New data regarding the Indus civilization
anal...@hotmail.com
In particular:
start quote:
He later found that the Akkadian Sargonic texts referred to the weight
systems of Dilmun (Bahrain) as “minus.” The system of weights from
Dilmun was exactly the same as that of the Indus system. Dr. Bonta,
who speaks Tamil, realised that “min” in Tamil meant fish. “So our
theory is that the term “minus” is derived from the Indus and that the
fish are weights,” Dr. Wells said. There were fish signs with one long
stroke, two long strokes, a single rake or a double rake. “So the sign
graph is doubling and the value is doubling. I think this is too much
of a coincidence. But I am aware that a lot of people will disagree
with me on the fish sign,” he added.
end quote.
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> http://www.hindu.com/2009/11/15/stories/2009111556932200.htm
>
> In particular:
>
> start quote:
>
> He later found that the Akkadian Sargonic texts referred to the weight
> systems of Dilmun (Bahrain) as “minus.” The system of weights from
Where did he "find" this???
The word is in the English Bible as "mina," and the Sumerian is ma.na.
> Dilmun was exactly the same as that of the Indus system. Dr. Bonta,
> who speaks Tamil, realised that “min” in Tamil meant fish. “So our
> theory is that the term “minus” is derived from the Indus and that the
And what does the English (or Latin) word "minus" have to do with
Sumerian?
> fish are weights,” Dr. Wells said. There were fish signs with one long
> stroke, two long strokes, a single rake or a double rake. “So the sign
> graph is doubling and the value is doubling. I think this is too much
> of a coincidence. But I am aware that a lot of people will disagree
> with me on the fish sign,” he added.
>
> end quote.
Good grief. Did it occur to "Dr. Bonta" or "Dr. Wells" to learn
_anything_ about what they're talking about?
Harlan Messinger
> http://www.hindu.com/2009/11/15/stories/2009111556932200.htm
>
> In particular:
>
> start quote:
>
> He later found that the Akkadian Sargonic texts referred to the weight
> Dilmun was exactly the same as that of the Indus system. Dr. Bonta,
> theory is that the term �minus� is derived from the Indus and that the
> fish are weights,� Dr. Wells said. There were fish signs with one long
> stroke, two long strokes, a single rake or a double rake. �So the sign
> graph is doubling and the value is doubling. I think this is too much
> of a coincidence. But I am aware that a lot of people will disagree
>
> end quote.
I'm trying to figure out what's supposed to be so fascinating about this.
Peter T. Daniels
<hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
> analys...@hotmail.com wrote:
> >http://www.hindu.com/2009/11/15/stories/2009111556932200.htm
>
> > In particular:
>
> > start quote:
>
> > He later found that the Akkadian Sargonic texts referred to the weight
> > Dilmun was exactly the same as that of the Indus system. Dr. Bonta,
> > theory is that the term “minus” is derived from the Indus and that the
> > fish are weights,” Dr. Wells said. There were fish signs with one long
> > stroke, two long strokes, a single rake or a double rake. “So the sign
> > graph is doubling and the value is doubling. I think this is too much
> > of a coincidence. But I am aware that a lot of people will disagree
>
> > end quote.
>
> I'm trying to figure out what's supposed to be so fascinating about this.-
If one wastes the time to follow the link, it turns out that Wells is
an archeologist who has correlated markings on vessels with the
capacity of those vessels (a normal procedure in archeology). The
implication is that no one had done that before.
Harlan Messinger
> On Nov 15, 9:35 am, Harlan Messinger
> <hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> analys...@hotmail.com wrote:
>>> http://www.hindu.com/2009/11/15/stories/2009111556932200.htm
>>> In particular:
>>> start quote:
>>> He later found that the Akkadian Sargonic texts referred to the weight
>>> Dilmun was exactly the same as that of the Indus system. Dr. Bonta,
>>> theory is that the term �minus� is derived from the Indus and that the
>>> fish are weights,� Dr. Wells said. There were fish signs with one long
>>> stroke, two long strokes, a single rake or a double rake. �So the sign
>>> graph is doubling and the value is doubling. I think this is too much
>>> of a coincidence. But I am aware that a lot of people will disagree
>>> end quote.
>> I'm trying to figure out what's supposed to be so fascinating about this.-
>
> If one wastes the time to follow the link, it turns out that Wells is
> an archeologist who has correlated markings on vessels with the
> capacity of those vessels (a normal procedure in archeology). The
> implication is that no one had done that before.
That's what I meant. If there was nothing new about that at the time
that these vessels were created, then what was the point of the article
beyond pure documentation the work that had been done on those
vessels--in other words, what did Analyst think we were supposed to take
way from it? And if the point of the article was that these are earlier
than any markings of volume encountered before, it's strange that the
article itself didn't take note of this.
Peter T. Daniels
<hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > On Nov 15, 9:35 am, Harlan Messinger
> > <hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
> >> analys...@hotmail.com wrote:
> >>>http://www.hindu.com/2009/11/15/stories/2009111556932200.htm
> >>> In particular:
> >>> start quote:
> >>> He later found that the Akkadian Sargonic texts referred to the weight
> >>> Dilmun was exactly the same as that of the Indus system. Dr. Bonta,
> >>> theory is that the term “minus” is derived from the Indus and that the
> >>> fish are weights,” Dr. Wells said. There were fish signs with one long
> >>> stroke, two long strokes, a single rake or a double rake. “So the sign
> >>> graph is doubling and the value is doubling. I think this is too much
> >>> of a coincidence. But I am aware that a lot of people will disagree
> >>> end quote.
> >> I'm trying to figure out what's supposed to be so fascinating about this.-
>
> > If one wastes the time to follow the link, it turns out that Wells is
> > an archeologist who has correlated markings on vessels with the
> > capacity of those vessels (a normal procedure in archeology). The
> > implication is that no one had done that before.
>
> That's what I meant. If there was nothing new about that at the time
> that these vessels were created, then what was the point of the article
> beyond pure documentation the work that had been done on those
> vessels--in other words, what did Analyst think we were supposed to take
> way from it? And if the point of the article was that these are earlier
> than any markings of volume encountered before, it's strange that the
What analys... was impressed by was the idiotic last paragraph
claiming that the ubiquitous fish signs in the Indus seals stands for
the English word "minus."
Harlan Messinger
> On Nov 15, 2:35 pm, Harlan Messinger
> <hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>> On Nov 15, 9:35 am, Harlan Messinger
>>> <hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>>> analys...@hotmail.com wrote:
>>>>> http://www.hindu.com/2009/11/15/stories/2009111556932200.htm
>>>>> In particular:
>>>>> start quote:
>>>>> He later found that the Akkadian Sargonic texts referred to the weight
>>>>> Dilmun was exactly the same as that of the Indus system. Dr. Bonta,
>>>>> theory is that the term �minus� is derived from the Indus and that the
>>>>> fish are weights,� Dr. Wells said. There were fish signs with one long
>>>>> stroke, two long strokes, a single rake or a double rake. �So the sign
>>>>> graph is doubling and the value is doubling. I think this is too much
>>>>> of a coincidence. But I am aware that a lot of people will disagree
>>>>> end quote.
>>>> I'm trying to figure out what's supposed to be so fascinating about this.-
>>> If one wastes the time to follow the link, it turns out that Wells is
>>> an archeologist who has correlated markings on vessels with the
>>> capacity of those vessels (a normal procedure in archeology). The
>>> implication is that no one had done that before.
>> That's what I meant. If there was nothing new about that at the time
>> that these vessels were created, then what was the point of the article
>> beyond pure documentation the work that had been done on those
>> vessels--in other words, what did Analyst think we were supposed to take
>> way from it? And if the point of the article was that these are earlier
>> than any markings of volume encountered before, it's strange that the
>> article itself didn't take note of this.-
>
> What analys... was impressed by was the idiotic last paragraph
> claiming that the ubiquitous fish signs in the Indus seals stands for
> the English word "minus."
As far as I can tell the paragraph is referring to an Akkadian word
"minus" that refers to the Dilmum weight system, and I don't see
anything in it that indicates that he has the English word "minus" in
mind. There is no mention in the paragraph of the concept of subtraction.
anal...@hotmail.com
<hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > On Nov 15, 2:35 pm, Harlan Messinger
> > <hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
> >> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> >>> On Nov 15, 9:35 am, Harlan Messinger
> >>> <hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
> >>>> analys...@hotmail.com wrote:
> >>>>>http://www.hindu.com/2009/11/15/stories/2009111556932200.htm
> >>>>> In particular:
> >>>>> start quote:
> >>>>> He later found that the Akkadian Sargonic texts referred to the weight
> >>>>> Dilmun was exactly the same as that of the Indus system. Dr. Bonta,
> >>>>> theory is that the term “minus” is derived from the Indus and that the
> >>>>> fish are weights,” Dr. Wells said. There were fish signs with one long
> >>>>> stroke, two long strokes, a single rake or a double rake. “So the sign
> >>>>> graph is doubling and the value is doubling. I think this is too much
> >>>>> of a coincidence. But I am aware that a lot of people will disagree
> >>>>> end quote.
> >>>> I'm trying to figure out what's supposed to be so fascinating about this.-
> >>> If one wastes the time to follow the link, it turns out that Wells is
> >>> an archeologist who has correlated markings on vessels with the
> >>> capacity of those vessels (a normal procedure in archeology). The
> >>> implication is that no one had done that before.
> >> That's what I meant. If there was nothing new about that at the time
> >> that these vessels were created, then what was the point of the article
> >> beyond pure documentation the work that had been done on those
> >> vessels--in other words, what did Analyst think we were supposed to take
> >> way from it? And if the point of the article was that these are earlier
> >> than any markings of volume encountered before, it's strange that the
> >> article itself didn't take note of this.-
>
> > What analys... was impressed by was the idiotic last paragraph
> > claiming that the ubiquitous fish signs in the Indus seals stands for
> > the English word "minus."
>
> As far as I can tell the paragraph is referring to an Akkadian word
> "minus" that refers to the Dilmum weight system, and I don't see
> anything in it that indicates that he has the English word "minus" in
>
> - Show quoted text -
I think more than one attempt at decypherment has equated the Indus
Valley fish symbol with the Tamil "min" = "fish". It is interesting
that this author finds an echo in "minus " = "a weight measure"
because fish were used as measurement units.
A nice confirmation of the relationships that must have existed
between the Indus Civilization and the civilizations in the middle
east.
Peter T. Daniels
<hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > On Nov 15, 2:35 pm, Harlan Messinger
> > <hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
> >> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> >>> On Nov 15, 9:35 am, Harlan Messinger
> >>> <hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
> >>>> analys...@hotmail.com wrote:
> >>>>>http://www.hindu.com/2009/11/15/stories/2009111556932200.htm
> >>>>> In particular:
> >>>>> start quote:
> >>>>> He later found that the Akkadian Sargonic texts referred to the weight
> >>>>> Dilmun was exactly the same as that of the Indus system. Dr. Bonta,
> >>>>> theory is that the term “minus” is derived from the Indus and that the
> >>>>> fish are weights,” Dr. Wells said. There were fish signs with one long
> >>>>> stroke, two long strokes, a single rake or a double rake. “So the sign
> >>>>> graph is doubling and the value is doubling. I think this is too much
> >>>>> of a coincidence. But I am aware that a lot of people will disagree
> >>>>> end quote.
> >>>> I'm trying to figure out what's supposed to be so fascinating about this.-
> >>> If one wastes the time to follow the link, it turns out that Wells is
> >>> an archeologist who has correlated markings on vessels with the
> >>> capacity of those vessels (a normal procedure in archeology). The
> >>> implication is that no one had done that before.
> >> That's what I meant. If there was nothing new about that at the time
> >> that these vessels were created, then what was the point of the article
> >> beyond pure documentation the work that had been done on those
> >> vessels--in other words, what did Analyst think we were supposed to take
> >> way from it? And if the point of the article was that these are earlier
> >> than any markings of volume encountered before, it's strange that the
> >> article itself didn't take note of this.-
>
> > What analys... was impressed by was the idiotic last paragraph
> > claiming that the ubiquitous fish signs in the Indus seals stands for
> > the English word "minus."
>
> As far as I can tell the paragraph is referring to an Akkadian word
> "minus" that refers to the Dilmum weight system, and I don't see
> anything in it that indicates that he has the English word "minus" in
Sorry, but "minus" is not a possible word of Akkadian.
The Sumerogram for subtraction, BTW, is LAL, and the relevant Akk.
equivalent is maTuu.
MA.NA is the name of a unit of weight, and hence of an amount of
silver used as "money" -- cf. "mene, mene, tekel upharsin," Aramaic
for "two minas and a shekel and a half."
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
With the (only slight?) problem that "minus" is not "a weight
measure."
