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Plougastel rock

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Athel Cornish-Bowden

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May 19, 2019, 12:25:53 PM5/19/19
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No one has been able to understand the writing on a rock in Plougastel :

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=42790

I feel sure that the text is in Magdalenian. My Magdalenian isn't very
good, but an expert should be able to read it immediately.


--
athel

Daud Deden

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May 19, 2019, 10:57:28 PM5/19/19
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He posted a thread. Damn.

António Marques

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May 20, 2019, 11:01:24 PM5/20/19
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I'd love to know more about it, but I don't. You're too far from Penn ar
Bed to go there and take some pictures, I fear?

Franz Gnaedinger

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May 21, 2019, 2:46:10 AM5/21/19
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Thanks for your trust (if spiced with a pinch of sarcasm). Here two lines
from an attempted transscription

…ALVOA ARBORSINET
CARCLONEPR ES (SAKI) ASONRES E I BEL

Arborsinet evokes Latin arbor 'tree' and English arboretum, so this might
be a reference to a former garden, orchard or a little wood above the rocks.
Forests played an all-important role in the mythology of Brittany. (Saki)
evokes Latin saxum 'rock, stone' saxetum 'rocky area. The inscription may
then concern a garden, orchard or wood above the rocks along the shore.

Just a hunch, might be completely wrong.

For your entertainment a Magdalenian perspective. English arbor names a hut
made of branches. Branch as Italian braccio 'arm' derive from BRA meaning
right arm, a branch seen as 'arm' of a tree. Saki is more problematic.
Reminds of Latin saxum 'rock, stone' saxetum 'rocky area' Old High German
Sahs 'rock'. A village in the Swiss Pre-Alps is called Sachseln. Saas,
also written Saxa, reminds of saxum. Saxony German Sachsen is the land on
the northern slope of the Ore Mountains between Germany and Czechia. From
Saas Fee you can lokk down SA to Saas Gr(o)und in the Saas Valley, and from
Saas Gr(o)und you can look up AS to the high mountains above Saas Fee. From
any mountain you can look down SA into the valley below, and from the valley
up AS to the mountain, together SA AS that might have accounted for Latin
saxum 'rock, stone' and saxetum 'rocky area'. The inscription might then
refer to a former rock garden, orchard, aboretum, or little forest.

As I said, just a hunch.

Athel Cornish-Bowden

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May 21, 2019, 3:35:40 AM5/21/19
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Yes, I fear. Coincidentally, the television news went to Plougastel a
day or two ago, but the rock wasn't mentioned. Something to do with
supermarkets, I think.

--
athel

Franz Gnaedinger

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May 22, 2019, 3:58:11 AM5/22/19
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> Thanks for your trust (if spiced with a pinch of sarcasm). Here two lines
> from an attempted transscription
>
> …ALVOA ARBORSINET
> CARCLONEPR ES (SAKI) ASONRES E I BEL
>
> Arborsinet evokes Latin arbor 'tree' and English arboretum, so this might
> be a reference to a former garden, orchard or a little wood above the rocks.
> Forests played an all-important role in the mythology of Brittany. (Saki)
> evokes Latin saxum 'rock, stone' saxetum 'rocky area. The inscription may
> then concern a garden, orchard or wood above the rocks along the shore.
>
> Just a hunch, might be completely wrong.
>
> For your entertainment a Magdalenian perspective. English arbor names a hut
> made of branches. Branch as Italian braccio 'arm' derive from BRA meaning
> right arm, a branch seen as 'arm' of a tree. Saki is more problematic.
> Reminds of Latin saxum 'rock, stone' saxetum 'rocky area' Old High German
> Sahs 'rock'. A village in the Swiss Pre-Alps is called Sachseln. Saas,
> also written Saxa, reminds of saxum. Saxony German Sachsen is the land on
> the northern slope of the Ore Mountains between Germany and Czechia. From
> Saas Fee you can lokk down SA to Saas Gr(o)und in the Saas Valley, and from
> Saas Gr(o)und you can look up AS to the high mountains above Saas Fee. From
> any mountain you can look down SA into the valley below, and from the valley
> up AS to the mountain, together SA AS that might have accounted for Latin
> saxum 'rock, stone' and saxetum 'rocky area'. The inscription might then
> refer to a former rock garden, orchard, aboretum, or little forest.
>
> As I said, just a hunch.


Plougastel rock inscription (second part, can be read on its own)

Let me go on with a story.

BRI meaning fertile named Britain Brittanny, also Breton and Brest. If I read
my maps correctly, Brest has a rather mild climate. Also, the Bretons love
their forests. A quote from an elegiac tale of Celtic origin, The Drowned City
of Ys, translated by Iain Zaczek

Guénolé, meanwhile, invited the druid to return with him and live out
his remaining days in the shelter of Landévennec.
However, the druid refused, saying to Guénolé: 'For me, the woodland
paths are better. Who knows, perhaps they lead to the same great center
of existence that you also seek.' With that, he turned away from the monk
and walked back into his beloved forest.

