Subject: Re: Egyptian junkie pharaohs
From: solos@enterprise.net (Adrian Gilbert)
Date: Sat, 21 Sep 96 04:09:06 GMT
In article <3e333e47@ramtops.demon.co.uk>,
Doug Weller wrote:
>In article <51g8km$orp@news.enterprise.net>
> solos@enterprise.net (Adrian Gilbert) wrote:
>[SNIP]
>> What nobody has so far mentioned is that in the Channel 4 programme they
went
>> even further than suggesting trans-Atlantic contacts to a worldwide trade
in
>> narcotics. They suggested that the people of Central and South America were
>> trading across the Pacific Ocean with China and Indonesia. The evidence of
the
>> use of jade in funerary riites in both America and China would seem to
support
>> this hypothesis, as would the presence of huge, stepped pyramids near Xian.
>
>I don't follow the point about jade -- so what? You'd expect *some*
>similarities in funeral rites between almost any 2 cultures, especially
>over time.
>
>As for your Xian pyramids, I understand they are tombs -- not temples.
>So some similiarties in shape, but not function and I suspect not
>construction. Evidence for lack of contact, perhaps, but not for
>contact.
>I also understand (because I've seen it) that the Pyramid-Temple of
inscriptions at Palenque in Mexico, in which the skeleton of Pacal was found
with his jade mask, was also a tomb. At least one other pyramid in Palenque
has been found to be a tomb and it is expected that others were as well. I
have never disputed that Egyptian pyramids were primarily tombs, though they
seem also to have had functions beyond merely being last resting places. In
this context the Chinese "Stepped tumuli" clasify as pyramids in my book. They
certainly look like stepped pyramids of the Teotihuacan type.
Adrian G. Gilbert.
Subject: Re: Repatriation
From: susansf@netcom.com (Susan S. Chin)
Date: Sat, 21 Sep 1996 05:19:31 GMT
rejohnsn@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu wrote:
: Not that I am in a particularly good position to comment, as I have
: nothing invested in the pre-NAGPRA state of affairs (still being a lost
: undergrad at the time)....
: Still, I wonder if there hasn't been an awakening to the fact that
: fieldwork cannot be the end-all-be-all of archaeology. NAGPRA has been a
: good thing in that it has forced institutions to see just what they have
: in their collections, by way of materials and records.
: And in the last five years, there has been an 800% increase in the
: proportion of dissertations employing pre-existing collections as the
: main data source (from 5% in 1990 to 40% in 1995). (These figures are
: from the former archaeology office of the NPS; I don't know what they
: call it now that it's the joint archae-ethnography office). This
: increase may or may not be a response to NAGPRA; but in the event, it's
: certainly a good thing.
: Cheers,
: Rebecca Lynn Johnson
: Ph.D. cand., Dept. of Anthropology, U Iowa
Thanks for your informative perspective Rebecca. What concerns me about
NAGPRA is that, if carried out fully, there may very well be little material
left for study, especially the skeletal collections, many of which have
been and continue to be reburied (from what I've read) in accordance with
the Repatriation Act. What does the future hold for North American
prehistory studies, as the body of materials available for study dwindles?
Something I wonder about since that was my area of interest as an undergrad.
Is there a point to pursue further studies in light of this.
Susan
--
susansf@netcom.com
Subject: Re: Sweet Potatos and Silver Bullets
From: yuku@io.org (Yuri Kuchinsky)
Date: 21 Sep 1996 07:14:53 GMT
Peter van Rossum (pmv100@psu.edu) wrote:
: In article (Frank Joseph Yurco) writes:
: [deletions]
: >As for the possible Polynesian contact with
: >South America, to the doubters, I would note, how then, did the sweet
: >potato, a distinct South American crop reach the Polynesian and Melanesian
: >cultures?
