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The beginning of the following comes from Jon Maxwell:
The U.S. Standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4
feet, 8.5 inches.  That's an exceedingly odd number.  Why was that
gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and
the U.S. railroads were built by English expatriates.
Why did the English build them like that?  Because the first rail
lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways,
and that's the gauge they used.  Why did *they* use that gauge then?
Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools
that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.
Okay! Why did the wagons use that odd wheel spacing?  Well, if they
tried to use any other spacing the wagons would break on some of the old,
long distance roads, because that's the spacing of the old wheel ruts.
So who built these old rutted roads?  The first long distance roads in
Europe were built by Imperial Rome for the benefit of their legions.
The roads have been used ever since.  And the ruts?  The initial ruts,
which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagons,
were first made by Roman war chariots.  Since the chariots were made
for or by Imperial Rome they were all alike in the matter of wheel
spacing. 
Thus, we have the answer to the original question.  The United State
standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches derives from the
original specification for an Imperial Roman army war chariot.
Specs and Bureaucracies live forever.  So, the next time you are
handed a specification and wonder what horse's ass came up with it,
you may be exactly right.  Because the Imperial Roman chariots were
made to be just wide enough to accommodate the back-ends of two war
horses.
                                   ***
*** The preceding courtesy of Jon Maxwell to which, I, Tom Simms, will
add:
Just in case you thought the Romans did this, you must go back further:
I dug out Nicholas Reeves' new book on King Tut and looked at the
figures for Tut's chariots.  Lo and Behold, I thought I saw a difficul-
ty.  The axles were 2.3 m/ or 7' 6 1/2".  This seemed much wider, that
Tut's workers had built low slung wide Chrysler style e-e-equipment. 
But the wheels seemed to have exceptionally long hubs and the ends of
the axles pushed out even more.  Aha, how, without further data, could I
check this?  
Projective Geometry to the rescue!  I traced the picture of Tut's
hunting chariot on p. 172, the stripped down version, photographed in
the text nearly head on, so it was possible to have lines tracing the
axle, the centre of wheel rotation and the point of wheel contact.  They
were not parallel.  Aha, we had an exercise in perspective.  Then it was
possible to find what fraction of the axle extended beyond the point of
wheel rotation.  It worked out to be a slightly strong 11 3/4", maybe 11
7/8"?  Doubled to 23 1/2" (this is all easier to work out with a sexa-
gesimal rather than a decimal system) or 24", leaves me with an estimate
of 4' 9" or maybe 4' 8 1/2".  Mighty close for doing it by eye!
The Shasu or Desert People, likely forerunners of Scythians from the
Steppes of what is now Siberia, brought the Chariot into Egypt.  The
premise that it matches two horses' arses is still alive!  However, I'll
bet they weren't Percherons.   They were bred in the Middle Ages, SIU
(So I Understand)
Russia used Broad Guage.  Does this reflect the use of Troikas?
There's another way of looking at the Egyptian question.  The tread
imperative (4' 8 1/2" - 1.44 m) did not adjust to the Egyptian cubit,
Royal or Common.  The correct tread was neither three Royal Cubits (each
0.525 m or 20.66" for a total of 1.575 m or 62.0" ) of seven palms (each
0.075 m or 2.95") of four fingers (each 0.01875 m or 0.738") nor three
Common Cubits (each 0.45 m or 17.72" for a total of 1.35 m or 53.15") of
six palms of four fingers each of the same size as in the Royal Cubit. 
The latter is close but no bullseye, UNLESS my projective geometry is
out.  The difference between three common cubits and the Roman chariot
tread is 1.44 - 1.35 = 0.09 m.  Just about one finger!  (Inside the ball
park, maybe???)
Is that close enough for Sargon of Akkad a millennium or so earlier?
Tom Simms
tsimms@nbnet.nb.ca 

In a previous article, kalie@sn.no (Kaare Albert Lie) says:
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 1996 15:27:40 GMT
>SBOURN@delphi.com wrote:
>>Quoting kalie from a message in sci.archaeology
>>   > Here is an interesting report that I would like to see some
>>   > comments on. I found it in Norwegian, so my retranslation into
>>   > English may not be very exact.
>>   > It is an extract from "Mourts Relation", printed in London in
>>   > 1632, telling about those who settled in Plymouth
>>   > (Markland/Vinland) in 1620.
>>Read that as Plymouth Massachusetts, a Walk on Cape Cod, by the 
>>Mayflower "Pilgrims" before they put down roots.  The corpse was 
>>probably some fisherman; there were many from several countries up 
>>and down the New England coast.
>
>Yes, this is of course a possibility. I'm just a little curious -
>how then could it happen that a fisherman was buried according to
>what seems to be the Indian way of burying high status members of
>their own society? Were foreign fishermen authomatically regarded
>as high status persons by the native societies? I just can't help
>feeling that this is a little strange, and it does not agree very
>well with other informations I have read about native American
>societies. Can someone who know the native societies of that time
>and place comment upon this?
     Two things are inconsistent with this thesis.  The bow found
in the camber.  What would a fisherman be doing with a bow?  And
the second is the things found on the body.  All things of ownership
of a sailor would be pacted together given to the Captain and sent
back to his nearest relative as is custom.  Leaving expensive objects
on the body is a relative resent phenomena which would not have been
done in those days.
--
James Conway bb089@scn.org
Seattle Washington USA
Chronology:  http://www.knowledge.co.uk/xxx/cat/kjh/

Dick Eney wrote:
> Therefore, God IS Satan.... 
> Quod erat demonstradum, as
> Thomas Aquinas would say, although probably not after coming up with an
> argument like that.
Actually, he would have said "reductio ad absurdum".
God being evil, your reason is futile, facile and irrelevant.
God being evil, you are toast, buddy.
One can conclude anything from a contradiction.

SBOURN@delphi.com wrote:
>Quoting kalie from a message in sci.archaeology
>   > Yes, this is of course a possibility. I'm just a little curious -
>   > how then could it happen that a fisherman was buried according to
>   > what seems to be the Indian way of burying high status members of
>   > their own society? Were foreign fishermen authomatically regarded
>   > as high status persons by the native societies? I just can't help
>   > feeling that this is a little strange, and it does not agree very
>   > well with other informations I have read about native American
>   > societies. Can someone who know the native societies of that time
>   > and place comment upon this?
>I can't help you there, and am not sure that I see it as too strange.
>There is little or no documentation of early contact with the fishing 
>parties.  Often the Indians came out the worst for it.
That's exactly the problem. This man seems to have been buried as
an honoured member of the native society. I find it difficult to
imagine what circumstances would have led to this, if he was just
a fisherman who passed by. If, as you say, the Indians came out
the worst of those early meetings, why should they want to bury
one of those troublesome strangers (and he can hardly have been
buried by his ship-mates) as one of their own chiefs?
Would it be more probable that this man himself was a native
member of that society?
>The copy that I have: "A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, Mourt's 
>Relation"  
>The 1622 text edited and with an intro by Dwight B Heath ISBN 87091-018-3.
>(1963)  A Corinth Book.
>I think I got this in Plymouth at the Pilgrim Society Museum.  I'm not 
>sure.  It's just a small paper back.  I'm sure you could find it at a book
>store, or you might try on the web.
Thanks for this reference.
>p. 27 , they marched into the wood, and came into the plain ground, and 
>found a grave.  I am not exact quoting here.  But it was much bigger than
>any they had seen before.  It was covered with boards, and under them a
>mat, and under that a "fair bow", and then another mat and board, finely 
>carved and painted with 3 tines or branches like a crown.  Betweent the mats,
>were found bowls, trays, and trinkets.  Then another "fair new mat" and 
>then finally two bundles.  The larger one, there was a lot of fine red
>powder and and the bones and skull of a man.  It had fine yellow hair. 
>Some of the flesh was "unconsumed".  There was a knife and a pack needle, and
>some iron things.  The smaller bundle had the child, and it had strings
>and bracelets on it's legs and other parts.  They took some of the pretty
>beeds, (ain't that something!).
>If anything was a bit strange, it would be the child.  I don't know if 
>it was common to have children on fishing boats or not.
So this would be another indication to suggest that the two
buried people were of local origin?
I can not see the fisherman hypothesis as entirely convincing.
______________________________________________________________
Kåre Albert Lie
kalie@sn.no

This post is meant to do multiple duty.  First, I want to call the
attention of sci.archaeology.moderated readers who perhaps don't venture
into sci.archaeology (are there any?) to the fact that there is currently
a quite wide-ranging discussion of the subject topic going on there, with
a fair amount of light amid the heat.  The subject line here covers a
bunch of it; so do subject lines like "Out of India" and "Sanskrit"
cross-posted between sci.archaeology and sci.lang.  In addition, there's a
similarly cross-posted thread that used to be about Etruscan linguistics
and is still called "Etruscans" which now hosts a fair amount of flamage
but also a significant number of more-or-less related-to-Sansrkit etc.,
more-or-less massively informative posts about various topics.
This post is posted as a followup to one of three posts in particular that
contain a quite significant amount of background material on ancient South
Asia.  The first is mine which opened the thread, message-ID
, which offers an extensive
bibliography (it would be worth while to supplement that with references
supporting the "indigenous Aryan" perspective provided in a followup by
Sanjeev Shankar).  The second is the post by Steve Whittet which I cited
below, and the third is my reply to that; these, besides lists of sites,
include extensive elaboration on this, that, and the other ancient South
Asian archaeology topic.
Another of my purposes in posting this is to notify interested parties
that an enormous and remarkably well-informed discussion of this topic
took place on RISA-L, a mailing list for the study of the religions of
South Asia, in October.  This discussion has been archived on the Web,
reachable in one link from the mailing list's home page at

This archive is easily the best single web site concerned with
protohistoric or prehistoric South Asia that I know of; it puts to shame
the Usenet discussions I've just been talking about, including my share. 
The bibliographic citations are abstracted from the discussion in a
separate page for those who just want references.  The discussion is over
100K, and the bibliography (with some critical comment included) is 17K.
My last purpose in posting this is to do a quick followup to an
over-optimistic promise I made a couple of days ago:
In article , I wrote:
>Thanks, Mr. Whittet, for a post which copiously fills in background
>material re 1st-millennium B.C. South Asia.  I will be snipping much but
>not all.  I'll be adding a lot of details where I think you're wrong, or
>where I think you over-simplified, or just where I think more details are
>appropriate.
>
>This is a MONSTER long post...
>
>In article <56ttis$cbl@fridge-nf0.shore.net>, whittet@shore.net (Steve
>Whittet) wrote:
[long snip]
>I'm going back to Northwestern shortly to look at
>some of this stuff and will try to get some details.  Also, my original
>post did actually get sent to the Indology mailing list, where a short
>discussion pointed to some references and web pages.  When I return to
>this thread (in a day or two) I'll try to summarise in both directions.
Well, I didn't make it to Northwestern and so have been running on empty,
references-wise, for several days.  In view of the fact that this is my
first post to sci.archaeology.moderated, however, I think it's proper to
provide some references *anyway* if only to make sure this post doesn't
get rejected ;-).
So I'm going to repeat the bibliography I used in the post opening this
thread!  Mr. Lloyd, if you're still out there working on an FAQ, please
note that some of the books I'd want to include re South Asia are here
listed (but not all).  Sorry I haven't gotten back to you sooner; but I'm
not as current as I'd like to be, and the existence of some of the
below-named books has made me more timid.  People who caught this list the
first time in sci.archaeology, there's nothing new ahead, my apologies.
Joe Bernstein
References Rerun:
Allchin 1995:  THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF EARLY HISTORIC SOUTH ASIA:  THE
EMERGENCE OF CITIES AND STATES, by F. R. Allchin, with contributions from
George Erdosy, R. A. E. Coningham, D. K. Chakrabarti, and Bridget
Allchin.  (Erdosy has since changed his name to Muhammad Usman Erdosy,
according to the preface.)  Cambridge:  Cambridge, 1995.
Chakrabarti 1977:  "Distribution of iron ores and the archaeological
evidence of early iron in India" by Dilip K. Chakrabarti.  JOURNAL OF THE
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL HISTORY OF THE ORIENT 20:  166-84.  I am quite aware
that this topic has remained controversial; at the time I wrote my paper,
*this* paper still looked good to me, and I haven't had the opportunity to
catch up or reassess my judgement then. My apologies for lacking full
references to Chakrabarti's books on Bangladesh etc.  I've seen them in
the library of Northwestern University, and I'd look them up there now if
this computer would allow that, but at the moment it won't.
Erdosy 1985:  "Settlement archaeology of the Kausambi region" by George
(now Muhammad Usman) Erdosy.  MAN AND ENVIRONMENT 9:  66-79.
Gaur 1983:  EXCAVATIONS AT ATRANJIKHERA, by R. C. Gaur.  Delhi:  Motilal
Banarsidass, 1983.
Ghosh 1989:  AN ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF INDIAN ARCHAEOLOGY, edited by A. Ghosh. 
New Delhi:  Munshiram Monoharlal, 1989.  Two volumes, one with entries on
topics, the other with entries on sites.  (I've seen this cited as also
appearing in Leiden:  E. J. Brill, 1991, as AN ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF ANCIENT
INDIA, but have not seen this edition.)
Jarrige 1979:  FOUILLES DE PIRAK, by Jean-Francois Jarrige, Marielle
Santoni, Jean-Francois Enault, et al.  Paris:  Diffusion de Boccard, 1979.
Meadow 1991:  Meadow, Richard H., ed. 1991. Harappa Excavations 1986-1990:
A  Multidisciplinary Approach to Third Millennium Urbanism. Monographs in 
World Archaeology No. 3. Prehistory Press. Madison, WI.  (Entry from Ben
Diebold)
Sahi 1978:  "New light on the life of the Painted Grey Ware people as
revealed from excavations at Jakhera (Dist. Etah)" by M. D. N. Sahi.  MAN
AND ENVIRONMENT 2:  101-3.
H. Singh 1982:  HISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY OF BLACK-AND-RED WARE
(CHALCOLITHIC PERIOD) by H. N. Singh.  Delhi:  Sundeep Prakashan, 1982.
Additional items for which I have references handy, which seem likely to
be of interest (credit to Ben Diebold and Moin Ansari for these, except
for King 1984, Lal 1984 and Shaffer 1981):
Clark, John E. and William J. Parry 1990  " Craft Specialization and
Cultural Complexity." Research in Economic Anthropology, vol. 12, pp:
289-346. (from Moin Ansari.  I haven't yet looked for this, but the title
certainly relates to the topics of current discussions of Harappan civ)
Michael Jansen `Forgotten Cities of the Indus' 1993 or 1994 - (from
Moin Ansari; apparently a good introductory book; the Jansens have been
central to recent work systematically re-examining the records of the
Mohenjo-daro digs)
Old Problems and New Perspectives in the Archaeology of South Asia
edited by J.M.Kenoyer, Wisconsin Archaeological Reports Vol 2, 1989. [from
conference in 89] (from Moin Ansari)  Nope, the conference was in 1986 or
1987, I was there.  Lots of good stuff here.  If there's an article by G.
R. Sharma or R. C. Gaur there, check it for material on the earliest
settlers of the Doab.
Kenoyer, Jonathan Mark. 1991a. "The Indus Valley Tradition of Pakistan 
and Western India." Journal of World Prehistory. 5:4:331-385. (from Ben
Diebold:  I've skimmed it; a good solid basic article on the Harappan civ;
at first glance not much about Aryans)
King 1984:  "Some archaeological problems regarding Gangetic cultures in
early historical India" by Anna King.  In STUDIES IN THE ARCHAEOLOGY AND
PALAEOANTHROPOLOGY OF SOUTH ASIA, ed. Kenneth A. R. Kennedy and Gregory L.
Possehl, pp. 109-19.  New Delhi:  Oxford & IBH, 1984.  Forcefully presents
the case against invasions during the first millennium BC in the Doab and
adjacent regions.
Lal 1984:  SETTLEMENT HISTORY AND RISE OF CIVILIZATION IN GANGA-YAMUNA
DOAB:  FROM 1500 B. C. - 300 A. D. by Makkhan Lal.  Delhi:  B. R., 1984. 
Though strongly bound by the old consensus, this is still a superb
synthesis of knowledge on the subject as of its date, and includes the
first substantial settlement survey done in north India (I believe M.
Rafique Mughal's work in the Cholistan area of Pakistan preceded, but am
not that familiar with that).
Lukacs, John R. 1992. "Dental Paleopathology and Agricultural 
Intensification in South Asia: New Evidence From Bronze Age Harappa." 
American Journal of Physical Anthropology 87:133-150. (from Ben Diebold)
Shaffer 1981:  "The protohistoric period in the Eastern Punjab:  a
preliminary assessment" by Jim G. Shaffer.  In A. H. Dani, ed., INDUS
CIVILISATION:  NEW PERSPECTIVES, pages 65-102.  Islamabad:  Centre for the
Study of the Civilization of Central Asia, Quaid-i-Azam University, 1981. 
The only thing I've read which synthesises the relevant period in any of
the Punjab, though one hopes it's now fully superseded by Allchin 1995.
-- 
Joe Bernstein, free-lance writer and bookstore worker joe@sfbooks.com
speaking for myself and nobody else    http://www.tezcat.com/~josephb/

I failed to see this episode of 60 Minutes, although I am aware of the
Afro-Centic movement.  A Newsweek?  Time? article a couple of years ago
estimated student enrollment in Afro-Centric schools in the United States
to be approximately 50,000 students.  Mostly in grades K-6, I would guess. 
I agree that eventually the pinnings of this movement will be publicly
pulled out, and the result will be a group of diheartened
west-african-americans and a group of zealots, still clinging to the
belief.  
It seems that this whole thing came out of the 1960's liberal social
scientists belief that if west-african-americans had a culture, then they
would progress faster against the tide of institution racism.  So, these
folks picked and chose...and created a culture.  A cultural myth.  Keep
this, throw that.  Keep music, throw female circumcision for example.  So
began an attempt to tie them into Anything African they could claim.  Of
course it would be  matter of time before they claimed Egypt as their
own...Sad...as the Zimbabwe structure is about the only example I can think
of where sub-saharan africans put two bricks together.  And why didn't that
catch on?  Obviously, the truth is...Life in Africa is Tough!  And to have
survived at all is something to take pride in.
I am of Norgwegian and Swedish ancestory (plus a few others). I certainly
do NOT claim Greek or Roman culture as my own.  My culture was pretty
ragged.  Some good poetry but for the most part just a bunch of
dirt-farmers and shepherds clinging on.  Had to be a good reason they went
viking...right?  Here again, I think my pride is based as much in the very
survival of those simple people as in the Danelaw, or the Sagas, or trade
with the Mideast.  What I don't need is some social scientist coming along
and Creating some culture.
Mark Mellblom
Publius  wrote in article <57b7jk$seu@news.gate.net>...
> Summary:                   
> Keywords: 
>  
>      This evening, CBS "60 Minutes" included a segment on
>   'Afro-Centrism' - a kind of cult among American Blacks based
>   on the belief that the Ancient Egyptians were Black and that
>   the Classical and Western Cultures trace their roots to African
>   Blacks.

Elijah wrote:
> 
> > "*He* and *his* other *lesbian* kind?!?
> 
> > Elijah...here's a crash course on homosexual terminology:
> > Gay = Male (usually)
> > Lesbian = Female (exclusively)
> > Hope this helps for future posts.
> 
> Xina is a lesbian who has joined August in following my posts
> to make a reply to all of them. As if it is their job to undo
> everything I say.
> 
> And they expect no sources from OJ to be innocent,
> they slam the alegations of the acusers rather than him.
> while with christians they push the alegations as true
> saying guilty until sources prove innocent.K.Churchill, J.J.Hancock wrote:
Ok, here's the diffrence. In court it's the state's job to prove O.J's
guilty. Now, here you're trying to get us to change our opinion, thus
you must prove yourself. This isn't a court. O.J is innocent untill
proven guilty, your posts are dogma untill proven fact.
-- 
Yes, at one time god tried to guide me, but through the bright light I
could not see where he was leading. Then I became one with the darkness.
It helped me to filter out the light, to see past the light, to see
where I was being guided, it was then that I saw the light was trying to
lead me off a cliff.
Email: llinux@gwbbs.northeast.net

Could anyone tell me if there is any web pages on the following topics:-
Etruscans
Atlantis
King Arthur
Mongolians
Underwater archaeology
Thanks 
--
Ken: The Mad Fool --- Life is Life. And life is a.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
	Home	Web site: http://www.dur.ac.uk/~d56077
	College Web site: http://www.dur.ac.uk/~dun8jcr
------------------------------------------------------------------
	"The Past is the key to the future" Confucious
------------------------------------------------------------------

Gee, I thought nobody would ever ask . .  .
Well, it's not the ENTIRE human brain -- just one of the hemispheres.
But it, too, is petrified which, of course, the scientific community
has long insisted simply can't be.
After all, science's ``know-it-all's" and ``stuffed shirts" have long
maintained that soft organs can never petrify -- and, there for
awhile, they had me believing it, too.
Then, one day, a few years ago, while leafing through a scientific
textbook, I was surprised to read that petrified soft organs of
insects had been discovered -- and documented! Thus, I became
aware that science's blanket statement about the impossibility
of any soft organs petrifying was totally incorrect.
Well, anyway, this particular specimen -- what would turn out to be a
petrified hemisphere of a human brain -- had been sitting on the shelf
for almost a decade because it could not be identified.
However, when it came to the point -- in the early 1990's -- that I
realized I indeed had discovered a petrified human gall bladder (a
CATSCAN revealing it contained a gall stone) and other petrified soft
organs (for example, a human lung and human testacles), I decided to
re-examine the strange-looking specimen sitting on the shelf.
It was the one I had found at my original site just days after
discovering my first specimen of petrified bone -- that being a large
skull-shaped object which later was proven to contain a pair of
tooth-like inclusions in the jaw-like area (including the petrified
premolar shown hanging so majestically  on Ted Holden's home page).
Still, even during the re-examination of the specimen which I insist
is a petrified hemisphere of a human brain  -- measuring approximately
7 3/4 inches in longest length by 4 3/4 inches in widest width) -- I
continued to be stumped.
So it was returned to the dusty shelf even though, at this point, I
was aware that soft organs indeed can petrify. Nevertheless, this
particular specimen remained a real mystery from the standpoint of
comparative anatomy (human or otherwise).
What really had thrown me off about its possible identification from
Day One was its a pair of short ``horn-like" protrusions that extend
from one side. Naturally, I erroneously assumed they were horns.
Then, while watching TV one evening about four years ago, the
``Nature" program came on and, during the introduction, a complete
human brain showing both hemispheres appeared on the screen (minus the
skull), slowly began spinning around.
As I watched it spin, the answer hit me. Bingo! I knew what the
specimen was.
When held sideways, it bore a distinct resemblance to a hemisphere of
a human brain -- wrinkly and all -- and I suddenly knew that the pair
of strange short protrusions weren't horns after all.
All this time -- for almost a decade --  I had been examining the
specimen in the wrong way, assuming the protrusions should be topside.
However, the protrusions extended from one side.
These protrusions, of course, are nothing less than the brain's
connections to a human being's spinal cord.

Vidhyanath K. Rao wrote:
> 
> In article <57cbg0$gfk@dfw-ixnews4.ix.netcom.com>,
> Stella Nemeth  wrote:
> >Counting the words in a language is not easy, but the dictionary
> >"guys" seem to do it all the time.  All that is wanted is rough
> >estimates in any case.
> 
> How many entries are in a dictionary depends on how much `word-building'
> the user is expected to do on his own. Languages such as Sanskrit or
> Greek, with inflections complicated by sound laws, contain word-lists
> that are covered by a single entry. Recall my old example of
> gacchati and jagmuh. Is it really obvious that they are covered by the
> single entry `gam'?
There is also the opposite problem - are all the entries or sub-entries
for a word such as "table" the same word or different words? After all,
they would have to be translated into different Chinese or Japanese
words. Here are some examples from my English-Chinese dictionary where
"table" is translated into different Chinese words:
  dinner table
  billiard table
  water table
  time table
  table of card players
  table the discussion
> Taking off on a tangent: If the number of words is exponentially
> increasing, does that mean that long term memory of humans is
> increasing at a comparable rate?
Certainly not in my case.
-- 
Mike Wright
____________________________________
email: darwin@scruznet.com
WWW:   http://www.scruz.net/~darwin/language.html