A rich, pious, and somewhat excentric Breton was dreaming of uniting the
beliefs of the Christian monk and Celtic druid. So he asked the prior of
the monastery of the Sacred Heart, Sacré Coeur, to plan a botanical garden
with trees from various parts of the world brought in by sailors. He will
pay the costs. Well, the monks agreed, and planted a large botanical garden,
an arboretum, in 1786/87, and engraved the names of the trees on a rock by
the sea, in the middle of the inscription a small cross and heart, emblem
of their faith and monastery.

Sailors of various nations had gathered young trees in different regions of
the world. But there was a problem. Trees and bushes and flowers are named
by a lot of synonyms - in Switzerland we have several dozen words for the
single flower dendelion -, moreover the sailors were analphabets, so it
happened that the trees they brought home were called with hardly under-
standable terms.

We have to make sense of them. The first line of the inscription as appearing
in a photograph reads

GROCARB

This might be an abbreviation

G ROC ARB Grande Roche Arbre Great Rock Tree

maybe Quercus ilex, holm oak, French rouvre, German Stein-Eiche, literally
Stone-Oak.

Swiss Dähle is a synonym for a fir tree, Pinus sylvestris, and so DALTOGREC
might be a Greek fir (Dähle DALTO).

Sarbaum is a Swiss word for the ordinary poplar tree, Populus nigra nigra,
and might explain SARMIS - UT (Sar- SAR-).

Various trees and bushes, known under different names, found in several
regions of the world, transported to Brest by illiterate sailors, planted
in the botanical garden of the monastery by monks who made the best of the
botched-up names and engraved them on a rock of the shoreline ...

The sponsor of the arboretum was very pleased, and felt something of the
"great center of existence" when he went for a prayer or meditation into
the monastery garden.

Built in the 1780s, it lasted more than one century. However, it was
neglected during the first world war, and abandoned in 1920, whereupon
someone incised this year on the same rock.

And if my story wins the prize of 2,000 Euros announced by the mayor of Brest,
the money shall be used for planting a couple of trees in the area.

Franz Gnaedinger, Zurich, May 2019

Franz Gnaedinger

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May 23, 2019, 4:11:52 AM5/23/19
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Plougastel rock inscription (postscript)

Mythology knows many examples of people who turned into flowers and trees,
Adonis, Philemon and Baucis, or the lover of Diana. Maybe the hypothetical
arboretum of my fable turned the personnel of The Drowned City of Ys from
the Breizaz Breiz or Songs of Brittany into trees, and named them with puns?

Ys drowned, and the rock of the strange inscription is flooded when the sea
rises. The first line reads GROCARB which may abbreviate Grand(e) ROChe ARBre,
and allude to the holm oak German Stein-Eiche 'stone-oak'. The king of the
Celtic tale is called Gradolin - GRadolin GRocarb.

His daughter was the most beautiful princess Dahut. One of the strange lines
on the rock reads SARMIS - UT. The initial SAR- made me think of the Sarbaum,
a Swiss word for the common poplar tree. Dahut was pale, inspiring another
poplar tree, Populus alba 'white poplar' German Silberpappel 'silver poplar'.
Gradlon, a doting father, fulfilled his daugther any wish, even the sea -
poplar trees love water -, and built Ys, most splendid city in the entire
world, somewhere off the western shore of Finisterrae, among the waves,
in the sea. Now if UT evokes Dahut, SARMIS can evoke Semiramis, beautiful
queen and co-founder of Babylon between Euphrat and Tigris ('on the waters
of Babylon'), famous for its hanging gardens, one of the seven ancient
world wonders.

If names of trees alone can't explain the strange inscriptions on the
Plougastel rock, then maybe such multiple puns. Did the hypothetical Breton
in my fable know a Celtic source comparing people and trees? An ancient Roman
explained populus 'people' and populus 'poplar tree' with the fickle mind
of the former and trembling leaves of the latter. Dahut _was_ of a fickle
mind, her father the king firm as an oak.

Did a Celtic myth of origin connect land and oak, water and white poplar?

(2,000 Euros might be enough to plant a holm oak and a white poplar tree.)

Franz Gnaedinger

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May 24, 2019, 3:33:29 AM5/24/19
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Plougastel rock inscription (second postscript, or rather a beginning)

Each line requires a new effort. Here a provisional translation of the middle
part, read as a pasticcio of an old-looking pseudo-Breton composed from
allusions to words in Latin, French, Breton, Spanish/Portuguese

CVLESEDAREIDIMEVSMES

CVLE SEDARE IDI MEVS MES

CVLE couler flow float ?
SEDARE settle ?
IDI idyll ?
MEVS my ?
MES month ?

