Re: Origin of Ogam

On Apr 22, 1:39 am, benli...@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Apr 22, 4:37 pm, Day Brown <daybr...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:



On Apr 20, 7:52 pm, benli...@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:

On Apr 21, 11:27 am, Carl <pchristain...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Apr 20, 6:00 pm, benli...@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:

On Apr 21, 7:13 am, Day Brown <daybr...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Apr 20, 12:37 pm, Carl <pchristain...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:> > Intend to do that right now. Aint quite done planting.

According to Climate Prediction Center etc, New England will soon turn
corner into spring.

In the SE Ozarks, we had record warmth, then the first record low
temps in the area that I've seen in the past few years. Record highs
seem to happen every month. But the cold snap reminded me of the
Greenland Ice core data showing frequent and rapid climate shifts.

It no doubt had a lot to do with limiting European hominid
populations. The disruptions no doubt had a hand in wiping out
innovations, but because of the patterns in the hominid mind, they
kept being re-invented. This neurology stuff challenges not only your
sensibilities, but nearly everyone's.

"Sin" is, in fact, a combination of particular hormone levels and
instinctive pattern recognition and response algorithms. The
variations of different types show up in different ratios in different
gene pools so that the same moral codes dont work for everyone.

Densely settled regions with lots of hunter tribes had, as LeBlanc
says in his book by that title, "Constant Battles", and therefore
needed lots of aggressive male warriors in the gene pools with
draconian levels of force needed to control their impulsivity.

But Diamond, in "Collapse" writes of going into the forest with one,
and listening to the man expound for hours on the minutia of all the
flora and fauna in his vastly diverse ecosystem. They thot he was
retarded cause he could not remember it all.

However, in ice age Europe, there was but a tiny fraction of the
diversity, and what was needed was brain cells that could recall the
maps- that is the shapes of the rivers, mountains, and routes of the
megafauna. Also needed was the logistical skill to get to the right
place at the right time to make kills of animals that their *liinear
logic* told them would be there.

In both the tropics and the tundra, it was the women who gathered
plant food, fibre, or medicines. But they didnt inherit from their
sires the same kind of facility with ROM (read only memory) that the
New Guinea Highlander women had, and so they needed nmenonic devices.
Icons- lables on bags, baskets, and pots. IIRC, Gimbutas reports of
259 differnent Icons that she knew of.

Most Aryans simplified this set down to 30; one notable exception is
Tocharian, which has a Brahmi Sanskrit font with 120 letters. But
being in business on the Silk Road, they needed to render names in
Chinese, Sogdian, Persian, Hindi, & Siberian languages as well.

During the ice ages, the East Asians were not prevented by a
Mediterranean sea from moving south, and so the original homo Erectus
interbred with later hominids and when they moved north again, took
with them some of the facility for dealing with large tropical sets-
thus their iconography has 3000 shapes.

As in the other post, you seem to have no concept of the language side
of writing systems - what makes them writing as opposed to tallying or
decoration. Since you treat them as mere collections of shapes, you
can imagine that their size is determined by environmental factors
("large tropical lists", indeed!). I can only hope that Carl is not
tempted to take this seriously.

Ross Clark

I realize nobody really knows the answer.

Would you care to share your intuition for solution to our problem?

I'm not sure which problem you mean. DB was offering a one-page
history of writing systems which is at variance with known facts at
pretty much every point. For some facts see Daniels & Bright,
Diringer, Jensen et al.

http://www.nordic-life.org/nmh/rovas/rovas.htm
mite be worth a look as well. I dont know about his interpretation,
but he does show us copies of 7000 year old *text* that has been found
in SE Europe, like at Sitovo and Gradesnica...

I didn't see anything 7000 years old there. Date for Sitovo and
Gradesnica is given as 2400 BC. There doesn't seem to be any evidence
that the Hungarian runes are even that old.

If anyone has anything earlier, I'd appreciate the link to take a look
at what has been found to make up my own mind rather than rely on the
opinions of others. You mite like to take a look at Gimbutas, "The
Language of the Goddess", which also has illustrations of lots of 7000
year old iconography found in SE Europe. Her "The Goddesses and Gods
of Old Europe" also show us the Gradesnica platter and script on other
pottery. This stuff is all so much earlier than any other writing,
that I dont see how any explanation offered, that does not include it,
can be defended.- Hide quoted text -

Iconography does not make a script. And none of this goes anywhere
near back to the ice age.
So sorry Ross, I didnt read the text, assuming that it represented
what I've seen elsewhere.
Gimbutas, for one, illustrates the Vinca platter from Gradesnica near
Vraca at 5000 BCE, in "The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe". On pg
24, she says:"The first attempts at linear writing appear not later
than the mid-sixth millennium BCE and the early Vinca inscribed
figurines, spindle whorls and other objects are definately of local
manufacture."

http://www.prehistory.it/fase2/sitovo.htm has illustrations of both
the Gradesnica platter (which it says dates from the end of the 8th
mil) and the cave wall inscription from Sitovo (from the middle of the
5th). I dunno whether this was calibrated C-14, dendochronology, or
whatever. There seems to be some disparity, but all the dates I've
seen published are way before 2400 BCE. The end of the 6th is the
usual estimate.

Sorry if I wasnt clear, but it wasnt me that claimed it went back to
the ice age. Gimbutas shows an unprecidented era of innovation in the
Chalcolithic. A lot of it was the lucky synergism of several resources
in SE Europe being discovered at the same time agriculture was
beginning there.

For instance, lotsa places have chalcocite with snippets of native
copper in the veins that had been worked as in Anatolia. But the
Transylvanian mines had ore contaminated with arsenic. You may recall
a disastrous fish kill on the Danube some years ago from mining
operations. But when this chacocite gets smelted the result is
*arsenic bronze*, the toughest of all the bronzes, and that produced
decent wood working tools, which produced much better timber frame
houses and plank hulls for sailing boats.

On pg 84, Gimbutas shows us a grain sickle. No doubt, grain production
went way up 7000 years ago, and with it the extra time to develop
other crafts. Gimbutas shows us inscribed spindle whorls. The Greeks
made the very same kind, and inscribed them with prayers to Demeter.
Buddhist prayers have always been inscribed on spinning drums and
wheels- there's something in it that resonantes with the hominid
psyche.

But then the spun wool, linen, and hemp resulted in weaving. Doll
houses show panels that look like twill done in reeds to prevent the
mud in wattle daub from washing out. Figurines show us *tailored*
garments, often with diagonal patterns that imply twill. Marks or
icons on figures suggest that the tattooing technology seen on Utzi
goes back a ways.

I mean, with all this other innovation, you'd kind of expect writing.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Origin of Ogam
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