Subject: The etymology of the title "Malikim" used with lugal: was:Re:Early Human occupation of Southern Mesopotamia: was: Linguistic debates are of marginal archaeological interest to most.
From: whittet@shore.net (Steve Whittet)
Date: 15 Sep 1996 15:29:39 GMT
In article , piotrm@umich.edu says...
>
>In article <51f1fm$4f5@shore.shore.net> whittet@shore.net (Steve Whittet)
writes:
>>
>>The title malikum used with lugal
>
>>First: The root of Lugal is Lu = man
>
>>Fellow / Lu
>>Human / Lu
>>Human Being / Lu-Lu
>>People / Lu
>>Man / Lu
>>Man / Lu
>>Man / Lu-Lu
>>Man / Lu-U-Lu
>>Man (treacherous) / Lu-Lul
>>Treacherous / Lul-La
>>Treachery / Lul
>
>>Consider the adjective Mah = Great
>
>>I think the root of malikum is "Prince"
>
>>modified by Mah= Great
>>and lu = man
>>with
>>Prince / I-Ku
>>Great - Man - Prince = mah-lu-I-ku
>>and perhaps with the adjective; kum = Hot
>>[kum = hot; as in (burn, eat, consume; passionate, a leader)]
>>Hot / Kum (-Ma)
>>Leader / I-Ku
>>Leader / Ku
>>Consume / Ku
>>Food / Ku
>>Judge / Ku
>>Livelihood / Ku
>
>
>>Eat (to give) / Ku
>>Eat(to) / Ku
>>Determiner / Ku
>>Treacherous leader or false prohet ku-lul-la, kul-la, killa, killer
>
>
>lugal is, quite simply, one of the Sumian words for "king,"
>and may, or may not be analyzed as lu gal, great man.
Gee Piotr, isn't that what I just said? Literally it means
lu = man + gal = place or "Lugal = owner"... of the place"
as I pointed out, the root which means great or exalted is "mah"
>It has nothing whatsoever to do with the West Semitic root mlk.
Yes, but then that was your idea to begin with.
>At Ebla the word sign for king was EN, presumably read as malikum.
And yet, reading Michael Roaf, CAM it is interesting to note
that Anatolian cities were ruled by princes. Since we know that
the Anatolian Mursilis attacked Aleppo and that Elba was attacked
and suffered destruction c 1600 BC we should investigate whether
or not the princes ruling it may have owed some alleigence to him
and ruled as princes in the Hittite fashion.
>There is no etymological element "kum" in it at all, as the
>stem is malik- + u (nominative ending) and m (so called mimation,
>which is known only from Eblaite and Akkadian,
And thus is not the common form of writing. You will note that
I showed how the word worked both with and without the suffix.
when reduced to ma l' i-ku with
Prince / I-Ku
Leader / I-Ku
Leader / Ku
Consider the adjective Mah = Great
if the root of malikum is "Prince"
modified by Mah= Great
and lu = man
Great - Man - Prince = mah-lu-I-ku
there is no need to bring in from outside
the non summerian root "mlk"
though one can see how that semitic root
could have been derived from malikum
possibly related to Arabic nunation).
>This is child's play grammar,
>and it is not an issue of debate.
Yeah, ok, in other words your explanation doesn't work
You can't easily explain away my fairly reasonable surmise
that a culture which called its rulers "princes" probably
didn't use the title "king" but rather used the title "prince"
>Most of the list you give is either from different languages
>or, in some cases incorrect,
ok, that sounds like a testable hypothesis, let's see...
>for example Sumerian "to eat" is really gu, not ku.
Michael Roaf CAM p 70 "The Origins of Writing"
Phoenetic value "ku", meaning "to eat"
Is Michael Roaf in error here Piotr?
(Michael works the etymology down from a pictographic sign
c 3100 BC portraying a man's head stuck in a bowl)
Could it possibly be that some signs have more than one phoenetic
value and that some sounds are represented by more than one sign?
