Subject: Re: Etruscans [was: Re: The Coming of the Greeks]
From: whittet@shore.net (Steve Whittet)
Date: 12 Nov 1996 15:43:35 GMT
In article <56932m$jrp@halley.pi.net>, mcv@pi.netÁ says...
>
>whittet@shore.net (Steve Whittet) wrote:
>
>>What is the physical connection that allows Anatolian Luwian
>>to reach central Italy? Woudhuizen links Luwian with the
>>Phaistos Disk of Southern Crete. Some of the particulars
>>of the inscriptions you mention are identical with that artifact.
>
>If I understand Woudhuizen correctly, he thinks the Phaistos disk and
>other Cretan texts are "West-Luwian", that is to say: Proto-Lycian, more
>or less.
Well the first issue is probably the date. The Phaistos Disk is c 1700 BC
and Pictographic. Lumian is apparently existent at this time in cuneiform
only. The Pictographic writing seems to develop into cuneiform c 2300 BC
but a latter use of glyphs is exemplified by the Kassite Kuduru c 1400 BC
and these seem to fit both the Luwian and Phaistos Disk glyph sets.
Additionally you recently mentioned an Etruscan inscription which
makes prominent use of a head and shield and this is also found on
the Phaistoes Disk at the end of each glyph set on one side.
The Hittites come into conflict with Egypt and most of the
other players in the region are involved as allies.
c 1285 BC there is the battle of Kadesh
c 1200 BC we have the Trojan war, the Illiad and the Odyssey.
(Troy IIA destroyed c 1250/1200 BC)
c 1200 BC there are major incursions from North Western Anatolia
counter clockwise around the Anatolian coast through Alasiya to
Ugarit and Palestine, and an influx of sea people in Egypt.
How does all this activity affect the Luwian language?
>It should be understood that our knowledge of the Anatolian branch of IE
>languages is very incomplete and fragmentary: what we have in fact are
>no more than three snapshots:
>
>1. 1700-1200 BC, cuneiform texts from the Hittite Empire in Central
>Anatolia. Most of the texts are in Hittite (Nesite), a language which
>may have originated around the city of Kanesh, somewhat to the
>south-east of Hattussa, the Hittite capital. The original language of
>Hattussa is called Hattic, and is not Indo-European. To the north of
>the Hittites (on the Paphlagonian coast) Palaic was spoken, an IE
>Anatolian language. To the south, in the Konya plain and the Cilician
>coast, Luwian was spoken. Many Luwian and some Palaic cuneiform
>inscriptions have been found at Hattussa, and they are both clearly
>different from, but related to Hittite. Nothing is known of the
>languages spoken further west. To the east of Palaic-Hittite-Luwian,
>non-IE languages were spoken: Kaska in the Pontus-Caucasus region,
>Hurrian in the Armenian mountains and in Syria.
Ok, the Phaistos Disk is c 1700 BC and pictographic. Luwian originates
on the eastern edge of Anatolia in a cuneiform script at Kanesh which
is the terminus of a trade route.
Over the next 300 years Luwian develops a hieroglyphic form and moves
toward Lycia or Western Anatolia away from the territory of the Kaska
toward the territory of the Ahhiyawa and Arzawa.
Meanwhile the people running Kanesh abandon it to form Hattussa
c 1550 BC where some Luwian cuneiform inscriptions have been found.
That would seem to relate Luwian to Hittite.
By c 1285 BC they are in the territory of the Lukka, a sea people
on the southern coast of Anatolia trading with the Alysia in Cyprus.
Between c 1700 and c 1200 BC the trade route from Kanesh passes
through territory in the hands of the Sumerians, Akkadians and
Syrians. It is controlled by Hittites, Hurrians, Mittani,
Old Babylon, Mari, the Kasites and Egypt to mention a few
of the more prominent players.
That would seem to relate Luwian to the Kassite Kuderu.
After c 1200 BC western Anatolia begins to become Ionian Greece.
Mysia, Aeolis, Ionia, Caria, Doris and the Cyclades include such
Greek cities as Lesbos, Phocaea, Smyrna, Chioes, Erythrae, Ephesus,
Samos, Milettus, Cos, Cnidus, Rhodes, Minoa and Thera.
That would seem to relate Luwian to Greek.
>
>2. 1100-700 BC, hyeroglyphic Luwian texts from the "Neo-Hittite" states
>in Commagene (SE. Anatolia) and Syria. These texts are in an eastern
>variant of "Cuneiform Luwian" as known from the Hattussa archives.
>Neigbouring languages were Semitic to the south and Urartian (a late
>form of Hurrian) in the north-east. A new wave of non-Anatolian IE
>languages had entered the area (Phrygian in Central Anatolia, and
>Armenian, which eventually took over the Urartian state around lake
>Van).