I FLOATED around on the seas for a long time
Now I wish to SETTLE here
in this IDYLLIC and fertile region
and spend MY
remaining MONTHS, the rest of my life

ARPRIGILOD 1787 -- April 1787 ???

(heart and cross) OBIIE BRISBVILAR FROIK AL

OBEYING the BREIZ (Breton) BULE (counsil meeting) of the FRIARS AL (in the)

ALVOA ABORSINET

ALVUS (hollow, geol. depression) of the future ARBORETUM that I plan to build
in the memory of Semiramis + Dahut = SARMIS - UT. I imagine a sculpture of
heart and cross in the center, a Christian emblem, made from iron, or a marble
sculpture. Surrounded by a small forest, a Celtic church, as it were. But I
keep my intention of combining two or even more religions a secret, otherwise
one or another of the good friars might object. Out of this reason I use
a weird para-language for my inscription on a rock on the shoreline. But it
sounds rather well, doesn't it? like an old poem.


Franz Gnaedinger

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May 25, 2019, 4:10:13 AM5/25/19
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Athel Cornish-Bowden fell silent. I needed just four days for my partial
decipherment. No Magdalenian, at least not on the surface, but Magdalenian
helped me find a promising direction.

As for the ancient Roman who explained populus 'people' and populus (long o)
'poplar tree' vie the fickle mind of the former and trembling leaves of the
latter - as far as I remember he was a politician, and he made a rhetorical
joke. The strange verbal connection is explained via Magdalenian. POL PLO
named a fortified settlement POL polis made of wickerwork PLO, in the way
of the Anasazi buildings in America, while the derivatives, Old Latin poplo
Classical Latin populus Italian populo French peuple English people named
those living in such settlements, whereas POL PLO populus 'poplar tree'
indicates that the straight, vertical, and quickly growing branches of the
common poplar tree, Populus nigra nigra, had been used for the upshoots
in building wickerwork walls, huts and houses.

Athel Cornish-Bowden

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May 25, 2019, 6:00:24 AM5/25/19
to
There is, I think, a 2000€ prize for the first decipherment. Why don't
you enter?
>
> As for the ancient Roman who explained populus 'people' and populus (long o)
> 'poplar tree' vie the fickle mind of the former and trembling leaves of the
> latter - as far as I remember he was a politician, and he made a rhetorical
> joke. The strange verbal connection is explained via Magdalenian. POL PLO
> named a fortified settlement POL polis made of wickerwork PLO, in the way
> of the Anasazi buildings in America, while the derivatives, Old Latin poplo
> Classical Latin populus Italian populo French peuple English people named
> those living in such settlements, whereas POL PLO populus 'poplar tree'
> indicates that the straight, vertical, and quickly growing branches of the
> common poplar tree, Populus nigra nigra, had been used for the upshoots
> in building wickerwork walls, huts and houses.


--
athel

Franz Gnaedinger

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May 27, 2019, 3:33:48 AM5/27/19
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Plougastel rock inscription (one more time)

Testing my hunch of a mythological-religious garden is difficult without
reliable material (readable photographs of the entire inscription, plus
the reproduction of a rubbing off with graphit or charcoal on paper),
nevertheless I try once more, this time the pair of opening lines given as

ROC AR B...
DRE AR GRIO SE EVELOH

On the photograph of the first line I read

GROCARB

whith initial G and no spaces. I parsed it as follows

G ROC ARB

that may abbreviate

Grand(e) ROChe ARBre, Great Rock Tree

and this may refer to a holm oak, German Stein-Eiche 'stone oak', as
personification of king Gradlon. Assuming that also the second line on the
rock is written without spaces we'd have

DRE ARG RIO SE EVELOH

Proto-Indo-European has *doru meaning 'tree' and accounts for English tree,
while the Celtic and Greek derivatives mean specifically 'oak'. So DRE can
be read as tree in the context of an oak. The following ARG reminds of
argentum 'silver'. DRE ARG may then refer to a white poplar, German Silber-
pappel 'silver poplar', hypothetical symbol of Gradlon's daughter Dahut.
RIO means river, poplars growing best along a river. SE may be a reflexive
pronoun, and EVELOH with a twist of letters ELEVOH from elever, elevate,
German sich erheben, the original EVE a further allusion, so we can read
the pair of opening lines as follows

By the big rock a holm oak
and by the river a white poplar
(in the garden I plan)
the former symbolizing king Gradlon
and the latter his daughter Dahut

What happened in France and Brittany in the 1780s? what was the religious
and political situation?

