Subject: Re: Father=Creator=Pater=Ptah=Pitar=Stupidity
From: Troy Sagrillo
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 1996 06:09:17 GMT
Steve Whittet wrote:
>
> In article <32658DE5.1B14@utoronto.ca>, t.sagrillo@utoronto.ca says...
> >
> >I'll just save everyone the grief and pain and let Steve figure out what
> >a phonetic complement is on his own. (Steve: it's in Gardiner Chapter 3,
> >section 32, page 38).
>
> Thank you for getting a copy of Gardiner Troy, it makes discussion
> much easier.
As would you learning to read English, not to mention Egyptian.
[snip]
> >Steve Whittet wrote:
> >[snip]
> >
> >> Chapter XXVI, "The Chapter of Giving a Heart" Rubric 7
> >>
> >> translates as "the truths which pervade the college (house of the mind
> >> of Ptah) make knowledge and wisdom"
> >
> >Okay, I *think* I found this, though I am not sure based on the
> >translation you offer. I have in the Dover reprint of Budges' Book of
> >the Dead, page 89: Utterence (Chapter/Spell/Section/whatever you want to
> >call it) 26, line 7 (BTW Steve, rubric just means a section written in
> >red (usually indicated by underlining or an over-bar) -- it is not
> >something that is numbered and this section is NOT a rubric, though the
> >Utterence name at the beginning is) --
> >
> >dwn wi sxmt nTrt wnn=i m pt irw wD n=i m Hwt k3 ptH
> >
> >Budge translates this as:
> >
> >May the goddess Sekhet [sic]
>
> Budge misspelled Sekhet as Sekhmet, I agree.
No Steve. Read it again. **Budge** misread ***Sekhmet*** as
"Sekhet". The name of the goddess is *Sekhmet*. The word 'sic' means
"thus" in Latin. People insert it to note surprise at an unexpected word
or phrase, as did I when I saw Budge write "Sekhet" instead of the
expected Sekhmet.
[snip of much nonsense]
> Continuing with Budge:
>
> > make me rise so that I may ascend unto heaven and there
> >may be that which I commanded in the House of the Ka of
> >Ptah (page 308).
>
> The Ka of Ptah is his mind. The house of the Ka of Ptah
> is the college of Ptah where one who burns with the fire
> of Sekmet, the eros for wisdom, can go to get an education.
No Steve. A /Hwt k3/ is a chapel or temple. Look it up in Faulkner. It
is an architectural term, not a metaphysical one.
> >Like most of his stuff, Budge was "wide of the mark"
> >so to speak. What this really says is:
> >
> >The goddess Sekhmet straightens/stretches me.
>
> I would be interested to hear what you think this means.
See below
[snip]
> > (and) a command shall be made for me
[snip of Steve's free interpretation of Egyptian -- very funny too, btw!
Had me ROFLMAO]
> >in The House/Temple/Estate of the Ka of Ptah
>
> The house of the Ka of Ptah or the mind of Ptah
> simply means the college or university of Ptah.
Do you just make this up as you go along??? Look it up in Faulkner.
> (ie, Memphis; BTW, /hwt k3 ptH/ is the origin of Greek
> >aigiptos, Egypt).
>
> I know Budge translates
> "The House of the Ka of Ptah" as Memphis
> But you should know better.
>
> How do you equate the College of Ptah with Memphis?
> There is no mention of Memphis here.
Steve, do you have *any* idea just how foolish you look here? Memphis
had many names, being the capital for most of ancient Egyptian history.
/hwt k3 ptH/ was the name of the temple of Ptah in Memphis (he was the
chief deity of the city). The name of the temple was generalised to that
of the entire city. /hwt k3 ptH/ comes into Coptic as ekeptia (e (fem.
-t no longer pronouced) + ke + ptia). The name of the city was at some
point generalised into that of the entire country in Greek as aigiptos,
Latin Aegyptus, English Egypt. Amazing! (The name "Memphis" from /mn
nfr/ is another example of generalising the name of a specific
architectural complex to the name of the entire city).
> The determinative
> for city or compound or cluster of buildings is present
> but what we are talking about is a school or university
> not a city. The k3 pth (mind of Ptah) is enclosed in
> the h making it a house, compound or cluster of buildings.
> >
> >Alternately, this could be taken as:
> >
> >.....I shall be in the sky (while/but) what I have commanded is
> >done/preformed/made in Memphis
>
> Try and understand what you are reading. What is the meaning
> of the phrase "I shall be in the sky"? How does it connect to
> what went before and what comes after? This is the sort of
> translation which makes people think the Egyptians were retarded.
THey were not retarded, but this is religious material. Why *should* it
make sense? Half the time the Egyptians themselves did not "get it" and
said so in side notes. Actually if you bother to read the whole
Utterance you will see that the dead person is describing how various
deities will revive various parts of his body ("Geb...opens my eyes...he
extends my legs"; etc.). Sekhmet stretches him out (as does Anubis in
the line previous). The dead person will be in the sky because he is to
live again.
> >
> >So now, where's "Ptah r" or any concept of father???
>
> The concept of "creator" here means creator of wisdom.
> The title "father of fathers" means "teacher of teachers"
>
> Where's your "r"
>
> following the determinative for place after phrase
> "the House of the Ka of Ptah"we have
> "rh papyrus determinative"
> given by Faulkner as learning/ knowledge /wisdom
>
> make wisdom
Steve, it is the *verb* /rx/ "to know; be aware" and is the 1st word of
the next sentence. It has *nothing* to do with Ptah. The sentence is:
rx=i m ib=i
I shall know in my heart (alt., I shall be aware in my mind)
(/ib/ is often used when English would use "mind" as the Egyptians
conceived of the place of thought was the heart)
> >form of /iri/?? The passive form of /iri/ (/irw/) *is* written (well in
> >front of Ptah I might add), and it so happens to be an **eye** without
> >the phonetic complement of /r/.
>
> No. form of "rh payrus determinative"
> "iri" is written with its vowels dropped as a mouth as it is
> combined into a compound biliteral sign meaning make wisdom
> where the "r" has the sense of the verb "iri" to make or do
> starts us off and then we go on to explain what it is that
> we are going to do.
Rubbish! It is the verb /rx/ "to know; to be aware"; it has NOTHING to
do with /iri/. /iri/ isn't written with vowels of any sort ever, and
there is NO form of /iri/ written only as an /r/ (*still* didn't figure
that phontetic complement stuff yet did you?).
[btw, for anyone who cares, the /i/ used in transliteration of Egyptian
represents a consonent /y/ or a glottal stop; it is not to be taken as
the vowel "i"]
> The invocation of the name of a god or a major attribute
> such as the "ka" has to be considered carefully when making
> an evaluation of the sense of the phrase.
>
> What we have here is a student asking for the college of
> Ptah to enroll him in studies "the truths which pervade
> the college (house of the mind of Ptah) make knowledge
> and wisdom" leading to certification as a teacher.
>
> For Ptah to create him as a teacher.
BS.
One last thing....
[flame on]
I understand that not everyone has the opportunity to study Egyptian
language as thorougly as I have been lucky enough to do so. I respect
that a great deal and don't expect others to be up on the language,
especially if they are self-taught (as many are). I disagree with Saida
sometimes but she has a good grasp of the language and what is going on.
She may not be up to date on the latest discussions in Egyptian
phonetics, but in the end, so what? No one cares about them anyhow. At
least she understands the basics.
You on the other hand, Steve, don't have a clue. You make it up as you
go along; can't even blame it on learning from Budge. The thing that
really bothers me is that you lecture others about needing to read
Gardiner , et al., not only myself but others, yet you don't even
understand the most fundemental basics (such as what a phonetic
complement is). I guess a little knowledge in you case is a dangerous
thing.
I've wasted enough time on you Steve. You are either a very well-read
idiot or a troll (personally I think you are a troll). In either case,
we're done. Your name has gone into the kill-file. Bye!
[flame off]
Troy
Subject: Re: AFRICAN monuments...those Everlasting PYRAMIDS
From: pmanansala@csus.edu (Paul Kekai Manansala)
Date: Thu, 17 Oct 96 13:02:56 GMT
In article <3265DCDC.743A@netins.net>, Xina wrote:
>hazel m. batts wrote:
>>
> The ancient Egyptians left great and an abundance
>> of evidence of whom they were and unless you are color blind or out right
>> blind, it is abundantly clear that the ancient Egyptians were Black
>> Africans. The authorities on whom the ancient Egyptians were are neither
>> Black people nor White people, but the ancient Egyptians themselves. The
>> ancient Egyptians said they descended from the Somalians and Ethiopians
>
>Hmmm. You know a Somali doesnt look like a Masai, and neither of them
>look Ethiopian and further still none of them look like "all" ancient
>Egyptians. Frankly, there are statues where the Egyptians look more
>Choctaw or Seminole or Tsalagi than they look "black" but we all know
>that its imposible that they are from any NA Nation. (As far as science
>tells us).