>You cannot analyze Semitic words as part Sumerian
>part horse or donkey.
If what you mean to say is that there is no overlap between
cultures, languages and systems of writing in Mesopotamia
during the Early Dynastic period, then how come the fairly
cohesive archive of texts at Ebla is written in three
different languages?
>At this point the discussion has reached a level of absurdity
>that no answere can suffice.
In your typically pleasant way you are admitting you have
no answer for the questions I raised.
>Quite frankly, the only reason that some of us answer you
>is in the hope that someone out there will know that there
>is an alternative to such nonsense.
To truly refute a person coming at a question from a different
perspective it is first necessary to get to where you can
accept the premise of the statement as given.
Here you need to state why a culture which called its rulers
"princes" would refer to them as "kings" and to fully cover
your bases you need to show why the term "prince" would not
have been used in this particular instance.
If the destruction of Ebla c 1600 BC was not caused by Mursilis
when he destroyed Aleppo, then you need to show who he was
competing with in the region that might have caused the
destruction instead.
Keep in mind that this occurs at a time when you want us
to believe the man is powerful enough to attack Babylon.
If it was caused by him then you need to show why we would
not even consider the possibility that he was teaching his
vassal "princes" a lesson and keeping them in line
>If you want to argue that "Steve" is really the English
>abbreviation St. + the name "Eve", that would be the same
>as the kind of uninformed analysis you have given for
>Semitic mlk. which has no "etymology" at all, but is
>a basic root in the languages involved.
You just finished admitting that "mlk", which you
introduced into the discussion is not Sumerian but
is rather Semitic. Cleanse your mind Piotr, I am
not the one confusing languages here.
>This has gone too far. If you wish to continue this
>king of disinformation, others can play with you.
>I assume that there are others out there who realize
>that you cannot just rewite the Arabic language,
>or any other, to suit whatever fancy strikes you.
I don't think we are discussing either Semitic or Arabic
but merely good old fashioned Sumerian, Piotr, why don't
you come back when you get the difference clear in your mind.
>Once again--good luck. I have this sneaking suspicion that
>Steve is really just a little kid who gets a charge out of
>tweaking the noses of adults. Have fun!
One has to wonder if the real reason your nose is out of joint
is that I am making you do your homework.
Clearly many of your "amswers" reflect the same hasty approach
that causes your posts to be so greviously mispelled.
Check your facts before getting flustered and frothing at the
mouth in indignation and rage, then your posts will be more
interesting to read.
steve
Subject: Re: The etymology of the title "Malikim" used with lugal: was:Re:Early Human occupation of Southern Mesopotamia: was: Linguistic debates are of marginal archaeological interest to most.
From: piotrm@umich.edu (Piotr Michalowski)
Date: Sun, 15 Sep 1996 12:55:32
In article <51h7d3$nbs@shore.shore.net> whittet@shore.net (Steve Whittet) writes:
>>for example Sumerian "to eat" is really gu, not ku.
>Michael Roaf CAM p 70 "The Origins of Writing"
>Phoenetic value "ku", meaning "to eat"
>Is Michael Roaf in error here Piotr?
Yes, Roaf, who is an archaeologist, not a Sumerologist is indeed "wrong" here.
The conventional tranliteration is ku2, but we all know on the basis of
syllabic texts and other evidence that it is really has to be read gu7.
>(Michael works the etymology down from a pictographic sign
>c 3100 BC portraying a man's head stuck in a bowl)
No, he does not, as everyone else but you knows that that you cannot
etymologize a sign. Language and graphic representation are two diffrent
things.
>
I am leaving this filed to others, if anyone else is at all interested.
Princes,, shminces. The Eblaite and Semitic root mlk has nothing whatsoever
to do with Sumerian. All this obfuscation ignores that fact that it is a
basic triradical Semitic root. If you want to rewrite all languages without
knowing anything about them, be my guest. End of story.
