. pgs 44-54). Preston said on page 51 was:
>
> "While in Nubia, Weeks [Egyptologist, Kent Weeks,jc] excavated an
> ancient working class cemetery, pulling some seven thousand
> naturally desiccated bodies out of the ground. In a study of diet
> and health, he and a professor of orthodontics named James Harris
> X-rayed many of the bodies. The Weeks and Harris persuaded the
> Egyptian government to allow them to X-ray the mummies of the
> pharaohs, by way of comparison. A team of physicians,
> orthodontists, and pathologists studied the royal X-rays, hoping
> to determine such things as the age at death, cause of death,
> diet, and medical problems. They learned that there was little
> difference between the two classes in diet and health.
>
> One finding caused an uproar among Egyptologists. The medical
> team had been able to determine ages at death for most of the
> pharaohs, and in some cases these starkly contradicted the
> standard of the Egyptologists."
>
> Preston goes on to explain that perhaps the ancient priests or,
> as recently as the 19th century, parties not identified mixed up
> the mummies and the name dockets. Maybe, but then again maybe
> Newton was correct and the standard chronology is suspect.
>
>
> --
> Joe Canepa
> can...@mercury.interpath.com
4. They weren't Greek letters.
James Conway
In a previous article, ariw...@aol.com (AriWyler) says:
>A. Kaulins wrote:
>
>>Newton wrote his doubts about Egyptian chronology before a single
>>hieroglyph had been deciphered, so it would be nothing short of
>>amazing if the chronology he suggests as a replacement were correct.
>
>You can say that again!
Why? The same is true of the present chronology. The 'structure' of
the chronology was created before any decipherment occurred.
>(snip)
>
>>Newton's doubts are then supported when one examines the CURRENT BASIS of
>>chronology as far as the Kings and Dynasties of the ancient Pharaohs are
>>concerned.
>
>>What the Egyptologists have done in creating Egyptian chronology is to
>>rely rather blindly on "parts" of sources such as the Turin Canon of
>>Kings (Turin Papyrus) and Manetho - conveniently ignoring the problems
>>which these sources and other sources at the same time present for
>>chronology.
>
>(snip of a lot of unconnected musing)
>
>In coming up with the present chronology of Egyptian history,
>Egyptologists utilized every source available. Newton did not even have
>access to these sources, so whatever thoughts he had on ancient Egypt, if
>any, can be of no importance. For Newton to maintain that most ancient
>chronology is "off" does not exactly indicate an uncommon flash of insight
>on his part. It probably is, but to what DEGREE is the tough part to
>figure out. I think for anybody to believe that we are going to devise a
>means to get an accurate chronology of Egypt is absurd. It was too long
>ago and the records are too scanty. Even the records are second-hand
>reporting and cannot be relied upon too much. I have to chuckle a little
>when someone like David Rohl tries to correct the chronology by, say, two
>hundred years. It is all just substituting one wrong chronology for
>another. We should consider ourselves fortunate if we're even in the
>ballpark.
I don't think the problem is so impossible, but you have to ask
yourself why so much resistance exists for suggestions to be made. That
egyptian chronology is 'used' to date other cultural artifacts only
intensifies the resistance to accept different conclusions. BTW the
beginning nor the ending of the dynasties are in conflict. The problem
of egyptian chronology starts after the end of the Middle Kingdom 12th
dynasty to the 26th dynasty or the period of 11 centuries from about
1770 - 670 BCE. The 'placement' of each dynasty in the time line is the
question not the internal years in each dynasty itself.
--
James Conway bb...@scn.org
Seattle Washington USA
Chronology: http://www.knowledge.co.uk/xxx/cat/kjh/
akau...@aol.com
Re: Chronology of Egypt, my previous posting:
Two typos.
Manetho did not write 218 vs 148 but rather 218 vs 248.
At the end of the posting, not "Old Dynasty" but "Old Kingdom".
Tips for discussion:
I guess the basic argument of people is that Egyptologists are not idiots,
they have been doing this for a living for years and thus their
chronologies can not be in error.
This same argument was used when the Old Kingdom was dated back to 4000
BC.
No one doubts that there are many diligent and brilliant Egyptologists AND
archeaeologists out there, both present and past - but "chronology" is
really not their principle field, and if you talk to most of them, they
have not spent most of their academic or research life in this area and
know next to nothing about it.
Furthermore, few of these scholars have any background in astronomy,
although the interpretation of astronomical texts is essential for
chronology. Look at the excellent contributions of Martin Stower on
sci.archaeology regarding the astronomy of the Pharaohs - and his web site
is even better still - but he is a great exception.
Milo Gardiner here on sci.archaeology also refers to this same basic
problem regarding the Mayas, where he says that the linguistsand the Mayan
scholars make the frustrating error of not consulting the mathematicians
when they are dealing with Mayan mathematical texts which use the system
of "remainders", i.e. modulo calculation, something with which the
linguists are not familiar - and which inexorably leads to errors. Here we
are continuing the process seen in grade school and high school, where
people avoid math, physics and chemistry (i.e. the "hard" sciences) and go
into the humanities - where they continue their avoidance of math-prone
subjects like astronomy, etc. Don't mean to step on toes - but that is the
way it is.
So, my intention here is not to go around stepping gleefully on the feet
of the archaeological or linguistic greats (e.g. Gardiner, Petrie, Young,
Champollion) or their respectful followers, but rather to point out that
"chronology" is by no means FIXED - neither in Egypt nor in the ancient
Near East. It has already dropped not less than a thousand years in this
century - and we will see additional substantial changes here in the near
future - based in part on DNA analysis, dendrochronology, C-14
archaeological dating AND astronomy. No one has to agree with this, but I
am certain that it is so and books by people such as Rohl are just
scraping the iceberg.
We have generally dated the Pyramids as too old, and, as Eliot Braun of
the Israel Antiquities Authority reported to ANE some time ago, there is
C-14 evidence that we have dated other things in the fertile crescent too
young - and I suspect we will one day meet in the middle - at the CORRECT
date - whatever this may be.
Consider if you will that if the pyramid shafts do point toward the stars
that Bauval and Gilbert say that they do, then the Cheops pyramid dates at
the earliest to 2450 BC - here again we would have to correct Pharaonic
chronology by a couple of hundred years.
Not all errors of chronology relate to astronomy. What Newton particularly
recognized was that the ancients "doubled" or even "trippled" kings and we
moderns have followed in their step. A king had one name here, was known
under another name there, etc. and soon enough, this second name was
regarded as a separate king. This is a principle problem with the kings of
the Bible, e.g. Saul, Solomon and David, and with those of ancient
sources, such as Sargon of Akkad and Nebuchadnezzar. What was the name of
Cheops elsewhere - during his own day? Who could build such pyramids
without being known far and wide? How could such great kings as Saul,
David and Solomon not be known in great detail by other sources outside
the Bible? Perhaps they were known under other names? etc.
When we get to the point where we can "match" all of the names of the
rulers in the fertile crescent, both real and mythical, then we will
arrive at a correct chronology and a correct view of ancient history. At
the moment, we are far from it.
Compare for example the Pharaonic "Middle Kingdom" with the period of
Saul-David-Solomon in the Bible and you will find, by and large, that the
history, story and legeds are identical. We just may have the name of the
Pharaohs wrong and we just have not extended Juda far enough south and
west at a time when Israel too existed.
Here are some of my speculative ideas in this regard, concerning the
so-called Middle Kingdom of Egypt, where the kings came from Thebes. When
you begin to match Pharaonic history with Biblical history under the
viewpoint that the Pharaonic symbol DJED ("praise", found on almost all
temples) = JUDA, you get interesting parallels. Recall there was at this
time both Israel AND Juda existing contemporaneously and Juda was south -
but how far south and west? and what other country has there ever been
south and west of Israel outside of Egypt?
1.The Sinuhe-Text from the period of the 12th dynasty (short account in
Clayton's book, Chronicle of the Pharaohs) is the same as the story about
David of Israel and Juda.
2. Hence, Senwosret I, II and III may either be brothers or all the same
person, the over two-meter tall Pharaoh, who is perhaps equivalent to the
Biblical Saul (chosen for his being a head larger than all the rest).
Senwosret's hieroglyphs all show the rising sun, Latvian SAULE, whence the
name SAUL.
3. Amenemhet I, II and III might simply be brothers or might be only one
and the same person. Amenemhet III is King Solomon, including his
exploitation of the turquoise mines in the Sinai (the mines of Solomon) -
indeed, 90 percent of all inscriptions relating to Amenemhet III have been
found outside of Egypt, particularly in Sinai. It was also particularly
Amenemhet's Temple (since destroyed to rubble) which Herodotus and Strabo
saw and described as one of the wonders of the world. As in the
expeditions of Solomon, it is also at this time there are reports (of
Amenemhet) and expeditions in the Red Sea (to the Queen of Sheba, later
known as Hat-shep-sut ??) and to Punt (probably India).
4. It is interesting that one of Solomon's brides was said to be the
daughter of the Pharaoh, who burned down the city of Gezer and gave it to
Solomon. I can not offhand think of any pharaoh to whom that would not
mean that Solomon as the son-in-law would ascend to the Pharaonic throne -
but perhaps it explains why he was mostly outside of the country of Egypt
as Amenemhet III.
5. Mentuhotep I, II and II are probably all ONE person (no tombs for II
and III have ever been found) and this may be David, so that here there is
some error in either biblical or Egyptian chronology - since here David
comes before Saul, whereas the Bible has it the reverse. The return of
AMEN- to the name (transcribed by the Egyptologists as Mentu) is
equivalent to the later Hebrew hameschiach - messias, the annointed one.
Hotep = David.
7- Antef = Jonathan. Antef I, II and III is Jonathan written ej-n-t-v in
the hieroglpyhs.
Recall, according to the Bible, Jonathan and Saul are killed fighting the
Philistines on Mount Gilboa.
8. According to the Bible, Solomon's son was named Rehoboam and this is
surely Amenemhet IV - apparently very young, and for whom no tomb hs been
found -whose cartouche reads RE-M-CHRW-WA and he ruled together with Queen
Sobeknofru, who I presume to be his mother, the Queen of Sheba, i.e. the
later Hat-SHEP-Sut. (This may have been the reason for the break with the
other tribes - as below.)
9. At this time then, shortly after Solomon, the 10 northern tribes
separated from Judah - and we have also the correlating 10 separate kings
ruling in the so-called 13th dynasty of the Pharaohs. I presume these are
the Egyptian hieroglyphic methods of writing those 10 kings of the
separated Judah tribes.
10. There then followed the period of the Hyksos in the Delta-region., a
people having some cultural similarity to the Minoans - but there is no
agreement about this among the scholars. In any case, there was trouble in
the delta region - but there is no evidence that this meant that the
Theban dynasty did not continue its course.
Indeed, according to the large monument of Ahmose at Karnak, it was a
woman (presumed to be Aahotep, his mother, alleged daughter of Tetisheri)
who "brought peace to upper Egypt and dispersed the invaders".
Accordingly, I think this is Amenemhet IV, known under the later name
Ahmose, whose mother in my opinion was Hat-Shep-Sut, Queen of Sheba, and
wife of Solomon.
11. The names Thutmosis I - III and Amenhotep I - III appear in part to be
variants for Amenemhet I-III and Mentuhotep I-III.
In any case, there is a strange similarity of the Pharaonic and Biblical
evidence, as if the "sons" of the biblical Joseph had remained in Egypt-
and as if the Bible tells us in Hebrew what is written on the Pharaonic
hieroglyphs. This may be possible.
After all, the Hebrew exodus WAS out of Egypt.
Particularly point 9 above is "interesting".
- Andis Kaulins
AriWyler
A.Kaulins wrote:
(snip)
>You say that there are no mummies for the pharaohs of the Old Kingdom
>because they ruled so far back in antiquity that all trace of them has
>been lost - and I am saying that these kings did not exist, except in the
>legendary sense. Your method of argument is used by "Atlanteans" to
>contradict those who rightly ask, "OK, if Atlantis existed, where are the
>artifacts?" and the answer is, "so far back, they have all have been lost
>or submerged by the flood". Very convenient.
Convenient? Egypt is not Atlantis. Egypt exists. However, it has been
around for a very long time. Isn't it rather unreasonable to expect
everything and everybody going back several millenia to have survived in
some sort of state of preservation, clearly marked and dated, so that
nobody, including you, could harbor any doubts of the exact progression
of history? Did you ever hear the word "perishable"?
>Do you not find it a bit strange that ONLY the mummies of the Middle
>Kingdom have been found - and of those - not just isolated specimens, but
>mummies in great number, accounting for many of the kings of this period.
>Prior to that - nothing.
>No mummies. No remains of any other kind. NOTHING.
I think you mean the New Kingdom. Those mummies were happily found in two
caches and one nearly-unviolated tomb. The reason for their preservation
was this: If you stashed your valuables in a safe-deposit box or just left
them lying around the house or in the garage where thieves could probably
gain access, which scenario would give you a better chance of seeing your
valuables in a few years? You know perfectly well--or ought to--the
multitude of things that could have happened to the mummies of the OK
pharaohs. However, as I said, some may have been stashed, as well.
Somewhere. You are wrong, too, when you say "No remains of any other
kind. NOTHING". There are plenty, even human ones. The arm of Djoser
exists. It was recognized to be such because of the jewelry found on it.
>I am sorry, but this stretches my "belief" beyond its breaking point.
I get the feeling you would like to rearrange the history and chronology
of ancient Egypt according to your own theories, which seem to be rather
offbeat, if your webpage is anything to go by.
>You seem to imply that discussion of history is meaningless and dialogue
>futile if I ask questions, expect evidence and do not just accept current
>chronology simply on the basis of belief.
Greg Reeder implied this??
> What then is the difference
>between the Egyptologists and the people who believe in the literality of
>the Bible simply on their FAITH. Sorry, there is then no difference and
>Egyptology has entered the ranks of religion - but it is then a far cry
>from science. We are talking here about an accurate portrayal of the
>history of MAN's civilization - OUR civilization - no small subject - and
>I think that it is only proper to expect that evidence can be produced to
>support how scholars are presenting this history. I hardly regard that as
>a meaningless discussion or a futile dialogue.
I have the distinct impression that a "discussion" with you would be
unending and ultimately futile because you evidently have no trust in
scholarship. I don't think you have any idea of the constant changes
occurring in Egyptology. In the philology alone, there have been many
innovations. Things are NOT static and Egyptology is not a "religion", so
therefore your iconoclasm is misplaced here.
>The fact is that the Egyptologists have taken the ancient dates for the
>reigns of kings found in Manetho, the Turin Canon, etc. and have accepted
>them as "literally true", much as those who believe in the literality of
>the Bible and who continue to argue that Adam lived 930 years, Methuselah
>lived 969 years, etc.
You have already received a response about this from Professor Yurco,
which was a more than adequate explanation. What has Methuselah got to do
with the Old Kingdom?
> The same scholars who laugh at THOSE people,
>however, have no problem in assigning Pepi a reign of 94 or 100 years
>(depending on whether you take the dates of Manetho or Eratosthenes as
>your source). I do not see any difference in their approach - it is pure
>faith - but not verified by anything in the archaeological record.
Absolutely false. As an illustration of how groundless your assertions
are, take the family of Pepi, since you brought him up. His father, Teti,
has a wooden coffin found in 1881 and there is the remains of a mortuary
temple. There are the pyramids of Teti's queens, Iput and Kawit. Iput's
skeleton was found in a wooden coffin. Pepi I is thought to have reigned
about 50 years--nothing odd or unlikely about that. Pepi, of course, has
his pyramid, "Mn-nfr", after which we get the name "Memphis". There are
numerous artifacts remaining from Pepi's reign and there can be no doubt
whatsoever of this king's existence.
Alan Shaw
On Thu, 02 Jan 1997 18:35:05 -0800, August Matthusen
<matt...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>Alan Shaw wrote:
>[snip]
>> 3. If you like, for the sake of argument, I will concede the last
>> point, and assume that Preece had spotted the DC flaw. Would that
>> justify the categorical statement "Edison's electric lamp is a
>> completely idiotic idea"? Even your flashlight, August, gives the lie
>> to that. I wish Edison had been invited to that Royal Society lecture,
>> with the opportunity to set up his apparatus beforehand. When he hears
>> the words "a completely idiotic idea" he turns off the gas lights.
>> Consternation. Then he switches on the DC. Enough said?
>
>Then Tesla cranks up one of his coils and *really* wows
>the audience.
>
>Please do not interpret this as me being a Tesla freak or
>unduly knocking Edison. They were both brilliant, quirky
>individuals. Edison patented the bulb, true enough; neat idea.
>However, we do not use flashlights or DC to light homes,
>offices, schools, cities, etc. [quod erat commercialize]. The
>large scale, commercial feasibility of electric lighting was
>dependent upon the use of AC. Edison waged fairly vicious
>campaigns against gas lighting and against AC to push the
>commercialization of DC (after all, if you can't sell something
>you've patented, what good is it to you and you sell more
>electricity per bulb than the bulbs cost). He won against gas
>and lost against AC.
>
Fine. Please do not think I am an Edison freak. He just happened to be
the butt of Preece's "completely idiotic" remark. My point was simply
that any new claim cannot be dismissed as nonsense just because it
contradicts the currently accepted wisdom. Every now and then some new
discovery comes along that forces a paradigm shift. Critics need to
examine the evidence first and refute it in order to dismiss the
claim, not just say it does not fit therefore it cannot be right.
So the proposition that Ramses III was fourth century BC cannot be
dismissed by saying it contradicts the accepted twelfth century date.
The evidence needs to be examined. When it is examined it turns out to
be rather strong. So far I have not been able to fault it, but I am
still trying by exposing it to criticism by this group. Similarly I
would like compare the evidence for the early date, if anyone would
care to put that forward, to see how strong that is. This is a case, I
think, for the multiple working hypotheses that you talked about.
Alan Shaw
Alan Shaw
Consulting Deja News I find August Matthusen wrote:
[SNIP]
> >> >Opinions may vary as to which is the simplest: replacement
> >> >tiles or juggling pharohs.
> >> >
> >> Now that is a revealing comment. You have introduced the wider issue
> >> of the knock-on effect. You are saying it is simpler to bank on a
> >> hundred to one chance on the tiles than embark on a major
> >> chronological reconstruction.
> >
> >I gave no opinion as to which was simpler. I said opinions
> >may vary. I suggested another hypothesis as I am a big fan
> >of multiple working hypotheses, which should be ruled out
> >by scientific testing.
> >
> BC qualify for you as a working hypothesis? Alongside twelfth century
> of course.
Why not, I don't know enough about it to rule it out.
AS: Then we are in agreement on the principle for which I am arguing:
that this proposition should be tested. As to the methods of testing I
agree with you on scientific testing where such methods are
applicable, as for example on the tiles. Where such methods are
inapplicable or unavailable I am arguing for the use of probability
theory and this secondary point now seems to be the main issue on
which we are disagreed.
> >How did this 1:100 chance for the tiles being
> >replacements get determined?
> >
> Actually it was 1:100 for all the escape routes. 0.001 for the
> monument theory plus 0.001 for your repair theory plus 0.0 for
> hieratic signs plus 0.001 for Petrie's hypothesis plus 0.007 for any
> other similar ideas that might come along. Tentative, of course. But
> even if I am out by an order of magnitude it is still nine to one on
> Ramses III being fourth century.
I still don't understand what your probability assessment for the
tiles
being replacements is based upon.
> >> But is not progress achieved by
> >> abandoning hypotheses that are contradicted by the facts?
> >
> >Yep. But probability calculations based on lack of data
> >are not facts.
> >
> No the facts are the fourth century tiles associated with Ramses III.
How were the tiles absolutely determined as being 4th century?
I thought that too was debated.
> >> >> Hamza's hieratic sign solution is an extreme illustration
> >> >> of what I mean. He thought he had solved the problem, but I showed
> >> >> that the probability of his solution having actually happened was
> >> >> practically zero.
> >> >
> >> >No, you have suggested that in your opinion the probability
> >> >was practically zero, based on certain assumptions.
> >> >
> >> I do not see how opinion comes into this.
> >
> >All expert elicitation is opinion. Informed opinion,
> >but still opinion.
> >
> The calculation of the probability attaching to hieratic signs as
> Greek letters has very little to do with opinion. In my opinion.
Exactly.
> >> My assumptions were 10000
> >> hieratic signs, and I quoted my source for that, and nine matches with
> >> Greek letters, which derives from Griffith and Hamza. It is not an
> >> assumption that there were at least ten instances of Greek letters
> >> because I see lambda on two tiles in the photograph.
> >
> >You see what you (and apparently others) interpret as lambda.
> >
> >> If there are more
> >> instances then the effect would be to reduce the probability still
> >> further. It is Hamza's assumption, and one that is crucial for his
> >> hypothesis, that the resemblance to Greek is pure chance.
> >>
> >> If I have got my sums right, the practically zero probability follows
> >> inevitably from these premises. Oh, it is a matter of opinion, I
> >> suppose, that the very small number I came up with is practically
> >> equivalent to zero. Is that what you meant?
> >
> >You are also inferring randomness by suggesting 9 out of 10000
> >is pertinent. This may not have been a random function
> >(e.g., how many times does "s" appear in written english
> >compared to "z") and all 10000 signs may not need to be considered.
> >
> >Calculating the "probability" of an event after it has
> >occurred is also futile. Deal yourself five cards from a
> >52 card deck. Now calculate the probability of being dealt
> >that particular hand in the future. The probability against
> >is astronomical but that does not negate the fact that you
> >have that hand in front of you.
> >
> The probability of getting that particular hand is the same whether
> you calculate it before or after the deal: 1/52*1/51*1/50*1/49*1/48.
No. When you have the hand in front of you, the probability of
having that hand in front of you is P = 1. It is no longer
probable, it is actual. The probability of getting it again is
what you indicate. As events unfold, probabilities change.
The odds of being dealt a royal flush are 52!/47! (the same as
you mention above). If your first card dealt is an ace the
probability has increased. If your first card is a three,
the probability has decreased to 0.
AS: If you change the operational definition then naturally the
probability may be different. There is certainly a difference in
probability between being dealt by chance one out of a set of 52!/47!
equally likely possibilities and holding one out of a set of one. It
is also the changes in the operational definition that explain why
probabilities change as events unfold. But for the same operational
definition the same probability holds, before or after the event. So
my statement was correct, that the probability of having been dealt a
particular hand is the same after the deal as it was before.
Nor is it futile to calculate a probability after the event. Suppose I
play you at poker and deal myself a royal flush. I say to you, quite
correctly, that it is just as likely as any other hand. If, however,
you calculate the retrospective odds you may feel you have grounds to
suspect a non-random element in the deal. Just a matter of your
opinion against mine, is it? Or is it valid to make an inference from
the probalility? I do not play poker but I once picked up a bridge
hand containing thirteen hearts. A setup? Of course it was. The
perpetrator held thirteen spades.
The presence of a pattern which would be an extremely rare event if
the operation were truly random and the components were truly
independent alerts us to the probability that the operation is not
random or the components are not independent. Hamza tells us the signs
are hieratic and not Greek, so any resemblence to Greek letters is
pure chance. Therefore the probability of finding a hieratic sign that
resembles a Greek letter is 9/10000. The probability of finding ten
more independent instances is (9/10000)^10, which approximates to
zero. Therefore we are forced to conclude that Hamza’s hypothesis has
no practical chance of being correct.