: After doing some further research into the sweet potato, Ipomoea Batatas,
: the case doesn't seem to be as clearcut as you make out:
: "There are 5 major hypotheses to explain the introduction of I Batatas
: to the central and western Pacific, none of which can be either
: summarily dismissed or neatly confirmed:
: 1. prehistoric introduction by South American Indian rafts drifting
: downstream and downwind
: 2. prehistoric introduction on Polynesian canoes returning from a round
: trip to South America
: 3. historical introduction by the Portuguese from the Atlantic
: 4. historical introduction by Spaniards from the Pacific
: and
: 5. natural dispersal by drifting capsules"
: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
: Of course hypotheses 3&4 can be dismissed if the Hather and Kirch article
: I cited earlier is correct and they identified a 900 year old I. Batatas
: specimen on a Polynesian island.
These hypotheses are not serious contenders.
: "Purseglove (1968) suggests introduction ... by natural dispersal; the
: seeds are viable for more than 20 years; they are hard and dormant
: unless sacrificed; they are impervious to salt water; and they are not
: buoyant, but the capsule is. I doubt that the seedlings could survive
: in the drift zone on an ocean beach, but conceivably capsules could
: have been picked up by some Polynesian beachcomber, or seeds might
: have germinated along the banks of a tidal estuary."
: Above quotes are from:
: Sauer, Jonathan D.
: 1993 Historical Geography of Crop Plants. Boca Raton: CRC Press.
Peter, this is a MINORITY view in the field. To say that a capsule will be
picked up by a beachcomber seems so far-fetched... How are they going to
recognize this unknown plant? How would they know about its benefits?
If the seeds germinated this still does not mean they will propagate on
their own. They need human assistance to survive. This is NOT a wild
plant!
Sure a case can be made for your #5. But this will be pretty well on the
same level as saying the Aliens were depositing those plants from their
spaceships...
Yuri.
--
#% Yuri Kuchinsky in Toronto %#
-- a webpage like any other... http://www.io.org/~yuku --
Students achieving Oneness will move on to Twoness === W. Allen
Subject: Andrews / Schellenburger
From: kamanism@tcp.co.uk (Anti Christ)
Date: 21 Sep 1996 09:31:47 GMT
pcd@bozzie.demon.co.uk wonders...
>I would not imagine that the market for antique coins and visigothic
>jewellery would have been sufficiently strong around the turn of the
>last century to account for Sauniere's wealth.
alan@moonrake.demon.co.uk burbles...
>I agree entirely with you. The *only* remaining mystery here is the
>19th century one about the source of the priest's money.
***"Antique coins" are frequently of GOLD, and that has universal value
once melted down. Saunier went to Paris and made "influential contacts"
(some of dubious nature) out of keeping with a poor parish priest.
No doubt he was converting his bullion into Francs of the day, AS WELL
as discussing the "Tomb of God" with rosicrucians. Et in Arcadia Ego.
The bones of Arbel ben Joseph lie in the Languedoc, you can be sure.
the entire Inquisition was instigated by the "heresy" of the idea,
since if J "dead", then no (literal) "resurrection", and no more
income for the Pope and his scivvies. People have trouble
considering renewal of the spirit as the experiencable real Meaning.
The "god" of catholicism was none other than the Devil in disguise,
and in order to perpetrate "his" new religion (of creating dupes to
run around praising the afterlife rather than living this one), the
REAL gods of love (to which J was a good approximation) had to be
tracked down and murdered "in the name of god".
Confusing to a non-Kamanist, but simple once you understand Packetal
IMAGE creation in the mind, and activation by Impersonator forces.
Merely brandishing a word like "god" does *NOT* necessarily invoke the
real ones. but it *WILL* likely invoke the anti-gods, and they will
still imply that they are "god". so you have to sort out which is
which BY THEIR PERFORMANCES, not by their labels.
Consider a can of cola next to a can of cats-piss. A devil might swap
the labels over, and millions of half-wits will STILL drink the
cats-piss, thinking that the "god" on the label "wants them to".
ONLY after years of suffering will they eventually conclude
"fuck this god of cats-piss, i dont care about mere promises anyway,
lets see some progress in THIS life". And lo and behold, an
INDIVIDUAL is born to replace the dupes. The devils dont like that,
so they seek to kill.... God doesnt like it either, since he spends
all his time trying to pull Earthlings out of mortal dissipation,
so HESHE seems "to kill" AS WELL.
