Re: SMU's museum opens exhibit of Etruscan artifacts

On Sun, 01 Feb 2009 22:31:24 -0600, Tom McDonald
<tmcdonald2672@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Eric Stevens wrote:
On Sun, 01 Feb 2009 20:35:55 -0600, Tom McDonald
<tmcdonald2672@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Eric Stevens wrote:
On Sun, 01 Feb 2009 16:10:13 -0600, Tom McDonald
<tmcdonald2672@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

David wrote:
On Feb 1, 4:14 pm, "tkavanag" <kavan...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"David" <pchristain...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:19954910-f640-4fe3-bdf8-ab4204caa3a7@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

http://www.enquirerherald.com/371/story/519081.html
"The Etruscan language, which has not
been linked to any other known language,
has been decoded but there's still not
enough text to give a full picture."
I had read somewhere that Etruscan is
linked to Hungarian. Is this true?
Further, Barry Fell had shown examples
of his translation of Etruscan years ago.
Did he do a competent job?
Nothing Barry Fell wrote on epigraphy/linguistics was "competent."

tk
That's EXACTLY why I brought up the point.

If Barry Fell actually translated an example
correctly, he deserves a second look.
Between Fell and TK, take TK every time. I do, and have never
regretted it.

Either that, or go to where folks are giving Fell a second look.
There are such places. Some not too far from where you are.

But Fell has the same problem as Han***; if they happen to get
something right, it is not by skill but by chance.
Maybe not in the case of the Peterborough inscriptions. According to
David H. Kelley "Fell may very well be correct" (quote from memory).
I remember. I also remember the history that was invented to make
his reading of the inscriptions plausible -- an extensive and
intensive centuries-long exploitation of Lake Superior-region
copper deposits leading to billions of pounds of American copper
winding up in Europe. