LEXILINE JOURNAL

The Origins of Writing, the Alphabet and the Syllable PO - LEXILINE JOURNAL 566

2011-01-08T14:48:00.000+01:00

[In amended form later published as a book under the title Ancient Signs]

This is the 14th posting in this series (later updated for Luvian), and presents the Syllable PO in the Syllabic Grid. Each syllable is presented in its own posting.

There is first a scan of a "syllabic" table excerpt from the original Microsoft Word manuscript -- the links there are not clickable because it is one image.

That image is followed by the original text -- the links there are clickable -- but you can not see the Aegean Fonts or images embedded in Microsoft Word, as these do not resolve in Blogger, so you will see "a ? ? filler".

The Syllable PO in the Minoan Aegean Sign Concordance (by Andis Kaulins)

Syllabic Value of the Sign (Symbol) (there was no universally established AEIOU vowel system yet in this era, and there were dipthongs, so that a strict AEIOU system here is a bit misleading)	Cypriot Syllabary signs from the BabelMap (Unicode Character Map for Windows)	Linear B (Ventris & followers) (standard Bennet numbers in parentheses) Aegean Font	Phaistos Disk (Kaulins) (first deciphered by him in the years 1978- 1980)	Axe of Arkalochori (Kaulins) (these same basic signs are also on the Phaistos Disk). This column also provides explanatory photo images for various Minoan symbols	Elamite Script (Kaulins) (same basic signs as the Phaistos Disk - see also here)	Sumerian Pictographs and/or Egyptian Hieroglyphs and/or sign commentary on individual symbols
PO ποιέω “to make” This is a companion sign to Linear B TE τέκτων viz. τέχνη "craftsman, master of an art". The one identifies the craftsman maker and the other the making.	Cypriot syllabary No comparable sign known to this author, but there may be one I do not know of.	Linear B ��(39) PO In Linear B scholarship this is PI in error and the axe is in error as PO.	Phaistos Disk No Comparable sign.	No similar sign on Axe Comment: This sign in Linear B appears to be a creation limited to Crete and formed from the Linear B sign for TE	No Elamite sign yet.	No Sumerian comparable.

The Origins of Writing, the Alphabet and the Syllable PI - LEXILINE JOURNAL 565

2011-01-08T14:43:00.000+01:00

[In amended form later published as a book under the title Ancient Signs]

This is the 13th posting in this series (later updated for Luvian), and presents the Syllable PI in the Syllabic Grid. Each syllable is presented in its own posting.

There is first a scan of a "syllabic" table excerpt from the original Microsoft Word manuscript -- the links there are not clickable because it is one image.

That image is followed by the original text -- the links there are clickable -- but you can not see the Aegean Fonts or images embedded in Microsoft Word, as these do not resolve in Blogger, so you will see "a ? ? filler".

The Syllable PI in the Minoan Aegean Sign Concordance (by Andis Kaulins)

PI (pé)

Classical Greek

πέλεκυς “pelekus”, a

"double-sided" axe,

later applied to all axes,

also single/sided ones

i.e. hemipelekus.

Some... late neolithic,

wanderwörter have

been suggested, e.g.

Sumerian balag,

Akkadian pilakku-

(spindle whorl), or PIE

pelek'u- 'axe'. Sumerian

balag means hour-glass

shaped drum. The shape

is the word root. (cont.)

Cypriot syllabary

(reshuffle PE, PI, PO labels ?)

𐠡

(cont.)

Pelekus will

have the same

root as pierogi

(Latvian pīrags,

“*bi-horned,

*two horned”).

Linear B

𐀡(11)

πέλεκυς

an axe

See the

perplexed

on pelekus.

Phaistos Disk

𐇞

πέλεκυς

an axe

later as the

symbol

PHI

Axe of Arkalochori

PELEKUS is the bottom

word on the axe middle

column.

Found at icobase.com a

Sumerian balag (hour-

glass drum) right bottom

Elamite

jar, cask

πίθος

Sumerian

balag

"drum"

(Jaritz

#649)

Sumerian

(Jaritz #893)

Thumb of

hour-glass

pithos image

at Mathilda’s

Anthro-

pology Blog

The Origins of Writing, the Alphabet and the Syllable PE - LEXILINE JOURNAL 564

2011-01-08T14:26:00.000+01:00

[In amended form later published as a book under the title Ancient Signs]

This is the 12th posting in this series (later updated for Luvian), and presents the Syllable PE in the Syllabic Grid. Each syllable is presented in its own posting.

There is first a scan of a "syllabic" table excerpt from the original Microsoft Word manuscript -- the links there are not clickable because it is one image.

That image is followed by the original text -- the links there are clickable -- but you can not see the Aegean Fonts or images embedded in Microsoft Word, as these do not resolve in Blogger, so you will see "a ? ? filler".

The Syllable PE in the Minoan Aegean Sign Concordance (by Andis Kaulins)

πῦρ (pyr). The

hypothetical proto-

Indo-European root is

*peh₂ur "fire".

The Phaistos Disk sign

could be an ancient

torch while the other

signs are braziers.

An Ancient Greek

casserole and brazier.

Image from Wikipedia,

Ancient Agora Museum

in Athens, Photo by

Giovanni Dall'Orto,

November, 2009.

Cypriot

syllabary

��

Casserole in a

Brazier, see

image at left.

An old Indo

European root.

FIRE, PYRE, e.g

Latvian UPUR

"offering" (and

KUR "stoke a

fire, burn"

hence Egyptian

hieroglyph KH.)

Linear B

��(72)

An ancient

brazier,

cooking

utensil, or

hearth

of some kind.

Greek

πῦρ

"fire"

Phaistos Disk

��

Perhaps a torch.

Greek

πῦρ "fire"

Hittite

��

(paḫḫur)

Old English

fȳr (“fire”)

Some think it

is an ox foot.

πεζός

No similar sign on the

Axe of Arkalochori

Photo of an ancient 4-

legged brazier found

online at

http://www.tcnj.edu/

~anchouse/kitchen.html

Elamite

4-legged

brazier

Egyptian

καίω

brazier

4-legs and

flame

Sumerian

PIR

heat,

(clearly a

brazier)

(Jaritz #684)

BAR4

oil vessel on

a brazier

(Jaritz #453)

The Origins of Writing, the Alphabet and the Syllable PA - LEXILINE JOURNAL 563

2011-01-08T14:06:00.000+01:00

This is the 11th posting in this series [updated for Luvian in a later posting, and in further amended form subsequently published as a book under the title Ancient Signs]. It begins the syllabic grid with the Syllable PA. Each syllable will be presented in its own posting.

First there is a scan of the page, followed by the text with clickable links, a format necessitated by Blogger not resolving online the Aegean Font and Microsoft Word images.

TABLE I

TABLE OF CYPRIOT SYLLABARY, MINOAN LINEAR B, PHAISTOS DISK, AXE OF ARKALOCHORI, OLD ELAMITE and SUMERIAN SIGN CONCORDANCE
A Table of the Sign Concordance of: 1) The Cypriot Syllabary, 2) Linear B -- Michael Ventris and John Chadwick, 3) the Phaistos Disk -- Andis Kaulins, 4) the Axe of Arkalochori -- Andis Kaulins, 5) Old Elamite Script -- Andis Kaulins, 6) Sumerian Pictographs and Egyptian Hieroglyphs

Syllabic Value of the Sign (Symbol) (there was no universally established AEIOU vowel system yet in this era, and there were dipthongs, so that a strict AEIOU system here is a bit misleading)	Cypriot Syllabary signs from the BabelMap (Unicode Character Map for Windows)	Linear B (Ventris & followers) (standard Bennet numbers in parentheses) Aegean Font	Phaistos Disk (Kaulins) (first deciphered by him in the years 1978- 1980)	Axe of Arkalochori (Kaulins) (these same basic signs are also on the Phaistos Disk). This column also provides explanatory photo images for various Minoan symbols	Elamite Script (Kaulins) (same basic signs as the Phaistos Disk - see also here)	Sumerian Pictographs and/or Egyptian Hieroglyphs and/or sign commentary on individual symbols
PA (and BA ?) In Linear B, sign B03 has been assigned a value of PA and sign B16 was originally assigned a value of PA2, correctly BA, but later changed in error to QA. The first word on the Axe of Arkalochori is βασιλεύς, thus negating in Linear B the transcription qa si-re-u which is correctly ba-si-leu-s. In Linear B signs, the meaning is often not the vertical line but usually the other sign elements. In B16 it is an abstract head with ears placed at the top of the vertical.	Cypriot syllabary: 𐠞 PA Cypriot syllabary: 𐠢 PU "scraping tool" scraper above line as earth viz. the ground	Linear B 𐀞(03) PA 𐀣(16) Sign B16 once read as PA2, now read in error as QA. Correct is BA	Phaistos Disk 𐇑 PA Some think this to be the Peleset,[1] people of Keftiu, Crete. More likely is "warrior" πολεμιστής πολεμίζω Thracian "peltast" πελταστής later Greek ὁπ[o]λίτης hoplitēs	The Axe of Arkalochori. (2 drawing variants) 󿼉or󿼃 PA Warrior image found at William H. Stiebing, Jr., Invasions of the Sea Peoples, Bibl. Arch. Review The warrior image suggests a warrior sign	Old Elamite PA The abstracted sign in Old Elamite shows the head and neck in profile view.	Sumerian PAR2 BAR "sharp tool, pick, head?" (Jaritz #118) PA2 BA "division, scraping tool" (Jaritz #005)