Woe unto earthlings amidst all these god maniacs.
only after youve decided "fuck the lot of them",
and turned to the Science of Cognition
will you notice THE SMILE OF THE NOT-GOD,
And maybe also the smile of Arbal
He did his best to explain the Mysteries to the jews, *BUT*
his work was not recorded properly and easily became contamined into
the HYPOCRITICAL EVILS of christianity in the middle ages.
J was a bit gullible in those days to the idea of gods "perfection",
and didnt teach Reincarnation nor realise how even his "father"/
DELEGATES were capable of EFFECTIVE evils themselves
(via Overload and Mistakes). Its a long story folks.
Only they who seek will find.
And then youll wish youd never asked....
What makes you think "truth" has to be "nice" anyway ??
the Higgs Boson left its traces thruout Consciousness AS WELL.
Even the gods suffer.....
Khufus priests knew a Great deal about these things,
but even they had not met Goedel,
and even Kurt had not met.... the Aten Kaman.
PS, Arbel has just whispered that even when a GOOD person (his father)
makes mistakes, its still best to "love the lord thy god", since
there is NO ONE ELSE to call on in a universe tending towards chaos.
In other words to reject the good gods on the basis that they are
not "good enough" by ones opinions, only leads towards the bad ones.
Exactly similar to earth governments. We all know major is a half-wit
floating two foot off the ground most of his day, but nevertheless
hes BETTER THAN a lot of other half-wits. One only has to look at
Russia to realise that SOME government is better than NO government.
All of the above analysis can be applied to ATHEISTS as well via the
definitions of Kamanism, since even they *have* to HOPE that their
NEXT THOUGHT will be a "Useful" one (Materialistically), and that
Sequential Process is philosophically EQUIVALENT whether you ever get
to experience the Background Reality of "the gods" - or not.
We are dealing with a *human brain* mechanism of Cognition primarily,
NOT only with a mere belief system open to derisions. For example
you may chose to think Arbel never "whispered" anything if YOU like,
but you will NEVER be able to refute the Logics of Kamanism (i bet),
and "logic" is after all the very basis of Science....
Subject: Re: Conjectures..A Response To Ignorance
From: whittet@shore.net (Steve Whittet)
Date: 21 Sep 1996 11:51:00 GMT
In article <5201rj$q87@news1.io.org>, yuku@io.org says...
>
>William strawbridge (wstrawbr@mail.cosmosbbs.com) wrote:
>
>: By 400 AD the Polynesians had arrived at Easter Island.
>: How large was the expedition? How many people are needed
>: to form a genetically viable society? Seems like the voyages
>: may have been more like an armada then a couple of canoes.
>: This type of voyage doesn't seem to indicate trade, more like
>: a migration perhaps due to some tribal friction.
>
>: We know one expedition made it, how many may have missed
>: and hit S. America?
>
>Finally some logic here for a change... Thanks, William.
>
>The fact that Polynesians were all over the Pacific islands at rather
>early dates should indicate clearly that they were perfectly able to make
>it further East to the Americas. This should be the default hypothesis,
>really.
Polynesians gradually spread across Pacific Island chains over periods
of thousands of years. The process by which they spread was a slow and
steady expansion of territory. Fisherman come to know the waters around
their homes like we know the traffic on our commute to work. Eventually
they find the fishing is good around another island or shoal someplace
sixty or seventy miles from home. They look for a place they can set up
a fishing station from where they can exploit one particular reef. After
a few generations people begin to live at the fishing camp year round.
People come and go back and forth, the route is well known. There may
even be trade between overlaping clusters of islands within a radius
of a hundred miles or so. When people get together they tell stories
of other places even farther away from home. There is some knowledge
of the waters throughout a fishing societies general sphere of influence.