No one has ever doubted that there was contact between the Indus and
Mesopotamia. Indus seals have been found in Mesopotamia (though no
Mesopotamian artifacts have been found in the Indus valley).
johnk
wrote:
A fish does have scales and scales measure weight....let's get Franz
in on this one!
Trond Engen
I thought you were aiming for "Let's get Franz to weigh in on this one!"
--
Trond Engen
PaulJK
Ooooh, HEAVY! ;-)
pjk
Franz Gnaedinger
wrote:
Thank you for this information. I always felt there
was a connection between ancient Egypt and the
Indus Valley without being able to name it. Egyptian
Min was the god of fertility, there is a fabulous
ithiophallic predynastic black basalt statue of him
with erected member, the word ithiophallic itself
paralleling fish and phallus for which there is also
a mythological instance: when Seth murdered Osiris
for the second time he cut his body in sixteen pieces
and threw them into the Nile. Isis found them all apart
from the phallus which had been swallowed by the
fish Oxymoronchus, as I recall. Fish were also
incised in predynastic pots where we find an early
writing, even predating the Mesopotamian one,
and there were exchanges between Mesopotamia
and the Nile Valley. What do the signs on the jars
mean? We find for example the scorpion, indication
that these jars belonged to the proto-dynastic king
Scorpion, so these jars may have belonged among
the funerary gifts to that king. Or it was just a jar of
daily use that luckily survived. Some jars that imitate
stone vessels gave me the impression of mythical
references, as if fish were swimming in the sea
of origin, as if the world organized itself out of chaos.
In such cases we should again assume funerary vessels.
I will read Dr. Well's book when it comes out, however,
as someone said: if the Indus seals, the only artistic
production of the Indus people apart from a few statues,
were price tags of sorts, they were the most precious
price tags in the world. They surely served another
purpose, in my opinion honoring families for outstanding
contributions to the common wealth during the period
they volunteered, as the Egyptians volunteered in
building projects during a couple of months per year.
Fish on the seas indicate the production of dried fish
and smoked fish or processed fish as the Roman garum
for the workers, mainly during the season of the buffalo
(between fall equinox and winter solstice), the many extra
signs indicating how the fish were catched and prepared,
for axample an angle above or rather before the head
indicating fish in a pond, etc., as explained on my page
www.seshat.ch/home/lascaux3.htm (scroll down to the
Indus seal chapter)
Harlan Messinger
> On Nov 15, 2:39 pm, "analys...@hotmail.com" <analys...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>> http://www.hindu.com/2009/11/15/stories/2009111556932200.htm
>>
>> In particular:
>>
>> start quote:
>>
>> He later found that the Akkadian Sargonic texts referred to the weight
>> Dilmun was exactly the same as that of the Indus system. Dr. Bonta,
>> theory is that the term �minus� is derived from the Indus and that the
>> fish are weights,� Dr. Wells said. There were fish signs with one long
>> stroke, two long strokes, a single rake or a double rake. �So the sign
>> graph is doubling and the value is doubling. I think this is too much
>> of a coincidence. But I am aware that a lot of people will disagree
>
> Thank you for this information. I always felt there
> was a connection between ancient Egypt and the
> Indus Valley without being able to name it.
Since Egypt isn't mentioned anywhere in the cited article or in the
thread, this is a blatant non-sequitur.
Franz Gnaedinger
Min was not only the ithiphallic god of fertility but also
the protector of the land and smiter of enemies, indicated
by a raised arm held to the side (Min, Horus-Min, Min-Amun).
I'd say he was a protodynastic and early dynastic personification
of the Nile Valley, his erected member a symbol of the annual
rise of the Nile (consider also the fish Mormyros oxyrhyncus
that swallowed the phallus of Osiris, a symbol of the ever fertile
river), and his raised hand ready to protect the land and smite
enemies a symbol of the borders of the long river oasis,
especially on the Libyan side where Seth resided, arch enemy
of Osiris, roaming the desert and inhabiting the row of wealthy
oases west of the Nile Valley. Considering the raised arm of Min
ready to smite enemies I'd say that his name goes back to MAN
for the right hand. Was there an analogous god in the early Indus
Valley? I see Brahma, from BRA MAN, right arm BRA right hand
MAN, he who raised his right arm and hand playing the lyra,
thus creating the world, Brahma the creator. Also Brahma must
have protected the land, and I guess via his alter ego Shiva the
destroyer (consider his wife in the guise of Drga smiting the
buffalo demon). And also Brahma must have personified fertility,
probably via his alter ego Vishnu, from PIS for water in motion,
also bodies moving in water, Latin pisces English fish (by the
way, fish were considered an aphrodisiacum by the Harappan
society.) Now for the etymology of minus, akin to Latin minor
and Sankrit minati 'he diminishes, destroys'. The word minus
would then refer to Min the smiter of enemies and to Brahma
in the guise of Shiva the destroyer. The oldest form of marking
negative numbers in India I know of is in the Bakhshali manuscript
probably from the 10th century AD: a cross next to a number,
perhaps saying: this number is to be crossed out, destroyed,
taken away, subtracted.
Franz Gnaedinger
While I can't confirm a linguistic connection between
Tamil min 'fish' and minus (the connection being between
Sankrit minati 'he diminishes, destroys' and minus), I can
definetly confirm an archaeological connection between
fish and the 17 bangles that have been found in a glazed
Harappan pot. Min, we have seen, was the personifaction
of proto- and early dynastic Egypt. Is there a similar god
in the Harappan legacy? Yes, Pashupati, the Lord of the
Animals. Google for pashupati in the image sector and
you will find two seals among many other pictures, a more
elaborate one with animals (gray), and a simpler one without
animals (yellow). The buffalo horns of the god symbolize
the eastern and western mountains where moon and sun
rise and set, while the cereals and pipal tree in the middle
of the horns symbolize the plant life in the valley between
the mountains. The god has three faces. The right face
may be associated with the rise of moon and sun, the left
face with the setting of moon and sun. The middle face
became later Brahma, the right face Vishnu, and the left
one Shiva, devourer of moon and sun, destroyer, akin
to the Egyptian Min smiting enemies, I assume. But here
Pashupati is shown in his peaceful and fertile aspects.
Now let us look at his arms. They resemble fish skeletons,
especially on the yellow seal, and the hands of the gods
are the tails of the two fishes! The impression of skeletons
comes from the many bangles the god wears, and so they
may represent fish, a jar of fish paste, a basket of dried
fish, or of smoked fish, tokens for such an amount of fish,
while the arms of the god resembling fish must symbolize
the river arms of the Indus Valley, rich in fish (whereas the
river Nile was symbolized by the god's phallus). Min 'fish'
is Tamil. The Tamils came from the north, and so they may
well have brought some Eurasian words with them, for
example MAN for the right hand, then used for hand in
general, then shifting to min, as hand of the god meaning
fish tail, then simply fish, counted by the tails - min 'fish'.
Franz Gnaedinger
You are a barren mind? you got nothing to say?
you are just looking for a posher sort of bar room
brawl? Join psy.lang
You are a harasshole? Welcome in psy.lang
I finally see that minus got nothing to do with our minus
but names a weighing system that is supposed to use
the sign 'fish' for weight. In Egypt we have an inscribed
weight stone for weighing gold, seventy dbn or deben
(nearly one kilogram of gold). Considering the frequency
of 'fish' on Indus seals we could justly expect at least one
inscribed weight stone bearing a fish sign plus numerals.
But there is no such weight stone.
The dwellers of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro lived in the
most advanced cities of their time. They were rational
people, knew how to bake millions and millions of bricks
and build fabulous cities with canalisation and all. Why,
then, did they invent such a curious writing system,
with every sign occurring in dozens of variants, a script
reserved for the seals, no inscription on statues, buildings,
and ostraka, and the texts on the seals having an average
length of 4.7 signs only? We know about 4,000 Indus seals.
Let us be generous and assume that there were all in all
10,000 seals. Ten thousand seals in thousand years make
ten seals per year, average text length per seal 4.7 signs,
average number of signs per year 47, meaning the Harappans
and Mohenjo-darlings ruled the largest civilization of their time
by edicting forty-seven signs per year, the leanest management
of all times!
Dr. Farmer is right, the Indus inscriptions are no writing but
images, conveying much more information as pictures.
In my terminology: they convey their messages as a visual
language. Now there i s an inscription on the famous bust
of a king: the trefoils. Dots in cave art can be read as SAI
for life, existence. The trefoils are a more elaborate form
of dots conveying the message: May the king live (long),
may he stay healthy, and may he have many children ...
A similar message is conveyed by the lingam stand covered
in trefoils. We have to learn about visual language and to look
out for a new approach to the use of the seals, all conventional
approaches having failed.
Peter T. Daniels
> I finally see that minus got nothing to do with our minus
> but names a weighing system that is supposed to use
> the sign 'fish' for weight. In Egypt we
You still haven't explained why you decided to drag Egypt into a
fantasy about Indus civilization.
(Nor, for that matter, how you have suddenly become an ancient
Egyptian.)
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> You still haven't explained why you decided to drag Egypt into a
> fantasy about Indus civilization.
>
> (Nor, for that matter, how you have suddenly become an ancient
> Egyptian.)
I did by saying that I always felt there was
a connection between the Indus Valley and
ancient Egypt but could not name it. When
min came up I saw a possible connection,
and so I tuned my guitar, as it were. The
"we have" refers to Egyptologists and all
people in comparative cultural studies,
for Egypt and Mesopotamia was connected,
the Egyptian script predates the Mesopotamian
one by a hundred years, Guenter Dreyer says,
and the connections between Mesopotamia
and the Indus Valley are also given though not
very clear, so now I hope to get more information
by dragging Egypt into the comparisons. And it
brought quite a lot, Min representing the Nile Valley
in proto- and early dynastic times, Pashupati
representing the Indus Valley in the early Harappan
period. I noted the strange aspect of the fish arms
caused by the bangles before, but never dared
mention it; now I do and can say that the bangles
in the Harappan bangle pot were sort of money
that bought fish, while the seals were no 'money',
as Dr. Wells assumes, they were orders given
to families for outstanding contributions to the
common wealth, and this could of course be
turned into money, for example a family of fish
smokers who did a good job supplying the
workers for a certain time, and for free, thus
paying taxes, and got honored for having done
their job very well with a seal, could impress
that seal on their ware and get a better price.
I think the seals had the purpose of engineering
the Harappan society in that clever way. Of course
I am not really sure of it, but as the conventional
approaches to the seals failed we have to look out
for unconventional ones, and someone has to make
a begin.
Peter T. Daniels
> On Nov 18, 2:28 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > You still haven't explained why you decided to drag Egypt into a
> > fantasy about Indus civilization.
>
> > (Nor, for that matter, how you have suddenly become an ancient
> > Egyptian.)
>
> I did by saying that I always felt there was
> a connection between the Indus Valley and
> ancient Egypt but could not name it. When
> min came up I saw a possible connection,
> and so I tuned my guitar, as it were. The
> "we have" refers to Egyptologists and all
> people in comparative cultural studies,
> for Egypt and Mesopotamia was connected,
> the Egyptian script predates the Mesopotamian
> one by a hundred years, Guenter Dreyer says,
He's wrong.
I'll be seeing John Baines tomorrow and can get the lastest info.
(And _nothing_ can be dated within "a hundred years" in those days.)
> and the connections between Mesopotamia
> and the Indus Valley are also given though not
> very clear, so now I hope to get more information
> by dragging Egypt into the comparisons. And it
> brought quite a lot, Min representing the Nile Valley
> in proto- and early dynastic times, Pashupati
> representing the Indus Valley in the early Harappan
You are fantasizing here just as much as you do in "Magdalenian." The
difference is that here, there are actual scholars who know actual
facts about Indus civilization and Dravidian languages, and the
(irrelevant) Indo-Aryan languages.
> period. I noted the strange aspect of the fish arms
> caused by the bangles before, but never dared
> mention it; now I do and can say that the bangles
No, you cannot.
> in the Harappan bangle pot were sort of money
> that bought fish, while the seals were no 'money',
> as Dr. Wells assumes, they were orders given
> to families for outstanding contributions to the
> common wealth, and this could of course be
> turned into money, for example a family of fish
> smokers who did a good job supplying the
> workers for a certain time, and for free, thus
> paying taxes, and got honored for having done
> their job very well with a seal, could impress
> that seal on their ware and get a better price.
> I think the seals had the purpose of engineering
> the Harappan society in that clever way. Of course
> I am not really sure of it, but as the conventional
> approaches to the seals failed we have to look out
> for unconventional ones, and someone has to make
> a begin.
Do you really have _that_ little understanding of ancient economies?
For one thing, there was no such thing as "money" until the first
quarter of the first millennium BCE.
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> Do you really have _that_ little understanding of ancient economies?
> For one thing, there was no such thing as "money" until the first
> quarter of the first millennium BCE.
