Re: A China-Sumer connection?

From: Dylan Sung (dylanwhs.tsktsktsk_at_pacific.net.hk)
Date: 03/05/05 

Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 18:33:32 -0000

<phippsmartin@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1110042986.073102.125740@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>> phippsmartin@hotmail.com wrote:
>>
>> This seems to have been before you-all started crossposting to
> sci.lang.
>> First assumption: that China and Sumer "developed in parallel."
>
> It isn't really an assumption. The Chinese and Sumerian civilizations
> developed over the same period of time. Sumerian writing dates back,
> presumably, to 5500 years ago and we can, supposedly, trace back
> Sumerian writing to its very beginning. The Chinese believe that their
> system of writing and their calendars were both invented some 4700
> years ago, but in order to invent calendars they must have developed a
> writing system first, what with them not having had a separate
> mathematical notation (one->1, two->2, plus->+). It's true they had
> the abacus to do calculations but they must have been able to writing
> things down. So the earliest Chinese writing must date back a few more
> hundred years and, therefore, about the same time that writing
> developed in Sumer.

If you look at the earliest numerals found in Shang inscriptions, you'll
find the use of 'hundred' and 'thousand' which are base 10 numerals. Do the
Sumerians have these as numbers in terms of powers of 10 for counting, or is
base 60 the more usual counting system?

>
>> Why name
>> those two in particular? Is there anything about them that makes them
> a
>> natural class, such that the same development isn't seen anywhere
> else?
>
> I think it is fairly clear that the Egyptians borrowed a lot from the
> Sumerians, with Egyptian hieroglyphics being similar to Sumerian
> writing and the story of Isis and Osirus being similar to that of
> Inanna and Dumuzi. The Sumerians also, presumably, had contact with
> the Indians by sea and with other neighbouring cultures by land. It is
> doubtful that the Sumerians had direct contact with China and yet Sumer
> and China both developed phonetic ideographs, a twelve hour day, a
> twelve month solar calendar and similar beliefs in astrology with
> astrological symbols typically represented by animals and associated
> with the months of the year and the constellations in the sky. It is
> reasonable to ask why that would be. No assumption is being made at
> that point.

Well, given a year from winter solstice to winter solstice, there are 12
complete lunations of the moon, and this may have become a magic number to
any culture who cares to observe the heavens. The number of days from one
winter solstice to the next is countable, 365 ot 366 days. This is close to
360 a multiple of 12, and in any number base you care to count in.

>
>> simultaneous? what's your evidence for simultaneous?
>
> I'm talking about development over a long period of time. While the
> Sumerians were developing writing, etc. so were the Chinese. It was
> simultaneous in the sense that it was happening at the same time.

And independently of each other.

>
>> Neither of them ever quoted a single Sumerian text (myth or
> otherwise).
>
> They have now.
>
>> "Claims of links" are not persuasive.
>
> Except that I am here sitting in front of a computer in Taiwan. I'm
> not going to go to a library or a museum and wade through Chinese
> texts. The evidence that one might need might be locked in a room in
> the Smithsonian for all we know. For 99.9% of the world, it might as
> well not exist. This is the 21st century. If information isn't
> available online then for most people in the world it simply isn't
> accessable.
>
>> The fact that some Indus seals
>> have been excavated in Mesopotamia shows that there was some sort of
>> contact between the Indus Valley and the Euphrates Valley in Sumerian
>> times, but it does not show that there was direct contact; the tiny,
>> valuable objects could have passed from hand to hand to hand just as
>> easily, and more plausibly, than been carried by single merchants
> making
>> the entire trip across the Iranian Plateau.
>
> Just as physical objects can be passed from person to person, so can
> ideas. If people can communicate with neighbouring cultures then ideas
> can diffuse outward (or in this case around), the only limitation being
> the extent to which these ideas continue to be understood by the people
> who would be passing them on.
>
>> Once again, what is the _evidence_ for contact?
>
> The evidence would be the Chinese and Sumerian stories that their
> Emperors or "fishmen", respectively, handed down their knowledge, that
> their knowledge was not developed over time as you would expect to have
> been the case. It does seem as though both people aren't giving
> themselves enough credit for developing writing, agriculture and
> calendars by themselves. If you want to dismiss any lunacy about
> aliens or Gods or demons or time travellers then any myth about
> knowledge comming from somewhere else must be refering to contact with
> other cultures.

The Chinese myth that Chinese writing was handed down from one of those
ancient emperors is well known, however, there are a number of variations to
the story. One says it was FuXi, andother says it was Cangjie, another says
it came from the back of a turtle. Hardly consitent, and can't be taken
seriously as evidence that it has any truth in it.

Do you think independent innovations could never occur in Sumer and China
independently, that is, such innovations could not have occured without
contact?

>
> I should point out that the Incans had similar myths about agriculture
> and irrigation having been provided them by a God-like ruler. This
> could also refer to contact with another culture that would have had to
> have travelled by sea, although this might have been a one time event
> that would be very difficult to find any actual evidence for.

Or it could have been as fabricated as stork bringing the baby story created
for children.

> The issue here is plausibility. It isn't just a question of relying on
> evidence that you can see, hear or touch but of putting together a
> theory that one can believe. Do you believe that the sun is a massive
> fusion reactor? And yet if you look at it with your eyes all you see
> is a big ball of fire. Developing a plausible theory requires more
> that simply relying on what you can see, hear and touch. Otherwise you
> would just go on believing that the sun is a big ball of fire and be
> done with it.
>

There is the value of simplicity. Why complicate something unnecessarily and
bring in some complex trade route which somehow transports the notion of
writing from place A to place B? Why not each developed each writing system
out of local necessity and innovation?

Dyl.

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