All through the western Pacific, From Southeast Asia and Indonesia,
along the coast of India, from Ceylon and the Bay of Bengal to the
mouth of the Ganges, the coasts of Burma and Thailand and the Adaman
Sea, Malaya, Sumatra, Borneo, Java, New Guinea, The Gulf of Tongkin,
Taiwan and the Philippines, the Ryukyu Islands, the East China Sea,
Korea and Japan, each island is in sight of a few more.
The region of Melaneasia was thus easy to settle and was settled first.
By 30,000 BP there were people all through it providing a reasonable
expectation that they encountered and had some knowledge of one another.
By the 3rd millenium BC there was a thriving bronze age culture
noted for their bronze drums which have been found from Vietnam
through Indonesia, Thailand, Malaya, Borneo, Java and New Guinea.
By the 1st millenium BC, metalurgy had spread from the mainland
to the islands and the Tin resources of Indonesia were being
exploited. Indonesian sailors settled Madagascar and there was
probably contact with Egypt, Punt, Ophir, Makkan, Meluhha and Dilmun
from the Moluccas. Depending on which texts you read, Meluhha can
extend anywhere from the Indus Valley, to Egypt, to the Moluccas
and thus should probably be read as "points beyond"
In this first millenium BC there is continuous trade from Britain
to China, Roman coins have been found in both places. The seas
are the highways and when they connect to rivers, the rivers become
the feeder roads bringing the exotica of the world to your door.
Now, c 1500 BC people from the Philippines reach the Marianas.
Peole from Borneo reach Pelau. By c 1500-1000 BC people from
the Solomon Islands reach Tahiti and Samoa. From Samoa they
reach the Marquessas c 150 BC, (shortly after the Romans have
arrived in China). From the Society Islands, west of the
Marquessas they follow a bunch of reefs, Perlyn I, Dudosa I,
Bruda I, Jurvis I, the Maria group, Diana shoals, Manual &
Roderiquez reef, north to the Sandwich Islands which they
reach c 400 AD.
Easter Island was reached from the Marquessas following the
route Henderson or Elizabeth I, Ducie and then Easter Island.
To the North of Easter Island reached c 400 AD is Waihou,
to its south are some rocks called 1D. to its east are
Sala-y-Gomez and Pilgrim I, then Grey reef with more reefs
and shoals to its north and south.
To the east of that are the St Fedis Group then St Ambrose and
farther south Masurera and Juan Fernandez I, then the Coast of
South America.
To the east of the Sandwich Islands (Hawai) there is marie Lemaire
to the north east and Cooper I to the south east. to the east of
them there is Revilla gigedo Clario and Sorrow then the Mexican coast.
Now while as far as the Marquessas the islands are pretty much
in sight of one another or at worst a few hundred miles apart
connected with shallow reefs and shoals, the Sandwich Islands
and Easter Island are considerably more isolated, and it took
more than half a millenium to get to them.
There is no real proof that people got any farther east than
this by this route and South America was still hundreds of miles away.
The process which had brought them that far no longer really
applied.
Following the islands north from Japan however, the process
of moving a day's sail or so north to another island which was
in sight of the first could have continued through the Kurils,
Kamchatka and the Komandore Ostrova to reach the Aleutians
and Queen Charlottes. Here the process continues as it did
through Melanesia and at about the same time. None of these
islands are prohibitively far to the north, indeed most of them
are to the south of England and the British Isles.
This northern route, has evidence of human habitation going
back to 9,000 BP. It requires no extremes of seamanship or
navigation or indeed no large ocean going vessels. The
fishing boats of Kamchatka were observed by american whalers
to be built of planks, about thirty feet long and rigged with
a double spritsail. They were capable of traveling a few
day's sail in fairly rough seas. That is all that was required.
>
>Yuri.
steve
Subject: Re: The Egyptian concept of Ma'at in the Platonic Dialoges: was Re: Egyptian Tree Words
From: petrich@netcom.com (Loren Petrich)
Date: Sat, 21 Sep 1996 11:51:47 GMT
In article <51uijt$fe7@shore.shore.net>,
Steve Whittet wrote:
>>>There are elements of architecture such as the
>>>"fluted Doric columns" which Hatshepset's architect
>>>used in her mortuary temple which anticipate the
>>>Greek orders of architecture by almost a millenium
>> So what if that's an imitation?