If this argument from a known probability does not convince you,
August, then I will not try to press upon you cases where for lack of
data the probabilities have to be estimated.
Alan Shaw
August Matthusen
Alan Shaw wrote:
> Nor is it futile to calculate a probability after the event.
As long as you realize that the probability that the event
occurred is P = 1.
[snip]
> Therefore the probability of finding a hieratic sign that
> resembles a Greek letter is 9/10000.
And the probability of an "s" in a word is one in 26?
The probability of a "z" in a word is one in 26?
Regards,
August Matthusen
Alan M. Dunsmuir
In article <32d3bfed...@nntp-server.bcc.ac.uk>, Alan Shaw
<cca...@ucl.ac.uk> writes
>Therefore the probability of finding a hieratic sign that
>resembles a Greek letter is 9/10000.
ROFL! You believe you have data to support this arbitrary number?
I withdraw my guess that you are an engineering student. No engineer
could be so incopetent with simple probability theory as you
demonstrate.
(Hint: any structure based on initial arbitrary assignments of
elementary probabilities will remain totally arbitrary no matter how
grand an ediface you attempt to build on these foundations.)
--
Alan M. Dunsmuir
Were diu werlt alle min von deme mere unze an den Rijn
des wolt ih mih darben,
daz diu chunigen von Engellant lege an minen armen!
Alan M. Dunsmuir
In article <32ce8ec3...@nntp-server.bcc.ac.uk>, Alan Shaw
<cca...@ucl.ac.uk> writes
>When it is examined it turns out to
>be rather strong.
Only in your estimation.
J Onderko
Fellow seekers,
I would like to put forth an idea for discussion. I do not have any
particular attachment as to the "truth" of this speculation. As regards
the "multiple" kings names (ie Amenemhet I,II,III; Senowsret
I,II,etc,etc): Perhaps the multiple names are for the same individual,
but at succeeding stages of his reign. He may have added a number to his
name after going through the renewal of the Heb Sed festival. Just a
thought. I am interested to see what others have to offer both pro and
con.
Frank Joseph Yurco
Every Egyptian king had five royal names, that were taken at the
coronation, with the oldest and earliest being the Horus name written
in a serekh. The other names were, the so-called Two Ladies name, known
from early Dynasty I and continuing, then the Horus over gold name,
starting in Dynasty 3, and the prenomen in a cartouche, known from
Dynasty 3 onwards, and finally the nomen in a cartouche, from Dynasty 4
onwards. Since the names Amenemhat and Senwosret are the fifth, cartouche
name, the repetition of names was no problem, for each king had distinct
patterns in the first four names. Egyptian records were kept by the
fourth name, the throne name, which always was very distinct. Hence,
unlike moderns, the Egyptians needed no sub-numbering to keep the rulers
distinct. It is only us moderns, who need the sub-numbering, because in
the history books we refer to the kings by their nomen (the fifth royal
name) usually.
akau...@aol.com
Hint: Print out and study at leasure.
Here are the "stars" of Noah's Ark:
The bulding of the ark began with the setting of the star Aldebaran and
the neighboring star cluster Hyades (= Noah). Aldebaran (and the Hyades)
was the node to the first star of Scorpio (beta-Scorpionis) rising,
representing the nodes of the ecliptic with the equator of the celestial
sphere - hence, the "heavenly" water line, so to speak (2340 BC).
The ARK in the stars. The tip of the ARK were the two end stars of
Monoceros setting. From thence the ark continued along Monoceros to the
head of Hydra setting and from thence along the length of Hydra setting,
with the door, Corvus (from Latvian DURVIS = door, Caurvejs = opening), at
the side of the ark, to Libra, then Scorpio (beta-Scorpionis and Antares)
and from thence until the rising of the lower left corner star of the
Great Square, Adam, noding with the first star of Capricorn setting, which
is 300 days. The length of the ARK, as stated in the Holy Bible, was 300
cubits. Ararat is the lowest star on the keel (underside) of the ship,
signifying the outer world. This is now a part of Hydra (from hydro- =
water) the water serpent. The keel of the ship more or less marks the
"water line" of the ecliptic to the celestial equator. The constellation
Aquila is Noah's dove and the times given match those in the Bible. Here
are the data in full:
According to the Bible, "In the six hundreth year of Noah's life, in the
second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the
fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were
opened."
In 2340 B.C. the celestial equator was marked by the star beta-Scorpionis
at the tip of Scorpio and at the other side by Aldebaran and the Hyades
(Noah). From the rising of Aldebaran to the rising of Scorpio and the
setting of the chosen folk of Orion (Pleiades, Aldebaran, Hyades, Orion)
below the waters, twice around, is 600 days. Beta-Scorpionis rising is the
node star to Aldebaran and the Hyades setting.
And the water prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days. One
hundred and fifty days from the rising of the first star of Scorpio to the
rising of the star Aldebaran and the Hyades is 150 days. These are the
stars of the upper ecliptic, when "dry land" is again reached.
And the Ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the
month, upon the mountain of Ararat. From the rising of the lower left
corner star of the Great Square, Adam, the first day of the first month,
to the lowest star of the Ark, the "keel star" of the ship, which sits on
the mountain of the space of the world (Ararat, Sumerian Aruru, Latvian
ARA=outer, outside), thus nearly noding the star Arcturus , is 227 days.
Seven months of thirty days (as in Chaldea and Pharaonic Egypt) plus
seventeen days is 227 days.
And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month; in the tenth
month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains to be
seen. From the rising of the lower left corner star of the Great Square,
Adam, the first day of the first month, to the rising star
beta-Scorpionis, noding with the setting of the folk of Orion (Pleiades,
Aldebaran, Hyades, Orion and Sirius), i.e. the tips of the mountains, is
300 days. Ten months of 30 days is 300 days.
And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window
of the ark, which he had made. From the rising of the star beta-Scorpionis
to Aquila, the bird of Heaven, is 40 days. Noah sends out a raven first
(Cygnus) and then Aquila, the dove. The bird goes out three times for 7
days each. The two large stars of Aquila are separated by seven days. From
Aquila to the extreme outer star of the Great Square is seven days. From
there to the right upper corner star of the Great Square is seven days.
And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first
month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the
earth.... The flood started in the 600th year of Noah's life and ends with
the left lower corner star of the Great Square, the start of the 601st
year.
And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was
the earth dried. From the left lower corner star of the Great Square to
the star Aldebaran and the Hyades, Noah, is 57 days. One month of 30 days
plus 27 days is 57 days.
Noah lived 950 years. From the star Aldebaran and the Hyades, Noah, thrice
around to the star beta-Scorpionis (by Antares) is 950 days.
Beta-Scorpionis (by Antares) rising is the node star to Aldebaran and the
Hyades, Noah, setting. This position of the stars defined the nodes of the
ecliptic to the sphere of the celestial equator in 2340 BC. Since all but
Noah and his family passed away in the flood, the major stars are now
named anew.
We continue with the sons of Noah to end at Joseph in the next posting.
akau...@aol.com
Hint: Print out and study at leasure.
Here is the stellar calendration (heliacal rising and settings) used for
the "ages" of the Biblical Patriarchs - the Pharaohs follow. It accounts
for all of the major stars of the heavens. Read the first two paragraphs
through completely and you will then understand the system. If not, get a
copy of Whitney' Starfinder or something similar.
ADAM - 930 is his "age" in the Bible -. From the Left Lower Corner Star of
the Great Square, ADAM, (Pegasus, the WhiteHorse, created as a
4-Corner-Square Stellar Constellation to serve as the cardinal points of
Heaven) to the star Arcturus (nearly thrice around, i.e. 365 + 365 + 200)
is 930 days.
Here is the TRICK of the ancients: These are NODE stars to each other.
Arcturus rises as the left lower corner star of the Great Square sets.
To find the next STAR, we always look to "age" of the Biblical SON
.
SETH is born as ADAM is 130.This is the time-distance in rising star days
from the Left Lower Corner Star of the Great Square, ADAM, to the star
SIRIUS, SETH, the brightest star in the heavens, and revered as SETHor
SOTHIS by the Pharaohs.
(If the left lower corner star of the Great Square is the rising star on
the horizon at dawn, it takes 130 days until Sirius is the dawn's rising
star.)
SETH - Age in the Bible, 912 - From the star Sirius, SETH, to the star
Altair in Aquila (thrice around) is 912 days. These again, are node stars.
The star Altair sets as the star Sirius rises. ENOS is born as Seth is
105. From the star Sirius rising, SETH, to the setting of the Left Upper
Corner Star of the Great Square, ENOS, is 105 days.
ENOS - 905 - From the Left Upper Corner Star of the Great Square, ENOS, to
the star Regulus (thrice around) is 905 days. These again, are node stars.
The star Regulus sets as the left upper corner star of the Great Square
rises. CAINAN is born as Enos is 90. From the Left Upper Corner Star of
the Great Square setting, ENOS, to the star ProCYON setting (CAINAN =
proCYON), is 90 days.
CAINAN - 910 - From the star Procyon, CAINAN, to the star Altair in Aquila
(thricearound) is 910 days. These again, are node stars. Altair sets as
Procyon rises. MAHALALEEL is born as Cainan is 70. From the star Procyon
rising, CAINAN, to the Right Lower Corner Star of the Great Square,
MAHALALEEL, setting, is 70 days.
MAHALALEEL - 895 - From the Right Lower Corner Star of the Great Square to
Regulus is 895 days. These again are node stars. Regulus sets as the
right lower corner star of the Great Square rises. JARED is born as
Mahalaleel is 65. From the Right Lower Corner Star of the Great Square
rising to the star Mira Ceti (Mira, the Miraculous One, a variable star),
JARED, rising is 65 days.
JARED - 962 - From the star Mira Ceti rising to the star Vega in Lyra
rising is 962 days. These again, are node stars. The star Vega rises as
Mira Ceti sets. ENOCH is born as Jared is 162. From the star Mira Ceti
rising, JARED, to the Right Upper Corner Star of the Great Square rising,
ENOCH, is 162 days.
ENOCH - 365 - (This number should have alerted ALL scholars over the
centuries.).The Right Upper Corner Star of the Great Square once around to
itself is 365 days, one year.
With Enoch, the birth and death of Patriarchs assigned to the four corners
of the calendar-determinative Great Square was complete.
Hence "Enoch walked with God...and GOD took him." Genesis, 5, 23. (The
Great Square, the Stone of Heaven, known as AKMENIS in Latvian, and Greek
AKMENUO, whence A(k)MEN(is), Pharaonic AMUN etc., was seen as God's home =
also Sanskrit ATMAN, the universal soul, Pharaonic KEMENU). Methuselah is
born as Enoch is 65. From the Right Upper Corner Star of the Great Square,
ENOCH, to the star cluster Pleiades, METHUSELAH, is 65 days.
METHUSELAH - 969 - From the setting of the star cluster Pleiades to the
setting of the star Vega in Lyra (thrice around) is 969 days. These again
are node stars. The star Vega rises as the Pleiades set. Lamech is born as
Methuselah is 187. From the Pleiades rising, METHUSELAH, to Vega rising,
LAMECH, is 187 days.
LAMECH - 777 - From the rising of the star Vega to the rising of the star
Altair in Aquila is 777 days. These again are node stars. Altair sets as
Vega sets. Noah is born as Lamech is182. From the star Vega to the star
Aldebaran and the star cluster Hyades is 182 days.
NOAH - 950 - From the star Aldebaran and the Hyades to the star
beta-Scorpionis (the stinger of Scorpio) near Antares is 950 days. These
again are node stars. Beta-Scorpionis (near Antares) rising is the node
star to Aldebaran and the Hyades, setting. (These stars defined the nodes
of the ecliptic to the sphere of the celestial equator in 2340 B.C.) Shem
is born as Noah is 500. From Aldebaran and the Hyades to the star Arcturus
, twice around, is 500 days. ( < Arc-Turis = Latvian, the Holder of the
Arc of the ecliptic of Heaven, whence also King Arthur and his 12 Knights
of the ROUND table - this is also the ARK which was moved in Heaven, the
ecliptic)
I continue with the stars of Noah's Ark in the next posting.
akau...@aol.com
Hint: Print out and study at leasure.
After Noah, because of the "Great Flood" of the precession of the
equinoxes - which moved the "Ark" of "Heaven" - the old Patriarchs "passed
away" and the stars were named anew.
SHEM - 600 - From the star Arcturus, SHEM, twice around to Aldebaran and
the Hyades is 600 days. Arcturus and Aldebaran (with the Hyades) are node
stars. The star Aldebaran and the Hyades rising are the node stars to the
star Arcturus rising. The birth of Arphaxad (correct transcription is
Arvids, from Latvian *AR-VADIS "outer leading (star)" is 100 years after
the birth of Shem. From the rising of the star Arcturus, Shem (e.g.
Latvian ZEM-, Lithuanian ZHEM, meaning "at the Earth, i.e. celestial
equator") to the right upper corner star of the Great Square, ARPHAXAD,
is 100 days.
ARPHAXAD - 438 years - From the setting of the right upper (outer) corner
star of the Great Square, ARPHAXAD, twice around to rising of the star
Vega is 438 days. Vega/Lyra and the Great Square are "weakly" node stars.
(NOTE: Vega/Lyra is very high in the heavens and sets and rises over a
fairly long period of days. NOTE also why Vega is the node star for ALL of
these Patriarchs: All of the stars of the chosen people of God, i.e. the
heavenly father's folk - including the Pleiades, Aldebaran and the Hyades
and Orion set almost simultaneously as Vega rises and as the heavenly
cross of Cygnus, the Raven (today Swan) rises, which is why Vega/Lyra was
seen as the "heavenly" cemetary by the ancients. The rising of Vega and
Lyra (the "harp" of Heaven) meant the entire "folk (Latvian "TAUTAS" = TUT
= folk) of Orion " would be setting, i.e. passing away.. The birth of
Salah was 35 years after the birth of Arphaxad. From the rising of the
right upper corner star of the Great Square, Arhpaxad, to the rising of
the left lower corner star of the Great Square, SALAH, is 35 days.
SALAH - 433 years - From the setting of the left lower corner star of the
Great Square, SALAH, twice around to the rising of the star Vega is 433
days. The difference of 5 days (433 for Salah vs. 438 for Arphaxad)
between the two setting corners of the Great Square is exact. Again,
Vega/Lyra is the node star to the Great Square. The birth of Eber was 30
years after the birth of Salah. From the rising of the left lower corner
star of the Great Square, Salah, to the rising of the star cluster
Pleiades, EBER, is 30 days.
EBER - 464 years - From the rising of the star cluster Pleiades, EBER,
twice around to the setting of the star Vega is 464 days. The star Vega
rising is the node star to the Pleiades setting. The birth of Peleg was 34
years after the birth of Eber. From the rising of Pleiades to the rising
of the star Aldebaran and the Hyades, is 34 days. (NOTE: According to the
Bible, in Peleg's day, the earth was divided, for the star Aldebaran and
the Hyades, PELEG, were one node of the ecliptic with the celestial
equator and brother Joktan (Antares) viz. the tip of Scorpio
(beta-Scorpionis) was the other node of the ecliptic with the celestial
equator (2340 B.C.). From this time on, ages of the patriarchs are not
given as multiples of 365.)
PELEG - 239 years - From the setting of the star Aldebaran and the Hyades,
PELEG, to the setting of the star Vega is 239 days. The star Vega/Lyra
rising is the node star to Aldebaran and the Hyades setting. The birth of
Reu was 30 years after the birth of Peleg. From the rising of Aldebaran
and the Hyades to the stars of Orion's Belt, REU, is 30 days.
REU - 239 years - From the setting of Orion, REU, to the setting of the
star Vega is 239 days. The star Vega/Lyra rising is the node star to the
stars of Orion setting. The birth of Serug was 32 years after the birth of
Reu. From the rising of Orion, Reu, to the rising of the star Sirius,
SERUG, is 32 days.
SERUG - 230 years - From the setting of the star Sirius, SERUG, to the
setting of the star Vega is 230 days. (The difference of 9 days to Orion
is exact.) The star Vega/Lyra rising is the node star to the stars of
Orion setting. The birth of Nahor was 30 years after the birth of Serug.
From the rising of the star Sirius, Serug, to the rising of the star
Regulus, NAHOR, is 30 days.
NAHOR - 148 years - From the setting of the star Regulus, NAHOR, to the
setting of the star Vega is 148 days. The star Vega/Lyra setting is the
node star to the star Regulus rising. The birth of Terah was 29 years
after the birth of Nahor. From the rising of the star Regulus, Nahor, to
the rising of the star Denebola, TERAH, is 29 days.
TERAH - 205 years - From the rising of the star Denebola, TERAH, to the
rising of the star beta-Arietis (Aries) is 205 days. The star beta-Arietis
rising is the node star to the star Denebola setting. The birth of Abram
(Abraham) was 70 years after the birth of Terah. From the rising of the
star Denebola, Terah, to the setting of beta-Arietis, ABRAHAM, is 70
days.
ABRAHAM - 175 years - From the rising of beta-Arietis, ABRAHAM, to the
setting of the right lower corner star of the Great Square is 175 days.
Those two stars are the rising and setting node stars to Denebola, Terah,
father of Abraham. The birth of Isaac was 100 years after the birth of
Abraham. From the rising of the star beta-Arietes, Abraham, to the rising
of the star Sirius, ISAAC, is 100 days.
ISAAC - 180 years - From the rising of the star Sirius, ISAAC, to the
rising of the star Altair in Aquila is 180 days. Altair setting is the
node star to Sirius rising. The birth of Jacob was 60 years after the
birth of Isaac. From Sirius, Isaac, to the rising of the star Denebola,
noding with the right lower corner star of the Great Square is 60 days,
ISAAC, is 60 days.
JACOB - 147 years - From the setting of the star Denebola, JACOB, to the
rising of the star Denebola, Jacob, is 147 days. Denebola, the Nub, is its
own node. (Denebola is exactly half-way each way to the star Rigel
(As-Rigel = Israel).
JOSEPH - 110 years - The age of Jacob at the birth of Joseph is not
known.
And this brings us to the Old Kingdom of the Pharaohs, for it is to Egypt
that Joseph went, where he ruled the land. The Pharaohs used the same
stellar system.
akau...@aol.com
In article <32D54C...@pi.net>, Michiel Tiller <mjti...@pi.net>
writes:
>The sphinx is a sculpture of a lion. It's looking at the sun's rising
>point. 4000 years ago ,when the sun rose, it rose in the constellation
>of Pegasus, so it would have been stupid for a pharao to build a lion's
>sculpture. Instead, 10500 years ago the sun would have risen in the
>constellation af Leo, making the sphinx look at an image of itself.
Michiel,
In 2340 BC, the sun not only rose in Pegasus (this is why the human
architects of heavenly astronomy created the Great Square for
calendration) but Leo/Regulus was at the highest point in the ecliptic and
marked the Summer Solstice exactly. This is a very good reason for the
Sphinx to be where it is, built at ca. 2340 BC.
akau...@aol.com
Hint: Print out and study at leasure.
Continuation of the Reigns of the Pharaohs of the Old Kingdom.
SNOFRU rules 29 years. From Aries (beta-Arietis) to the rising of the
Pleiades is 29 days.
CHEOPS rules 63 years. From the Pleiades to the left lower corner star of
Orion is 63 days.
CHEPHREN rules 66 years. From the left lower corner star of Orion,
(kappa-Orionis = Djedefre), to Denebola is 66 days.
MYKERINOS rules 63 years. From Denebola to Vega (node to Aries setting) is
63 days.
RATOISIS rules 25 years. From Vega to the end of Lyra, noding with the tip
of Scorpio, the node of the ecliptic, is 25 days.
BICHERIS rules 22 years. From Lyra and the tip of Scorpio to Antares,
noding with Betelgeuse, the upper left corner star of Orion, is 22 days.
SEVERKERIS rules 7 years. To cross the star Betelgeuse is 7 days.
THAMPHTHIS rules 9 years. From the edge of Betelgeuse to Altair, node to
Sirius, is 9 days.(End of the 4th Dynasty.)
USERKAF rules 28 years. Altair to the right upper corner star of the Great
Square is 28 days.
SAHURE rules 13 years. From the upper right corner star of the Great
Square to the noding corner stars of the Great Square is 13 days. (Latvian
Shaur- = narrows, diagonal).
NEFERERKERE rules 20 years. From the noded corners of the Great Square to
the left lower corner star of the Great Square is 20 days.
SEPSESKERE rules 7 years.The left lower corner star of the Great Square to
Aries is 7 days.
CHERIS rules 20 years. From Aries to the Pleiades is 20 days. (Again
CHAIRES, the cut).
NIUSERRE rules 44 years. From the Pleiades to the staff of Orion is 44
days.
MENKERIS rules 9 years. The staff of Orion to the right upper corner star
of Orion is 9 days.
TANKERIS rules 44 years. From the right upper corner star of Orion to
Sirius is 44 days.
UNAS rules 33 years. From Sirius to Regulus is 33 days. (End of the 5th
Dynasty.)
TETI rules 30 years. From Regulus to the right lower corner of the Great
Square is 30 days.This marked the Summer Solstice.
PEPI I or MERIRE ("The 1st measurement", Latvian MER- = "to measure")
rules 53 years. From the right lower corner of the Great Square to Vega
noding with Aries is 53 days. It was the start of the astronomical year
although the Vernal Equinox actually fell at the Pleiades. (See here
generally, Werner Papke, Die Sterne von Babylon).
MERENRE ("The 2nd measurement", or METHOSOPHIS) rules 7 years. From Vega
andAries setting to alpha-Librae rising is 7 days. Alpha-Librae marked the
actual AutumnEquinox circa 2340 B.C. (See here generally, Werner Papke,
Die Sterne von Babylon).
PEPI II rules 94 (!) years according to Africanus and 100 according to
Eratosthenes. These numbers have always troubled Egyptologists, for good
reason, since they can hardly apply to human rule. Here is the
explanation. From Alpha-Librae to the noding corner stars of the Great
Square is 94 days. This marked the Winter Solstice.
MERENRE or MENTESOPHIS rules 1 year. This is the intercalation for the
"leap year" in the "small" Sothic Year since the 6 Dynasties of Stars of
the Old Kingdom = 1460 days, with intercalation. (The transcription of
this hieroglyph actually reads RATA MER-IENS BIJA MAINU ZOBS = in Latvian,
"The Measurement of the Sun was the reason for the intercalation", viz.
"change".)
NITOKRIS rules 12 years. From the noded corner stars of the Great Square
to the lower left corner of the Great Square is 12 days. So, we are back
where we started with Adam. That ends the 6th and last Dynasty of the Old
Kingdom of the Pharaohs - religion and calendration by the stars.
akau...@aol.com
Hint: Print out and study at leasure.
The Dynasties of the Old Kingdom of Pharaonic Egypt equal 1460 viz. 1461
DAYS, the "small" Sothic Year (using an intercalation of 37 viz. 38 days
between Dynasties 1 and 2 for Manetho's sum of 1497 days and an
intercalation of 20 days for his sum of 1480 - these intercalations
account for precession and Manethod writing 322 BC).
Amazing is what this results to in the SIXTH Dynasty. This was completely
unexpected.
The reigns below are given according to Manetho/Africanus. Eusebius and
Eratosthenes at times used different stars and I callibrate all three
systems in my book, Kings and Dynasties - showing how they all refer to
the same stellar system.