>
>3. 600-200 BC, alphabetic texts from Western Anatolia, in Lydian, Carian
>and Lycian. It seems certain that Lycian is a late, western variant of
>Luwian. The Lydian language is quite different, and has several
>peculiarities which cannot be derived from either Luwian, Hittite or
>Palaic, so we must assume it consitutes an independent branch of
>Anatolian. Very little is known about Carian.
Here I am refering to Michael Grant "The Rise of the Greeks."
who claims that the Carians were already resident on Chios in Ionia
c 1100 BC, sharing the island with the Lydians. (Luwians)[Lukka]
Chios is reputed to have been the home of Homer. Homer who is
writing c 700 BC using a newly reintroduced form of writing,
includes fragments of earlier written documents such as the list
of Achean ships.
>
>What Best and Woudhuizen are trying to prove is the presence of
>West-Luwian (Proto-Lycian) and Proto-Lydian in second millennium Greece
>and Crete. The "Sea Peoples" upheaval of c. 1200 BC would have taken
>these Aegean Anatolian dialects ("Pelasgian" and "Tyrhhenian") to
>Tuscany and other places.
The Pelasgi are supposed to have come from Dodona in Epirus and
invaded Italy via the northern Adriatic on their way to Umbria.
The Tyrrhenians are associated with the Etruscans in a similar
fashion with the addional association of trade with Corinth,
and with Corsica.
Etruria was bounded by the Arnus and the Tiber. Off its coasts
where the Shardannae of Sardinia and Corsica. In Eritrea have
been found Egyptian scarabs manufactured by Phoenicians under
the supervision of Egyptians.
>
>The difficulty is of course that we don't know what West Luwian and
>Proto-Lydian were like in the second millennium. We know second
>millennium Central Luwian, second-first millennium East Luwian, and
>first millennium West Luwian (Lycian), Carian and Lydian. Best and
>Woudhuizen's approach seems to be to take this difficulty as a blessing:
>freely choosing parallels from either of three periods, and from any of
>the langauges in question, greatly enhances their chance of a hit. At
>the same time, it also greatly diminishes their chance of having their
>work accepted by the specialists.
Here it might be interesting to discuss the Eritrean emporia at Al Mina
from which it is said the Greeks got their script from the Phoenicians.
>
>[700 year time gap]
>>I don't follow this. Both have a common point from which they each
>>diverge 700 years. How is that equivalent to a divergence of 1400
>>years? Use English as a comparitive example. Take the English spoken
>>in Scotland and Britain 700 years ago. Are those dialects as relatively
>>unintelligible to each other today as American English and Anglo Saxon?
>
>Not sure what you mean here. The difficulty with Etruscan-Lemnian is
>that we *can not* compare with the language as it was 1200 BC, because
>we don't have it.
Maybe we do. If the first colonists of the region were colonists
from such western semitic regions as Tyre, perhaps the language
was Phoenician. The Peleset and the pelagasi were the same people
who settled Palestine from Phaistos in Crete
It is interesting that the place names Euboea and Pithecusae
recur in the Carthage area. Carthage was probably established
at about the same time as many of the Greek colonies in Italy.
Since these colonists came from the City of Tyre they called
their sea the Tyrrhenian sea.
Other colonists called Partheniai, or sons of concubines,
came from Sparta to found Taras in the heel of Italy in 506 BC,
and there were also settlements from Crete.
> Contemporary American English can be compared to both
>British English, and Shakespearean English: we have a "three
>dimensional" view. Etruscan and Lemnian (what little is known of them)
>can only be compared to each other, in "two dimensions". Linguists,
>especially Indo-Europeanists, are used to having three dimensions in
>comparing languages.
>You have to be careful not to be misled into a
>distorted view by the two-dimensionality of this case.
You are right to chide me Miquel, I am often guilty of a very
limited focus and unimaginative approach to such questions.
>
>>>[Lemnos stele:]
>>>> >I don't think so: the text clearly reads "tis phoke", and previously
>>>> >there has been talk of "Holaiesi phokiasiale", probably "Holaios the
>>>> >Phocaean".
>
>>Why is "Holaios the Phocaean" a better reading than
>>"Helios the folk festival"?
>
>See my other post on Herodotus' mention of Kolaios the Samian
>(Phocaean?).
Yes, I see.
>
>>>A:
>>>
>>> ^ <--\
>>> | <------ ^
>>> |--------> |
>>>S|<-------- |
>>>P|--> |
>>>E|^ HEAD |
>>>A|| |
>>>R|| SHIELD
>
>In case somebody else has not understood this and the other diagram:
>this is supposed to represent lines of text and the direction in which
>they should be read, horizontal left to right -->, right to left <--,
> | ^
>vertical top to bottom | and bottom to top |. The best I can do in
> v |
>(fixed width font) ASCII, I'm afraid. The glyphs themselves are in a
>rather unsurprising early form of the Greek alphabet.
What I was reacting to was not the glyphs, but the head and shield
The glyphs are written in bostradon (sp) as the ox plows. The head
and shield associated with the glyphs seems to be the sort of icon
associated with the Kassite kuderru.