Dr. Wells believes the bas reliefs (Indus seals) were some
kind o pseudo-money, and I say the bangles were that sort
of 'money' buying fish in various forms, main source of protein,
and this allows us to read one more sign in visual language:
bangles as indication of wealth. This morning I looked up my
Indian book and was amazed at the many bangles, an
obvious indicator of wealth. Forget about Dravidian and
Indo-Aryan and Proto-Elamite etc., the Indus seals convey
messages in a visual language that can be rendered in
any other language including Swiss and English.
Let me recapitulate and complete the comparison between
Min as male personification of the Nile Valley and Pashupati
as male personification of the Indus Valley. Min as ithiphallic
god was the Nile, his erection the rising Nile, his ejaculation
the flooding of the river plain (Osiris making love to Isis),
his raised arm holding a broken stalk of wheat the green
land, the fields, the river oasis, and his raised arm held to
the side in a gesture of protecting the land and smiting
intruders the borders of the long river oasis, especially the
border on the Libyan side. Pashupati's buffalo horns are
sort of a cross section of the Indus Valley, the horns the
eastern and western mountains where the moon and sun
rise and set, the wheat and pipal tree in between the green
land, his arms are the river arms, rich in fish, the arms
evoking fish skeletons, owing to the bangles and the hands
that resemble fish tails. The three faces of the god became
Brahma the creator (middle face), Vishnu the presever
and guard (right face, to be equated with the rise of moon
and sun), his left face Shiva the destroyer (to be equated
with the setting of moon and sun, their light extinguished).
Pashupati became Shiva (who then incorporated all three
aspects, also the one of the creator, and the one of the guard
and preserver), thus connecting Shiva the destroyer with Min
as smiter. The hand is involved here in several ways. MAN
was the word for the right hand, then for hand in general.
The harvesting and smiting hand accounts for the Egyptian
Min and for Sankrit minati 'he diminishes, destroys' akin
to our minus. The ithiphallic Min and the hands of Pashupati
evoking fish tails account for Tamil min 'fish' (the Tamils
having come from the north). We have here a complicated
etymology that could not possibly be achieved on linguistic
grounds alone, only by inculding visual language and
archaeology (statues and pictures of Min, also of Horus-Min
and Min-Amun, tablets of Pashupati, the gray and yellow
ones, statues of Shiva and others). MAN is also present in
Brahma which I read as BRA MAN, right arm BRA right
hand MAN, Brahma creating the world by playing the lyra.
Now the bangles on the arms of Pashupati represent fish,
the rivers rich in fish, and fish as main source of protein,
good for the heart and brain, and that is why the Harappans
and Mohenjo-darlings were so clever: fresh fish, cooked or
baked or fried fish (fresh and cooked being the healthiest
variants), or smoked, or dried, or as flakes and powder
(an instant fish broth), and as paste or sauce comparable
to the garum the Romans were so very fond of (garum was
made of tuna cut in pieces and fermented in closed jars
in the ground, horrible smell delicious taste; sureley one
could also have made a fish sauce using river fish).
Bangles would have represented certain amounts of fish
in the above varieties, then wealth in general, see the
many bangles in Indic art, and Indian women are still
very fond of wearing a lot of bangles ...
Franz Gnaedinger
The ithyphallic Min as personification of the Nile can be
traced back to the Göbekli Tepe where the connection
between phallus and water was made in a most peculiar
way, and once again archaeology leads the way. There
are ithyphallic statues on the Göbekli Tepe: head,
upper body and erected phallus; and a single phallus,
probably from another ithyphallic protome. Now this
must have been an early version of Min, personifying
the the river Euphrates and perhaps also the Tigris.
Water was represented by snakes, a highly frequent
animal in the Göbekli Tepe ikonography, in my opinion
the symbol for water: snakes heading skyward the
symbol of prayers for rain, and the smoke of sacrificial
fires imploring rain, ascending, and the snakes heading
downward rain rewarding the prayers and sacrificial
fires, descending. Now foxes are also frequent on the
Göbekli Tepe, they are all male, each one has a phallus
epart from a single one. Leaping foxes are shown on
the central pillars 9 and 10 of temple B. The fox on pillar
10 shows a phallus, but the fox on pillar 9 a pair of
snake heads! This equates the snakes (the asending
and descending one) with the fertile water of the river.
I derive the word fox from DhAG meaning able. The
fox in the Göbekli Tepe mythology was the able guide
through the labyrinth of the Underworld, guider of souls,
leading the sould of a dead person through the labyrinth
of the Underworld and back to daylight so that it may
climb the sky toward a heavenly abode. Now the fox
with a pair of snake heads for a phallus must indicate
that the worthy soul of a leader who has died and
returns and climbs the sky became one with the god
in the sky, AAR RAA NOS, and as such granted rain
for his people, performing the same task in the beyond
as an Egyptian king did, helping his people from above,
and in the important task of filling the river beds with
rain.
Franz Gnaedinger
The continuation follows in my Magdalenian thread,
3 messages from this morning, just written and posted,
for people who are interested in the challenge and task
of developing an understanding of visual language.
VK
wrote:
> http://www.hindu.com/2009/11/15/stories/2009111556932200.htm
>
> In particular:
>
> start quote:
>
> He later found that the Akkadian Sargonic texts referred to the weight
> systems of Dilmun (Bahrain) as “minus.”
I would like to see those "Akkadian Sargonic texts" as the pound
weight was not transcribed but was always denoted by the Sumerian
ideograms MA.NA
As through the Assyro-Babylonian it came to Hebrew as "mina" ("maneh"
in the King James Version) the bets are high that Akkadians adopted
that Sumerian weight standard together with its Sumerian name.
The Latin -us ending attached by author(s) to the Sumero-Akkadian word
is out of printable comments from my side.
> The system of weights from
> Dilmun was exactly the same as that of the Indus system. Dr. Bonta,
> who speaks Tamil, realised that “min” in Tamil meant fish.
It took some long time to realize that :) The first suggestion that
FISH sign might have "min" or similar phonetic reading in some
positions was first suggested back in 1953 by Heras. In 60s when
Knorozov and his team more steadily proved typological similarity of
Harappan with Dravidian, he also speculated that the combination of
SIX_LINES.FISH could mean "aru-min" (Thamil "aru"-6, "min"-fish) and
would mean Pleiades star cluster in Proto-Dravidian.
> “So our
> theory is that the term “minus” is derived from the Indus and that the
> fish are weights,” Dr. Wells said. There were fish signs with one long
> stroke, two long strokes, a single rake or a double rake. “So the sign
> graph is doubling and the value is doubling. I think this is too much
> of a coincidence. But I am aware that a lot of people will disagree
> with me on the fish sign,” he added.
With the amount of current facts everything is possible. So far we
only know that Harappan (Indus) shows typological similarity with
Dravidian languages. Not a single word is known, not a single reading
is confirmed. It allows to build N amount of theories up to a fully
"deciphered" language where something to prove is equally pointless
as something to disproof. Until more evidence found it is just like
the Japhetic theory. One can take the original Prof. Marr's SAL, BER,
JON, ROSH and to prove that all ever existed/existing languages came
from these four sacral syllables. One can take Vukotic's or
Gnaedinger's "improved" sets for it and to deduct anything you want
from it.
For instance, I can announce that Harappans were a highly superior
civilization: so when they got sick tired of those Arian barbarians
with their stinky cuttle on each corner, they set back to their flying
saucers and left for a better planet. In this case the tablets are
some rude profanities toward Arians they left for us. Now prove me
wrong.
:-)
Franz Gnaedinger
Before thinking of aliens you have to consider
all other possibilities. We have never yet encountered
aliens, even my compatridiot Erich von Daeniken
admits that he never saw one. Now a possibility you
don't mention above is what Farmer says: the signs
on the Indus seals are pictograms and ideograms,
they are no regular writing but what I call visual
language, and as pictures they convey much more
information than they could as texts, just consider
the average length of 4.7 signs, the longest 'text'
being 13 signs. As long as the possibility of visual
messages hasn't been checked in a serious way
you have no right of involving aliens, the deus ex
machina of pseudo-archaeology, at least not
if you claim to be a scientist. Simple explanations
first. Aliens are no simple explanation, because
we never saw one. Replacing one thing we don't
understand by something else we don't even know
is not a scientific explanation.
VK
> all other possibilities.
I was talking about provability / non-provability of a theory. From
this point either aru-min / six fishes / six stars with the Dravidian-
based fish/star play on sounding is plenty good. "Fish" as a weight
symbol is good as well I guess. From the common tradition point of
view, humans tended to write owner names on jugs, jars and other
containers rather than the volume, but there is always a place for an
exception. Aliens theory is as good as both before (again, in the
provability / non-provability aspect). You can go with the universal
SAL, BER, YON, ROSH formants or whatever syllables you have choosen
instead. So far it is as good (in the same aspect as above).
> We have never yet encountered
> aliens, even my compatridiot Erich von Daeniken
> admits that he never saw one. Now a possibility you
> don't mention above is what Farmer says: the signs
> on the Indus seals are pictograms and ideograms,
That was carefully checked and ruled out by all involved specialists
many years ago. But you may stay on the Farmer's opinion. You also may
find interesting to read Parpola's counterarguments at
http://www.harappa.com/script/indus-writing.pdf
Yet the outer-linguistical specific of the Harappan civilisation
question is such that the pro-contra argumentation will last ever and
forever: even if tomorrow one finds a full copy of Sumero-Harappan
dictionary in say Ur, and if it clearly demonstrates the Proto-
Dravidian nature of Harappan.
> they are no regular writing but what I call visual
> language, and as pictures they convey much more
> information than they could as texts,
> just consider
> the average length of 4.7 signs, the longest 'text'
> being 13 signs. As long as the possibility of visual
> messages hasn't been checked in a serious way
> you have no right of involving aliens, the deus ex
> machina of pseudo-archaeology, at least not
> if you claim to be a scientist. Simple explanations
> first. Aliens are no simple explanation, because
> we never saw one. Replacing one thing we don't
> understand by something else we don't even know
> is not a scientific explanation.
I do not consider the "alien factor" any lesser serious or more
complex than Marr's SAL, BER, YON, ROSH sacred syllables all human
languages came from ;)
P.S. For the most recent "FISH hypotheses" (without aliens :) see
also
http://www.harappa.com/script/script-indus-parpola.pdf
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> I was talking about provability / non-provability of a theory. From
> this point either aru-min / six fishes / six stars with the Dravidian-
> based fish/star play on sounding is plenty good. "Fish" as a weight
> symbol is good as well I guess. From the common tradition point of
> view, humans tended to write owner names on jugs, jars and other
> containers rather than the volume, but there is always a place for an
> exception. Aliens theory is as good as both before (again, in the
> provability / non-provability aspect). You can go with the universal
> SAL, BER, YON, ROSH formants or whatever syllables you have choosen
> instead. So far it is as good (in the same aspect as above).
My Magdalenian approach to early language - the language
of Eurasia in the Ice Age, that is - relies on Richard Fester.
I didn't know about Marr in the spring of 2005 when I started
my experiment. You mention BER as one of his words, well,
that is very close to a most important word, namely BIR
meaning fur, especially the fur on which a newborn was
placed. I can't prove Magdalenian, but I am in good company
as also PIE can't be proved, not even PIE etymology, bear
as the brown one, for example. My Magdalenian etymology:
gives bear as the furry one, provider of the best fur, thick,
longhaired, soft and warm. The proof of the cake is in the
eating. The argument in favor of my approach are the cave
paintings and symbols of the Göbekli Tepe and the Pashupati
seal and the Minoan seals and rings I can read (see my list of
Minoan symbols published today in my Magdalenian thread).
What is the etymology of min 'fish' ? I propose a new one,
an archaeological etymology via the gray and yellow
Pashupati seals, Pashupati symbolizing the Indus Valley,
his arms the rivers arms rich in fish, his hands evoking
fishtails while his arms covered in bangles evoke fishbones.
> That was carefully checked and ruled out by all involved specialists
> many years ago. But you may stay on the Farmer's opinion. You also may
> find interesting to read Parpola's counterarguments at
> http://www.harappa.com/script/indus-writing.pdf
> Yet the outer-linguistical specific of the Harappan civilisation
> question is such that the pro-contra argumentation will last ever and
> forever: even if tomorrow one finds a full copy of Sumero-Harappan
> dictionary in say Ur, and if it clearly demonstrates the Proto-
> Dravidian nature of Harappan.
I know Parpola's counterarguments, and they are not convincing
to me. Farmer is right, in my opinion: as visual messages
the seals - average 4.7 signs per seal, 13 signs at the most -
convey so much more information
> I do not consider the "alien factor" any lesser serious or more
> complex than Marr's SAL, BER, YON, ROSH sacred syllables all human
> languages came from ;)
>
> P.S. For the most recent "FISH hypotheses" (without aliens :) see
> also
> http://www.harappa.com/script/script-indus-parpola.pdf
Thanks for the link.