I use the ancient sources as is in the original, eliminating the "gaps"
erroneously inserted by the scholars and Egyptologists. Indeed, they have
even gone so far as to shift Eratostehenes' order of kings around in order
to place them in the FALSE dynasty. Actually, Eratosthenes figures are
entirely accurate.
MENES rules 62 years. From the Left Upper Corner Star of the Great Square
to the Pleiades is 62 days. (Accuracy exactly to a day is difficult -
Eusebius , for example, writes 60, and expressly states "ALL is Astronomy"
- a statement thereafter ignored by ALL.)
ATHOTHIS rules 57 years. The Pleiades to the Belt of Orion is 57 days.
KENKENIS (CANIS MAJOR) rules 31 years. (KEN is doubled by the Greeks to
distinguish CAN-IS MAJOR from CAN-IS MINOR). Orion to Sirius (the Dog
Star) is 31 days.
OGENEPHIS rules 23 years. Sirius to Regulus is 23 days.
OGSAPHAIDOS (SPHI(n)X) rules 20 years. Regulus (Sphinx = Leo) to Denebola
is 20 days.
NIEBAIS (the NUB of HEAVEN) rules 26 years. Denebola to the left corner
noded star of the Great Square SETTING (across the horizon) is 26 days.
SEMEMPSIS rules 18 years. The Left Lower Corner Star of the Great Square
setting to the Left Upper Corner Star of the Great Square setting is 18
days.
BINECHIS rules 26 years. The Left Upper Corner Star of the Great Square
setting to Vegarising is 26 days. (End of the First Dynasty with an
intercalation of 38 days.).
BOETHOS (this stellar constellation is still called BOOETES even today)
rules 38 years. From Bootes to Vega and Hercules is 38 days.
KAIECHOS (the organ of Hercules) rules 39 years. From Hercules to Antares
is 39 days.
BINOTHRIS rules 47 years. From Antares to the noding diagonal stars of the
Great Square is 47 days, whence the Greek rendition BI-NOTHRIS.
TLAS rules 19 years From the noding corners of the Great Square to the
Left Lower Corner Star of the Great Square is 19 days.
SETHENIS rules 41 years (Latvian SIETINS = Pleiades). From the Left Lower
Corner Star of the Great Square to the Pleiades and the star alpha-Tauri,
which formed the Vernal Equinox noding with alpha-Librae circa 2340 B.C.,
is 41 days.
CHAIRES rules 17 years. From the Pleiades to Aldebaran, the "cut"
(CHAIRES) of the ecliptic together with the tip of Scorpio,
beta-Scorpionis, in 2340 B.C., is 17 days.
NEFERKERIS rules 25 years. From Aldebaran to the first right upper corner
star of Orion is 25 days.
NEFERKER-SOKAR rules 48 years. From the right upper corner star of Orion
to Sirius is 48 days.
HUZEFA rules 30 years. From Sirius to Regulus is 30 days. (End of the 2nd
Dynasty.)
PEPI rules 28 years. From Regulus rising to Denebola is 28 days.
NEBKA rules 29 years. From Denebola rising to Arcturus is 29 days.
DJOSER rules 7 years. To cross Arcturus noding with the left upper corner
star of the GreatSquare is 7 days.
MESOCHRIS rules 17 years. From Arcturus to Vega rising is 17 days.
SOPHIS rules 16 years. From Vega rising to the middle of Lyra (the star
beta) is 16 days.
TOSERTASIS rules 19 years. From the middle of Lyra to beta-Scorpionis is
19 days.
ACHIS rules 42 years. From beta-Scorpionis to the end of Aquila (Sirius
node) is 42 days.
SEZES rules 30 years. From Aquila to the noding corner stars of the Great
Square is 30 days.
NEFERKERES rules 26 years. From the noding corner stars of the Great
Square to Aries is 26 days.
Thereafter, HUNIS is written in hieroglyphs as SEJ-TUR-NILS, i.e.
SATURNALIA) and has no period of rule. (End of the 3rd Dynasty.)
The Pharaohs of the Old Kingdom continue at the 4th dynasty in the next
posting.
akau...@aol.com
In article <19970108153...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
ariw...@aol.com (AriWyler) writes:
>>The fact is that the Egyptologists have taken the ancient dates for the
>>reigns of kings found in Manetho, the Turin Canon, etc. and have
accepted
>>them as "literally true", much as those who believe in the literality of
>>the Bible and who continue to argue that Adam lived 930 years,
Methuselah
>>lived 969 years, etc.
>
>You have already received a response about this from Professor Yurco,
>which was a more than adequate explanation. What has Methuselah got to
do
>with the Old Kingdom?
Ari,
1) They ARE related in that BOTH the Pharaohs and the Biblical Chronology
use the same method of stellar calendration.
2) Frank Yurco suggests off-the-cuff that the ages of the Biblical
Patriarchs are merely "months". This explanation regarding the Biblical
"ages" of the Patriarchs is FAR less than adequate.
Applying the "monthly" theory to the data:
From Abraham to Noah
77, 76, 75, 76, 75, 80, 30 (Enoch), 81, 65 (Lamech), 81
From Shem to Joseph
50, 37, 36, 39, 20, 20, 19, 12, 17, 15, 15, 12, 9
Do I really need to comment on why this is impossible?
Moreover, if you take the "ages" of the Patriarchs at the BIRTH of their
"sons" and apply the "monthly" theory, the results are
11, 9, 7, 6, 5, 13, 5, 16, 15, 42, 8, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 2, 6, 8, 5.
Babies as fathers? The whole monthly system is a case of wishful thinking.
Indeed, if the monthly system worked, the dispute about the ages of the
Patriarchs would have ceased long ago. But the monthly system does NOT
work.
So, what are the alternatives?
Now, ancient calendration, time-keeping and hence "chronology" have to do
with "astronomy" - and so, if we want to get the "correct" explanation, we
are advised to look there.
In the course of 30 years of research, I examined all of the possible
variations of calendration and found one which indeed DOES fit the
Biblical and Pharaonic data.
It uses the stars for calendration - reminiscent of ancient Hindu
night-stations.
Indeed, for the ancient Hebrews and Babylonians, a "day" began at sundown.
The Biblical "ages" (lives) are "STELLAR days" (= STAR DAYS)
as the figure of 365 for Enoch should have suggested to all long ago.
They define the "heavenly realms" after death - not during life.
The "reigns" of the Pharaohs of the Old Kingdom - who followed them - used
the SAME system - which is evidence of a clear genetic link.
These are consecutive "star days" and reflect a "heavenly realm" of the
heliacal rising and setting of stars, in the same manner evidenced on the
Babylonian MUL.APIN cuneiform tablets. You start at ONE star (that is the
trick, to find the right star) and the rest follows consecutively and
automatically.
Or to put it simply, the "lengths" of reign given by Manetho or the Turin
Canon for the Pharaohs of the Old Kingdom apply to the "Egypt above"
(heaven) and not to the "Egypt below". As for the Bible, the forefathers
also "rose" into heaven as it were, even before Christ.
These numbers explain ALL the data "perfectly" WITHOUT mangling the
evidence.
In my following postings, I show this system for all concerned here on
sci.archaeology as a basis for discussion.
Ben C Davis
akau...@aol.com wrote in article <19970105043...@ladder01.news.aol.com>...
> 5. Mentuhotep I, II and II are probably all ONE person (no tombs for II
> and III have ever been found) and this may be David, so that here there is
> some error in either biblical or Egyptian chronology - since here David
> comes before Saul, whereas the Bible has it the reverse. The return of
> AMEN- to the name (transcribed by the Egyptologists as Mentu) is
> equivalent to the later Hebrew hameschiach - messias, the annointed one.
> Hotep = David.
>
> In any case, there is a strange similarity of the Pharaonic and Biblical
> evidence, as if the "sons" of the biblical Joseph had remained in Egypt-
> and as if the Bible tells us in Hebrew what is written on the Pharaonic
> hieroglyphs. This may be possible.
> After all, the Hebrew exodus WAS out of Egypt.
> Particularly point 9 above is "interesting".
>
> - Andis Kaulins
>
From 250 BCE to 69 CE the Jerusalem area was in decline and not much
if any writting going on. The Dead Sea Scrolls were from Jerusalem and
the dates were maybe 200 BCE to 69 CE. Some time between 260 and
247 BCE, Ptolomy II has the Septuagint written in Greek or Coptic in
Alexandria. There are some who say the Coptic writings were copys of
the Greek but the Coptic always seem to be older then the Greek finds.
The New Testament was written in Egypt and in Coptic with some Greek.
Hebrew words are not used in it (NT) until maybe 300 CE.
The Jewish oracular literature was composed in Egypt, in Greek and about
250 BCE. And what is interesting, is the find of Aramaic papyrus fragments
from the 5th cent. BCE in Elephantine,Egypt but Not in the Jerusalem area.
Hmmm, did not David mean General?
Ben 8)
I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated His ability.
_Oscar Wilde
frank murray
On 11 Jan 1997 22:53:43 GMT, akau...@aol.com wrote:
>
>METHUSELAH - 969 - From the setting of the star cluster Pleiades to the
>setting of the star Vega in Lyra (thrice around) is 969 days. These again
>are node stars. The star Vega rises as the Pleiades set. Lamech is born as
>Methuselah is 187. From the Pleiades rising, METHUSELAH, to Vega rising,
>LAMECH, is 187 days.
andis,
is there a problem here??...
from setting to setting = 969 days
euivalent to 969 - (2*365) = 239 days
thus from setting to setting = 239 days
yet, from rising to rising = 187 days
why don't these figures match??...a function of difference in length
of day??...if so, have you the raw figures and formulas available for
the latitude at which you calculated??...
frank
AccessGuru
Michael Alvard, Ph.D. Wrote:
>I am writing a paper on the costs and benefits of animal domestication.
I
>am looking for estimates of body mass for the earliest protodomesticates
-
>cattle, sheep, pigs, goat and camel. I have found a number of papers that
>discuss how body size decreased with domestication (Tchernov,
>Grigson....) but no actual estimates of body mass. If anybody could
point
>me in the right direction, I would appreciate it.
I am certainly no expert in Animal Domestication but I remember an
interesting book which might give you some references that you could
follow down. "Prehistoric Textiles" by EJW Barber examines early
domestication of sheep. I did not see the exact answer to your question
but she cites a number of sources dealing with prehistoric sheep
domestication. She also compares the bones of sheep from ancient times
with those of modern species which may give you so clues. Sorry I can't
be more help.
Best wishes,
J. Barry O'Connell Jr.
Acces...@AOL.com
Washington D.C. Area
Consultant to Goverment and Business
All activity from this address is purely
personal and not on behalf of anyone else.
akau...@aol.com
>Those mummies were happily found in two
>caches and one nearly-unviolated tomb. The reason for their preservation
>was this: If you stashed your valuables in a safe-deposit box or just
left
>them lying around the house or in the garage where thieves could probably
>gain access, which scenario would give you a better chance of seeing your
>valuables in a few years?
OK, no mummies outside the New Kingdom. The priests collected them WAY
BACK WHEN in these depots before all of the evidence of the Old Kingdom
had ostensibly disappeared. Why then AT THIS TIME did they not also
collect the other allegedly existing king's mummies in Egypt - which
supposedly existed then? We know the scribes kept accurate records of
tombs and when they were last checked and so on. Why would they ignore
their "oldest" forefathers?
I submit as one theory that the pyramids are cenotaphs at best - this at
least is alleged in Ptolemaic sources (I refer here Glyn Daniel,
Eznyklopaedie der Archaeologie, Gustav Luebbe Verlag, 1996) where under
"Kenotaph" you can read that there are Ptolemaic texts stating that the
souls of those "buried" at Memphis "gathered" in Thebes.
I interpret this to mean that the formal opening-of-mouth ceremony burial
ceremony was done at the pyramids
but that the body was put into a shaft-tomb at Thebes (recall, IMO the
pyramid-builders ARE the shaft-tomb culture, which came from Mesopotamia,
crossed Israel and arrived in Egypt - and you also find shaft tombs at
Mycenae and Crete - all the same original people - of course, IMO).
akau...@aol.com
In article <E3pDt...@midway.uchicago.edu>, fjy...@midway.uchicago.edu
(Frank Joseph Yurco) writes:
>Subject: Re: The Tiles of Ramses III: Another Answer
>From: fjy...@midway.uchicago.edu (Frank Joseph Yurco)
>Date: Wed, 8 Jan 1997 18:53:27 GMT
>
>It is absolutely untrue that no royal mummies surviv from the Old
Kingdom.
>The Cairo Museum has a mummy recovered from Merenre's Pyramid that
>certainly is that of the king himself. Fragments of other royal mummies
>have been found as well, including an arm of a First Dynasty mummy,
Petrie
>found in a royal tomb at Abydos, and fragments of King Djoser's body
>found inside the Step Pyramid. This is in addition to the royal and
>private mummies already cited, by others.
>
>Get a copy of Lauer's Saqqara, and read and learn the facts!
Dear Frank,
We are talking about a THOUSAND years time (according to current
chronology) and you cite here two highly disputable finds, among them an
arm from Abydos identified as Djoser's because of a "jewel" on it. As you
know, Abydos was initially regarded as a relatively primitive cemetary of
the nobility, although Dreyer has been arguing in recent times that kings
were buried here - which I regard to be highly doubtful. I presume the
jewel was a gift of a king to one of his nobles or a last remebrance by a
king to the deceased. This seems to be the case for vases etc. found at
Abydos. Djoser in a primitive tomb at Abydos? - do you find this
believable?
The only other jeweled arm of this nature that I find in my sources is one
found in the side-wall of the Djer- tomb which is assigned to Djer's wife
Merneith in Clayton's Chronicle of the Pharaohs. People presume this
"arm-band" belonged to a queen because the tomb of Merneith is in the area
- not very compelling. In any case, I am not against finds assignable to
"Djoser" in principle - I just do not think that their dating will
correspond to the current dating of the Old Kingdom.
What is the date put on the alleged Djoser's arm by modern methods?
The second item is a mummy alleged to be Merenre. How old in terms of the
age of the deceased person? Must be very youthful - why do I say that? See
below.
In Egyptology, many things apparently happen that happen nowhere else.
According to current chronology, Merenre was the half-brother of Pepi II
(Neferkare). The Egyptologists allege that their father Pepi I had TWO
wives who were SISTERS and had the SAME IDENTICAL NAME (i.e. same
hieroglyph - was this a very stupid father?), namely, Anchnesmerire, and
each of these two like-named sisters gave birth "separately" to Merenre
and Pepi II.
Is this two-sisters model an "invention" of the Egyptologits to clear away
the severe chronological and other problems which otherwise exist here?
As you know, according to current chronolgy,
Merenre ruled 5 years BEFORE Pepi II took the throne
(according to Manetho 7 years for Merenre I and 1 year for Merenre II -
modern Egyptologists have thrown Merenre II out, not understanding
Manetho's lists at all).
Then, after Merenre's death, Pepi rules 94 years according to Manetho and
100 years according to Eratosthenes. The "fudge" the Egyptologists have
been using recently, i.e. to allege that 94 is an erroneous hieratic
writing for 64, just is not going to work because you have forgotten
about Eratosthenes - same error, different place?
Did Eratosthenes confuse 100 with 10?
In any case, Merenre can't be very old can he? How old is the mummy?
Not only do Merenre and Pepi II allegedly have identically named sisters
as mothers through the same father - but Pepi II married Neith, the
daughter of his father, i.e. his own sister - and then, to top it all off,
he allegedly married Ipwet - the daughter of his brother Merenre. If we
gratuiotously presume that Merenre conceived his daughter at age 20 so
that she married Pepi II when she was 20 and he was 40 - since Merenre and
Pepi II must have been of like age - then Pepi II lived to be about 140
years old.
(There is indeed the further question of whether Ipwet is the same as Iput
- the wife of Teti, Pepi II's grandfather and mother of his father!)
This chronology looks ... ah... strange to me.
And now the mummy of Pepi II's brother has allegedly been found.
I think the people on sci.archaeology would be interested in some of the
details concerning this find. What are the details?
akau...@aol.com
In article <32d86c3...@netnews.worldnet.att.net>, fmu...@pobox.com
(frank murray) writes:
>Subject: Re: The Tiles of Ramses III: Another Answer
>From: fmu...@pobox.com (frank murray)
>Date:Sun, 12 Jan 1997 04:54:14 GMT
Frank,
First of all, the fact that not all rising and setting stars have the same
time-distance between them is a function of how high they are in the
heavens. It is sort of like a turntable, where the outer edge has to cover
more "distance" than the inner regions, which have less and less distance
to cover, the more you head toward the center.
The differences between RISING node stars is nevertheless not that great
since you calculate from the FIRST heliacal appearance of the stars in
question. Here your numbers move in the area of 180 days, 187 days, 190
days, 200 days, etc. depending on the relative height of the stars in the
heavens respective to the pole star.
For purposes of the calculations, when you talk about SETTING stars,
especially in the case of Vega and Lyra, which are very "high" in the
heavens" and take a good deal of time before they "set" - then the point
of reference for Vega is not the first "touching" of of the first star of
Lyra - but rather the setting of the entire constellation - and this takes
many days. So, if you start at the Pleaides RISING and go to Vega rising -
the ancients used the cut-off point of the first heliacal appearance of
Vega, i.e. about 187 days. If you start at the Pleaides setting and then
go to VEGA and Lyra setting - you have to cross the entire broad
constellation of Vega before it SETS - and this takes the added time.
You really have to get a starfinder like Whitney's (the Book is called
Whitney's Starfinder, by Charles Whitney) to check this and most college
bookstores have it or something similar. The starfinder is a circular disk
on the white surface of which the constellations are printed in dark ink.
Above this is a second "turnable" circular disk - transparent - which has
a dark-inked kidney-shaped section on it. When you turn this, you can see
which stars in the heavens are visible at any given time and which stars
are setting or rising at any given time. If you mark an arrow in ink at
the outer edge (anywhere) - where this outer edge is callibrated for 365
days, as in the case of Whitney's starfinder, then, e.g. you place the
"rising" star at the transparent kidney's "rising" edge and turn the
transparent disk until you get the rising "node" star - the number of days
for this to occur is then the distance traveled by your outer arrow, e.g.
from Feb. 19 to November 5, or what have you. The precise monthly date is
not at all important but only the relation between the two events in days
counts. This is pretty much the same in America or in Europe or in the
ancient Near East. There are small differences based on latitude, but not
relevant here. The Babylonians were content to be from plus-5 to minus-5
days accurate. The Biblical and Pharaonic figures are in fact more
accurate.
I urge you to get a starfinder to see the ancient system at work.
- Andis Kaulins (J.D. Stanford Unversity, 1971)
frank murray
On 13 Jan 1997 01:49:00 GMT, akau...@aol.com wrote:
>In article <32d86c3...@netnews.worldnet.att.net>, fmu...@pobox.com
>(frank murray) writes:
>>On 11 Jan 1997 22:53:43 GMT, akau...@aol.com wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>METHUSELAH - 969 - From the setting of the star cluster Pleiades to the
>>>setting of the star Vega in Lyra (thrice around) is 969 days. These
>again
>>>are node stars. The star Vega rises as the Pleiades set. Lamech is born
>as
>>>Methuselah is 187. From the Pleiades rising, METHUSELAH, to Vega
>rising,
>>>LAMECH, is 187 days.
>>
>>andis,
>>
>>is there a problem here??...
>>
>>from setting to setting = 969 days
>>euivalent to 969 - (2*365) = 239 days
>>thus from setting to setting = 239 days
>>
>>yet, from rising to rising = 187 days
>>
>>why don't these figures match??...a function of difference in length
>>of day??...if so, have you the raw figures and formulas available for
>>the latitude at which you calculated??...
>>
>>
>Frank,
>First of all, the fact that not all rising and setting stars have the same
>time-distance between them is a function of how high they are in the
>heavens. It is sort of like a turntable, where the outer edge has to cover
>more "distance" than the inner regions, which have less and less distance
>to cover, the more you head toward the center.
understood...but declination can be considered as static within
limited time periods...thus:
the dec for the pleiades (M45) is +24 at both rising and setting...
and the dec for vega is + 39 at both rising and setting...
hence the turntable analogy cannot account for the variance...
>
>The differences between RISING node stars is nevertheless not that great
>since you calculate from the FIRST heliacal appearance of the stars in
>question. Here your numbers move in the area of 180 days, 187 days, 190
>days, 200 days, etc. depending on the relative height of the stars in the
>heavens respective to the pole star.
but the variance between 239 days and 187 days is 52 days...further,
that is a variance in one direction...as a comparable acceptance of an
equivalent variance in the opposite direction, which seems in no way
yet precluded, must be also allowed, we have a total possible variance
of 104 days...a bit over 28% of a year...or considered as the angle
subtended by 28% of the solar sphere, about 101 degrees (or 6 hours 43
minutes of right ascension) about the distance from the beginning of
aries to the beginning of cancer...in short, a huge distance...
>
>For purposes of the calculations, when you talk about SETTING stars,
>especially in the case of Vega and Lyra, which are very "high" in the
>heavens" and take a good deal of time before they "set" - then the point
>of reference for Vega is not the first "touching" of of the first star of
>Lyra - but rather the setting of the entire constellation - and this takes
>many days. So, if you start at the Pleaides RISING and go to Vega rising -
>the ancients used the cut-off point of the first heliacal appearance of
>Vega, i.e. about 187 days. If you start at the Pleaides setting and then
>go to VEGA and Lyra setting - you have to cross the entire broad
>constellation of Vega before it SETS - and this takes the added time
seems to be some confusion here...vega is a star, not a constellation,
as such it can be considered as a point without dimension on the
celestial sphere...lyra is a constellation, but a small one subtending
an arc of only about 7.5 degrees ( 30 minutes of right ascension) and
could thus account for a variance of about 8 days...
but there are several other areas in which i have problems and
questions:
1. PRECISION: although the term "perfect" may be adequate for the
verbal description of a fit, i'd prefer to understand what level of
precision that term describes...within what tolerances do you claim
that your matching of days to angular distances (r.a. only) are
accurate??...
2. PRECESSION: because the distance in days between the visibility of
particular stars or constellations depends upon the season of the year
at which those stars or constellations occupy the night sky, and
because those seasons precess, your figures could only be accurate (to
any reasonable tolerance) within limited historical periods...further,
they would have a "peak" moment of accuracy...have you calculated the
specific date at which this "peak" accuracy occurred??...
3. LATITUDE: just as the precession of the equinoxes would indicate a
specific historical "peak" of accuracy, (as dependent upon r.a.)
latitude would determine the "peak" accuracy (as dependent upon
declination - it is here that your phonograph analogy makes
sense)...at what latitude do your figures hit "peak" accuracy??...
.
>
>You really have to get a starfinder like Whitney's (the Book is called
>Whitney's Starfinder, by Charles Whitney) to check this and most college
>bookstores have it or something similar.
i use a tiny miller's planoshere for 30 degree latitude, when
traveling in such areas, but generally prefer the larger two sided
ones by david chandler...
frank
Frank Joseph Yurco
Dear Andre,
Not only is the mummy of Merenre in the Cairo Museum and indeed it has
been there since the pyramid was explored late in the last century,
but it is known that Merenre had a shortish reign. Pepy II was his
younger brother, and there are statues depicting him as a young child
but already king, cf. the Brooklyn Museum piece, with the young king
on his mother's lap. That royals married their own sisters and half
sisters is not unusual, as leaving such females unattached may have
invited others to marry them and challenge the king for the throne.
