From: owner-ane To: ane-digest@oi.uchicago.edu Subject: Ancient Near East Digest V3 #116 Reply-To: Errors-To: owner-ane Precedence: bulk Ancient Near East Digest Thursday, 21 March 1996 Volume 03 : Number 116 Re: Volcanoes on Santorni date the Bible.... Apologies, mistake in Santorni Article... Santorini Israelite Origins and Exodus Narrative Re: Israelite Origins and Exodus Narrative FRANCO A. VOLTA announces the updating of his WWW page Re: Santorini FRANCO A. VOLTA announces the updating of his WWW page Re: Israelite Origins Re: Distance Education and ANE (addition) search for title Hellenistic Biblical Writings (query of H. Reviv) the angles of ABU SIMBEL looking for Olwen BROGAN Another Charles Jones spilling the beans on a new Web page Re: spilling the beans on a new Web page Date(?) of Moses Re: attitudes toward mortuary remains Re: Another Charles Jones Re: Ahmed Osman and ilk Mount Sinai Egyptian profiles Re: Another Charles Jones Re: Another Charles Jones Re: Mount Sinai batha/Negeb Re: Mount Sinai Egyptian profiles Phoenician Sumatra (was: another Charles Jones) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: petworth@suba.com (Bill Thayer) Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 17:09:20 -0600 Subject: Re: Volcanoes on Santorni date the Bible.... Oh dear why must everything be so fraught with controversy? 1. Theory put forth by Cambridge students recently. Book by James W. Mavor, Jr.: Voyage to Atlantis Putnam, New York, 1969 see index s.v. "Bible" -- all been out there for 27 years 2. Spyridon Marinatos. The above book, same year 1969 as given for S.M., claims the theory and the discoveries for the author, saying Prof. Marinatos was a late- comer who appropriated it all, aided by Greek laws about archaeology in Greece to be done by Greeks. Who knows what's true. Let alone the basic thesis -- sadly, touch the Bible and it'll blow up on everyone -- why might Thera not have been responsible for some of the Bible accounts? Not enough evidence either way, from the looks of it. Bill Thayer ------------------------------ From: eveholme@mistral.co.uk (Stuart Eve) Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 01:28:55 GMT Subject: Apologies, mistake in Santorni Article... Friends, WHOOPS.. when I said that the article read "the explosion threw up enough rubble and dust into the sky to fill the Channel more than 4,000 times" - it actually read "to fill the Channel TUNNEL more than 4,000 times" !! A significantly less amount of dust!! Sorry! :) Yours with an apologetic sigh, Stuart. - ---- A smile is worth a 1000 tears, but is a 1000 tears worth a smile? ---- ------------------------------ From: montre@RedShift.Com (Ben Lyon) Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 16:55:28 -0800 Subject: Santorini Stuart Eve's posting regarding the eruption of Santorini (Thera), as it related to the history of Egypt and Israel, does represent a common practice which should be a source of pride neither to journalism nor to the academics who feed it fanciful stories. I was on the east coast in the spring of 1981. In a New York Times I found a front page story on a new Exodus theory by a respected professor of Egyptology. He suggested that the above mentioned eruption caused a tidal wave which just happened to destroy the Egyptian army as it pursued the fleeing Israelites. His idea was expressed, not in a book, not in a serious article, but in a single lecture. My basic hypothesis was already in place at that time, so I was amazed that such prominence should be given to a scenario which answered all of the complexities of that great event with a single probably irrelevant and totally untimely act of nature. Contrast this with the press coverage given to Ahmed Osman's (Grafton Books, London, 1990), a work that was years in the making and which successfully answered many of the questions regarding Exodus. I don't agree with his findings but I respect his honest and talented effort. He followed Freud in linking Egyptian and Hebrew monotheism, but concluded that Akhenaten himself was Moses. Did that book ever make the front page of the Times, or any other American newspaper? Not that I could find. After a recent experience I should quickly add that I have not seen them all. The common practice referred to above is simply this: Amateur or senior academic - Come up with any crazy story on the events surrounding Moses and it may receive a great deal of attention from newspapers, academia, television. A number of articles and at least one book have come out of the above mentioned single lecture. But if your ideas about Exodus center on Akhenaten or his father, forget it. Until the advent of networks such as this, such an effort would find the warm waters of communication turned to ice. Has the reader found any good discussion of legitimate controversy such as Osman's in the pages, not only of newspapers, but of specialized publications such as or it's British counterpart, And Freud? Even his honest and able search is casually dismissed by people who may or may not have made it through journalism school but know nothing at all about Exodus. Ben Lyon Monterey ------------------------------ From: Haviv Rettig Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 20:56:01 -0600 (CST) Subject: Israelite Origins and Exodus Narrative Discussing the issue of Israelite origins, I came across a suggestion which I'd never heard before. I quote from the discussion. "It would appear that the archaeological record as we now have it suggests that the Israelite material culture was that of Canaanites who had abandoned their cities for a time and taken to living in the hills." My questions on this are many. Most importantly, however, how much evidence is there for it? What is the evidence, and are there any sources which I could look up for further research into the issue? In addition, does anyone know what the timeframe of this theory might be? What was the situation in Canaan like at the time to cause the Canaanites to abandon their cities and form what became a separate civilization? One final question. What does the academic community (specifically Israeli archaeology and Biblical analysis) think of this theory? Responses on and off list would be appreciated, though on list would enable me to get answers from more perspectives and areas of expertise through the discussion that would result. Thank you for your time. Respectfully, Haviv Rettig haviv@execpc.com http://www.execpc.com/~israel Glendale, Wisconsin, USA ------------------------------ From: "Niels Peter Lemche" Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 07:17:14 GMT +100 Subject: Re: Israelite Origins and Exodus Narrative Good grief - this is mainstream OT scholarship today. People may not agree on this but any decent textbook worth speaking about will inform about these issues. Try Finkelstein, Israel, The Archaeology of the Israelite Settlement, Jerusalem (Israel Exploration Society) 1988, and Finkelstein and N. Na'aman, From Nomadism to Monarchy. Archaeological & Historical Aspects of Early Israel, Jerusalem/Washington (Israel exploration Society/Biblical Archaeology Society) 1994 - for a starter. NPL Niels Peter Lemche Dep. Biblical Studies University of Copenhagen Phone: 45 49 13 81 24 Fax: 45 49 13 81 28 e-mail: npl@teol.ku.dk ------------------------------ From: F.Volta@agora.stm.it Date: Wed, 20 Mar 96 7:40:6 GMT Subject: FRANCO A. VOLTA announces the updating of his WWW page The address is: http://italia.hum.utah.edu/gruppo/volta/cirt.html ************************************************* links on the page: - - Archaeology, Antiquities, Classical Philology - - Architecture, Town Planning, Interior Decoration - - Art - - Cinema - - Civil Engineering - - Economics, Statistics, Management, Sociology - - Geography, Geology - - Heracles Project - - History, Politics - - Incunabula (microfilms) - - Library Science - - Literature, Linguistics - - Manuscripts (microfilms) - - Mathematics, Computer Science - - Medicine - - Music - - Philosophy - - Technology, Engineering, Physics, Astronomy - - ITALIAN PUBLISHERS CATALOGUES ************************************************* All contacts and requests of information must be addressed to: Franco A. Volta C.I.R.T. P.O. Box 7254 - 00100 Roma/Italy P.O. Box 2591 - New York, NY 10185/USA Fax: 0039 6 4826073 E-mail: f.volta@agora.stm.it ************************************************* ------------------------------ From: wagers@computek.net (Will Wagers) Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 00:45:08 -0600 Subject: Re: Santorini Ben Lyon writes: >Stuart Eve's posting regarding the eruption of Santorini (Thera), >as it related to the history of Egypt and Israel, does represent a >common practice which should be a source of pride neither to >journalism nor to the academics who feed it fanciful stories. The stories that make the popular press always: a. involve a natural disaster, e.g. flood, extreme wind, volcanic explosion, comet; b. relate it to - but do not contradict - a single biblical episode; Ordinary folks can easily accept a natural disaster as the "way God works" his miracles. It is tacit confirmation of the Bible for believers, yet a natural explanation for the scientifically-minded. That's what makes it the "popular" press. Regards, Will wagers@computek.net http://denton.computek.net/pub/wagers/ousia/Indologist.html ------------------------------ From: F.Volta@agora.stm.it Date: Wed, 20 Mar 96 7:42:34 GMT Subject: FRANCO A. VOLTA announces the updating of his WWW page The address is: http://italia.hum.utah.edu/gruppo/volta/cirt.html ************************************************* links on the page: - - Archaeology, Antiquities, Classical Philology - - Architecture, Town Planning, Interior Decoration - - Art - - Cinema - - Civil Engineering - - Economics, Statistics, Management, Sociology - - Geography, Geology - - Heracles Project - - History, Politics - - Incunabula (microfilms) - - Library Science - - Literature, Linguistics - - Manuscripts (microfilms) - - Mathematics, Computer Science - - Medicine - - Music - - Philosophy - - Technology, Engineering, Physics, Astronomy - - ITALIAN PUBLISHERS CATALOGUES ************************************************* All contacts and requests of information