[1] The Peleset are listed in the hieroglyphs of Egypt among the so-called Sea Peoples. These hieroglyphs are reproduced below from the Wikipedia. The erroneous mainstream scholarship reading of those Egyptian hieroglyphs is n3 ḫ3t.w n p3 ym (try pronouncing that artificial notation !), allegedly meaning "Sea Peoples" or "People of Foreign Lands". The hieroglyphs are followed by a list of ethnic names. My reading of those same hieroglyphs shows the corrected reading to result in terms strikingly similar to Greek. Ponder what the following hieroglyphic readings tell us about Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs in terms of Ancient Greek connections generally.

n3 ḫ3t.w n p3 ym

An- thro- po- n- y- my hydro (or) naiya peir-aikos (peir-as)

ἀνθρω [ἀνθρώπων]...ἐπωνυμιa... (Ναιά, νᾶμα, ὕδωρ)...πειραικός (πεῖρας)

= Names of peoples of the border countries beyond the limit (mouth) of the Nile.

Note: The Nile: in Ancient Egyptian iteru or Ḥ'pī [Latvian upe "river], Coptic piaro (Sahidic) or phiaro (Bohairic).

The Egyptian hieroglyph for the Mediterranean is (in my reading ἀέξω (αὔξω) εὐρεῖα naiya peiras viz. ἀέξω εὐρεῖα nama/hydro peiras meaning "great wide river limit" viz. "mouth of the Nile") and for the Nile is [ (hydro) which is the same as Greek ὕδωρ "udro-, hydro, water" viz. νᾶμα "nama" or naiya (Ναιάς). Nama in Greek means anything flowing, running water, stream, spring, and could have the same N-root as Greek Νεῖλος for "Nile" as in ὕδος τὸ Νείλου, to which compare Arabic: النيل‎, an-nīl. The N- root is retained in English in naval, nautical and nymph (Ναιάς), Finnish nevo "sea", Swedish ny "new river", and Russian Neva.

One can see clearly from the "Sea Peoples" hieroglyph that the term anthro- derived from *ana-terra, in Greek *ana- *xer- i.e. χέρσος.

The Origins of Writing and the Alphabet as a Derivation from Syllabic Script - 10 - LEXILINE JOURNAL 562

2011-01-08T13:55:00.000+01:00

[In amended form later published as a book under the title Ancient Signs]

Ancient Greek terms are taken primarily from the following sources:

The online Perseus Digital Library, Gregory R. Crane, Editor-in-Chief, Tufts University at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/, which wrote on December 13, 2010:

"The Perseus Digital Library is pleased to publish TEI XML digital editions for Plutarch, Athenaeus, the Greek Anthology, Elegy and Iambus and for most of Lucian. This increases the available Plutarch from roughly 100,000 to the surviving 1,150,000 words. Athenaeus and the Greek Anthology are new within the Perseus Digital Library, with roughly 270,000 and 160,000 words of Greek. The 13,000 words for J.M. Edmonds Elegy and Iambus include both the surviving poetic quotations and major contexts in which these poems are quoted. The 200,000 words of Lucian represent roughly 70% of the surviving works attributed to that author. In all, this places more than 1.6 million words of Greek in circulation. With this release, we have also changed the license for opensource texts to Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike, removing the non-commercial restriction that we adopted in March 2006 when we first began making our XML source texts available under a CC license. See our post on the Stoa Consortium blog for full details on the release."

Henry George Liddell & Robert Scott. A Greek-English Lexicon, rev. and augm. by Sir Henry Stuart Jones & Roderick McKenzie. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1940, Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, Gregory R. Crane, Editor-in-Chief, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dpe%2Fleku

The above also includes the Greek Dictionary Headword Search Results, so that a search e.g. for the root of my surname Kaulins, entering "kaul" gives the following results, showing how this tool can be used for research:

καυλεῖον LSJ 0 0 [unavailable] καυλέω LSJ 30 0 form a stalk καυληδόν LSJ 0 0 like a stalk καυλίας LSJ 0 0 extracted from a stalk καυλικός LSJ 0 0 like a stalk, cauline καυλίνης LSJ 0 0 a kind of καύλινος LSJ, Middle Liddell 0 0 made of a stalk καυλίον LSJ 0 0 sea-weed καυλίσκος LSJ 1 1 branch of a candlestick καυλίζομαι LSJ 0 0 have a shaft καυλοειδής LSJ 0 0 like a stem καυλοφορέω LSJ 0 0 run to stalk καυλοκινάρα LSJ 0 0 artichoke stem, καυλοκλυστήρ LSJ 0 0 [unavailable] καυλοκοπία LSJ 0 0 cutting of stalks καυλομύκητες LSJ, Middle Liddell 0 0 stalk-fungi καυλοπώλης LSJ 0 0 greengrocer καυλός LSJ, Middle Liddell, Autenrieth 63 33 spear-shaft καυλώδης LSJ 0 0 running to stem καυλωτός LSJ 0 0 with a stalk [emphasis added to most frequent entry]

Lexilogos, Ancient Greek Dictionary online by Xavier Negre, which searches both in the above-cited Perseus database as well as Woodhouse's English-Greek Dictionary, located at The University of Chicago Library http://www.lexilogos.com/english/greek_ancient_dictionary.htm

The Origins of Writing and the Alphabet as a Derivation from Syllabic Script - 9 - LEXILINE JOURNAL 561

2011-01-08T13:48:00.000+01:00

[In amended form later published as a book under the title Ancient Signs]

H. Cypriot Syllabary, Linear B Signs and Ancient Greek Terms

The signs of the Cypriot Syllabary and the Linear B Signs used in this work are taken from the Aegean Font, which does not reproduce online via Blogger, so I use scans for online purposes.

Software for the Aegean Font in Microsoft Word was the BabelMap Unicode Character Map for Windows, BabelMap Version 6.0.0.2, Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7Build, Copyright (c) Andrew West 2002-2010, http://www.BabelStone.co.uk/Software/BabelMap.html.

The Aegean Font is from George Douros, Kolokotroni 3, Larissa 41223, Greece, as Unicode Fonts for Ancient Scripts, Copyright (c) George Douros 2010, and provides:

"Fonts in ‘Unicode Fonts for Ancient Scripts’ are offered free for any use; they may be opened, edited, modified, regenerated, posted, packaged and redistributed."

As concerns the Aegean font as written at BabelMap:

"Aegean covers the following scripts and symbols supported by The Unicode Standard 5.2: Basic Latin, Greek and Coptic, Greek Extended, some Punctuation and other Symbols, Linear B Syllabary, Linear B Ideograms, Aegean Numbers, Ancient Greek Numbers, Ancient Symbols, Phaistos Disc, Lycian, Carian, Old Italic, Ugaritic, Old Persian, Cypriot Syllabary, Phoenician, Lydian, and Archaic Greek Musical Notation.

Aegean allocates in the Supplementary Private Use Plane 15, the following scripts and symbols, as yet unsupported by Unicode: Cretan Hieroglyphs, Cypro-Minoan, Linear A, the Arkalochori Axe, Ancient Greek and Old Italic variant alphabets.

In this version:

• Cretan Hieroglyphs are redesigned and expanded to cover signs on seals.

• Cypro-Minoan is entirely new and in agreement with the latest edition of the inscriptions.

• Idalion, Akanthou, Eteocypriot, Ancient and Recent Paphian variants of the Cypriot Syllabary are available as its Open Type Stylistic Sets I-V."

Useful for the Cypriot syllabary was T.B. Mitford, The Tsepsis Stele and some Others, St. Andrews University, http://campus.usal.es/~revistas_trabajo/index.php/0544-3733/article/viewFile/2769/2810

Palaeolexicon -- a word study tool of ancient languages -- was used as the source for Cypriot and Linear B words as found in the Cypriot Syllabic Word Index http://www.palaeolexicon.com/default.aspx?static=12&wid=305# and the Linear B Word Index http://www.palaeolexicon.com/default.aspx?static=12&wid=305#.

The Origins of Writing and the Alphabet as a Derivation from Syllabic Script - 8 - LEXILINE JOURNAL 560

2011-01-08T13:45:00.000+01:00

[In amended form later published as a book under the title Ancient Signs]

G. Sumerian Pictographs and Egyptian Hieroglyphs as Syllabic Signs

An examination of comparable Sumerian pictographs and Egyptian hieroglyphs as syllabic signs seemed logical given the legends relating to Greek letters, which suggest a foreign origin to Greek script.