Regarding Pepy II, he well may have reigned 94 years. There are a number
of governors of Aswan who are within his reign, suggesting it was a long
one. Also, no son succeeded him, but a confusing array of short lived
grandchildren, perhaps, and finally Queen Neith-ikeret who ends the
dynasty. Further, there are a couple of very interesting fragmentary
texts about Pepy II that became popular literature. These suggest that
Pepy II also was homosexual, and went on nightly visits to the house
of one of his genreals, for trysts until daybreak, when he would return
to the Palace. The same series of stories, contains another unflattering
image of Pepy II. A complainant, like the famed Eloquent Peasant was
appealing to Pepy II. The king though refused to hear him out, and
instead ordered his musicians to play louder and drown out his pleas.
Now such stories are usually that a particular king had an unsavory
reputation, and such could be the case with Pepy II. Of course, you
have to be cautious. Since his long reign led to the collapse if Dynasty
VI, and the rise of the very weak Dynasty VIII, that after some twenty
years collapsed and ended the Old Kingdom, the Egyptians might have
tried to pin the blame for the collapse on one of the last kings.
Pepy II might simply have outlived all his able children, but it is
not impossible that he developed deviant behavior. What is suspicious,
is that this very homosexual behavior was damning in Egyptian culture.
As the Contendings of Seth and Horus indicates, Seth tried to entice
Horus into a homosexual act, to thereby discredit him from claiming
the monarchy. Also, Ptahhotep roundly condemns homosexual behavior in
one of his maxims. The sum of Egyptian evidence was that it precluded
a prospective appointment from office. So, laying such a charge against
Pepy II was tantamount to claiming that he was unfit to have held the
kingship.
frank murray
>
>Now such stories are usually that a particular king had an unsavory
>reputation, and such could be the case with Pepy II. Of course, you
>have to be cautious. Since his long reign led to the collapse if Dynasty
>VI, and the rise of the very weak Dynasty VIII, that after some twenty
>years collapsed and ended the Old Kingdom,
hmmm...you place dynasties VII and VIII as within the old kingdom
rather than within the first intermediate...why so??...
>................................................................. What is suspicious,
>is that this very homosexual behavior was damning in Egyptian culture.
>As the Contendings of Seth and Horus indicates, Seth tried to entice
>Horus into a homosexual act, to thereby discredit him from claiming
>the monarchy. Also, Ptahhotep roundly condemns homosexual behavior in
>one of his maxims. The sum of Egyptian evidence was that it precluded
>a prospective appointment from office.
are there not also hints of homosexuality in the XVIII...according to
aldred, amenhotep III was depicted in a sculpture "in his old age
wearing a type of gown usually worn by women"...as british comedic
traditions had not yet formed, what other explanations for this
portrayal of cross dressing are available??...
frank
akau...@aol.com
In article <32da9cc8...@netnews.worldnet.att.net>, fmu...@pobox.com
(frank murray) writes:
...within what tolerances do you claim
>that your matching of days to angular distances (r.a. only) are
>accurate??...
RE: Precision - Manetho, Eusebius and Eratosthenes
One of the reasons that I am sure that my stellar system of heliacal
risings and settings is correct is that I matched the number data of
Manetho with that of Eusebius (who specifically stated "ALL is astronomy")
and Eratosthenes (who appended Greek explanations, many celestial in
nature).
Eratosthenes:
I found, to my own great surprise, that Eratosthenes had given us only the
1st, 2nd and 6th dynasties and I will save this, the best - for last.
Eusebius:
Eusebius data is incomplete but scholars should have realized long ago
that the tremendous differences in the data between him and Manetho
(always 2nd hand through Julius Africanus - since Manetho's original was
lost ) could not just be normal error in passing on the length of reign of
"human" rulers (why so close and yet so far?). What the differences do
show are variations in the "star sightings" and, indeed, in fact as to the
stars used for the sightings.
FIRST DYNASTY of PHARAOHS
MENES - 62 acc. to Africanus, 60 acc. to Eusebius, 62 acc. to Eratosthenes
- and in all cases applying to the left upper corner star of the Great
Square to the Pleiades so we see here a two-day difference in sighting
ATHOTHIS - 57 acc. to Africanus, 27 (!) acc. to Eusebius, 59 acc. to
Eratosthenes, again showing a two-day sighting difference between
Africanus and Eratosthenes. Approx. 57-59 days is the distance between the
Pleiades and rising of Orion's Belt.
But what about Eusbius - only 27? - well, it took me several years to find
the problem - but when I found it - it was the essential clue to the Kings
and Dynasties of the Pharaohs. Approx. 27 days is distance from the
Pleiades to the Hyades. Aha - Eusebius occasionally used different stars.
Then it all fell into place - because, later, the sources come into
confluence again. Indeed, the differences helped locate the correct stars.
Inbetween, Eusebius also has another "king" Athotis reigning 39.
Obviously, since he is now measuring from the Hyades, this must be another
star. It turns out to be the left corner star of Orion.
Kenkenis - Here Africanus has 31 and Eratosthenes 32 (this is Orion's Belt
to Sirius) but Eusebius - at another star - has 42, which is the distance
from the left lower corner star of Orion to Regulus.
Ogenephis - Africanus, 23 and Eratosthenes, 19 - Sirius to Regulus.
With that all three ancients are at Regulus (OGSAPHAIDOS = SPHINX i.e.
ogSaPHAIDoS) with totals up to that point of 173 (Africanus), 167
(Eusebius) and 172 (Eratosthenes) - so I think this gives us some idea of
the degree of accuracy involved.
Ogsaphaidos - Africanus 20, Eusebius 20, Eratosthenes 18. This is the
distance from Regulus to Denebola. For Eratosthenes, that is all for this
dynasty.
Africanus and Eusebius then agree for MIEBIS, SEMEMPSIS and BINECHIS both
giving the same respective number 26, 18, and 26.
SECOND DYNASTY of PHARAOHS
Africanus starts out with 38 for Boethos but Eratosthenes has 79 (!).
Again the differences in the 2nd Dynasty related to the use of diferent
stars.
(Here Eusebius has nothing except a very late 48 for Neferker-Sokar, 48
also by Africanus.)
BOETHOS - Africanus writes 38 and Eratosthenes writes 79.
KAIECHOS - Africanus writes 39.
38- Boethos is Booetes to Vega and the male organ of Hercules - which is
why the Kaiechos hieroglpyh has three male organs
39 - Kaiechos is Arcturus to Antares
Eratosthenes has just added them together (2-day variance) and even WRITES
in his Greek commentary "Tis Andros Perissomelis" where Andros of course
is Antares.
The distance between Antares and the left lower corner of the Great Square
is divided by Africanus into 47 and 19 - i.e. from Antares to the noded
corners of the Great Square and from there to the left lower corner of the
Great Square, wheras Eratosthenes gives 6, 30 and 26 which is Antares to
Aquila, Aquila to the upper right corner of the Great Square and from
thence to the lower left corner of the Great Square or a sighting
deviation of 66 to 62 or 4 days.
Africanus then gives the distance between the left lower corner of the
Great Square and the Pleiades as 41 whereas Eratosthenes divides the
period up into 20 and 18 days, going first to Aries. From the Pleiades to
Aldebaran viz. the Hyades, Africanus has 17 days and Eratosthenes 22, with
the following distance from Aldebaran to the edge of Orion as 25 days
whereas Eratosthenes divides this distance up again into 13 and 10 days,
going first to the staff of Orion. That ends the 2nd Dynasty for
Eratosthenes.
Africanus adds 48 for Orion to Sirius (here Eusebius also has his only
entry for the 2nd Dynasty, also 48) and Africanus closes with 28 days -
Sirius to Regulus.
Since the scholars have not understood the data of Eratosthenes, they
finally threw up their hands in despair - failing to match the data - and
SHIFTED the kings which Eratosthenes listed in the order from 13 to 17
into the order 15, 16, 17, 13, and 14 to at least get some vague
similarity of his names of kings with those of the 4th Dynasty, i.e. the
builders of the Great Pyramids. It was of course unthinkable that none of
Eratosthenes kings of the Old Kindgom applied to the alleged
pyramid-builders, but it is so, and Eratosthenes in fact gave us the kings
in the RIGHT order from 13 to 17. The problem is, these kings apply to the
6th Dynasty !
SIXTH DYNASTY - SOLSTICES AND EQUINOXES
Eratosthenes data are 29 (from Orion), 27 (from Sirius), 31 (from
Regulus), 33 (from Denebola, and 35 from Arcturus.
Africanus starts at Regulus (the Summer Solstice) to Denebola (30 days)
then taking "the first measurement" (Merire) takes the opposing node star,
the right lower corner of the Great Square and goes to Vega noding with
Aries (53 days).
This was MERIRE (Pepi I) Greek = Methosophis because it was the start of
the astronomical year, using the system of the Babylonians - who started
their year at 1 Nissan (Aries), although the actual Vernal Equinox fell on
the 15th of Nissan (i.e. the Pleiades).
From there, Africanus goes from Vega rising and Aries setting to the star
Alpha-Librae rising, which was the Actual Autumnal Equinox (Mentesophis) -
which is 7 days (Africanus). That is why this is called Merenre I (the
first measurement).
Africanus then continued from Alpha-Librae to the noding corner stars of
the Great Square (Winter Solstice), which is 94 days (Pepi II).
Eratosthenes in turn gives us the number 100 so that he has simply added
the 7 and 94.
The following number of a 1 year rule (Merenre II) is then given by both
Africanus and Eratosthenes and is the "leap year" intercalation for the
difference between the tropical and solar year. In fact, this hieroglpyh
reads by nearly "full" value of each sign as RAta MER-IENs BIJA MAINU
ZO-BS which means "The measurement of the Sun was the "tooth", i.e.
"reason" for the "change" (i.e. intercalation). Just ask anyone who speaks
Latvian what that phrase means if you do not believe me.
Africanus gives 12 days for Nitokris because he measures from the noded
corner stars of the Great Square to the left lower corner star of the
Great Square whereas Eratosthenes gives 6 days because he measures to
Arcturus, the holder of the arc or ecliptic of heaven.
- Andis Kaulins (J.D. Stanford University, 1971)
Marc Line
On Mon, 13 Jan 1997, at 19:51:56, frank murray cajoled electrons into
this
>On Mon, 13 Jan 1997 18:50:32 GMT, fjy...@midway.uchicago.edu (Frank
>Joseph Yurco) wrote:
>
>>
>>Now such stories are usually that a particular king had an unsavory
>>reputation, and such could be the case with Pepy II. Of course, you
>>have to be cautious. Since his long reign led to the collapse if Dynasty
>>VI, and the rise of the very weak Dynasty VIII, that after some twenty
>>years collapsed and ended the Old Kingdom,
>
>hmmm...you place dynasties VII and VIII as within the old kingdom
>rather than within the first intermediate...why so??...
Hello frank
I wonder if the VIII is the result of Frank's over-enthusiastic
keyboard? If the VIII were to be taken as VII, then the attribution to
the Old Kingdom (although unconventional) would be arguably appropriate
given that Manetho states that dyn. VII consists of 70 kings of Memphis
who reigned for 70 days, a dynasty which, according to Gardiner,
"appears to be wholly spurious."
But then, Gardiner says, "[Thus] the chances are that all the reigns
corresponding to Manteho's Dyns. VII and VIII were compressed into a
relatively short space of time, perhaps no more than a quarter of a
century."
Could be completely wrong, probably am.
As to the homosexual stuff (snipped), I'm not going to go there!! :)
Regards
Marc
akau...@aol.com
In article <32da9cc8...@netnews.worldnet.att.net>, fmu...@pobox.com
(frank murray) writes:
>seems to be some confusion here...vega is a star, not a constellation,
>as such it can be considered as a point without dimension on the
>celestial sphere...lyra is a constellation, but a small one subtending
>an arc of only about 7.5 degrees ( 30 minutes of right ascension) and
>could thus account for a variance of about 8 days...
>
Frank,
Sorry, my use of "broad" as a term is perhaps misleading. It just takes a
long time e.g. for the one end of Lyra (Vega) to appear and for the stars
at the bottom of Lyra also to appear in full subsequently. At my analysis
of the Pharaohs this corresponds to about 35 days (Sophis to Tosertasis,
Tosertasis to Achis). What value do you get turning your starfinder?
The ancients - at least so it appears to me - regarded the whole
constellation as "a star cluster", much in the same manner as we do this
for the Pleiades or the Hydes with Aldebaran.
Vega/Lyra seems also to have been regarded as the "heavenly cemetary"
since it is on the opposite horizon as the chosen people of God, i.e. the
Pleiades, Hyades, the Belt of Orion and Sirius all set (i.e. "die") at
nearly the same time - which must have been seen as a partcular "godly"
astronomical occurrence by the ancient stargazers. Indeed Methusalem in
Hebrew, as far as a I know, has some such meaning as "end of an age",
though sometimes translated as "Man of the Speer" - it depends on which
linguist you talk to.
This cemetary also apparently included Cygnus, the "cross" or raven of
heaven, which is perhaps in this fom the ancient root of the Christian
cross we put on graves even today. This would account for the 52 day
variance.
In other words, the number of 187 applied from the Pleiades to the first
sight of Vega. The number 239 extended this region to include the
appearance of the entire cemetary of Vega/Lyra.
>
>but there are several other areas in which i have problems and
>questions:
>
>1. PRECISION: although the term "perfect" may be adequate for the
>verbal description of a fit, i'd prefer to understand what level of
>precision that term describes...within what tolerances do you claim
>that your matching of days to angular distances (r.a. only) are
>accurate??...
Obviously, perfect "fit" refers primarily to the principle of the entire
stellar system used. When we talk about the real tolerances of individual
star or star-cluster sightings, we would need to know the geographic
location where the observations were made.
Moreover, for this question there is the comparable data of Eusebius and
Eratosthenes (for the data of the Pharaohs) and I include this in my next
posting. There you can see the deviations in the numbers used.
Perhaps a professional astronomer can reconstruct this - but it is beyond
my equipment and knowledge. One of the reasons I present my data is 1) to
see if others regard the data as "reproducable" and 2) if the system is
sound in principle, to see what "corrections" or "improvements" can be
made. At least for some of the data of the Pharaohs, the numbers appear
accurate to nearly a day.
>
>2. PRECESSION: because the distance in days between the visibility of
>particular stars or constellations depends upon the season of the year
>at which those stars or constellations occupy the night sky, and
>because those seasons precess, your figures could only be accurate (to
>any reasonable tolerance) within limited historical periods...further,
>they would have a "peak" moment of accuracy...have you calculated the
>specific date at which this "peak" accuracy occurred??...
>
For the data of the Pharaohs, the "peak" of accuracy seems to be ca. 2340
BC, for the reasons given by Werner Papke, Die Sterne von Babylon. Indeed,
without Papke's book, I would have been lost in this endeavor.
Since the Pharaonic system starts at the left upper corner star of the
Great Square whereas the Bible starts at the left lower corner star of the
Great Square - then, since the difference in risings of these two stars is
exactly 20 days, I presume we are talking about 20 degrees of precession
between the data starting at Adam and that starting at Menes or 20 x 72
years (1 year of precession = 72 years) = 1440 years. Indeed, the
Pharaonic data seem to have this 20-day callibration, since Manetho's sum
for the Old Kingdom is 1480 and not the Sothic 1460 as one would expect.
If we take ca. 2340 BC then as the date of the start of the Pharaonic
system and add 1440, we get 3780 BC which is pretty close to the date of
3761 BC assigned to the start of their calendar by the Hebrews.
>3. LATITUDE: just as the precession of the equinoxes would indicate a
>specific historical "peak" of accuracy, (as dependent upon r.a.)
>latitude would determine the "peak" accuracy (as dependent upon
>declination - it is here that your phonograph analogy makes
>sense)...at what latitude do your figures hit "peak" accuracy??...
>.
Frank, on this one, I just do not know. That is something for the
professional astronomers - presuming they find my system worth examining.
Note that the 3761 BC date for the start of the Hebrew system also
corresponds to the theocratic or "early" Sumerian period and the
approximate founding of Uruk. I do know that the MUL.APIN series of
similar heliacal risings and settings has been said by Hunger and Pingree
to relate to a latitude of 36 degrees in Syria.
>i use a tiny miller's planoshere for 30 degree latitude, when
>traveling in such areas, but generally prefer the larger two sided
>ones by david chandler...
>
>frank
It is also clear that you know more about modern astronomy than I do,
Frank - but don't tell anyone. I will be interested to see whether you
regard the entire system to be sound or not. Obviously, it has to be more
or less reproducable, otherwise it is worthless.
- Andis
frank murray
On 14 Jan 1997 21:40:51 GMT, akau...@aol.com wrote:
>RE: Precision - Manetho, Eusebius and Eratosthenes
>
>One of the reasons that I am sure that my stellar system of heliacal
>risings and settings is correct is that I matched the number data of
>Manetho with that of Eusebius (who specifically stated "ALL is astronomy")
> and Eratosthenes (who appended Greek explanations, many celestial in
>nature).
>
hmmm...i was unaware that any direct writings by manetho were
extant...from waddell's manetho:
"....we can know his writings only from fragmentary and often
distorted quotations preserved chiefly by Josephus and by the
Christian chronographers, Africanus and Eusebius, with isolated
passages in Plutarch, Theophilus..." and eight or nine others...
how then do we match "the number data of Maneto with that of
Eusebius"??...
frank
Greg Reeder
>..... there are a couple of very interesting fragmentary
>texts about Pepy II that became popular literature. These suggest that
>Pepy II also was homosexual, and went on nightly visits to the house
>of one of his genreals, for trysts until daybreak, when he would return
>to the Palace. The same series of stories, contains another unflattering
>image of Pepy II. A complainant, like the famed Eloquent Peasant was
>appealing to Pepy II. The king though refused to hear him out, and
>instead ordered his musicians to play louder and drown out his pleas.
>
>Now such stories are usually that a particular king had an unsavory
>reputation, and such could be the case with Pepy II. Of course, you
>have to be cautious. Since his long reign led to the collapse if Dynasty
>VI, and the rise of the very weak Dynasty VIII, that after some twenty
>years collapsed and ended the Old Kingdom, the Egyptians might have
>tried to pin the blame for the collapse on one of the last kings.
>Pepy II might simply have outlived all his able children, but it is
>not impossible that he developed deviant behavior. What is suspicious,
>is that this very homosexual behavior was damning in Egyptian culture.
>As the Contendings of Seth and Horus indicates, Seth tried to entice
>Horus into a homosexual act, to thereby discredit him from claiming
>the monarchy. Also, Ptahhotep roundly condemns homosexual behavior in
>one of his maxims. The sum of Egyptian evidence was that it precluded
>a prospective appointment from office. So, laying such a charge against
>Pepy II was tantamount to claiming that he was unfit to have held the
>kingship.
>
>Most sincerely,
>Frank J. Yurco
>University of Chicago
>
>
>--
>Frank Joseph Yurco fjy...@midway.uchicago.edu
Dear Frank,
I think a slightly different perspective may be in order here. The story
of the nighttime "trysts" of Pepi II are indeed the stuff of a good tale.
And as ancient folklore it made a story that was a delight to retell. It
exists in three very fragmentary papyrus segments. A character named the
"pleader of Memphis" tries to inform the Court of Pepi's' behavior. Every
time he presents his charges members of the court erupt with song, music,
whistles and acclamations. It is in the telling of this part of the tale
that the audience would be most entertained by this refrain that
prevented this "pleader of Memphis" to be heard: " ...he was prevented by
the singer's songs, the musicians' music, the acclaimers' acclamations and
the whistlers' whistling." and when he tried again before the Overseer
of the Court, it made ..." the singers sing, the musicians make music, the
acclaimers acclaim, and the whistlers whistle." Now this was a fun tale
to tell. Sort of like "Old Mcdonald Had A Farm" where words were repeated
because they sounded fun to say.
I do not believe it to be a dire tale of kingly excess but a comic one.
The "pleader" gets so frustrated by all the noise that erupts every time
he tries to tattle on the King that he leaves weeping tearing out his
hair. He is pathetically comic. The last fragment is about a man who
follows the King at night when Pepi try to sneak out of the Palace to
meet up with his love, General Sasenet. When Pepi reached the
house of his General, he threw a brick and kicked the wall so that a
ladder would be let down so he could climb up to be with his friend. This
is not defiant behavior...it's romantic.
The king is being followed around by another busy-body who wants to trap
him. This is an old tale and one that has elements in latter heterosexual
folktales of romantic love. A good translation of this tale is in >Voices
from Ancient Egypt< by R.B. Parkinson, University of Oklahoma Press
1991,pg54. Parkinson does not agree with me however on how this tale
presents the king.
There are many problems with attempting to define homosexuality in ancient
Egypt let alone coming to conclusions about its acceptance or not in the
ancient culture. The Old Kingdom tomb of the manicurists Niankhkhnum and
Khnumhotep ( http://www.sirius.com/~reeder/niankh.html ) shows at least
the possibility that two men could show their love and desire to remain
together even in death, no matter what rules of conduct the authorities in
charge may have.
--
_____
Greg Reeder
On the WWW
---------------->http://www.egyptology.com
ree...@sirius.com
Greg Reeder
j...@sfbooks.com (Joe Bernstein) wrote:
>In the dazzlingly good article <5bhdig$b...@sun.sirius.com>, Greg Reeder
><ree...@sirius.com> wrote:
>
>>fjy...@midway.uchicago.edu (Frank Joseph Yurco) wrote:
>
>>>..... there are a couple of very interesting fragmentary
>>>texts about Pepy II that became popular literature. These suggest that
>>>Pepy II also was homosexual, and went on nightly visits to the house
>>>of one of his genreals, for trysts until daybreak, when he would return
>>>to the Palace.
>>>
>>>reputation, and such could be the case with Pepy II.
>>I think a slightly different perspective may be in order here. The story
>>of the nighttime "trysts" of Pepi II are indeed the stuff of a good tale.
>> I do not believe it to be a dire tale of kingly excess but a comic one.
>rest...]
>
>Fully agreed, and by the way thanks for the reference to a translation of
>"The Clamant of Memphis" (though it's somewhat late for me, since not
>knowing of Parkinson's book I'd gone and :-( worked from Emmy
>Brunner-Traut's German). All the same, I think Mr. Yurco's original point
>has some validity. This isn't, after all, a picture of a king Doing the
>Right Thing as King. It seems fairly natural to me that it might attach to
>a king already remembered as bad. Whatever the Egyptians' views of
>homosexuality, for that matter, I should think that a pharaoh who went
>nocturnally catting about would be seen as *at least* rather odd. Even
>though it definitely humanises him in the story as we have it.
>
>The question is, do we have other evidence regarding opinions of Pepi? I
>mean, this isn't China or Mesopotamia, where references to bad kings grow
>on trees... this is Egypt, where Pharaoh is god even after his dynasty has
>fallen.
>
>Suddenly wondering about what those funny stories tell us about kingship...
