From: owner-ane@ (ANE Digest) To: ane-digest Subject: ANE Digest V1999 #136 Reply-To: Sender: owner-ane@ Errors-To: owner-ane@ Precedence: bulk ANE Digest Sunday, May 16 1999 Volume 1999 : Number 136 Re: ane Decoding the Priesthood ane Egyptian Art query Re: ane Aramaic dialects Re: ane Decoding the Priesthood ane Re: Euphrates re: ane Aramaic dialects Re: ane Aramaic dialects ane Re Egyptian Art Re: ane Aramaic dialects Re: ane Aramaic dialects Re: ane Lemba tradition ane Jared Diamond's article (was: Decoding the Priesthood) Re: ane Aramaic dialects ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 15 May 1999 12:24:35 +0300 From: "Jonathan D. Safren" Subject: Re: ane Decoding the Priesthood Andrés Piquer Otero wrote: > I do have a bias: "Jewish" and "kohen" are purely religious categories. To > prove this, only a little knowledge of history is needed. It would be > equally possible to search genetic traits of "Philologists", "Republican > voters" or "neo-Woodstock hippies". Has anybody so far tried to genetically > research "Catholics", for instance? In my humblest opinion, this kind of > research in relation with Jews is related to a belief in the 12 tribes > tradition and of Biblical exclusivity, which, at the light of history, is > quite away from truth. > The claimed genetic similarities among Kohanim are a different matter from those of the Jews. One can can convert to Judaism, but not to being a Kohen - at least not since the Late Second Temple Period. What the genetic marker tests have shown is that all Jews who claim to be Kohanim today have ceratin genetic traits whoch are much less common among Jews who do not claim to be Kohanim, or among non-Jews. The conclusion has been, then, that all those claiming to be Kohanim have a good genetically-based case for their claim - at least back up to the period when non-Kohanim could still become Kohanim, whenever that was. Believe me, the claim that Jews are a "race" is one that disturbes me very much, living as I do in the post-Holocaust era. But, as for the Kohanim, genetic evidence based on scientific investigation is something that requires serious consideration. The claim about the Lemba, if true, also requires serious consideration. BTW, is anyone acquainted with Jared Diamond's essay "Who are the Jews?". It appeared in either Nature or Scientific American, I believe, and weighed the evidence for the question on whether the modern-day Jews are descendants of ancient Palestinian Jews or the descendants, in large measure of converts. Sincerely, - -- Jonathan D. Safren Dept. of Biblical Studies Beit Berl College Beit Berl Post Office 44905 Israel ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 15 May 1999 20:27:50 +1000 From: George Athas Subject: ane Egyptian Art query I'm after something that answers the following two descriptions from Egyptian art: (1) Seth teaching Thutmose to handle a bow. Where in Egypt is this found? (2) Examples of a Pharaoh with his foot on his enemies' necks. Many thanks. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: GEORGE ATHAS Dept of Semitic Studies, University of Sydney ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Tel Dan Inscription Website has a new home at http://members.xoom.com/gathas/teldan.htm ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 15 May 1999 08:02:28 -0400 From: "Peter T. Daniels" Subject: Re: ane Aramaic dialects lnessa wrote: > > Can any one here make a judgement as to how far 'Aramaic dialects' > such as Nabataean, Palmyrene, Syriac, etc., were mutually intelligible in the > early centuries CE? They're all very similar [except the West-East split]; of course we can't know how different the accents were, nor the details of vocalization, nor how much opportunity for traveling among the fairly isolated communities there was, but "Aramaic" was still the Imperial lingua franca and they can't have been terribly different. - -- Peter T. Daniels grammatim@worldnet.att.net ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 15 May 1999 08:07:21 -0400 