>
>Interestingly, if you sit a Navajo next to a Tibetan, compare their
>symbolism and their culture, even their weaving techniques which are
>frighteningly similar, you would be amazed at the similarity of the
>two. Also, if you set those two cultures next to the Ancient Dravidian
>and the Ancient Egyptian, you start to see even *more* similarities. So
>whats the message with that do you suppose? I think its quite simple we
>dont *know* without a shadow of a doubt and we are still finding out.
>
The problem here is that Egypt is in Africa, right next to Nubia. Blacks
have always been a part of Egypt. The evidence itself, as presented by
Arkell, Williams, Grzymski, Keita and others points to the Egyptian
dynasties having their origin in Qustul of Ta-Seti. An inscription at
Edfu confirms this origin in text form.
>> and even unto this day the Somalians and Ethiopians are still Black
>> African nations. Yes today Egypt may be and look like Arabic Caucasoid,
>> but that is the result of 2000 years of mixing with Greeks, Romans,
>> Turks, and other modern Europeans such as the British, French etc.
>
>
>2000 years? I think you better take a closer look at your historical
>time line. 2000 years ago was the begining of the End of the Egyptian
>Empire. Forensic reconstruction of skeletal remains have shown that the
>people of Egypt now are not signifigantly different than those that
>lived there 4000 - 5000 years ago. If you doubt me, do more research on
>the subjects mentioned above.
>
>> > >
Strange, that you should mention forensic evidence. An article
in one of the most respected authoritative works in forensic
anthropology had this to say on the ancient Egyptians:
"While the Upper Nile Egyptians show phenotypic features that
occur in higher frequencies in the Sudan and southward into
East Africa (namely, facial prognathism, chamaerrhiny, and
paedomorphic cranial architecture with specific modifications
of the nasal aperature), these so-called Negroid features are
not universal in the region of Thebes, Karnak, and Luxor."
(Kennedy, Kenneth A.R., T. Plummer, J. Chinment, "Identification of
the Eminent Dead: Pepi, A Scribe of Egypt," In Katherine J. Reichs
(ed.), _Forensic Osteology_, 1986. )
Notice that the primary racial identification characteristics of people
in Upper Egypt agrees with that of Nubians and East Africans (although the
population was *not* homogenous)
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
The Afrocentric Debate Homepage
http://www.he.net/~skyeagle/afro.htm
Subject: Re: Caucasian on the Columbia c7300 BCE
From: pmv100@psu.edu (Peter Van Rossum)
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 1996 11:24:55 GMT
In article <3265CD91.13F1@iceonline.com> Baron Szabo
writes:>Peter Van Rossum wrote:
>>
>> No racial typology scheme that I have ever seen can correctly identify
>> even living individuals 100% of the time, the problem gets even worse
>> when you are looking at a 10,000 year old partial skeleton.
>It's too bad that science need to bail any process that isn't accurate
>%100 of the time. Extremely limiting, if you ask me.
It might be nice if you would at least acknowledge the fact that your initial
accusation (of silence) was incorrect and also note that even the researcher
who did the study did not conclude the individual was "white". But no,
you'd prefer to ignore that and continue demonstrating your lack of
knowledge about racial classifications.
Beyond that I'm just being overly conservative when I talk about a less
than 100% certainty. Notice here I'm talking about having a living person
standing in front of you from whom you can take as many measurements/samples
as you wish - and you still can't get a definite classification.
All racial classification schemes will produce a significant number of
misclassifications. The reason I can't supply an exact figure is that the
percentage of misclassifications will be highly dependant on how you define
human "races." The highest rates I have seen run about 80-90% accuracy
for living, or recently dead individuals. But again all they are doing
is attempting to assign the person to a "race" which they might have been
assigned to by other members of the culture while they were alive - this
doesn't mean that objective, discrete races exist (they don't).
As I've said the concept of race does not exist as a biologically discrete
unit of analysis. Researchers have tried for over 150 years to
scientifically define racial classification schemes and none have been
successful - doesn't this indicate to you that there is a problem with
the underlying concept?
Below I put some references so that maybe you can learn something by going
to the library. If you do, you'll see that the vast majority of physical
anthropologists (these are people who have the study of human variability
as one major goal) have rejected the race concept.
Finally, per your argument that a 100% certainty is limiting, the reason
why you'd need to set a very high confidence level in this case is that
the overwhelming perponderance of evidence indicates that the earliest
New World inhabitants did come over from Asia. You only supply one
piece of evidence to contradict this view, therefore, you'd better be
damn certain that one piece of evidence is correct.
>BTW, aren't there DNA strands in bone? Isn't there work being done to
>genetically trace race through genes?
You can't definitely use DNA data for racial classifications either (see
the Lewontin article below).
Peter van Rossum
PMV100@PSU.EDU
Lewontin, R.C.
1972 "The Apportionment of Human Diversity," Evolutionary Biology vol. 6,
pp. 381-398.
Montagu, Ashley
1965 The Idea of Race. Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press.
Sauer, Norman J.
1992 "Forensic Anthropology and the Concept of Race: If Races don't Exist,
Why are Forensic Anthropologists so Good at Identifying Them?" Social
Science and Medicine, vol. 34, no. 2, pp. 107-111.
Shanklin, Eugenia
1994 Anthropology and Race. Belmont: Wadsworth.
Subject: Re: Great Pyramid Dimensions.
From: Jiri Mruzek
Date: Thu, 17 Oct 1996 02:41:39 -0700
MA Lloyd wrote:
> Rodney Small writes:
> >> Given the uncertainty in both figures, I think we can be sure that so close
> >> a coincidence is just that - a coincidence.
Your emotional plea shows that you have no firm scientific ground
to stand on. In general, coincidences can be assigned a probability
count of occuring, such as one in a million. No need to say that
probabilities of this sort are quite deterministic.
> >But there are other correlations as well, if you are interested.
> Yes there are, dozens and dozens of them, which is why most rational people
> are certain they are coincidental.
In both law and science, many unlikely coincidences nestling into a
pattern
are unheard of in limited space/time/matter. You speak of fairy tales.
> What you say? Well look, its a pyramid,
> its shape is exactly defined by two numbers, the length of a base and its
> height for example. It can thus encode ONLY two numbers.
Those two numbers give a ratio. Infinite other pairs of numbers also
give this ratio. Thus these two numbers imply all those other numbers.
:)
> If you can show 30
> numbers correlate to some dimension of the pyramid, we immediately know 28
> of those correlations must be coincidental, and the ability to find so many
> makes the case for the other two pretty weak.
I like your humor, or is your pseudo-scientific ideation meant
seriously?
Don't you know the diff between random chaos and deliberate order?
The Pyramid is supremely orderly. These two numbers, the height and the
base,
could have been anything, a myriad of other combinations. Almost all
those combinations would show very few noteworthy coincidences, on
account
of being chaotic. But the Pyramid as you know, does more tricks than
a circus dog.
What results is a system and not chaos. Such a system can only
be implemented willfully by builders, and never by accident.
Jiri Mruzek
Subject: Re: Spiral ramp on GP (was: Neolithic Stonehenge road?
From: Jiri Mruzek
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 1996 03:45:44 -0700
Frank Doernenburg wrote:
>
> Hi!
>
> Äh, no, I was not gone 4 weeks. Your last mail was from 9-20, I answered on 9-29,
>nine days later. Now we have 10-14, two weeks after my last mail. I wondered, if
> you had given up (wrong guess, it seems ;-) )
>
> I won't argue about your claims, recalculate them (there is room enough for
> 700 workers to pull a stone; why only 4 abreast? Why not 20 on 20 ropes? and so on).
Why? Just how wide is the ramp you propose to build? And where is it?
Is it in the middle of the platform, or is it on the side? How do you
transport the other core and mantle stones? Over a side ramp, or a
straight
ramp? Or, if you had a series of nifty cranes lifting the smaller blocks
including the mantle ones, how could you do it without damaging these?
And since the mantle had to be emplaced first, where would you anchor
the cranes?
Make up your mind, as to the entire procedure - so that I have something
complete to consider.
You say we need to store only 80 large blocks on each level of the
pyramid.
There are 43 big granite blocks above the King's Chamber
24 big limestone blocks above them
18 big blocks in the walls of the chamber
15 (at least) blocks in the floor
That's 100 big blocks already, plus don't forget that big blocks were
also
all around the Queen's Chamber, the original entrance, and who knows
where
else. Hence, that we have to store and move at least 130 blocks up to
the
courses of the Queen's chamber, and not 80, as you portrayed below.
| | | | | | | | | | ****
****
| | | | | | | | | | ****
****
| | | | | | | | | | ****
****
| | | | | | | | | | ****
****
/////**** <- next level, one meter higher
Ramp -> /////****
****
| | | | | | | | | | ****
****
| | | | | | | | | | ****
****
| | | | | | | | | | ****
****
| | | | | | | | | | ****
****
130 blocks look like the below pattern.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | |
The sleds have to be at least 10 meters long and 2 meters wide.