Franz Gnaedinger
> also
> http://www.harappa.com/script/script-indus-parpola.pdf
Asko Parpola made a discovery by equating the archer
on a bronze tablet from Mohenjo-daro with a sign he reads
as 'crab in fig tree'. He then identifies the archer with
Rudra - Skanda - Muruk, the name of the latter may have
been written as a pair of intersecting circles or ellipses
representing bangles, bangles hung in fig trees implored
children from the god up above among the stars ...
I read the sign as 'bellows in fig tree' and see the archer
as Varuna, descendant of AAR RAA NOS from the
Göbekli Tepe, mind NOS of the one composed of air AAR
and light RAA. Air and light are combined in the bellows
that make wind, move air, and nourish fire that give light.
The body of the archer is decorated with a succession
of arrow heads shooting upward. The same succession
of arrow heads is present on the fragment of a tablet from
Tell Abr 3 near Jerf el Ahmar in the Göbekli Tepe region,
imploring AAR RAA NOS on the ring of the sky for rain.
Varuna would then have had the same function as the
supreme god from the Göbekli Tepe region: sending rain
from his heavenly abode down to earth in order to fill the
river beds and make the plants grow, plants symbolized
by the tree of life combined with a priestess raising her
arms on one of the stone tablets from Jerf el Ahmar.
In my opinion, the Indus seals and tablets honor families
for outstanding contributions to the common wealth.
The signs at the top of the Pashupati seals read:
A family honored by such a seal provides excellent
keepers of the house who supply us with fish all year
long, and air the house well, keeping it cool in summer
and warm in winter ... The 'drawing' on the small gray
Pashupati seal appears to be elevated, so it was not
really a seal, rather a gem and order, maybe worn on
the body, perhaps decorating and honoring a keeper of
the palace, denoting him half humorously half seriously
as Varuna in the house ... Varuna would have been
present in the space between the buffalo horns of
Pashupati, and his rain filled the rivers and made the
fish thrive, the river arms being represented by the arms
of Pashupati, his hands evoking fishtails and the bangles
fishbones. Fish were an important part of the diet, fish
was also consumed as an aphrodisiac and promised
a young wife a son, which goes along with hanging
bangles into a fig tree as prayer for children.
VK
> of Eurasia in the Ice Age, that is - relies on Richard Fester.
> I didn't know about Marr in the spring of 2005 when I started
> my experiment.
It is a strange claim from your side as Fester clearly stated that his
approach is an alteration of the "Japhetic theory" of Soviet linguist
Marr (Nikolay Yakovlevich Marr, 1864-1934) The theory had been
abandoned as a complete silliness back in 40's-50's. Yet Fester's
claim is that Marr simply didn't choose the right sacred syllables for
the pra-language reconstruction: so instead of Marr's SAL, BER, YON,
ROSH, Fester uses TAL, TAG, OS, ACQ. For the rest it is absolutely the
same Marr's "reconstruction" pattern. As neither Marr nor Fester have
BIR "sacred syllable", you are using Marr (not Fester) with yet
another - more "proper" I guess - set of sacred syllables. IMHO if you
really want to fight for the Japhetic theory, you still should read
the original works first, not some later partial translations in
German. Marr wrote his main works on "Новое учение о языке" ("New
doctrine about the language") in Russian and it may pose a problem,
also because his own native language was Georgian. If Russian is not
one of languages you are fluent in, it also might be suggested:
"Les lois du sens: la semantique marriste" by Ekaterina Velmezova,
Genève, 2007
It also may be pleasurable to discover that you are not a single
person forced to live in the world that doesn't understand you and
joking over you: but a representative of a real school with a name for
it. So next time being called silly you can say "Yes, I am a Marrist!
So sue me jackass!" :)
> You mention BER as one of his words, well,
> that is very close to a most important word, namely BIR
> meaning fur, especially the fur on which a newborn was
> placed. I can't prove Magdalenian, but I am in good company
> as also PIE can't be proved, not even PIE etymology bear
> as the brown one for example.
Who told you that? But on a big scale yes, PIE or Nostratic remain a
theory, not a proven fact. The only steady fact is that 12,000-10,000
years ago humans already used some language(s), the rest are
conjectures, hypothesis and speculations of different levels of
provability. But - a very important "but" - the provability must never
equal to zero though it may be very close to it in some cases. That is
the difference between PIE or Nostratic from one side and "New
language doctrine", Magdalenian etc. from the other side.
> My Magdalenian etymology:
> gives bear as the furry one, provider of the best fur, thick,
> longhaired, soft and warm.
Just go ahead. The reconstructive linguistics is not some orthodoxal
religion: "either with us, or to the fire" :)
kelhae vetey 'akun kaehla
kettay palheke na vetae
sa da 'ake 'eya 'aelae
yako pele tuba vete
( Language is a ford through the river of time;
It leads us to the abode of passed away -
But that one cannot go there -
Who fears deep waters.)
You can take this poem of Illich-Svitych written in his version of
Proto-Nostratic as my blessing for your "Magdalenian
experiment" :-) :-|
Actually, are your reconstructions went deep enough to translate this
famous poem to Magdalenian?
Franz Gnaedinger
VK : thank you for the long reply, but for today I have
important business, maybe I will reply to you tomorrow.
Muruku as Lord of the Universe / honoring Asko Parpola
Asko Parpola tries to understand the Indus seals as
Proto-Darvidian rebuses concerned with royal cosmology
--- pun on pun on pun in a poorly documented language,
an almost hopeless undertaking, yet he does the very
best he can. The central figure of that royal cosmology
is Muruku, god of war, knowledge, and fertility. Muruku
originated from a golden seed in the heavenly region
of the Plejads on the morning of the vernal equinox.
(The astronomers of Babylon considered Aldebaran
and the Plejads gate posts of the ecliptic and called
them Golden Door.) Muruku was a beautiful boy, and
he rode a peacock that fed on snakes. The reverse of
M-453 shows him as a seated boy in the presence
of a pair of snakes, while the obverse calls him by his
name (here given in my words): Muruku (pair of bangles)
darling (pair of parallel lines for love) among the stars
(fish, Tamil miin being both 'fish' and 'star), plus a few
more signs. Muruku as a grown man resides in the navel
of the universe, he is present in the pole star (by then
Thuban, alpha Draconis) called rope star, holding together
the stars with ropes of wind. His ropes are visualized as
air roots of the banyan tree, Ficus bengalensis or Ficus
indica. Muruku as Lord of the Universe is residing in the
heavenly fig tree, denoted as crab inside fig tree, the crab
representing the grabber, seizer, taker, holder of the ropes
of wind (my reading of the crab sign as bellows would again
make sense, for bellows move air, make wind, as it were,
heavenly bellows, then). Bangles hung in a fig tree evoke
Muruku as fertility god and implore children. A king has to
emulate Muruku, reside in the center of his country and
hold the ropes, as it were, guided by divine knowledge,
I infer. The roots of the banyan tree can crash a building,
and this image was involved when Muruku in the heavenly
fig tree was invoked as war god.
Now we may attempt a new reading of the gray Pashupati
tablet in combination with my previous interpretations.
Muruku as golden child in the Plejads at the vernal equinox
is present in the male figure on the left side, between tiger
(90 days from midwinter to vernal equinox) and elephant
(90 days between vernal equinox and midsummer), while
Muruku as Lord of the Universe is present in the signs
at the top that include a male figure and may be read as
follows: Muruku (male figure) hoding together earth and sky
(crabs or bellows) among the stars (fish, Tamil miin 'star'
and miin 'fish') in the heavenly fig tree (V and U signs).
Pashupati seated on his dais would then be Muruku in
the center of the universe, holding all together, his arms
no longer rivers but ropes of wind, his hands evoking fishtails
now stars (again miin 'fish' and 'star'), and his dais the center
of the universe, the pole star, resting while all other stars
move around on ropes of wind ...
Maybe I have to abandon my view of the seals honoring
families for outstanding contributions to the common weal,
and support Asko Parpola in his struggle of deciphering
the seals as records of a royal cosmology.
Franz Gnaedinger
Or perhaps the two approaches can be united?
AAR RAA NOS, mind NOS of the one composed of
air AAR and light RAA, bull man in the sky, provider
of rain - prayers for rain and the rising smoke of
sacrificial fires and wishing arrows shot into the sky
imploring rain and falling rain rewarding the prayers
and fires and arrows represented by snakes heading
upward and downward -, supreme god, visible through
the big limestone ring on the Göbekli Tepe, indicated
by a pair of heavenly rings on one of the stone tablets
from Jerf el Ahmar, sky by night and day, shining moon
and sun --- this god became Ouranos in Greece and
Ra in Egypt and Varuna or VaruNa in the Indus Valley,
VaruNa also being a sky god and provider of rain,
and a sender of flashes we may infer, all seeing,
drawn as long eyed heavenly archer wearing the horns
and tail of a bull on a bronze tablet from Mohenjo-daro,
his body decorated with six arrow heads of wishing
arrows imploring rain, two of them flanking his phallus
(remember the ithyphallic protomes on the Göbekli
Tepe). Magdalenian RYT meaning spear thrower
became Greek rhytaer 'archer' and the Indian archer
Rudra who was also the fire god Agni, from GNE for
the nine days or nights of the full moon, bright fire
in the night sky. VaruNa on the river Indus resided in
Harappa, from AAR RAA AD DA, the god of air AAR
and light RAA on the river that flows toward AD the sea
while coming from DA the mountains, the generic river
name AD DA softened in the present river name Indus.
AAR RAA CA, the god of air AAR and light RAA in the
sky CA, became Murukan in southern India, associated
with a snake cult, represented by a pir of bangles that
reimnd of the heavenly pair of rings on the stone tablet
from Jerf el Ahmar, Proto-Dravidian muruku ... The
raised arms of the goddess from El-Mamariya in Upper
Egypt symbolize the slopes of the eastern and western
hills and mountains, and her hands the rising and setting
stars, hand = star. The arms of the Indian Lord of the
Universe residing on earth are the river arms rich in fish,
the arms covered by bangles evoking fishbones, and
the hands fishtails, hand = fish. The arms of the Lord
in the sky are wind ropes and the hands are stars,
hand = star again. Magdalenian MAN means right hand,
Tamil miin both fish and star ... If the tablets of Murukan
honor keepers of the palace, then the plain fish sign
must have the meaning of water rather than fish, and
we may imagine the following praise: A family honored
with one of these tablets provide excellent keepers of
the palace who care well for cool air in summer and
warm air in winter, fire yielding light and warmth,
and water, all gifts of our heavenly Lord ...
Franz Gnaedinger
Calendar of AAR RAA NOS, god of air AAR and light
RAA in the sky CA, ruler of AAR RAA AD DA, capital
of air and light on the river Indus that flows toward AD
the sea while coming from DA the mountains (valid
for the Harappan era). The cosmic god resided in the
heavenly fig tree, assuming different guises, the one
of a man or a bull, but also the one of a crab. In the
latter case he was the crab inside the heavenly fig tree
(Asko Parpola). His nose pointed toward Mizar-Alcor
in our Big Dipper. (Thuban and Mizar-Alcor were
the stars of knowledge according to Asko Parpola.)
His eyes were moon and sun, human eyes but also the
eyes of a crab on long antennae, moving in big circles,
all seeing, ruling the sky during night and day.. By
revolving around his axis he created time. His arms
were ropes of wind, his hands were also the claws
of a crab firmly holding the guiding stars of the four
seasons and swirling them around, thus driving the
merry-go-round of our years ...
3 days of the midsummer festival, early monsoon,
day of life and day of health and day of children,
heavenly fig tree, pipal tree of life, three leaves,
trefoil, the king wearing a sheaf covered in trefoils
presided over the festival, Mizar-Alcor in horizontal
position left of Thuban at midnight; festival on tablet
indicated by the big V with three short strokes
above the middle of the buffalo horns
3 months or 90 days of the rhinoceros, guiding star
of Arcturus in Bootes, above the western horizion
around midnight
Fall equinox, Mizar-Alcor in prependicular position
above Thuban at midnight
3 months or 90 days of the buffalo, guiding star
Regulus in Leo, on or above the eastern horizon
around midnight
2 and occasionally 3 days of midwinter, day of the
first ibex, occasional day of the horned goddess
(invisibly present between her pair of ibices), day
of the second ibex, Mizar-Alcor in horizontal position
right of Thuban at midnight
3 months or 90 days of the tiger, guiding star Algol
in Perseus, above the western horizon around midnight
Vernal equinox, Mizar-Alcor in perpendicular position
under Thuban at midnight; New Year, the god springing
as beautiful boy from the Golden Seed in the Plejads
near Perseus
3 months or 90 days of the elephant, guiding star Vega
in Lyra, above the eastern horizon around midnight
A month had 30 days and a week 7 days. 63 continuous
periods of 30 days, or 270 weeks of 7 days, are 1,890
days and correspond to 64 lunations or synodic months,
mistake less than one minute per lunation, or half a day
in a lifetime.