Subject: Re: Conjectures about cultural contact
From: David Robert Hixson
Date: Sun, 15 Sep 1996 11:27:15 -0500
On 15 Sep 1996, Yuri Kuchinsky wrote:
> Peter,
>
> The fact that there was a continuity of occupation is neither here nor
> there. If a shipload or two of Polynesians arrived to S. America, they
> would have interacted with the locals.
>
> The likeliest scenario would have been that they managed to assume
> control of an existing civilization and dominate it. This civilization
> will dominate its neighbours and expand.
(Peter, I hope you don't mind if I field a couple from Yuri)
I believe that anybody can see the fallacy in your last statement. The
"likeliest scenario" is that people in many regions of Mesoamerica were
developing their technologies and their political structures over several
centuries (not truely "suddenly") during the Formative period.
Regions such as Oaxaca, Morelos, Guerero, and the Gulf Coast ALL have
precocious Formative occupation levels (and please check a map
Yuri, these areas are all in Mexico, no "land bridge" was involved).
These areas seem to have been in contact with each other, though not all
at the same time. It would have been the largest Mesoamerican State ever
if the Gulf Coast Olmec "dominated its neighbours and expanded" to
account for all of the similarities (let alone their vast differences).
Please remember that the Olmec did not live in a vacuum. To credit
polynesians with the advances of Mesoamerican civilizations, you must
come up with not only the physical evidence at one locale, but the
physical evidence in many many regions. The Olmec are simply the best
known Formative culture to the non-archaeologist.
To familiarize yourself with the distribution of one major shared
cultural trait which is difinitively indigenous, you may wish to read "Early
Formative Pottery of the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico" by Kent V. Flannery
and Joyce Marcus.
Also, for those who wish to attribute any New World civilizations to Old
World contact, you may want to read up on the criteria which
archaeologists use to determine cultural contact. One decent article is
"An archaeological classification of culture contact situations" in
Seminars in Archaeology, 1955, Memoir 11. Society for American
Archaeology.
David R. Hixson
Dept of Anthropology
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
dhixson@staff.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re:Early Human occupation of Southern Mesopotamia:
From: whittet@shore.net (Steve Whittet)
Date: 15 Sep 1996 17:33:57 GMT
In article , piotrm@umich.edu says...
>
>In article <51fcbp$h5v@shore.shore.net> whittet@shore.net (Steve Whittet)
writes:
>
>
>
>You provided a ramblisng long post which had nothing to do with the
discussion
>at habd and which included the following:
>
>>you didn't say "imported from Dilmun"
>>you didn't say "imported from the Gulf"
>>you didn't specify the species of wood
>>you said "wood...imported from Arabia to Mari,
>>as evidenced by the Mari letters..."
>>and asked for "one single reference,..."
>>which I provided...
>
>>Grumble all you want to, you are busted.
>>Plain and simple...
>
>This has gone on far too long.
That's probably true Piotr, but then you do seem to have
a certain stubborn streak which won't let you admit it
when you are wrong.
You made the issue my credibility. I showed that indeed
I had gone and looked for and found a reference which
entitled me to say that caravans carrying wood were
mentioned in the Mari texts and caravans going to
and from Dilmun also.
We know that Cedar from Lebanon, Pine from the Caucaus
and Zagros Mountains, decidious hardwoods like the
non aromatic boxwood I cited came from temperate
river valleys,...
but what was the source of the ebony, ab-ba wood and sisso
wood imported as expensive luxury goods along with pearls,
eyestones, ivory, tortise shell, carnelians, gold, silver,
tin, lapis lazulli and sealstone?
Your claim appears to be that there was nothing coming up
the gulf everything came by land, nothing traveled by water.
I will stipulate that many things did come by land, I have
no problem with that whatsoever. I will allow that there are
many routes things might have taken to get to Mesopotamia.