>It isn't so much that it is an imitation, (which is really the
>sincerest form of flattery), as that it is a system which people
>could use. ...
More likely simply an imitation of appearance, such as what one
does when one makes a drawing or painting of something. No linguistics
necessary, except when one wants to describe it in words.
[on giving stuff names...]
The Greek names are Ionic, Doric, and Corinthian -- Greek
place-names. Zero Egyptian names.
>>>The Platonic Dialoges closely follow the Egyptian ideas
>>>of what was right and proper as illustrated by their
>>>celebration of the Goddess Ma'at.
>>Absolute baloney. How does it follow Egyptian ideas as opposed to
>>ideas from elsewhere???
>Ma'at was the Goddess of Truth, and represented the essence of
>everything which was right and proper. The idea of the good.
And *HOW* is this specifically Egyptian?
>The Egyptians concieved of living the life in Ma'at or doing what
>was right and proper as a way of becoming one with Neter (nature).
There you go again. English "nature" is from Latin natura, what
something has built-in, from nasci, to be born, ultimately from
Indo-European *gen@- "to generate, beget, ..."
.... He talks about a State,
>a Republic organized to live according to Laws which are
>based on standards of what is right and proper.
So what? Why does he have to have borrowed the idea from the
Egyptians? Lots of people very far away from them have had an idea that
something or other is right and proper.
And I note that Plato's Republic is not headed by some divine
monarch, unlike Pharaonic Egypt, and it does not recommend that when it
comes time to be judged in the Next World that you assert that you have
not committed any of a *huge* catalog of sins.
Furthermore, its three divisions of society, guardians, soldiers,
and common people, parallel Dume'zil's proposed Indo-European division of
society almost exactly. No Egyptian influence there :-)
>> And how does it closely parallel some Egyptian text?
>Every Egyptian text evidences the obsession with doing what is
>right and proper. ...
I haven't seen a whole lot of evidence of that.
>>More seriously, there is no discussion of rule by an allegedly divine
>>monarch who is careful to keep the family lineage pure by inbreeding.
>No, and in fact that is not a part of the Egyptian concept of what
>was right and proper either. ...
What idiocy. Why go to all the trouble to be inbred if that is
the case???
>On his crown (ity) the king worth the vulture (Mut) and cobra
>(Uraeus), which symbolized the Mut-Ur-ity of the state and
>statesman.
Hahahahahaha! ROTFL. There you go yet again!!!
First off the -ity is the Old French mangling of the Latin suffix
-itas, which is the Latin version of English -ness. And the rest? I'm
laughing too hard to continue :-)
--
Loren Petrich Happiness is a fast Macintosh
petrich@netcom.com And a fast train
My home page: http://www.webcom.com/petrich/home.html
Mirrored at: ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/pe/petrich/home.html
Subject: Re: Early Scripts and "Tokens"
From: piotrm@umich.edu (Piotr Michalowski)
Date: Sat, 21 Sep 1996 10:52:08
In article seagoat@primenet.com (John A. Halloran) writes:
>> You can find a fair critique of Schmandt-Besserat's theory
>>in the American Journal of Archaeology (AJA 84, 339-358). The article
>>is "Of Clay Pebbles, Hollow Clay Balls, and Writing: a Sumerian View"
>>and it is written by Stephen Lieberman.
>> Lieberman concludes that the hypothesis is unjustified on
>>"chronological and geographical grounds, imprecise or incorrect in
>>terms of many of the purely formal comparisons which have been made,
>>inadequate as an explanation of the appearance of writing, and based
>>on an error in classification."
>>Virgil Brown
>You omit the date of publication of that article, which was 1980, soon after
>Schmandt-Besserat announced her work on the tokens. It is now 1996. Do you
>have references to more recent articles about the tokens?