If it were possible that the Minoan Aegean signs were similar to Old Elamite script, i.e. an ancient connection by sea to Elam (today's Iran) via merchant trade, then some ancient relationship to Sumerian signs in the Ancient Near East was also possible. Moreover, given the legend of Cadmus bringing the Greek letters to Greece via Egypt, it seemed worthwhile to also look at comparable Pharaonic hieroglyphs.

In this connection various online sites were used as resources. A glossary of Sumerian terms is found e.g. at the ETCSL (Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature) but that source is very weak because it does provide the original signs -- so that one can not check whether transcriptions and transliterations are correct.

Patrick C. Ryan [7] provides a Sumerian Archaic Sign Table and a Sumerian Sign Value Register as well as Proto-Language Monosyllables with Correspondent Sumerian and Egyptian Signs, all of which are quite valuable as resources for the signs themselves, although I sometimes disagree strongly with the analysis given by Jaritz and Ryan to the meanings and origins of the signs, some of which are better clarified here through an analysis of comparable Minoan Aegean signs. Nevertheless, given the dearth of sign materials online for Sumerian, Ryan's online resources are of significant importance for providing essential Sumerian materials and he must be commended for recognizing that these signs and symbols are related to other languages of the world. Sumerian signs are cited to their Jaritz number. Ryan writes:

"The sign numbers are those of Jaritz' Schriftarchäologie der altmesopotamischen Kultur (1967). Unfortunately, the register materials in this book were not carefully proofed before publication so an unknown number of errors are present. I have made many corrections as I have found them but there are undoubtedly more errors present. Where I have discovered a questionable sign number assignment for a reading, I have placed a question mark after it. In some cases, the sign reading or its proper subscript may be in question, or the subscript may not be known by me, which sign reading also bears a question mark."

The Wikipedia has numerous pages on Egyptian hieroglyphs, see e.g. Gardiner's Sign List, the A-L list and M-Z list. Other resources are cited when used in this text.

[7] It was on Patrick C. Ryan's suggestion that I started the online group ACE (Ancient Cultures Explored) in 1997 to replace the defunct ANE list at the University of Chicago. ACE was changed in 1999 to the LexiLine list, which still exists today online, primarily as a newsletter on the History of Civilization. See http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/LexiLine/message/595 and http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/LexiLine/message/1403 and

http://lexiline.blogspot.com/2002_03_01_archive.html.

The Origins of Writing and the Alphabet as a Derivation from Syllabic Script - 7 - LEXILINE JOURNAL 559

2011-01-08T13:37:00.000+01:00

[In amended form later published as a book under the title Ancient Signs]

Right now, prior to the presentation of the syllabic grid, it is sufficient to know that an Elamite connection may not be as far-fetched as it may appear at first glance. To that purpose, the following rock carving on a cliff in Elam is illustrative.

An Ancient Rock Carving of Elamite [6] Royalty Suggests a Western Element

The Elamite connection to Crete and to Minoan culture is more easily understood when one has more fundamental knowledge of things such as the ancient rock drawings of Elam, which show early Elamites in dress different than other inhabitants of this region. There is a distinct "Western" look, with women given equal standing on monuments, an equal standing also found in antiquity on Crete artefacts, in early Greek culture and even on early Dynastic Pharaonic Egyptian monuments, but for all purposes lacking in the ancient cultures of the Ancient Near East.

[6] This photograph was found at http://www.zorpia.com/Vistapars/journal/1755777 where it is written "Ayapir - Izeh, Khozestan. Originally called Ayapir, Izeh is known for its large number of reliefs as the Town of Rock. Izeh is an ancient town located at the northwest of Ahvaz, it takes approximately 210 km from Ahvaz to Izeh by passing Ramhormoz and Baghemalek. This ancient town has the biggest gathered collection of archaeological sites and monuments, for instance; Sabz ali and Zebarjad tepes which refer to Zarzian period and the rock bas-relief galleries which show special religious scenes. The Izeh Plain and the town of Izeh viewed from Eshkafte Soleiman: The Eshkafte Soleiman, Elamite carvings."

The Origins of Writing and the Alphabet as a Derivation from Syllabic Script - 6 - LEXILINE JOURNAL 558

2011-01-08T13:33:00.000+01:00

[In amended form later published as a book under the title Ancient Signs]

Accordingly, the ancient record tells us that the initial Greek letters, which constitute the origins of writing in Western Europe, were viewed as a conglomeration of inputs. The first Greek letters viz. signs were taken from ancient sources.

One of the inventors of Greek letters mentioned by Hyginus has a clear connection to Crete: he is Palamedes, son of Nauplius and Clymene ("Asia"), the daughter of Catreus, king of Crete, son of the first king of Crete, Minos, and grandfather of Menelaus, the Greek husband of Helen of Troy. Catreus of Crete was thus the grandfather of Palamedes, an important name in the history of writing.

Grandfather Catreus had many children. He gave his two daughters to a merchant mariner, Nauplius, to be married off in foreign lands, but Nauplius allegedly took Clymene for himself and sailed off into the sunset. Where did they go?

Clymene in ancient Greek sources is also called Asia, which some allege is how the continent Asia got its name, thus pointing to a possible geographic Asian destiny. Indeed, Herodotus is puzzled by Ancient Greek usage of women's names to describe large areas such as Asia or Europe (Europa of Tyre). Is the answer "royal settlement", by which the daughters of the Greek king so married gave their names to regions?

It is Clymene's son Palamedes who subsequently surfaces (from a thus far unknown location) as the greatest Greek inventor of antiquity, for Palamedes not only allegedly invented eleven of the Greek letters, but it is also said that he invented counting, currency, weights and measures, military ranks, dice, pessoi (a type of chess), and made improvements in winemaking (an art perhaps originating in Iran).

Amazing -- and generally unbelievable -- but all this could be true in the ancient era if the inventions of Palamedes were obtained by technology transfer from a foreign land. After all, the Roman Mercury (Greek Hermes) is "the bringer of letters", and Mercury also has the same meaning as "merchant". These inventions were thus arguably brought to Greece from a distant land via travelling merchants, just as suggested by the story of Catreus and his daughter Clymene and merchant Nauplius.

As we have discovered, this foreign land is (or could be) Elam, the land – as we claim here - where the couple Clymene and Nauplius from Crete ultimately settled.

Elam is the land in which letters were first stamped onto clay, just as on the Phaistos Disk, but long before the Minoans of Crete. An existing technology was thus -- in our opinion -- imported to ancient Crete from one of the most ancient cultures of the Ancient Near East. We will discuss this idea in detail subsequently.

The Origins of Writing and the Alphabet as a Derivation from Syllabic Script - 5 - LEXILINE JOURNAL 557

2011-01-07T13:16:00.000+01:00

[In amended form later published as a book under the title Ancient Signs]

I gave a syllabic value of LI to the flying bird sign on the Phaistos Disk 30 years ago, not knowing of the existence of the archaic Ancient Greek term ἁλιάετος "osprey, sea eagle", a term now serving as "internal" confirmation of the correct decipherment of that syllable (then based on Latvian LIdo "to fly"). As written at creteuguide.info:

"On the south coast, near Matala, you can find ospreys.... In Minoan times, Matala was most likely the port for the Palace of Phaistos, which is about 10 km north of the village." [emphasis added]

F. The Elamite Connection to Crete and the Origin of Writing in the Western World (or) Who Discovered Ancient Greek Letters? [5]

The subsequent syllabic grid includes a column of signs and symbols from two Old Elamite scripts, which this author has deciphered to be Ancient Greek. The appropriate decipherments follow in this work subsequent to the syllabic grid. How could there possibly be any connection of Crete to far distant Elam, now a part of modern Iran? Sampled scholars tend to reject this hypothesis without thinking. What about the hypothesis that Minoan texts came to Crete via ancient seafaring merchants trading with Elam? It is after all at Elam that the technology of stamping letters into clay is first found, archaeologically speaking. Is this a case of technology transfer?

There is in fact ancient -- legendary -- source material about the discovery of ancient Greek letters which points clearly to technology transfer from one or more ancient locations. Is there an element of truth in these old accounts? How much?