In effect, you propose to clutter half the platform with sleds.
How do you leave the parking stalls/ How do you manouvre (turn)
the front rows? The ramp would have to be right in front of them.
Thus the ramp would have to stretch the breadth of the platform.
To park the front row stones at the far edge of the next course,
the pullers would have to descend down the side of the Pyramid.
You do realise that, I hope. Let me know, how you would have
overcome these obstacles.
BTW, F.M. Barber had 900 men pulling 60 ton stones. So, to pull
70-ton stones, we would need at least a thousand men in harness.
> About your obelisk in Rome: The romans transported 13 obelisks in the 200 to
>500 ton range out of Egypt, most famous is the (455 to 510 ton, depends
>on the source) Obelisk of Thutmosis III, now found on the Piazza San Giovanni,
>I have a nice picture of it.
Thanks, Frank. How fascinating, I will have to visit Rome, ASAP.
> The second largest, 390 tons, is now located in Istambul and was transported
>there to be a pylon in horse racing. It has a complete relief on the base that
> shows how the romans transported it there. You can see it in the circus ruins.
It would be really nice if someone put this relief's copy onto their
website.
Would you have a reference on a book, where we could see a nice
reproduction?
> The transport way for each block would be about 100 meters. With 700
men you
> can drag (see some earlier mails) such a sled with 70 ton blocks with about
> 20 meters per minute, so one team would need five to ten minutes to transport
> one block. Lets give them 20 minutes (with breaks), so they could transport 3
> blocks per hour, 26 hours or three days for one level, without fuss. And only
> about 10% of the workcrew was needed to do this task!
I bet, you couldn't model this in 3-D animation. You couldn't factor in
the obstacles I mention above.
20 meters per minute? How long does it take to say "heave-ho"? The sled
comes
to a full stop after each heave forward of only inches. Don't forget
that
the sled runners would use up extremely rapidly on the rough surface of
each course. (You must know that the core stones are markedly irregular)
What superwood would you use for the runners?
Sorry, Frank, but until this method is demonstrated, or until you
suggest
something more realistic, I shall have to remain highly skeptical.
Yep, this is no sled parade - this is tough sledding :)
snip Frank's hard-sell of his model
> This is one model, and it works even with your presumed 70 ton blocks
> perfectly. So I see no reason to loose any mor thought to thos "no problem"-
> problem. Sorry.
The regrets are mutual, Frank.
> To your granite in your second mail: I could give you an introduction into
> ancient quarry work, but I think it would be useless.
In answer to this I asked you for explanations on the quite evident
superiority of Egyptian drills over the modern ones by a whole order
of magnitude, when it comes to drilling out granite.
Do you have a suggestion? So far, you didn't react to this.
Then I asked you:
> I demand that you go and learn about Stone-Age mathematics from my
> Homepages. I demand that you attempt a criticism. These mathematics
> prove that there was Palaeolithic Science. This is pivotal, because
> the Egyptian civilisation could have been an inheritor of this older
> civilisation. Verstehst?
You pass this without a comment. I must repeat that my report is
pivotal,
because if there were scientists of high caliber in Palaeolith,
wouldn't their oldest known science likely be connected to later wonders
of stone building technologies, and other mysteries?
This is really pathetic. I am being nice, discussing all this Pyramid
stuff with you patiently, yet you won't attempt to come to terms with
the existence of my history-shaking reports. I already did all the work,
you just have to sit back, and study the ready-made diagrams. Try:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages//jiri_mruzek/frapent1.htm
There is an interesting array of points, wouldn't you agree?
> But, Jiri, I must be thankful because you showed me some mistakes
> in books from "professionals".
Glad to be a positive influence in this case :)
>I wondered, why in all my books I could
> nod find any precise weights if the roof stones in the king's chamber.
> Even the president of the "Deutsch-Ägyptische Gesellschaft" wrote only
> about "9 monoliths with a total weight of 400 tons" and "the largest
> of it with about 45 tons". There must be a single copy source, because
> these two values (9 pc with 400 tons, largest 45 tons) is
> repeated in several other "scientific" publications.
Livio Stecchini writes in his appendix to Tompkins' Secrets of the GP:
".. But I was gradually forced to accept the fact that scholars of
ancient history do not read numbers, neither in ancient texts, nor
in research paapers. .. In many different guises, I was told that
"numbers do not constitute evidence in ancient studies".
Now, compare what Stecchini says to my own experience in inviting
people to check the ancient math from La Marche and Nasca. Sounds
familiar..
> But, in fact, when
> one calculates the weights from the measurements and the density of
> the material, the weights for the biggest 3 stones can be in the 60 to
> 80 ton range. But, as I wrote, it
> doesn't matter, they could transport these stones, too.
> To the casing blocks: As I said: Lauer concluded the casing blocks
> to have about 130000 qubic meters. I asked you repetetivly for a
> source for your four times larger numbers, you didn't answer.
> I told you where you find the obelisks, now tell me
> where you found your multi million ton casing blocks.
It was my own mistake, and this is the third time I admit it.
No Danniken, but my own careless presumption made me do it.
I did not calculate the data given until your challenge: Thank you,
for catching a careless mistake of mine, there.
The mantle stones were 100 inches thick and covered 22 acres.
We have no reason to believe that the thickness of the mantle was
less near the top.
22 acres equal 8.9 hectares, or 89,000 square meters. We multiply the
area by the thickness of the mantle of 2.54 meter, and the mantle's
volume comes to around 226,000 cubic meters. (BTW this is 113 * 2,
and I am always interested, when 113 comes into consideration.
This is a link to the Frame from my report. As two of the 12 sides
of the Frame measure 113 Frame millimeters (65.5 millimeters).
Last time I pointed out a link on the Pyramid to 80/81, which
no-one noticed before. Livio Stecchini deals with these two values
on the Pyramid in detail in relation to measures of weight.
80 and 81 (twice) are also in the Frame.)
A cubic meter of limestone should weigh over 2 tons, so the total
weight of the mantle should have been just under a half-million tons.
But, the blocks narrow towards the top.
So, I get about 250,000 tons for the mantle. That's double Lauer's .
But, it's a rough estimate. I'll have to check Lauer out, when I get
a chance. He might know something, I don't.
See you,
Jiri Mruzek
Subject: Yet more WhittetLinguisticInanities...
From: petrich@netcom.com (Loren Petrich)
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 1996 14:17:17 GMT
In article <545t64$ee@shore.shore.net>,
Steve Whittet wrote:
>In article <544d1f$e31@halley.pi.net>, mcv@pi.netÁ says...
>Mallory "In Search of the Indo Europeans", Chapter Four
>"Proto Indo-European Culture", p 111-112
>" It is extremely uncommon, for example for the majority of
>Indo European languages to share the same
>Proto Indo-European word.
[...]
However, several of them *are* widely-shared, even if not
universally-shared. Examples:
*es, *bheu@- "to be" (the conjugation of this verb in most IE languages
is composed of a mixture of these two stems, and sometimes additional ones)
*p@ter- "father"
*ma:ter- "mother"
*bhra:ter- "brother"
*swesor- "sister"
*su:nus "son"
*dhugh@ter- "daughter"
*oinos "one" (not as widespread as the following ones, however)
*dwo: "two"
*treyes "three"
*kwetwores "four"
*penkwe "five"
*sweks "six"
*septm. "seven"
*okto: "eight"
*newn. "nine"
*dekm. "ten"
*km.tom "hundred"
*(@)no:mn. "name"
*sa:wel "Sun"
>What none of these theories take into account, despite the fact
>that they love to point to trading settlements located at the
>mouth of a river, and then postulate the entire drainage catchment
>of the river was the home of far ranging nomadic horsemen is that
>waterways were the highways of the ancient world in most places
>at least until the Romans made it a point to build more paved roads.
There you go again, Mr. Whittet, with your fetish with aquatic
trading empires.
You failed to pay much attention to what various nomadic
pastoralists are like; they wander long distances over *land*, and for
them, water is mainly something to drink, and not something to travel on.
>>Pardonnez-moi, but this is incorrect. P'ahr must rather be connected
>>with fowl language, as in:
>Egyptian "pa" fly,... perhaps, but also
>>parrot,
>make by rote (speech like sounds learned by rote)
My AHD comes a bit short here; it attributes the word to the
French name Perrot, a diminutive of Pierre, "Peter".
>>parrakeet,
>small parrot
Spanish periquito, probably a dim. of Perico, a dom. of Pedro, "Peter"
>>partridge,
>make a trident (with its tail) "p3't" = quail
From Old French, from Latin perdix, from Greek perdix, from IE
*perd- "to fart".
>>pardalote (=diamond bird), or
>>parula warblers
>make an ululation (howling or hooting sound)
>>Paradoxically, there also seems to be particular connection with
>make a contradiction designate or make a part or particle
>>certain edible plants:
>>parsnip,
>make nappy
From Old French pasnaie (+ Middle English nap "turnip"),
ultimately from Latin pastinum, a 2-pronged digging/planting stick.