Until you allow that water was also used for trade and
that the commerce carried by water provided links to other
far off cultures I will continue to point out the many people
who have raised their voices to say the reasons why they think
differently.
People traded with their neighbors even in the 3rd millenium BC.
As the exotic goods were passed from hand to hand along the route,
with them came stories of what it was like to live in the next
place down the line.
>You simply have not provided one citation of wood coming to
>Mari from the Gulf or Arabia as evidenced by the letters from
>that city.
It's a shame you didn't think to qualify your remarks to that
extent when you originally phrased the question.
The conditions thus far:)
1.)a citation of wood; not just the presence of wood, or a
picture of wood, but a citation of wood... ok we have found
many citations which mentions wood...now you now wish to
object to the specis of wood mentioned in the citation
A.)Boxwood is not an aromatic wood (juniper is)
B.) Boxwood is used for among other things making
rulers because it is dimensionally stable. It is
considered a fine cabinet wood.
2.)coming to Mari; ok it has to be a citation mentioning
wood which is intended for Mari, southern Mesopotamia which
was the original posters designee is no longer enough...
A.) We can't now use the inscription of Gudea
where it says "He (Gudea) gave instructions
to Ninsikla. She brought large oak beams
and beams of the esi and ab ba trees to the
ruler, the builder of the Eninnu."
B.) We can't mention the Assyrian kings who
collected as tribute: silver, gold, tin, copper.
elephant hides and tusks, ebony and sisso wood
(Hulin 1963 :55-6)
C.) We can't mentin the well known Early Dynastic IIIB
account by Ur Nanashe of Lagas which reads "Ur Nanse
lugal ma dilmun kur ta gu gis mu gal" King Urnanshe
loaded Dilmun ships with wood as a tribute to him from
abroad.
3.)from the Gulf or Arabia; well that is a big loophole.
Arabia is a subcontinent, a huge penninsula which includes
for example Lebanon. basically everything south of Ugarit.
A.) Lets further restrict it to the Gulf, since I
think that is the direction you want to go in
B.) By "from the Gulf" let's allow cargo passing
through the Gulf from more distant points beyond
4.)As evidenced by the letters of that city; ok now it is
restricted to the Mari tablets which originate in Mari
making the previously cited texts of Shemsi-Adad which
may have originated in his capital upriver and are found
at Mari because that is where they were sent, unusable.
5.)We might also note that the city of Mari to which you
wish to restrict the enquiry is destroyed just as the
principal culture connecting Dilmun with the trade up
the Euphrates, the Kasites, emerge.
Ok, let's just skip ahead a page or two and mention the Kasites.
Did their rule extend up the Euphrates as far as Mari? Yes it did.
Did they rule in Dilmun? Yes they did. Coming from the Zagros
mountains c 1500 BC (mountains? hmmm Hurrians?)they overthrew the
sealand dynasty and gained control of southern Mesopotamia
(seal BM 122696 naming a Kassite viceroy of Dilmun)
Did their empire trade its goods from Dilmun up the Euphrates,
yes it did. Did the ships which were docked at the quay in Agade
in the reign of Sargon filled with cargoes from Dilmun and Makkan
and Meluhha, including metal and wood and other precious things
make it as far as Mari by the time the Kasites were in power?
Yes they had.
How do we know this? The city of Terqua was a part of the empire of
Mari which survived the original cities demise. Nutmeg, which is
something which grows on trees and hence technically wood, has been
found at Terqua which is upstream of Mari. It had to pass through
Mari to get to Terqua.
So bottom line can I give you a reference in a text to wood
which came to Mari from the Gulf. yes I can, it is in the
form of trade goods, manufactured items, harps.
"It may be remembered that in prehistoric times people used to
travel with their musical instruments and the reference to a
Dilmun Harp and also to one from Mari in this particular text
may well indicate that even in this early period, (c2700-2600 BC)
Dilmuns characteristic features were already so well known that
their musical instruments could be immediately distinguished and
recognized as being typically Dilmunite."