...snip...
>==
>Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
steve
Subject: Re: Shang script among Olmecs
From: yuku@io.org (Yuri Kuchinsky)
Date: 12 Nov 1996 19:26:21 GMT
Here's the article in the US NEWS that I took from their website. Enjoy!
Yuri.
A TALE OF TWO CULTURES
A BEIJING SCHOLAR LINKS AN ANCIENT CHINESE DYNASTY TO THE NEW WORLD'S
EARLIEST CIVILIZATION
Abroad for the first time in his life, Han Ping Chen, a
scholar of ancient Chinese, landed at Dulles International Airport
near Washington, D.C., the night of September 18. Next morning, he
paced in front of the National Gallery of Art, waiting for the museum
to open so he could visit an Olmec exhibit--works from Mesoamerica's
spectacular "mother culture" that emerged suddenly 3,200 years ago,
with no apparent local antecedents. After a glance at a 10-ton basalt
sculpture of a head, Chen faced the object that prompted his trip: an
Olmec sculpture found in La Venta, 10 miles south of the southernmost
cove of the Gulf of Mexico.
What the Chinese scholar saw was 15 male figures made of serpentine
or jade, each about 6 inches tall. Facing them were a taller
sandstone figure and six upright, polished jade blades called celts.
The celts bore incised markings, some of them faded. Proceeding from
right to left, Chen scrutinized the markings silently, grimacing when
he was unable to make out more than a few squiggles on the second and
third celts. But the lower half of the fourth blade made him jump. "I
can read this easily," he shouted. "Clearly, these are Chinese
characters."
For years, scholars have waged a passionate--and often nasty--debate
over whether Asian refugees and adventurers might somehow have made
their way to the New World long before Columbus, stimulating
brilliant achievements in cosmogony, art, astronomy and architecture
in a succession of cultures from the Olmec to the Maya and Aztec. On
one side are the "diffusionists," who have compiled a long list of
links between Asian and Mesoamerican cultures, including similar
rules for the Aztec board game of patolli and the Asian pachisi (also
known as Parcheesi), a theological focus in ancient China and
Mesoamerica on tiger-jaguar and dragonlike creatures, and a custom,
common both to China's Shang dynasty and the Olmecs, of putting a
jade bead in the mouth of a deceased person. "Nativists," on the
other hand, dismiss such theories as ridiculous and argue for the
autonomous development of pre-Columbian civilizations. They bristle
at the suggestion that indigenous people did not evolve on their own.
Striking resemblances. For diffusionists, Olmec art offers a tempting
arena for speculation. Carbon-dating places the Olmec era between
1,000 and 1,200 B.C., coinciding with the Shang dynasty's fall in
China. American archaeologists unearthed the group sculpture in 1955.
Looking at the sculpture displayed in the National Gallery, as well
as other Olmec pieces, some Mexican and American scholars have been
struck by the resemblances to Chinese artifacts. (In fact,
archaeologists initially labeled the first Olmec figures found at the
turn of the century as Chinese). Migrations from Asia over the land
bridge 10,000-15,000 years ago could account for the Chinese
features, such as slanted eyes, but not for the stylized mouths and
postures particular to sophisticated Chinese art that emerged in
recent millenniums.
Yet until Chen made his pilgrimage to the museum this fall, no Shang
specialist had ever studied the Olmec. The scholar emerged from the
exhibit with a theory: After the Shang army was routed and the
emperor killed, he suggested, some loyalists might have sailed down
the Yellow River and taken to the ocean. There, perhaps, they drifted
with a current which skirts Japan's coast, heads for California, then
peters out near Ecuador. Betty Meggers, a senior Smithsonian
archaeologist who has linked pottery dug up in Ecuador to shipwrecked
Japanese 5,000 years ago, says such an idea is "plausible" because
ancient Asian mariners were far more proficient than they were given
credit for.[1] [IMAGE]
But Chen's identification of the celt markings is likely to sharpen
the controversy over origins even further. For example,
Mesoamericanist Michael Coe of Yale University labels Chen's search
for Chinese characters as "insulting to the indigenous people of
Mexico." And some scholars who share Chen's narrow expertise are
equally skeptical. There are only about a dozen experts worldwide in
the Shang script, which is largely unrecognizable to readers of
modern Chinese. Of the Americans, Profs. William Boltz of the
University of Washington and Robert Bagley of Princeton recently
looked at a drawing of the celts but dismissed as "rubbish" the
notion that the characters could be Chinese. Those looking for a link
between the two cultures, Bagley said, are Chinese, and "it no doubt
gratifies their ethnic pride to discover that Mesoamerican
civilization springs from China."
Others would like to see the celts before taking sides. David
Keightley, University of California--Berkeley professor of history,
said some characters on the celts "could, of course, be Shang, though
I don't at present see it that way." His Chinese colleagues, he said
"may just be onto something," and he noted that "it's important that
scholars from China examine this material."