>>parsley,
>make flavorful
Ultimately from Greek petroselinon (petra "rock" + selinon "celery")
>>paradise (="orchard"),
>make residence
Ultimately from Avestan paridaeza "enclosure, park"; pari from IE
*per ("forward", "through", with many extensions, such as "around",
"against", etc.) and IE *dheigh- "to form, build"
>>parasol mushroom,
>make a sunshade
From Italian parasole, from parare (< Latin parare "to protect" < IE
*per@- "to procure, produce") and sole (< Latin sol "Sun" < IE *sa:wel-);
>>partake ("please partake of this partridge with parsnips..."), and
>make take
Back formation from partaker < Middle English part-taker < Latin
particeps "participant"; from Latin pars "part" < IE *per@- "to grant,
allot" and capere "to take" < IE *kap-
>>parmentier (=prepared or served with potatoes)
>make mindful of rank (humble fare)
All these Whittetian derivations only demonstrate that he can
find an Egyptian origin for just about *any* word; he has not claimed a
non-Egyptian origin for *any* word so far.
>Egyptian certainly is not the only possible point of origin
>but it is worth giving some consideration to.
And if it does not work out, then one must be willing to accept it.
--
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: American Indians - Indian Or Not?
From: Marc Line
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 1996 16:03:20 +0100
On Wed, 16 Oct 1996, at 06:26:48, Matt Silberstein cajoled electrons
into this
>In sci.archaeology Dominic Green wrote:
In his characteristic style, a further brilliant example of rationale.
>Another great post.
Indeed, that too!
>[snip]
>>especially since the Jewish Host are held to have spent Forty
>>Years in the journey; for was not Moses 'Fourscore Years old...When (He)
>>Spake Unto Pharaoh'[Exodus 7:7]? And was he not 'One Hundred and Twenty
>>Years Old When He Died'[Deuteronomy 34:7]? At its widest point, the
>>Sinai Desert is no more than two hundred miles wide - can we be asked to
>>believe that the Jewish Host moved at a continuous speed of 1/1752 miles
>>per hour?
>
>I want to point out that the good Col actually did the math. 200 miles
>in 40 years is 1/1752 miles per hour.
My Dear Sir,
You are, indeed, correct to point out to the illustrious readership of
this humble forum, that my dear friend and colleague, Ignatius, is an
accomplished mathematician. It is so often the case in these days of
cynicism, wherein which a sceptic can be found under every picked scab
on the body of science, that the dogs of dissent will find themselves
latching onto numerals with all the dogmatic determination and panache
of a Jack Russell with blood lust.
There will doubtless be those purists among the readership who, upon
reading the good Father's work, would feel compelled to commence beating
their chests in Greystokian mode, whilst calling, "FOUL" at full vital
capacity and maximal laryngeal amplitude. Why? "LOOK!", they will
scream, "he has forgotten about leap years!!!"
Rather than see archaeologia forced to witness the unsightly spectacle
of this rabid but predictable behaviour, I have taken it upon myself to
attempt to strangle it at birth.
Ergo, to those whose lives might be so empty as to lead them to seek
fulfilment in the denigration of the numeracy of such luminaries of the
scientific art as the good Father, this next is addressed.
During leap years, and on the leap day, the Host halted. They kept the
day in stationary feasting and further entertained themselves by
engaging in such thrilling pursuits as jumping sheep. Hence the term,
"Leap year."
The good Father would be better placed to explain than I, though I feel
sure he would have more pressing concerns, as have I. The iron should
be hot by now! "Maresh!!!! Where are you man?"*
Excuse me.
I remain, your humbug servant
Mr. Byafew Minitz (Prof.) M.A. R.C.Li N.E.
*For some as yet unfathomable reason, my assistant has taken to painting
names on the backs of his frogs in large white letters, tucking them
into boxes of straw and praying over them invoking the spirit of one
Valerie Simpleton! I must get to the bottom of this!
Subject: Re: Great Pyramid Dimensions.
From: Martin Stower
Date: 18 Oct 1996 13:39:14 GMT
whittet@shore.net (Steve Whittet) wrote:
[. . .]
>The measurement to the sockets made by Cole does not include the
>pavement of the Pyramid. It should be noted that the base was
>most probably intended to be 440 cubits of 525 mm or 231,000 mm
>to a side giving a total of 924,000 mm or 36,378"
Cole measured to his best estimate of where the corners were. Agreed
on the 440 cubits, but I get the cubit nearer 523.5 - 523.7 mm. It's
interesting to look at how 440 would appear in Egyptian notation -
the concatenation of two nice square numbers.
>plus a pavement which projected a Biblical cubit from the corner of the
>pyramid.
A Biblical cubit?
[. . .]
>Both Petries and Smyth's measurements along the pyramid
>and pavement sides are correct, but both give different
>values which can be used in different proportionate
>relationships. Neither is a more correct one in my view.
In 1880 there was too much debris on the site for Petrie to make direct
measurements of these distances - he did it indirectly, by surveyor's
jiggery-pokery. Cole had the advantage of working on a thoroughly-cleared
site. Going by Cole's figures, Petrie's are very good approximations, but
not entirely accurate.
I understood that Smyth took a mean of several widely-differing measures,
resulting - by strange coincidence - in the figure his theory required.
My impression was that he didn't _measure_ the distance at all.
[. . .]
>>There's nothing to indicate that the `sockets' held cornerstones.
>
>Actually, the corners have to be locked with some such method or
>the thrust of the horizontal component of the vertical load which
>is carried down the slope of the pyramid would cause its foundation
>or pavement to spread and eventually the pyramid would collapse.
They seem not to have worried about this horizontal component elsewhere at
the base - the surviving casing stones sit on top of the platform, with no
special structure to hold them:
+---------+
| \
| \
| \
| \
| \
-----------------------+
-----------------------+
The shallow SW socket, whose west end, defined only by a chiselled line,
was on a level with the surrounding rock surface, surely performed no
such retaining function.
>>They could instead have been filled with a cement deposit,
>>like the analogous sockets found at Lisht. For the platform
>>to cover the sockets, with the cornerstones on top of the
>>platform (just like the other casing-stones)
>>would be a far more consistent design.
>
>There is enough which remains of the casing and pavement to show
>that this was not the case.
Don't follow this at all. Removal of the pavement (platform) in the
relevant areas has left the sockets entirely exposed, while the
surviving casing blocks are positioned on top of the platform, as above.
>>A plausible case has been made for the sockets playing some role in the
>>surveying and levelling of the pyramid site. I don't have the exact
>>reference handy, but it was an article in JARCE.
>
>The bedrock was carved into a grid of channels which when filled with
>water provided a level from which to establish a fairly accurate
>base plane for the pyramid.
The method proposed was also based on the use of water - as I suppose
any serious proposal would have to be. It's worth a look.
[. . .]
>Piazzi Smyth had gotten the 36,524" measurement by measuring the sockets
>Petrie measured the pyramid from where it intersected the platform and
>got a perimeter of 36,276"
The point, however, was that Davidson and Aldersmith altered Petrie's
figure for the socket-based perimeter, but presented the figure as if
it was Petrie's.
[. . .]
>>In other words, they `measured' 17.5 inches where - by their own account
>>- there was nothing at all determinate to measure.
>
>They measured to a chiseled line. If you look at other Egyptian
>architecture the use of such "layout lines" is common.
Petrie measured to the chiselled line, which is the only thing defining
the west end of the SW socket. Davidson and Aldersmith went 17.5 inches
_beyond_ the chiselled line, in the absence - by their own account - of
any determinate feature to delimit such a measurement.
The result, as I outlined, was a suspiciously neat pattern of deviations
from the mean, strongly suggestive of someone cooking the figures:
Deviation
from mean
N 9129.8 -0.5
E 9130.8 +0.5
S 9141.4 +11.1
W 9119.2 -11.1
Mean 9130.3
Petrie's real figures entail no such suspicious result.
[. . .]
>The question really hinges on the length of the cubit used to measure
>with.The discussion of Egyptian Units of Length starting on page 304
>of Stecchinis appendix makes it clear that the Egyptians had started
>with a foot of 300 mm and a cubit of 450 mm and worked up to a Royal
>cubit of 525 mm. 525mm x 440 cubits is 231,000 mm
You've been at the Stecchini again . . . As you know, Steve, IMO the
last thing Stecchini does is make anything clear. I'd want some
convincing that the Egyptians ever used a foot of exactly 300 mm.
Besides, you seem to be talking about a different question to the
one I addressed - the reliability or otherwise of Davidson and
Aldersmith's figures.
[. . .]
>The relation that is interesting is much simpler. The number of days
>in a millenia equals the number of feet in a degree of the earths
>surface along its equitorial circumference.
>
>We know that the foot of 300 mm fits into the Egyptians system
>of measures as four palms; of which five are a geographic cubit
>six are a Biblical cubit and seven are a Royal cubit.