Franz Gnaedinger
(I informed both Prof. Asko Parpola and Dr. Steve Farmer
about the new perspective, in an attempt at mediating in
the scholarly debate: Asko Parpola is the decipherer of
the Indus script, his story of the crab in the fig tree fits
perfectly well into the Pashupati lunisolar calendar, while
Steve Farmer's provokation had also merit, accelerating
things and pointing out the value of visual language.
I will send them my message from today, concerned with
the epic of Murukan)
The Indus tablets might preserve the epic of AAR RAA CA
who sprang as boy from the Golden Seed in the Plejads,
fought the Algol tiger, reached the Cygnus peacock -
Deneb its head, zaetha epsilon gamma delta iota kappa
Cygni its fan -, escaped the Vega elephant, came into the
snake infested Draco valley but luckily the peacock fed on
the snakes in the way. Hereupon Beautiful Boy was called
by the Mizar-Alcor woman who implored his help for
the poor people on earth who suffered in a double way,
the Arcturus rhinoceros drinking away all their water,
and the Regulus buffalo devastating their fields. Now
the epic tells how the strong young man obliged, made
the Arcturus rhinoceros give back the stolen water
and thus generated the first monsoon, then he braced
himself for the hardest task, confronting the Regulus
buffalo demon, AD TOR OC CO, toward AD the bull in
motion TOR with open eyes OC and a focused mind CA,
atoroqo anthropos andros andra Indra. He overcame
the bull, freed the people, and instructed them how about
all kinds of inventions, how to bake both bread and bricks.
He built a stone ring, placed dry wood from the fig tree
inside which he ignited it with a fiery glance, thus creating
the first oven, and he maintained the fire with air from
the great bellows of his lungs, then he told them how to
bake bread in the oven, how to form bricks and bake
them in another oven, also did he fill the rivers with fish
aplenty and instruct the people about the many ways of
preparing that healthy food, and then he proposed a new
organization of their life, they should, he said, work for
free for some time of the year, just for the common weal,
and who does a very good job while volunteering, either
working in the fields or baking bread or forming and baking
bricks and building houses, or providing the workers with
fish, and so on, these people who do a real good job in
favor of the community shall be honored in a special way.
The Mizar-Alcor woman watched the young man from
above, she was not only amazed about his beauty and
strength but also about his knowledge and wisdom,
so she concluded by herself that this young man should
become the Lord of the Universe on the Thuban dais.
Well, she transformed the hero into a crab, made
a fig tree shoot up into the sky, and there he was, crab
in the heavenly fig tree, cutting off four long air roots,
whereupon he was transformed back into a man, grown
up by now, holding the Algor tiger and Vega elephant
and Acrturus rhinoceros and Regulus buffalo on leashes
made of the four air roots, and all other stars on ropes
of wind, revolving about his body axes, thus creating
the ever repeating seasons of the year. And one day,
he saw the young lady of the pair of opposing ibices
walk by and fell madly in love ... The people on earth
worship him ever since, they did as he showed them,
and they introduced public service for a time of the year,
and honored families for outstanding contributions
by very fine seals and tablets that are 'stills' of the epic
but can also be read in another way, as commemoration
of their work, for many signs have multiple meaning,
crab and bellows, fig tree and vessel, heavenly ring and
oven, star and water and fish ... Now if anyone could
translate the above epic from the 'stills' then Asko
Parpola, decipherer of the Indus script, who ended his
paper from October 2008, published in Volume 1 of
SCRIPTA in September 2009, by announcing to have
ready many more interpretations of signs as the one
of the crab in the fig tree. May Asko Parpola go on
with his fine work, now confirmed in his approach,
making bold steps forward, as there is still a lot of
work awaiting him.
Franz Gnaedinger
Miscellanea -- gap in time / fish as weight / Horus
Steve Farmer tells me that there is a gap of 2,000 years
between Harappa and the first mention of Murukan.
I have no problem with that, seing as the sun horse of
Lascaux returned 18,000 years later in the quadriga of
Helios and in the sun horse on Celtic coins, most often
the sun horse of early midsummer morning rising above
the horizon as the red mare in the rotunda of Lascaux.
The name of the summer sun horse was CA BAL,
sky CA hot BAL, whence Latin caballus Spanish caballo
French cheval. The name of the spring sun horse
(lovely 'Chinese horses' in the axial gallery of Lascaux)
was CA BEL, sky warm, whence aBelios aFelios Helios.
And the name of the winter sun horse (descending
horses giving way to a pair of opposing ibices in a niche
at the rear end of the axiall gallery of Lascaux) was
CA LAB, sky cold, whence gallop ... Hear the sun horse
running:
CA LAB CA LAB CA LAB CA LAB ...
CA BEL CA BEL CA BEL CA BEL ...
CA BAL CA BAL CA BAL CA BAL ...
---
Dr. Wells proposes that the fish on Indus seals has
the meaning of weight (original topic of this thread).
As we saw, the signs can have mutliple meanings,
a fish can be a star or water or fish, so why not
also weight? Murukan holds the stars with ropes
of wind for arms and the claws of a crab for hands.
From shoulders and arms you can easily get to
a rod worn on neck and shoulders from which hang
gourds filled with water, or baskets filled with fish
or other goods, and from this rod with threads and
gourds or baskets we get on to scales involving
weights ... I look forward to reading the book by
Dr. Wells that will appear next year, in 2010.
---
I wonder whether AAR RAA CA, the god of air AAR
and light RAA in the sky CA, may also account for
the Egyptian Horus falcon hovering in the air while
his eyes were moon and sun ... AAR RAA AC,
air AAR light RAA an expanse of land with water AC,
may then account for Horakhty 'horizon', for example
Re-Horakhty, the supreme god appearing in the sun
above the horizon. While Murukan fought the Algol
tiger, the Vega elephant, the Arcturus rhinoceros,
and the Regulus bull, Horus fought Seth whom Rolf
Krauss identifies with Mars. Seth destroyed the lunar
eye of Horus, whereupon wise Thoth restored it,
putting the parts together, adding the numerical values
1/2 and 1/4 and 1/8 and 1/16 and 1/32 and 1/64,
or simply '2 '4 '8 '16 '32 '64. Multiply a month of
30 days by the Horus eye series '2 '4 '8 '16 '32 '64
and you obtain one lunation or synodic month ...
In the case of the early calendar of the Indus Valley,
also inherited from the Göbekli Tepe, the rhinocers
and buffalo and tiger and elephant became the four
seasons of the year, associated with Arcturus and
Regulus and Algol and Vega respectively. The initial
lunisolar calendar was developed in different ways
in different countries, which is only natural.
Franz Gnaedinger
We may expect both confirmation and corrections
of the hypothetical epic of AAR RAA CA from Indian
iconography. Shiva of the many arms dancing insie
a wheel of flames surely inherited the ancient god
who swirled around the stars, while the gem on his
tiara, sometimes growing into a banyan tree, means
the Golden Seed, and has a variant in the later beauty
spot on the front, another in a small Buddha seated
in the headdress, emulating the Beautiful Boy of old.
I derive the name of a variety of gods from ShA PAD
TYR AS CA, he who rules ShA and goes ahead PAD
and overcomes in the double sense of rule and give
TYR up above AS in the sky CA ... ShA PAD may
account for Shiva, and TYR ... CA for Durga, one of
the incarnations of Shiva's wife, the one who killed
the buffalo demon, surely keeping a memory of the
domestication of buffaloes - once the demon of
this animal was driven out, the bull became Nandi,
symbol of the earth, and the creative principle of
Shiva. Also the Vega elephant was tamed, and
honored for doing heavy work. As Ganeshe he is
most revered, so perhaps he played a friendly role
in the hypothetical epic of AAR RAA CA, perhaps
pointing out the way to the Draco valley and Thuban
mountain for the young god to take, and calling up
the Cygnus peacock, for the beautiful boy to ride.
The Thuban mountain could have been the origin
of the stupa and have a reflex in a lovely miniature
painting of the Malwi school, a pair of beautiful
womean are talking in the house, a peackock is
perched on the side of the roof and looks up to
the round roof on top of a tower on the house
crowned by a golden pinnacle - heavenly dais
of the Lord residing in the pole star and who had
fallen in love with one of the beauties in the house.
Another miniature of the Malwi school shows a
woman on the lawn before a house, at the shore
of a lotus pond, flanked by three and three peacocks.
May the peacock have been the love messenger of
the god residing on the Thuban dais? The Cygnus
peacock, his head being Deneb, proceeds along
the Milky Way toward Orion, so she is the woman
AAR RAA CA fell in love with, Orion, ORE EON,
on the beautiful ORE shore EON of the celestial CA
river lake LAK - Indian art is full of allusions I recognize
and appreciate only now ... Orion stands upright on the
southern horizon in December at midnight, also during
the midwinter festival. She is the ancient goddess,
invisibly present between the pair of oppsoing ibices
in a niche at the rear end of the axial gallery of Lascaux,
and in between the pair of oppsoing ibices or perhaps
mountain goats under the dais of AAR RAA CA on
the calendar tablet from the Indus valley.
Franz Gnaedinger
Assuming that the Indian religions including Buddhism
rely on the founding epic of the Indus Valley civilization,
and inspired by symbols on the eastern torana of the
stupa 1 at Sanci in central India, I dare propose that the
heavenly Lord traveled along a spiraling way from the
top of the Thuban mountain to the Orion goddess he
fell in love with: descending from the Thuban mountain
into the Draco valley, iota thaeta aetha zata omega psi
Draconis, prolonging their arc, reaching the constellation
the Americans call Big Dipper, by then the hall of the
seven wise women, visiting the stars Dubhe, Megrez,
Alioth and Mizar-Alcor. The woman of Mizar-Alcor
had once implored his help in the struggle against the
rhinoceros and the buffalo, then appointed him Lord of
the Thuban dais, and now she gave him advice regarding
the Orion woman. Having received her words of wisdom
he rode onward, always on his peacock, visited the Vega
elephant, and the Cygnus home of his beautiful riding bird,
and then followed the heavenly river, which may well have
included one more adventure, a fight with a water demon,
but finally he reached the Orion woman, ORE EON, she
on the beautiful ORE shore or bank EON of the heavenly
CA river or lake LAK, together ORE EON Orion on the
beautiful bank of the celestial river CA LAK galaxy
Milky Way. When the two met, a pillar grew out of
the ground into the sky and carried the loving couple
with it ... Now the marriage of the god and the goddess
was celebrated every fourth year, when a leap day was
inserted between the day of the first ibex and the day
of the second ibex at midwinter, festival of the Orion
goddess, and the love of the heavenly couple was
the love that holds the world together in all its many
polarities, man and woman, summer and winter,
the fields on the left and the right bank of the celestial
river, heaven and earth, high and low, zenith and nadir
of the heavenly axis defined by Thuban and Orion ...
Franz Gnaedinger
The Indus seals and tablets are best understood as
highly complex references to the founding epic of the
Indus Valley civilization, as I shall expain in the case
of the yellow 'Pashupati' tablet, where the heavenly
Lord appears alone, no animals around him, while
his fish arms are very suggestive, his buffalo horns
give a clearer impression of the eastern and western
mountain defining the valley in between, and in the
middle are three leaves of the pipal tree. The signs
above are an X with a stroke in upper position and
a stroke in lower position, on the left side; and a fish
with a short stroke inside that may pass for a dot,
a pair of wavy parallel lines, and a U sign with two
and two horizontal strokes outside the rim if the
sign is read as a jar, these three signs on the right
side. The X is here a calendar figure, the connecting
lines of the guiding stars of the four seasons, Arcturus
and Algol, Vega and Regulus, crossing each other
close to the then pole star Thuban. The X is also the
crab identified by Asko Parpola, namely the heavenly
Lord residing on the Thuban dais, holding the stars
with arms that are ropes of wind and hands that are
claws of a crab. The X can also be read as bellows,
heavenly bellows generating wind, hence the lungs
of the Lord of the Universe. The strokes denote the
summer half year (above) and winter half year (below),
and in doing so refer to the love of the Thuban god
and the Orion goddess. The fish with a dot inside
refers to stars, and specifically to the Golden Seed
in the Plejades, origin of Beautiful Boy, notabene
on the female bank of the heavenly river. Asko Parpola
identified a pair of parallel lines as the symbol of love.
Now the wavy parallel lines on this tablet indicate again
the love between the god and the goddess, he residing
on the left side of the heavenly river, and she on the
right bank. The U sign is the heavenly fig tree but also
a jar or a basket or a gourd of the goddess. Not enough,
the symbols have also an earthly meaning, honoring
the keepers of the palace. Now the X has the meaning
of air, cool air in summer and warm air in winter, the
fish has also the meaning of water, element of this
animal, and of food, fish having been an important
part of the Harappan diet, supplied by the god of the
fish arms, and taking all together the message reads:
The family honored by this tablet provides excellent
keepers of the palace, who air the halls well, keeping
them cool in summer and warm in winter, who also
care for water and for the provisions, doing their work
with a portion of the love that keeps the world together ...