>
>Joe Bernstein
Joe you say that the tale humanises the King and I think this is
correct. The King sneaking out of the palace to visit his love IS
behavior that is extraordinary and makes for a very good story. I do not
know of any other sources that speak "ill" of Pepi. Hard to imagine that
if he where such a perversion to the laws of Maat that he would have been
able to reign for nearly 100 years!
--
_
Joe Bernstein
>fjy...@midway.uchicago.edu (Frank Joseph Yurco) wrote:
>>..... there are a couple of very interesting fragmentary
>>texts about Pepy II that became popular literature. These suggest that
>>Pepy II also was homosexual, and went on nightly visits to the house
>>of one of his genreals, for trysts until daybreak, when he would return
>>to the Palace. The same series of stories, contains another unflattering
>>image of Pepy II. A complainant, like the famed Eloquent Peasant was
>>appealing to Pepy II. The king though refused to hear him out, and
>>instead ordered his musicians to play louder and drown out his pleas.
>>
Joe Bernstein
--
Joe Bernstein, free-lance writer and bookseller j...@sfbooks.com
speaking for myself and nobody else http://www.tezcat.com/~josephb/
But...co-proponent for soc.history.ancient, now being voted on in
news.announce.newgroups!
akau...@aol.com
In veiw of our prevous discussion of the MUL.APIN Babylonian tablets,
there is an interesting related article on Qumran Scroll 4Q318 by Jonas C.
Greenfield and M. Sokoloff (with Appendices by D. Pingree and A. Yardeni)
in "An Astrological Text from Qumran (4Q318) and Reflections on Some
Zodiacal Names", no. 64, XVI, 1995.
(Pingree is also co-author with Hunger of "MUL.APIN: An Astronomical
Compendium in Cuneiform", Archiv fuer Orientforschung, Beiheft 24, 1989,
Verlag Ferdinand Berger & Soehne; Horn, Austria-3580).
Qumran Scroll 4Q318 is summarized as follows by Greenfield and Sokoloff:
"Among the texts found in Cave IV at Qumran are the remains of an
astrological text originaly over eight columns long which contained a
Zodiacal calendar followed by a brontologion of which only the final part
of the former and the beginning of the latter have been preserved. These
texts which go back to a Vorlage (predecessor) known from the Mesopotamian
composition MUL.APIN are the earliest evidence for this type of literature
in Aramaic from the West. As such they provide a vital link in the
tradition of this type of literature known previously in the West only in
later Greek trraditions of the Byzantine Period."
The label of this Qumran text as strictly "astrological" is misleading -
since much of the text is strictly astronomical in nature, and the label
"astrological" is one way in which the scholars - both past and present,
perhaps unconsciously, attempt incorrectly to separate ancient astronomy
from ancient religion and chronology.
In fact, as Pingree notes in Appendix One "Astronomical Considerations",
"...the predictive part...of Qumran 4Q318...goes back to a well-attested
section of the Akkadian omen series Enuma Anu Enlil." Moreover, says
Pingree, "the relationship of the predictions in the Aramaic fragment to
those in Greek Pap. suppl. gr. 1191 is demonstrable...the (Qumran) Aramaic
corresponds to the sections in the Greek text ascribed to both Egyptians
and Babylonians."
As for the astronomical content of Qumran 4Q318,
M. Albani, in "Der Zodiakos in 4Q318 und die Henoch-Astronomie",
Mitteilungen und Beiträge, 7. Forschungsstelle, Judentum, Theologische
Fakultaet, Leipzig, Sep. 1993
states that the text of 4Q318 follows the order of the Babylonian MUL.APIN
tablets, which begin with the star cluster Pleiades and Taurus in Nissanu.
The reason for this, as Greenfield and Sokoloff state "is most likely that
MUL.APIN originated according to some scholars in the third millenium
B.C.E. when the constellations Pleiades and Taurus were located in
Nissanu." And, as I claim all along, this is 2340 BC. - so that the
astronomy in 4Q318 dates back over 2000 years.
So, this all looks like very old, very inter-related stuff, all going back
to a common origin in antiquity in which astronomy and religion were
unified. (So why is this stuff at Qumran? - viz. how did it get there -
who brought it - that is the intersting part.)
To show how far off the mark scholarship and theology has been in this
regard is apparent from M.R. Lehmann, "New light on astrology in Qumran
and the Talmud", Revue de Qumran, no.32, VIII, 1975 where he states in
commenting on Scroll 4Q186:
"It is generally believed that astrology did not enter Judaism before the
Middle Ages.... It, therefore, comes as somewhat of a surprise that an
astrological Scroll was found at Qumran, written before the destruction of
the Second Temple."
Now - in terms of these "temples", are they "earthly" or "heavenly"? or
both? - which is the entire question concerning the chronology of the
Bible, Mesopotamia and the Pharaohs.
When we look to Amoraic Midrashim, and here I refer specifically to
Pesiqla de Rav Kahana, ed. B. Mandelbaum, New York, 1962, then we find
that the texts tell us:
"The lion (= Nebuchadnezzar) rose up in Leo (= Ab) and destroyed Ariel (=
the Temple)". Note that I have not added the equal signs, that is the
original text.
These are clearly astronomical texts. Indeed, the Akkadian origin of the
name Nebuchadnezzar is the term Nabu-kudurri-usur which the scholars say
means "Oh Nabu, protect my boundary stone" - where "boundary stone" is
alleged to mean the line of succession. That explanation is highly
doubtful.
In view of Slavic *Nebo- "heaven" (compare here Welsh NEF "heaven" and
Bretonic NENV "heaven" (i.e. NENV =Niniveh?) and Indo-European *nebhos-
"clouds") it appears clear to me here that Nebo- is originally a
determinative meaning "heaven", i.e. a celestial deity, so that Niniveh
too as a city name takes its origin in the sense of "Heliopolis". The
Slavic *nebo (through n//d Latvian deb- "heaven") became Hebrew/Arabic
nebo (or nabu), Hindic nawab or nabab, meaning "prophet, wise man". And,
indeed, Nabu-rimanni (also Nabu-riannu) is the first astronomer known by
name to us from Babylonia.
Or, in other words, "astrology", more correctly, "astronomy", or "the
religion of the stars and celestial bodies", has been with us from the
beginning.
Further sources are:
Werner Papke, Die Sterne von Babylon (The Stars of Babylon), Gustav Luebbe
Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach, Germany, 1989
Werner Papke, "Die Keilschriftserie MUL.APIN", Dokument wissenschaftlicher
Astronomie im 3. Jahrtausend, Tuebingen, 1978.
B.L. van der Waarden
1) "Babylonian Astronomy II. The Thirty-Six Stars", JNES 8 (1949) 6-26;
2) "Babylonian Astronomy III. Astronomical Computations", JNES 10 (1954),
20-34; 3) "Die Anfaenge der Astronomie", Groningen (1966);
4) "Greek Astronomical Calendars I. The Parapegma of Euctemon, AHES 29
(1984) 101-114.
(AHES = Archives for the History of the Exact Sciences, JNES = Journal of
Near Eastern Studies (Chicago).
- Andis
akau...@aol.com
The North American Zuni indians speak a language assigned by the linguists
to the Penutian family of languages, to which the American linguist
Benjamin L. Whorf IMO correctly also assigned Maya.
Quoting from the Enc.Brit.:
"The Penutian languages tend toward the use of formal or inflecting
suffixes and changes in the stems of words. In this respect they resemble
European languages."
Many years ago, I independently came to the conclusion that Zuni was
related to proto-Indo-European by comparing it with the Baltic languages.
My interest in the American Indian language derived from my observation
that the Indian word MISSISSIPPI, thought to mean "big muddy" was very
similar to Latvian MILZIS-UPE meaning "giant river, big river" and that
the American Indian word Appalachian was very similar to Latvian APALASHIE
"the round ones", i.e. the round mountains. The root -UPE ("river" in
Latvian) we also find perhaps in WINNIPEG "filthy water" i.e WINNI-PEG
where I would submit that Latvian VILNI "waves, wavy" is the root of WINNI
in the sense of "rough water" since the Winnipeg river has numerous falls
and rapids, making it unsuitable for navigation. Filthy is just not
applicable.
Zuni was the most interesting American Indian language to me, since,
similar to Latvian, "Zuni words are always stressed on the first
syllable". Stanley Newman, "A Practical Zuni Orthography", in Zuni Law: A
Field of Values, by Watson Smith and John M. Roberts, Paper of the Peabody
Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University, Vol
43, No. 1, Rimrock Project, Value Series No. 4, Cambridge, Mass., 1954),
p. 164 (Appendix B).
The Zuni differentiate words solely on the basis of long and short vowels,
a phenomenon found also in Latvian and also IMO in Pharaonic Egyptian and
ancient Hebrew (that is why they had no "vowels" as such, but rather aleph
etc. - more on this later).
Word comparables in Zuni and Latvian which caught my attention were
Zuni Latvain Meaning
mu-smuka smaka, nuo-smaka smell, he smelledl it
asiwe sauja hand(s)
kop ka, kapec how, why
pu//a pu- blow
kawe kvie-shi wheat
lhana liela large, bit
These alone are not very meaningful, but I then compared the COUNTING
systems of the Zuni's and the Baltic languages. Here we have clear
parallels:
Zuni Latvian, Lith. Meaning
To-pinte pant- One, unit (Akkadian Pan-)
Kwilli Divi, Dvyli Two, Double
Ha'i Vid- (?) 3, Zuni, "equally
dividing" finger, MID-
Awite Cetri 4
Opte Piece 5, Zuni, THE NOTCHED OFF
(Here we see that a "notch" was made after 5 - which can in Latvian be the
word met- or LIK-TA "down placed").
To-pa-LIK'YA 1+5
Kwilli-LIK'YA 2+5
Hai-LIK'YA 3+5
Tena-LIK'YA Te Ne-lika 9, Zuni "all but all", Latvian
"not notched off"
A-stem'thila Desmit-dala 10, Zuni "the fingers, all the
fingers
(where I would suggest that A-stem'thila and Latvian Desmit-dala,
Lithuanian deshimtadalis "10th - part", come from *at-zi-me-ta-da-la
meaning "the marked part, i.e. a new "mark"?" - an interpretation
supported by the Zuni word for 100)
assiastem'th-LAK'YA 100
which would correspond to Latvian *atzimeta(lika) "marked notch", i.e. a
notch for 5, a mark for 10 and a marked notch for 100.
In any case, I am certain more correspondences will be found with Zuni
using the Baltic languages as a source - and not the hypothetical IE roots
- which IMHO are in part greatly flawed.
- Andis
akau...@aol.com
This is the first of a series of posting on the possible relationship of
Sumerian to proto-Indo-European.
One of the reasons that Sumerian has not been found to be related to any
language in the opinions of the scholars are perhaps somer transcriptional
errors, which I would like to demonstrate here on the basis of several
examples.
In Sumerian writing, we have the following words
Sumerian SYMBOL SOUND MEANING
(The signs below are each of three separate elements)
> V < V >
I I > >
I I > > > Mu-ud Birth (= Latvian MAATE
"mother")
> V < V
I I >
I I > Nam House, Dwelling
(= Latvian NAM-, Greek
NOMOS))
M A JA
Here is a good example, where the transcription of the Sumerian in the
second case is clearly MA-A-JA which is Latvian MAAJA "house, home" and
where NAM is merely a synonym which the scholars for some unknown reason
have preferred, although it is contra to the syllabic reading.
Similar is this symbol, transcribed as DIM, contra to the orthography:
/ V V
/ >-----I I Dim To be made, to do,
make
\ >--`--I I Latvian SPEEJA,
SPEEJU
\ I I ("able, can do,
achieve, etc.")
SH - P E A
In spite of the fact that a syllabic reading is SH-PE-A or SH-PE-U the
scholars transcribe this as DIM. Apparently, this error goes back to
Friedrich Delitzsch, Sumerische Glossar, H.C. Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung,
Leipzig, 1914) a full 80 years ago where he claimed that this symbol had
been incorrectly rendered originally as USHEPISH - whereas, in fact, the
initial reading was correct.
Another area where I find errors in Sumerology is the transcribed
placement of the "vowel" or "aleph" or "breath" symbol (Latvain ALPA/ELPA
= "breath"). In Sumerian this is the following symbol (a notch with a
connected line downwards)
V
I
I
Even when this is clearly placed BEFORE the consonant, the transcription
places the vowel afterwards in transcription leading to clear errors in
reading.
A good example here is the Sumerian ZI-I for "meal, to eat" in Latvian
EZHA/ESHA
The writing looks like this
V V
I >-------I
I >-------I
I >-------I
>---------------------------
A - SHA/ZHA i.e. EZHA or ESHA "meal, that eat(en)"
The transcription zi-i is incorrect. We find therefore also such errors as
zi-udu "real, true" which should correctly be transcribed as iz-udu i.e.
Latvian ISTU "real, true actual".
We find this error in the phrase sib-zi-udu-ka-ni-ne-ir which the
Sumerologists transcribe as "to his true shepherd of the sheep", whereas
it actually reads in Latvian "own true shephedr", i.e.
sib-IZ-udu-ka-ni-ne-ir
Incorrect: sib-zi-udu-ka-ni-ne-ir
Correct: sib iz-udu ka-ni-ne-ir
Latvian: savu istu ganinu "own true shepherd".
The notion that sib- here means "shepherd" appears incorrect. If it does
not mean "own" it is perhaps to be read as Latvian SKEPU "shepherd's
crook" and shepherd in this sense. (K in the Latvian is TJ).
Subsequent "Sumerian" postings relate to the relationship to
Indo-European, taking Sumerian transcriptions as they are - although I am
sure there are still many errors - leading in part to its
non-identification among the family of languages.
- Andis
Loren Petrich
The trouble with this sort of linguistic looniness is that it
gives those who are serious, like the Nostraticists, a bad name.
In article <19970119233...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
<akau...@aol.com> wrote:
[typological features, like inflection]
>Many years ago, I independently came to the conclusion that Zuni was
>related to proto-Indo-European by comparing it with the Baltic languages.
>My interest in the American Indian language derived from my observation
>that the Indian word MISSISSIPPI, thought to mean "big muddy" was very
>similar to Latvian MILZIS-UPE meaning "giant river, big river" and that
>the American Indian word Appalachian was very similar to Latvian APALASHIE
>"the round ones", i.e. the round mountains. The root -UPE ("river" in
>Latvian) we also find perhaps in WINNIPEG "filthy water" i.e WINNI-PEG
>where I would submit that Latvian VILNI "waves, wavy" is the root of WINNI
>in the sense of "rough water" since the Winnipeg river has numerous falls
>and rapids, making it unsuitable for navigation. Filthy is just not
>applicable.
If one stretches one's semantic net wide enough, one can match
just about *anything*.
>The Zuni differentiate words solely on the basis of long and short vowels,
>a phenomenon found also in Latvian and also IMO in Pharaonic Egyptian and
>ancient Hebrew (that is why they had no "vowels" as such, but rather aleph
>etc. - more on this later).
Elementary boner. Egyptian and Hebrew have vowels, but they are
treated as an afterthought or even omitted in writing.
>Word comparables in Zuni and Latvian which caught my attention were
>Zuni Latvain Meaning
>mu-smuka smaka, nuo-smaka smell, he smelledl it
>asiwe sauja hand(s)
>kop ka, kapec how, why
Latvian one < IE *kwo-, *kwi-, which leads to all the English
wh-words (who, what, etc.) the Latin qu- words (quis, qui, etc.), etc.
>pu//a pu- blow
>kawe kvie-shi wheat
I wonder if the Zuni one is a borrowing; wheat is not native to
the New World. Also, the Latvian one is probably cognate with English
"wheat".
>lhana liela large, bit
>
>These alone are not very meaningful, but I then compared the COUNTING
>systems of the Zuni's and the Baltic languages. Here we have clear
>parallels:
>Zuni Latvian, Lith. Meaning
>To-pinte pant- One, unit (Akkadian Pan-)
>Kwilli Divi, Dvyli Two, Double
IE *dwo:
>Ha'i Vid- (?) 3, Zuni, "equally
>dividing" finger, MID-
IE *treyes
>Awite Cetri 4
IE *kwetwores
>Opte Piece 5, Zuni, THE NOTCHED OFF
>(Here we see that a "notch" was made after 5 - which can in Latvian be the
>word met- or LIK-TA "down placed").
IE *penkwe
>To-pa-LIK'YA 1+5
>Kwilli-LIK'YA 2+5
>Hai-LIK'YA 3+5
>Tena-LIK'YA Te Ne-lika 9, Zuni "all but all", Latvian
>"not notched off"
The Latvian ones are conveniently omitted.
>A-stem'thila Desmit-dala 10, Zuni "the fingers, all the
>fingers
>(where I would suggest that A-stem'thila and Latvian Desmit-dala,
>Lithuanian deshimtadalis "10th - part", come from *at-zi-me-ta-da-la
>meaning "the marked part, i.e. a new "mark"?" - an interpretation
>supported by the Zuni word for 100)
Latvian desmit, Lithuanian deshimt < IE *dekm
>assiastem'th-LAK'YA 100
>which would correspond to Latvian *atzimeta(lika) "marked notch", i.e. a
>notch for 5, a mark for 10 and a marked notch for 100.
Wave, wave, wave your hands, mister.
>In any case, I am certain more correspondences will be found with Zuni
>using the Baltic languages as a source - and not the hypothetical IE roots
>- which IMHO are in part greatly flawed.
For what reason? After reading a lot of the literature on
Indo-European, the concept is *very* sound.
--
Loren Petrich Happiness is a fast Macintosh
pet...@netcom.com And a fast train
My home page: http://www.webcom.com/petrich/home.html
Mirrored at: ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/pe/petrich/home.html
Loren Petrich
>Sumerian to proto-Indo-European.
>
>One of the reasons that Sumerian has not been found to be related to any
>language in the opinions of the scholars are perhaps somer transcriptional
>errors, which I would like to demonstrate here on the basis of several
How convenient. [sarcasm]
Piotr Michalowski
In article <petrichE...@netcom.com> pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) writes:
>
> <akau...@aol.com> wrote:
>>This is the first of a series of posting on the possible relationship of
>>Sumerian to proto-Indo-European.
>>
>>One of the reasons that Sumerian has not been found to be related to any
>>language in the opinions of the scholars are perhaps somer transcriptional
>>errors, which I would like to demonstrate here on the basis of several
>>examples. [...]
> How convenient. [sarcasm]
>--
Convenient is an understatement! I looked at the original post on dejanews
and have not the slighest idea where he gets his new "readings" from! Pure
fantasy. If you say that English MOTHER is wrong and that all people really
say MATKA, it definitely would sound like Polish! You can prove anything that
way, and that is why it is posted here, to sci.loony!
akau...@aol.com
In article <petrichE...@netcom.com>, pet...@netcom.com (Loren
Petrich) writes:
>Subject: Re: Kaulins' Kooky Linguistics (was Pharaohs Names,
Chronoloy,
>Biblical names)
>From: pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich)
>Date: Sun, 19 Jan 1997 06:07:42 GMT
>
>>In article <19970118175...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
>>AriWyler <ariw...@aol.com> wrote:
>>
>> [request for Latvian counterparts...]
> I'll do it in Indo-European in general; I'll either indicate
>well-preserved roots or indicate that there's a lot of variation.
>Sun shemesh
>IE *sa:wel-
>water mayim
>IE *wodor-, *akw-
>wind ruach
>IE *we:- [sometimes replaced]
>moon yareach
>IE *me:- [often replaced]
>fire esh
>IE *paHwor-, *egni-
>earth eretz
>IE *dhghem- [often replaced]
>star kochav
>IE *(H)ster-
>man ish
>(human being) IE *man-, deriv. of *dhghem-
>(male) IE *wi:ros
>woman ishah
IE *gwena:
>child yeled, yaldah
>[variable]
>Here's a more acid test: count from 1 to 10
>And also collect some pronouns and do some noun and verb morphology.
Let us start out with the Latvian and Akkadian demonstrative pronouns:
Demonstrative Pronouns
Latvian Akkadian Meaning
SHA SHA his
SHI SHI her
SHUO SHU-U their
As to the list of words you have presented, there is more forthcoming.
- Andis
Piotr Michalowski
In article <19970119233...@ladder01.news.aol.com> akau...@aol.com writes:
>
>This is the first of a series of posting on the possible relationship of
>Sumerian to proto-Indo-European.
This has been attempted before without much result...
>One of the reasons that Sumerian has not been found to be related to any
>language in the opinions of the scholars are perhaps somer transcriptional
>errors, which I would like to demonstrate here on the basis of several
>examples.
No one would ever claim that it is impossible to improve on transcriptions, as
long as one can prove what one is saying.
>In Sumerian writing, we have the
following words
>Sumerian SYMBOL SOUND MEANING
>(The signs below are each of three separate elements)
>> V < V >
> I I > >
> I I > > > Mu-ud Birth (= Latvian MAATE
>"mother")
>> V < V
> I I >
> I I > Nam House, Dwelling
> (= Latvian NAM-, Greek
>NOMOS))
>M A JA
>Here is a good example, where the transcription of the Sumerian in the
>second case is clearly MA-A-JA which is Latvian MAAJA "house, home" and
>where NAM is merely a synonym which the scholars for some unknown reason
>have preferred, although it is contra to the syllabic reading.
I have no idea what you are trying to do with putative mu-ud. but
a) nam doe NOT mean house in Sumerian and the sign has no reading ma-a-ja.
Where did you get this from?
>Similar is this symbol, transcribed as DIM,
contra to the orthography:
> / V V
>/ >-----I I Dim To be made, to do,
>make
>\ >--`--I I Latvian SPEEJA,
>SPEEJU
> \ I I ("able, can do,
>achieve, etc.")
>SH - P E A
>In spite of the fact that a syllabic reading is SH-PE-A or SH-PE-U the
>scholars transcribe this as DIM. Apparently, this error goes back to
>Friedrich Delitzsch, Sumerische Glossar, H.C. Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung,
>Leipzig, 1914) a full 80 years ago where he claimed that this symbol had
>been incorrectly rendered originally as USHEPISH - whereas, in fact, the
>initial reading was correct.
This is complete fantasy! Where did sh-pe-a come from? It is impossble, as
cuneiform cannot express a solitary consonant. Once again, what the source of
this new "reading"?
>Another area where I find errors
in Sumerology is the transcribed>placement of the "vowel" or "aleph" or
"breath" symbol (Latvain ALPA/ELPA>= "breath"). In Sumerian this is the
following symbol (a notch with a>connected line downwards)
> V
> I
> I
>Even when this is clearly placed BEFORE the consonant, the transcription
>places the vowel afterwards in transcription leading to clear errors in
>reading.
>A good example here is the Sumerian ZI-I for "meal, to eat" in Latvian
>EZHA/ESHA
>The writing looks like this
> V V
> I >-------I
> I >-------I
> I >-------I
> >---------------------------
>
> A - SHA/ZHA i.e. EZHA or ESHA "meal, that eat(en)"
This is again complete fantasy. I have no idea what sign you are writing
about, as the drawings me ke so sense to me, but there is no sha or esha
"meal". Where did you get this from?
>The transcription zi-i is
incorrect. We find therefore also such errors as>zi-udu "real, true" which
should correctly be transcribed as iz-udu i.e.>Latvian ISTU "real, true
actual".>
Sorry, but zi-udu does not exit!
We find this error in the phrase sib-zi-udu-ka-ni-ne-ir which the
>Sumerologists transcribe as "to his true shepherd of the sheep", whereas
>it actually reads in Latvian "own true shephedr", i.e.