>
>What we have is a unit of measure arranged to be proportionate
>in terms of a ratio of time and space.
>
>Do you wonder how could the Egyptians measure one degree
>of the earths surface, accurately c 2500 BC and why
>does it relate to the length of a year?
>
>Can you give us an answer Martin?
Before answering how, I'd need to be convinced _that_. Where are all
these figures coming from? Can they be corroborated by reference to
someone other than Stecchini?
Martin
Subject: Re: Silver
From: Saida
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 1996 11:42:49 -0500
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:
>
> Saida wrote:
>
> >Here are the metals known to the Egyptians. I also give the
> >Hebrew equivs. As usual, there is more than one word for all of
> >them in Egyptian. I found nothing for "tin" in this language.
>
> Thanks for the Hebrew references. I checked my Hebrew dictionary and
> found a couple more (I don't really read Hebrew, so I have to look up
> every letter and every dot. I hope there are no mistakes):
>
> GOLD: Horo:ts, poz
> LEAD: 'obhor
> TIN: ba`ats, paH, paHi:th
> IRON: magh'hE:ts
>
> Any nuances in meaning between the various words for gold, lead, tin
> and iron?
If there are I can't tell you. I am far from being a Hebrew scholar.
My simple Hebrew dictionary didn't even have some of the words in it
that yours does, so I can't even check on those!
>
> As you can see, I'm a bit special about stuff like distinguishing
> exactly between 'alephs and `ayins, kaphs and qophs etc. which is why
> I'm not sure what to make of your Egyptian transcriptions. For
> instance:
>
> > ich (a white metal, possibly silver)
>
> What does the "ch" stand for?
This is spelled "reed, magic knot (a gutteral "ch") and a determinative
that seems to be a combination of those used for gold and silver,
probably making "ich" electrum.
(snip)
>
> If so, BAR.ZILU, or ZILU.BAR actually, could be an excellent candidate
> for being the etymon of English "silver". But I don't know what to
> make of this Akkadian "-zillu". Sumerain means "to peel off",
> is "pleasing, nice". Maybe we should rather look at a word
> like , a weight (Sin-iddinam 6 II 16-24: "When I dug the
> Tigris, the big river, as wages each man received [??] barley, 2 sila
> bread, 4 sila beer, and 2 shekel oil, daily he received like this").
> But I don't know if this weight was ever used for silver or iron.
In Egyptian there is "stiut" meaning "radiance", "light-emitter". It is
written with a funny glyph that consists of the hind part of an animal
with an arrow through it, written in my dictionary as "st", probably
because it is also variously written "fold of cloth, loaf" or "st".
However, there may be a possibility that the skewered rear should be
read as "tz" as in the Hebrew letter "tzadee". Perhaps with this
Akkadian "zillu" you should try to think about something radiant or
reflective, some word like that. Just a thought.
>
> >According to Budge, at least, there is
> >a sort of "th" sound in Egyptian, which I had rather doubted,
> >but here it is obvious that something is going on. Either the
> >Hebrews, in typical fashion of those who cannot pronounce "th",
> >turned it to "z" or the Egyptians, encountering the "z", which
> >is not supposed to be in their alphabet, did a sort of Castilian
> >turn and transformed it to "th"!
>
> How is "parthal" written exactly?
I am glad you asked, Miquel, because it has made me investigate this
matter further. It is written "wild duck, mouth with two slashes above
and a vertical dash below, duckling, lion, determinative for metal".
Budge gives the "duckling" a "th" sound in his dictionary, but when I
looked in Budge's "Mummy", he explains that the duckling has the
vocalization of "tch", probably as in "chin". It may have been given
another vocalization by now, for all I know. Anyway, paging through the
dictionary, it looks like the "duckling" is stuck in quite often
whenever there is a Hebrew loan word or cognate that contains a
"zayin".. Oh, yes--I gave the Hebrew for "iron" as "barzal" from memory,
but it should be "barzel" instead. Also, there is another glyph that
looks something like a tuning fork that is supposed to be "th"--Budge
always writes it with a Greek "theta".
Saida
Subject: Re: Great Pyramid Dimensions.
From: Martin Stower
Date: 18 Oct 1996 17:20:25 GMT
Rodney Small wrote:
>Martin Stower wrote:
> > Davidson and Aldersmith
>> have added all of 17.5 inches! (Fix goes on to borrow the figure and use it
>> in his own numerical fudging.)
>
>Hmmm, if you're right here, it certainly diminshes the
>equatorial longitude correlation. However, Fix states at p. 237 of
>"Pyramid Odyssey": "The point where the extension of the Pyramid's
>diagonal comes out of the socket is indicated by an incised line 51 cm
>from the corner. But according to Davidson, Rutherford, and earlier
>surveys by Petrie and the Royal Engineers, the western edge of the
>southwest socket is some 17.5 inches or 44 cm west of the incised line"
>(footnotes omitted). Admittedly, Fix does not cite Petrie here, but
>rather Davidson & Aldersmith and Rutherford.
Having looked at Rutherford's Pyramidology - a multi-volume work of
outstanding battiness - I'm confident he got the figure from Davidson
and Aldersmith. Not only was he in the same tradition, he also knew
them personally. As an independent source, he lacks credibility.
>Nonetheless, are you quite
>sure that Petrie never mentioned the 17.5 inches in any of his books?
The relevant book - the one that gives the figures Davidson and Aldersmith
got right - was his Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh. No mention of an extra
17.5 inches there.
When Cole made his measurements, he had the advantages of more modern
equipment and a thoroughly-cleared site. Comparison with his figures
shows that Petrie's were excellent approximations, but not entirely
accurate - there was some random error. Yet an analysis of the figures
given by Davidson and Aldersmith reveals a suspiciously neat pattern:
Deviation
from mean
N 9129.8 -0.5
E 9130.8 +0.5
S 9141.4 +11.1
W 9119.2 -11.1
Mean 9130.3
Perhaps a statistician could put it better, but to me this just screams
cooking of the figures, as in
S = (N + E) - W
>> Davidson and Aldersmith go on to revive Smyth's defunct notions about the
>> significance of the the perimeter of the pyramid - evidently the object of
>> the fudge.
>
>You say "evidently", I presume, because Davidson and Aldersmith do not
>allude to a longitude correlation. Rather, they try and develop the
>notion referenced by two posters here that the base encoded the solar
>year of 365.2422 days. However, the perimeter of the base including the
>sockets they claim Petrie measured was 36,521.2 inches. So if they
>fudged, why didn't they fudge to make this perimeter come out to be
>exactly 36,524.22 inches?
Er . . . have you actually looked at their book? A relevant sample:
. . . Petrie gives the oblique distance XM as 9141.4 B" [sic]. Now
the true geometrical Pyramid base side 36,524.24/4 P" = 9131.06 P"
= 9141.1 B". From this it is obvious that this distance over the
two sockets was the original setting out dimension for the corner to
corner distance of the Pyramid's base side.
Yeah, obvious. This, be it noted, is just a very small sample of their
arbitrary way with figures. Prolonged exposure to such stuff is not
advised - it can lead to headaches.
Martin
Subject: Re: Great Pyramid Dimensions
From: mturton@stsvr.showtower.com.tw (Michael Turton)
Date: 18 Oct 1996 14:22:01 GMT
In article <546ar0$2ab@shore.shore.net>,
whittet@shore.net (Steve Whittet) wrote:
[snipped other Martin-Steve exchange]
>The relation that is interesting is much simpler. The number of days
>in a millenia equals the number of feet in a degree of the earths
>surface along its equitorial circumference.
Steve, all these measurements are *approximations*. What
happens to your argument when better laser and radar measurements annihilate
your estimate of the circumference of the earth at the equator? I have
no doubt that the number of days in a millenium also equals the metropolitan
population of a number of medium-sized cities, or.....on what grounds is there
any significance in the fact that two numbers are approximately equal? I have
just discovered that the number of Chinese-English dictionaries on my desk
equals the number of sisters I have, which is also the same as the number of
large pyramids at Giza. Should I be mystically impressed?
>Do you wonder how could the Egyptians measure one degree
>of the earths surface, accurately c 2500 BC and why
>does it relate to the length of a year?
No. Perhaps you can explain why we should be impressed with this
apparent correlation. I can find no grounds for being impressed by the
fact that two arbitrarily-selected numbers are the same. We can measure
the year in picoseconds, nanoseconds, seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks,
ten-days (as in ancient China), months (lunar and solar) and so forth. Given
the thousands of ways to measure the length of the year in the thousands of
cultures found across the surface of the earth, it would be more impressive if
no match was found between them and the thousands of ways to generate
lengths (*chr*, *li*, *tswun*, mm, cm, m, km, miles, inches, yards, rods,
furlongs, chains, leagues, poles, perches,and god knows what else) across the
Great Pyramid. What are your grounds for choosing millimeters over other
measures of length (let alone measures common in the English-speaking world
over classical Arabic, Swahili or Chinese)? For example, I have found that
the length across one side of the base of the Great Pyramid in chains equals
the voting age in the United States. Hmmmmm........