Gaius Julius Hyginus (ca. 64 BC – AD 17), who lived at the time of Christ, passed on many Greek tales in unadulterated form in his Fabulae, of which tale Number 277 deals with "Ancient Inventors". He wrote as follows:

"CCLXXVII. FIRST INVENTORS. The Parcae, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos invented seven Greek letters - A B H T I Y. Others say that Mercury invented them from the flight of cranes, which, when they fly, form letters. Palamedes, too, son of Nauplius, invented eleven letters; Simonides, too, invented four letters – Ó E Z PH; Epicharmus of Sicily, two - P and PS. The Greek letters Mercury is said to have brought to Egypt, and from Egypt Cadmus took them to Greece. Cadmus in exile from Arcadia, took them to Italy, and his mother Carmenta changed them to Latin to the number of 15. Apollo on the lyre added the rest...." [emphasis for Palamedes added]

[5] This material is adapted from Andis Kaulins, The Phaistos Disc: An Ancient Enigma Solved: Two corroborative Old Elamite scripts can be deciphered using the Greek syllabic values obtained for the Phaistos Disc by A. Kaulins in 1980, International Conference on the Phaistos Disk, London, Society of Antiquaries, Burlington House, October 31, 2008,

The Origins of Writing and the Alphabet as a Derivation from Syllabic Script - 4 - LEXILINE JOURNAL 556

2011-01-07T13:11:00.000+01:00

[In amended form later published as a book under the title Ancient Signs]

E. Structure of the Seven-Column Syllabic Grid of the Kaulins Minoan Aegean Sign Concordance (MinAegCon)

The Syllabic Grid of the Kaulins Minoan Aegean Sign Concordance (MinAegCon) has a table format of seven columns which are filled with text and images for the purpose of providing the greatest amount of information in the smallest possible area. This design permits quick and effective presentation and analysis of the alleged common genetic interlock of syllabic signs from the various sources. The reader can see at a glance the signs under discussion and their syllabic values, including comments about the words (and the objects) from which the syllables originated

A sample row from the seven-column table is shown below for the syllable LI.

1. The first column in the table identifies the syllable in question.

2. The second column gives the comparable sign in the Cypriot Syllabary and its currently accepted syllabic reading.

3. The third column provides the comparable Linear B sign together with its currently accepted syllabic reading and, where required, its corrected reading, especially for /R/ and /L/ phonemes and the Q-based and J-based syllables.

4. The fourth column provides the comparable sign on the Phaistos Disk.

5. The fifth column provides the comparable sign on the Axe of Arkalochori.

6. The sixth column provides the comparable sign in Old Elamite script.

7. The seventh column provides Sumerian pictographs and/or Egyptian hieroglyphs which could be considered to be genetically related, showing a potential line of development from Sumerian to Elamite to Minoan script.

Blogger does not reproduce Aegean Font Signs or Microsoft Word .doc images online.
Creating special embedded links for them would involve a great deal of time.
Hence, I first show the Word table excerpt as a scanned image (links not active).
Below that is the original table with Aegean Fonts and images missing, but active links.
The reader thus has the complete info, but not the complete publication,
which will be published in due time in full elsewhere.

Plus, having each syllable as a separate image has advantages for users.

This notice appears only once, not on subsequent postings in this series.

The Syllable LI in the Minoan Aegean Sign Concordance (by Andis Kaulins)

A sign of the osprey or

sea eagle, in archaic

Greek called ἁλιάετος

and in Linear B an

abstracted sign of

talons, beak and wings.

Considered for Linear B

but discarded was the

alternative of a flower

like the Madonna lily

λείριον. The lily is

among the most ancient

cultivated ornamental

flowers. In Crete it was

the most frequent floral

motif of Minoan art...

the sacred flower...

Cypriot

syllabary:

��

ἁλιάετος

The sign could be a bird in the air with the line below the wing element representing the ground, i.e. the earth.

Linear B:

Is read as RAI

in error

(33)

ἁλιάετος

an abstracted

sign of talons,

beak and

wings.

In Linear B

not E-RAI- but

E-LAI- for ἔλαιον

"olive oil".

Phaistos Disk

��

ἁλιάετος

archaic

"sea eagle,

osprey"

On the south

coast, near

Matala, you

can find

ospreys."

creteuguide.info -

continue at

column right

No comparable Axe sign

Wikipedia Osprey image

"In Minoan times,

Matala was most likely

the port for the Palace

of Phaistos, which is

about 10 km north of

the village." crete-guide.info

Elamite:

This sign

has an

uncertain

depiction.

Is it a

simplified

abstracted

drawing of

a bird wing,

talon prey

and sky?

Sumerian

LID or LIT

(Jaritz #759)

beak and

bird head?

Egyptian

Hieroglyphs

ἁλιάετος

not Horus

The Origins of Writing and the Alphabet as a Derivation from Syllabic Script - 3 - LEXILINE JOURNAL 555

2011-01-07T12:42:00.000+01:00

[In amended form later published as a book under the title Ancient Signs]

Not everyone will accord with exactly that exceptional laudatory sentiment, but the importance of the Linear B decipherment is undoubted. Accordingly, although some decipherment improvements in Mycenaean Greek are suggested subsequently in the course of this article, this takes nothing away from the genius of the original decipherment work. Whatever is done always builds on the work of others.

C. The /L/ and /R/ Phonemes in Mycenaean Greek Linear B Script

What kinds of improvements are going to be suggested in this work?

The subsequent table of Minoan Aegean Sign Concordance contains numerous improvements, especially in the analysis of the origin of the signs.

That analysis shows, for example, that Linear B script had both an /R/ and an /L/ phoneme and also R-based and L-based syllabic signs. An L phoneme is currently negated in Linear B by classical philologists, but this unfortunate view does not bear up to critical scrutiny. Currently, R-based syllables are applied erroneously in Linear B to words clearly containing the /L/ phoneme in both modern and Ancient Greek.

In Linear B the following well-known examples can be cited:

the current transcription QA-SI-RE-U is transliterated as βασιλεύς
the current transcription A-PI-QO-RO is transliterated as αμφίπολοι, and
the current transcription QO-U-KO-RO is transliterated as βουκόλοι.

As shown subsequently by the Minoan Aegean Sign Concordance, Mycenaean Greek in fact had both an /R/ phoneme and an /L/ phoneme. A correct syllabic grid of Linear B must therefore include the syllabic values LA, LE, LI, LO, and LU. The syllabic grid of Ventris and Chadwick does not do this and is thus erroneous on that score. The missing L-based syllables are provided in this work.

D. Multiple Sources are used to determine the Origin of Syllabic Signs

The syllabic grid which follows subsequently in this work is a giant leap forward in the analysis of ancient syllabic scripts. Ventris created a syllabic grid applicable only to Linear B, while the syllabic grid presented here covers six different sources, all in one inter-connected syllabic grid: 1) the Cypriot Syllabary, 2) Linear B, 3) the Phaistos Disk, 4) the Axe of Arkalochori, 5) two Old Elamite Scripts, and 6) comparable syllabic signs in Sumerian pictographs and Egyptian hieroglyphs. This produces a symbiotic syllabic grid system with countervailing checks and balances.

The Origins of Writing and the Alphabet as a Derivation from Syllabic Script - 2 - LEXILINE JOURNAL 554

2011-01-07T12:32:00.000+01:00

[In amended form later published as a book under the title Ancient Signs]

In addition, written signs and symbols permit the creation of "languages" whose function far exceeds the limits of human speech. Modern software programming languages, for example, apply written symbols as "machine language" to a host of hardware applications that would be impossible without writing. In human history, the digital revolution was preceded by the writing revolution, the discovery of script.

Without the advent of writing, the mass of mankind would languish in ignorance, as it still does today in regions marked by illiteracy. The written word opened up a magic reservoir of human talents and abilities from which many of us on this planet profit every day. Whatever the origins of writing may be, we are indebted to the men and women who invented, introduced and dispersed this technology to the world.

B. Michael Ventris, John Chadwick and the Decipherment of Minoan Linear B as Mycenaean Greek

When Michael Ventris deciphered Minoan Linear B as Mycenaean Greek, it was a landmark achievement that opened the doors of understanding to a previously closed world. Ancient Mycenaean Greek is written communication that represents the initial stages of writing in the Western world. This was the dawn of modern man.

Ventris, an amateur classical scholar whose profession was actually that of an architect, was -- after the initial decipherment -- assisted in his efforts by John Chadwick, a Greek philologist at Cambridge University, culminating in the joint publication of the pioneering Documents in Mycenaean Greek. [4] That publication enabled a much greater understanding of our common historical "written heritage". Ventris and Chadwick (and also previous Linear B researchers such as Alice Kober) thus revealed to us some of the mysteries of the origins of writing in Western Civilization. Andrew Robinson wrote as follows about this singular achievement:

"Experts dubbed Ventris’s decipherment the Everest of Greek archaeology. An American classicist remarked, Mr. Ventris would have no trouble getting a job as scribe for King Minos. A French scholar [Georges Dumézil, upon hearing of the untimely early death of Ventris:], noted, devant les siècles son oeuvre est faite (in the centuries to come his reputation is secure). Today, his achievement ranks above even the nineteenth-century reading of Egyptian hieroglyphic and Babylonian cuneiform, or the late twentieth-century reading of the Mayan glyphs of Central America, as the greatest intellectual triumph in archaeological decipherment."

[4] Michael Ventris and John Chadwick, Documents in Mycenaean Greek, Volume I, 1956 (1st edition), corrected 1959; Volume II, 1973 (the 2nd edition consists of both volumes).