Did the author of the inscription fear an authority? Or had he just fun
inventing a mythologically (over)charged para-language?

On these questions I end my adventure. May someone else take over. Someone
who knows the rock, the region, and the Barzaz Breiz in the original.

(My working thesis: Christianity made more lively by paganism, and the
excesses of paganism - Babylon became a proverial whore, Ys drowned -
prevented by a Christian belief that comes from the heart and Christ's
example, not from clerical dogmatism. Proclaiming such ideas openly in
1787 might have been a high risk. The rock inscription and hypothetical
garden can then be subsumed under the European movement called humanism.
Deciphering such a document, in my opinion, is worth the effort.)

António Marques

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May 27, 2019, 7:56:45 AM5/27/19
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The various _ar_ point conspicuously to the breton definite article. _evel_
'like' is also clear enough. _viriones_ may look like pretend-Gaulish, but
_(g)wirionez_ 'truth' is an obvious candidate and the thing is close enough
to Leon for the -z to be audible.

But why would a breton inscription be made on a rock in such a place? If it
were French, some authority could have ordered it, but I don't see a
private citizen expending the effort.

Arnaud Fournet

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May 27, 2019, 8:49:03 AM5/27/19
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Are you a complotist?

António Marques

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May 27, 2019, 9:25:56 AM5/27/19
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Do you have Picard rock inscriptions from the 1700s/1800s in your country?

Franz Gnaedinger

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May 28, 2019, 3:41:59 AM5/28/19
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Plougastel rock inscription (how you can go on)

Line 3 given without spaces

ARVIRIONESBOAVELRI

and parsed by me

ARV IRIONES BOAVEL RI

ARV evokes Latin arvum 'field'. IRIONES might be a contraction of Iris
Juno Ceres, from a most lyrical passage in The Tempest by Edward de Vere
alias William Shakespeare (Scene 4 Act 1). BOAVEL might be a further
contraction, French bois 'wood' pronounced boa, and Latin avellum 'hazel',
together hazelwood. Hazelnuts were most important in the Stone Age, and
also later on; lighty roasted they are well conserved and helped people
make it through the winter. And RI might refer to English realm pronounced
ri-alm, Swiss Riich while riich means rich, hence a fecund, fertile,
prospering area - more than a botanical garden, but a mythological garden
involving a greater part of the region?

The three first lines can then be read as follows

Between the holm oak by the big rock,
symbol of king Gradlon,
and the silver white poplar rising by the river,
symbol of his daughter Dahut,
are a field and hazelwood
belonging to the realm of
Iris, goddess of the rainbow,
great Juno blessing the land,
and Ceres providing cereals.

This may show you how to go on. Get surprised by the ambition of the author.

PS Just got pictures from de Mairie de Plougastel. Hope I can open the PDF
file. My first attempt here in the university library failed.

Franz Gnaedinger

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May 28, 2019, 3:48:49 AM5/28/19
to
On Monday, May 27, 2019 at 1:56:45 PM UTC+2, António Marques wrote:
>
> The various _ar_ point conspicuously to the breton definite article. _evel_
> 'like' is also clear enough. _viriones_ may look like pretend-Gaulish, but
> _(g)wirionez_ 'truth' is an obvious candidate and the thing is close enough
> to Leon for the -z to be audible.
>
> But why would a breton inscription be made on a rock in such a place? If it
> were French, some authority could have ordered it, but I don't see a
> private citizen expending the effort.

And I say that this AR fooled the first one who attempted a transliteration
and parsing of the inscription. He gives the first line as ROC AR B... while
the photograph cleary shows an initial G and no spaces, GROCARB which I parse
G ROC ARB and read as abbreviation of Grand(e) ROChe ARBre, a holm oak growing
by the big rock, symbol of king Gradlon. So far the Breton approach yielded
no result, hence have to look out for something else.

Mścisław Wojna-Bojewski

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May 28, 2019, 4:51:49 AM5/28/19
to
May I respectfully point out to you that "complotiste" is in English "conspiracy theorist"? The word "complot" for "conspiracy" does not seem to exist in contemporary English and is not readily understood.

António Marques

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May 28, 2019, 7:22:51 AM5/28/19
to
Eh? It seems to be simply a reasonable transcription away from being
perfectly clear.

Arnaud Fournet

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May 28, 2019, 8:43:11 AM5/28/19
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I accept your objection.