From: "Peter T. Daniels" Subject: Re: ane Decoding the Priesthood Jonathan D. Safren wrote: > The claim about the Lemba, if true, also requires serious consideration. > BTW, is anyone acquainted with Jared Diamond's essay "Who are the Jews?". It > appeared in either Nature or Scientific American, I believe, and weighed the > evidence for the question on whether the modern-day Jews are descendants of > ancient Palestinian Jews or the descendants, in large measure of converts. I believe Jared Diamond is a regular columnist for *The Smithsonian* (as Stephen Jay Gould is for *Natural History*), so that might be the best place to peruse. - -- Peter T. Daniels grammatim@worldnet.att.net ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 15 May 1999 08:50:52 -0400 From: "Richard S. Ellis" Subject: ane Re: Euphrates At 11:43 PM 5/14/99 +0200, Bjarte Kaldhol wrote: >Dear Mike, >This was a strange interpretation, indeed! Where did the Euphrates have >this appearance? In the south? But we are talking about the middle >Euphrates in Syria, where the Egyptians would have seen the river. From the >pictures I have seen of this river today, there is nothing to show that the >riverbed is higher than the plain here; on the contrary, it is much lower, >and it cannot have changed much since ancient times. I'm no Egyptologist, but I have the impression that the ordinary Egyptian expressions for "north" and "south" were "downstream" and "upstream," respectively--referring to the Nile, of course. Finding a river in Syria that flowed from north to south would have struck them as unnatural. Dick Ellis 40 00' 24" N 75 17' 09" W ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 15 May 1999 19:59:37 +0300 From: Naccache Subject: re: ane Aramaic dialects On Sat, 15 May 1999 Lester Ness wrote: >Can any one here make a judgement as to how far 'Aramaic dialects' such as >Nabataean, Palmyrene, Syriac, etc., were mutually intelligible in the early >centuries CE? Dear Lester, Let me first report the conclusions of Edward M. Cook, as stated in his "Qumran Aramaic and Aramaic Dialectology", Abr-Nahrain Supplemnt 3 (1992), 1-21. I will then briefly present my "judgement" based upon my experience teaching these corpuses to Lebanese students. Cook presents a detailed dialectological approach to the study of the "Middle Aramaic dialects, to use Fitzmyer's term, (which) consist of five Aramaic corpora. Four of them are attested mainly in inscriptions: Hatran (89-238 CE), Edessene (Irst-3d cent. CE), Palmyrene (44 BCE-274 CE), and Nabatean (170 BCE-356 CE)." Cook writes: "The survey of differing morphological features in the Middle Aramaic dialects is complete. ... It is clear that such a pattern points to a dialect continuum." ... "The idea of a dialect continuum for Aramaic is hardly new; J. Starcky already proposed it for this very period in the course of a discussion of Palmyrene." ... p. 16 "The continuum/convergence model does not appear to have much influenced the understanding of Aramaic in general, however, nor of Qumran Aramaic in particular. In fact, it has several important implications: (1) The identification of ancestral dialects is difficult in the context of a continuum, because any feature common to two adjacent dialects may be the result of diffusion." ... "Given all this, it would seem that the attempt to describe ancestral dialects for any of the Middle Aramaic dialects must be given up or at last made with considerable caution." p. 17 "(2) The existence of a dialect continuum like the present one, that is, one that is inferred from written traces, is incompatible with any theory of a supra-dialectal standard Aramaic for this period."