"Animal designs and Gulf Chronology" ECL During Caspers BTTA
But, is it a Mari text, no it comes from Lagas...
So which is more important the evidence of the trade...
or the need to avoid the appearance of any cracks
in your unshakable belief that you really somehow
were correct...
>I mention Dilmun since it is the only place name in that region
>that is attested in texts from Mari.
So now you admit that Dilmun is a place name ! What does that
do to your argument that the word simply meant nobles?
> If you believe that a mention of a caravan receiving
>a small amount of aromatic wood
Boxwood is not an aromatic wood, the other wood mentioned,
was juniper. Juniper is an aromatic but was not the wood I
was referring to.
>as it is going towards the gulf is evicence of wood
>coming from the gulf
The second communication cited refers to the caravan on its way
back from Dilmun being held at Babylon. We have numerous other
cites of wood coming from Dilmun and going to southern Mesopotamia
so the cites of caravans and messengers actually going up the
Euphrates past mari to Shemsi-Adad, need to be read in that light.
>then anything is possible and we have nothing to talk about.
Why don't you just stick to the facts? You asked for a cite,
you got what you asked for. Since you give the appearance
that you have no interest in the facts of the matter, what
is the point you are trying to prove?
>You believe that, it is quite fine with me. I am
>finished with this ludicrous discussion.
I doubt you realise how you are coming across. Here I am
reading the literature, citing fact after fact, quote after
quote, making at least a few hard fought points, and never
a kind or encouraging word from you...such an extremely
defensive posture is hardly the attitude I would expect
from a man who considers himself a mature adult.
Very uncool man, unhip, square, you dig?...:)
steve
Subject: Re: Conjectures about cultural contact
From: pmv100@psu.edu (Peter Van Rossum)
Date: Sun, 15 Sep 1996 18:06:28 GMT
In article <51gs28$6c6@news1.io.org> yuku@io.org (Yuri Kuchinsky) writes:
>Peter van Rossum (pmv100@psu.edu) wrote:
>
>: Also Yuri, note that at approximately the same time the Olmec sites
>: are becoming more socio-politically complex, so are sites all over
>: Mesoamerica - From the Maya region, to Oaxaca, to the Basin of Mexico.
>: While these cultures appear to have been in contact with each other,
>But you were just saying there was no contact across the landbridge.
>Aren't you trying to have it both ways whenever it suits your purposes?
I'm afraid you're geography is completely wrong here Yuri. All the areas
I mention, exist within the boundaries of what archaeologists refer to as
Mesoamerica. This area starts a little north of Central Mexico and continues
down into Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and possible a bit into El Salvador
and Nicaragua. Check your map, no land bridge - just a continuous
continent. Also its not necessarily true that the people of the Basin of
Mexico had to be in direct contact with say the Maya region - this could have
been an indirect contact. E-mail me if you'd like some references on Formative
period interaction in Mesoamerica.
>: each also has its own distinctive flavor. How do you explain this
>: with your Polynesians/Chinese brought civilization to the Olmec idea?
>
>If the impetus came from across-the-sea, and later was internalized, this
>will fit the data without problems.
>Yuri.
O.k., I'm getting bored with arguing a non-specific theory. If you want to
argue about trans-pacific contacts leading to cultural development you need
to minimally specify the following:
1. Who do you think traveled
2. Who do you think they contacted in Mesoamerica
3. When do you think this occurred
Without at least these facts, every time I raise an objection, you can just
say, "but that's not what I'm arguing." If you don't specify these points you
don't really have any theory and its not worth discussing.
Peter van Rossum
PMV100@PSU.EDU
Subject: Re: Conjectures about cultural contact
From: pmv100@psu.edu (Peter Van Rossum)
Date: Sun, 15 Sep 1996 18:30:30 GMT
In article <51gt8m$6c6@news1.io.org> yuku@io.org (Yuri Kuchinsky) writes:
>Peter van Rossum (pmv100@psu.edu) wrote:
>: Can you give a couple of names?