Franz Gnaedinger

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May 29, 2019, 3:25:47 AM5/29/19
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A linguistic experiment? Plougastel rock inscription (adding lines 4-9)

4) GENBICEN DA BEN ESOA SE
5) DIAS BOANT
6) EKGES
7) BO FET
8) DAR
9) ASOMGAROPA

GEN Spanish genito 'swarm', BICEN Proto-Indo-European *bhi-kwo- 'bee,
stinging insect' Old Irish bech 'bee' Church Slavonic bicela 'bee', DA short
for Spanish dar 'give', BEN 'benefice', ESOA Spanish eso 'to them' and SE
'to themselves'
DIAS 'day' Boant Spanish boato 'splendor'

EKGES Spanish excesivo in the sense of 'abundant, lascious'
BO FET Spanish boveda 'cupola', here a cupola of green foliage
DAR Spanish give
ASOM Spanish asombrar 'amazement' GAR Spanish garbo 'splendor' OPA Spanish
opaco 'opaque'

Lines 4-9 added to 1-3 and 12-13

1) Between the holm oak by the big rock
symbolizing king Gradlon
2) and the silver white poplar tree rising by the river
symbolizing his daughter Dahut
3) are a field and a hazelwood
as realm of the rainbow goddess Iris
and great Juno blessing the land
and Ceres providing cereals
4) while a bee swarm
does or gives benefice to the field and hazels
by polluting them
and to themselves as well by finding nectar
in the golden aments of the hazels
5) on a splendid day.

6) A luxurious
7) green cupola of foliage
8) gives
9) a feeling of amazement of opaque grace.

12) I floated around on the seas for a long time;
Now I wish to settle here, in this idyllic region,
to spend my remaining months, the rest of my life.
13) April 1787

If this holds, the unknown author had a remarkable linguistic knowledge,
and did not only hide his intention of building a pagan-Christian botanical
garden (my hypothesis) but also carried out a linguistic experiment: emulating
an early Celtic by omitting letters and entire syllables, or by adding letters,
or by swapping letters, for example bois BOA BAO, and élever ELEVOH EVELOH,
and whenever possible making allusions to Bretonic - the Bretons are said
to be cheeky people ...

I like the amazing opaque grace inside a cupola, a canopy of foliage,
as I love the sun shining through the fresh green leaves in spring and summer.

The pseudo-Celtic poem is a 'garden' of words: water them with imagination
and they will germinate, grow and blossom.

Having deciphered or 'deciphered' more than half of the Plougastel rock
inscription within a rather exhausting stretch of eight days, I let go for
the moment, and may resume my work when I feel like it again, or if someone
invites me to do so, a publisher, la mairie de Plougastel, or the French
Archaeological Society. But it may also be that I am completely wrong.
I might be wrong or right, wright or rong. We shall see.

Franz Gnaedinger

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May 29, 2019, 3:47:14 AM5/29/19
to
On Tuesday, May 28, 2019 at 1:22:51 PM UTC+2, António Marques wrote:
>
> Eh? It seems to be simply a reasonable transcription away from being
> perfectly clear.

If the case were so clear, why isn't there a Bretonic decipherment?

Athel Cornish-Bowden

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May 29, 2019, 3:52:57 AM5/29/19
to
On 2019-05-29 07:25:45 +0000, Franz Gnaedinger said:

>
>> Plougastel rock inscription (how you can go on)
>>
>> Line 3 given without spaces
>>
>> ARVIRIONESBOAVELRI
>>
>> and parsed by me
>>
>> ARV IRIONES BOAVEL RI
>>
>>
>> [ … ]

>
> Having deciphered or 'deciphered' more than half of the Plougastel rock
> inscription within a rather exhausting stretch of eight days, I let go for
> the moment, and may resume my work when I feel like it again, or if someone
> invites me to do so, a publisher, la mairie de Plougastel, or the French
> Archaeological Society. But it may also be that I am completely wrong.
> I might be wrong or right, wright or rong. We shall see.

Why not enter for the prize? 2000€ should go a long way to support your work.


--
athel

António Marques

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May 29, 2019, 8:42:10 AM5/29/19
to
I don't think a proper photo of the thing has been shown to someone
literate in breton yet.

The whole hoaxy / publicity stunt appearance of the thing doesn't help
either.

Franz Gnaedinger

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May 31, 2019, 2:25:15 AM5/31/19
to
no idyll, instead a shipwreck and prayer

VERY SORRY, the online transscription I relied on is flawed, my 'decipherment'
worthless.

The situation is the very contrary of an idyll - a tragedy, a shipwreck in
1787, commemorated by survivors, among them possibly one OSCAR, while the
ship that sank was of the English Royal Navy, as indicated by the slim E
and clear ROYAL under the number ...87, together with the carving of a ship
on a separate small rock.