Altair:
.
>It is not absurd to consider Turkiye for the resting place for the 
>ark.
.
     Not if, after reading Gen. 4:14, you have a plausible answer 
for what and where was "the face of the earth" (lit. faces of the 
Adamah" = Adam's land) and your plausibke answer includes Turkey.  
It may not have been adjacent to our "roof of the world", as we 
call it, but in view of Gen. 3:24 it was certainly East of Eden, 
and far enough East that Cain could go back toward Eden, but not 
all the way, yet far enough for him (the Kenites) to build his 
city in the land of Nod (Gen. 4:16), still East of Eden.
     The name "Arrarat" is, of course, transliterated, not translated, 
and it means "high hills" -- whether or not it was later used for a 
territory.  No such name is shown by ancient geographers as applied 
anywhere, either to a mountain, mountain range, or kingdom.  Not 
even "faces of the Adamah" was called ARRT.  Nor is 
fifteen cubits (even if they were Sir Isaac Newton's "Sacred Hebrew 
Cubits" of 25+ inches, which would only be thirty feet or so) nearly 
enough to clear mountains.
     Far more serious, it is believed, was the earthquake (such that 
were "all the fountains of the great deep broken up -- Gen. 7:11) 
which collapsed the flooded land into "the great deep" leaving what 
the Enc. Brit. calls an Asian fresh-water Mediterranean" to drain, for 
decades, into China through the breach in the Pe Shan, and wreaking 
havoc which the Chinese Shu-king records -- with identical dating.
What the Enc. Brit. says about the location (the Tarim Basin) is:
                     " * * * All  the   desert   regions   would
                     appear to have been  covered  by  an  Asian
                     Mediterranean or, at all  events,  by  vast
                     fresh-water  lakes,  a   conclusion   which
                     seems to  be  warranted  by  the  existence
                     of salt-stained  depressions  of  a  lacus-
                     trine  character  ;  by  traces  of  former
                     lacustrine  shore  lines,  more   or   less
                     parallel and concentric  ;  by  discoveries
                     of vast quantities of  fresh-water  mollusc
                     shells, the  existence  of  belts  of  dead
                     poplars,  patches  of  dead  and   moribund
                     tamarisks, and vast  expanses  of  withered
                     reeds, all these crowning the tops  of  the
                     jardangs,  never   found   in   the   wind-
                     scooped  furrows ;     the   presence   of
                     ripple  marks  of  aqueous  origin  on  the
                     lee-ward side of the clay terraces  and  in
                     other  wind-sheltered  situations   ;   and
                     in  fact,  by  the  general   conformation,
                     contour lines, and shapes  of  the  deserts
                     as a whole.  From  the  statements  of  old
                     travellers, like the  Venetian  Marco  Polo
                     (13th Century)  and  the  Chinese  Pilgrim,
                     Hsuan  Tsang  (7th  century),  as  well  as
                     other data, it is  perfectly  evident,  not
                     only that this country is suffering from  a
                     progressive  desiccation,  but  that  sands
                     have  actually  swallowed   up   cultivated
                     areas within the historical period."
     The sole dispute concerns the timing of the erosion which 
biblical chronology begins in 2345 to 2344 BC. On the basis of normal 
erosion that is much too recent.  Against this it is argued that the 
erosion of the Pe Shan breach was far from normal due to the strong 
and continuous east wind that blew sand of the Gobi Desert through the 
breach.  Also the large quantities of fresh-water mollusc shells (not 
fossilized), the same for the dead poplars, and the identical dating 
independently derived (by W. Gorn-Old) from the Chinese Shu-king.
     In short, there are many reasons for identifying that region, 
next to Tibet which we call "the roof of the world", as what was then 
called "the face of the earth".  In your scenario, from what region 
called "the face of the earth" was Cain expelled, in accordance with 
Gen. 4:14?  I am open to any plausible line of reasoning that would 
make looking in Turkey rational -- other than as a tourist attraction.
.
                                                      Suds


DARWIN IS BURIED IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY WITH OTHER CHURCH OF ENGLAND GREATS

kalie@sn.no (Kaare Albert Lie) wrote:
>S.NEMETH@IX.NETCOM.COM (Stella Nemeth) wrote:
>>kalie@sn.no (Kaare Albert Lie) wrote:
>>But it does provide a demonstration that Ibson, who wrote a couple
>>hundred years later than Shakespeare, had a larger vocabulary
>>available to him than the earlier author had.  Hum....  Isn't that
>>what Steve was trying to explain earlier?
>The next time you visit the library, take a look at Böthlingk &
>Roth multi-volume Sanskrit dictionary. Or, if that one is not
>available, Monier Williams' dictionary will do. I have never
>tried to count words in Sanskrit - and never will! - but that
>rather old language has a foooooormidable vocabulary! How does
>this fact fit into the theory?
Did the people who edited the dictionary provide a word count?  Many
dictionaries do that as a matter of course.  Since neither of us has
the data of a word count for this language, neither of us can use the
word count to say anything, pro or con, about the theory that older,
now dead languages have smaller vocabularies than newer, living
languages.
>>Out of curiousity, is Ibsen known for inventing a substantial
>>proportion of the vocabulary he used?
>No.
The reason I asked is that Shakespeare is known for doing just that.
He not only provided a substantial proportion of English proverbs and
sayings, he also is frequently the first recorded user of many words.
He is often credited with inventing many of them.
Stella Nemeth
s.nemeth@ix.netcom.com

Hello, 
my Name is Sven-Olaf Krusch and I am a student of Classical Archaeology 
at the Phillips-Universitaet in Marburg.
As a scholar of Prof. Dr. Lauter I am researching Greek Architecture,
especially the earlier periods.
My Question is, if there are other students that work on Greek
Architecture and that would like to discuss problems or tell ideas, im-
pressions or discuss recent publications, even if they deal with a
wider range of Greek architecture.
So please mail back if you would like to.
So long,
Sven-Olaf Krusch /Marburg,Germany

mgb@thecafe.co.uk (Matthew Bond) wrote:
>The main reason for the success of the english language is it's global 
>diversity, and even if it is not spoken as a first language it is often the 
>second or third tongue of vast numbers of people across the globe.  This can 
>easily be seen in news footage of disasters or wars...anywhere in the world, 
>even in small communities in mongolia, or croatia, or azerbaijan or rwanda, etc 
>native people can be found to recount their personal tale in english...the 
>reverse is not so. Go to a small town in the UK, or France, or Spain, or 
>Australia, and it will be hard to find a native who speaks mongolian, or croat 
>or azeri etc as a first, second or even third tongue.
The fact that English is spoken as a first language in many parts of
the world is a good point.  As you also pointed out, so is Spanish and
Chinese.
Unfortunately, you can't use the fact that many people speak English
as a second or third language to explain why so many people speak
English as a second or third language, expecially instead of French or
Spanish or Chinese.  We all agree that the result is that English is
rapidly becoming a true International language.  At this point, we
don't really have the reason why this is happening to English instead
of other languages.
Stella Nemeth
s.nemeth@ix.netcom.com

Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:
> 
> Sanjeev Shankar  wrote:
> 
> >Loren Petrich wrote:
> >>
> >> In article <32931066.253E@waterloo.border.com>,
> >> Sanjeev Shankar   wrote:
> >> >Loren Petrich wrote:
> >>
> >> >> of a lot of overland journeying. Consider how Sanskrit arrived in India
> >> >> -- over a LOT of mountains in what is now Iran and Afghanistan.
> >>
> >> >Yes, how did Sanskrit "arrive" in India??
> >>
> >>         Its speakers were pastoralist nomads that carried their language
> >> from the Russian/Central-Asian steppes across the mountains to India.
> 
> >This is highly speculative conjecture.  Is there any archealogical
> >proof for this movement??  Has any  Sanskrit-like language
> >been found in Russia/Central-Asia??
> 
> Scythian, an Iranian language still spoken in the Northern Caucasus by
> the Ossetes of Russia and Georgia.  The numbers 1-10 and 100 in
> Sanskrit, Hindi, Avestan (Old Iranian) and Ossete as a small sample:
> 
>     Skrt.       Hindi    Avest.     Osset.
> 1   e:kah       ek       ae:va      yu
> 2   dva:(u)     do       dva        duwa
> 3   trayah      tin      thray      arta
> 4   catva:rah   ca:r     c^athwa:r  c^Ippa:r
> 5   pan~ca      pa:m.c   panc^a     fondz
> 6   s.as.       chah     xs^vas^    axsaz
> 7   sapta       sa:t     hapta      a:wd
> 8   as.t.a:(u)  a:t.h    as^ta      a:st
> 9   nava        nau      nava       fa:ra:st
> 10  das'a       das      dasa       das
> 100 s'atam.     sau      sat@m      sada
> 
> >Comparitive linguistic theories on the "IE" movement have not
> >offered any definitive proof that the "IE movement" started in some
> >Central Asian/East European homeland and ended in settlements in
> >India & Europe.  So far no "homeland" and no "Proto IE" language
> > remnants have been conclusively established.
> 
> Don't be silly: no PIE language remnants will ever be found.  PIE was
> spoken long before the invention of writing.
> 
> > The "out of India" scenario has both a definitive homeland and
> > a vast amount of literature in Sanskrit plus archeological evidence
> >that the various peoples in the area have been there way before the
> >time-lines proposed by any "IE into India" theories.
> 
> Which is precisely the problem with the "out of India" hypothesis.
> If the homeland was the Punjab, how do you account for Brahui, a
> Dravidian language, being spoken in Pakistani Beluchistan?  How do you
> account for the numerous Dravidian loanwords even in Vedic Sanskrit?
I agree that certain studies seem to indicate that vedic shares some
words with "dravidian" which are not found in other "IE" languages.
How does this cause a "problem" for the *out of India* hypothesis??
> How do you account for the fact that Dravidian is related to Elamite,
> spoken in ancient Elam (Khuzestan), and that there is linguistic
> continuity stretching from Elamite to Brahui to Southern Indian
> Dravidian?  On the map it certainly looks as if the Iranians and the
> Indo-Aryans drove a wedge between these people.  And how do you account
> for Burushaski, a non-IE and non-Dravidian language spoken in Northern
> Kashmir?  Not to mention Nahali and the Mun.d.a languages.
Can the same questions be raised with regard to Finn & Hungarian which
are non "IE" ie: can this cause a problem for the "out of a Central
Asia/Russia" hypothesis??
> 
> >The ancient Indian scriptures also do not record any knowledge of any
> >homeland other than Indian plains.  If you consider Sanskrit to have
> >"arrived" in India with the "IE" people then you would also expect
> >their scriptures and books to speak of other lands which were passed
> >during their movement or atleast of an original homeland .  No such
> >record exists in the ancient Sanskrit scriptures of India.
> 
> Do the ancient Greek, Hittite, Gothic, Celtic and Slavic scriptures of
> Europe mention an Indian homeland?  
Do these scriptures mention a *homeland* leave alone an Indian one ??
Does even the Beowulf mention a
> homeland in Northern Germany?  Take the Gypsies.  We know that they
> indeed came "out of India".  Do their legends mention that?  No, the
> Spanish Gypsies claim to be from Egypt, which was indeed a "half-way
> stop" they made.  Recollection of the earlier Indian homeland had
> vanished, in just 400 years.
> 
Please refer to Vidyanath Rao's post about when the Rg Veda was
supposed to have been composed ( "Re: lack of memory of external
origins: Quite a few philologists
aver that Rksamhita was composed at the time of ``invasion''.
But Rksamhita lacks any memory of external homelands. Does this take
400 years? 100 years? 40 years? 0 years?)
My statement was based on the above belief that the Rg Veda was composed
around  the time of the "invasion".
> ==
> Miguel Carrasquer Vidal                     ~ ~
> Amsterdam                   _____________  ~ ~
> mcv@pi.net                 |_____________|||
> 
> ========================== Ce .sig n'est pas une .cig