... "Still, the idea dies hard that the Middle Aramaic dialects were successors to the role of Fertile Crescent _lingua franca_ played so long and so well by Imperial Aramaic." p. 18 "(3) I just now had occasion to speak of the distinction between written and spoken languages. The existence of a dialect continuum visible in writing implies that the barrier between written and spoken was rather permeable in this period." ... "To phrase it another way, there is no _decisive_ evidence that the relationship between spoken and written Aramaic in this continuum took the form of diglossia." ... "The idea, then, that spoken Middle Aramaic was an altogether different variety than the visible written standards should be reconsidered." p. 19 "Although each language center mentioned here (Hatra, Edessa, Palmyra, Petra, Qumran) undoubtedly represented a standard of some sort, it would require much more evidence from a greater variety of epigraphic sources to prove the existence of diglossia." p. 20 These short quote do not do justice to Cook's very interesting article. However, I hope that they are helpful in answering your question. Now, based on my experience teaching extensively Tadmurean (aka Palmyrean), and occasionally Hatraen and Nabatean, added to my readings of the Edessan and Qumran corpora, I would say the following: 1 - I do not think that the different script traditions would have constituted an obstacle to trained scribes, and not much of one for the educated. 2 - I need a couple of months to teach students Biblical Aramaic (chosen because it is the only pointed ancient Aramaic corpus). Then they can read Tadmuraean after very little practice (mainly consisting in trying to respect Aramaic phonology, and not read the unpointed text as Arabic). They do not require any more grammatical indications to read Nabatean or Hatraean. In fact, the only difficulty Lebanese students proficient in "Classical Arabic" and having the "Bilad esh-Shem" vernacular as their mother tongue face while dealing with these texts is one of vocabulary and historical context. The Ancient Aramaic "languages" are quite transparent. Hope this help, Albert Naccache anaccash@nidal.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 15 May 1999 13:24:04 -0400 From: "Peter T. Daniels" Subject: Re: ane Aramaic dialects Naccache wrote: > Now, based on my experience teaching extensively Tadmurean (aka > Palmyrean), and occasionally Hatraen and Nabatean, added to my readings of > the Edessan and Qumran corpora, I would say the following: > 1 - I do not think that the different script traditions would have > constituted an obstacle to trained scribes, and not much of one for the > educated. Alexander Klugkist comes to the same conclusions regarding a script continuum as Cook does regarding a dialect continuum. There don't seem to have been firm, persuasive regional standards, just variations that emerged here and there and spread the way language changes spread out. Eventually we ended up with just Syriac, Arabic, and the Manichaean that headed east to Sogdian and the rest, but all three emerged from a common tradition-with-variations. - -- Peter T. Daniels grammatim@worldnet.att.net ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 15 May 1999 19:53:25 +0200 From: biblio.abbayeliguge@interpc.fr (Abbaye Liguge (Biblio)) Subject: ane Re Egyptian Art Message en plusieurs parties et au format MIME. - ------=_NextPart_000_0025_01BE9F0C.97EFC650 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Dear George In the Boston Museum of Fine Art (03.1131) there is a fragment of a = throne of Thut-mose in which the Praraoh is shown in the form of a = sphinx treading upon his Asiatic ennemies. He grabs one of them by his = neck and tramples others under his animal paws. You can find a good photograph of this wood panel in Pritchard's ANET in = Picture, p. 138, fig. 393. Best wishes. Lucien-Jean BORD - ------=_NextPart_000_0025_01BE9F0C.97EFC650 Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Dear George
In the Boston Museum of Fine Art = (03.1131) there=20 is a fragment of a throne of Thut-mose in which the Praraoh is shown in = the form=20 of a sphinx treading upon his Asiatic ennemies. He grabs one of them by = his neck=20 and tramples others under his animal paws.
You can find a good photograph of = this wood=20 panel in Pritchard's ANET in Picture, p. 138, fig. 393.
Best wishes.
