From: owner-ane@ (ANE Digest) To: ane-digest Subject: ANE Digest V2000 #30 Reply-To: Sender: owner-ane@ Errors-To: owner-ane@ Precedence: bulk ANE Digest Sunday, January 30 2000 Volume 2000 : Number 030 Re: ane ABC news program about John McHugh, Sumerians, and Noah Re: ane Urukagina, Ishtar/Inanna and tar(a) Etymologies? RE: ane Philistines not Greek Re: ane Urukagina, Ishtar/Inanna and tar(a) Etymologies? ane Urukagina, Ishtar/Inanna and tar(a) Etymol.. ane: questions about 2 obscure kings of Egypt's TIP Re: ane Philistines not Greek (Slight correction) Re: ane Urukagina, Ishtar/Inanna and tar(a) Etymologies? ane Baby talk ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2000 09:49:53 EST From: FucciXXV@aol.com Subject: Re: ane ABC news program about John McHugh, Sumerians, and Noah In a message dated 1/28/00 11:24:24 AM Central Standard Time, mfuller@artsci.wustl.edu writes: > A colleague saw a program on ABC news about a "young archaeologist from > Utah" with a new theory on the Noah tradition. I did not see the program, > but there is a webnotice of it at: > > http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/MichaelGuillen/Michael_Guillen.html At first blush, this smells like complete tripe. This "young archaeologist" and "his colleagues" have determined that "long before the invention of writing" the Sumerians were telling the "basic Noah's Ark story" by imposing characters from the story on the constellations of Aquarius, Orion and Argo. (They even presume to interpret changes in the paths of the stars ca. 700 BCE to have caused a switch from Argo to Pegasus for the Ark, leading to a change in its depiction from crescent-shaped to squarish.) How do these guys know what stories the Sumerians were telling orally "long before the invention of writing"? Is there a sequence of iconic ark-depictions that changes ca. 700 BCE? Did the Sumerians see Argo as a boat, or Pegasus for that matter? Do they have any archaeological or textual evidence at all, or just their own fanciful interpretations of some computer-regressed star charts? Jim Thorn Chicago, IL ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2000 13:34:23 -0800 From: "morris silver" Subject: Re: ane Urukagina, Ishtar/Inanna and tar(a) Etymologies? - ----- Original Message ----- From: "morris silver Sent: Monday, January 24, 2000 4:21 PM > I have been following this discussion with great interest. I hope that > someone will explain what the Sumerians meant by "heaven". Dear Listmembers: To judge by the absence of responses to my query it would seem that we do not know what the Sumerians meant by "heaven". Therefore, to insist that the Ishtar means "Lady of Heaven" (and not "Lady of the Date Storehouse" or something else) is misleading. Useful translations do not disguise our ignorance in a fog of precise sounding words. Best wishes, Morris Morris Silver Department of Economics City College of New York ANCIENT ECONOMIES I http://sondmor.tripod.com/index-html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2000 21:22:26 +0100 From: Aayko Eyma Subject: RE: ane Philistines not Greek >>As there was a discussion on this topic on ane not long back, I thought that a summary of part of Giovanni Garbini's 1997 book "I Filistei: Gli Antagonisti di Israele", Rusconi, might be of interest to the people here as Italian scholarly works rarely make it out to a wider public. ***Interesting looking book; not to go into the theories about the Sea peoples: >>He identifies the homeland of the Philistines with Crete, the Keftiu of the Egyptians, citing "texts from the temple of Amenhotep in which are listed various cities of Keftui and those with affinities with Keftiu. These cities are amongst others Knossos, Phaestos, Amnisos (port of the island of Crete), Mycenae, Nauplia and Cytheris." (This is one reference that I would like to have if anyone knows about this temple.) ****This Aegean List, inscribed on the pedestal of a statue from the mortuary temple (Kom-el-Heitan) of pharaoh Amenophis III, consists of place names that may have formed an itinerary for vessels trading in the Aegean. The list is partly in Michael Wood "In search of the Trojan War" (1987). Unfortunately he does not not give all Egyptian names of the places. The list starts with the overall areas Keftiu [Crete], Danaya/Tanayu [Danaoi, Homeric Greeks], then gives the places on Crete, like Kunusha [Knossos] and Biyashataya [Phaistos], and then the places on the mainland, like Mukanu [Mycenae] and Diqayas [Thebai (?)]