Chen, 47, is uninterested in the Mesoamericanists' war. When Prof.
Mike Xu, a professor of Chinese history at the University of Central
Oklahoma, traveled to Beijing to ask Chen to examine his index of 146
markings from pre-Columbian objects, Chen refused, saying he had no
interest in anything outside China. He relented only after a
colleague familiar with Xu's work insisted that Chen, as China's
leading authority, take a look. He did and found that all but three
of Xu's markings "could have come from China."
Xu was at Chen's side in the National Gallery when the Shang scholar
read the text on the Olmec celt in Chinese and translated: "The ruler
and his chieftains establish the foundation for a kingdom." Chen
located each of the characters on the celt in three well-worn Chinese
dictionaries he had with him. Two adjacent characters (detail,
above), usually read as "master and subjects," but Chen decided that
in this context they might mean "ruler and his chieftains." The
character on the line below he recognized as the symbol for "kingdom"
or "country": two peaks for hills, a curving line underneath for
river. The next character, Chen said, suggests a bird but means
"waterfall," completing the description. The bottom character he read
as "foundation" or "establish," implying the act of founding
something important. If Chen is right, the celts not only offer the
earliest writing in the New World but mark the birth of a Chinese
settlement more than 3,000 years ago.[2] [IMAGE]
At lunch the next day, Chen said he was awake all night thinking
about the sculpture. He talked about how he had studied Chinese
script at age 5, tutored by his father, then director of the national
archives. But Chen's father did not live to enjoy the honors the son
reaped, such as a recent assignment to compile a new dictionary of
characters used by the earliest dynasties--the first update since one
commissioned by a Han emperor 2,000 years ago.
Color nuances. Chen was so taken with the Olmec sculpture that he
ventured beyond scholarly caution. The group sculpture, he said,
might memorialize "a historic event," either a blessing sought from
ancestors or the act of founding a new kingdom or both. He was
mesmerized by the tallest figure in the sculpture--made from red
sandstone as porous as a sponge, in contrast to the others, which are
highly polished and green-blue in hue. Red suggests higher status,
Chen said. Perhaps the figure was the master of the group, a
venerated ancestral spirit. The two dark blue figures to the right
might represent the top noblemen, more important than the two others,
carved out of pale green serpentine.
The Smithsonian's Meggers says that Chen's analysis of the colors
"makes sense. But his reading of the text is the clincher. Writing
systems are too arbitrary and complex. They cannot be independently
reinvented."
Whether Chen's colleagues ultimately hail him or hang him, his theory
yields a tale worthy of Joseph Conrad. And like Conrad, he cannot
resist offering yet another footnote from the past: More than 5,000
Shang characters have survived, Chen says, even though the soldiers
who defeated the Shang forces murdered the scholars and burned or
buried any object with writing on it. In a recent excavation in the
Shang capital of Anyang, archaeologists have found a buried library
of turtle shells covered with characters. And at the entrance lay the
skeleton of the librarian, stabbed in the back and clutching some
writings to his breast.
The Olmec sculpture was buried under white sand topped with alternate
layers of brown and reddish-brown sand. Perhaps it was hidden to save
it from the kind of rage that sought to wipe out the Shang and their
memory.
BY CHARLES FENYVESI
© Copyright U.S. News & World Report, Inc. All rights reserved.
--
** Yuri Kuchinsky in Toronto **
-- a webpage like any other... http://www.io.org/~yuku --
Most of the evils of life arise from man's being
unable to sit still in a room || B. Pascal
Subject: Re: LUCY: ``Yes, we have no bananas!"
From: ndrosen@bu.edu (Nicholas Rosen)
Date: 12 Nov 1996 16:49:45 GMT
Ed Conrad (edconrad@prolog.net) wrote:
: To my mind, the ONLY physical anthropologist who possessed scientific
: integrity in a search for honest answers to legitimate questions about
: man's origin and ancestry was the late Dr. Earnest A. Hooton, longtime
: professor of anthropology at Harvard University.
: It says a lot about the man's integrity and intestinal fortitude when
: he could write a book, appropriately titled ``Apes, Men and Morons."
: Two quotes in his book stand out like beacons:
: > ``I can point to many anatomical features of man
: > in which the known courses of evolution can be
: > explained plausibly by the theory of natural
: > selection, but I do not know of one in which
: > it can be proved."
Well, strictly speaking, that's true. And it cannot be proved that the
fall of apples and the orbits of planets are caused by gravity -- it's
only a plausible explanation. It's so plausible, in fact, that every
informed person believes that Newton's Law of Gravity is a good
approximation to the truth, and similarly with evolution.
: > ``I am also convinced that science pursues
: > a foolish and fatal policy when it tries to keep up
: > its bluff of omniscience in matters of which it is sitill
: > woefully ignorant. Sooner or later the intelligent
: > public is going to call that bluff."