>Can you give us an answer Martin?
>
>Steve
Can you give us an answer Steve?
Mike Turton
mturton@stsvr.showtower.com.tw
Subject: Re: Silver
From: seagoat@primenet.com (John A. Halloran)
Date: 18 Oct 1996 11:10:01 -0700
In article <5477gi$j46@halley.pi.net> mcv@pi.net (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) writes:
>I have found, also in my notes to Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, an Akkadian
>word for "iron", (Aramaic ), which is doubtlessly
>related to the Hebrew word. I don't know the origin, but it looks
>suspiciously Sumerian to me, a compound based on the Sumerian word BAR
>(or BAR-BAR > BABBAR) "white, silver, metal", as in ZA.BAR "bronze"
>(stone-silver?), AN.BAR "iron" (sky-silver), A.BAR "lead"
>(water-silver?).
>If so, BAR.ZILU, or ZILU.BAR actually, could be an excellent candidate
>for being the etymon of English "silver". But I don't know what to
>make of this Akkadian "-zillu". Sumerain means "to peel off",
> is "pleasing, nice". Maybe we should rather look at a word
>like , a weight (Sin-iddinam 6 II 16-24: "When I dug the
>Tigris, the big river, as wages each man received [??] barley, 2 sila
>bread, 4 sila beer, and 2 shekel oil, daily he received like this").
>But I don't know if this weight was ever used for silver or iron.
I already have in my lexicon as the Sumerian reading for the signs
AN.BAR 'iron', from plus 'to pare, cut'. Aside from obsidian
glass, iron makes the sharpest knives of any metal.
Regards,
John Halloran
Subject: Re: Father=Creator=Pater=Ptah=Pitar
From: mcv@pi.net (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 1996 18:15:27 GMT
Steve Whittet wrote:
>In article <544d1f$e31@halley.pi.net>, mcv@pi.net says...
>>
>>whittet@shore.net (Steve Whittet) wrote:
>>
>>>What I was claiming was that if you have the same sound and cognition
>>>in both European and Afro-Asian or Hamitic/Semitic, then at least
>>>according to Mallory, that word is a candidate for an Indo European
>>>or even proto-Indo European vocabulary.
>>
>>I have looked in the index to Mallory's "In Search of the IE'ans",
>>under both Hamito-Semitic and Semitic alone, and I have not found
>>anything similar to what you claim.
>
>Mallory "In Search of the Indo Europeans", Chapter Four
>"Proto Indo-European Culture", p 111-112
>
>" It is extremely uncommon, for example for the majority of
>Indo European languages to share the same
>Proto Indo-European word.
>
>Loss of the original vocabulary seems to have been high and
>is especially likely to have affected the languages only known
>in written form within the last 1000-2000 years.
>
>If this is the case in how many different languages must the
>same word occur to be counted as a Proto Indo-European word?
>
>There is really no wholly acceptable configuration of correspondence
>that may be utilized although one general rule of thumb demands at
>least a shared correspondence between a European and a non-adjacent
>Asian Language in order to attribute the word to high Indo European
>antiquity."
That's a European and an Asian *Indo-European* language.
See the immediately preceeding Chapters Two: The Indo-Europeans in
Asia (Anatolian, Phrygian, Armenian, Indo-Aryan, Iranian, Tocharian),
and Three: The Indo-Europeans in Europe (Greek, Illyrian, Slavic,
Baltic, Germanic, Italic, Celtic).
So, according to this rule of thumb if you have a word in Celtic and
Germanic (Europe-Europe) or in Indo-Aryan and Iranian (Asia-Asia)
only, you may not claim PIE ancestry for it. If it's in Celtic and
Sanskrit (Europe-Asia), you may. If it's in Greek and Armenian, you
may not (Europe-Asia, but they're adjacent).
[Ptiht-for-Ptaht etymological whitticisms snipped]
==
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal ~ ~
Amsterdam _____________ ~ ~
mcv@pi.net |_____________|||
========================== Ce .sig n'est pas une .cig
Subject: Re: BLACKNESS in Egyptian Art, Murals, etc. (REPOST)
From: grifcon@mindspring.com (Katherine M. Griffis)
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 1996 17:51:19 GMT
"S. F. Thomas" wrote:
>It was the same with me. That is the essential *forest* to
>which I always return when the eurocentrists try to confound
>me with endless disputation about individual *trees*. Sure,
>there were some caucasoids among the ancient Egyptian pharaohs,
>but it was clear to me, being there, and visiting the tombs,
>that by a large preponderance, they were Black people. Moreover,
>the further back in history, the more obviously Black they
>were. It therefore never ceases to irritate me when the
>Hollywood depictions and those of the tv documentaries, would
>have us believe that they were essentially White people. It
>is wrong and dishonest. The apologists for the eurocentric
>LIE taught in the history books do not hasten to correct these
>mis-depictions, but they hasten to correct afrocentric scholars
>on every minute, usually immaterial, point of scholarship.
>The asymmetry of course reveals their partisanship in the
>debate, and gives the lie to their claim of objective, dispassionate
>scholarship. Nevertheless, let us by all means examine with
>them the individual trees; but let us also keep always in mind
>the forest, as those of us who have been to Egypt find very
>easy to do.
Then, let us remember how *diverse* the African continent was, in its
groups of people and their so-called "racial make-up". I think it was
*best said* by Frank Yurco, when he said:
"This has been my stance ever since I became involved with this issue,
with the "Were the Ancient Egyptians 'Black' or 'White'?" article in
Biblical Archaeology Review, back in 1989, and I still stand by that
position, along with Trigger and Keita Shomarka, who both have noted
that the African population is highly diverse, something that the
Afrocentrists have found hard to swallow, with their claims that the
Africans are all "black". That is a nineteenth century American social
concept, that lumped all African people as "black" and so also, stated
that if one great grandparent of eight was African, then you were a
Negro, in American terminology regardless of what the person's
complexion might have been. To force this American concept onto the
African population of the whole continent flies in the face of the
anthropological facts, of the highly diverse African population."
<10/15/96>
As we enter the end of the 20th century, and into the new world of the
21st, let's NOT be dragged *kicking and screaming* into the old ways
of thinking of the *19th century* and the travesty **that** was.
Let's move on and discover the richness of the Egyptian civilization,
and celebrate its fascinating history of *how diverse peoples pull
together*, and created one of the most intriguing and powerful
cultures of all time.
Regards --
Katherine Griffis (Greenberg)
Member of the American Research Center in Egypt
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Special Studies
http://www.ccer.ggl.ruu.nl/ccer/PEOPLE2.HTML
Subject: Re: Pyramids and Aliens
From: Charlie Rigano
Date: 18 Oct 1996 22:21:56 GMT
fmurray@pobox,com (frank murray) wrote:
>On 16 Oct 1996 22:14:37 GMT, Charlie Rigano wrote:
Frank,
It struck me from your other posts that you were more
interested in the arguement than the subject. I may be
interested in both so let me respond.
>
>>.................................... At every step the
>>indications are by the layout of the structure, the
>>attendent structures, and the burial places surrounding the
>>pyramids that the final purpose of the pyramids was to
>>entomb (bury if you like) the king.
>
>but then he wrote:
>
>>- Since a number of kings had several burial places there
>>are pyramids which were not actually used for the burial of
>>a king - the Red and Bent are obvious examples.
>
>how can you say in the first quote: "the final purpose of the pyramids
>was to entomb" and then point out the red and the bent as
>exceptions...
They are not exceptions as I will explain below.
these are the second and fourth largest (in area) of the
>egyptian pyramids...and the fifth largest (in area - i believe it
>slightly larger than zawiyet el aryan) appears to have been built by
>the same king who built the red and the bent
I suppose you are referring to Meidum though maybe you
don't know enough about the subject to know the name.
There are two /\s at Zawiet, each of which is referred
to by a name - I wonder if you know them. The belief is
that Sneferu finished the /\ that was stared by Huni. All
this is based on very tenuous evidence.
..further, its likely
Wait a minute, do you mean you can say "likely" and give
credence to the word but we all can't. Care to explain
these other seven and identify sources. Does likely mean
he did it or someone thinks thinks he did it. Most of
these seven are attributed to Beby by J P Lepre.
>that seven more pyramids, including the only one i know of east of the
>nile, were built by him...how does the fact that, in your own
>admission, these pyramids were not built and used as tombs, indicate,
>let alone prove, that the others were built and used as tombs??...
>
>your circumstantial evidence regarding the history of building
>techniques is blown away by the direct evidence which you yourself
>offer...
My evidence is not "blown away" by your simple statement.
Do alittle research your self and present some arguements
that show I am wrong, don't just mouth off.
Try not to pick at the word but to remark on the ideas.
Try to sound intelligent.