>sib-IZ-udu-ka-ni-ne-ir
Both are wrong.
>Incorrect: sib-zi-udu-ka-ni-ne-ir
>Correct: sib iz-udu ka-ni-ne-ir
>Latvian: savu istu ganinu "own true shepherd".
>The notion that sib- here means "shepherd" appears incorrect. If it does
>not mean "own" it is perhaps to be read as Latvian SKEPU "shepherd's
>crook" and shepherd in this sense. (K in the Latvian is TJ).
>Subsequent "Sumerian" postings relate to the relationship to
>Indo-European, taking Sumerian transcriptions as they are - although I am
>sure there are still many errors - leading in part to its
>non-identification among the family of languages.
You have invented a new Sumerian, unknown to Sumerologist, found it wanting
and changed it even more to conform to something that you want to compare to
your own language. Not exactly good linguistics...
Where in the world did you get these Sumerian words from?
Loren Petrich
In article <19970120214...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
<akau...@aol.com> wrote:
>In article <petrichE...@netcom.com>, pet...@netcom.com (Loren
>Petrich) writes:
[Hebrew-Latvian?]
[A whole lot of non-matches deleted]
>>Here's a more acid test: count from 1 to 10
>>And also collect some pronouns and do some noun and verb morphology.
>Let us start out with the Latvian and Akkadian demonstrative pronouns:
>Demonstrative Pronouns
>Latvian Akkadian Meaning
>
>SHA SHA his
>SHI SHI her
>SHUO SHU-U their
Is that all you can come up with, Mr. Kaulins?
>As to the list of words you have presented, there is more forthcoming.
I don't have any Latvian dictionaries on hand, but Latvian is
recognizably Indo-European (check the literature), and that's why I had
used ancestral IE earlier. Check out
http://www.tezcat.com/~markrose/numbers.html
for more -- it's not too difficult to see that Indo-European forms a
coherent family here, and one distinct from Afro-Asiatic, which includes
Semitic.
John A. Halloran
>In article <19970119233...@ladder01.news.aol.com> akau...@aol.com writes:
>We find this error in the phrase sib-zi-udu-ka-ni-ne-ir which the
>>Sumerologists transcribe as "to his true shepherd of the sheep", whereas
>>it actually reads in Latvian "own true shephedr", i.e.
>>sib-IZ-udu-ka-ni-ne-ir
>Both are wrong.
Mr. Kaulins,
The first translation of the phrase appears to be correct - not sure why Piotr
says it is wrong. You would probably benefit by purchasing from Undena
Publications in Malibu a copy of John L. Hayes very easy to use A Manual of
Sumerian Grammar and Texts (1990). It would assist you in learning how to
analyze and read the phrase above. These readings are based on many, many
texts at this point - you cannot just throw them out.
Regards,
John Halloran
akau...@aol.com
In article <piotrm.54...@umich.edu>, pio...@umich.edu (Piotr
Michalowski) writes:
> Where did you get this from?
Piotr,
I my future postings I am going to use Halloran's "current" online list of
Sumerian logograms so we do not get into this entire hopeless battle about
sources. I hope that this will remove the "pea under the shell
game"-element in Sumerian, where no matter what one writes or posts, you
get referred to some new dictionary where the signs are "finally" right,
only to be replaced by a new book next year - or people just tell you "you
are wrong". I do not make these things up.
It has been some time ago that I noted these symbols and I did not note
page numbers then (20 years ago) - but they all come out of
the following sources:
Kaspar K. Riemenschneider, Lehrbuch des Akkadischen (VEB Verlak
Enzyklpaedie: Leipzig, 1969)
Wolfram von Soden, Akkadisches Woerterbuch
The Chicago Assyrian Dictionary
P. Anton Deimel, Sumerisches Lexikon, Akkadisch-Sumerisches Glossar
(Verlag des Paepstlichen Bibelinstituts: Script Pontific Instituti
Biblici; Piazza Della Pilotta 35, 1929-1950
Freidrich Dielitzsch, Sumerisches Glossar (J.C. Hinrichs'sche
Buchhandlung: Leipzig, 1914)
Erica Reiner, "A Sumero-Akkadian Hymn of Nana, Journal of Near Eastern
Studies, "A Sumero-Akkadian Hymn of Nana", Vol. 33, No. 2, April, 1974
Adam Falkenstein, Sumerische Goetterlieder, Part I, Abhandlungen der
Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Klasse
(Carl Winter Universitaetsverlag, Heidelberg, 1959).
Chambers Encyclopaedia (George Newnes Ltd.:London, 1955)
I went through these books in entirety some 20 years ago (except for
Chambers), so I can no longer tell you at page they were found. If I had
know then what I know now - that the values of the signs would be
constanly changed, amended, shifted, etc. I would have made a notation.
Sorry. I thought then that there was some consensus about what the
scholars were doing. In the interim, I have learned this is not so and I
have met English-speaking Sumerologists who, for example, know nothing of
the German sources.
Interestingly, the sib-zi-udu-ka-ni-ne-ir comes from the Chambers.
It is a good example of what I am talking about.
You state that zi-udu does not exist - for "current" transcription -
apparently this is true since Halloran has the following
"zid, zi: right (hand); good; firm; true; legitimate; legitimacy,
sanction; faith, confidence". And this IMO is wrong - it should be read at
the worst izid and probably correct is IST, pronounced "east", i.e. long
i. But this is beside the point.
So, as stated in the beginning. Future posts will use Halloran's ONLINE
list - so no one will be able to yell about it - I am also not going to go
out and do a popularity vote among the scholars for each and every reading
that Halloran makes. Lastly, I will simply ignore the words which I am
certain are incorrectly transcribed. My list will still be considerable.
- Andis
akau...@aol.com
In article <seagoat.82...@primenet.com>, sea...@primenet.com (John
A. Halloran) writes:
>Subject: Re: Sumerian and proto-Indo-European
>From: sea...@primenet.com (John A. Halloran)
>Date:21 Jan 1997 21:38:06 -0700
Dear Mr. Halloran,
I thank you for your EMail. I even thank you more for your wonderful site
on Sumerian logograms, which I will be using as my "reference" in future
postings to make comparisons to Indo-European in the representative
ancient language Latvian.
Since yours is a copyrighted site, I trust that the manner in which I will
use your material is in accordance with your wishes - i.e. as the "state
of the art" in this field. You will surely not agree with all that I write
- but I will nevertheless be interested in your comments when I begin this
series of selected comparisons.
Thank you.
- Andis Kaulins
akau...@aol.com
In article <5c94o6$1a9$1...@cronkite.seas.gwu.edu>, b...@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu
(Bernard Bartfeld) writes:
>Subject: Re: A Question I've Always Had About Evolution.
>From: b...@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu (Bernard Bartfeld)
>Date: 24 Jan 1997 01:54:14 GMT
>
>Ed Conrad (edco...@sunlink.net) wrote:
>
>: On Tue, 21 Jan 1997, Raistlin Majere <dkr...@execpc.com>
>: wrote to alt.fan.publius, etc.:
>
>: > William DeMaree (dem...@erols.com) wrote:
>: >>
>: >> A question I've always had about evolution is where are all
>: >> the creatures that are between men and monkeys?
Gorillas are exclusively blood types B or O and have no blood type A.
Chimpanzees are exclusively blood types A or O and have no blood type B.
Mankind has both A and B and their combinations, O and AB (universal donor
and universal recipient).
Men also have the antigens M and N and their combination MN.
Gorillas and Chimpanzees have no MN and are exclusive to each other as
regards anti-M and anti-N.
A provisional conclusion would be: we are either a "cross-over" primate
mutation or a combination of two separate lines of development of
human-primates.
It would be interesting to look at the blood groups of the BINOBOS - as
far as I know, these have not been tested (?)
akau...@aol.com
Kevin Tuite of the University of Montreal (tui...@ERE.UMontreal.CA)
recently posted some material concerning Himalayan Bangani to the
Indo-European list - (owner, Bobby Bryant. subscriptions,
owner-ind...@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu: posting,
indoeu...@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu)
Here is his posting and my comment thereto.
> Subj: Bangani
> Date: 97-01-23 22:00:34 EST
> From: tui...@ERE.UMontreal.CA (Kevin Tuite)
> Sender: owner-ind...@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu
> Reply-to: tui...@ERE.UMontreal.CA
> To: indoeu...@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu
>
> A couple of days ago, a colleague showed me an article by a certain
> Claus Peter Zoller, "Bericht über besondere Archaismen im Bangani,
einer
> Western Pahari-Sprache" (Münchner Studien zur Sprachwissenschaft, 1988,
> pp. 173-200). The language in question is spoken in the Himalayan north
> of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, and apparently had not been
studied
> in detail before Zoller's fieldwork in 1982-83. The archaism of
greatest
> interest for Indo-European studies, it seems to me, is the alleged
> presence in this language of a small number of lexemes which look very
> much like borrowings (or substratal remnants?) from a "kentum"-type IE
> language. Zoller leans toward the second hypothesis, regarding the
words
> in question as "die Überreste einer alten indogermanischen Sprache ...,
> die vermutlich weder zum Indoiranischen noch zu einer anderen
Satem-Sprache
> gehörte." Interestingly, the "Kentum" lexemes appear in the context of
a
> kind of special speech register associated with songs, proverbs and
jokes,
> and are therefore doubled by normal Indic forms in the unmarked speech
> styles. Zoller lists 26 Bangani lexical archaisms, sometimes with the
> corresponding Sanskrit word. Here are some examples [O = mi-low back
> rounded vowel] :
>
> 1. ak- "essen, fressen"; Skt as'-
> 4. ku:rO "Held; stark, hart"; Skt s'u:ra
> 5. gOn- "gebären, erzeugen"; Skt jan-
> 7. gOmbO/gumbO "Backenzahn"; Skt jambha "tooth"
> 11. gimO "Winter"; Skt. hima
> 12. dOkru "Träne"
> 16. ainO "eins (bei einer Art von Würfelspiel); der Eine (Gott)"
> 23. lOktO "Milch"
> 26. sun- "Sonne-" (als gebundene Form)
>
> If Zoller's hypothesis is correct, this has important implications for
the
> study of IE prehistory. B. Sergent, in his book on the Indo-Europeans,
> refers
> to Zoller's work as "une étonnante découverte ... Tout se passe ici
comme
> s'il s,agissait d'une tribu qui, tellement isolée, ... n'avait pas
> participé à l'évolution qui «satémisait» les langues indo-iraniennes"
(p
> 131-2). On the other hand, the colleague who showed Zoller's piece to
me
> said that the French Indianist G. Fussman had expressed serious doubts
> about the data. Has anyone else out there heard pertinant gossip about
the
> "Kentum-Schicht" of Bangani?
>
>
> **************************************************************
> Kevin Tuite 514-343-6514 (bureau)
> Département d'anthropologie 514-343-2494 (télécopieur)
> Université de Montréal
> C.P. 6128, succursale centre-ville
> Montréal, Québec H3C 3J7 tui...@mistral.ere.umontreal.ca
>
Below, I have added the Latvian terms to the left of the list and have
also appended English translations for the original German.
Latv. EZH-, ES-, ED- "eat"> 1. ak- "essen, fressen"; Skt as'- < "eat"
Latv.KAR-, TJER- ("king")> 4. ku:rO "Held; stark, hart"; Skt s'u:ra
<"hero, strong, hard"
Latv. DZIM-> 5. gOn- "gebären, erzeugen"; Skt jan- <"give birth to,
conceive"
Latv. ZUOB-> 7. gOmbO/gumbO "Backenzahn"; Skt jambha "tooth"
Latv.ZIEMA> 11. gimO "Winter"; Skt. hima
Latv. ASARA/ASARU> 12. dOkru "Träne" < "tears"
Latv. VIENU> 16. ainO "eins (bei einer Art von Würfelspiel); der Eine
(Gott)" < "one"
Latv. (S)LAUKT- "milk a cow" > 23. lOktO "Milch" < "milk"
Latv. SAU.LE> 26. sun- "Sonne-" (als gebundene Form) < "sun"
Zoller regard the words to be the remains of an "ancient" Indo-European
language.
Interesting is that they are found in the contexts of "songs, proverbs and
jokes" - which suggests a connection to the Latvian Dainas. The word
"ainO" means "one" for a certain type of game played with dice and the one
"god", presumably Latvian JANIS, JANU (Babylonian ANU, Pharaonic ON).
I will write more after checking the original sources.
- Andis
Paul J. Gans
akau...@aol.com wrote:
: In article <5c94o6$1a9$1...@cronkite.seas.gwu.edu>, b...@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu
If you are really curious, post in talk.origins.
But the short answer is none of the above. We, the gorillas,
and the chimpansees have a common ancestor, long deceased. None
of the three are descendents of any of the other three.
Given the common ancestor and mutations since that time it is
no wonder that there are both similarities and differences.
------ Paul J. Gans [ga...@scholar.chem.nyu.edu]
akau...@aol.com
The prehistoric and historic period of Man is divided, inter alia,
according to the metals, following the Paleolithic and Neolithic "stone"
eras.
The first metal period is the "Bronze Age", the beginning of which is
sometimes called the Chalcolithic (Copper-Stone) Age, "referring to the
initial use of pure copper (along with its predecessor toolmaking
material, stone)....Copper was known in east Anatolia by 6500 BC...by the
middle of the 4th millenium, a rapidly developing copper metallurgy, with
cast tools and weapons, was a factor leading to the urbanization in
Mesopotamia....by 3000 BC the use of copper was well-known in the Middle
East, had extended westward into the Mediterranean area, and was beginning
to infiltrate the Neolithic cultures of Europe .... This early copper
phase is commonly thought of as part of the Bronze Age, though true
bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, was used only rarely at first. During
the 2nd millenium the use of true bronze greatly increased....From about
1000 BC...iron brought the Bronze Age to an end, and the Iron Age began.
(Enc. Brit. under Bronze Age).
The ancient terms for the metals are discussed by Armas Salonen in an
article on ancient substrata and cultural terms in Arabic (Armas Salonen,
"Alte Substrata- und Kulturwoerter im Arabischen", Studia Orientalia, Vol.
XVII, Helsinki, 1952).
Here are Salonen's lists of the ancient terms for the metals in the
Fertile Crescent, to which I have added the Baltic comparables based on P.
Schmidt's observation, as previously cited, that:,
"The ancient indigenous Baltic word for copper (Latvian vars, Lithuanian
varias, Old Prussian wargien) indicates that it was inherited from some
ancient period, since it is not borrowed either from the Slavic or
Germanic peoples...."
Metals according to Salonen:
COPPER
Sumerian KAxUD.BAR (or) UDxKA.BAR (or) SI.BAR
(Latvian VARsh, VARinsh dim., Lithuanian VARias, Old Prussian WARgien -
copper)
(Latvian SVARs "weight")
Akkadian SIPARRU
Hebrew SEPER
Arabic SIFRun
Latin KUPRUM
Sumerian also has URUDU "copper" and Latvian RUDU VARA "copper", i.e.
presumably "red metal"
LEAD
Akkadian ABARU (also magnesite?)
Aramaic 'ABARA
Hebrew 'OPARET
Armenian KAPAR
Arabic 'ABARun (Arabic 'ANBAR "AMBER")
Latvian ZI.TAR (DZINTAR-, Lithuanian GINTAR-) = AMBER
TIN
Sumerian KU(g).AN.A(k)
Akkadian ANAKU
Hebrew 'ANAK
Arabic 'ANUK
Armenian ANAG
Old Hindic NAGA
(Latvian S.VIN "lead" S.VERte "plumb" S.VARs "weight"
Lithuanian SH.VIN- ("lead, plumb")
IRON
Sumerian AN.BAR
Akkadian PAR.ZILLU
Aramaic PAR.ZEL
Hebrew BAR.ZEL
Arabic FIR.ZILun
Lithuanian ZHAL.VARis "bronze"
Latvian DZELs "iron", ZEL.TS "gold"
When we examine all of these ancient terms for metals, we see that two
basic roots are in evidence, a root of the form "BAR, VAR, PAR" and surely
the root of FERRO- "iron" in Latin, which of course has not been traced
back any further than that. We see that the current etymology for English
"COPPER" as allegedly rooted in Greek KUPROS "from Cyprus" is an illusion
- at best the name of the island Cyprus derives from an old-world word for
copper. Lastly, we see that origin of the English word BRONZE traced back
thus far only to Italina bronzo, has roots which go back much further in
BAR, perhaps in a formation as in Latvian *BARinsh> VARINSH > BRONZE.
The second root is a variant of Latvian DZELs "iron" combined in the terms
of the Fertile Crescent as ZIL- with BAR. The root of DZELs viz ZIL- is
perhaps found in Latvian ZIL-, "blue, dark blue" for the color smelted
iron.
Here is a case in any event where no "origin" in Baltic for the metals is
alleged, but where the Baltic retains the old ancient root term VARs for
CO.PPER, this term used later also for the other metals, and where West
European linguists have simply apparently ignored the evidence from the
Fertile Crescent in making their etymologies for Indo-European.
- Andis Kaulins
akau...@aol.com
he relatively greater age of Lithuanian over Latvian was first alleged by
August Schleicher (1821-1868), who published the first comprehensive study
of the Lithuanian language, although he conducted most of his work in East
Prussia and never came into contact with the actual primary Lithuanian
dialect. Moreover, Schleicher made his conclusions at a time when there
was a near vacuum of information and research on Latvian. Endzelins
Latvian Grammar (Lettische Grammatik) first appeared in Riga in 1922.
Essentially, Schleicher's conclusions have just not been questioned since
that time, except for the few researchers who have dealt with the subject
intensively.
Those who have dealt with the issue intensively, such as Eckert or Ekblom,
come to other conclusions.
Professor Rainer Eckert, University of Greifswald, provides several
examples, which, according to him, point to the relatively greater age of
Latvian than Lithuanian, evidenced by:
first - the retention of older Indo-European irregular inflections
(heteroclites);
and,
second - retention of the older i-stem in the roots of nominative forms of
words, which are found not retained in Lithuanian or in Old Prussian.
Moreover,
1. Latvian alone among all Indo-European languages has NO aspirates
(Bopp). IE scholars argue there had to be some originally, but it is
strange that one of the presumably oldest of spoken IE tongues (Latvian)
does NOT have them and shows no evidence of them.
2. Latvian shows closest to the original intonation (Ekblom, who compared
Latvian intonation with e.g. Danish, Serbo-Croation, Lithuanian, etc.
ELECTRONICALLY. Ekblom was a pioneer in this field and will one day
probably be well-known for this work, which points toward a new path in
linguistics).
3. Latvian builds words out of single-syllabic morphemic building blocks,
in the principle of agglutination, both by adding prefixes and suffixes.
Since the primary "elaboration" of meaning of the main morpheme is in the
prefix, ALL Latvian words are accented on the first syllable.
Again, "older" is used here in following sense: if we presume a
proto-language, then a language which most nearly retains the original
forms of this language is "older" and languages which show greater
innovation in these forms is "newer", although all languages are of course
equally "old" in tracing their roots back to the proto-language.
- Andis Kaulins
akau...@aol.com
I have been asked to provide some additional information concerning
Pharaonic Egyptian language and Indo-European. Let me start out by giving
a short overview of Proto-Indo-European as this is currently seen by the
Nostratic hypothesis, based on the work of Benveniste, Origines de la
formation des noms en indo-european (1935 ! - my how slowly the wheels of
linguistics work) and Allan R. Bomhard - Bom...@aol.com (his new work is
available from Signum publishers).
I predict that we will find (for the OLDEST Pharaonic hieroglyphic texts)
that these will in part abide by the following principles as set up by
Benveniste and Bomhard for IE (but perhaps with the amendments I have
appended thereto).
1. There were no original initial consonant clusters, e.g. like PRA -
rather every word root, i.e. morpheme of meaning, had only one consonant,
i.e. PA-RA-. (Bomhard)
This is substantiated by my own original statistical evaluation of the
frequency of letter combinations at the beginning of words for English,
Latvian and Greek - where, just as an example, we find that 83 percent of
all words beginning with a P in Latvian are followed by a vowel, as
compared to only 59 percent for Greek - i.e. the interceding vowel has
been lost, but least so in Latvian (As a consonantal cluster I exclude
here the fricative forms such as DZ- and TS- which can be regarded as one
"phoneme"). Note that the frequency of consonantal clustering shows that
Greek has undergone far more change than the Baltic languages in terms of
the original PIE language: this is a one way street - interceding vowels
are lost, not added.
2. There were two original syllabic types for roots - consonant+vowel (CV)
or consonant+vowel+consonant (CVC), e.g. PA- or PAR as roots. (Bomhard)
I will accept this for now as a working hypothesis, but, based on a
statistical evaluation of the Baltic languages, I think there were
originally two DIFFERENT original syllabic root types: either
consonant+vowel or vowel+consonant, examples of which would be SE "here,
this" and ES "I, self". My reason for making this allegation is that an
analysis of Latvian shows that roots of the form CVC can be further broken
down into two single-syllabic separate morphemes of meaning, e.g. PAR
"over" from *PA-IR "extension of the self, above + is". Similarly,
although the Nostratic hypothesis says that there were no initial vowels,
the Latvian prefix ie- "to, in - i.e. a "directional" breath suggests that
an initial breath sound was also used. We see this initial breath in the
words which apply to "self" and "sense" words, ES, AUSS, OSna, ACS - ie.
I, (h)ear, nose, eye and the directional prefixes resulting from the
attachment of the "self" to other root words AIZ-, UZ-, IZ-, also found as
the reflexive particle SA- in Latvian, i.e. the s-mobile, without the
initial breath-sound. Hence, I think the assumption of no initial vowels
is false.
3. Consonants. As in modern Latvian - showing its great age - there were
no aspirates. Bomhard writes that voiced aspirates appear to be a late
development in Indo-European and subscribes to the system of Gamkrelidze,
Hopper and Ivanov in which the traditional consonants p, t, k and kw, viz.
b, d, g, and gw are "characterized by plain voicing, without aspiration".
Hence, we will find in the most ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs that words
now transcribed and transliterated with H go back to a W or V form - this
is often the "viper" hieroglyph which Egyptologists often ignore on Coptic
evidence (a language spoken some thousand years later ! and where this
process of W/V > to H has alread taken place. We see this same development
in Basque arpina < Latvian varpina (many other examples).
Here is the approximate initial letter distribution BY PERCENT of 100
PERCENT in Baltic based on the four-volume Lithuanian-German dictionary of
Kurschat, et al. (older) and the four-volume Latvian-German historical
dictionary of Muehlenbachs-Endzelins plus the two-volume supplement of
Endzelins - all numbers are percents of dictionary pages with the
Lithuanian percentage given first and the Latvian percentage given second.
(Lith., Latv.) percentages of initial words in these languages starting
with the letter:
P (14,13) B (4,3) V (4,6)
T (3,4) D (5,4)
K/TJ (10, 6) G/DJ (5,3) C/CH (1,2)
S/SH (12,18) Z/ZH (3,4)
N/NJ (7,6) M (3,4)
L/LJ (3,4) R (3,3)
A (9,8) I (10,7) U (2,3) O (0,1) J (1,1)
E (1,0)
No F, No H, No Q.