must be addressed to: Franco A. Volta C.I.R.T. P.O. Box 7254 - 00100 Roma/Italy P.O. Box 2591 - New York, NY 10185/USA Fax: 0039 6 4826073 E-mail: f.volta@agora.stm.it ************************************************* ------------------------------ From: christoph.uehlinger@unifr.ch (Christoph Uehlinger) Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 09:17:14 +0100 Subject: Re: Israelite Origins On March 20 Haviv Rettig wrote: > Discussing the issue of Israelite origins, I came across a >suggestion which I'd never heard before. I quote from the discussion. > "It would appear that the archaeological record as we now have it >suggests that the Israelite material culture was that of Canaanites who had >abandoned their cities for a time and taken to living in the hills." (...) > One final question. What does the academic community (specifically >Israeli archaeology and Biblical analysis) think of this theory? Dear Haviv, That you came across the above-mentioned is good fortune although some terms are quite misleading. Should your discussant connect his suggestion with the names of GEMendenhall or NKGottwald, the model as a whole is obsolete. Recent contributions of Israeli archaeologists and historians to the debate on the LB-Iron age transition include Israel Finkelstein & Nadav Na'aman (eds.), From Nomadism to Monarchy. Archaeological and Historical Aspects of Early Israel, Jerusalem & Washington 1994; Israel Finkelstein, The Great Transformation: The 'Conquest' of the Highlands frontiers and the Rise of the Territorial State, in: Thomas E. Levy (ed.), The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land, London 1995, pp. 349-367. The crucial issues are (a) the adequacy of the terms "Canaanites" and "Israelites" to describe the historical process reflected by material culture; (b) the spatial and temporal framework in which the process should be interpreted (Bible-centrics approach this issue with ideas on "Israelite origins" in mind, while archaeologists and historians may rather consider it in terms of the history of the greater Levant and, within a Braudelian longue-duree-perspective which is fashionable and enlightening as well, as a process that had comparable analogues in earlier and later periods); (c) the use or misuse of material culture as ethnicity marker (on which see the articles in Biblical Archaeologist 58/4, 1995, esp. the paper by Bill Dever who seems to be, so to speak, "overhauled on his left" by Finkelstein's more recent studies). A expicit, critical discussion of the suggestion you cited may be found in an article written by the late Aharon Kempinski, How Profoundly Canaanized Were the Early Israelites?: Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palaestina-Vereins 198 (1992) 1-7. This is not to say that only Israelis have contributed significantly to the debate, but you asked for Israeli archaeologists' opinions and some of them have certainly the best knowledge of the "hardware". There are of course many other Israelis who have written about the problem. To my understanding, Finkelstein is the most commendable on this issue, and the comparison with Kempinski will show you at a glance how much we also deal with different models, paradigms, and generations. Good reading! Sincerely Christoph Uehlinger ___________________________________________________________________________ Dr. Christoph Uehlinger Biblical Institute Tel. +41-37-29 7384 University, Misericorde Fax +41-37-29 9754 CH-1700 Fribourg Switzerland E-mail christoph.uehlinger@unifr.ch Swiss Society for Ancient Near Eastern Studies same address Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis http://www.unifr.ch/bif/obo ------------------------------ From: h0539asi@rz.hu-berlin.de (Christian E. Loeben) Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 11:18:37 +0100 Subject: Re: Distance Education and ANE (addition) Dear Chuck, Unfortunately I seem to have missed your original posting of your "Distance Education and ANE" inquiry, but I read your sumary today. Here an addition. Middle Egyptian can also be studied through a COURS PAR CORRESPONDANCE, offered by: KHEOPS - EGYPTOLOGIE Cours d'enseignement superieurs libres 16, rue Albert-Bayet F - 75013 Paris / FRANCE Fax: +33/1-44.24.88.02 It's a two years long distance course (in French only) based on: P. Grandet, B.Mathieu; Cours d'egyptien hieroglyphique; vol. I, II; Paris: Kheops, 1990, 1993, which is -in my opinion- currently the best teaching material for Middle Egyptian (I myself teach my language courses at the Humboldt-University with those books!). The same French school has recently published a Neo-Egyptian course, but I do not know if they will offer it as a long distance course as well: F.Neveu; La langue des Ramses - Grammaire du Neo-Egyptien; Paris: Kheops, 1996 (all three books can be ordered through the above mentioned address). An informal degree in Middle Egyptian can be obtained there, but no academic titles! However, as far as I am informed, there is now one of their former students who is currently working on a doctorate in Egyptology at one of the Paris universities --- NOT long distance, however!!! Best