There is very little that is new in S-B's work since then and Lieberman's
article still stands as a major critique. Moreover, she never took any of
his, or other, comments to heart, so that she did not really respond to the
major points raised by her critics. If you browse back you will find that I
posted a list of major reviews of her book a little further back, and someone
else added a recent review by Stuart Brown, which I have not yet seen. I
have also dealt in passing with her work in two articles on literacy and
writing, one mainly on Mesopotamia, the other one in comparative perspective.
I do not want to push my own work here, but I could post the references if
there is interest.
Subject: Re: A Harem For the Next World?
From: Saida
Date: Sat, 21 Sep 1996 11:30:05 -0500
Katherine Griffis wrote:
Katherine Griffis wrote:
>This pretty much confirms information that I had, and that I had sent to
> saida. Budge is, unforunately, quite unreliable in a good portion of his
> works (based on modern scholarship standards), and in some cases, was
> merely speculative.
>
> Katherine Griffis (Greenberg)
> Member of the American Research Center in Egypt
Dear Katherine,
What you say seems to be the concensus, but I say "plus ca change, plus
c'est la meme chose". Yes, there is "modern" scholarship and the
scholars of the moment, but moments pass very quickly. By next month,
it is possible that views currently clung to in Egyptology could be
hopeless passe. I think we can all concur that there is a great deal of
speculation in this field even now, much more than we are
truly comfortable with.
Again, I cannot agree that reprinting Budge's books does a "disservice
to scholarship". Perhaps I am more ignorant than I like to believe I
am, but I don't see so much false information in these works. Take the
book I mentioned, "Dwellers On the Nile". Sure, I wouldn't argue that
the author got carried away with his interpretation of the picture the
tomb of Amenhotep II presented (it's not over until the skinny mummy
sings, however, and I would like to know what gives with the two extra
bodies). Yet this little book presents so much valuable data,
information difficult to come by in most popular works on Egypt of the
present. I have found therein the names of the trees, minerals,
astronomy, astrology, literature known to the ancients--you name it--a
little about everything. This book is NOT recommended for a beginner
because it is not easy to digest, there is simply too much in it. In
fact, none of Budge's works strike me as suitable for the
uninitiated--he will always tell more than they ever wanted to know.
For us Egyptophiles, however, they are eminently more beneficial than
harmful. Here is something to illustrate what I mean:
"...Goose farms existed in many parts of Egypt, and one district,
Chenoboskia, derived its name from the goose-pens for which it was
famous...As keepers of poultry the Egyptians won the admiration of the
classical writers, and Diodorus (i.74) says that they used to hatch out
large numbers of birds by an artificial process, i.e. by the use of an
incubator, which did away with the nessecity of the mother birds sitting
on their eggs. On this matter the inscriptions tell us nothing."
Now don't anybody tell me that Budge thought there were electric
incubators in ancient Egypt. In Budge's day, there probably weren't
even any in England!
Subject: Re: A Harem For the Next World?
From: rosmord@cachicame.ens-cachan.fr (Serge Rosmorduc)
Date: 21 Sep 1996 16:51:42 GMT
Hello !
>>>>> "Katherine" == Katherine Griffis writes:
Katherine> On Sep 20, 1996 08:01:05 in article Next World?>, 'Saida ' wrote:
>> Hi, Kathy et al!
>>
>> Yesterday I tried writing to Serge Rosmorduc of Paris, but his
>> E-mail address is no longer valid. I wanted to ask him if he had
>> access to any French books by or about Victor Loret, who explored
>> the tomb of >Amenhotep
My E-mail address is still valid ; the site my mail goes to
(iut.univ-paris8.fr) is simply undergoing a growth crisis :-)
I can't consult these books in the near future, however. A little remark is
that the "human sacrifice" theme was rather popular among scholars in the
beginning of the century and even a bit later. A romantising view of the
evidence was sometimes taken even by the best scholars (see a recent volume
of KMT about Raisner's hypothesis on Kheop's mother reburial).