The Origins of Writing and the Alphabet as a Derivation from Syllabic Script - 1 - LEXILINE JOURNAL 553

2011-01-07T12:25:00.000+01:00

This posting starts a series of postings [which in amended form were subsequently published as a book under the title Ancient Signs] that I will be making throughout the year regarding my sign concordance of ancient scripts, a "meshing" of ancient pictographic, hieroglyphic and syllabic scripts which will provide everyone a highly useful tool for future and further study of the origins of writing on our planet by ancient cultures. There will also be new decipherments.

There is very little doubt, based on my work, that the scripts of antiquity in my concordance point to a single origin and that they all retain very visible elements of their common ancestry.

It is a very ambitious project, indeed, so ambitious that even I can say in advance that there will be many aspects of this work that will need to be improved in the course of time. And there will be errors. That is unavoidable. But this is the beginning. One has to start. You have to take the first step.

The Origins of Writing in Western Civilization and the Kaulins Minoan Aegean Sign Concordance (MinAegCon™) [1]: A Syllabic Grid of Mycenaean Greek Linear B Script, the Cypriot Syllabary, the Phaistos Disk, two Old Elamite Scripts, the Inscription on the Axe of Arkalochori, and Comparable Signs from Sumerian Pictographs and Egyptian Hieroglyphs

by Andis Kaulins [2]

The origin of writing in Western Civilization was a technological quantum leap without which our modern world would not be possible. This publication unravels more of the mystery of how written script came to the Western world.

I. An Introduction to the Minoan Aegean Sign Concordance

A. Communication History and the David W. Packard Minoan Legacy

The importance of the study of ancient writing -- a fascinating field in its own right --is often underestimated. The origin of script impacts modern technology and the methods of modern digital science. Consider, for example, that David W. Packard, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard Co., wrote his dissertation on Minoan Linear A. [3]

Communication between human beings is the fundamental essence of the spoken languages of mankind. When those languages were put into written form, the scope of communication expanded beyond the immediate audience of listeners to all those humans who can read whatever is written. Modern communication depends a lot on literacy. Just think of Facebook and Twitter. Moreover, the written word not only communicates, but it also records human expression and knowledge for posterity.

[1] The acronym MinAegCon (TM) was coined as a trademark on December 27, 2010. A Google search gave no hits on that same day. MinAegCon can be used to cite to this work, together with the name of the author, location and year: Andis Kaulins, Germany 2011.

[2] J.D. (Doctor of Jurisprudence) Stanford University Law School. Former FFA Lecturer in Anglo-American Law, Legal Research and Legal Writing, University of Trier Law School. Co-author of the Langenscheidt & Routledge German-English, English-German Dictionary of Business, Commerce and Finance (4th ed. 2010). Author of: The Phaistos Disc: Hieroglyphic Greek with Euclidean Dimensions (Darmstadt, 1980), The Phaistos Disc: An Ancient Enigma Solved: Two corroborative Old Elamite scripts can be deciphered using the Greek syllabic values obtained for the Phaistos Disc by A. Kaulins in 1980, International Conference on the Phaistos Disk, London, Society of Antiquaries, Burlington House, October 31, 2008, Stars Stones and Scholars: The Decipherment of the Megaliths, Trafford, 2003 & 2006; Zum Ursprung des Horus-Glaubens im vordynastischen Ägypten (The Origin of the Cult of Horus in Predynastic Egypt), Efodon Synesis, 2005; Sternensteine - Darstellungen frühgeschichtlicher Astronomie am Beispiel der Externsteine (Star Stones - Prehistoric Astronomy and the Extern Stones), Forschungskreis Walther Machalett für Vor und Frühgeschichte, 2005; Die Himmelsscheibe von Nebra : Beweisführung und Deutung (The Sky Disk of Nebra: Evidence and Interpretation), Efodon Synesis, 2005; Der Bodenhimmel der Oesterholzer Mark um die Spitze der "Externsteinpyramide" (A Megalithic Sky Map at Oesterholz), Efodon Synesis, 2006; Das Tanum System - ein alteuropäisches Vermessungssystem? (The Tanum System: Ancient Seafarers as Megalithic Surveyors of Europe and Africa), Forschungskreis Externsteine., 2007; Der Osnabrücker Bodenhimmel (The Hermetic Planisphere at Osnabrück), Forschungskreis Externsteine, 2008.

[3] David W. Packard, Minoan Linear A, University of California Press in Berkeley, California, 1974.

Ancient World Searfaring Proven Without a Doubt - LEXILINE JOURNAL 552

2010-11-12T12:04:00.000+01:00

One of the pillars of my theories about ancient megaliths, the ancient survey of the earth by the stars, and the spread of languages, is the assumption that world seafaring existed prior to the modern era.

This has now been proven without a doubt.

ArchaeologyAshNews writes at Set Sail for Singapore! about the recent discovery of an ancient sailing vessel, the cargo of which convincingly proves ancient world seafaring long before the modern era.

That posting is about:

"[T]he 1998 discovery of a ninth-century shipwreck and its astonishing cargo of about 60,000 objects from Tang dynasty China, ranging from mass-produced ceramics to rare and extraordinary items of finely worked gold. The cargo had laid undisturbed on the ocean floor for more than 1,100 years until sea-cucumber divers discovered it off the coast of Indonesia's Belitung Island. The ship, an Arab dhow, and its contents confirm the existence of a direct maritime trade route (alluded to in ancient Chinese and Arabic texts) from China to the Persian Gulf and beyond-well before the Portuguese set sail in the 15th century."

For the original story, see ArtKnowledgeNews.com at
Smithsonian and Singapore Organize World Tour of Shipwreck Treasure

(http://bit.ly/awByF7)

The Origin of Is "Is": The Concepts of Everything, All, Are, Is, I, Being, Self in Proto-Indo-European based on Bantu and Other Evidence - LEXILINE JOURNAL 551

2010-11-11T11:55:00.000+01:00

This as -- The Origin of Is "Is" -- begins a series of postings titled PROTO-INDO-EUROPEAN ORIGINS, suggesting how certain terms developed in proto-Indo-European.

This series, depending on the words chosen, may in some cases or may not in many cases accept the hypothetical word roots assigned to terms by mainstream linguists, many of which are demonstrably false.

Rather, new facts, especially in genetics, demand revision of outdated concepts that have concentrated on the languages of Western Europe, contrary to the actual genetic and archaeological record. Be sure to first read Principles of Historical Language Reconstruction (PHILANGRECON).

The text of the above graphic, created with bubbl.us 2.0 beta, is:

THE ORIGIN OF IS "IS" © 2010 by Andis Kaulins

In proto-Indo-European, the "to be" concept of "is"
and related terms are derived from a basic
concept for "all that is" applied to "the self, the I".

The conventional etymology for the English term "is" from the Online Etymological Dictionary is: "O.E. is, from Gmc. stem *es- (cf. O.H.G., Ger., Goth. ist, O.N. es, er), from PIE *es-ti- (cf. Skt. asti, Gk. esti, L. est, Lith. esti, O.C.S. jesti), from base *es- "to be." O.E. lost the final -t-."

That etymology taken from mainstream sources does not hold water as an examination of the most archaic Indo-European languages, Latvian and Lithuanian, clearly proves, supported by the evidence of the Bantu words for "all" and "everything" in existence, i.e. the full ESSence of being. There was no original "T" at the end of what was ESSentially an ES- word.

African Bantu (Bukusu) -esi "all"; (Asu) ósè "all, everything"; (Basa) so "all"; (Kinyamwezi) ɔ́sɛ̀ "all"; (Yao) kòòsè "all". The Yao form shows the term gutturalized whence Bantu ku "man", kau "young man". Compare kungs ("sir") and kundze ("lady") in Latvian. In English, the words "all" (All in German means "space"), "area", and "are" are related forms coming from the "be" form of "is", such as Latvian ir ("is") and ārā "outside", i.e. the outdoor space as extensions of self, whence Hittite arha "away (from)".

es "I (the self)" in Latvian
viss "all, everything" Latvian
aš "I (the self)" Lithuanian

esu "am" in Latvian (being as a self-extension)
ēst "to eat", i.e. selfing,
German essen "to eat"

īst(s) "real, ex-ist-ing" in Latvian

(m)ūsu "our", (m)ēs "we" in Latvian

us in English
is in English
as in English

ich "I"
ik "I"
in German
and Nordic
languages

es "it" German
ist "is" German

ego "I" in Latin
est "is" in Latin

The widespread s-mobile prefix (the verbal prefix of "self-action", depending on language) as s-, š, z-, ž, sa-, ša si-, ši, su-, šu, aiz, iz-, uz- and variables.

In Hittite, es- is a denominative for "to become what the base word means", i.e. as (like -(n)ess).

No End of the World in Sight: 2010 Maya GMT Calendar is Off - LEXILINE JOURNAL 550

2010-10-08T11:27:00.000+02:00

As reported at Archaeology Daily News :

"Gerardo Aldana, associate professor at the Univ. of California at Santa Barbara, challenges the accepted Gregorian dates of all Classic Mayan historical events, including the end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it 2012 prophecies in Calendars and Years II: Astronomy and Time in the Ancient and Medieval World, the second in a series edited by John Steele, associate professor of Egyptology and Ancient West Asian Studies at Brown Univ."