Bluff of omniscience? Science? Not so, sir. There may be scientists
guilty of arrogance, but science does not pretend to omniscience (unlike
certain religions). Science says: "This is what has been observed,
and this is what most scientists believe, because it's the simplest
hypothesis that fits the facts. We are willing to change our views if
you come up with a hypothesis which fits the facts better, or with new
observations which can't be explained by the current hypothesis. We
are not going to change our views just because you call us names."
--
Nicholas Rosen
Standard disclaimers apply. I'm not speaking for Boston University. Look,
when our esteemed Chancellor has an opinion on something, he doesn't need
me to express it for him.
Subject: Re: Shang script among Olmecs
From: "D. Tschudi"
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 96 14:18:28 -05
In Article, write:
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> From: piotrm@umich.edu (Piotr Michalowski)
> Newsgroups: sci.archaeology.mesoamerican,sci.archaeology
> Subject: Re: Shang script among Olmecs
> Date: Sun, 10 Nov 1996 14:03:03
> Organization: University of Michigan
> Lines: 22
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>
> In article <563pc6$ari@midland.co.nz> gblack@midland.co.nz (George Black)
writes:
>
> >>I won't get too excited just yet. There have been others who have claimed
> >>that they too can "read" Olmec inscriptions. However, some of these have
> >>claimed they can read them because they are written in an *African*
dialect.
> >>So the Olmec were borrowing their writing from not only the Chinese but
> >>the Africans as well. How interesting....
> >>
>
> Actually, there has been some serious work on this
> writing system, which is the earliest deciphered writing system in
> Mesoamerica, if I understand things correctly. Since the script includes
> syllabic as well as logographic values, and can be demonstrably shown to be
> represent "pre-proto-Zoquean", that is a stage of an ancestor to languages
> still spoken in the area today, I wonder how anyone could read them in
another
> language, especially Chinese, which, unless I am mistaken, is hardly related
> to any Mesoamerican language. A short report on the decipherment can be
> conveniently found in John B. Justeson and Terrence Kaufman, "A Decipherment
> of Epi-Olmec Hieroglyphic Writing," Science 259 (1993) 1703ff. One
sometimes
> wonders why anyone bothers with serious research, when even articles on
> Science are not read, but all sorts of sensationalist nonsense brings on
> myriads of comments!
Of course, "written language" containing syllabic and logographic values could
be interpreted by speakers of many languages if familiar with logographic
values. The amount of content understood would be in inverse proportion to the
amount of syllabic information contained in the document. Ideograms are read
accurately to this day by people speaking widely diverse languages.
So, was Shang at time of Olmec writings primarily logographic? Is there a
significant number of matches between the two? Do we really need someone
fluent in Shang to look at these matches? Pictographic evolution is available
for Asian writings...Olmec should reveal close matches of same...Is Dr. Chen
available for lectures? ;0
Serious research becomes part of a body of knowledge and is available to those
few who can and will pursue its meanings...the comradeship of researchers is
a smaller circle than that of people who read Discover/Omni/chariots of the
dogs and these huge numbers of people have access to newsgroups...you can
exchange information in a newsgroup, but you can't find validity and
respect...that comes from your peers who see your postings or read your
publications and ultimately validity and respect come from your interior.
Although I am not a scholar or any sort, I feel I see more cross-pollenization
of info going from the serious to the dilettante than from d. to d. (if we
weed out all that repetition) or d. to s., and I thank the s. for that.
Subject: Relative Hirsuteness in European Felines
From: Marc Line
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 1996 22:04:20 +0000
Dear Archaeologia
I have been asked by a very dear friend and colleague, Prof. Grifcon of
the Arousal Response Centre of Excellence, to divulge the results of my
considerable, though as yet incomplete and therefore unpublishable
research, into the Relative Hirsuteness of the European Feline. I
should point out, ab ovo, that the research of which I speak, concerning
as it does, an area which is Virgin Territory to science, requires very
delicate handling. As soon as the in-depth analysis of the first-hand
data is completed and I have the results at my fingertips, should there
be a breakthrough, I shall publish in full, possibly in "The Nude
Naturist", under the working title of "SHAVED EUROPEAN PUSSY."
It has long been known that the political system of the United Kingdom
is in a deplorable condition. Only the other day I heard a radio report
of a local election in which a little pink pussy had taken Barrow-in-
Furness. Whilst this later proved to be a shameful sham of Orson
Wellesian proportions, the fact that thousands of my fellow countrymen
panicked and committed suicide, whilst thousands more set off towards
Barrow-in-Furness, proved, were proof needed, that the news media is a
very powerful tool.*
While I would heartily endorse the contention that the replacement of
MPs with pussies would benefit the UK immensely, I must strongly urge
against voting for pink pussies. The only way for pussies to become
pink, other than by means of artificial colouring, is to be denuded of
their hirsuteness. Shaved pussies would require special housing and
care, which would be far more expensive than the current costs of
maintaining Royal Households. They would require specially heated places
of residence and would need to be well protected from skin destroying
ultraviolet A & B radiation. Further, the expense of pandering to their
demands for soft cushions of rare velvets to prevent chafing of their
bare skins, added to the cost of hiring additional staff to apply all
manner of ointments and lotions to keep the pussy skin soft and pliable,
would tax the patience of the humble tax-dodging public, to Stuff That
For A Game Of Soldiers point.