For example, Pierre Montet interpreted early burials in Tanis as
fondationnal human sacrifices : a temple had in fact been built on the site
of a former cemetary. A rather ironic thing is that a few burials (of
commoners) accompanied by a sacrified female servant have been found in
Avaris (50 km away) in the Hyksos-time layers ; the custom seems to have
been quickly abandonned, however, and was not Egyptian. (Source : Avaris,
Capital of The Hyksos, by M. Bietak, published by the British Museum).
The only evidence of a pratic akin to human sacrifice in Egypt is the
religious context of the execution of some capital sentences, like the one
you quoted about AmenHotep II. But then, a real or alledged crime against
the State was in Egypt a crime against the gods as well as against the
king.
regards,
--
Serge Rosmorduc,
rosmord@lifac1.ens-cachan.fr
lifac
ENS de Cachan
61, avenue du Pr\'esident Wilson
94235 Cachan Cedex
tel (16 1) 47 40 24 93
fax (16 1) 47 40 24 64
http://weblifac.ens-cachan.fr/~rosmord/AEgypt.html
Subject: Re: The Egyptian concept of Ma'at in the Platonic Dialoges: was Re: Egyptian Tree Words
From: whittet@shore.net (Steve Whittet)
Date: 21 Sep 1996 23:30:29 GMT
In article , petrich@netcom.com says...
>
>In article <51uijt$fe7@shore.shore.net>,
>Steve Whittet wrote:
>
>>>>There are elements of architecture such as the
>>>>"fluted Doric columns" which Hatshepset's architect
>>>>used in her mortuary temple which anticipate the
>>>>Greek orders of architecture by almost a millenium
>>> So what if that's an imitation?
>
>>It isn't so much that it is an imitation, (which is really the
>>sincerest form of flattery), as that it is a system which people
>>could use. ...
>
> More likely simply an imitation of appearance, such as what one
>does when one makes a drawing or painting of something. No linguistics
>necessary, except when one wants to describe it in words.
If you dont have names for things, and you try to describe the Greek
orders of architecture to the workman you want to have make this
"imitation" by names like "Doric, Ionic and Corinthian", you are as
liable to get pilasters, as fluted columns with the proper degree
of entasis. Will the architraves have the proper pediments? Will
the frieze get mutals? Will someone forget to include the stylobate?
>
> [on giving stuff names...]
>
> The Greek names are Ionic, Doric, and Corinthian -- Greek
>place-names. Zero Egyptian names.
We don't know what the names the Greeks used were. The names we use
were invented by Palladio who created the Greek Orders of Architecture
as a system so he could imitate the Greeks.
>>>>The Platonic Dialoges closely follow the Egyptian ideas
>>>>of what was right and proper as illustrated by their
>>>>celebration of the Goddess Ma'at.
>
>>>Absolute baloney. How does it follow Egyptian ideas as opposed to
>>>ideas from elsewhere???
>
>>Ma'at was the Goddess of Truth, and represented the essence of
>>everything which was right and proper. The idea of the good.
>
> And *HOW* is this specifically Egyptian?
To answer your question as simply as possible,the Egyptians celebrated
a very subtle and sophisticated philosophy. I think it is fair to say
it was an independent invention. Each of their "gods" represented a
natural principle such as Truth, Justice, Wisdom, Literacy, Numeracy,
Beauty, Loyalty, Craftsmanship, Time, Earth, Day, Night, Sky, Sun,
Stars, Life, Death, Love, Courage, Friendship, Innocence, Humour
The Physical Body, Intelligence, Becoming and Being, (to mention
a few of the better known and most universal symbols).
All these were related to each other in a natural philosophy;
often in paired opposites resolved by a synthesis which partook
of the essence of both and added on something more besides.
>>The Egyptians concieved of living the life in Ma'at or doing what
>>was right and proper as a way of becoming one with Neter (nature).
>
> There you go again. English "nature" is from Latin natura, what
>something has built-in, from nasci, to be born, ultimately from
>Indo-European *gen@- "to generate, beget, ..."