Peter T. Daniels
> Assuming that the Indian religions including Buddhism
> rely on the founding epic of the Indus Valley civilization,
A rather strange assumption, given that the Indus Valley civilization
was several centuries gone before its successors happened upon the
Subcontinent.
Franz Gnaedinger
I rely on the visual language. The same symbols return
in Budfdhist art, from the second century BC to the 6th
century AD and until the 19th century in a Tibetan
miniature stupa, the bull horns combined with fishtails,
and many more symbols. It is a question of reading
visual language. Being an expert in matters of visual
language I see that all the Indian religions use the same
visual symbols, from this I can conclude that they rely
on the founding myth of the Indus Valley. You don't
think visual language exists, you flatly deny it, and so
do my killrater and his aliasses - having nothing to say
they or he must destroy my work, he can't help it,
he must go for the kill kill kill.
Peter T. Daniels
> On Dec 1, 1:48 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > On Dec 1, 4:06 am, Franz Gnaedinger <f...@bluemail.ch> wrote:
>
> > > Assuming that the Indian religions including Buddhism
> > > rely on the founding epic of the Indus Valley civilization,
>
> > A rather strange assumption, given that the Indus Valley civilization
> > was several centuries gone before its successors happened upon the
> > Subcontinent.
>
> I rely on the visual language. The same symbols return
> in Budfdhist art, from the second century BC to the 6th
> century AD and until the 19th century in a Tibetan
> miniature stupa, the bull horns combined with fishtails,
> and many more symbols. It is a question of reading
> visual language. Being an expert in matters of visual
> language I see that all the Indian religions use the same
> visual symbols, from this I can conclude that they rely
> on the founding myth of the Indus Valley. You don't
> think visual language exists, you flatly deny it,
Visual language, shmisual language -- the simple fact that the
pictograms are _pictograms_ means that they could be devised
independently hundreds of times.
It's also possible that someone who happened to be in the Harappa
(etc.) area might have picked up an inscribed object and liked the
pretty decorations they saw, and imitated them for their own purpose.
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> Visual language, shmisual language -- the simple fact that the
> pictograms are _pictograms_ means that they could be devised
> independently hundreds of times.
>
> It's also possible that someone who happened to be in the Harappa
> (etc.) area might have picked up an inscribed object and liked the
> pretty decorations they saw, and imitated them for their own purpose.
Shmeter Peter Daniels Shmaniels: the buffalo horns
and the arms of 'Pashupati' ending in fish tails or crab
claws return in combined form, as the symbol at the
top of the right pillar of the eastern gate of the stupa 1
at Sanci in central India, and on many many other
Buddhist art works - not just a borrowed symbol,
but a deeply understood symbol that was further
developed and then generally used. This is reflected
in the big stupa itself whose crown shows the new
gods above the Vedic gods, not denying them but
raising them on a new level, and this being done with
the thorough knowledge of the older religion and all
the symbols involved. Indian art is full of allusions
I recognize only know that I am reconstructing the
founding epic of the Indus Valley. Visual language
allows to be studied by comparative methods, just
as language, and that's what I am doing. By the way,
Steve Farmer objected in an e-mail to me that Murukan
appeared only 2,000 years after the end of Harappa.
I mentioned this in a previous message. And said I have
no problem with it, seeing as the sun horse of Lascaux
returned 18,000 years later in the quadriga of Helios
and in the sun horse on Celtic coins, usually on the
morning of the summer solstice, like the red mare
in the rotunda of Lascaux rising above the horizon.
Ideas have a long life, especially the ideas that are
the 'memes' of a civilization, they are nearly as long
lived as genes ...
Panu
countryman?
Franz Gnaedinger
The impression of the seal M-414 shows a fish on the right
side, fish miin star; a fig tree of many leaves in the middle;
and a peculiar sign on the left side, considered a scorpion
by Asko Parpola for the clearly visible sting. The peculiar
sign is basically another X or cross indicating the god on
his Thuban dais, way up in the heavenly fig tree, holding
stars with arms of wind. The signs of the four arms read
in clockwise direction may be: Spica Heze lance in Virgo,
directed toward the Arcturus rhinoceros; ear of the Vega
elephant; phallus, body of the Cygnus peacock in his role
as love messenger, Albireo Sadr Deneb; and the twin turrets
of the Gemini pavillon, Castor and Pollux, a pair of parallel
strokes. Now we can read one more version of the epic.
Once upon a time the Arcturus rhinoceros drank all water,
got big and round, full of the precious liquid, while the land
went dry, and all plants whithered. Many tried to pierce
a hole into the armor of the greedy rhinoceros, but it was
so hard nobody succeeded. Apart from the young god and
his marvellous Spica Heze lance that perforated even the
armour of the rhinoceros, the water rushed out and fell as
the first monsoon from the sky, menacing the land gone dry
with way too much water all of a sudden - but luckily the
Vega elephant was around, so he and his herd raised their
trunks and absorbed the rushing waters, then lowered their
trunks and gently filled the river beds, making the dry soil
sprout grass, the trees grow leaves, and the flowers bloom.
The Orion goddess gazed in wonder across the heavenly
river, over the twin turrets of the Gemini pavillon, toward the
beautiful and strong young god in the region of Virgo, this
one turned around and saw her, and they fell in love. Later
on, when the young god had absolved his hardest task,
taming the Regulus buffalo, he went to the Cygnus peacock
and rode along the celestial river toward the Orion goddess ...
The rhinoceros on the calendar tablet (gray 'Pashupati'
tablet) looks rather deflated and shrunk. The episode of
the elephants absorbing the rushing waters returned in
Shiva holding them up with his head, and the famous carved
rock at Mamalla-puram, showing that scene, includes giant
elephants. M-414 may have been bestowed on a family of
gardeners: This seal honors a family of excellent gardeners
who care well for our plants, making wise use of the water,
always enough but never too much, our trees are covered
in splendid foliage, and the blooming flowers delight our
women ...
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
> On Nov 18, 2:28 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > You still haven't explained why you decided to drag Egypt into a
> > fantasy about Indus civilization.
>
> > (Nor, for that matter, how you have suddenly become an ancient
> > Egyptian.)
>
> I did by saying that I always felt there was
> a connection between the Indus Valley and
> ancient Egypt but could not name it. When
> min came up I saw a possible connection,
> and so I tuned my guitar, as it were.
You can tune a guitar but you can't tune a fish:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Can_Tune_a_Piano_but_You_Can%27t_Tuna_Fish
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
wrote:
> http://www.hindu.com/2009/11/15/stories/2009111556932200.htm
> He later found that the Akkadian Sargonic texts referred to the weight
> Dilmun was exactly the same as that of the Indus system. Dr. Bonta,
> theory is that the term “minus” is derived from the Indus and that the
mi:n does mean fish in Tamil but it doesn't mean a unit of weight in
Tamil.
Franz Gnaedinger
One of the signs on M-112 shows a pair of parallel strokes
of medium length, at the top of each stroke a tiny triangle,
and entering the space between the strokes, from below,
a short arrow. This sign may indicate the god gazing over
at Castor and Pollux, twin turrets of the Gemini pavilion,
and the Orion goddess on the other bank of the celestial
river. He fell in love with her but couldn't meet her then,
he had first to tame the Regulus buffalo and teach the
human beings the ways of civilization: how to bake bread,
how to form and bake bricks and build walls and houses,
how to use the calendar, and how to organize the human
society - each family should send some valid members
to do free work for the common weal during some time
of the year, and those who do an excellent job should be
honored appropriately ... M-112 shows a buffalo and the
usual double standard. The tamed buffalo reminds of the
god's adventure, while the dotted bowl of the standard
indicates grains and dough, and the grid above the bowl
bricks needed in building houses. The buffalo is also an
element of the early Indus Valley calendar, indicating the
busiest period of the year, the season of the buffalo, the
90 days between the fall equinox and the midwinter festival,
when most people worked in the fields and in brick manu-
factures on the river banks. On seal H-6 appears a sign
I read as palace, basically a standing H wose vertical
lines are slightly curved inward while the horizontal bar is
doubled and made broad and strong. The tops of the vertical
strokes may be twin towers, reminding of Castor and Pollux
as twin turrets of the Gemini pavilion. Harappa, Mohenjo-daro
and Amri are built on the left bank of the respective river, in
the Gemini position if the river on earth mirrors the heavenly
river, so the main centers of the Harappan civilization may
remember the Gemini pavilion of the loving divine couple,
and represent the citadel the dwellers of the Indus Valley built,
enlarging the former pavilion, according to the instructions
the god himself had given them, and this work, building the
marvellous Indus Valley citadels, required a lot of free work
in the benefit of the common weal, honored with a seal or
a tablet ... Now the seals evoking the god's adventures, and
honoring families for really outstanding contributions to the
common weal, are no longer a contradiction but emanations
of the same spirit: evoking the founding myth and epic of the
Indus Valley, and on the other hand helping to make the god's
will come true ...
We may hope to reconstruct all of the epic, by and by, say,
within fifty years, relying on the rich and splendid testimony
of Indian art and religion and literature, the starry sky, Old
Tamil, archaeology, and especially the legacy of the Göbekli
Tepe and what become of it in other regons of the ancient
world.
Franz Gnaedinger
Trond Engen suggested I pull my weight in the question of
the Indus seals. I obliged. Steve Farmer feels sorry for me,
seeing as I am "misguided" by Asko Parpola who ignores
a time gap of 2,000 years between Harappa and the first
mentioning of Murukan. I see no problem there and support
Parpola, calling him the decipherer of the Indus script.
He recognized that the seals are about muruku Murukan
residing on the Thuban dais, high up in the heavenly fig
tree, holding the stars with arms that are ropes of wind,
and with hands that are the claws of a crab ... However,
Parpola encounters two major dificulties: what exactly
does a sign represent? and if this question is answered,
are there close homonyms in Old Tamil allowing pun
and rebus? Few signs are as obvious as the fish and
offer such a perfect homophony as miin 'fish' and miin
'star'. The limit of Parpola's approach becomes apparent
in the case of the 'scorpion' sign on M-414. Help arrives
from the study of visual language and especially from
the visual encodings of lunisolar calendars. The 'scorpion'
sign on M-414 is basically a cross or an X indicating the
god on his Thuban dais with four arms of wind holding
stars. Now the stars are indicated by the emblems of the
four arms: sting - Spica and Heze in Lyra, lance of the
hero god // ear of an elephant - Vega in Lyra, Vega
elephant // phallus - Albireo Sadr Deneb in Cygnus,
body of the Gygnus peacock, invoking the bird as
love messenger // pair of parallel strokes of medium
length - Castor and Pollux, twin turrets of the Gemini
pavilion, love pavilion of the Thuban god and the
Orion goddess ... Gods of many arms holding their
insignia and tools and emblems are frequent in the
art of India. All one has to do is learn the vocabulary
and grammar of visual language. Visual language is
permantenly being discredited in sci.lang, especially
by Peter T. Daniels. I won't have this any longer. Yes,
I pull my weight. Asko Parpola says that his approach
is discredited also because of his slow progress. This
may change now that not only Proto-Dravidian can be
used as reference, but also the starry sky and the rich
legacy of Indian art and religion and literature, and
archaeology, also and especially the one of the region
of the Göbekli Tepe that marks the transition from
the Paleolithic to the Neolithic. Steve Farmer has the
merit of having pointed out the importance of visual
language: as pictures the signs can tell much more
than as syllables, however, Asko Parpola is right in
saying that the understanding of at least some signs
can only be achieved via Old Tamil puns, for example
fish miin star ... I thank Analyst for having started this
thread, and VK for the link to Parpola's paper from
October 2008 / September 2009.
Franz Gnaedinger
I got two e-mails from Dr. Steve Farmer, none from
Prof. Asko Porpola, so I wrote him again, my last
mail in case he should not reply. For those interested
I quote my mail here:
* Dear Professor Parpola,
* please allow me one more e-mail, and this time
* really the last one in case I should get no reply.
" I have a good reason for writing again, as I believe
* that the 'scorpion' sign on M-414 is now explained.
* It is basically a cross or an X indicating the Thuban
* god holding stars with arms that are ropes of wind
* and hands that are the claws of a crab, as you so
* ingeniously deducted in the case of the crab inside
* fig. Now the four wind arms of the cross carry the
* emblems of the stars invoked. In clockwise direction:
*
* sting - Spica and Heze in Lyra, lance of the
* hero god used in fighting the Arcturus rhinoceros
*
* ear of an elephant - Vega in Lyra, Vega elephant,
* playing a role in the Arcturus rhinoceros adventure
*
* phallus - Albireo Sadr Deneb in Gygnus, invoking
* the body of the Cygnus peacock as love messenger
*
* pair of parallel lines of medium length - Castor
* and Pollux in Gemini, twin turrets of the Gemini
* pavilion, love pavilion of the Thuban god and the
* Orion goddess
*
* The inscriptions on the seals and tablets would refer
* to the founding myth and epic of the Indus Valley,
* which may allow a faster progress of your work.
* If you are interested in this new perspective you
* may read the messages below, sketches of the
* hypothetical epic, otherwise you can simply delete
* my e-mail.
*
* Sincerely, Franz Gnaedinger, Zurich
(quotes of the messages Bull valley 24 and 23 and 22
and 21 from my thread Magdalenian experiment here
snipped)
Richard Herring
<0ece0634-6e5f-4f73...@o10g2000yqa.googlegroups.com>,
Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> writes
Even if it wasn't, what makes Franz think Buddhism relies on the
"founding epic" of _any_ civilization?
--
Richard Herring
Peter T. Daniels
> In message
> <0ece0634-6e5f-4f73-87f6-e7a562665...@o10g2000yqa.googlegroups.com>,
> Peter T. Daniels <gramma...@verizon.net> writes
>
> >On Dec 1, 4:06 am, Franz Gnaedinger <f...@bluemail.ch> wrote:
>
> >> Assuming that the Indian religions including Buddhism
> >> rely on the founding epic of the Indus Valley civilization,
>
> >A rather strange assumption, given that the Indus Valley civilization
> >was several centuries gone before its successors happened upon the
> >Subcontinent.
>
> Even if it wasn't, what makes Franz think Buddhism relies on the
> "founding epic" of _any_ civilization?
Gautama Buddha must have taken his ideas from somewhere? There hasn't
been an original thought since Magdalenian times (whenever they were)?
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> Even if it wasn't, what makes Franz think Buddhism relies on the
> "founding epic" of _any_ civilization?
Visual language, and specifically the eastern torana
(gate with high decorated double pillars and horizontal
beams in between, sumptuously decorated) of the
big stupa at Sanchi in Central India. On top are three
wheels, above the new gods of Budhism, below the
vedic gods, and the lowest wheel presumably the
oldest gods, that would be AAR RAA CA muruku
Murukan, the horned godess, and further deities.
The languages of Eurasia allow to reconstruct PIE.
In a similar way visual language, here the symbols
of India, allow to go for the oldest myth, and telling
that myth or hanging together all involved mythems
would result in an oral epic, and one that was even
written down, however, not in the way Homer wrote
the Oyssey, integrating material from at least sixteen
bards (Ricardo Mansilla) but in shorthand on seals
and tablets. I see that symbols on these seals return
in modified form and further developed in Indian art,
and I see how the first epic grew out of the Göbekli
Tepe symbolism, so I focus the hypothetical founding
myth and epic of the Indus Valley in between the
Göbekli Tepe and modern India that still keeps up
many traditions. I have ample material to rely on,
symbols of early Buddhism, and miniature paintings
of the Malwa school, and of course also the art of
Hinduism. Did you read the paper by Asko Parpola?
VK gave the link earlier on. This paper is written
in a very complicated scholarly style; now I am simply
converting it into a story that follows the arrow of time,
and when I do it I see the plot of a prime movie, early
road movie and love story in one. The ancient ones
knew very well why they conveyed their wisdom
in the form of stories. They didn't write books loaded
with five kilograms of footnotes, they told stories.
If I wish to understand them I have to convey what
I reconstruct also in the form of a story, and if I
succeed, my work is already half plausible. I would
recommend that everyboy who writes a book on
a historical topic include a short story, rendering his
or her ideas or hypothesis in the form of a narrative,
good for the reader, and for the writer as well who
can then easily recognize gaps in the hypothesis,
or things that are plain impossible, and get new
ideas as well, this the most rewarding effect of
story telling.
Richard Herring
<ef8f9751-9cd5-413b...@z41g2000yqz.googlegroups.com>,
Franz Gnaedinger <fr...@bluemail.ch> writes
>On Dec 3, 2:55 pm, Richard Herring <junk@[127.0.0.1]> wrote:
>>
>> Even if it wasn't, what makes Franz think Buddhism relies on the
>> "founding epic" of _any_ civilization?
>
>Visual language, and specifically the eastern torana
>(gate with high decorated double pillars and horizontal
>beams in between, sumptuously decorated) of the
>big stupa at Sanchi in Central India. On top are three
>wheels, above the new gods of Budhism,
and who would _they_ be, precisely?
> below the
>vedic gods, and the lowest wheel presumably the
>oldest gods, that would be AAR RAA CA muruku
>Murukan, the horned godess, and further deities.
[snip irrelevant flights of fancy, looking for the meat]
No, as I thought. No identifiable reference to any actual "founding
epic".
--
Richard Herring
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> and who would _they_ be, precisely?
>
>
> No, as I thought. No identifiable reference to any actual "founding
> epic".
I was mistaken, the basis of the stupa symbolized
the earth, the hemisphere of the building the heavenly
vault, the chest-like structure on top the 33 Vedic
deities, and the triple parasol Buddha's reign. Either
early Buddhism was tolerant, or the king who let build
the stupa either in the first century BC or AD wanted
to be on the safe side, like the Romans who integrated
all deities into their pantheon and even built an altar
for the unknown god. I don't know, and I don't care.
What I care for are the rich symbols in Indian art.
Story telling has a logic and eros and wisdom of its
own. When I needed the traveling route of the god
from the Thuban mountain to the Orion goddess
I consulted the eastern gate of the big stupa at Sanchi
and noted the spirals above the voluptous woman,
spirals turning in clockwise direction, and I had my
traveling route: a spiral turning in clockwise direction,
from the Thuban mountain down into the Draco valley,
prolonging the arc, visiting four stars of the Big Dipper,
the final one Mizar-Alcor, visiting the Vega elephant,
and then the home of the Cygnus peacock, Deneb
his head, and then along the celestial river toward
the Orion goddess, and for good measure a struggle
with a water demon, as inspired by one of the miniature
paintings from the Malwa school (Wiener Collection
New York). I can claim that I know quite a lot about
epics, having studied Homer's Odyssey for decades.
An epic has a telos, an aim, a purpose. The one of
Homer was to unite Greece, mainland and islands
and Ionian shore of Anatolia. The one of the founding
myth and oral epic of the Indus Valley, memorized
on 5,000 seals and tablets, consisted in remembering
the lessons the god gave to the humans, after having
freed them from the greedy rhinoceros and tyrannic
buffalo, as told in my story, a revised version of which
will soon go online, hopefully.
Franz Gnaedinger
King Arthur, the dragon from Lannion in Brittany,
the sword Calibrus, and Merlin
The young hero god of the Indus Valley reached
the foothills of the Thuban mountain, was implored
for help in fighting the Arcturus rhinoceros and
Regulus bull by the wise woman from Mizar Alcor
and overcame the rhinoceros with the help of the
Spica Heze lance in Virgo. So far the adventure
as reconstructed from Indus seals and tablets.
Now this episode has a stunning parallel in another
Indo-European legend, namely the one of king
Arthur and the dragon from Lannion in Armorica,
on the Breton coast. Here is a description of the
dragon from the Barzaz Breiz, translated by Jan
Jaczek, a perfect match for Bootes, explaining
brackets inserted by me: Now the dragon came out
(rose above the horizon) of its lair, vile and steaming.
It had a single red eye on its forehead (Arcturus
a red star, glowing orange) and its body was covered
in green scales (analogous to the bony plates of the
rhinoceros). It had the form of a fully grown bull,
but its tail was twisted into a spiral like an iron screw
(reference to the meteor shower of the Quadrantides
radiating from the northern part of Bootes in early
January) and thin needle-sharp horns at every joint,
to deter any attacker from coming too close (alpha
pi zaetha Bootis and alpha aeta tau ypsilon Bootis,
the alpha star beeing Arcturus, and the aetha star
Mufrid). Calibrus the magic sword would then have
been the equivalent of the Spica Heze lance of the
Indian hero, and Merlin the one of the wise woman
of Mizar Alcor. In the time of Chauvet, 32,000 years
ago, the fast moving Arcturus was the head of
Bootes, above Nekkar, the constellation was the
bear hunter ARC TYR, overcomer TYR of the bear
ARC, a generic name that survived in the name of
the star Arcturus, and in the name of the dragon
slayer Arthur, bones of the long extinct cave bear,
a giant bear even bigger than the grizzly, having
been regarded as remains of dragons. The ancient
ones looked up into the sky, in a time when there
was no light pollution, and invented stories to the
stars that reflected the conditions of their own life.
The starry sky was their cinema. And how do we call
a famous movie actor? a star.
Franz Gnaedinger
Bootes was the dragon of Lannion, rising above the
northwestern horizon in early January at midnight,
in horizontal position, the orange eye on the right side,
the Nekkar stump of a tail on the left side, the meteor
shower of the Quarantides radiating from the rear end
of the dragon from January 1 till 6, maximum January
3 and 4. Arthur fought for three days and nights with the
dragon, must have been early January when the demon
twisted his tail in a spiral = radiating meteors. The
narrative in the Brazaz Breiz is embedded in a sad
love story, the one of Efflam and Enora who spent
their married life apart and yet in close proximity,
evoking Castor and Pollux as twin turrets of the Gemini
pavilion, love pavilion of the Thuban god and the Orion
goddess of the Indus Valley. The dragon of Lannion
was the rhinoceros of the early Indus Valley, in the
reconstructed epic releasing the first monsoon when
pierced with the sting of the scorpion, the Spica Heze
lance of the hero god, so this battle must have occurred
around midsummer. Let us look at the night sky in this
period of the year. Bootes appears in vertical position,
the Arcturus eye below, looking at the Heze point of the
Spica sword in Virgo, on the western sky at midnight
of June 21, at 1 o'clock on June 6, 2 o'clock on May 21,
3 o'clock on May 6, 4 o'clock on April 21, so that the
arrival of the monoon can be predicted: when the
above position of Arcturus and Spica occurs around
midnight the mythic battle will start and the monsoon
arrive ... King Arthur may have been an emanation
of the supreme Celtic god Dagda, the good god in
the sense of the able god, from DhAG DhAG meaning
able able. Also the hero god of the Indus Valley was
an able god, able in every way, and enabling those
who followed him.
Richard Herring
<0b9cf5d4-8cca-4107...@c3g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>,
Franz Gnaedinger <fr...@bluemail.ch> writes
>On Dec 4, 2:19�pm, Richard Herring <junk@[127.0.0.1]> wrote:
>>
>>> the new gods of Buddhism
>> and who would _they_ be, precisely?
What, no answer?
>>
>> [snip irrelevant flights of fancy, looking for the meat]
>>
>> No, as I thought. No identifiable reference to any actual "founding
>> epic".
>
>I was mistaken, the basis of the stupa symbolized
>the earth, the hemisphere of the building the heavenly
>vault, the chest-like structure on top the 33 Vedic
>deities,
It's a square railing, and there's nothing 33-fold about it.
>and the triple parasol Buddha's reign. Either
>early Buddhism was tolerant, or the king who let build
>the stupa either in the first century BC or AD
Third century BC, for those who prefer facts.
>wanted
>to be on the safe side,
You've never heard of Ashoka?
> like the Romans who integrated
>all deities into their pantheon and even built an altar
>for the unknown god. I don't know, and I don't care.
How very characteristic.
>What I care for are the rich symbols in Indian art.
>Story telling has a logic and eros and wisdom of its
>own.
Indeed it has. The Sanchi stupa is a symbolic structure specifically
designed to tell a story, yet you discard it because you don't care, and
substitute your own nonsense about voluptuous women and rhinoceroses.
--
Richard Herring
Richard Herring
<beccb6e1-46ce-4dbc...@g23g2000vbi.googlegroups.com>,
Franz Gnaedinger <fr...@bluemail.ch> writes
>
>The young hero god of the Indus Valley reached
>the foothills of the Thuban mountain, was implored
>for help in fighting the Arcturus rhinoceros and
>Regulus bull by the wise woman from Mizar Alcor
>and overcame the rhinoceros with the help of the
>Spica Heze lance in Virgo. So far the adventure
>as reconstructed from Indus seals and tablets.
Really? Where was this reconstruction published?
--
Richard Herring
Peter T. Daniels
> Bootes was the dragon of Lannion, rising above the
Have you studied the literature on the history of astronomy,
especially on the relationships among Babylonian, Indian, and Greek
astronomy, and also astrology, particularly as represented in the
lifework of the late David Pingree of Brown University?
Do you realize that we _know_ how the ancients divided the sky into
constellations, and you don't need to speculate?