. Wood does not give any references, but elsewhere I found that the pedestal list has been published in (non vidi): E. Edel - "Die Ortsnamenliste aus dem Totentempel Amenophis III (Bonn 1966) E. Edel - ZAeS 115,1 (1988) >>He also notes that the Pelasgoi are referred to in Homer as the Pelasti (Iliad 16,233). ***This would be something to check; I know the Peleset are often linked with the Pelasgoi, but this link is equally often denied. I do not think there is an attested (vs supposed) form *Pelastoi to support it? The Perseus website likely could tell us. kind regards, Aayko Eyma ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2000 22:11:15 +0100 (MET) From: Tomas.Marik@ff.cuni.cz Subject: Re: ane Urukagina, Ishtar/Inanna and tar(a) Etymologies? - ----- Forwarded message from morris silver ----- >> I have been following this discussion with great interest. I hope that >> someone will explain what the Sumerians meant by "heaven". > >Dear Listmembers: > >To judge by the absence of responses to my query it would seem that we do >not know what the Sumerians meant by "heaven". Therefore, to insist that the >Ishtar means "Lady of Heaven" (and not "Lady of the Date Storehouse" or >something else) is misleading. Useful translations do not disguise our >ignorance in a fog of precise sounding words. > >Best wishes, >Morris > >Morris Silver >Department of Economics >City College of New York > >ANCIENT ECONOMIES I >http://sondmor.tripod.com/index-html > > >----- End of forwarded message from morris silver ----- Perhaps you'll find an answer in W. Horowitz, Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography, Winona Lake 1998. E.g. on p. 243 he says that "Heaven is the upper part of the two halves of the universe. In ancient Mesopotamia, as in the Judeo-Christian tradition, the heavens include both visible areas, where the stars, Sun, Moon, and planets are seen, and higher regions above the sky, where gods of heaven dwell ..." From the English perspective (the 10th edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary has "n. 1 a place regarded in various religions as the abode of God or the gods and of the good after death, often depicted as being above the sky. 2 (the heavens) poetic/literary the sky."), the term "an" refers to both "sky" and "heaven". There's also another difference between those two definitions, whereas the English dictionary only states "often depicted as being above the sky", Wayne Horowitz exactly defines the position of heaven as "the upper part of the two halves of the universe." I suspect that his view of Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography is somewhat simplyfied. I am conviced that both Sumerians and Akkadians also had an abstract concept of heaven and underworld, which in the first place was located in the geography of their thinking and not on a map. If a text describes heaven as the upper part of the universe, it should rather be seen as a naturalistic image of an abstract idea. Tomas Marik tomas.marik@ff.cuni.cz Institute of Ancient Near Eastern Studies Prague ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2000 11:24:12 -1000 From: "Randall Larsen" Subject: ane Urukagina, Ishtar/Inanna and tar(a) Etymol.. Morris, I am not a specialist in Sumerian studies. However, one thing seems obvious. For the Sumerians Heaven was a PLACE or a parallel world. Otherwise how could the Sumerians write of the "descent of Isthar." Heaven for the Sumerian's does not appear to be the "beatific vision" or some other such nonsense. When the texts all throughout the ANE speak of a heavenly council Hebrew: sod, Psalm 25:14, Amos 3:7 secret dor, Psalm 24:1 circle, ennead greek ennead, Egyptian psDt. [ennead] council of gods in Urk IV, 8b, 13. Faulkner Concise Dictionary p. 95) this council is said to have met SOMEWHERE. Perhaps over the rainbow but a real place. When the gods come to appear to the King in the reed hut. First they appear in a dream and then in open vision. The context is clear that the gods are coming from somewhere and going back to somewhere. Perhaps specialists might comment. Kind regards Randall Larsen University of Hawaii at Manoa George 334 - ----- Original Message ----- From: morris silver To: ane Sent: Saturday, January 29, 2000 11:34 AM Subject: Re: ane Urukagina, Ishtar/Inanna and tar(a) Etymologies? > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "morris silver > Sent: Monday, January 24, 2000 4:21 PM > > > I have been following this discussion with great interest. I hope that > > someone will explain what the Sumerians meant by "heaven". > > Dear Listmembers: > > To judge by the absence of responses to my query it would seem that we do > not know what the Sumerians meant by "heaven". Therefore, to insist that the > Ishtar means "Lady of Heaven" (and not "Lady of the Date Storehouse" or > something else) is misleading. Useful translations do not disguise our > ignorance in a fog of precise sounding words. > > Best wishes, > Morris > > Morris Silver > Department of Economics > City College of New York > > ANCIENT ECONOMIES I > http://sondmor.tripod.com/index-html > ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2000 21:46:50 -0500 From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Jean=2DFr=E9d=E9ric?