In Article<57g677$3lt@ecuador.earthlink.net>,  write:
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> From: katlady@earthlink.net (Katlady)
> Newsgroups: sci.archaeology,alt.archaeology,alt.pagan,alt.atheism,alt.religion.christian,sci.life-extension
> Subject: Re: TIME Magazine (Nov 25) humans living 420 years
> Date: 27 Nov 1996 01:40:55 GMT
> Organization: Bay Area Animal Shelter Annex
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> 
> 
> In article <32995C77.8E2@wi.net>, Elijah (elijah@wi.net) says...
> >
> >Time magazine's Nov 25 issue is a must.
> >It explains how nematodes deteriate so that cells stop replication after
> >100 times, but in 70 year olds they stop after 20-30 times.
> 
> 
> 
> Elijahwhatzits strikes again!  And NO I am NOT sharing my Prozacs!
> 
> Arabella
> -- 
> -=**{Opinions expressed are entirely my own}**=-
> http://home.earthlink.net/~katlady/perspage/perspage.html | 
> http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/5393/
> 
As I understand it, the nematode bible is not specific about the length  of 
elders' lives in pleistocene, which is circa 3750-3725 b.u.g. (before us 
guys). Also, please note that due to the incredible friction resulting from 
Gaia's travels around the sun through all that sticky light (which was much 
stickier in the days of the elders, a year now takes much longer (15.3 times 
as long!). A day is also slightly longer (only slightly so due to slippy 
atmosphere not! rotating with Gaia. The slippy atmosphere makes us hardly 
notice the 17,000 mph winds. So, although I'm not mathematically inclined, 
more like arithmetically declined, I can see the light at the end of the 
funnel, and may even take a tentative sip.
"The opinions espressoed are not entirely my own, and can be laid entirely at 
the feet of my ignorant and opressive: a. server b. teachers c. boss d. 
grammaw e. English System Of Measure. f. readers' mental backwash."
"Aargh! Sucked in again!"

On 24 November Yuri Kuchinsky wrote:
> For the record, I have the highest regard of Joe.[Cambell] Many people --
> often with a variety of hidden, and not so hidden, ideological agendas --
> have tried to attack him, but the egg fell mostly on their own faces. I'm
> not aware of any serious flaws in his methodology.
> 
Yuri, do you not consider arranging abstracted entities into unified
patterns to be a serious methodolological flaw?

Richard Ottolini wrote:
> >> Can anyone help out a non-scientist here?
> >>   -- How accurately can a 19th or 20th Century sample be dated?
> >>   A sample, for example from 1820? What is the +/- percentage
> >>   for accuracy?
> >
There are two error sources that have not been pointed out:
One: 
The obvious point that C14 date does not tell us the data of something 
but the date this something stope breadthing. This can introduce an 
error because normally you are interested in the date a egiptian chair 
was done not the date the tree was cut. Of course you could assume that 
there is no such a big difference between these dates, but exceptions 
could happen.
Second:
The ammount of C14 in the atmosphere is a function of solar activity. 
This is the reason why calibrated measures are needed! indeed calibrated 
C14 archeological data have been used to derive solar activity.

kalie@sn.no (Kaare Albert Lie) wrote:
>S.NEMETH@IX.NETCOM.COM (Stella Nemeth) wrote:
>>I'm not sure what "Like what?" refers to.  Steve says there is no
>>archaeological evidence for the cultures you are postulating. Are you
>>asking him to provide archaeological evidence for cultures that he
>>says don't exist?  Those are the questions you need to answer.  What
>>cultures are you claiming spread the IE language(s)?  Where did this
>>cultures exist?  When?
[snip of anti-Steve Whittet flame]
>My preliminary guess is that there was a primary agricultural
>spread, accounting for most of Europe (roughly along the lines
>that Renfrew draws), and a secondary spread from the Kurgan
>cultures, bringing Indo-Iranian languages to the east and Greek
>to the west. This guess is open to revision, however.
What do you mean by "agricultural spread"?  And when?
Stella Nemeth
s.nemeth@ix.netcom.com

mcv@pi.net (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) wrote:
>S.NEMETH@IX.NETCOM.COM (Stella Nemeth) wrote:
>>Now, what does this tell you.  For one thing it is pretty obvious that
>>the Greeks and the Philistines were in contact.  You can't tell that
>>from the languages they spoke, by the way.
>AFAIK, it is unknown which language the Philistines spoke.
>Or have I missed something?
Piotr says they spoke perfectly normal Canaanite.  I figure Piotr
ought to know.
Stella Nemeth
s.nemeth@ix.netcom.com

> >>Hello everyone, I am trying to figure out what the inscription in the
> >>Pantheon means:
> >>M . Agrippa . L . F . Costertivm . Fecit
the translation is "Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucius, consul for the 
third time, made [this]"
"f" is an abbreviation for the Latin "filius" (son)
"l" is an abbreviation for the Latin praenomen "Lucius"
"costertium" is actually two words: "cos" is the abbreviation for 
the Roman political office of consul; tertium simply means "for the 
third time"
the fact that "fecit" has no specified direct object is not 
problematic, as it is clear from where the inscription was placed 
what Agrippa made.

In <57g4kj$g6a@sjx-ixn9.ix.netcom.com> dolmen1@ix.netcom.com(Leonard M.
Keane) writes: 
>
>In <57frnq$rlv@dfw-ixnews11.ix.netcom.com>
>dolmen1@ix.netcom.com(Leonard M. Keane) writes: 
>
>
>>>> Well, I cannot say what the color of any pre-Columbian American
>was.
>> I
>>>> do know that present-day American Indians run the gamut from
>>Caucasian
>>>> to Black.
>>>>
>>>> What I do know for fact, because I have researched it for many
>>years,
>>>> is that the northwest quadrant of the U.S. is literally covered
>with
>>>> the identical stone monuments as found concentrated in western
>>Europe,
>>>> and in other locations around the world. These are the standing
>>stones,
>>>> cromlechs, mounds, huge propped boulders, stone circles, etc. Most
>>seem
>>>> to have precise solar alignments over long distances which prove
>>they
>>>> are not random or glacially placed.
>>>>
>>>> The question that ought to concern true historians is why
>>professional
>>>> archeologists deny the existence of these remarkable sites.  If
>they
>>>> existed in Britain, France, Spain or the Middle East, there would
>be
>>no
>>>> question what they are.
>>>>
>>>> And, don't anyone tell me they aren't here, within five miles of
my
>>>> home, or that I don't know how to read a map.  I've been through
>all
>>>> that before. Don't tell me how wide a pencil mark is on such and
>>such a
>>>> map. We're talking about precise grids and geometry covering
>>hundreds
>>>> of square miles.  Somebody was awfully busy at some time in N.
>>American
>>>> history and their existence is being swept right under the
academic
>rug.
>
>----
>
>For those who've asked for references concerning my discoveries, the
>preliminary and basic findings, with photographs, were published in
the
>Journal of the New England Antiquities Research Association (NEARA),
>Vol. 15, No. 2 (Fall 1980), pp 34-42; Vol. 16, No. 1 (Summer 1981),
pp.
>16-18.  More recent articles and updates have appeared in The American
>Institute for Archaeological Research, Inc. journal, "On-Site", and in
>its Newsletter.  Copies may be available from the "Institute", 24
Cross
>Street, Mt. Vernon, NH 03057.
>Len. 