My statements are not condrictory. I said the final
purpose of the pyramids is to entomb. During the kings
life the sites may have been used for other purposes, but
in the end they were for burials. Whether they were used
as such in the end or the king chose an alternate place
does not change the purpose for which they were built.
For me the evidence does not point to Sneferu being buried
in the Bent. It may be likely he was buried in the Red but
there has not been enough excavation to determine if the
site has the standard elements that would accompany a
burial location. The mortuary temple is there but the
south tomb, causeway, and valley temple have not been
identified.
The Seilia /\ is possibly Sneferu's and he may have
finished the Meidum /\. The rest I doubt. Obviously as I
said he was only buried in one place but that doesn't
change the intent of the structure. I have a crypt already
bought that is intended for my burial. I may change my
mind and be buried someplace else but that doesn't change
the purpose of the crypt.
>
>>- Sarcophagi have been found in many places - mastabas,
>>pyramids, rock cut tombs - which are consider burial
>>places. Some have had full bodies found in them.
>
>but the question is: have any of those in pyramids been found with
>bodies in them??...in the eighth largest pyramid (by area) a sealed
>sarcophagus, which edwards takes as having remained sealed since the
>time of the "burial", was found to contain no body...
There is actually no evidence that the coffer found in
Sekhemkhet's /\ was sealed since the time of the burial.
There is hard evidence in the fill that the pyramid was
resealed in Dynasty XXVI. I believe Edwards is wrong and
the coffer was also resealed. BTW, in the south tomb to
Sek. there was a body found in the burial chamber.
>
>>- There is not evidence that the pyramids had any other
>>purpose.
>
>but charlie, you have stated direct evidence that several of the
>largest pyramids were not built as tombs..... i'll requote you:
>
>>- Since a number of kings had several burial places there
>>are pyramids which were not actually used for the burial of
>>a king - the Red and Bent are obvious examples.
As I said that doesn't change their original purpose. They
wer built as tombs, not just used as tombs in the end.
>
>and you recognize the lack of evidence from the largest:
>
>>- Direct evidence such as an king found in a pyramid will
>>probably not be discovered. When looking at the empty GP
>>sarcophagus it is not possible to say what it once
>>contained.
>
>i thank you for your straightforward and honest answer here...
>
>>However, the wieght of 4500 year old evidence
>>is that the pyramids intended purpose was as burial places.
>
>and then you say this...please look at the evidence that you have
>cited...
>
I stand by the evidence I provided. Your playing with
words doesn't change it.
Charlie
Subject: Re: Father=Creator=Pater=Ptah=Pitar=Stupidity
From: whittet@shore.net (Steve Whittet)
Date: 18 Oct 1996 20:05:06 GMT
In article <32671C69.914@utoronto.ca>, t.sagrillo@utoronto.ca says...
>
>Steve Whittet wrote:
>>
>> In article <32658DE5.1B14@utoronto.ca>, t.sagrillo@utoronto.ca says...
>
>> >Steve Whittet wrote:
>> >[snip]
>> >
>> >> Chapter XXVI, "The Chapter of Giving a Heart" Rubric 7
>> >>
>> >> translates as "the truths which pervade the college (house of the mind
>> >> of Ptah) make knowledge and wisdom"
>> >
>> >Okay, I *think* I found this, though I am not sure based on the
>> >translation you offer. I have in the Dover reprint of Budges' Book of
>> >the Dead, page 89: Utterence (Chapter/Spell/Section/whatever you want to
>> >call it) 26, line 7 (BTW Steve, rubric just means a section written in
>> >red (usually indicated by underlining or an over-bar) -- it is not
>> >something that is numbered and this section is NOT a rubric, though the
>> >Utterence name at the beginning is) --
>> >
>> >dwn wi sxmt nTrt wnn=i m pt irw wD n=i m Hwt k3 ptH
>> >
>> >Budge translates this as:
>> >
>> >May the goddess Sekhet [sic]
>>
>> Budge misspelled Sekhet as Sekhmet, I agree.
>
> No Steve. Read it again. **Budge** misread ***Sekhmet*** as
>"Sekhet".
It's possible, Budge was starting pretty much from scratch, no
Gardiner of Faulkner to fall back on... Translating Egyptian
requires a little thought, not just stringing together some
isolated words and phrases into gibberish. Budges translations
got as far as identifying the isolated words and phrases but
had yet to really analise their meaning. In some cases the
analysis of the meaning really helps with the identification
and this is one such case.
> The name of the goddess is *Sekhmet*. The word 'sic' means
>"thus" in Latin. People insert it to note surprise at an unexpected word
>or phrase, as did I when I saw Budge write "Sekhet" instead of the
>expected Sekhmet.
Which is it Tony? Sekhmet is a place, not a goddess, Sekhet is
clearly what the hieroglyphic reads.
>
>[snip of much nonsense]
>> Continuing with Budge:
>>
>> > make me rise so that I may ascend unto heaven and there
>> >may be that which I commanded in the House of the Ka of
>> >Ptah (page 308).
>>
>> The Ka of Ptah is his mind. The house of the Ka of Ptah
>> is the college of Ptah where one who burns with the fire
>> of Sekmet, the eros for wisdom, can go to get an education.
>
>No Steve. A /Hwt k3/ is a chapel or temple. Look it up in Faulkner. It
>is an architectural term, not a metaphysical one.
Tony, I think I see the problem here. You visualise Egyptian religion
as priests dressed in animal skins practicing some kind of magical
mystical, metaphysical, mumbo jumbo, one step removed from witch doctors.
In fact an Egyptian temple was a college where scribes were trained
in reading and writing, mathematics, public administration, philosophy,
medicine, law, engineering, history and a host of other subjects.
Once you realise that toward the end of the 1st intermediate there
is both a huge increase in beaurocratic functions and a major change
in the Egyptian goverment to enable expanding responsibilities to be
delegated to officials with some knowledge of specific areas you are
really required to accept that the Egyptians had a system of public
education where these beaurocrats could be trained.
>
>> >Like most of his stuff, Budge was "wide of the mark"
>> >so to speak. What this really says is:
>> >
>> >The goddess Sekhmet straightens/stretches me.
>>
>> I would be interested to hear what you think this means.
>
>See below
>
>[snip]
>
>> > (and) a command shall be made for me
>
>[snip of Steve's free interpretation of Egyptian -- very funny too, btw!
>Had me ROFLMAO]
>
>> >in The House/Temple/Estate of the Ka of Ptah
>>
>> The house of the Ka of Ptah or the mind of Ptah
>> simply means the college or university of Ptah.
>
>Do you just make this up as you go along??? Look it up in Faulkner.
I did look it up in Faulkner and Gardiner and Budge, it is very clear
that the reference is to knowledge. Faulkner "rh papyrus" knowledge, p 151.
But Tony, look beyond Faulkner and Gardiner. Try and see the whole
picture.
Sekhet = Ptah's female counterpart, goddess of personal knowledge
a series of requests
give me a high position
give me a degree, title or rank
give me the House of the Ka of Ptah,
where the Ka is the physical double or mind
and Ptah is the creator of knowledge and wisdom.
rh papyrus = knowledge, wisdom
>
>> (ie, Memphis; BTW, /hwt k3 ptH/ is the origin of Greek
>> >aigiptos, Egypt).
>>
>> I know Budge translates
>> "The House of the Ka of Ptah" as Memphis
>> But you should know better.
>>
>> How do you equate the College of Ptah with Memphis?
>> There is no mention of Memphis here.
>
>Steve, do you have *any* idea just how foolish you look here? Memphis
>had many names, being the capital for most of ancient Egyptian history.
>/hwt k3 ptH/ was the name of the temple of Ptah in Memphis (he was the
>chief deity of the city).
Note that hwt in its most general sense means house not temple.
inside the glyph for house we have the glyphs "pth" = create
and "ka" = physical double or things of the mind
inside the glyph for house we have the phrase "create knowledge"
outside it is a place determinative and then "rh papyrus"
which means knowledge or wisdom.
This is the sort of lazy, sloppy, look it up in a book and never
think about it once translation that gives Egyptology a bad name.
I am embarrassed for you.
>The name of the temple was generalised to that of the entire city.
>/hwt k3 ptH/ comes into Coptic as ekeptia
>(e (fem.-t no longer pronouced) + ke + ptia).
This is like telling me that a reference to Boston University just
means Boston, explain the references to Sekhet which preceed and
follow the reference to the place of knowledge, the "hwt ka pth".
> The name of the city was at some point generalised into that
>of the entire country in Greek as aigiptos, Latin Aegyptus,
>English Egypt. Amazing! (The name "Memphis" from /mn
>nfr/ is another example of generalising the name of a specific
>architectural complex to the name of the entire city).
I am suprised to find your analysis this superficial
>
>> The determinative
>> for city or compound or cluster of buildings is present
>> but what we are talking about is a school or university
>> not a city. The k3 pth (mind of Ptah) is enclosed in
>> the h making it a house, compound or cluster of buildings.