wishes and regards. Yours, Christian ********************************************* Christian E. Loeben, M.A. - - Aegyptologie - Institut fuer Sudanarchaeologie und Aegyptologie HUMBOLDT-UNIVERSITAET ZU BERLIN Unter den Linden 6 D - 10099 BERLIN-Mitte GERMANY Tel: +49-30-280 77 78 Fax: +49-30-280 77 79 e-mail: h0539asi@rz.hu-berlin.de ********************************************* ------------------------------ From: Annette Lerstrup Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 13:22:41 +0100 (MET) Subject: search for title Now I have to bother you all again: Is there any reference to an=20 imy-r b=ABH other than the Dakhlah Stela, line 2??? I know a lot of Hry b=ABH s and several =AB3 n b=ABH s, but only this singl= e=20 imy-r b=ABH. I hope someone might enlighten me. Thanks in advance Annette Lerstrup The Carsten Niebuhr Institute of Near Eastern Studies University of Copenhagen Njalsgade 80 DK-Copenhagen S Denmark ------------------------------ From: "Michael V. Fox" Date: Wed, 20 Mar 96 08:07 CDT Subject: Hellenistic Biblical Writings (query of H. Reviv) In "The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs" 186ff I assemble the linguistic arguments for a "late" dating--at least well into the Persian period. I can't think of any arguments except linguistic, but I do not think this can be explained away by fragmenting the data or assigning them to some "northern" dialect. - ---------------------------------------------------------- Michael V. Fox Professor of Hebrew University of Wisconsin 1220 Linden Drive Madison, WI 53706 ------------------------------ From: William W Howard Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 09:20:05 -0500 (EST) Subject: the angles of ABU SIMBEL Does anyone know the angles of ABU SIMBEL . Know someone who knows. Are you know how to find them. ------------------------------ From: (******) Date: Wed, 20 Mar 96 17:45:24 GMT Subject: looking for Olwen BROGAN Hello, I'm looking for an American archaeologist. Her name's Olwen BROGAN. I only know she's working in Lybia, in a place named Ghirza. Does anyone knows her address, her university or her e-mail ? Thank you Denis Drouillet Institut d'Histoire et d'Archeologie de l'Orient Ancien Universite des Sciences Humaines de Strasbourg ------------------------------ From: cejo@midway.uchicago.edu (Charles E. Jones) Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 10:58:31 -0600 (CST) Subject: Another Charles Jones Since I've had several inquiries about this, I ought perhaps to state publicly that I am _not_ the Charles Jones giving a talk at the ARCE meeting in St. Louis next month, nor can I claim any knowledge whatsoever of Egyptian or Phoenician colonies in Sumatra. - -Chuck Jones- ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Charles E. Jones Research Archivist - Bibliographer The Oriental Institute - Chicago 1155 E. 58th St. Chicago IL 60637-1569 Voice (312) 702-9537 Fax (312) 702-9853 cejo@midway.uchicago.edu http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/DEPT/RA/ABZU/ABZU.HTML ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ------------------------------ From: "Richard L. Goerwitz III" Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 13:47:02 -0600 Subject: spilling the beans on a new Web page Re "secret" Web page: It's been online for two months now, and most of the bugs are worked out, so I might as well spill the beans: I've written a thing called the Bible Browser, and put it up for World-Wide Web access. Some may already have discovered the links to it from ABZU. Others may have heard about it directly from me. The URL for my standard announcement is: http://negus.uchicago.edu:1080/pub/goerwitz/bible_browser/announce.html The actual home page, however, resides at: http://negus.uchicago.edu:1080/pub/goerwitz/bible_browser/pbeasy.html After writing a stream of specialized articles on comparative philology and historical linguistics, I wanted to do something that had a broader appeal - something that, for example, teachers could use to spruce up their syllabi or that professors could use to lure students into doing a little exploration. The Bible Browser is the fastest biblical search/retrieval engine on the net, and, despite its simple-looking interface, has the most advanced search options as well. Check out some of these pages, which use the Bible Browser in various ways. Here's a nice review (this site is *very* busy): http://metro.turnpike.net/B/bluebird/pintel.htm The following two pages are from Brown (STG), where they are using the Bible Browser to turn biblical passage references into hypertext links: http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/hypertext/landow/victorian/type/pisgah.html http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/hypertext/landow/victorian/type/typ21.html Religious sites of various stripes use it, often so that they don't have to quote biblical references in full, but can simply hlink them to the Bible Browser, as with STG above: http://www.athenet.net/~jlindsay/BOMIntro.shtml http://perelandra.cms.udel.edu/ecm.html http://bedrock.com/bible/ib.html A lot of major educational