Re: KRS: Final thoughts

On Mon, 27 Jun 2005 06:32:54 GMT, Philip Deitiker
<Donevenask@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>"m_zalar@xxxxxxxxxxx" <m_zalar@xxxxxxxxxxx> says in
>news:1119849510.496410.95450@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:
>
>> Please note that my argument was based merely on the accepted
>> fact (by scholars) that an exploratory trip beyond Greenland
>> took place at the time the KRS was supposedly carved. At no
>> other point in the history of Greenland (excepting perhaps the
>> early voyages to Vinland) when such a trip is mentioned.
>
>This has been discussed before here, there were trips beyond
>greenland, but evidence for a successful trip launched from England
>or Norway is unconvincing.
>
>The closest point on Baffin Island to Kensington is about 63'N
>and 70'W. Kensington is 47'N and 96'W. That is a difference of 16'N
>and 26'W. Obviously at the latitude a degree is about 2/3rds that at
>the equator. A distance of 1600 miles. 800 miles over water, and 800
>miles overland to minnisota, total, round trip 3200 miles, over
>water, though icey seas, upstreams and rivers, through hostile
>territory.
>
>The accounts of Inventio Fortunata that I have seen suggests it did
>exist, but that it was a collection of stories and favored myths of
>the time.

These words will come back to haunt you. :-(

>There was some discussion of the Astrolabe.
> Many of the accounts of the greenland visit are derived from cnoyen
>in different directions, and so the connection that I see between the
>greenlandic voyage and Inventio Fortunata are tied through Cnoyen,
>and cnoyen is no better than a 3rd hand account. I don't think this
>can be touted as evidence of anything other than that people wrote
>and told myths in the 14th century.
>
>As far as I know this is the most comprehensive estimation of the
>inventio fortunata.
>
>http://www.eaudrey.com/myth/Places/Mercator%20Article.pdf

I expect to educate you (if that is possible) when the book I have
ordered arrives.
>
>"
>Mercator cites his authority for his delineation of the northern
>regions: the Itinerarium of a Flemish traveler named Jacobus
>Cnoyen (now lost); Cnoyen gave as his sources the Res gestae Arturi
>britanni (now lost), and a book written by an English Minorite, a
>mathematician from Oxford, who had traveled in the far north in 1360
>and recorded what he saw; this work was called the Inventio
>fortunata, which also, (ironically, in light of its title) is lost.
>"
>Note, cnoyen may have never had a copy of the Inventio Fortunata, but
>relied either on a read of it, or on an account of the book.
>. . . . .
>"
>The persistence of the Inventio fortunata geography on maps for, say,
>150 years is to some extent a testament to the esteem in which
>Mercator and Ortelius were held by other cartographers; it is also, I
>think, a testament to the great psychological and mythical power of
>the concept of the center. It was well-known that the North Pole was
>the true center of the earth, and the author of the Inventio
>fortunata gave an account of the geography that was so mythologically
>satisfying, that it continued to be believed or at least repeated
>well past the time when scholars and explorers knew that the account
>was false.
>"
>
>"
>The Inventio fortunata places a mountain at the Pole, and of course
>many sacred centers are mountains; a passage into the depths of the
>earth is another common feature of sacred centers. Moreover, the
>powerful flow of water from the four corners of the earth in
>through the rivers to the Pole, and there down a whirlpool, is the
>strongest possible confirmation and emphasis of the Pole's
>centrality, as strong almost as the thought of millions of Muslims
>facing Mecca from all corners of the earth five times a day in
>prayer. This role the North Pole plays in the circulation of the
>earth's waters gives the spot the global importance we expect of a
>sacred center.

It's apity you have been following the wrong Yahoo groups.
Knowledgable people, without blinkers, are in the process of slowly
identifying the most probable actual site.
>"
> . . . .
>"
>The similarities between the Inventio fortunata and the Brahmanic
>Hindu and Buddhist conceptions of the northern polar regions of the
>earth should by now be obvious. Both place a large mountain at the
>Pole surrounded by four islands aligned as if to the four points of
>the compass. From the one mountain radiates the earth's magnetic
>field; the other is the pivot of the universe, and the home of the
>divine. And while the while the Inventio fortunata has the waters of
>the world's oceans flowing in towards the Pole from the four quarters
>and then down into the earth, the Buddhist conception has a large
>lake with four huge rivers flowing out to the four corners of the
>earth.
>"
>
>IOW the source of the inspiration might be from other legends. Think
>crusades.
>
>-or-
>
>"
>To attempt to argue that the Inventio fortunata was by some
>circuitous means derived from Buddhist conceptions of the northern
>polar regions would be at best a highly precarious undertaking.

Which probably explains why even you don't quite have the courage to
undertake it.

--- more blither snipped ----



Eric Stevens

.

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