Mark Odegard wrote:
> Some observations. What might be called "food replacement"
> occurs too. Millet is a grain, but just about no one eats it any
> more (it's grown now, it seems, for animal fodder as well as
> birdseed). When something better came along, that could be grown
> in its place, millet dropped out of the European diet.
> 
> Another example is "ox". It has the antique plural "oxen". For
> the longest time, I thought an ox was a different species of
> cattle: it's not, it's just a big strong moo-moo, like a
> Clydesdale is a huge horse, both bred for pulling heavy loads.
> "Ox" has dropped out of nearly everyone's active vocabularly, I
> think.
> 
> 
Millet is not fodder, millet is a grain people still eat. It is not rare to do 
so, it is quite good in an "oatmeal context". Perhaps I should say breakfast 
cereal, as oatmeal might be one of those things forgotten by our advanced  
culture, or perhaps in transition, similar to "pablum" or "buckwheat groats." 
An ox would be a snipped bull...
>A changeover in technology creates a need for new words; during
> the transition, the old words remain current, or at least
> well-remembered, but a generation later, may be all but
> forgotten. 
> 
> --
> Mark Odegard   odegard@ptel.net
> [e-mailed copies of responses to my postings are welcomed]
>   The great orthographical contest has long subsisted between
>   etymology and pronunciation. It has been demanded, on one hand,
>   that men should write as they speak; but, as it has been shown
>   that this conformity never was attained in any language, and
>   that it is not more easy to persuade men to agree exactly in 
>   speaking than in writing, it may be asked, with equal propriety, 
>   why men do not rather speak as they write.  
>     -- Samuel Johnson, "The Plan of an English Dictionary" (1747).

In article 
, 
Krusch@pprz02.HRZ.Uni-Marburg.DE says...
>
>
>
>Hello, 
>my Name is Sven-Olaf Krusch and I am a student of Classical Archaeology 
>at the Phillips-Universitaet in Marburg.
>As a scholar of Prof. Dr. Lauter I am researching Greek Architecture,
>especially the earlier periods.
>My Question is, if there are other students that work on Greek
>Architecture and that would like to discuss problems or tell ideas, im-
>pressions or discuss recent publications, even if they deal with a
>wider range of Greek architecture.
>So please mail back if you would like to.
>
>So long,
>
>Sven-Olaf Krusch /Marburg,Germany
>  
>
I would be interested to know if you see a resemblence
between the round fluted columns of Hatshepsets mortuary
temple and certain early Doric Greek forms. 
I would particularly call your attention to the 
relative proportions of the parapet, and entableture; 
(especially its cornice, frieze and architrave), 
and the columns capital, shaft and base.
I am looking at a picture of the northwest corner of the
second terrace where two Colonnades meet at an inside corner.
The Dating is early XVIIIth Dynasty
The Capital is a single square block.
The Architrave and the Freize are a single broad beam
The Cornice projects with an Ovolo
There are Muttles on the Die of the Parapet and a projecting Cap.
The columns have a broad Base which sits on a pavement 
The pavement is the columns pedestal.
It is really quite similar to the Parthenon in these regards.
steve

The ancient Hebrew language uses letters for numbers and contains within
it codes and connotations for symbolic number sequences. It is a sign of
manifest ignorance for a person to read the Bible literally and assume
that 40 days means literally 40 days and not "a long time". Many people
don't even know that the number 666 (dreaded mark of the beast) is
actually an anagram for the name Nero.
It's always best to remain calm and talk slowly when dealing with
fundamentalists and other small children.
Cairns

Richard Trice wrote:
> O.k. I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt.  You were probably a
> little excited when you concluded scientific proof for Something, but your
> ENTIRE post made absolutlly no sense.  Here is what I deduce from your
> incoherent rambling.
>         Excesive or Minimal C-14 (radioactive carbon atoms) result in a
> longer reproduction cycle of cells in humans.  Now, how does this apply to
> the Bible?  Science is making assumptions that the C-14 ammounts in the
> body then are the same as they are now... so do you see the point?
>         I will go get the Time Magazine, but while I do that, how about
> you ORGANIZE your thoughts and try to form logical sentance, paragraph,
> and thesis.  Just slow down... I do enjoy reading your posts but I must
> say that last one was complete nonsense.
Life before the Flood was 900.
Life after the Flood was 450 for 100 yrs
then 240 for 200 yrs
then 137 for 500 yrs
and disease has resulted in an average of 70-80 for 3500 yrs.
The water from the Flood was above the (nitrogen) atmosphere.
The 12-time increase of radiation upon our nitrogen atmosphere
has increased the C-14. This dispersed into the world in 800 years.
It extends the C-14 dates up to 20,000 yrs further back than reality,
and it also shortens the life of every cell of every species plant,
animal, and human. It shows us we must be aware of our mortal
vulnerability.....not in mere humble attitude alone, but in obedience
to the natural world as created. Obey and live, disobey and eventually
die (starting the day you choose to divert this truth).
To live forever by obedience to natural true science (created by God),
the body must live 400 before it reaches 900 before it passes 1000.
The longevity of 400 must be restored before the 1000 years
of God's promise eternal life in paradise can be proven.
Thus the article merely reveals for the second time in TIME magazine
that 400 years is not considered obsurd as a vision of future hope
by current laboratories. Their recognition does not make them the savior
since the culprit is C-14 already being diluted at a rapid rate.
************
everyone benefiting from my work please email
my postmaster, my site will move unless those appreciative
send email to counter those trying to destroy it
************
A voice crying out and going unheard,
(40 years Oct 7) Nehemiah's (9:1) 50th JUBILEE of Tishri 24 
God's 1000 years has begun Sep 14 of 1996.
http://www.execpc.com/~elijah/Ezra1991CE.gif
Discover the world's true chronology thru the Bible at
          http://www.execpc.com/~elijah

Richard Trice wrote:
> O.k. I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt.  You were probably a
> little excited when you concluded scientific proof for Something, but your
> ENTIRE post made absolutlly no sense.  Here is what I deduce from your
> incoherent rambling.
>         Excesive or Minimal C-14 (radioactive carbon atoms) result in a
> longer reproduction cycle of cells in humans.  Now, how does this apply to
> the Bible?  Science is making assumptions that the C-14 ammounts in the
> body then are the same as they are now... so do you see the point?
>         I will go get the Time Magazine, but while I do that, how about
> you ORGANIZE your thoughts and try to form logical sentance, paragraph,
> and thesis.  Just slow down... I do enjoy reading your posts but I must
> say that last one was complete nonsense.
Life before the Flood was 900.
Life after the Flood was 450 for 100 yrs
then 240 for 200 yrs
then 137 for 500 yrs
and disease has resulted in an average of 70-80 for 3500 yrs.
The water from the Flood was above the (nitrogen) atmosphere.
The 12-time increase of radiation upon our nitrogen atmosphere
has increased the C-14. This dispersed into the world in 800 years.
It extends the C-14 dates up to 20,000 yrs further back than reality,
and it also shortens the life of every cell of every species plant,
animal, and human. It shows us we must be aware of our mortal
vulnerability.....not in mere humble attitude alone, but in obedience
to the natural world as created. Obey and live, disobey and eventually
die (starting the day you choose to divert this truth).
To live forever by obedience to natural true science (created by God),
the body must live 400 before it reaches 900 before it passes 1000.
The longevity of 400 must be restored before the 1000 years
of God's promise eternal life in paradise can be proven.
Thus the article merely reveals for the second time in TIME magazine
that 400 years is not considered obsurd as a vision of future hope
by current laboratories. Their recognition does not make them the savior
since the culprit is C-14 already being diluted at a rapid rate.
************
everyone benefiting from my work please email
my postmaster, my site will move unless those appreciative
send email to counter those trying to destroy it
************
A voice crying out and going unheard,
(40 years Oct 7) Nehemiah's (9:1) 50th JUBILEE of Tishri 24 
God's 1000 years has begun Sep 14 of 1996.
http://www.execpc.com/~elijah/Ezra1991CE.gif
Discover the world's true chronology thru the Bible at
          http://www.execpc.com/~elijah

>Alan M. Dunsmuir wrote:
>> 
>> In article , Loren Petrich
>>  writes
>> >       It was pointed out that "fecit" is singular; this makes it
>> >grammatically awkward -- either the verb ought to be plural (fecerunt) or
>> >else one of the names is in the wrong case.
>> 
>> The Encyclopaedia Britannica gives the founder as Marcus Vipsanius
>> Agrippa, starting the work in 27BC. Could the reference to 'L. F.
>> Costertium' perhaps relate to the foundation date?
>> --
Perhaps, if we may read it as L.F. COS TERTIUM, "(during) the third
consulate of L.F."
==
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal                     ~ ~
Amsterdam                   _____________  ~ ~
mcv@pi.net                 |_____________|||
========================== Ce .sig n'est pas une .cig

In article <329B8E01.5A3D@concentric.net>, jhaglund
 writes
>I don't have time to explain it all but the inscription describes the
>original building that was destroyed for the new one. The first building
>was by Marcus Agrippa. son-in-law of Augustus, in 27BC. It was damaged
>in a fire of 80AD and was then restored by Domitian. However, it had
>previously been changed by Hadrian, as witnessed by brick stamps still
>existing. The current building was built in c125AD. Later restorations
>were by Septimus Severus and Caracalla.  It became a Christian church in
>609AD.
Sadly, I knew all that . I simply want to know what is the pertinence
of the 'L. F. Costertium' embedded within the 'M. Agrippa fecit'.
-- 
Alan M. Dunsmuir
  "Time flies like an arrow -
   Fruit flies like a banana" --- Groucho Marx (as used by Noam Chomsky)