Lucien-Jean=20 BORD
- ------=_NextPart_000_0025_01BE9F0C.97EFC650-- ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 May 1999 09:14:52 +0900 From: lnessa Subject: Re: ane Aramaic dialects HOw big is the east/sest split between ARamic dialects? I've studied Syriac, and I'm wondering how much study I need do to use the other dialects. Lester lness@ivy.nenu.edu.cn ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 15 May 1999 21:28:50 -0400 From: "Peter T. Daniels" Subject: Re: ane Aramaic dialects lnessa wrote: > > HOw big is the east/sest split between ARamic dialects? I've > studied Syriac, and I'm wondering how much study I need do to use the > other dialects. In terms of literature, we're talking about Christian Palestinian Aramaic (formerly called Palestinian Syriac), where the corpus is quite small and apparently entirely palimpsest (Christa Müller-Kessler has already (re)edited most of it), for which there are grammars by her and by Schulthess; and the Palestinian Talmud and some Targumim (where I don't know the details), which were a specialty of Kutscher's ("Galilean Aramaic"). For the modern languages, you can see from Jastrow's article in the Hetzron volume how much they differ (he treats Western vs. all of Eastern in two sections), and from Kaufman's, an overview of the available materials. - -- Peter T. Daniels grammatim@worldnet.att.net ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 May 1999 07:42:22 +0200 From: "Lloyd Thomas" Subject: Re: ane Lemba tradition This is a multi-part message in MIME format. - ------=_NextPart_000_0017_01BE9F6F.A206E660 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Michael Thanks for the offer.=20 However, Hromnik's Indo-Africa thesis aside, the failure of his = hypothesis to provide a viable interpretive framework for all the = evidences still leaves us with the need to understand the evidences; = here, specifically the evidences for an Lemba-Arabian connection (for = instance Bullock's observation in1927 that the Lemba swear by 'Sayid'). = The social ripples caused by the rise of Muhammed's power in Arabia is a = reasonable cause and deserves consideration in Lemba possible origins as = much as their semi-kosher practices. Lloyd Thomas Cape Town >It may be of interest to note that CA Hromnik's research traces the = Lemba of the Baramina clan to an expulsion by >Mohammed of religious = schismatics (ISNB 0 7021 1163 5).=20 No offense but although Cyril Hromnik is eloquent in his = presentations, his research is full of empty holes. He fails to take = into account both radiocarbon dating and ethnography because that's the = only way his arguments hold. If want I can cite a review article of his = ideas by Professor Martin Hall. Cyril's own son thinks his father's = ideas are crazy. =20 Michael Brass, Archaeology Honours student, University of Cape Town, Archaeology (BA), History (BA), U.C.T., Chairman & Secretary, U.C.T. Archaeology Field Club, Member: the Egyptian Society of South Africa. - ------=_NextPart_000_0017_01BE9F6F.A206E660 Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
 
Michael
Thanks for the offer.
However, Hromnik's Indo-Africa thesis aside, the failure of his = hypothesis=20 to provide a viable interpretive framework for all the evidences still = leaves us=20 with the need to understand the evidences; here, specifically the = evidences for=20 an Lemba-Arabian connection (for instance Bullock's observation in1927 = that the=20 Lemba swear by 'Sayid'). The social ripples caused by the rise of = Muhammed's=20 power in Arabia is a reasonable cause and deserves consideration in = Lemba=20 possible origins as much as their semi-kosher practices.
 
Lloyd Thomas
Cape Town
>It may be of interest to note that CA Hromnik's research = traces the=20 Lemba of the Baramina clan to an expulsion by >Mohammed of = religious=20 schismatics (ISNB 0 7021 1163 5).
 
No offense but although Cyril = Hromnik is=20 eloquent in his presentations, his research is full of empty holes. = He fails=20 to take into account both radiocarbon dating and ethnography because = that's=20 the only way his arguments hold. If want I can cite a review article = of his=20 ideas by Professor Martin Hall. Cyril's own son thinks his father's = ideas=20 are crazy.
 
Michael Brass,
Archaeology = Honours=20 student, University of Cape Town,
Archaeology (BA), History (BA), = U.C.T.,
Chairman & Secretary, U.C.T. Archaeology Field=20 Club,
Member: the Egyptian Society of South=20 Africa.