Far better to replace MPs with rats.**
I remain, your civil servant,
Mr. Byafew Minitz (Prof.) M.A. R.C.Li N.E.
*Power tools make life for the DIY enthusiast so much easier. A fine
range can be had, at very reasonable prices, from the premises of Hack &
Wrecker in Market Street, Northampton, England. I should also mention
that during a recent research trip to the State of Iowa, USA, I was
called into the sales premises of CVS Power Tools, and treated to a most
stimulating demonstration of Buffalo Brand(tm) Power Tools by a most
delightful, scantilly clad female assistant.
**My faithful assistant, Maresh, has just pointed out to me that MPs
were replaced by rats in 1979, though the voting public has not, as yet,
noticed.
Postscript:
I am most grateful to my great friend and esteemed colleague, the
Reverend Colonel Ignatius Churchward Von Berlitz for his kind words
regarding my recent publication, "MY SORDID PAST WITH FARMYARD ANIMALS"
What rigorous fieldwork was involved in producing that volume, only he
and I know. Those calcified bovines, so dear to our hearts, were merely
the start of it! But I digress from my digression. I should, in return
for his consideration in pointing the bookbuying readership of this
illustrious forum to my work, like to take this opportunity to direct
those same readers to his own monumental and recently published volume,
"REPRODUCTION IN ANTIQUITY - THE INS AND OUTS", which gives us a
fascinating and most illuminating insight into the strange and wonderful
happenings taking place in wardrobes and cupboards of the 19th Century.
Subject: Re: LUCY: ``Yes, we have no bananas!"
From: wilkins@wehi.edu.au (John Wilkins)
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 1996 10:08:53 +1100
In article <3287553b.34560842@netnews.worldnet.att.net>, fmurray@pobox.com
wrote:
|and steve "chris" price put in:
|
|>This is rich! Can anybody is the sci.* groups take Ed seriously anymore?
|
|several others added mocking words of their own...but none rose to
|meet the challenge of ed conrad's claim that:
|
|>Fact is, the few bits and pieces of what they called ``Lucy" -- to go
|>with the vast majority of manmade bonelike additions that were used to
|>fill the many gaps -- weren't even found in close proximity.
|>
|>Truth is, ``Lucy" is a mosaic of a few bones that were found over a
|>square mile.
|
|i suggest that if these worthies are to continue to post to sci.
|groups, they should take that "sci." seriously, drop the ad hominem
|attacks on ed, and post evidence refuting ed's claim...if ed's claim
|is substantially correct, they should so state, and then present
|arguments of interpretation...
|
|the argument that: "i don't agree with you, so you had better shut up,
|or i'll have you thrown out of here" may prevail within parts of
|academia, but this is the net....
And it was refuted in talk.origins, with the usual amount of t.o ad homina,
but citing sources. IIRC, Lucy was found within an area of 11 square feet.
I suppose one could argue that on an astronomical scale it's within an
order of magnitude of one square mile.
Conrad has taken a real licking in t.o because there are too many people
there familiar with the primary literature. That is perhaps why it was
suggested that replies should follow-up to t.o, where this sort of
egregious misrepresentation of the facts is dealt with daily.
--
John Wilkins, Head of Communication Services, Walter and Eliza
Hall Institute of Medical Research
AUSTRALIA, n. A country lying in the South Sea, whose industrial and
commercial development has been unspeakably retarded by an unfortunate
dispute among geographers as to whether it is a continent or an island.
_The Devil's Dictionary_ by Ambrose Bierce
Subject: Re: Celts & Gypsies
From: whittet@shore.net (Steve Whittet)
Date: 13 Nov 1996 01:54:10 GMT
In article <567rv1$gmb@halley.pi.net>, mcv@pi.netÁ says...
>
>whittet@shore.net (Steve Whittet) wrote:
>
>>In article <565ha7$18c@halley.pi.net>, mcv@pi.netÁ says...
>>>
>>>scastro@dino.conicit.ve (Sol Maria Castro) wrote:
>>>
>>>> A student of mine asked me in class if there was any connection
>>>>between the Celts (we were reading about the origin of Halloween) and
>>>>the Gypsies. Is there any that you know of?
>>>
>>>
>>>The Gypsies speak an Indo-Aryan language, and they probably came from
>>>Northern India (Kashmir?), through Iran and the Near East.
>>>One group moved to Egypt and North Africa to Spain
>>>(egiptanos > gitanos, gypsies),
>[etc.]
>
>>I had heard that these were two separate groups and that the
>>Gypsies arrived in Europe along with Montanism, Manicheism,
>>and Pelagianism as emergent forms of Christianity, or perhaps
>>fleeing from it.