and bibliographic pages have picked it up, too, e.g.: http://www.hivolda.no/asf/kkf/biblia01.html Many thanks to the Oriental Institute and to Gene Gragg for their help and encouragement on this project. Feel free to re-post this anywhere that seems appropriate. Enjoy! Richard Goerwitz r-goerwitz@uchicago.edu ------------------------------ From: "James R. Adair" Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 14:47:49 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: spilling the beans on a new Web page As an unsolicited testimonial, I would like to say that I have used Richard's Bible Browser program, and it is very slick! We plan to use it on some of our TELA Web pages, and I intend to put it to good use in the electronic journal TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism. Thanks, Richard. Jimmy Adair Manager of Information Technology Services, Scholars Press and Managing Editor of TELA, the Scholars Press World Wide Web Site - ---------------> http://scholar.cc.emory.edu <----------------- ------------------------------ From: "Thomas M. Simms" Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 19:38:48 AST Subject: Date(?) of Moses Several queries about the date of Moses and the Exodus have been posted Ben Lyons and myself each have books published on this. He viewed the exodus took place during the Amarna period. I argue it took place during the reign of Set Nekht. Once we have dealt with David Rohl we may begin to agree more precisely. His work needs some careful study before either of us make a judgement, though I'm not speaking for Ben. As to the dating of the explosion at Thera (Santorini) in the Aegean, a number of factors make the dating much more precise than normal dating by artifacts and C-14. It is thoroughly discussed in "Archaeology, 43(3), May/June 1990,"` pp. 42-49 by Floyd McKay and Grant Haiken. The Cambridge crew should have stuck to their sculls and read the details of the measure- ments of the Thera explosion and when a much bigger one apparently occurred before they hit the press. I rather enjoyed the tongue in cheek piece about the precise dating but thought a quiet snap of the elastic might elicit a little bit of caution on the list, notwithstanding. Tom Simms ------------------------------ From: KNEMET@aol.com Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 18:09:26 -0500 Subject: Re: attitudes toward mortuary remains A nice Biblical reference is in Exodus 13:19 concerning Moses taking Joseph's remains with the Israelites on the Exodus. During the first millenium Assyrian, Chaldean and Elamite kings were very concerned with getting their objects and ancestors back. The Neo-Assyrian and Chaldean kings were notorious for treating the bodies of captive kings & co. with disrespect, to put it mildly. General history books can be consulted for this information such as Joan Oates, Babylon; Saggs, The Might That Was Assyria; Roaf, The Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East. More specifically, you may wish to consult, B. Alster, Ed., Death in Mesopotamia 26th RAI. Karen Nemet-Nejat ------------------------------ From: jprobins@ix.netcom.com (James P. Robinson III) Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 15:25:15 -0800 Subject: Re: Another Charles Jones At 10:58 AM 3/20/96 -0600, Charles E. Jones wrote: >Since I've had several inquiries about this, I ought perhaps to state >publicly that I am _not_ the Charles Jones giving a talk at the ARCE >meeting in St. Louis next month, nor can I claim any knowledge whatsoever >of Egyptian or Phoenician colonies in Sumatra. > Sumatra?? Indonesia?? Boy, those Phoenicians were some travellers! Or am I just displaying my ignorance? Jim *************************************************************************** James P. Robinson, III jprobins@ix.netcom.com **************************************************************************** ------------------------------ From: cejo@midway.uchicago.edu (Charles E. Jones) Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 17:47:47 -0600 (CST) Subject: Re: Ahmed Osman and ilk Ben Lyon recently remarked with reference to one of Ahmed Osman's books "I don't agree with his findings but I respect his honest and talented effort. He followed Freud in linking Egyptian and Hebrew monotheism, but concluded that Akhenaten himself was Moses. Did that book ever make the front page of the Times, or any other American newspaper? Not that I could find..." I, for one, am extremely grateful that such nonsense doesn't make the pages of the New York Times - (Look around though, you might find it in the Weekly World News or somewhere). This is the same Ahmed Osman who wrote the book claiming that Jesus was actually Joshua who was actually Tutankhamun, right? And the scholarly community is supposed to take this seriously? (HarperCollins should be ashamed of themselves!) The edges of ancient Near Eastern Studies are filled with such oddities. Visitors from other planets, levitating rocks, 10,000 year old sphinxes, comets and volcanos, conspiracies of geography and chronology. They're pretty easy to spot. It's also pretty easy to see