>> >
>> >Alternately, this could be taken as:
>> >
>> >.....I shall be in the sky (while/but) what I have commanded is
>> >done/preformed/made in Memphis
>>
>> Try and understand what you are reading. What is the meaning
>> of the phrase "I shall be in the sky"? How does it connect to
>> what went before and what comes after? This is the sort of
>> translation which makes people think the Egyptians were retarded.
>
>THey were not retarded, but this is religious material.
Your perception of this as "religious material" seems colored by
"religious material" as we know it, where it has degenerated into
a bunch of superstitious nonsense.
To an Egyptian who believed in living the life in Ma'at, or doing
what was right and proper, the worship of Thoth meant learning to
read and write and do sums. To measure, to weigh and to judge as a
ruler. This was a part of the education of most public officials.
The worship of Bes meant learning to play music and to entertain.
A worshiper of Anubis was studying to be a mortician.
A worshiper of Nepthys studied home economics.
A worshipper of Isis learned politics.
When Akhenaten closed all of the temples in Egypt what he really
did was close all the schools, thereby atempting to reduce the
power of the governmental beaurocracy.
> Why *should* it make sense? Half the time the Egyptians
>themselves did not "get it" and said so in side notes.
Not everybody was able to "get it" because it is both
subtle and sophisticated and requires some humility
to approach it. One must begin to learn by admitting
that one does not already know and that was probably
as difficult for the Egyptians as it is for us.
>Actually if you bother to read the whole Utterance you will
>see that the dead person is describing how various
>deities will revive various parts of his body.
There are two possible interpreations:
1.) Because the texts were found buried with mummies
in their sarcophagi they were called the "Book of the Dead"
Its actual title is closer to "The Way of Coming into the Light.
The text can be read as the prayer of the individual that
all his pieces will be kept together in the next world
something like
It is implored of the next world that the person about
to enter be allowed to keep together all the parts that
are considered to make the individual an individual, even
as that individual becomes one with nature.
Or it can be read as the certification of an official
charged with the mummification process that he has checked
to see that all the pieces are present and has not neglected
to do anything necessary to assure the deceased rests in peace.
Or it can be read as the examination of an individual
to make sure he is healthy in body and mind and that
all his parts are functioning properly prior to
allowing himmto take his entrance exams and
admitting him to college
"rn"= name, official certification
"tm m" = everything, total, be complete
"hsf" = wind together
"a" = state, condition
"tu" = this
"ab" = heart case, physical existence
"wsir" = visir (overseer of Osirus) scribe determinative [attested by]
"htp" = thanks
"neteru" = nature (all the gods and all the principles they stand for)
"any"= determinative for scribal overseer, trained to carve and write
"hr"= agent of
"hwt wsir" = the college of overseers
"nf" = his essence
I would read this as
2.) It is certified by Ani, overseer of Osirus, that I have examined
this physical body, all the pieces of this person, and all is as it
should be.
("Geb...opens my eyes...he
"Geb" is not mentioned here, Tony is misreading the glyph "sa"
which means "son". There is no determinative for god so that's clear.
>extends my legs"; etc.).
The actually passage reads as
Don't let me approach this examination as an enemy, I won't flee
(run away) from it. Let's just get it over with quickly. Sehkmet
goddess of self knowledge quide me, the time has come.
The alternative reading might be don't let me approach death
as an enemyI won't flee (run away) from it. Let's just get it
over with quickly. Sehkmet goddess of self knowledge quide me,
the time has come.
Sekhmet stretches him out (as does Anubis in
>the line previous). The dead person will be in the sky because he is to
>live again.
The person asks to be raised up and given rank and to be
commended to the university, to have a place made for him there.
>
>> >
>> >So now, where's "Ptah r" or any concept of father???
>>
>> The concept of "creator" here means creator of wisdom.
>> The title "father of fathers" means "teacher of teachers"
>>
>> Where's your "r"
>>
>> following the determinative for place after phrase
>> "the House of the Ka of Ptah"we have
>> "rh papyrus determinative"
>> given by Faulkner as learning/ knowledge /wisdom
>>
>> make wisdom
>
>Steve, it is the *verb* /rx/ "to know; be aware" and is the 1st word of
>the next sentence. It has *nothing* to do with Ptah. The sentence is:
>
>rx=i m ib=i
There is no Egyptian glyph for x to my knowledge.
The Faulkner "rh papyrus determinative" on page 151
lists, know, know how to, be able to, be aware of, learn
inquire, know of, inform, I had my wit's about me
I will bring you to your senses, aquire wisdom,
skilled workmanship, wisdom, wise learned man,
wisest of all men, knowledge, opinion, wise man.
>> given by Faulkner as learning/ knowledge /wisdom
The following sentence says
implore
from
heart
sekhert
give
success (Gardiner D56)
>
>I shall know in my heart (alt., I shall be aware in my mind)
>
>(/ib/ is often used when English would use "mind" as the Egyptians
>conceived of the place of thought was the heart)
>
>> >form of /iri/?? The passive form of /iri/ (/irw/) *is* written (well in
>> >front of Ptah I might add), and it so happens to be an **eye** without
>> >the phonetic complement of /r/.
>>
>> No. form of "rh payrus determinative"
Look at Faulkner page 151
it is a biliteral with determinative, but it seems to be
derived from the verb to make or do "r" plus knowledge
h papyrus.
>> "iri" is written with its vowels dropped as a mouth as it is
>> combined into a compound biliteral sign meaning make wisdom
>> where the "r" has the sense of the verb "iri" to make or do
>> starts us off and then we go on to explain what it is that
>> we are going to do.
>
>Rubbish! It is the verb /rx/ "to know; to be aware"; it has NOTHING to
>do with /iri/. /iri/ isn't written with vowels of any sort ever, and
>there is NO form of /iri/ written only as an /r/ (*still* didn't figure
>that phontetic complement stuff yet did you?).
Try reading Faulkner p 151. It is a biliteral glyph; a combination
made up from monoliterals by common usage.
>
>[btw, for anyone who cares, the /i/ used in transliteration of Egyptian
>represents a consonent /y/ or a glottal stop; it is not to be taken as
>the vowel "i"]
so what you are claiming is that in the verb "iri" to do or make
there are no consonants and no vowels in the word except for
the consonant "r" Diacritical marks and glottal stops are not
a part of the Egyptian phonetic complement which is written "r"
>
>> The invocation of the name of a god or a major attribute
>> such as the "ka" has to be considered carefully when making
>> an evaluation of the sense of the phrase.
>>
>> What we have here is a student asking for the college of
>> Ptah to enroll him in studies "the truths which pervade
>> the college (house of the mind of Ptah) make knowledge
>> and wisdom" leading to certification as a teacher.
>>
>> For Ptah to create him as a teacher.
>
>BS.
>
>One last thing....
>
>[flame on]
>
>I understand that not everyone has the opportunity to study Egyptian
>language as thorougly as I have been lucky enough to do so.
Good thing too. You are parroting back responses from what you read
in a book instead of actually thinking about what you read.
> I respect that a great deal and don't expect others to be up on the
>language,especially if they are self-taught (as many are).
You consider yourself superior to the rest of us, but that's
ok, you don't expect much from us?
> I disagree with Saida sometimes but she has a good grasp
>of the language and what is going on.
Yes she does, so if you also have a good grasp of the language
why is it that you disagree?
>She may not be up to date on the latest discussions in Egyptian
>phonetics, but in the end, so what? No one cares about them anyhow. At
>least she understands the basics.
>
> You on the other hand, Steve, don't have a clue. You make it up as you
>go along;
I do the following:
1.) I take a passage from Budge which has a number of lines
of glyphs plus a translation.
2.) I discard Budges translation
3.) I go to Faulkner and try to find the glyphs in a phrase.
4.) If I can't find the phrase, I go to Gardiner and look up
the individual glyph
5.) Then I write them down in a list
6.) I break the list into sentences
7.) It often seems that there are several possible ways to go
with the sense of a sentence. The above is one such example.
8.) I keep in mind that what are listed in Gardiner and Faulkner
were read by people with little or no concern for modern conventions
of grammar and spelling.
9.) There often is some common sense to each individual glyph
modified by the addition or subtraction of other glyphs to it.
10.) A sensible translation with maximum coherence is the goal
can't even blame it on learning from Budge. The thing that
>really bothers me is that you lecture others about needing to read
>Gardiner , et al., not only myself but others, yet you don't even
>understand the most fundemental basics (such as what a phonetic
>complement is). I guess a little knowledge in you case is a dangerous
>thing.
>
Perhaps, I certainly admit there is often much I do not understand.
One thing I don't understand is why you wish to believe the Egyptians
were so primitive and obsessed wwith prayers that they never wrote
anything in their books except of a religious nature?
>I've wasted enough time on you Steve. You are either a very well-read
>idiot or a troll (personally I think you are a troll). In either case,
>we're done. Your name has gone into the kill-file. Bye!
Hey, things are improving, Piotr doesn't even think I am well read!
>
>[flame off]
>
>Troy
steve