- ------=_NextPart_000_0017_01BE9F6F.A206E660-- ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 May 1999 03:30:04 -0400 From: Christopher Robbins Subject: ane Jared Diamond's article (was: Decoding the Priesthood) Peter Daniels wrote: >Jonathan D. Safren wrote (in part): > >>BTW, is anyone acquainted with Jared Diamond's essay "Who are the Jews?". >>It appeared in either Nature or Scientific American, I believe, and >>weighed the evidence for the question on whether the modern-day Jews are >>descendants of ancient Palestinian Jews or the descendants, in large >>measure of converts. > >I believe Jared Diamond is a regular columnist for *The Smithsonian* ... >so that might be the best place to peruse. Jonathan, Jared Diamond has published articles in _Discover_, _Natural History_, _Nature_ and _Geo_ magazines as well. So given your intuition that the article may have appeared in _Nature_, I think that may be the best place to start, given that my familiarity with _The Smithsonian_ would suggest that an article of this nature would not be particularly apt for that journal. (BTW, Jonathan, best wishes to you since it has been a while since we last had a private exchange). I would note that Jared Diamond is the sort of omnivorous intellectual that I much admire. A physician by training and a professor of physiology at the UCLA Medical School by profession, he is also a first class exemplar of the lay historian who reads (or rather devours) everything in sight and produces therefrom a sort of macro-historical analysis of why things are they way they are. As as sort of sequel to Desmond Morris' work of thirty years ago, Dr. Diamond wrote his best-selling book _The Third Chimpanzee_. And more recently, his book _Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies_ won the Pulitzer Prize. That this latter was an informed and engaging work is without question. And when Jared Diamond has one foot in his true field of expertise (medicine, disease, pathology, evolutionary biology, etc.), he is unsurpassable. Did you know, for example, that "the major killers of humanity throughout our recent history ... are infectious diseases that evolved from diseases of animals"? The implications of this (which he details) can be quite astonishing. But in the broader realms of historical and cultural exegisis, Jared Diamond has cast his hopes beyond the reach of his net. There are, unfortunately, no small number of examples of error in these wider domains, such as the biological overdeterminism of his account of Cortés and the Méxcia (i.e., the Aztecs). And the broader the field (as in the fate of Africa), the greater the error. So I encourage you to look up and read Jared Diamond's article on the heredity of modern-day Jewry, for he is an erudite persona and an engrossing writer on all manner of subjects. But, as a friend, I would respectfully suggest that this article be seen as a stimulant for questions to be asked rather than as a resolution for questions that have been answered. Best regards, Chris Christopher Robbins New York City crisica@idt.net ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 May 1999 09:34:08 +0200 From: Elie Wardini Subject: Re: ane Aramaic dialects What I am saying is that we should be careful when making such assessments. Based on my experiences with speakers of Turoyo and "Assyrian", they have some difficulty understanding eachother. I believe that it is wrong to make assessments based on what we see of morphology and possibly see of phonology. There are so many more factors that play in when speaking and understanding speech. note for example that Norwegians have a much better time reading Danish than reading Swedish. Bu as far as oral communication is concerned, it is the other way round. From writing, one would assume that Danish and Norwegian are very close. No problem understanding. Yet have you ever heard a Dane speak Danish. It is charming, but I say no more!!! ;-) >> >> I am not so sure. One has to be carefu with such things. I am not sure what >> use it would be and in what context to speculate. >> >> If we are to measure by the extent that speakers of Turoyo understand >> speakers of "Assyrian", both Eastern Aramaic dialects, yet Turoyo is of the >> "Western" type, while "Assyrian" is of the "Eastern" type, my expreience is >> that they do have problems conducting fluent conversations. > >I'm not sure what you're saying. For one thing, we're 2000 years further >on; Turoyo and "Assyrian" are both East Aramaic (Turoyo apparently the >most divergent of the modern languages) -- the only survival of West >Aramaic is Ma`lula and its two neighbors. > >>From what little we have of Pal., Nab., epigraphic Syriac, and the >handful of other regional epigraphic Aramaics, they differ but not very >much. (Barthélemy was able to read Palmyrene because it was pretty much >identical to the literary Syriac he knew from several centuries later.) > >-- >Peter T. Daniels > grammatim@worldnet.att.net Elie Wardini e-mail: e.d.wardini@east.uio.no ------------------------------ End of ANE Digest V1999 #136 **************************** Back issues are available on the Oriental Institute World-Wide Web (WWW) site at: http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/ANE/OI_ANE.html