when there's somthing more complex and interesting going on (even if still extremely difficult to take) such as the Black Athena controversy, and its socio-political implications in the literature of the African diaspora. These comments having been made, I will now offer a proposal to the main-line scholars of the ANE. One of the frequent comments/complaints from those who subscribe to such theories is that they are not taken seriously by the scholarly community. I suspect that this is not so true. So..., if you will assist by supplying me with citations to sources in which such 'fringe' theories are discussed in the serious literature, I will undertake to produce an analytical bibliography of these responses/reviews, and make it available on the WWW. - -Chuck Jones- ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Charles E. Jones Research Archivist - Bibliographer The Oriental Institute - Chicago 1155 E. 58th St. Chicago IL 60637-1569 Voice (312) 702-9537 Fax (312) 702-9853 cejo@midway.uchicago.edu http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/DEPT/RA/ABZU/ABZU.HTML ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ------------------------------ From: "Dr.Hoho" <103375.3466@compuserve.com> Date: 20 Mar 96 19:55:17 EST Subject: Mount Sinai Has anyone read the book "The Myth of Mount Sinai" by Larry Williams where he posits that the Israelites ended up in NW Saudi Arabia instead of the mountain in the Sinai Desert? The Bible clearly states that they went to the Land of Midian and Biblical maps clearly show Midian to be in NW Arabia. I'm not a scholar, but the book makes a very good case for this being the location and not the area we normally think of which is in the Sinai Desert. According to Williams, the landmarks which the Bible describes as being at the foot of Mount Sinai are, indeed, at the foot of Jabel al Lawz but are not to be found at the foot of the traditional Mount Sinai. The land at the foot of the traditional mountain could not have sustained the numbers of people who were involved, but the area at the foot of the Arabian mountain could have. And the author also claims to have NASA satellite photos that reveal tracks of vast numbers of people around the Arabian mountain but not around the Sinai mountain. I would love to hear some comments about this book. Thank you in advance. Mary Houbolt ------------------------------ From: "Dr.Hoho" <103375.3466@compuserve.com> Date: 20 Mar 96 20:08:10 EST Subject: Egyptian profiles Could someone please tell me, or give me some references to look up, why the ancient Egyptians always did portraits in profile but with the eyes as though they are a frontal view? Recently, I read that one of the rare frontal portraits (it was of Osiris, I believe) had recently been found in Saqqara. The article made it sound as though so few frontal portraits had ever been found, that I wondered approximately how many have ever been found. The Egyptians were so smart in everything else, it can't be that they didn't know how to draw perspective which someone once told me. I would guess that it had a religious significance similar to the Islamic tradition of drawing likenesses of people, but that's only a guess and I would like to know. Has anything ever been found that was written on the subject. Many thanks. Mary Houbolt ------------------------------ From: David Meadows Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 21:08:40 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Another Charles Jones At 10:58 3/20/96 -0600, Charles E. Jones wrote: >Since I've had several inquiries about this, I ought perhaps to state >publicly that I am _not_ the Charles Jones giving a talk at the ARCE >meeting in St. Louis next month, nor can I claim any knowledge whatsoever >of Egyptian or Phoenician colonies in Sumatra. > >-Chuck Jones- Snicker ... then you simply *must* be the Chuck Jones who brought us all those wonderful cartoons from Warner Brothers, no? :^) David Meadows (who is neither a Seminarian, nor a criminal, nor does he have a very nasty credit rating) David Meadows dmeadows@inforamp.net << note new address! ------------------------------ From: Andrew Gross Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 21:37:43 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Another Charles Jones On Wed, 20 Mar 1996, James P. Robinson III wrote: > At 10:58 AM 3/20/96 -0600, Charles E. Jones wrote: > >Since I've had several inquiries about this, I ought perhaps to state > >publicly that I am _not_ the Charles Jones giving a talk at the ARCE > >meeting in St. Louis next month, nor can I claim any knowledge whatsoever > >of Egyptian or Phoenician colonies in Sumatra. > > Sumatra?? Indonesia?? Boy, those Phoenicians were some travellers! > Or am I just displaying my ignorance? > Jim Recently, Piotr Michalowski was engaged on sci.archeology in a rather spirited exchange with a fellow who was certain that Indonesia had been the ANE's mysterious source of tin. Nothing Dr. Michalowski said could dissuade this person from sticking to his unlikely theory, and I got the impression he was becoming slightly exasperated by the whole