Graphically the most prominent lines are (the first one rendered approximately)

CVLES ELdAREI dIMEVSMES
ARPRIGILOD 17 (heart and cross) 87

Scribes among the monks occasionally arranged a text so that new meaning
emerged. Let us us this method for making sense of the mysterious ARPRIGILOD

A
RP
RIG
ILOD

Bring these letters in the shape of an equilateral triangle and you have
a parallel to the most holy figure of the Pythagoreans called tetractys,
the numbers 1 / 2 3 / 4 5 6 / 7 8 9 10 arranged as a triangle. Here we have
the letters A / R P / R I G / I L O D as a formal prayer. Each letter is
engaged, every letter just once.

A small triangle says RIP, Requiescant In Pacem, may they rest in peace.
The A above means Amen, be it so. The lower half of the left side, RI,
belongs to the acronym INRI, Jesus of Nazareth, Rex Judaeorum. L stands
for the heavenly Lord. And the triangle of the right corner below reads
GOD.

While many letters of the Plougastel rock inscription appear sloppy, the heart
and cross were carved carefully, as if entrusting Christ with the souls of
the drowned.

May the victims of the shipwreck be buried symbolically (in the 'tumulus'
of the virtual triangle). May their souls find the mercy of the Lord. Amen.

Franz Gnaedinger

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Jun 1, 2019, 3:51:20 AM6/1/19
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One 'downloadz' wrote on the cypher site

ARVIRIONESBOAVELRI

bas breton

AR VIRIONES BAO-AVEL

un veritable vent engourdissant

Such a gale could have carried away the ship, or make it go lost in the bay
or gulf of Brest.

The top face of the rock ending on the line

ARPRIGILOd 17(heart and cross) 87

has roughly the shape of a triangle, while the small d might indicate a second
meaning, Aprile di 1787. Maybe the prayer formula and date overlay each other?

Double meanings could make the decifficultering so hard.

Cornish survived until the late 18th century, time of the rock inscription.
Maybe also a form of Cornish played a role in the mix? Cornishbowdenathelic?

I asked Madame V.M. de la Mairie de Plougstel whether I can participate
hors concours, and proposed that she might inform the contestants about
the prayer formula, so they don’t go astray as I did.

Franz Gnaedinger

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Jun 4, 2019, 3:15:51 AM6/4/19
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(key lines, continuation, demanding)

Remember the prayer encoded in the second key line, A / RP / RIG / ILOD
arranged as a triangle. Between the small triangles RIP Requiescant In
Pacem and GOD appears an irritating further triangle, PIG, while the D
of GOD is actually a small d, GOd - the devil sneaking in, driven into
a herd of swine by Jesus (Matthew 8, Mark 5, Luke 8).

The devil appears also in the first key line, when we turn the 21 letters
into a small verse of 3 lines and 7 letters each.

C V L E S E L
d A R E I d I
M E V S M E S

Look up the verse in ASCII, start zigzag lines from the initial letters
C and M, and you obtain

CAVE MALEM

that can be read 'beware of evil'. Latin cave is an imperative, malus 'evil'
a nominative, malum the accusative, male the adverb, and malem a phantasy
form combining the evil we encounter (acc.) and the one we can do ourselves
(adv.).

Line 2, letter one, d
line 3, letters two and three, EV
line 2, letter five, I
line 1, letter 7, L

together dEVIL, devil evil, the bended line somewhat reminding of a snake,
Biblical symbol of the devil.

MALEM forms a triangle, base 4 letters, height 3 lines. The prayer triangle
has base 4 letters height 4 lines. Going by these numbers the prayer triangle
is slighty bigger (factor 16/15). In the end prayers are stronger than the
powers of evil, a hidden message of hope.

MEVSMES can be read in Portuguese and Spanish, meus mes 'my months' in the
sense of my lifetime. We have to cope with evil all our life long.

The pair of key lines may be an elaborate formula, Celtic magic surviving
in scribal art of monks, veiled incantations around a core message

Beware of evil as long as you live.
While the drowned sailors may find
the mercy of the Lord, and rest in peace.
Amen

Do the previous lines on the roughly triangular top face of the rock report
a shipwreck? in a powerful poetic Breton? Where and how does the devil get in?
maybe in the form of strange coincidences which turned minor negligences
into a catastrophe?

Neither knowing Breton nor a related idiom I can't go further. But maybe
my lines inspire a contestant? if so, good luck.

(By the way, I found the above small 'verse' on the Sunday of Pentecost,
maybe with a little help from above, but certainly on the basis of the
fine education I got in a monastery school with a famous library.)

Athel Cornish-Bowden

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Jun 4, 2019, 5:04:45 AM6/4/19
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On 2019-06-04 07:15:50 +0000, Franz Gnaedinger said:

>>
>> no idyll, instead a shipwreck and prayer
>>
>> VERY SORRY, the online transscription I relied on is flawed, my 'decipherment'
>> worthless.

You hardly need us to tell you that.