The only real signifcant shift between Latvian and Lithuanian is s//k -
and as I will continue to allege, on the basis of the languages of the
Fertile Crescent - where S-forms in Latvian are, e.g. found as S-forms in
Akkadian, S is older. Moreover, the predominant position given to E in the
past in IE must be greatly questioned on the basis of Baltic.
4. Original vowels. In terms of the vowels, the "A-form" - as in sofa or
"I-form" - predominated - i.e. that vowel called a "schwa" by linguists,
at least based on the Latvian and Lithuanian evidence. For words beginning
with P, for example, 48 percent in Latvian begin with PA-, 22 percent
begin with PI-, 8 percent begin with PU- and only 5 percent begin with PE-
with 3 percent beginning with PO-. The case is similar for words beginning
with S, where in Latvian 45 percent of words begininng with S begin with
SA- and only 6 percent with SE-. (The percent of E- tends to increase with
"newer" languages, such as
PE-, 15 percent in English and 16 percent in Greek, or SE-, 12 percent in
English and 5 percent in Greek. Note that in Greek the SA- form (45
percent in Latvian) has gone over to a SU- form in Greek (48 percent of
S-forms). We find a comparable shift in initial U- in Lithuanian, which is
more predominant than in Latvian, where A on the other hand is more
frequent in Latvian.
The Latvian evidence supports Bomhard in citing Kurylowicz, Greenberg and
Pulleyblank (schwa > *a gradation) - and - significantly, the Baltic forms
are what we find in Hittite. Bomhard states that the gradation from schwa
to *e is explained as follows " *e may be assumed to have been the normal
allophone of schwa under stress." Hence, IE roots now seen as e.g. *per-
are correctly *par- < *pa-ir.
5. That last example *pa-ir shows the essence of Bomhard's next statement,
that "a verbal stem could either be identical with a root or it could
consist of a root plus a derivational morpheme added as a suffix to the
root: *CVC-VC-. Any consonant could serve as a suffix." Note here that
*CV-VC-, *CV-CV, *VC-VC-, and *VC-CV- are all equally possible as are
these same combinations with *CVC. Examples in Latvian using these
formulas:
PA-IET "go along", PA-DUO "give over to", AP-IET "go around", AT-DUO <
*AP-DUO "give back", where each of these today are "single" words.
Similarly PA-RI "over, around" but also *AP-IR >APAL "round" and PA-IES
"will pass by" but AP-IES "will go around". The same applies to compound
CVC forms such as, PAR-DUO "sell, give over to", PAR-IET "pass over, go
over".
6. Loss of interceding vowels. As already shown in the case of the initial
letter P, vowels between consonants tend to disappear with time, but they
have disappeared least in the initial syllable in Latvian - precisely
because the stress accent was originally on the first syllable - as it
still is in Latvian, in which case the initial vowel can almost not be
zero-grade and retains a long life - losing this characteristic only if
the stress accent shifts somewhat to other syllables (e.g. also if the
vowel of the second syllable is longer than the initial vowel). Examples:
Latvian SANI "side" retains the initial A since the A is long, but
SAVADS "different" where the second A is long finds cognates such as
SVESHS "foreign, different" since the initial A has been lost and S and V
come together. This indeed is one of the substantial differences between
Baltic and Slavic, where in the latter case, due to the shift of word
accent, many more vowels in the initial syllables and following syllables
have been lost.
7. Type 2 verbal stems could be further extended by means of a
determinative. Determinatives or suffixes pointed to a nominal stem.
(Bomhard) This we see particularly in Pharaonic Egyptian. The suffix
described by Benveniste as *ek-/*-k is the same as Latvian KAS "what, who,
which", represented by the "cup-basket" hieroglyph k- (Latvian KAUSS "cup"
was used as the closest object to the word KAS) and used in Pharaonic
grammar as the determinative for substantives in the sense of possession,
i.e. Pharaonic sn means "brother" but sn=k "your brother", Pharaonic ib
means "heart" but ib=k means "your heart"., i.e. in each case of
possession regarding the substantive, the "cup, basket" hieroglyph K
(KAUSS) is added representing Latvian KAS (which, who, what).
8. Verb morphology. The same principle seems to be involved in Nostratic
verb morphology and Pharaonic. Bomhard gives the following athematic
endings which, as Bopp suggested 200 years ago (!), and as Bomhard writes
"can be nothing else but agglutinated personal pronouns". To Bomhard's
list I have added the respective Pharaonic formulations.
Nostratic Pharaonic singular
personal suffixes
Person Singular Plural
1 *-m *-me j "me"
2 *-t *-te k "you"
3 *-s *-se s "her" f//v
"him"
In Latvian these are es, esmu ("I, me"), kas "which, who, what", shi
"her", vi(n)sh "him".
- Andis
akau...@aol.com
Dear members of sci.archaeology,
As someone who downloads all and reads nearly all of the postings to this
list and also as someone who does his share of posting as well, I have
some comments on decorum.
An open list like this is neither a moderated list (people tend to ignore
these as stifling and boring) nor is it a "rehash" of peer-reviewed
journals. Rather, it is a forum for the exchange of ideas and opinions on
subjects bearing on archaeology.
Yet, if you review the postings made, over 50 percent tend not to relate
to the substance of the matters posted, but rather involve sarcasm,
insulting language, personal attacks, and basically, just a lot of
pointless yelling and screaming - leading nowhere. People are
demonstrating "their wit" and their talent at "one-upmanship". Initially
entertaining, yes. With time, tiresome, yes.
Some postings involve "state of the art" info - OK, I can read that in
Archaeology magazine. I do not need a list for this. Nor do the
professionals need it for that either.
This is not the primary reason for lists.
On the other hand, a lot of postings DO involve more speculative ideas or
questions FOR DISCUSSION, which, by their very nature, are not for
everyone nor are they intended for everyone. Nor is a "final" resolution
of any given question the intent, but rather discourse on interesting
themes.
Diffusion theory indicates that any new idea - regardless of its merits -
is seriously considered by only 3 percent of any potential adopter group.
Any poster who knows this, realizes full well that he or she is
effectively addressing a very small percentage of any given group - but
this is one of purposes of lists such as these - to find those three
percent and engage in discussion with them.
What is disturbing is the "tone" of postings made by persons who:
1. either are not interested in a given topic
or
2. disagree with the ideas presented on a given topic
When I read postings which do not interest me - I do not reply to them. If
I disagree with the views of others, I consider whether it is useful for
me to reply to these postings or to enter into discussion with the
respective persons. I do not see the necessity of writing in such case
"Nice posting. You are an idiot." (innumerable variations of this basic
theme) What is the point of this?
If the person you write a "witty" insult to is weak - he will turn tail
and run off. If the person is strong - the insult is returned, and there
you go, another barroom brawl is in the making - but having nothing to do
with archaeology.
No one is against "irony" and "wit" - but in temperance. When I see
people continuously goading and baiting certain posters, I find it
unfortunate.
It is just a waste of time - not only for those who spend their time
shooting off their howitzers - but also for the rest of the members of
sci.archaeology who have to wade through the flack to get at the materials
which interest them.
Hence, why not concentrate on those postings which interest YOU and which
involve persons with whom you want to engage in contact?
I would also like to comment on the subject of "territory" in the sense of
Robert Ardrey's Territorial Imperative - something I call "the authority
card". If you are an academician, then you have "your" territory at your
university, research institute and the peer journals to which you publish
- and no one on an internet list is encroaching upon your territory there.
But when you are a member of an open list, your "local" territorial realm
does not extend to the ambit of the list. This is just in the nature of
internet and this seems to be one of the causes of animosity on lists.
There is also the apparent frustration of people not being told "you are
right" - whereas they might be used to this in their positions of
responsibility (professional, family, etc.). People are constantly getting
their personalities and egos in the way, whereas the discussion is about
"issues" - and frankly, many posters do not care WHO you are. What
interests them is WHAT you write - and only that. And you have to be
prepared that people will disagree with you - nothing wrong with that -
but the tone makes the music. I myself am not the best at this at times
either, so I am not throwing stones - just identifying the problems.
In any event, here is my suggestion to improve this list. Ignore the
postings which do not interest YOU, do not read postings from persons you
disapprove of and do not reply to postings which YOU regard to be
erroneous - unless you are sincerely interested in discussion with the
person who posted them. I zap postings occasionally too - but I feel no
need to write something insulting to the posters before I do this. I
presume - except in the case of insulting postings - that most people post
in good faith and I learn a lot, even when I am often not "agreeing" with
what is posted. People make up their own minds in the end anyway.
So, in this spirit - hoping for a better tone,
- Andis Kaulins
AriWyler
Andis Kaulins wrote:
>Here are Salonen's lists of the ancient terms for the metals in the
>Fertile Crescent, to which I have added the Baltic comparables based on
P.
Schmidt's observation, as previously cited, that:,
>"The ancient indigenous Baltic word for copper (Latvian vars, Lithuanian
>varias, Old Prussian wargien) indicates that it was inherited from some
>ancient period, since it is not borrowed either from the Slavic or
>Germanic peoples...."
You just compared it to "Old Prussian"! Doesn't that count?
>Metals according to Salonen:
>COPPER
>Sumerian KAxUD.BAR (or) UDxKA.BAR (or) SI.BAR
>(Latvian VARsh, VARinsh dim., Lithuanian VARias, Old Prussian WARgien -
>copper)
>(Latvian SVARs "weight")
>Akkadian SIPARRU
>Hebrew SEPER
>Arabic SIFRun
>Latin KUPRUM
I don't know any Hebrew "seper" for copper. The closest I know of is
"shoter". I wonder where Salonen found his word. Anyway, the most
commonly used term for copper in Hebrew is "nehoshet". Not very close to
the Latvian "varsh".
(snip)
LEAD
Akkadian ABARU (also magnesite?)
Aramaic 'ABARA
Hebrew 'OPARET
Armenian KAPAR
Arabic 'ABARun (Arabic 'ANBAR "AMBER")
Latvian ZI.TAR (DZINTAR-, Lithuanian GINTAR-) = AMBER
Hold on! How do we jump from lead to amber? Amber is not a mineral. If
you are trying, once again, to link Latvian to Semitic, "amber" is hardly
the ticket. It belongs with the Slavic "antar" for Amber and the
Lithuanian, as you point out. I don't trust this Salonen. Lead is read
as "oferet" in Hebrew.
TIN
Sumerian KU(g).AN.A(k)
Akkadian ANAKU
Hebrew 'ANAK
Arabic 'ANUK
Armenian ANAG
Old Hindic NAGA
(Latvian S.VIN "lead" S.VERte "plumb" S.VARs "weight"
Lithuanian SH.VIN- ("lead, plumb")
And "plumb" rhymes with "dumb". "B'dil" is tin in Hebrew. I think this
Salonen is passing some other Semitic language off as Hebrew --or you are.
Anyway, no match with Latvian in either case.
IRON
Sumerian AN.BAR
Akkadian PAR.ZILLU
Aramaic PAR.ZEL
Hebrew BAR.ZEL
Arabic FIR.ZILun
Lithuanian ZHAL.VARis "bronze"
Latvian DZELs "iron", ZEL.TS "gold"
The Latvian, again, goes with Slavic, whose terms for iron are pronounced
something like "stal". You cannot just throw away letters any which way
you please in order to make the words match, Kaulins. The "par" and the
"bar" are not just disposable, you know.
>When we examine all of these ancient terms for metals, we see that two
>basic roots are in evidence, a root of the form "BAR, VAR, PAR" and
surely
>the root of FERRO- "iron" in Latin, which of course has not been traced
>back any further than that.
I believe the base of the Latin for iron has to do with "strength".
We see that the current etymology for English
>"COPPER" as allegedly rooted in Greek KUPROS "from Cyprus" is an illusion
>- at best the name of the island Cyprus derives from an old-world word
for
>copper.
What word would that be? Consider "kyparissos", a Greek word for a kind
of tree.
> Lastly, we see that origin of the English word BRONZE traced back
>thus far only to Italina bronzo, has roots which go back much further in
>BAR, perhaps in a formation as in Latvian *BARinsh> VARINSH > BRONZE.
The Hebrew for "bronze" is "arad", no "bar" there as in "iron". "Bronzo"
in Italian must be a "vulgar" term (perhaps taken from the word for
"brown", "bruno") because, unless I am mistaken, the Latin for bronze is
"aes".
>The second root is a variant of Latvian DZELs "iron" combined in the
terms
>of the Fertile Crescent as ZIL- with BAR. The root of DZELs viz ZIL- is
>perhaps found in Latvian ZIL-, "blue, dark blue" for the color smelted
>iron.
I doubt it. I think "zil" in Sumerian means "to peel off" and "zil2"
means "pleasing"."Bar" in Sumerian has to do with whiteness or brightness.
>Here is a case in any event where no "origin" in Baltic for the metals is
>alleged, but where the Baltic retains the old ancient root term VARs for
>CO.PPER, this term used later also for the other metals, and where West
>European linguists have simply apparently ignored the evidence from the
>Fertile Crescent in making their etymologies for Indo-European.
You have supplied no compelling evidence that I can see.
AriWyler
Andis Kaulins wrote:
(snip)
>In any event, here is my suggestion to improve this list. Ignore the
>postings which do not interest YOU, do not read postings from persons you
>disapprove of and do not reply to postings which YOU regard to be
>erroneous - unless you are sincerely interested in discussion with the
>person who posted them. I zap postings occasionally too - but I feel no
>need to write something insulting to the posters before I do this. I
>presume - except in the case of insulting postings - that most people
post
>in good faith and I learn a lot, even when I am often not "agreeing" with
>what is posted. People make up their own minds in the end anyway
I think it is a given that people don't bother reading the threads with
subject headings that don't interest them. We can still be interested in
the posts of people of whom we don't approve--whatever that means. (Can't
stand?) As for not answering posts we consider to be erroneous--Are you
kidding? About 75% of the posts are erroneous and big time! Yet even the
persons who are mistaken can still be in good faith. I'll tell you who's
the one not in good faith YOU! Nobody can discuss anything with you
because, in your own mind, YOU ARE ALWAYS RIGHT. If someone corrects you,
you refuse to believe them. You requite PROOF, signed sealed and
delivered. If someone cites a source, you merely come back by saying the
scholars, Egyptologists, linguists--anybody in academia--are in some sort
of conspiracy to withhold the truth. Which you, A. Kaulins, have managed
to figure out despite them all! You have flooded this newsgroup with
messages and get huffy and arrogant with anyone who presumes to contradict
your spurious claims and logic. Now you have the gall to write an open
letter on decorum for the rest of the readers. You are the most
controlling, egocentric person ever to alight here. You want to give us
advice--here's some for you:
1. Write a LOT less. Nobody wants to read four or five long, rambling
posts from you every day.
2. Take your "Open Letter" and stuff it. You don't fool anybody with
your sanctimonious pieties.
3. Go soak your head. It is far too big. Maybe it'll shrink some.
>So, in this spirit - hoping for a better tone,
Right. You are hoping not to get flamed so much. Fat chance. Have you
read the warnings about posting in newsgroups? It says "ill-considered
posts will get flamed". So that's the formula--write less and less often
and you have a better chance of not getting your precious feathers ruffled
as much. You call yourself a "pioneer" in linguistics and
God-knows-what-else. Well, this is the Donner Pass.
akau...@aol.com
In article <19970129184...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
ariw...@aol.com (AriWyler) writes:
>From: ariw...@aol.com (AriWyler)
>Date: 29 Jan 1997 18:44:13 GMT
>
OK, Ari, based on this and your last posting (to which I will reply
shortly), I think we can "discuss" the issues in the future without
calling each other idiots - and I hope you abide by this. I have made an
inordinate number of postings in the last few days - my apologies to the
rest of the sci.archaeologers - but I have been working on this area for
30 years and saw these multiple postings as the only way to demonstrate
that I am not just shooting from the hip, but that I have indeed done a
lot of ancillary research which has led to my conclusions. Obviously if
Indo-European were related "easily" to Afro-Asiatic or Semitic or Hebrew,
the relationship would have been established long ago. As it is, except
for serendipity similarities noted by people like Schloezer, not much has
been done, and not even the Nostraticists are sure whether to include AA
in their scope. Rome was not built in a day.
>Andis Kaulins wrote:
>
>>Here are Salonen's lists of the ancient terms for the metals in the
>>Fertile Crescent, to which I have added the Baltic comparables based on
>P.
>Schmidt's observation, as previously cited, that:,
>>"The ancient indigenous Baltic word for copper (Latvian vars, Lithuanian
>>varias, Old Prussian wargien) indicates that it was inherited from some
>>ancient period, since it is not borrowed either from the Slavic or
>>Germanic peoples...."
>
>You just compared it to "Old Prussian"! Doesn't that count?
I will excuse you this one, Ari. It is generally not known that "Old
Prussian" (now extinct) was a Baltic language, very similar to Latvian and
Lithuanian. See Lothar Kilian, Zu Herkunft und Sprache der Prussen,
Habelt, 1980. Believe me, this is NOT disputed by anyone. (But you see -
no slight intended - this is one of the reasons I post - a lot of people
do not know these things. Who uses "Old Prussian" words in IE etymology -
almost no one - they are still hacking with Latin and Greek.)
>
>>Metals according to Salonen:
>
>>COPPER
>
>>Sumerian KAxUD.BAR (or) UDxKA.BAR (or) SI.BAR
>>(Latvian VARsh, VARinsh dim., Lithuanian VARias, Old Prussian WARgien -
>>copper)
>>(Latvian SVARs "weight")
>>Akkadian SIPARRU
>>Hebrew SEPER
>>Arabic SIFRun
>>Latin KUPRUM
>
>I don't know any Hebrew "seper" for copper. The closest I know of is
>"shoter". I wonder where Salonen found his word. Anyway, the most
>commonly used term for copper in Hebrew is "nehoshet". Not very close
to
>the Latvian "varsh".
>
I do not think Salonen had any reason to fudge this term and it is a
highly reputable journal. Maybe "shoter" is related to "solder"? I say
this because Latvian VARsh
also has the possible cognate VAR- (long a - to boil, smelt), so that
"shoter" may also apply in the sense of "alloy".
>(snip)
>
>LEAD
>
>Akkadian ABARU (also magnesite?)
>Aramaic 'ABARA
>Hebrew 'OPARET
>Armenian KAPAR
>Arabic 'ABARun (Arabic 'ANBAR "AMBER")
>Latvian ZI.TAR (DZINTAR-, Lithuanian GINTAR-) = AMBER
>
>Hold on! How do we jump from lead to amber? Amber is not a mineral. If
>you are trying, once again, to link Latvian to Semitic, "amber" is hardly
>the ticket. It belongs with the Slavic "antar" for Amber and the
>Lithuanian, as you point out. I don't trust this Salonen. Lead is read
>as "oferet" in Hebrew.
>
Ari, the ancients did not have a word for "metal" per se as we do and
there are theories that some of these ancient terms meant "shiny" -
"amber" was the "gold" of the north - so a similar name is possible.
Indeed, the Baltic must be more original than the Slavic, amber being
found on the Baltic Sea, and the prefix ZI-, DZI- is applied to a number
of terms meaning "shiny, clear" - for example Latvian DZIDRS.
>TIN
>Sumerian KU(g).AN.A(k)
>Akkadian ANAKU
>Hebrew 'ANAK
>Arabic 'ANUK
>Armenian ANAG
>Old Hindic NAGA
>(Latvian S.VIN "lead" S.VERte "plumb" S.VARs "weight"
>Lithuanian SH.VIN- ("lead, plumb")
>
>And "plumb" rhymes with "dumb". "B'dil" is tin in Hebrew. I think this
>Salonen is passing some other Semitic language off as Hebrew --or you
are.
> Anyway, no match with Latvian in either case.
>
Ari, let us leave the plumb and dumb to the numb. We are all Longfellows
at heart. Compare your B'dil with "iron" below and you will see that it is
most likely a contraction and a later application to "tin" since there is
a lot of "shifting" of the names of the metals in ancient times. Hence, I
am certain that Salonen is giving you the oldest attested Hebrew term.
Other scholars have looked at this list and had no complaints about it. If
Salonen had been wrong, he would long ago have been raked over the coals
by his contemporaries.
>IRON
>Sumerian AN.BAR
>Akkadian PAR.ZILLU
>Aramaic PAR.ZEL
>Hebrew BAR.ZEL
>Arabic FIR.ZILun
>Lithuanian ZHAL.VARis "bronze"
>Latvian DZELs "iron", ZEL.TS "gold"
>
>The Latvian, again, goes with Slavic, whose terms for iron are pronounced
>something like "stal". You cannot just throw away letters any which way
>you please in order to make the words match, Kaulins. The "par" and the
>"bar" are not just disposable, you know.
>
Slavic "iron" is ZHELEZO and you also have Old Prussian GELSO, which
clearly shows the original consonantal order.
>>When we examine all of these ancient terms for metals, we see that two
>>basic roots are in evidence, a root of the form "BAR, VAR, PAR" and
>surely
>>the root of FERRO- "iron" in Latin, which of course has not been traced
>>back any further than that.
>
>I believe the base of the Latin for iron has to do with "strength".
>
This is the Indo-Europeanists confusing the Latin cognate of Latvian VAR-
"power, strength" with Latvian VARsh "(smelted) metal".
> We see that the current etymology for English
>>"COPPER" as allegedly rooted in Greek KUPROS "from Cyprus" is an
illusion
>>- at best the name of the island Cyprus derives from an old-world word
>for
>>copper.
>
>What word would that be? Consider "kyparissos", a Greek word for a kind
>of tree.
>
Probably related to an Indo-European term similar to Latvian KUPLIS "any
tree with dense foliage". Hardly the origin of the name of the island.
>> Lastly, we see that origin of the English word BRONZE traced back
>>thus far only to Italina bronzo, has roots which go back much further in
>>BAR, perhaps in a formation as in Latvian *BARinsh> VARINSH > BRONZE.
>
>The Hebrew for "bronze" is "arad", no "bar" there as in "iron". "Bronzo"
>in Italian must be a "vulgar" term (perhaps taken from the word for
>"brown", "bruno") because, unless I am mistaken, the Latin for bronze is
>"aes".
>
Hebrew arad seems to go back to Sumerian URUDU and Latvian RUDU VARA
"copper" (there is sufficient material in the literature about the
confusion of copper and bronze in the days before these two were
completely distinguished viz. purified as separate metals).
>>The second root is a variant of Latvian DZELs "iron" combined in the
>terms
>>of the Fertile Crescent as ZIL- with BAR. The root of DZELs viz ZIL- is
>>perhaps found in Latvian ZIL-, "blue, dark blue" for the color smelted
>>iron.
>
>I doubt it. I think "zil" in Sumerian means "to peel off" and "zil2"
>means "pleasing"."Bar" in Sumerian has to do with whiteness or
brightness.
>
Bar 2,6,7 are IMO equivalent to Latvian Bal- "white, bright". The Bar you
have here is perhaps related to the bar under barag, bar4 "chamber"
(oven?) and bir9 "blaze, fire", hence related to my presumed Baltic root
VAR- (long a - boil, smelt).
According to Halloran, you also Sumerian zalag(2), zal "light, brightnes,
bright, luminous, to shine, gleam, pure, to cleanse, purify", simug
"metal-sculptor, smith (Halloran writes si4 + mug ?) where si4 = "red" so
that a "color" or "shine" connotation to the sibilant is possible. Hence,
the Sumerian Bar here as whiteness or brightness will be incorrect.