affair. Perhaps Indonesia-ANE connections will be the next big thing? andrew gross ------------------------------ From: sinai@mindspring.com (Paul Daniels) Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 00:59:58 -0500 Subject: Re: Mount Sinai At 7:55 PM 3/20/96, Dr.Hoho wrote: >Has anyone read the book "The Myth of Mount Sinai" by Larry Williams where he >posits that the Israelites ended up in NW Saudi Arabia instead of the mountain >in the Sinai Desert? The Bible clearly states that they went to the Land of >Midian and Biblical maps clearly show Midian to be in NW Arabia. I'm not a >scholar, but the book makes a very good case for this being the location >and not >the area we normally think of which is in the Sinai Desert. According to >Williams, the landmarks which the Bible describes as being at the foot of Mount >Sinai are, indeed, at the foot of Jabel al Lawz but are not to be found at the >foot of the traditional Mount Sinai. The land at the foot of the traditional >mountain could not have sustained the numbers of people who were involved, but >the area at the foot of the Arabian mountain could have. And the author also >claims to have NASA satellite photos that reveal tracks of vast numbers of >people around the Arabian mountain but not around the Sinai mountain. I would >love to hear some comments about this book. >Thank you in advance. >Mary Houbolt Dr. Hoho, I spent the at least 2 or 3 nights on top of Mt. Sinai almost every month or so in the years 76 to 78 and hiked the ajoining mountain areas pretty extensively. Not unless you were right around the monestary, you hardly ever saw anyone, maybe a few people hiking up early to catch the sunrise from the top. I went back again in 82 and their were people selling cokes and memoribilia on top of Mt. Sinai and I was "lucky" enough to catch an impromtu rock concert provided by some tourists, probably they were trying to invoke the gods as far as I could tell. And below the mountain near the monestary and old field school that the Israelis used to run, more people than you could shake a stick at. It was like that everyday. I'm sure if you got that NASA satellite to shoot some photos now it would show thousands if not millions of foot prints around Mt. Sinai, the "traditional" one that is in the Egyptian Sinai. Didn't mean to make light of your post, I just wanted to comment on footprints in the sand!! I'm just glad nobody tried to parachute on top of the mosque or church on the mountain. Paul Daniels ------------------------------ From: Mass Spectrometry Research Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 13:04:04 PST Subject: batha/Negeb Dear all, In the Illustrated Bible Dictionary (s.v. Palestine III. The climate and vegetation, p.1138) J.M. Houston speaks about 'a deaera expanse of "batha", low scrub with open, rock outcrops' in the Negeb (repeated in the New Bible Atlas, p.17). I have found this word "batha" nowhere else. Who can give me technical information and/or bibliographical references? I would be very grateful if someone can help me. Filip Lemière (posted for G. Lorein) - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Filip Lemiere Mass Spectrometry Research Unit University of Antwerp (RUCA) Dept. Chemistry Groenenborgerlaan 171 2020 Antwerp Belgium tel +32-3-218.02.39 fax +32-3-218.02.33 e-mail flemi@ruca.ua.ac.be lemiere@uia.ua.ac.be - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ From: "Bob Haak" Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 08:29:16 CST Subject: Re: Mount Sinai > foot of the traditional Mount Sinai. The land at the foot of the traditional > mountain could not have sustained the numbers of people who were involved, but > the area at the foot of the Arabian mountain could have. And the author also If you are taking the accounts of the stay at Mt. Sinai/Horeb as literal historical documents as this sentence seems to indicate, you are seriously misunderstanding the nature of the source. The idea which you propose for the location of the Mt. has been around for a long time... It may be worth thinking about the locale which the author had in mind... but not worth one snapshot to try to find footprints... Bob Haak REHAAK@AUGUSTANA.EDU ------------------------------ From: rellis@brynmawr.edu (Richard S. Ellis) Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 09:55:30 -0500 Subject: Egyptian profiles Mary Houboltasked: >Could someone please tell me, or give me some references to look up, why the >ancient Egyptians always did portraits in profile but with the eyes as though >they are a frontal view? ***** The reason commonly given is that they chose the most characteristic and recognizable aspect, and drew what they knew to be there, rather than what they saw at any one moment from any one point, as we usually do. Supposedly what was important to them was what was permanently valid, not what was momentarily perceived. Recently, I read that one of the rare frontal >portraits (it was of Osiris, I believe) had recently been found in Saqqara. The >article made it sound as though so few frontal portraits had ever been found, >that I wondered approximately how