What we describe as nature was what the Egyptians celebrated as neter,
the natural principles which we all observe and understand as a part
of our own natures, taken all together it described the process by
which our existence becomes whatever it is going to be.
>
>.... He talks about a State,
>>a Republic organized to live according to Laws which are
>>based on standards of what is right and proper.
>
> So what? Why does he have to have borrowed the idea from the
>Egyptians? Lots of people very far away from them have had an idea that
>something or other is right and proper.
We are talking about a period before there was Law and Order in the
world. How do you build consensus for social stratification where
some people work and others manage and administer things? What the
Egyptians developed was a homogeneous world view where people found
a way to agree on what was right and proper and to abide by it.
They went beyond norms, mores and conventions to build standards of
values where a person might expect the deeds of a lifetime to be
weighed in the balance against Ma'ats feather of truth.
If you look at people far away from Egypt with ideas of what was
right and proper, did they include the concept that these things
could be measured, weighed and judged? Then the chances are that
their beliefs came to them from Egypt. The Judaeo - Christian -
Moslem ethical system is based on this idea of the good. So are
the Ideas of Hindus and Budhists, and many other systems.
The state which Plato examines in the Republic is the state of mind.
> And I note that Plato's Republic is not headed by some divine
>monarch, unlike Pharaonic Egypt, and it does not recommend that when it
>comes time to be judged in the Next World that you assert that you have
>not committed any of a *huge* catalog of sins.
Plato is examining the state of mind which the Egyptians had created.
The "negative confession" is a part of the process by which a man's
life is put in the balance to be measured, weighed and judged by the
goddess Ma'at (Plato's Diatoma)
>
> Furthermore, its three divisions of society, guardians, soldiers,
>and common people, parallel Dume'zil's proposed Indo-European division of
>society almost exactly. No Egyptian influence there :-)
Its three divisions are three levels of conciousness. The dialoges can
be taken literally by common people who enjoy a story such as Atlantis
and wish to go no farther. It can be learned as a method and practiced
like gymnastics or music; it can be used in combat as the weapon of the
soldier, and it can be a guardian which helps us avoid making the wrong
choices in life.
>
>>> And how does it closely parallel some Egyptian text?
>
>>Every Egyptian text evidences the obsession with doing what is
>>right and proper. ...
>
> I haven't seen a whole lot of evidence of that.
Note as just one instance, how carefully inscriptions are composed
in a harmonious balance. Everything the Egyptians did was neat and
orderly, but also subtle and sophisticated; gestures, the ripling
of muscles, the upturned corner of a lip, the flaring of a nostril,
express an idea of what is right and proper and good in terms of
the scribes craft in communicating the process of his thought.
>
>>>More seriously, there is no discussion of rule by an allegedly divine
>>>monarch who is careful to keep the family lineage pure by inbreeding.
>
>>No, and in fact that is not a part of the Egyptian concept of what
>>was right and proper either. ...
>
> What idiocy. Why go to all the trouble to be inbred if that is
>the case???
One has the sense that you might answer that better than I...
>
>>On his crown (ity) the king worth the vulture (Mut) and cobra
>>(Uraeus), which symbolized the Mut-Ur-ity of the state and
>>statesman.
>
> Hahahahahaha! ROTFL. There you go yet again!!!
>
> First off the -ity is the Old French mangling of the Latin suffix
>-itas, which is the Latin version of English -ness. And the rest? I'm
>laughing too hard to continue :-)
>>On his crown (ity) the king worth the vulture (Mut) and cobra
>>(Uraeus), which symbolized the Mut-Ur-ity of the state and
>>statesman.
Look at any picture of a pharoah of Egypt. On his crown he wears
a vulture and a cobra, right in front, it is an emblem. Some Pharoahs
also are guided by Horus but that is a separate issue.
The vulture is the goddess "Mut"
The Cobra is called a "ureaus".
The Egyptian word for crown is "ity".
One has to wonder why you find the concept of maturity
so difficult to grasp...
>--
>Loren Petrich
steve