>
>Yes, I will give a "couple of names" in due course of time. Recently I've
>been researching plant diffusion, and presenting some unique information
>in these newsgroups. I can't do everything at once.
I await the references, thanks. Also did you see the reference I posted about
possible sweet potato in Polynesia by 1000 A.D.? Let me know if you can't
get the article since I'm sure this would be of interest to you.
>: This, "I read it somewhere but I can't
>: give you a reference for you to evaluate it for yourself" is getting
>: a bit old.
>
>Well, overspecialized scholars who are supposed to know about these things
>but don't -- this is certainly getting old. If you never heard about these
>theories, I would expect some humility on your part, Peter, instead of
>blaming me -- who is not specialized in this field -- for not having the
>references at my fingertips.
While I can appreciate the fact that you are not a specialist in the field and
therefore have limited time and resources, this can't be an excuse for having
limited information. You are posting an alternate theory to the commonly
accepted hypothesis, therefore, it is up to you to post data which contradict
the accepted hypothesis and support yours (see the scientific method).
I think you should perhaps take your own advice about humility, and realize
that people who do this type of a research for a living tend to disagree with
your hypothesis - they have strong reasons for this which are based on the
data.
I spend the better part of my days researching Mesoamerican archaeology.
Therefore, my inclination is that if I haven't come across a theory like
"Chinese writing influenced Maya writing" its probably because it has not been
put out in respected venues. That doesn't necessarily mean its wrong but I'm
sure not going to accept that its valid on your say-so.
>: Also Why do think that the biggest names in Maya epigraphy - Houston,
>: Stuart, Schele, etc. aren't claiming this?
>
>Recently I've been talking with a specialist in Mayan agriculture here,
>who didn't know that peanut was native to the Americas, and that coconut
>was present in the Americas before Columbus.
>
>So your "big names" is neither here nor there...
>Yuri.
I agree that on a scientific level the type of appeal to authority I used is
not conclusive evidence. However, I think that when specialists who have
contributed so much to a topic say things about that topic there is a natural
tendancy to give it more weight than the ideas of people with only a passing
knowledge of the topic.
Peter van Rossum
PMV100@PSU.EDU
Subject: Re: Norse sailings to Vinland/Markland (Was: Deep Sea Sailing in Palaeolith)
From: griffin@txdirect.net (Mike/Damon or Peni R. Griffin)
Date: Sun, 15 Sep 1996 18:22:03 GMT
For what it's worth:
I have in my library a Scholastic paperback called *The Iceberg
Hermit,* by Arthur Roth. This is the novelized form of a story Roth
discovered in James Hogg's *Tales and Sketches of the Ettrick
Shepherd,* 1836. The original story was taken down by an Aberdeen
schoolmaster, Bunty Duff, from his ex-pupil, Allan Gordon, who claimed
to have been shipwrecked in the Arctic for many years. He claimed to
have stayed for some time with a band of Eskimos who recognized the
name of Christ, some of whom had beards, whose chief he called Herard.
Though the physical culture he described sounds authentic enough, the
band refused to practice female infanticide (as, according to Roth,
was commonly done by Eskimos at that time), resulting in an imbalance
in the sexes, since the death-rate for men in that hunting-dependent
culture was much higher than that for females. Roth, using his
author's perogative to theorize ahead of his data (from his point of
view, the story needn't be true so long as it can be rendered
plausible; the book is usually shelved with fiction) thought that
perhaps this band was a remnant of Greenlanders who had abandoned
their settlement as the climate grew colder and attempted to
assimilate with Eskimo culture. In the disparity of numbers between
males and females Roth sees a possible reason why no one but Gordon
ever ran into them: by refusing to assimilate to the point of
committing female infanticide, they doomed themselves to starvation,
as in time there would no longer be enough hunters to support the
group. The group Gordon described seemed to Roth to be in the final
stages of this process, so perhaps the band didn't last long after he
was rescued. (The Norsewomen of the sagas wouldn't have put up with
this, though, but would have gone out hunting themselves.)