--
athel

Franz Gnaedinger

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Jun 5, 2019, 2:44:10 AM6/5/19
to
I speak of my first attempt. However, the word playing there helped me
find the 'verse' and 'prayer triangle' of the second attempt. What do you
say about that? America, we are told, has a failure culture. You fell?
stand up and try again. And conceding an error is good scientific ethos.

Franz Gnaedinger

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Jun 5, 2019, 2:55:31 AM6/5/19
to
Sorry, the Sunday _before_ Pentecost (already under the influence of a minor
assistant of the Holy Ghost).

As for the ship that sank: it could also have been a boat with an English
royal on board that sank because of strange freakish 'devilish' coincidences
that may have involved a 'pig-headed' passenger who became the tool of the
'prince of darkness', possessed by him, as it were. The rather thin sickle
of the ascending moon would say that the fatal accident happened in a rather
dark night. Consider also the numbing wind (vent engourdissant) mentioned
by 'downloadz'.

There are several possibilities, of course also the one that I might be wrong
again. However, the 'verse' and 'prayer triangle' are a fairly good case,
if I say so myself.

The older I get and the more I see how much can go wrong, the more I marvel
that most things go well most of the time. A similar thought would have been
expressed by the comparison of the MALEM triangle and prayer triangle. A mass
held for the victims would have explained at some length what is extremely
compressed in the hypothetical formula on the rock.

With my hermeneutic work I look out for anthropological wisdom, and hope that
I found a piece thereof in the Plougastel rock inscription.

Franz Gnaedinger

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Jun 6, 2019, 2:53:19 AM6/6/19
to

> Sorry, the Sunday _before_ Pentecost (already under the influence of a minor
> assistant of the Holy Ghost).
>
> As for the ship that sank: it could also have been a boat with an English
> royal on board that sank because of strange freakish 'devilish' coincidences
> that may have involved a 'pig-headed' passenger who became the tool of the
> 'prince of darkness', possessed by him, as it were. The rather thin sickle
> of the ascending moon would say that the fatal accident happened in a rather
> dark night. Consider also the numbing wind (vent engourdissant) mentioned
> by 'downloadz'.
>
> There are several possibilities, of course also the one that I might be wrong
> again. However, the 'verse' and 'prayer triangle' are a fairly good case,
> if I say so myself.
>
> The older I get and the more I see how much can go wrong, the more I marvel
> that most things go well most of the time. A similar thought would have been
> expressed by the comparison of the MALEM triangle and prayer triangle. A mass
> held for the victims would have explained at some length what is extremely
> compressed in the hypothetical formula on the rock.
>
> With my hermeneutic work I look out for anthropological wisdom, and hope that
> I found a piece thereof in the Plougastel rock inscription.

A dark osiibility is antisemitism: the Spanish Jews were driven out of their
land under Philipp II. They were called maranos 'pigs', while the dEVIL line
of the 'verse' can also be read as a falling J. Quote from the Encyclopedia
Judica: Brittany, France:

From the beginning of the 17th century, numerous *Marranos settled in Brittany, mainly in Nantes; their Christian competitors failed to have them expelled. During the 18th century, Jewish traders from Bordeaux, Alsace, and Lorraine began to visit the fairs and markets. In 1780, as a result of an isolated incident, they were all expelled. Immediately after the French Revolution, they are found again, notably in Nantes, Brest, Rennes, and Saint-Servan. In 1808, when the *consistories were established, the total number of Jews living in Brittany was only about 30. In the late 20th century there were communities in Nantes, Brest, and Rennes.

If only I hadn't begun looking at the rock inscription!

Ruud Harmsen

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Jun 6, 2019, 3:30:29 PM6/6/19
to
Wed, 5 Jun 2019 23:53:17 -0700 (PDT): Franz Gnaedinger
<fr...@bluemail.ch> scribeva:
>A dark osiibility is antisemitism: the Spanish Jews were driven out of their
>land under Philipp II.

Aren't you about a hundred years off? 1492 or 1596?

>They were called maranos 'pigs',

In Portugal.

>while the dEVIL line
>of the 'verse' can also be read as a falling J. Quote from the Encyclopedia
>Judica: Brittany, France:
>
> From the beginning of the 17th century, numerous *Marranos settled in Brittany, mainly in Nantes; their Christian competitors failed to have them expelled. During the 18th century, Jewish traders from Bordeaux, Alsace, and Lorraine began to visit the fairs and markets. In 1780, as a result of an isolated incident, they were all expelled. Immediately after the French Revolution, they are found again, notably in Nantes, Brest, Rennes, and Saint-Servan. In 1808, when the *consistories were established, the total number of Jews living in Brittany was only about 30. In the late 20th century there were communities in Nantes, Brest, and Rennes.
>
>If only I hadn't begun looking at the rock inscription!