Robert S. Carlsen (rcarlsen@macconnect.com) wrote:
: On 24 November Yuri Kuchinsky wrote:
: > For the record, I have the highest regard of Joe.[Cambell] Many people --
: > often with a variety of hidden, and not so hidden, ideological agendas --
: > have tried to attack him, but the egg fell mostly on their own faces. I'm
: > not aware of any serious flaws in his methodology.
: > 
: Yuri, do you not consider arranging abstracted entities into unified
: patterns to be a serious methodolological flaw?
Gee, that's a tough one, Robert...
I guess we'd need precise definitions of all these terms, attribution of
them to Campbell, and some relevant examples to proceed further on this
one?
And when we are done with that prolegomena, we can get into deciding if
any flaws are discernable... 
How about an example of one "entity" he "abstracted"? 
Yuri.
--
           **    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

In article <57di4m$cvq@halley.pi.net>, mcv@pi.netÁ says...
>
>whittet@shore.net (Steve Whittet) wrote:
>
>>In article <57bo78$k3q@frysja.sn.no>, kalie@sn.no says...
>>>
>>>My preliminary guess is that there was a primary agricultural
>>>spread, accounting for most of Europe (roughly along the lines
>>>that Renfrew draws),
>
>>Agriculture tends to settle people down, I can see how it helps 
>>form language, but how does it help spread language?
>
>>When? (Following Renfrew starting c 6,500 BC ?)
>>Where? (Most of Europe? Way too vauge)
>
>>Whats the mechanism?
>
>Renfrew (drawing on work by Cavalli-Sforza) explains the mechanism in
>plenty of detail.  He calls it the "wave of advance".  No individual
>needs to move more than a few miles in his lifetime, and in any random
>direction, and still the wave spreads across all available farming land
>at a rate of 1 km. per year (assuming an 18km movement radius per
>generation).  Faster of course if the movement is not random (e.g. when
>the wave reaches a fertile stretch of land like a river valley).
I didn't happen to have
Colin Renfrew, "Archaeology & Language. The Puzzle of
Indo-European Origins", New York, 1987
handy, so I referred to
Colin Renfrew and Paul Bahn "Archaeology, Theories, Methods 
and Practice", Thames and Hudson, New York, 1986
which is a little more recent anyway.
He discusses language in terms of ethnicity on page 181
"The ethnic group may be defined as a firm aggregate of people
historically established on a given territory possessing in
common relatively stable peculiarities of language and culture,
and also recognizing their unity and difference from other similar 
formations (self awareness)and expressing this in a self apointed name."
All of the following are necessary to group them together
"1.)shared territory or land
2.)common descent or "blood"
3.)a common language
4.)community of customs or culture
5.)community of beliefs or religion
6.)self awareness, self identity
7.)a name (ethonym) to express the identity of the group
8.)shared origin story (or myth) describing the origin of the group"
"language is an important component of ethnicity"
page 366
"The development of a common ethnicity, and explicit awareness 
of being one people, is often related to linguistic factors. But 
archaeologists are only slowly coming to realise that ethnicity 
is not something which always existed in the past: rather it came 
about over time as a result of interactions which ethnicity itself 
further influenced." 
This was my point. Language evolves as a result of interactions.
page 371
"This would imply that tools made by hominids in the lower and
middle paleolithic periods were produced by beings without true
linguistic capabilities"
page 446 
Renfrew provides a diagram of the scripts in which a number of
languages are written which all split off from Phoenician
between 1000 and 800 BC. Old Hebrew, Greek, Anatolian, Punic,
Etruscan, Iberian, Coptic, Slavonic, Latin, Medieval, Aramaic,
Indic, Pehlevi, Avestan, Armenian, Syriac, Hebrew, Nanatean
and Arabic and attribues them to diffusion from an earlier 
Egyptian form. He then traces the diffusion from Phoenicia
to Greece to Italy to Europe.
page 447
"Language replacement can occur in several ways"
"1.) By the formation of a trading language"
"2.) By elite dominence"
"3.) By a technological innovation"
So, now returning to your premise...
...after 100 years the wave of advance has people 200 km apart.
According to Herodotus 200 furlongs or about 25 miles was considered
a days travel by horse. 
A region 500 miles square is governable because you can get from 
a central point to the outlying regions in about 10 days or two weeks.
Consider that c 6,500 BC people didn't use horses and here it has been 
estimated that they could walk about 8 miles a day.
Do these people 200 km apart c 6,500 BC still speak exactly the same
language when it takes them the better part of a months travel to get
together? How about after a millenia? How about after 6 millenia?
How do you maintain the ethnicity which is such an integral part
of language?
After 6 millenia people are 12,000 km apart and have not talked to 
each other in 6000 years. How many new words have been added to their 
two respective vocabularies in this period of time.
Basically this is not working for me, sorry.
>
>==
>Miguel Carrasquer Vidal 
steve

> >Genesis says Noah's grandson
> >Arpakshad lived 438 years  (2368-1930 BC)
> >Shelah       lived 433 years  (2333-1900 BC)
> >and Eber    lived 464 years  (2303-1839 BC)
> >[including Egyptian dynasties 1-4 who died with 12th dynasty possessions.]
Everybody knows that these guys were Immortals; like Connor, Duncan,
Amanda, Methos, and Richie.  They cannot die unless you take their
heads, and with them the power of the quickening--"There can be only
one! Long live the Highlander!"
...Ooops! Wrong mythology.
Never mind,
Salt
ataylor@jinx.umsl.edu

In article <57hjn8$3dh@dfw-ixnews7.ix.netcom.com>, S.NEMETH@IX.NETCOM.COM (Stella Nemeth) writes:
|> What do you mean by "agricultural spread"?  And when?
With apologies to Nemeth, for me, this will always be
butter.  Anyway, that's the primary one.  :(=) All too
often.
----
John E. Koontz (koontz@bldr.nist.gov)
Disclaimer:  Views and recommendations, express or implied, are my own, and
do not reflect the opinion or policy of my employers.

Jerry Tribe wrote:
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > > Hell Is A City Much Like Dis And It's Pandamonium.
> > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> It's a reference to Dante and his masterwork "The Inferno".
> In Inferno, Dis is one of the cities of hell
> the spelling should be pandemonium... as in pan demon ium,
> for the sake of the pun, loosely meaning
> 'across the demons' while noting that
> pandaemonium is a state of high chaos and
> also another location in Hell (Inferno).
and the castle built by the demons in hell immediately after the fall
from heaven, according to milton
that was what i thought the reference way too, at least
both the roman and christian ideas of hell incorporated into one phrase
erin