Alternatively, they eventually did finish the assimilation process,
and interbred so thoroughly that the genes that would clue us in
stopped manifesting in the population. Alternatively, Gordon was
lying. It should be noted that all Gordon's neighbors thought he was
a liar.
This is Peni.
Kid books are better than grownup books.
Check out http://www.geocities.com/athens/3401
Subject: Re: Conjectures about cultural contact
From: pmv100@psu.edu (Peter Van Rossum)
Date: Sun, 15 Sep 1996 18:40:13 GMT
In article <51grlm$6c6@news1.io.org> yuku@io.org (Yuri Kuchinsky) writes:
>Peter van Rossum (pmv100@psu.edu) wrote:
[deletions]
>: I'm glad you won't insist on a point for which there does not appear
>: to be any supporting evidence.
>
>I think the best supporting evidence is simply that there's no evidence
>that there are any insurmountable obstacles on the way. There's no Berlin
>Wall on the way, or anything...
Just hundreds of more miles of rugged terrain. For a society whose travel is
on foot, distance is the primary barrier to travel.
>: Without
>: any supporting documentation on your part, I'll stick to my
>: position that there is no evidence of direct contacts between the
>: Aztecs and South America - maybe you should consider revising your
>: position.
>
>I'd rather say that the burden of proof should be assumed by those who
>would claim that no trade could be carried across the landbridge. I think
>the self-evident scenario would be otherwise. And good evidence could be
>gathered from cultivated plants diffusion that there was contact.
I don't see how the burden of proof can be on me to prove that there was no
contact. How can it ever be proved that something did not happen? All I can
say is that without supporting evidence that something occurred, there is no
reason to believe that it did occur. The ball goes back in your court - what
artifacts at Aztec sites, show direct contact between the Aztecs and South
America? If you can't answer this then you have no scientific support for
claiming that contacts did occur.
>: The Aztec long-distance traders were called the Pochteca. There is
>: good evidence that they engaged in far-flung trading missions within
>: Mesoamerica - probably as far away as Guatemala.
>
>So why would they stop in Guatemala? And what would prevent the
>Guatemalan peoples from travelling south? Just asking...
>Yuri.
Because it would take much more time, traveling through unknown,
possibly hostile terrain to reach South America. Come on Yuri, I can't
believe you're serious about this.
Peter van Rossum
PMV100@PSU.EDU
Subject: 14C and treerings
From: koenemann@abmx.rz.rwth-aachen.de
Date: 15 Sep 1996 18:01:19 GMT
Hi folks,
I would like to get in touch with Peter Kuniholm, Cornell U; I have
been in contact with him before, but lost his email address.
Or else, if someone else can help me I would also appreciate it:
I have a good number of books on archaeology printed in the early
seventies or earlier. The 14C-data given there are still based on
the assumption that the 14C-production over historic time is constant,
which is not the case. In the late eighties a group from Cornell
recalibrated the 14C-production against tree rings, they are still working
on it. Since the 14C-production varies erratically, there is no
straightforward relation between old and calibrated 14C-data. I
think that, given that the calibration is basically finished for the
last 5000 years, the calibration effort must have resulted in
a rough-and-ready fudge equation that permits to transform
old 14C-data into calibrated ones. If such an equation exists
I would like to have it, especially for the Neolithic era.
Please respond to my personal address, not to the newsgroup.
Thank you,
Falk Koenemann
Aachen Technical University, Germany
koenemann@rwth-aachen.de
Subject: Re: Sumerian etymology of the word Lugal
From: whittet@shore.net (Steve Whittet)
Date: 15 Sep 1996 19:19:31 GMT
In article , piotrm@umich.edu says...