many have ever been found. ***** If you are referring to the image of Osiris found in the tomb of Ramesses II's sons at Thebes, I believe it is a statue almost in the round, but still attached to the rock face. This was fairly common, from the Old Kingdom onward, but it's not really two-dimensional representation. There are a few frontal faces in painting, but not many. >The Egyptians were so smart in everything else, it can't be that they didn't >know how to draw perspective which someone once told me. ****** Well, a lot of later people couldn't, either; real, geometrically-based perspective was only developed in Renaissance Europe. It now seems obvious and normal to us, but most of the world's art has done without it. The Egyptians probably wouldn't have liked it, as being limited to a single viewpoint, rather than expressing universal, permanent truth. Some references (not the best for your questions, which are not in my list; perhaps someone else can come up with the major analyses ): Aldred, Cyril 1980 +Egyptian Art in the Days of the Pharaohs+. New York: Oxford University Press. Davis, Whitney M. 1989 +The Canonical Tradition in Ancient Egyptian Art+. Cambridge New Art History and Criticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rev. Gay Robins, +JARCE+ 29 (1992) 222-223; Lorelei Corcoran, +JNES+ 54 (1995) 137-44. Groenewegen-Frankfort, H. 1951 +Arrest and Movement: An Essay on Space and Time in the Representational Art of the Near East+. London: Faber and Faber. Iverson, Erik 1975 +Canon and Proportions in Egyptian Art+ 2nd ed. (Yoshiaki Shibata, ed.). Warminster, Wilts.: Aris & Phillips. Robins, Gay 1991 Composition and the artist's squared grid. +Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt+ 28:41-54. Robins, Gay 1994 +Proportion and Style in Ancient Egyptian Art+ (Ann S. Fowler, drawings). Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press. Dick Ellis - -------------------------------------------------------- Richard S. Ellis rellis@brynmawr.edu Professor of Archaeology ph.: (610) 526-5343 (off.) Department of Classical and (610) 896-6189 (hm.) Near Eastern Archaeology fax.:(610) 526-7479 (off.) Bryn Mawr College 101 N. Merion Avenue Bryn Mawr, PA 19010-2899 ------------------------------ From: petworth@suba.com (Bill Thayer) Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 10:43:06 -0600 Subject: Phoenician Sumatra (was: another Charles Jones) There is some very slight evidence that Phoenicians might have got to Sumatra; Ptolemy's Geography, Book VII Ch. 5, covers remote regions of Asia and says: "There are many islands around Taprobana [Ceylon, certain], which are said to number one thousand three hundred and seventy-eight, but the names of those which are handed down are [then follows a list of 19 names with coordinates]" In fact there are not many islands anywhere near Sri Lanka, certainly not a hundred let alone a thousand; but a thousand fits Indonesia. The coordinates range from 117 (E of the Blessed Isles, roughly 97E) to 135 (roughly 115E) and 11deg20 N to 6deg30 S. Now Ptolemy puts Taprobana centered at 128 (108E) and 4 or 5 degs N (but making it very large: some 14 degrees latitude in length, it's about 4). Relative to Ceylon, this puts these thousand islands in fact roughly where the Maldives are, and the Maldives are the better fit; but again there are not a thousand of them. OTOH, if Taprobana's coordinates are wrong (and the oversizing of it certainly is), then the coordinates of these thousand islands fall in very neatly with Sumatra, Java, and Borneo; where there are indeed 1000+ islands. A better candidate but -- as might be expected, vaguer -- is the description in Book VII Ch. 3, with coordinates around 120 to 140 E, modern longitude, with cannibals being placed in three "Sindae" islands S of the Equator at 125-132 E modern longitude (just W of Papua New Guinea, the natives also being described as going at all times without clothing). "Sindae", a parenthesis: an old French name still in fairly common use for the Indonesian islands as a group is "iles de la Sonde" (Harrap's F-E dictionary calls these the Sunda Islands -- not in common use in English, certainly); my atlas lists nothing other than the Sunda strait unfortunately at 105E45 and 6S, not the best match. Still, another remote possibility, does anyone know the etymology of "iles de la Sonde"? As to where did the explorers' accounts come from, there is indeed a lapse of many hundreds of years between the Phoenicians and the late Greek geographer; OTOH, Lixus on the W coast of Morocco was quite undoubtedly founded by Phoenicians -- and was *still* remote and an object of quasi-fabulous Greek geographers' accounts in or close to Ptolemy's time. Also, Phoenician remains have been found on the coast of Senegal. Granted the evidence is tenuous! but on the whole, I'll believe the Phoenicians in Sumatra? BT ------------------------------ End of Ancient Near East Digest V3 #116 *************************************** Back issues are available by two means: anonymous FTP at oi.uchicago.edu in pub/ane/ OR on the World Wide Web (WWW) at ftp://oi.uchicago.edu/pub/ane/