>
>>There is a really insteresting diagram of the spread of
>>early christian communities on the Egyptian model on page
>>93 of the "Times Atlas of World History"
>
>[etc.]
>
>This would all be very interesting, were it not for the simple fact that
>the start of the Gypsy migrations is generally dated to the 11th century
>AD, and that they reached Europe somewhere in the 14th and 15th
>centuries. Not nearly in time to catch the spread of Early
>Christianity.
You may be right. I am most impressed with your erudition in linguistics
almost to the point of hesitiating to mention that as I said there were
two separate migrations. One migration coming from the east passed through
Persia in the 10th century. Others may have been earlier. No one really
knows for sure when they first left whatever their place of origin was.
My sense is that the Oxford dating of 1st millenium AD is correct
and that is why I tied it to the spread of Christianity after c 360.
After that period we have the invasions of the barbarian tribes.
Were the gypsies migrating amidst the Huns, Vandals and Goths?
I doubt it.
If they were not a part of the Germanic and Slavonic invasions of
Europe which lasted until the middle of the sixth century, then
they either came later or earlier. Between 600 and 1500 Christianity
continued to expand into Europe, and after 632 Islam was busy
converting followers for Mohammed.
They were known for their development of dance music using the violin
in 15th century Europe but they arrived in Europe at an earlier date,
which is evidenced by the spread of both the Tarot and Palmisty
as means of divination associated with the gypsies in North Africa
and Russia as well as Europe. There are indications the Tarot was
being used in Germany in 1329 though it was not picked up until later
by the Bohemian gypsies of Spain and France.
If I am correct Romany is an IE language. it has borrowed words from
Armenian, Bulgarian,English French, German, Greek and Persian. This
odd mix of tounges supports the idea that there were two or more
branches with at least one coming from India through Persia while
another branch came through Egypt and North Africa. Syria is also
mentioned as a point of origin.
This would have been difficult territory for a large unified group
of people to wander through during the crusades, though the gypsis
may have migrated as individual families, clans and tribes.
Funk and Wagnalls vol 12, p 111. "Gypsies"
"The Oxford Companion" to the English language p 874 "Romani"
gives "Northern India first millenium AD" as the homeland.
"The Times Atlas of World History" p 93
"The Atlas of the Crusades"
"Cartomancy and the Tarot" p 281
>
>
>==
>Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
steve
Subject: Rescuing History From Fundamentalists: Biblical Chronologies vs. Archaeological History Part 1
From: Xina
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 1996 21:33:05 -0600
History and archaeology have in place several determining factors in
order to prove whether or not events actually took place or not.
Recently, information has been provided online that attempts to displace
the dendrachronology and archaeological data that traditionally has been
used to pinpoint a date that an event or suspected event may have or
certainly did (or did not) happen.
Recently, religious fundamentalists, and different approaches used in a
psuedo-scientific manner in order to "prove" the bible and its stories
as literalisms have come up with some very interesting approaches.
I will state for the record, that I am not an expert in the field of
archaeo-astronomy, nor have I studied astrochronologies. My data is
gathered from traditional sources thatt have been used to most
accurately date the occurance of events in ancient history.
One of the things that was used in the Chronolgy used by Elijah was the
biblical flood. It is my contention that there was never at any time in
earth's history the biblical flood of Noah. The data in the bible is
contradictory and the science simply do not match up. Further, the
second event that Elijah is basing his chronology on is the Isrealite
Exodus or Epoch. While I believe that a migration of the Isrealite
people was possible during acient times, I do not agree with the
magnitude nor the time table that Elijah has cited in his web page.
Nothing of the Isrealite Exodus is ever mentioned in any Egyptian text
save one: The Isrealite stelae.
Scientific Creationists have tried to heal the gaps between the bible
and solid varifiable archeological evidence in recent years. This
discussion is hopefully going to bring some of these issues to light and
we can discuss them rationally.
In his book "Frauds Myths and Mysteries: Sience and PsuedoScience In
Archaeology", author Kenneth Fedder (1996 2nd Edition Mayfield
publishing) (pages 214-220) discusses the logistical *impossibility* of
the Ark's construction using the tools available to Noah and his
family. "Using this measurement, Noah's ark, built entirely by hand
tools and by a few people, would have been about 500 feet long and about
80 feet wide! This would have been an enormous ship. The technology
necessary to construct a seaworthy ship this size did not exist until
the nineteenth century AD, and would have taken hundreds of people to
build , not the four men and four women who made up Noah's family"
Another problem we have with the 'Ark Scenario' is that how could the
people involved have saved each and every animal species on earth? How
could Noah and his family gathered all the animals of every mammal,
reptile, bird and incect species some from as much as 12,000 miles away
from continents *UNKOWN* to anyone during biblical times? How exactly
did Llamas and alpacas (South America) and kangaroo and koalas get to
the ark in the first place? Estimated animal counts would be
approximately, according to Fedder, (Page 215) 25,000 species of birds,
15,000 species of animals, 6,000 species of reptiles, 2,500 species of
amphibians and more than 1,000,000 species of insects, all multiplied by
the two if each kind of seven pairs of each kind. The bible story is
ccontradictory on the number of each species) were brought on board
taken car of for about a year (not years 40 as some have stated on
this newsgroup). The small number of people on board could not possibly
have fed watered and cared for all of those animals, not to mention
mucking out the stalls! ;)
Fedder goes on to state on page 216: "Beyond this, even considerint tghe
enormous size of the Ark there would have been less than 1 cubiv meter
(A stall a little more than 3 feet by 3 feet for each vertabrae and its
food supply." Some Creationists feel that the Dinosaurs were also alive
during the time of the flood, and therefore were *also* on the ark. A
difficult thing to imagine in any case.