>>Here is a case in any event where no "origin" in Baltic for the metals
is
>>alleged, but where the Baltic retains the old ancient root term VARs for
>>CO.PPER, this term used later also for the other metals, and where West
>>European linguists have simply apparently ignored the evidence from the
>>Fertile Crescent in making their etymologies for Indo-European.
>
>You have supplied no compelling evidence that I can see.
>
Well, let us not argue about whether it is "compelling". It is a start.
- Andis
August Matthusen
akau...@aol.com wrote:
>
> Dear members of sci.archaeology,
My dear Andis,
Thank you for sharing this. To think that you waited more
than a month to tell us what Usenet was, is, and should be.
> As someone who downloads all and reads nearly all of the postings to this
> list and also as someone who does his share of posting as well, I have
> some comments on decorum.
This is a newsgroup not a list.
> An open list like this is neither a moderated list (people tend to ignore
> these as stifling and boring) nor is it a "rehash" of peer-reviewed
> journals. Rather, it is a forum for the exchange of ideas and opinions on
> subjects bearing on archaeology.
Strange, I don't find sci.arch.mod boring.
> Yet, if you review the postings made, over 50 percent tend not to relate
> to the substance of the matters posted, but rather involve sarcasm,
> insulting language, personal attacks, and basically, just a lot of
> pointless yelling and screaming - leading nowhere. People are
> demonstrating "their wit" and their talent at "one-upmanship". Initially
> entertaining, yes. With time, tiresome, yes.
But that *is* Usenet. Always has been (that I've seen)
and I hope always will be.
> Some postings involve "state of the art" info - OK, I can read that in
> Archaeology magazine. I do not need a list for this. Nor do the
> professionals need it for that either.
> This is not the primary reason for lists.
_Archaeology_ is a nice magazine, geared for the layperson.
I subscribe, but I don't believe it is "state of the art".
That would be the realm of peer-reviewed journals.
> On the other hand, a lot of postings DO involve more speculative ideas or
> questions FOR DISCUSSION, which, by their very nature, are not for
> everyone nor are they intended for everyone. Nor is a "final" resolution
> of any given question the intent, but rather discourse on interesting
> themes.
>
> Diffusion theory indicates that any new idea - regardless of its merits -
> is seriously considered by only 3 percent of any potential adopter group.
> Any poster who knows this, realizes full well that he or she is
> effectively addressing a very small percentage of any given group - but
> this is one of purposes of lists such as these - to find those three
> percent and engage in discussion with them.
3 percent? Seems rather low. I've seen some rather contentious
ideas accepted rapidly enough to question this value (e.g.,
impact at the K/T boundary; Chixalub as the site). Of course,
the evidence was very convincing.
> What is disturbing is the "tone" of postings made by persons who:
> 1. either are not interested in a given topic
> or
> 2. disagree with the ideas presented on a given topic
>
> When I read postings which do not interest me - I do not reply to them. If
> I disagree with the views of others, I consider whether it is useful for
> me to reply to these postings or to enter into discussion with the
> respective persons. I do not see the necessity of writing in such case
> "Nice posting. You are an idiot." (innumerable variations of this basic
> theme) What is the point of this?
Welcome to the wonderful world of Usenet where no matter how
you tippytoe around, sooner or later you will get flamed.
Flaming is a recognized Usenet art form. Perhaps you should
visit alt.flame and see it in its full glory.
> If the person you write a "witty" insult to is weak - he will turn tail
> and run off. If the person is strong - the insult is returned, and there
> you go, another barroom brawl is in the making - but having nothing to do
> with archaeology.
That which does not kill you makes you strong (intro to _Conan the
Barbarian_ movie).
> No one is against "irony" and "wit" - but in temperance. When I see
> people continuously goading and baiting certain posters, I find it
> unfortunate.
>
> It is just a waste of time - not only for those who spend their time
> shooting off their howitzers - but also for the rest of the members of
> sci.archaeology who have to wade through the flack to get at the materials
> which interest them.
>
> Hence, why not concentrate on those postings which interest YOU and which
> involve persons with whom you want to engage in contact?
Most people do. However, there are always exceptions who
seem to post just to be flamed (commonly known as flamebait).
> I would also like to comment on the subject of "territory" in the sense of
> Robert Ardrey's Territorial Imperative - something I call "the authority
> card". If you are an academician, then you have "your" territory at your
> university, research institute and the peer journals to which you publish
> - and no one on an internet list is encroaching upon your territory there.
It's funny, but the internet used to be the domain of the
national labs and academia.
> But when you are a member of an open list, your "local" territorial realm
> does not extend to the ambit of the list. This is just in the nature of
> internet and this seems to be one of the causes of animosity on lists.
Perhaps it's a longing for the Usenet of yesteryear.
> There is also the apparent frustration of people not being told "you are
> right" - whereas they might be used to this in their positions of
> responsibility (professional, family, etc.). People are constantly getting
> their personalities and egos in the way, whereas the discussion is about
> "issues" - and frankly, many posters do not care WHO you are. What
> interests them is WHAT you write - and only that. And you have to be
> prepared that people will disagree with you - nothing wrong with that -
> but the tone makes the music. I myself am not the best at this at times
> either, so I am not throwing stones - just identifying the problems.
Yes, this is quite a problem. In this medium, you are what
you write. Why, I just read a post where someone claimed to
have a degree from a certain university and questioned whether
the person to whom they were responding had gone to such a
prestigious school. Argument from authority can be quite fallacious.
> In any event, here is my suggestion to improve this list. Ignore the
> postings which do not interest YOU, do not read postings from persons you
> disapprove of and do not reply to postings which YOU regard to be
> erroneous - unless you are sincerely interested in discussion with the
> person who posted them.
If you agree, why bother responding? I've seen hundreds of "Me too"
posts. They exemplify a boring post.
> I zap postings occasionally too - but I feel no
> need to write something insulting to the posters before I do this.
But if people do, this is their perogative. Perhaps you should
browse the old dejanews archives for some of the posts
by Carl Lydick. The man had a way with words, never afraid
to call a SFB, a SFB; but Carl was almost always correct in what
he wrote (at least I never saw where he was wrong).
> I presume - except in the case of insulting postings - that most people post
> in good faith and I learn a lot, even when I am often not "agreeing" with
> what is posted. People make up their own minds in the end anyway.
>
> So, in this spirit - hoping for a better tone,
Short of moderation, how do you enforce a better tone? FWIW,
sci.arch *is* one of the more polite groups on the net. Browse
some of the other groups (e.g., sci.skeptic, talk.origins,
alt.atheism, talk.abortion, sci.environment, alt.religion.scientology--
there are even people being sued there) and see what the rest is like.
There are 17000+ newsgroups from which to choose.
Regards,
August Matthusen
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
On 28 Jan 1997 21:15:47 GMT, akau...@aol.com wrote:
>Metals according to Salonen:
>
>COPPER
>
>Sumerian KAxUD.BAR (or) UDxKA.BAR (or) SI.BAR
Sum. urudu, bronze = zabar
>(Latvian VARsh, VARinsh dim., Lithuanian VARias, Old Prussian WARgien -
>copper)
Lith. varis, bronze = z^alvaris ("yellow copper").
Latv. vars^, [bronze = bronza]
Origin unknown, possibly from Finnic.
>Akkadian SIPARRU
Akk. eru^, bronze = siparru- (< Sum. zabar)
>Hebrew SEPER
Hebr. neHos^et
>Arabic SIFRun
Arab. nuHa:s
>Latin KUPRUM
Lat. aes (Late Latin: aes Cyprium), bronze = aes (Late: aes
Brundisium), cf. Skrt. ayas- "iron, bronze", English "ore"
>Sumerian also has URUDU "copper" and Latvian RUDU VARA "copper", i.e.
>presumably "red metal"
Cf. OHG aruzzi, erizze (German Erz) "ore, copper", Sankrit loha
"copper". The Germanic word probably from an IE Balkan source
*Hreudh- > *eruti, *aruti. Akkadian and Sumerian might be borrowings
from the same source?
>LEAD
>
>Akkadian ABARU (also magnesite?)
>Aramaic 'ABARA
>Hebrew 'OPARET
Cf. rather Hebrew 'abhar, all from Sumerian a.bar2/a.gar5 "lead".
>Armenian KAPAR
>Arabic 'ABARun (Arabic 'ANBAR "AMBER")
>Latvian ZI.TAR (DZINTAR-, Lithuanian GINTAR-) = AMBER
No comment :-)
>TIN
>Sumerian KU(g).AN.A(k)
Sum. nagga or an.nag
>Akkadian ANAKU
Akk. annaku "tin, lead"
>Hebrew 'ANAK
Hebr. b'di:l
>Arabic 'ANUK
Arab. qas.di:r (cf. Grk. kassiteros)
>Armenian ANAG
>Old Hindic NAGA
Skrt. trapu-
>(Latvian S.VIN "lead" S.VERte "plumb" S.VARs "weight"
>Lithuanian SH.VIN- ("lead, plumb")
Like Russian svinec, from Balto-Slavic *k^wei-.
>
>IRON
>Sumerian AN.BAR
>Akkadian PAR.ZILLU
>Aramaic PAR.ZEL
>Hebrew BAR.ZEL
>Arabic FIR.ZILun
>Lithuanian ZHAL.VARis "bronze"
>Latvian DZELs "iron", ZEL.TS "gold"
From IE *ghel- "yellow", cf. Grk. khalkos "copper", Germanic "gold",
Slavic zhele:zo, zhele:so "iron < copper", etc. Baltic z is ALWAYS
from *g(h), and Latvian dz is ALWAYS from *gw(h) before e/i. It is
extremely silly to keep comparing it to non-IE, non-satem s or z.
>When we examine all of these ancient terms for metals, we see that two
>basic roots are in evidence, a root of the form "BAR, VAR, PAR" and surely
>the root of FERRO- "iron" in Latin, which of course has not been traced
>back any further than that.
BAR (BAR.BAR, BABBAR) is Sumerian for "white", originally applied to
"silver" (kug bar.bar "white metal"), by extension to other metals as
well (za.bar "bronze", a.bar "lead" ?, an.bar "iron"). It was
borrowed into Akkadian as par (siparru-, parzillu- ?). Baltic <varis>
(*waris) is unconnected. A possible trace of Sumerian bar in Baltic
might still be found in Lith. sidabras, Latv. sidrabs "silver",
OPruss. sirablan if from a hypothetical *silu-bar, *sila-bar (which
might be related to Akk. parzillu like Akk. annaku "tin, lead" to
Hitt. kuwanna "copper"). Cf. Basque zilar, zirar, zidar, Celtiberian
silubar, Germanic silabar, silubar, Slavic surebro, all "silver",
maybe Greek side:ros "iron".
[nonsense deleted]
==
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal ~ ~
Amsterdam _____________ ~ ~
m...@pi.net |_____________|||
========================== Ce .sig n'est pas une .cig
Alan M. Dunsmuir
In article <19970129224...@ladder01.news.aol.com>, AriWyler
<ariw...@aol.com> writes
>1. Write a LOT less. Nobody wants to read four or five long, rambling
>posts from you every day.
>
>2. Take your "Open Letter" and stuff it. You don't fool anybody with
>your sanctimonious pieties.
>
>3. Go soak your head. It is far too big. Maybe it'll shrink some.
Way to go, Ari! <g>
--
Alan M. Dunsmuir
Were diu werlt alle min von deme mere unze an den Rijn
des wolt ih mih darben,
daz diu chunigen von Engellant lege an minen armen!
frank murray
On 29 Jan 1997 18:01:23 GMT, akau...@aol.com wrote:
>Dear members of sci.archaeology,
>
>As someone who downloads all and reads nearly all of the postings to this
>list and also as someone who does his share of posting as well, I have
>some comments on decorum.
>
comments with which i in large part agree....and which if taken
seriously by more on this newsgroup (or list - though purists may
howl, the terms are often used interchangably in casual mention) might
clear a bit of the dross and flame that make so many posts here not
worth reading...but such hope is vanity...usenet will not likely lose
its ab...
but sad to see such dimdull inane flames...those who lurk to leap to
dump on others with standard issue insult betray themselves as
witless, uncreative souls...if they must hurl insults, why not decent
deadly ones??...stabs that reach and sore the innards of their
targets...insightful stabs, designed and tuned to who their victim
is...artistry...wit...the common decency to make their insults worth
reading...bright flame instead of these smoldering piles of cliche...
craftsmanship, ladies and gentlemen... craftsmanship...
frank
akau...@aol.com
A member recently sent me a private EMail asking me if Latvian had a word
for ARCHAEOLOGY and pointing out that this was an archaeological and not a
linguistic list. I had to laugh. It was funny. Thank you.
Ladies - and of course Gentlemen too - there is no Ph.D. in the
Decipherment of Scripts, but this happens to be my specialty - and I am
very good at it. The understanding of ancient cultures is inextricably
intertwined with language - and the evaluation of archaeological finds
includes their assignment to a particular era and to a particular group of
people within that era, speaking a particular language.
The top of my desk consists of a large world map. Let us say I find an
encrpyted or unreadable text at location X (e.g. Egypt). Where do I look
for its code?
The standard procedure in archaeology and the human sciences is what I
call the "local" approach. When you find a text or artifact you try to
explain it within the local surrounding population and culture and you
assign the "scholarly jurisdiction" of this text or artifiact to the
appropriate academic branch - Egyptology, Sumerology, pre-Hellenic Greece,
what have you. These academic branches, in turn, limit the scope of their
examination to the assumptions then in vogue in their "department".
Someone finding an Egyptian astronomical text in Egypt considers this to
be in the jurisdiction of "Egyptology" and not "astronomy" and would
certainly not look to astronomical texts in China, for example, for a
solution (but not to do so is an error). Indeed, anyone linking the
pyramids to the foreign branch "astronomy" is considered an outsider -
quite aparts from the merits of the facts. The local approach defines
"territories" of research but is not always the best for finding solutions
which turn out to be interdisciplinary (i.e. multi-local or global) in
scope.
And it is precisely for this reason that the so-called academic
professionals have not primarily been the ones who have deciphered ancient
scripts or solved ancient puzzles. These turn out to be "code-breakers" of
another kind.
Ventris, the decipherer of Linear B, was an architect. Thomas Young, who
preceded Champollion, and who made the major initial "decipherments" of
the hieroglyphs, was a physical scientist. Knorosow, an outsider, and the
recent decipherer of the Mayan syllbary, is still as unknown in Leningrad
(and elswhere) as he was before. Grotefand - from Goettingen, as I am -
was a teacher "without any particular knowledge of Oriental languages, but
adept in solving puzzles" who "bet some drinking companions that he could
find the key to deciphering cuneiform" - and he did. (Enc.Brit.)
Now, when you look to crack a code, you do not limit your scope to the
ephemeral "assumptions" of linguistics or archaeology or any other kind of
pervading paradigms of scholarship in any area. You look at that world map
on your desk and ask "where is the solution?" - and you do not really care
where you find it - since many lives may be at stake. It may, as in war
time, be a piece of information or material you find on a captured
submarine - this could be anywhere. It may be a note concealed in a book
at the Library of the British Museum. Maybe the ciphered information is
not written in German but Mongolian? (We always expect ciphered info to be
in the language of the nation of the sender - not always true. Try
deciphering an encrypted "Russian" text which turns out to be written in
encrypted Swahili. Very tough.) The only rule is that you leave no
possible explanation unturned.
So, for those of you out there who wonder what I am doing on this list, I
am simply telling you that I have examined ancient history, archaeology
and languages from the standpoint of a "code-breaker" and not as an
academician in any particular area - YOUR job as an academician does NOT
include code-breaking, nor have you been trained for this - so you need
not feel that people are stepping on your toes.
Now, what I have found is that the language "code" for Pharaonic Egyptian,
The Phaistos Disk, The Etruscan Bronze Liver of Piacenza, for Sumerian and
the languages of the ancient Near East and even for Basque is "Latvian" -
strange as that may appear.
The fact that this does not fit with your asssumptions of how God
populated the earth or how the earth's languages developed is irrelvant -
quite the contrary, YOUR assumptions get in the way of your seeing what is
there. I have posted material showing how modern Latvian is identical to
ancient Sanskrit. You may not like this - but those are the facts. I am
not making these lists up. You can check them. What I am showing you is
where the "code" is located and I leave it up to you to figure out how
this came to be in terms of ancient migrations of people on this planet.
My following posting on Latvian TITILBIS as an explanation of our Egyptian
"X", i.e. the strange use of Egyptian IBIS to represent the phonological
sound THOTH is one example. The Latvian term fully EXPLAINS something you
find in ancient Egypt very well - but which no Egyptologist has been able
to explain with his "local" approach.
Obviously, the ancient Egyptians had an ancient similar word to TITILBIS.
Although I try to provide hints where I can to show how such things can
possibly be connected (glacial melt, the Nostratic hypothesis of
migrations of Indo-Europeans southward, the Kurgans, etc.), the final
resolution of these matters is YOUR job.
I am doing mine.
akau...@aol.com
The Pharaonic Egyptian word for bird IBIS (from the Greek IBIS) is
transcribed by the Egyptologists as IB-. So, fine and good.
But why is the Egyptian God THOTH (both the moon as well as the inventor
of writing and the arts) represented by the bird IBIS on hieroglyphs, a
usage which is as phonologically mysterious as it is illogical. Why this?
The Latvian gives us a very clear explanation as to why this is so.
The Latvian word for an IBIS-like bird is T I T I L B I S.
TITILBIS is a term which applies to a bird having long legs, and
especially those which wade in waters and on shores (it is even used to
apply to people with long legs).
If we presume that the Pharaonic Egyptians had a similar a term which the
originally applied to Thoth, then the mystery is explained.
When we thus want to know why the God THOTH as inventor of writing and the
arts was represented by the bird IBIS then we see that this is because the
original term is the Latvian T I T - I L B I S. I think it was used as
the nearest concrete word to Latvian TAUTIBA or TAUTIBAS "nation, folk,
people", who according to Pharaonic legend, as THOTH, Latvian TAUTA "folk,
people" were the inventors of writing and the arts.
If we want to know why the T I T I L B I S was applied to the moon THOTH,
then we must know that the Latvians also called the moon TETIS or TETITIS
in the ancient Latvian Dainas (a three-T variation is also found in the
hieroglyphs), a term also set equivalent to "father" - but also to male
birds.
Hence, T I T I L B I S was the closest term having a representable
concrete object similar in sound phonology to the concepts to be
represented by hieroglyphs (i.e. TAUT- "folk" and TET- "father".)
Essentially, we can regard the problem as the same of representing the
English word DAD for father with a hieroglyph of similar sound - what
concrete object would you use in English? Very tough.
At some time the initial T I T - of I L B I S was dropped and the bird
came to be known as the I(L)BIS.
- Andis Kaulins
Katherine Griffis
akau...@aol.com wrote:
>The Pharaonic Egyptian word for bird IBIS (from the Greek IBIS) is
>transcribed by the Egyptologists as IB-. So, fine and good.
>But why is the Egyptian God THOTH (both the moon as well as the inventor
>of writing and the arts) represented by the bird IBIS on hieroglyphs, a
>usage which is as phonologically mysterious as it is illogical. Why this?
>The Latvian gives us a very clear explanation as to why this is so.
snip remainder
OK...now, WHY is a dog-faced baboon* used to signify THOTH as well??
I fail to see that just because *ib* is used for an ibis makes it all
the way to Latvian "T I T - I L B I S" (your spelling here). At the
most you can argue for "word borrowing" BY the Latvians, but I don't
think it would work here.
But please! Carry on....you likely will.
* Any of several large, terrestrial African and Asian monkeys of the
family Cercopithecidae, especially of the genus Papio or
Chaeropithecus and related genera, characterized by an elongated,
doglike muzzle, a short tail, and bare calluses on the buttocks.
(American Heritage Dictionary)
Regards --
Katherine Griffis (Greenberg)
Member of the American Research Center in Egypt
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Special Studies
http://www.ccer.ggl.ruu.nl/ccer/PEOPLE2.HTML
AriWyler
Andis Kaulins wrote:
>The Pharaonic Egyptian word for bird IBIS (from the Greek IBIS) is
>transcribed by the Egyptologists as IB-. So, fine and good.
Not so good. "Ibis" is a word in Coptic, not in ancient Egyptian. There
is no bird-word in Egyptian transcribed as IB. One of the Egyptian words
for the "ibis" is "hb" or "h3b" (there are others that don't even resemble
the term "ibis").
>But why is the Egyptian God THOTH (both the moon as well as the inventor
>of writing and the arts) represented by the bird IBIS on hieroglyphs, a
>usage which is as phonologically mysterious as it is illogical. Why this?
It may be illogical to you, but then you are not an Egyptian. It is
possible that the long, curved beak of the bird was identified both with
the crescent moon and with the reed pen.
>The Latvian gives us a very clear explanation as to why this is so.
>The Latvian word for an IBIS-like bird is T I T I L B I S
What kind of bird is it actually?. What is its name in ornithology?.
>TITILBIS is a term which applies to a bird having long legs, and
>especially those which wade in waters and on shores (it is even used to
>apply to people with long legs).
Just any old bird with long legs? Shouldn't it be a specific one? In
English, popularly, it could be any of various herons and storks. Is it a
word like that?
>If we presume that the Pharaonic Egyptians had a similar a term which the
>originally applied to Thoth, then the mystery is explained.
It is rather a mystery what you mean here, but Thoth, of course, was
called "Djehuty".
>When we thus want to know why the God THOTH as inventor of writing and
the
>arts was represented by the bird IBIS then we see that this is because
the
>original term is the Latvian T I T - I L B I S. I think it was used as
>the nearest concrete word to Latvian TAUTIBA or TAUTIBAS "nation, folk,
>people", who according to Pharaonic legend, as THOTH, Latvian TAUTA
"folk,
>people" were the inventors of writing and the arts.
The Egyptian word for "people" is "remu". Again, "Djehuti", while
associated with the ibis, is not the Ibis god. That is someone called
Heb. "Ibis" is not even the Egyptian word for "ibis". That is probably a
Greek rendering of "hb" with an "s" on the end. Greeks put an "s" on the
end of everything--even where it doesn't belong. Listen to one talk
sometime.
>If we want to know why the T I T I L B I S was applied to the moon THOTH,
>then we must know that the Latvians also called the moon TETIS or TETITIS
>in the ancient Latvian Dainas (a three-T variation is also found in the
>hieroglyphs), a term also set equivalent to "father" - but also to male
>birds.
>Hence, T I T I L B I S was the closest term having a representable
>concrete object similar in sound phonology to the concepts to be
>represented by hieroglyphs (i.e. TAUT- "folk" and TET- "father".)
>Essentially, we can regard the problem as the same of representing the
>English word DAD for father with a hieroglyph of similar sound - what
>concrete object would you use in English? Very tough.
I can't say I know what you are driving at. The Egyptians didn't use a
concrete object to represent "dad", themselves. They used the glyphs
"reed, loaf, reed" with the determinative of the "viper". I suppose you
might say it represented "dad". If that doesn't make too much sense,
consider that the "vulture" represented "mom". In English, we don't employ
hieroglyphs. But I imagine, if a determinative were called for, one be
devised easily enough.
>At some time the initial T I T - of I L B I S was dropped and the bird
>came to be known as the I(L)BIS.
All that was dropped was the droppings.