In article , piotrm@umich.edu says...
>
>In article <57dgq7$71s@fridge-nf0.shore.net> whittet@shore.net (Steve 
Whittet) writes:
>>
>>My thought was that the Sanskrit speaking Mittani charioteers were 
>>possibly the nobles of a warrior aristocracy from India imported by 
>>the Hurrians as mercenaries to fight the Hittites. Why shouldn't they
>>have come up the Persian Gulf along with their Indus valley seals?
>>>
>Sorry, this will not work.  A.  There is no evidence for anyone speaking 
>Sanskrit in the ancient Near East.
Both Mallory and Michael Roaf disagree. They point out some evidence
for the use of Sanskrit names and terminology by the Mittani to which
you alude latter as Indo Aryan.
Now whether this language was Indo Aryan or Sanskrit may be debated.
The issue is how did a portion of it come into use in Syria and why
by a group which apparently shows up suddenly as if from nowhere, 
immediately becomes a dominent force, then with equal rapidity 
dissapears without a trace. How do you explain this?
>The Indo-Aryan linguistic remnants that are attested in Mitanni 
>sources are limited to a few names of gods, kings, a few numbers 
>and technical terms (primarily horse training).
Actually this number of terms compares respectably with the
number of terms on which some other language assessments are made.
>As A. Kammenhuber showed, and as has also been argued by Diakonoff, 
>these are archaic Indo-Aryan words, filtered through Hurrian phonology, 
>that do not represent any spoken language, but loans Hurrianized by the 
>time we encounter them.
So we have four experts testifying and none of them agree. What else
is new?
>They are not found in earlier Hurrian, but only in the Mitanni dialect 
>(that is found in official documents of the Maitanni/Mitanni/Hanigalbat 
>state), that is after about 1600 or 1500.
That would seem like a good reason to suspect the Mittani were an import.
Why do you propose a large number of Indians might have shown up suddenly
with chariots to fight for the Hurrians? Were they musicians perhaps,
as in the case of the latter import of 20,000 zotts c 450 AD?
>The linguistic elements are Indo-Aryan but not Sanskrit by any means.
How do you demonstrate the difference c 1600 BC?
>I am not an Indo-Europeanist, but if you or anyone else wants 
>to argue otherwise, they have to argue with the evidence and 
>analysis brought together by Kammenhuber, Die Arier im Vorderen 
>Asien (1968) and Diakonoff, Orientalia 41 (1972).
Mallory choses to do that as does Michael Roaf, as would I imagine
some of the other posters to this thread.
>
>B.  There is no warrior aristocracy among the Hurrians, and there 
>were no imported merceneries. 
Other than the Mittani there were the Greek sea peoples, all the 
Anatolian tribes, people who would become Phrygians, Scythians, 
Phoenicians, many of whom seem to have engaged in the mercenary 
arts as early as 1285 BC and the battle of Kadesh in which both 
the Hurrians and Mittani also apparently participated using iron 
shod chariots.
You seem to be in favor of Indo Aryans coming from nowhere to
invade India. You would like to dissasociate the Mittani from 
the Hurrians ethnically, but won't go so far as to disassociate
them from Ido Aryans. Where do you claim they came from? Elam?
Uartia? Where is your evidence for that speculation?
>This is an old idea that has been long rejected.  In 
>fact Diakonoff rejects the notion that marianna (charioteers) 
>was even an Indo-European word. 
I see, and how does he explain their presence?
> I do not have the citation handy, but can find it.
>The only Indo-Iranian names in Mitanni were carried 
>by the kings, who had two names, one II and the other 
>one Hurrian, but not even by their wives or children. 
> There is no evidence of IA names among the "aristocracy."
Why not consider the possibility they came up the Persian Gulf?
>
>C.  They could not have come up the Persian Gulf with the 
>Indus Valley seals as the seals stop around the 18th century.
It is certain that trade with the Harrapans declines during
the period c 1800-1200 BC The last evidence of trade with
the island of Bahrain is c 1723 BC and thereafter, during
the Kassite periof the focus is at Faikala island suggesting
the point at which the Tigris and Euphrates reach the Gulf 
has moved north.
The Harrapans also allow their trade with Makkan to drop off
during this period which is probably when the upper Indus
began focusing on the trade coming up the Ganges.
That may be the very reason you have young aristocracy from
India going off to Mesopotamia to work as mercenaries. The
reason was things were slow and they were looking for work.
"Kassite Babylonia had access to Lapis Lazuli independent of 
interference by its major 14th century BC competitors and
therefore through a southern Iranian or an Arabian Gulf route"
"Bahrain and the Arabian Gulf" C. Edens BTTA page 213
What we observe in this period are some climatic changes. The
Indus dries up, trade shifts from Mohenjo-Daro to Lothal, and
at the other end of the gulf the artifacts shift position from 
Bahrain to Faikala during the Kassite period. What we are seeing
is the harbor mouth is moving upstream. In the Old Babylonian
and Kassite periods there are artifacts found at Qal'at Al Bahrain
as late as 1500 BC.
>There is one stray Dilmun type seal in a 12th century level 
>from Nippur, but it is isolated and not considered as evidence 
>for the continuity of trade.  
Trade contiues through the Kassite period at Faikala.
>If Indo-Europeans came up from the Gulf, how is it that they 
>left not a trace along the way, no one noticed them, and they 
>only popped up among the Hurrian-speaking members of the Mitanni 
state.  
"Marine shells are present in 2nd millenium contexts in many 
Mesopotamian sites.(Susa, Babylon, Nusi and Al-Rimah stand out)
These shells, many of which belong to the Indo-Pacific biotic
province are direct indicators of exchange links which reached, 
if not passed through the Gulf." IBID
Faikala: "The large number of Mittani style seal would urge a 
date in the fifteenth-fourtheenth centuries BC"
>As Diakonof (Evidence on the Ethnic Division of the 
>Hurrians,  in Morrison and Owen, eds., Studies Lacheman, p. 89) 
>put it:  "The last wave of  migration was the coming of 
>the Mitannians from the Lake Urmia region, bringing along some 
>Indo-Iranian glosses and the Indo-Iranian dynastic gods."
You do think they were Uartian! A mere 600 years ahead of their time.
steve

In article <57hjn5$3dh@dfw-ixnews7.ix.netcom.com> S.NEMETH@IX.NETCOM.COM (Stella Nemeth) writes:
>>>Now, what does this tell you.  For one thing it is pretty obvious that
>>>the Greeks and the Philistines were in contact.  You can't tell that
>>>from the languages they spoke, by the way.
>>AFAIK, it is unknown which language the Philistines spoke.
>>Or have I missed something?
>Piotr says they spoke perfectly normal Canaanite.  I figure Piotr
>ought to know.
I do not remember saying that; if I did, I was incorrect, and it was due to 
sunspots.  I really have no idea what language they spoke, but I assume that 
it would be a safe bet that they did not speak Greek.  There is a "Philistine" 
inscription that could be called Canaanite, I suppose, but that does not mean 
that they spoke the language.  

Please add me to the list of newsgroups.
Thanks,
kathy la plante

kathy la plante wrote:
> 
> Please add me to the list of newsgroups.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> kathy la plante

I'm not an archaeologist, but a physicist (unfortunately at present without a 
nuclid chart at hand).
aander16@counsel.com wrote:
: Can anyone help out a non-scientist here?  
:   -- How accurately can a 19th or 20th Century sample be dated? 
:   A sample, for example from 1820? What is the +/- percentage 
:   for accuracy? 
I guess that's a question of how exactly you measure it. C14 decays (if I 
recollect it correctly) into N14. The problem is that - due to the chemical 
properties of nitrogen - I wouldn't imagine it is that easy to find and 
quantify it. So you are left with measuring the proportions of C12 to C14 or 
some such which is less accurate than if you could double check it with the 
nitrogen produced.
Also it's a question of the C14 concentration originally. The nature of 
redioactive decay is that you cannot predict what will happen - you can only 
get probabilities. If I have tonnes of C14 to start off with I can safely say 
that I'm left with only 1/2 ton of it after one halflife time (1/4 after two; 
etc.). Also I've got enough material that I can assume there are atoms decaying 
all the time. With a sufficiently small amount I cannot say that anymore.
10 atoms have a high probablilty of just leaving 5 after a halflife time, but 
you could also measure anything between zero and ten (inclusively, although 
less probable the further away from 5). 
So I would guess you have to let sufficient time pass before you can be 
reasonably sure to have a significant decay (which is beyond the uncertainty I 
described above - the fact that you coincidnetly have say 8 atoms left instead 
of the theoretical 5 would severely offset your dating if you assume it is 
significant).
:   -- How about 1920? 
:   -- Can a recent sample (10, 20 years old) be pinpointed by 
:   the month (might be a silly expectation, and I'm sure you'll
:   let me know :) ) 
:   -- What kind of carbon dating method would 
:   yield the most accurate results? 
:   -- Are there any NEW technologies on the horizon (carbon-based
:   or not) which would be more accurate especially for 17th, 
:   18th and 19th Century samples.
Given tha comparatively long halflife time of C14 I would be surprised if you 
could do serious dating (with sufficiently small error bars) any closer than 
about 150 - 200 years back. 
Ralf 
:   I appreciate your indulgance on this.
: -------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
:       http://www.dejanews.com/     Search, Read, Post to Usenet
--

Kjell T Svindland (kjells@ibg.uit.no) wrote:
: In article <848935384.23269@dejanews.com>, aander16@counsel.com wrote:
: >   -- Can a recent sample (10, 20 years old) be pinpointed by 
: >   the month (might be a silly expectation, and I'm sure you'll
: >   let me know :) ) 
: Because of nuclear pollution, 1950 is considered as year 0 in radiocarbon
: dating. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I guess the method will be
: useless for any material that was alive after Hiroshima :-(
I hadn't thought of it that way, but maybe there's some trueth to it. I don't 
know what byproducts you get during a nuclear explosion (normal radioactive 
decay goes along well defined chains and ends up in Pb or Fe). In order to 
pollute the C14 measurements you'd have to be able to seriously split atoms 
(creating two new atoms rather than one lighter atom + radiation). One of the 
products would have to be either C14 itself or any nuclid whose chain of decay 
passes through C14 (e.g. Be14).
Have you got any more details about this nuclear pollution thing?
Ralf
: >   -- Are there any NEW technologies on the horizon (carbon-based
: >   or not) which would be more accurate especially for 17th, 
: >   18th and 19th Century samples.
: There is a very old one, that has been developed into great science during
: later years: Dendrochronology, or in plain speech: counting and measuring
: the annual rings of growth in wood. Drill out a core as thick as your
: little finger from a log, and experienced dendrochronologists will be able
: to tell you both the year the tree was cut, and the climatic history of the
: area where the tree was growing.
: -- 
: Kjell T Svindland                     kjellts@sn.no, kjells@ibg.uit.no
: Tromsø, Norway                             http://home.sn.no/~kjellts/
:                                      - The past is a key to the future
--