See Calendars and Years II at Amazon -- I have not read the book yet myself.

I have written often before that the Maya calendric chronology as falsely interpreted by Maya scholars is off for the reasons identified by me here.

I wrote there the following:

THE MAYA CALENDAR
PIEDRAS NEGRAS
HALLEY'S COMET

Just as in the Pharaonic Egyptian calendar
December 25, 3117 BC is the correct starting date
for the Maya calendar (corrected for the tropical year),
as will be demonstrated below.

Maya scholars have failed to adjust the continuous count of solar days of the Maya Long Count to a "longer" count including intercalation for the tropical year. When this adjustment is made, the Maya and Pharaonic calendars both start on December 25, 3117 BC (-3116 by astronomy).

Maya scholars start the Maya calendar
on a Maya date called 4 Ahau 8 Cumku.
Both of these calendric glyphs (Ahau and Cumku) fall at the "end" of the Maya series of days and months in the Maya system, i.e. at the beginning of new eras, and we thus expect a Solstice or Equinox at this point in Maya calendration. Indeed, the Encylcopaedia Britannica writes at "Calendar" about the Maya system as follows:

"The 365-day year was divided into 18 named months of 20 days each, with an additional five days ... named Uayeb. In late times, the Maya named the years after their first days. Since both the year and number (20) of the names of days are divisible by five, only four names combined with 13 numbers could begin the year. These were called Year Bearers and were assigned in order to the four quarters of the world with their four associated colours."

The calendar, with adjustments for the tropical year, starts on Julian date 583297. The Maya Calendar allegedly started on Julian date 584283. The Maya date is correlated to the alleged foundation of Merida, Yucatan on November 14, 1539 close to the date of the Long Count Maya katun 11.16.0.0.0 = 11 baktuns, 16 katuns, 0 tuns, 0 uinals, and 0 kins.

In Maya chronology, 1 baktun = 144000 days, 1 katun = 7200 days, 1 tun = 360 days, 1 uinal = 20 days, 1 kin = 1 day. The Maya Data 11.16.0.0.0 as a chronological date thus involves the following calculation:

11 x 144000 days (=1584000 days) + 16 x 7200 days (=115200 days) = 1699200 days

i.e. 1699200 continous solar days have elapsed since the Long Count katun 0.0.0.0.0.
This is a continous count WITHOUT adjustment for the tropical year.

Let us now adjust that figure for the tropical year - which will give us the correct "astronomical", i.e. "star date".
How many 365-day years are there in 1699200 days? = 4655 years. BUT, 4655 years of ca 365.25-days (actually 365.22 days) = 1700238 days rather than 1699200 days.

1700238 days plus the Julian date 583297 (Dec. 25, 3117 BC) as the start of the calendar gives Julian date 2283535 and that is in fact the expected Solstice date, December 25, 1539 AD at Merida.

The Merida "Maya" date of November 14, 1539 AD should thus actually be December 25, 1539 AD, and that is the correct Long Count Maya katun 11.16.0.0.0. The 365-day year katun date must simply be converted to 365.25-day years, which gives an identical starting date to the Pharaonic Calendar. They ARE related.

Did the Maya Adjust Their Calendar for the Tropical Year?

Were the Maya themselves aware of this potential error in their calendration? Did they make intercalary notations as "leap-year type of periods" between the solar and tropical years in their system?

Yes - as demonstrated here - they did. In fact, they had apparently adjusted for it periodically. As the Encyclopaedia Britannica notes, the Maya used an "Initial-Series" notation (abbreviated IS) on its dates, referring the marked date back to the start of the calendar. The oldest known such IS (Initial Series) notation is Stele 29 at Tikal in Guatemala which is written
IS. 8.12.14.8.15, a date which falls 1243615 days after the start of the calendar at 4 Ahau 8 Cumku.

Can we determine when that was? We can.

Often in Maya dating of the so-called Supplementary Series, the so-called IS (Initial Series date) is preceded by a notation of 819 days.

This notation of 819 days is thought by Maya scholars to be merely a magical multiple of 13, 9 and 7, which equals 819.

But as shown here for the first time, these 819 days are the intercalation for the tropical year. This intercalation was apparently made at Tikal, Guatemala on January 25, 293 (Julian date 1828100) and used in the Supplementary Series of dates.

The Tikal IS (Initial Series) date of 1243615 days after the start of the Maya calendar is a sum of 3407.16438 years of 365-days whereas 1243615 days of ca. 365.2422-day years equals 3404.90501 years, a difference of ca. 2.25 years, which is ca. 820 days, i.e. the intercalary figure of 819.

Thus, these 819 days were added to the continuous solar day count on January 25, 293 AD for the Maya Supplementary Series of dates. The continous count itself was not intercalated.

The Pharaonic and Maya calendars both started
on December 25, 3117 BC viz. -3116 by astronomy.

The 293 AD date at Tikal was probably chosen
because it involved 48 years of intercalation for precession
- i.e 48 degrees of precession x 72 years = 3456 years so that
3116 BC + 293 AD= 3409 years total and 3409 + 48 = 3457 years.

USE OF THE METONIC CYCLE

How did the Maya, the Hebrews, the Pharaohs
and the Vedic Sanskrit Hindus
use the Metonic Cycle for long-term calendration?
It is very simple once one sees the numbers,
which allow very accurate calculations -
without fractions or decimals -
using the principle of common denominators.

Period	multiplied by	= number of days	divided by	= days	calendric use
3800 years	x 360 days	= 1368000 days	/ 19	= 72000	= half a Baktun
3800 years	x 365 days	= 1387000 days	/19	= 73000	solar years
3800 years	x 365.25 days	= 1387950 days	/19	= 73050	star years

Since a complete Maya baktun is 144000 days
(compare to the half-Baktun of 72000 days in the line above),
a full cycle of the above system is 100 x 76 years = 7600 years.

7600 years are 2736000 days of a schematic 360-day year
which equals = 19 Baktuns. This formed the Maya calendar.
It made calendration easy by common divisors.

19 Baktuns	= 380 Katuns	/19	= 20	/20	= 1
380 Katuns	= 7600 tuns	/19	= 400	/20	= 20	/ 20	= 1
7600 Tuns	= 136800 uinals	/19	= 7200	/20	= 360	/ 20	= 18	/18	=1
136800 Uinals	= 2736000 days	/19	=144000	/20	= 7200	/ 20	= 360	/18	=20

.MAYA STELE 3 PIEDRAS NEGRAS
CORRECTED READING

The Corrected Reading of Maya Stele 3 of Piedras Negras

This corrected reading of the Chol-Maya Stele 3 of Piedras Negras
is based on my discovery of the 819-day intercalation for the tropical year made at Tikal, Guatemala and the recognition that the Maya Calendar begins on December 25, 3117 BC. This article adds evidence to the correctness of that date.

The current reading of Maya Stele 3 of Piedras Negras [with glyphs] by Maya scholars is found in Michael D. Coe's book Breaking the Maya Code,
pp. 368-372 of the German version Das Geheimnis der Maya-Schrift.

This Stele is erroneously thought to apply to the birth and life of a "human" female
called Katun Ahau and her daughter Kin Ahau, but it is actually a stele for the "birth"
of a new CALENDRIC Katun Ahau.

As noted at the end of Stele 3 Piedras Negras, the new Katun Ahau
began on 9.14.0.0.0 .. 6 Ahau 13 Muan,
which was 1396800 days after December 25, 3117 BC or 583297 + 1396800
= Julian date 1980097 which is March 19, 709 AD, exactly at the point
where the Sun is at the crossing of the Celestial Equator and the Ecliptic.

The Piedras Negras date of 9.12.2.0.16 .. 5 Cib 15 Yaxkin
at the start of Stele 3 is NOT the date
- as reported by Coe - of July 7, 674 AD,
but is rather October 21, 671 AD.

The Maya Stele 3 Piedras Negras date
is correctly calculated as 9 x 144000 days
plus 12 x 7200 days + 2 x 360 days + 0 + 16 days
= 1296000 + 86400 + 720 + 0 + 16 = 1383136 days.

This date is a continuous solar count without intercalation
so it is added to the Julian Date for the start of the Maya calendar
(December 25, 3117 BC), i.e. Julian Date 583297 which - added to 1383136 -
gives a Julian Date of 1966433, or October 21, 671 AD for Stele 3
at Piedras Negras. This is Libra, the Maya NAH, 7th night station,
- which puts on its "headband" - the term NAH perhaps found
in Chinese as Se HAN, and Semitic Miz-NAIm "Libra".

The stele states further that it was 27 days after the Full Moon
at the Vernal Equinox (the cross of the Celestial Equator and Ecliptic) at Spica in Virgo - this was Julian date 1966406 on September 24, 671 AD.