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> Have you studied the literature on the history of astronomy,
> especially on the relationships among Babylonian, Indian, and Greek
> astronomy, and also astrology, particularly as represented in the
> lifework of the late David Pingree of Brown University?
>
> Do you realize that we _know_ how the ancients divided the sky into
> constellations, and you don't need to speculate?
I studied Egyptian astronomy according to Rolf Krauss
who identified Wsjr/Osiris with Orion, Ast/Isis with the
Sothis star, i.e. Sirius, Hor(us) the younger with Venus
morning star, Hor(us) the elder with Venus evening star,
Seth with Mars, and, most important, the mysterious
swaying kha-channel with the band of the ecliptic,
the latter allowing me to identifiy Sneferu's Dahshur
pyramid as the earthly harbor of the heavenly kha-
channel where the soul of the king went onboard the
sun boat of Ra ... You are mistaken if you believe that
the starry sky was always divided into the same
constellations. 32,000 years ago the fast moving
Arcturus was the head of Bootes, above Nekkar,
the constellation was the bear hunter ARC TYR,
overcomer TYR of the bear ARC, and the bear was
present in your Big Dipper. In the time of Harappa
and Stonehenge and Ebla Bootes was seen as demon,
a rhinoceros in the Indus Valley, the dragon of Lannion
in Armorica (Britanny), and Behemoth in the Levant,
Arcturus the eye, orange, the one red eye of the dragon
of Lannion, while the tail of the dragon "was twisted into
a spiral like an iron screw" (Barzaz Breiz, translation
Jan Jaczek) and the tail of Behemoth "moved like
a cedar," the needle-like leaves of the cedar spiralling
around long shoots. Only Arthur could pull the magic
sword Calibrus from the rock, only the Master of
Behemoth could raise his sword against him, and only
the hero god of the Indus Valley could fight the rhinoceros
demon that drank the water, and then, when pierced by
the magic Spica Heze lance, released it all at once
in the first monsoon. Behemoth could swallow the river
Jordan. The Lannion dragon was covered in scales
corresponding to the bone plates of the rhinoceros.
The Lannion dragon had the form of a fully grown bull,
and Behemoth eats grass like an ox ... The rhinoceros
on the gray 'Pashupati' tablet and the dragon of Lannion
and Behemoth are the same demon, present in Bootes
with Arcturus for the eye, and the Quadrantides radiating
from the Nekkar end for the twisted and spiraling tail ...
You can't read this in books, you have to reconstruct it
via reading visual language.
Richard Herring: the basis of the stupa symbolized earth,
the hemisphere of the building the heavenly vault, the
chest-like structure on top the 33 Vedic gods, and the
triple parasol Buddha's reign - I got this from a book
and don't know how the number 33 and the square hang
together. When I come upon something I don't understand
I store it in my mind, and then, sooner or later, I find an
explanation. But I don't care in this case, for I am not
presently interested in Vedic deities but in the founding
myth and epic of the Indus Valley.
Richard Herring
<60f41611-d428-4fc1...@u7g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,
Franz Gnaedinger <fr...@bluemail.ch> writes
>Richard Herring:
If you want me to read what you write, follow up to *my* postings. Don't
expect me to read to the end of a reply to someone else.
>the basis of the stupa symbolized earth,
>the hemisphere of the building the heavenly vault, the
>chest-like structure
It's a fence.
>on top the 33 Vedic gods,
Why would a stupa built by the Buddhist Ashoka commemorate Vedic gods?
> and the
>triple parasol Buddha's reign - I got this from a book
Which book? "Chariots of the Gods"?
>and don't know how the number 33 and the square hang
>together.
That would be because they don't. Maybe you have confused it with the 33
Edicts of Ashoka, or the 37 virtues supposedly signified by the 37
spires of the Loha Prasada (which it doesn't resemble at all) ?
> When I come upon something I don't understand
>I store it in my mind, and then, sooner or later, I find an
>explanation.
No, what usually seems to happen is that you regurgitate an erroneous
paraphrase.
>But I don't care in this case, for I am not
>presently interested in Vedic deities but in the founding
>myth and epic of the Indus Valley.
>
No, you are not. You are interested only in the products of your own
imagination.
--
Richard Herring
Peter T. Daniels
> On Dec 7, 1:22 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Have you studied the literature on the history of astronomy,
> > especially on the relationships among Babylonian, Indian, and Greek
> > astronomy, and also astrology, particularly as represented in the
> > lifework of the late David Pingree of Brown University?
>
> > Do you realize that we _know_ how the ancients divided the sky into
> > constellations, and you don't need to speculate?
>
> I studied Egyptian astronomy according to Rolf Krauss
I did not say anything about Egyptian astronomy, I don't know whether
it is independent from the above tradition (probably not), and I don't
know who, and more importantly when, Rolf Krauss is.
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> That would be because they don't. Maybe you have confused it with the 33
> Edicts of Ashoka, or the 37 virtues supposedly signified by the 37
> spires of the Loha Prasada (which it doesn't resemble at all) ?
That book says the chest-like structure on top of the big stupa
at Sanchi symbolizes the palace of the 33 Vedic deities.
I don't know whether there is a geometrical idea involved
in the extraordinary building. The Great Pyramid at Giza is
based on the numbers 7 and 11, and if there is a number pair
underlying the stupa it might perhaps be 4 and 7. The square
of 7 minus the square of 4 equals 33. The structure on top
of the stupa imitates wickerwork and has, if my photographs
allow me to say so, probably 4 times 7 holes or slits per
lateral face, which would be the crucial numbers. Add 4 and 7
and you obtain 11. If the diameter of a circle measures 7 units,
half the circumference, or the arc of the semicircle, measures
practically 11 units. Now picture two right paralel-epipeds,
one lying, the base a big square, the other standing, the
base a small square. If the height of the lying right parallel-
epiped meauses 4 units, and the diagonal of the lateral
face 7 units, the area of the base measures 33 square units.
And if the base of the standing right parallel-epiped measures
4 by 4 units, and the height 7 units, the diagonal of the volume
measures 9 units, and the surface (area of all six faces) 144
square units, 12 by 12 units, 12 being the number of horizontal
beams of all 4 gates together. And so on. If I had measurements
and good photographs of the stupa I'd begin my geometrical
analysis that way, looking out for interesting numbers that
may then reveal a meaning. But I don't have measurements
and reliable photograps, so I just tell you about the way I would
proceed, in case someone else may go for a geometrical
examination of that stupendous building.
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> I did not say anything about Egyptian astronomy, I don't know whether
> it is independent from the above tradition (probably not), and I don't
> know who, and more importantly when, Rolf Krauss is.
Rolf Krauss is an eminent Egyptologist, one of the integer
figures in that field, he solved most of the puzzles of Egyptian
astronomy, and he wrote the book on Moses whom he
identified with an ostracized king of Egypt, in his opinion
the role model of the fictive Moses in the narrative of Joseph
Flavius, in my opinion one of the real Moses figures.
Franz Gnaedinger
First a correction. Bootes as dragon of Lannion rises
above the northeastern horizon at midnight in early
January (I corrected my typo in the above quote)
The rhinoceros of the early Indus Valley and the dragon
of Lannion have a fellow demon in behemoth of the
Levant, as described in the Bible, Job 40:15-24, here
the relevant passages, my explanations given in brackets:
Behold now behemoth ... he eateth grass as an ox (the
Lannion dragon has the form of a fully-grown bull; the name
of behemoth is the augmentive plural of Hebrew behemah
'beast', -mah perhaps from MUC for bull) ... he moveth his
tail like a cedar (the neelde-like leaves of the cedar spiral
around long shoots, while the tail of the Lannion dragon
is twisted into a spiral, like an iron screw, both images
used for denoting the meteor shower of the Quadrantides
radiating from the Nekkar end of Bootes) ... he who made
him can make his sword to approach unto him (only God
can raise his sword against behemoth, only Arthur could
pull the magic sword Calibrus out of the rock, and only
the hero god of the Indus Valley could pierce the bone
plate armor of the rhinoceros with the Spica Heze lance)
... Behold, he drinketh up a river, and hasteth not; he
trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth (in my
reconstruction of the founding myth and epic of the Indus
Valley the rhinoceros drank all water and made the land
go dry) ... When the hero god of the Indus Valley traveled
along the heavenly river toward the Orion goddess he had
to fight one more demon, a sea monster, leviathan in the
Bible (Job 41) whose constellation might have been
Cassiopeia. The begin of the name involves a coil, or
the verb to coil. On a miniature painting of the Malwa
school the god Vishnu emerging from a big fish kills
a demon emerging from a winding sea shell or snail.
I explain the name of Vishnu via PIS NOS, mind NOS
water in motion PIS, also bodies moving in water,
Sanskrit piccha Latin piscis pisces English fish.
Further derivatives of the compound are Latin penis
- consider the phallus of the peculiar sign on seal M-414
indicating the Cygnus peaock as love messenger, and
when Krishna, an avatar of Vishnu, was on his way to
the lovely Ruda he wore the crown of a peacock - and
Venus, an emanation of the fertility giver BRI GID whose
constellation was Orion on the beautiful ORE shore or
bank EON of the celestial river CA LAK ...
Peter T. Daniels
So you refuse to tell me when he "wrote the book on Moses" -- but you
do tell me that he is a biblical fundamentalist who accepts the
historicity of the biblical account?
What do _you_ mean by "ostracized"?
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> So you refuse to tell me when he "wrote the book on Moses" -- but you
> do tell me that he is a biblical fundamentalist who accepts the
> historicity of the biblical account?
>
> What do _you_ mean by "ostracized"?
Do a query on Rolf Krauss yourself. He wrote his book
on Moses in the 1990s, may have appeared in around
1998, I own the French version, and as I say he does
not believe in the historicity of Moses, he believes that
the so-called Jawhist flourishing after the Babylonian
exile used Masesaya / Amun Masesa as role model
for his Moses. Ostracized means: extinguished from
the memory, statues decapitized, faces eraded, name
dito. Do a query on Rolf Krauss yourself. I am the one
who believes that the Bible tells the truth, however, that
we must read it as every other epic of the time, in
a symbolic way. The plagues that befell Egypt symbolize
the invasion of the Sea People, and so on, as I explained
many times in the Usenet. I believe that the people from
Beersheba from the Chalcolithic played an important role
in the making of Egypt, and that around 1,200 some
Egyptians joined the Apiru and made for the Sinai,
only that we can't take the Biblical report literally, it is
meant symbolically. Also the Trojan war really happened,
and beautiful Helen of the white arms truly was the reason
of that war, only that she was no woman but the symbol
of tin that came either from Central Asia or from the
Ore Mountains in central Europe and was bound to pass
Troy where the Trojans laid their hands on the precious
ore and metal, ingots in the form of arms, white arms,
beautiful white arms, the white arms of beautiful Helen,
a derivative from KAL for the Underworld also present
in Hellenoi and keltoi Celts and Gallii and Helvetii,
reference to the Underworld of the mines.
Franz Gnaedinger
Leviathan might symbolize the rolling sea, waves, the green
scales patterns of smaller waves on the surface of the Aegaean
Sea called the Great Green by the Egyptians, while steam and
smoke and fire might keep a memory of the eruptions of the
Thera volcano that caused terrible tsunamis, far reaching
waves that that washed pumace-stone up the shores of the
Levant and the Egyptian delta. Job: Canst thou draw out
leviathan with a hook or his tongue with a cord which
thou lettest down? No, we can't hook and rope a wave.
The constellation of Leviathan might have been Cassiopeia,
by then near the zenith at midnight following the fall equinox,
announcing the gales of October and November and winter
in the Aegean and perhaps the entire Mediterranean, high
going water, leviathan rising. Cassiopeia was the mother
of Andromeda who was rescued from a sea monster by
Perseus. Vishnu on a miniature painting from the Malwa
school, emerging from a fish, has four arms that hold a lotos
blossom, a bangle, the Panchajana conch of life, and a golden
lance that pushes back the white sword of the water demon
emerging from a conch, this time a big winding shell on the
water. The demon wears a pair of horns. On the points are
pearls that may indicate regular phenomena going along
with moon and sun, high tide, floodings of the river plain,
both a blessing (Panchajano conch of life) and a menace
(demon rising from the other conch), perhaps also the
bi-annual change of the tradewind that might provoke storms
and a high going sea, the demon now symbolizing the perils
of seafaring, and the pearls produced by the conch the
benefit of sea trade. Four women on the river bank or the
sea shore, wearing necklaces of pearls and corral beads,
are supporting Vishnu, the god of the yellow headdress
with a pearl adorned peacock crown on top. Flowers bloom.
Many symbols of life ban the demon, the biggest one the fish
in the middle, guise of a god whose origin goes far back in
time. Already the founders of the Harappan civilization knew
how to tame a river and cope with the floodings in a common
effort that would have shaped the civilization of the Indus
Valley and explain the amazing infrastructure of Harappa
and Mohenjo-daro.