>
>In article <51h3l1$i0v@shore.shore.net> whittet@shore.net (Steve Whittet)
writes:
>>From: whittet@shore.net (Steve Whittet)
>>Subject: Sumerian etymology of the word Lugal
>>Date: 15 Sep 1996 14:25:37 GMT
>
>
>
>>Hmmm, the word "lugal", this is not used by more than
>>one language to mean "king", "govenor", "great man"
>>and generally the more literal "owner of the place"?
>
>No, it is not used by more than one language. It is only used in Sumerian.
Does Lugal always mean king?
http://moonbase.wwc.edu/homepages/waltdo/private/power.html
Lugal-a-ki
is Marduk (as god) of the deep.
http://www.sron.ruu.nl/~jheise/akkadian/signlists/list7.html
Subsection of Chapter `Cuneiform' of John Heise's `Akkadian language',
with cuneiform signlist,
The sign list contains at least three items:
--a number from Borger's book `Assyrische-babylonische Zeichenliste'
--the cuneiform sign in New Assyrian orthography
--the name of the sign or one of its values.
1.signs with initial up to
142 I
142a IA
143 KAM2
143 GAN
144 TUR
145 AD
146 HAShHUR
147 ZI2
148 IN
149 RAB
151 LUGAL
http://www.sron.ruu.nl/~jheise/akkadian/prologue_expl.html
Anum, Sumerian AN, is the supreme god, god of heaven;
inu is the temporal conjunction `when'; later
(as in the Enüma elish epic) it is enüma or inüma;
sc stands for sade, the emphatic s, usually written
with a dot under the s;
I use ï, ä, ü to indicate long vowels for lack of anything
better within the html-limitations. They are
usually written with a macron on top of the vowel;
AN has more meanings but is here logogram for the god Anum,
which is in this case the same word as
the Sumerian name AN plus the usual Akkadian ending
-um is added (-um is the `default case' and also
masc. nominative singular).
I.2
LUGAL d.A-nun-na-ki
shar Anunnaki
`King of the Anunnaki'
Anunnaki, a Sumerian loan word, is here the collective name
for all the gods. The word carries the determinative d for deities.
It is used sometimes interchangeably with `Igigi'. In other texts
the gods are divided into gods of heaven (`Igigi') and gods of the
underworld (`Anunnaki').
shar (where sh denotes the letter shin as in shashlick) is the
so called construct state of the noun
sharrum `king'. The construct state is used when the noun is
followed by a noun in the genitive or by a possessive pronoun.
(Anunnaki is a virtual genitive: you can't see it from the form
(case endings) because proper names are often not declined), e.g.
`Landlord' would in Akkadian be written as `lord land',
with `lord' in the construct state and `land'
in the genitive.
shar sharrï (with long i, here written as ï,
the genitive masc.plural)
`king of the kings'
The form of the construct state often is the shortest form of
the noun which is phonetically possible.
===========================================
The logogram LUGAL for sharrum `king' (nominative case)
could also be used for other cases (genitive or
accusative), and also (as here) for all cases of the construct form.
=================================
I believe this is Akkadian we are talking about here, not Summerian
=============================================================
I.3+4+5
d.En-líl be-el sha-me-e ù er-sce-tim
d.Enlíl bël shamê u erscetim
`(and) Enlil, lord of heaven and earth'
bël is the construct state of bëlum `lord' and
is followed by the genitive of shamû `heaven', `sky' and
erscetum `earth'.
The word for `heaven' is a contraction from shamä'ü with
two long vowels and an aleph in between. It is
plural. Contracted vowels are transcribed with circonflex,
like in many languages. They are pronounced
as a long vowel as compensation for the lost consonant.
E.g. French hôpital (long o, < hospital with lost s).
u is a word by itself `and'. It is here written as u3,
steve