Two months of 29 days after Julian date 1966433 pass and the
"three white mountain god" appeared: This is the prong of Sagittarius
on December 18, 671 AD on Julian date 1966491
[Since there is an apparent error of 44 days later, it may be that not 58 days are added here but only 14, since 58 - 14 = 14 would take care of the error. The end result, however, stays the same.]

14 Yaxkin.

10 Uinal and 12 Tun pass
10 x 20 = 200 days and 12 x 360 = 4320 days
= 4520 days
4520 added to 1966491 = Julian date 1971011
or Maya date 9.12.14.13.14 .. 1 Cib 14 Kankin

This (1971011) puts the Sun at the Pleiades on May 3, 684 AD
where she is decorated with
the great Sun, Yo' Acnal.
[There is a conjunction here with Jupiter at this date and a New Moon
at the Pleiades on April 20, 684 AD, Julian date 1970998.]

10 Kin 11 Uinal 1 Tun and 1 Katun pass (4 Cimi 14 Uo)
10 x 1 = 10, 11 x 20 = 220, 1 Tun = 360= 590 days total
1 Katun = 7200 days = 7790 days
Kin Ahau was allegedly born on August 31, 705 AD,
Julian date 1978801 at Virgo.
The stele calls this the tortoise of heaven.

14 Kin 8 Uinal and 3 Tun pass ... 11 Imix 14 Yax
14 x 1 = 14, 8 x 20 = 160, 3 x 360 = 1080 = 1254 days
This is February 5, 709 AD Julian date 1980055 at Aquarius.

The Stele states that 5 Tun and 1 Katun have passed
since the beginning of the rule of Yo'Acnal so that 5 x 360 = 1800
and 1 x 7200 = 7200 so that 1800 + 7200 = 9000 days.
but 7790 + 1254 above give 9044 days.

The stele then states at this point that 9000 days have passed
since the start of the rule of Yo´Acnal (rather than 9044).
Hence rather than 1980055
the 9000 days end 44 days previously at Julian day 1980011 which
is 9000 days after 1971011, The Winter Solstice at December 23, 708 AD.

19 Kin and 4 Uinal pass ... 6 Ahau 13 Muan
19 x 1 = 19 and 4 x 20 = 80 = 99 days
These are apparently calculated from Julian day 1980011
1980011 plus 99 days = 1980110
This gives a date of April 1, 709 AD.
If the 9000 days are calculated back to the Sun at the Pleiades
this then gives a date of March 19, 709 AD.
This is the date given for 9.14.0.0.0 .. 6 Ahau 13 Muan
at the very beginning of this article.

The stele closes by writing
6 Ahau 13 Muan ends.
The 14th Katun begins.

.FURTHER PROOF
HALLEY'S COMET AND MAYA CHRONOLOGY

The current Maya chronology includes a spectacular event called the Entrada of 378, for the arrival at Tikal of a lord called Siayaj K'ak' (meaning and translated "Fire Born" by the Mayanolgists), dated to January 31, 378 by the Mayanologists.

At the same time, the "king" Chak Tok Ich'aak allegedly passed away on January 15, 378 (8.17.1.4.12) - whose name means "Great Burning Claw". This Entrada (Entrance) of Siyaj K'ak' took place on January 31, 378 according to mainstream Mayanology - indeed, the appearance of this mysterious "fire born" is documented 8 days earlier and his "route" is even traced in Maya records.

Now - if this were a HEAVENLY BODY it would be a fiery comet - AND it is a comet, Halley's Comet, which came very close to earth in what the serious astronomers today estimate to be 374 A.D. According to MY chronology, the Maya date January 31, 378 is correctly May 4, 375 A.D. and this is the Maya record of the sighting of this very near passage of Halley's Comet, one of the closest to Earth on record.

We find Halley returns at ca. 76-year multiples in the names of Maya "rulers".... though all the mainstream dates are off by the error of 2+years in mainstream chronology which I have discussed above.

Halley is the Accession of K'an Chitam in 458 A.D. - actually, this was 2+ years earlier. Ruler "Bird Claw?" - also known as "Animal Skull I" - this is Halley again - is dated by Mayanologists to between ca. 527 and 537 A.D.

Ca. 76- years we then have Halley again as Animal Skull II.

Halley appears again as the illustrious king Yich'aak K'ak' (Fiery Claw) whose "flint and shield" are brought down by Jasaw Chan K'awiil I on (sic) August 5, 695 A.D. - but of course this is 2+ years earlier in fact.

So, Halley has been clearly identified, and mainstream Maya chronology is off by the period of time I have previously described in great detail in other LexiLine postings.

Modern Civilization Threatened by New World Order - LEXILINE JOURNAL 549

2010-09-29T11:19:00.000+02:00

Newsweek has a map of The New World Order pointing out that:

"Across the world a resurgence of tribal ties is creating more complex global alliances. Where once diplomacy defined borders, now history, race, ethnicity, religion, and culture are dividing humanity into dynamic new groupings."

That development is definitely not a good thing because it places inferior, fixed, and often erroneous variables that human beings "inherit" at the top of human alliance priorities, and places the mutable and superior variables such as education, performance and individual MERIT below them.

The fixed variables always lead to war and conflagration between various "groups of inheritance".

The unfixed variables have led to modern civilization, a civilization which thrives on merit.

The "New World Order" that Newsweek identifies is thus a retreat of the world from civilized society and poses a threat to modern civilization.

Stonehenge as a Timepiece: LEXILINE JOURNAL 548

2010-08-10T16:32:00.000+02:00

I ran across a nice short posting by Michael Balfour about Stonehenge as a timepiece at Europa Star Magazine:

Stonehenge – The world's oldest timepiece .

The graph presented reflects inter alia the computer analysis of Stonehenge by Gerald S. Hawkins .

For detailed analysis of Stonehenge, see the Megalithic Wiki at Wikia .

Cleaning House in Education via Reduced Spending of Taxpayer Funds and Foundation Monies: Mainstream Archaeology as One Example: LEXILINE JOURNAL 547

2010-08-06T16:23:00.000+02:00

What is important ... is ... the recognition of how mainstream archaeology operates under the surface using the same kinds of methods that we know in law enforcement for organized crime.

That is why so many of the theories of mainstream archaeology are woefully wrong, because the environment in which such theories are developed has little to do with objective impartial fact-finding or critical analysis of the best evidence. Quite the contrary.

One of the reforms that is desperately needed in higher education is the cleaning of house of the whole educational establishment, which has become top-heavy with lightweights and not just in archaeology. All of these "academic" businesses are rackets and the academics utilize the same methods that are known for criminal conspiracies.

Frankly, much of the federal and other funding for mainstream archaeology should be halved, if not more, and thorough investigations should be made of how these people spend taxpayer funds and/or donor and foundation money.

Recognizing Truth Out of Context and Mainstream Archaeology: LEXILINE JOURNAL 546

2010-08-05T16:11:00.000+02:00

This is a copy of a posting I recently made to LawPundit which illustrates one of the major problems confronted in dealing with mainstream archaeologists. They recognize as good as nothing outside of their own self-proclaimed theater, in which they own the home court advantage - and this is the result:

How Competent is Your Average Man in Recognizing Talent or Ability Outside of Context and Beyond Being Told Something is True or Good?

This email circulates through cyberspace. True or false?

In Washington , DC , at a Metro Station, on a cold January morning in 2007, this man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time,approximately 2,000 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. After about 3 minutes, a middle-aged man noticed that there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds, and then he hurried on to meet his schedule.

About 4 minutes later The violinist received his first dollar. A woman threw money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk.

At 6 minutes A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.

At 10 minutes A 3-year old boy stopped, but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head the whole time. This action was repeated by several other children, but every parent - without exception - forced their children to move on quickly.

At 45 minutes The musician played continuously. Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while. About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace. The man collected a total of $32.

After 1 hour He finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed and no one applauded. There was no recognition at all.

No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before, Joshua Bell sold-out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100 each to sit and listen to him play the same music.

This is a true story. Joshua Bell, playing incognito in the D.C. Metro Station, was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people's priorities.

This experiment raised several questions:

* In a common-place environment, at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty?

* If so, do we stop to appreciate it?

* Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?

One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be this If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made . . .

How many other things are we missing as we rush through life?

Snopes confirms that the story is true

The kids instinctively heard that the "fiddler" was special and wanted to hear him play -- shades of the Pied Piper.

However, with the exception of a miniscule percent of adults, on the other hand, "grown-ups" had no clue whatsoever that the street violinist represented the pinnacle of his profession.

My experience definitely confirms the truth of Joshua Bell's story. Most "adults" in real life know that something is "true" or "good" only if they are told that it is "true" or "good" and if the attendant environment fits their expectations, regardless of the actual reality.

In fact, we were led to post the above story because of an email from a critic who explained to us that some of our ideas about economics would not cut it with "mainstream" economists, as if that made any difference to us.