There is *No* geological evidence for the flood itself. A catrostophic
event such as a worldwide flood would have left overwhelming evidence.
The earths surcce and its features are the result of gradually acting
uniform propcesses of wind, sand and soil and water erosion as well as
the shifts of the earths plates in the form of earthquakes etc.
Biostratigraphic evidence does not show the tell-tale layering effects
in the geological strata. If there was a biblical worldwide flood these
things would be in a hodge podge instead of in neatly ordered layers of
organic material that has fossilized. "This is a reflection of a
lengthy chronology, not a recent catastrophe such as a flood..."
If the flood was an actuality, rather than a recounting of Hebrew oral
tradition and folklore, virrually all plants and animals, their remains
woudl be deposited together in the sediments that were the result of the
flood, from Dionsaurs to mankind. These things have not been found,
because it didnt happen as it has been told in the bible. It couldnt
have. God may be God, but He certainly cannot hide the eviidence, no
body, no evidence, no crime and similarly no conviction could be made
when there is no evidence.
Literalist fundamentalists and creationists recognize that this is
ovewhelming evidence and it contradicts their view of a literal biblical
flood. One of the excuses that Fedder says he has encountered is rather
amusing. He states: "They lamely conjecture that biostarigraphy,
instead of represnting an ancient chronological sequence, instead
represents differences in animal bouyancy during the Flood. In other
words, reptiles are found in the lower strata than are mammals because
they dont float as well. This would be laughable if the threat to
science and science education were not so real."(Page 217)
If the flood actually happened approximately six thousand or five
thousand years ago, the archaeological evidence would support it. It
simply does not. Human history, art, and civilization would be as
disrupted by it as a nuclear weapon wiping out a good portion of the
world now.
One of the interesting things I have seen on this newsgroup is the claim
that "Noah's ark was found! I saw a documentary on television! How can
you explain away this evidence, Xina?!"
Quite easily.
In February of 1993,CBS aired a special 'documentary' entitled "The
Incredible Discovery of Noah's Ark". IT was independantly produced and
sold to CBS by Sun International Pictures. The show certainly
generated a great deal of interest and presented alot of unverifiable
stories about the discovery of the ark, which was rumoured by the
Russians and the Kurdistan Tribesmen around 1916. In 1959 a French
explorer, Fernand Navarra, claimed to have seen the ark and brought back
an actual sample of the wood. Unfortunately, the wood was radocarbon
dated as being, not 5,000 years old, as it should be if we are to
believe the bible as literal history, but at the *most* the 5th to the
9th century AD.
This special showed n archeaologist identified as George Jammal, who
claimed to have climed into a hole in the glacial ice cap on Mt. Ararat
and to have dropped down into the huge boat. He used, he claimed, his
ice pick to hack out a piece of the biblical ship. On this trip, Jammal
had an assistant, Vladamir, who took a great many pictures. Alas,
however, Vladamir was killed in an avalanche that claimed his life, his
camera and the valuable pictures they had so painstakingly gathered.
Jammal, however, made it back to civilization with his piece of the ark
and held it before the camera "this wood is so precious and a gift from
God".
It turns out, gentle readers, that Jammal is a professional actor who
had been coached by biblical scholar, Gerald Larue. Mr LaRue had been
bilked, he felt, by Sun Pictures on an earlier project he had done for
them and the 'ark' piece was his way of getting even. There was no trip
to Turkey, no photos, and Vladamir existed only on paper. The wood
that was presented on the show was nothing more than a piece of
Californnia Pine, baked in an oven in order to give it an antique
appearance.
Jammal's story should have been verified by the producers of Sun
Pictures. It was not. The whole thing had been presented as fact
because people wanted to believe it.
CBS's response when confronted with the information that they had
presented a show that was an archeological and biblical hoax, said 'It
was just for entertainment purposes". I feel badly for the believers in
the bible who watched the show and took it as literal history and
'proof' that their faith was being proven before their eyes. Now they
have had it reduced to such flim flam the likes of the Cardiff Giant.
Regards,
Xina