--
Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com

Peter T. Daniels

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Jun 6, 2019, 10:15:47 PM6/6/19
to
On Thursday, June 6, 2019 at 3:30:29 PM UTC-4, Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> Wed, 5 Jun 2019 23:53:17 -0700 (PDT): Franz Gnaedinger
> <fr...@bluemail.ch> scribeva:

> >A dark osiibility is antisemitism: the Spanish Jews were driven out of their
> >land under Philipp II.
>
> Aren't you about a hundred years off? 1492 or 1596?

Easy for Americans to remember 1492 -- the same Ferdy and Izzy who sent
Columbus this way.

> >They were called maranos 'pigs',
>
> In Portugal.

In America (northern Mexico that became part of the US) that's the name
for the "crypto-Jews" who kept some observances without realizing that
they represented a Jewish background.

Franz Gnaedinger

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Jun 7, 2019, 2:50:10 AM6/7/19
to
On Thursday, June 6, 2019 at 9:30:29 PM UTC+2, Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> Wed, 5 Jun 2019 23:53:17 -0700 (PDT): Franz Gnaedinger scribeva:
>
> >A dark osiibility is antisemitism: the Spanish Jews were driven out of their
> >land under Philipp II.
>
> Aren't you about a hundred years off? 1492 or 1596?

Inform yourself about Philipp II of Spain and read again the quote from
the Encyclopedia Judaica, or read it in the first place - sometimes I get
the impression that you reply before you read a message to the end.

Ruud Harmsen

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Jun 7, 2019, 3:50:07 PM6/7/19
to
Thu, 6 Jun 2019 23:50:08 -0700 (PDT): Franz Gnaedinger
<fr...@bluemail.ch> scribeva:

>On Thursday, June 6, 2019 at 9:30:29 PM UTC+2, Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>> Wed, 5 Jun 2019 23:53:17 -0700 (PDT): Franz Gnaedinger scribeva:
>>
>> >A dark osiibility is antisemitism: the Spanish Jews were driven out of their
>> >land under Philipp II.
>>
>> Aren't you about a hundred years off? 1492 or 1596?
>
>Inform yourself about Philipp II of Spain

I know about him, he was our most-hated national enemy in the 80 years
war, he was personally responsible for making my country come into
existence. How could I ever not know about him?

The Reyes Católicos, champions of Spanish antisemitism, were long
before that time. About a 100 years.

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reyes_Cat%C3%B3licos
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filips_II_van_Spanje

>and read again the quote from
>the Encyclopedia Judaica, or read it in the first place - sometimes I get
>the impression that you reply before you read a message to the end.

True. But I read a lot about the history of Sephardi Judaism year ago.

Ruud Harmsen

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Jun 7, 2019, 4:37:12 PM6/7/19
to
Fri, 07 Jun 2019 21:50:14 +0200: Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com>
scribeva:

>True. But I read a lot about the history of Sephardi Judaism year ago.

YearZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ ago,

I often mysteriously fail to type plural s'es and essential words
'not'. Strange and annoying. But true.

Franz Gnaedinger

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Jun 8, 2019, 3:52:10 AM6/8/19
to

> A dark osiibility is antisemitism: the Spanish Jews were driven out of their
> land under Philipp II. They were called maranos 'pigs', while the dEVIL line
> of the 'verse' can also be read as a falling J. Quote from the Encyclopedia
> Judica: Brittany, France:
>
> From the beginning of the 17th century, numerous *Marranos settled in Brittany, mainly in Nantes; their Christian competitors failed to have them expelled. During the 18th century, Jewish traders from Bordeaux, Alsace, and Lorraine began to visit the fairs and markets. In 1780, as a result of an isolated incident, they were all expelled. Immediately after the French Revolution, they are found again, notably in Nantes, Brest, Rennes, and Saint-Servan. In 1808, when the *consistories were established, the total number of Jews living in Brittany was only about 30. In the late 20th century there were communities in Nantes, Brest, and Rennes.
>
> If only I hadn't begun looking at the rock inscription!


My prediction is that nobody will provide a plausible Breton reading
of what I consider the pair of key lines encoding elaborate formulae.
The inscription was published forty years ago by the journal of the
Archaeological Society of Finisterre that certainly is affiliated with
fine Breton linguists. Apparently none of them can make sense of it.

I tried my best finding a positive message but ended uncovering a hate
message that compares (in a highly abstract way requiring a theologician)
the Maranos who had once come from Spain to the herd of swine possessed
by demons (emanations of the dEVIL) in Matthew 8 Luke 8 Mark 4 (whose
initials M L M mark the corners of the MALEM triangle in the 'verse').
I broke the bad news to the mayor's office at Plougastel. What I didn't
say was that they might use the 2,000 Euros to blast the rock away.
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