= Brunet Subject: ane: questions about 2 obscure kings of Egypt's TIP Hello fellow ANEers 1st obscure king: Ini A huge "coffee table" book on Ancient Egypt ("Egypt, The World of the Pharaohs", Könemann, 1998) I recieved for my birthday has a king list based on Von Beckerath's 1997 book. In his TIP section, after the familiar Osorkon III, Takeloth III & Rudamon, he lists a king Ini. Unless he is well hidden or I am blind, no king of this name is listed in Kitchen's masterpiece (I have the 1995 edition). Anyone can give me some information on that king? Maybe the relevant part of Von Beckerath's book? (translated in English or French please, I unfortunately can't read German :( 2nd obscure king: Lamentu That is the Akkadian form of the king who ruled Hermopolis in 667/666 BC. Kitchen (§358) claims that he is "transparently a Nimlot". Now I know strictly nothing of Linguistic so I ask the linguists on this list to help me... I've seen in some postings that the Akk. forms could sometimes be transcribed differently. For exemple, I've seen "Lam" could also be read "Nam", so we'd have half the name correct. But how can the Akk. "mentu" be made into Eg. "lot"? Those two *seem* completely different. On the other hand, my completely untrained-in-linguistic eye spots in "Lamentu" the name of the god "Amon"... So, since I've also seen that in posts (and in Kitchen's book itself) that l and r, as well as d and t could be interchangeable, I've been wondering about the possibility that "Lamentu" = "Ramendu", i.e. some form of the Egyptian name "Rudamon". Is this even remotely possible? Sorry for any spelling mistake (English isn't my first language) and thanks for any comments and information, Jean-Frédéric Brunet Université de Montréal Pour que nos murs s'effondrent... http://www.angelfire.com/ma/mhetjf/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2000 05:08:12 +0100 From: Ian Hutchesson Subject: Re: ane Philistines not Greek (Slight correction) At 19.53 28/01/00 +0100, Ian Hutchesson wrote: >The Shekelekh are the Siculi whose name is behind Ascalon Thanks to a post from one of the ane readers I went back and checked what Garbini said regarding Ascalon and it proved that in this case I had remembered wrongly. Here's what he actually said regarding Ascalon: "The name of Ascalon is derived from an extremely old root common to Semitic and Indo-European languages (ascal-, which indicates a green with curved leaves one inside another, such as the onion or the artichoke to give an indication)." ("I Filistei: Gli Antagonisti di Israele", p 111.) Ian Ian Hutchesson mc2499@mclink.it http://www.geocities.com/Paris/LeftBank/5210/histreli.htm ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2000 06:11:01 +0200 (IST) From: avigdor horovitz Subject: Re: ane Urukagina, Ishtar/Inanna and tar(a) Etymologies? Dear Morris, You conclusion is a non-sequeter. If you want to know what heaven is start with Wayne Horowitz's book on Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography. Victor On Sat, 29 Jan 2000, morris silver wrote: > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "morris silver > Sent: Monday, January 24, 2000 4:21 PM > > > I have been following this discussion with great interest. I hope that > > someone will explain what the Sumerians meant by "heaven". > > Dear Listmembers: > > To judge by the absence of responses to my query it would seem that we do > not know what the Sumerians meant by "heaven". Therefore, to insist that the > Ishtar means "Lady of Heaven" (and not "Lady of the Date Storehouse" or > something else) is misleading. Useful translations do not disguise our > ignorance in a fog of precise sounding words. > > Best wishes, > Morris > > Morris Silver > Department of Economics > City College of New York > > ANCIENT ECONOMIES I > http://sondmor.tripod.com/index-html > ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2000 23:05:57 -0600 From: "Donald R. Vance" Subject: ane Baby talk Similarities between words like "ma" in English and "im" in Hebrew have led some to posit a sort of ur-language along the lines of the situation described in the tower of Babel story in Gen 11. But a room-mate of mine in Chicago was studying linguistics at U of C and he said that the explanation for these sorts of similarities was baby talk. The similar words (not just between Hebrew and English, but between multiple languages) are basic vocabulary using the basic phonemes that a baby masters first. He made reference to the deictic words in particular (e.g., "zot" and "this"). Is this a fully developed theory of explanation for these sorts of similarities or is it something idiosyncratic on my room-mate's part? Donald R. Vance, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Biblical Languages and Literature Undergraduate Theology Oral Roberts University drvance@oru.edu ------------------------------ End of ANE Digest V2000 #30 *************************** Back issues are available on the Oriental Institute World-Wide Web (WWW) site at: http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/ANE/OI_ANE.html