Some people only know or think they know that which the so-called "established" world tells them. How sad to be unable to have a mind of your own and to determine for yourself what is good and not good and what is true and not true.

Indeed, in the course of their seemingly "own" life", almost all adults ultimately adopt the religion and political views of their parents, all the while proclaiming that they are thinking independently for themselves, whereas in fact they merely inherit their views from their elders. It is no difference with science, law or economics. Perhaps it takes a special character not to be just a parrot.

Hat tip to CaryGee.

Gobekli Tepe and Archaeology on the Run as a Profession: LEXILINE JOURNAL 545

2010-08-05T16:00:00.000+02:00

Mainstream Archaeology is on the run, and for good reason. Their current situation could be defined as "Archaeology Gate".

As I wrote previously at ArchaeoPundit:

"Göbekli Tepe is featured at Newsweek online in an article from the March 1, 2010 issue of Newsweek magazine. At History in the Remaking: A temple complex in Turkey that predates even the pyramids is rewriting the story of human evolution, Patrick Symmes writes: "
"The new discoveries are finally beginning to reshape the slow-moving consensus of archeology. Göbekli Tepe is 'unbelievably big and amazing, at a ridiculously early date,' according to Ian Hodder, director of Stanford's archeology program. Enthusing over the 'huge great stones and fantastic, highly refined art' at Göbekli, Hodder -- "who has spent decades on rival Neolithic sites" -- says: 'Many people think that it changes everything…It overturns the whole apple cart. All our theories were wrong."

Ponder that for a moment. One of the world's leading archaeologists admits that "all" of the main theories of mainstream archaeology about ancient man are wrong. I call that Archaeology Gate and it is something that I have been writing about for years, pointing to the flimsy house of cards that mainstream archaeologists have constructed.

Turn where you will, the established ideas of mainstream archaeology are falling like a house of cards. Their long-held theories as we have long alleged - were wrong and so some "angry" archaeologists -- or those who profess to be archaeologists -- I can not be sure, since these people are posting anonymously -- are by their own admitted intention trying to discredit criticism and alternative theories wherever they can. We all now know and understand this better since Climategate. For a nice discussion of the gangster methods used by academia against the opposition read James Delingpole at the Telegraph in Climategate: the final nail in the coffin of 'Anthropogenic Global Warming'?

Climategate is merely the tip of the iceberg, revealing something about how academia works under the surface. The reality is much worse than Climategate.

In this regard, I would like to point out that an organized group of posters have discovered my book Stars Stones and Scholars and are trying to discredit my book in the comments section at http://www.amazon.com/Stars-Stones-Scholars-Decipherment-Megaliths/dp/1412013445 -- all without ever having read the book!

No wonder that mainstream archaeology is in such bad shape.

Nevertheless, it is instructive to read what these people are using as methods against ideas that run contrary to their own "wrong theories". There is no discussion of ideas, there is only ad hominem argumentation -- strange, none of these people know me personally, so they are hardly competent to comment about my person. SCIENTISTS would discuss the ideas. Alas, few true scientists are to be found in archaeology.

Our Progress on Deciphering the Megaliths of Gobekli Tepe - LEXILINE JOURNAL 544

2010-06-23T15:00:00.000+02:00

The history of civilization is a wrongly neglected topic at our educational institutions, and yet, that history exerts a POWERFUL influence on modern affairs -- just look at the political cesspool of the Middle East in our modern day an age, which is a direct consequence of events, long ago, in the Ancient Near East. Worse, we do not even have that ancient history right at all, so that modern happenings are greatly formed by erroneous views of ancient times -- this applies particularly to the history of the Jews and their impact on the development of advanced human culture in the Fertile Crescent.

I myself am working hard on my Gobekli Tepe decipherment and it has proven to be a hard nail to chew because of the lack of a comprehensive map with individual photos of the exact location of megaliths at that archaeological site. That is typical for the dilettantic "professionalism" in archaeology.

I am using Klaus Schmidt's book -- which does have a barely usable map at page 76 of that book -- as also online materials posted by others.

I can report to you unequivocally in advance of publication of my ideas that the megaliths of Gobekli Tepe were erected by the predecessors of the Biblical Abraham and that they represent stars viz. star groups (asterisms viz. constellations as the ancients saw them -- this of course is my discovery) and that these date to ca. 3800 BC. This is where the Hebrew Calendar began, as currently dated to a starting date of ca. 3761 B.C. I am refining the accuracy of that date a bit in my current research.

The dating of these megaliths by Schmidt and others -- based apparently on false radiocarbon dating of debri found covering the site -- as allegedly being much older is incorrect -- and that is quite logical actually.

People did not work stone to this degree of sophistication thousands of years prior to the dawn of megalithic culture in the 4th millennium, only to see that technology disappear from the face of the earth, only to resurface miraculously thousands of years later.

Technology development and technology transfer do not work that way.

Wherever the megalith makers went after leaving Gobekli Tepe, they took their stone technology with them. Indeed, there are great similarities between numerous sculptures of animals at Gobekli Tepe and later similar cultures.

From Teosinte to Maize : The Single Domestication of Corn in the Balsas Valley of Southern Mexico 9000 Years Ago - LexiLine Journal 543

2010-05-27T00:20:00.000+02:00

Tracking the Ancestry of Corn Back 9,000 Years - NYTimes.com

This is a delightful article by Sean B. Carroll tracing the history of maize as it developed out of a single domestication of teosinte in ca. 7000 B.C. in the Balsas Valley of southern Mexico.

For the scientific article at the root of the story, see A single domestication for maize shown by multilocus microsatellite genotyping by Yoshihiro Matsuoka, Yves Vigouroux, Major M. Goodman, Jesus Sanchez G., Edward Buckler, and John Doebley, where the Abstract reads:

"There exists extraordinary morphological and genetic diversity among the maize landraces that have been developed by pre-Columbian cultivators. To explain this high level of diversity in maize, several authors have proposed that maize landraces were the products of multiple independent domestications from their wild relative (teosinte). We present phylogenetic analyses based on 264 individual plants, each genotyped at 99 microsatellites, that challenge the multiple-origins hypothesis. Instead, our results indicate that all maize arose from a single domestication in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago. Our analyses also indicate that the oldest surviving maize types are those of the Mexican highlands with maize spreading from this region over the Americas along two major paths. Our phylogenetic work is consistent with a model based on the archaeological record suggesting that maize diversified in the highlands of Mexico before spreading to the lowlands. We also found only modest evidence for postdomestication gene flow from teosinte into maize. "

See also Rio Balsas most likely region for maize domestication by Christine A. Hastorf who writes, inter alia:

"It is curious that with so much interest in the topic of plant domestication in archaeology, geography, and botany, it took until 2005 to include this region of Mexico in our search for the roots of domestication. This investigatory blind spot is most probably because visible early plant evidence was uncovered in dry conditions. Following the data, scholars pursued domestication where they could easily find the evidence, ignoring the regions where the interactions were more likely to occur."

In other words, without the genetic evidence, mainstream archaeology would still be looking for evidence of domestication in the WRONG places because that is where "drilling" for the truth was the easiest.

Revisited: Neandertal Man Rediscovered by Mainstream Science as Us - LexiLine Journal 542

2010-05-17T16:19:00.001+02:00

In spite of unequivocal genome-based evidence that the Neandertals*** did not die out but left their traces in modern man, the nay-sayers in the long-deluded archaeological profession are apparently not easily giving up their totally erroneous theories.

As written by David Perlman, Science Editor at the San Francisco Chronicle in Neanderthal in all of us, DNA study indicates:

"... Richard G. Klein, a noted archaeologist at Stanford who has long worked on the evolution of Neanderthals and humans, has serious reservations about the work. He is known for his research into the fossil record showing how modern humans replaced the Neanderthals throughout Europe thousands of years ago.
The Pääbo group's report, he said, "contradicts everything we know about the archaeological record. Their evidence is really wobbly and it bothers me a lot. But it's very important stuff if it's right - and I really do hope it's right."

One of the main problems that I have found in dealing with mainstream archaeology over the years in fact has been the archaeologists' hopeless reliance on their own home-spun theories, whatever their origin, regardless of the actual probative evidence.

The Neandertal issue is only one very representative example of the absolute evidentiary follies which pervade mainstream archaeology, and which have in many areas of archaeological study become so entrenched that no voice of reason challenging those theories is heard.

Thankfully, genetic studies are changing and will continue to change many of the totally nonsensical notions published by archaeologists over the last centuries, decades and years.

There is no probative evidence in archaeology or elsewhere -- and there never has been such evidence -- that Neandertals died out as a separate species, to be replaced by modern man.
Rather, it is equally compelling to argue that Neandertal man in one way or another evolved into viz. merged into modern man, either by the path of evolution or by the path of interbreeding with another human primate form.

The details, of course, will remain a conundrum for many years to come, but we can at long last bury the useless theory that Neandertal man occupied all of Europe and western Asia, only to be fully replaced by newcomers from Africa. That theory was always based on sand.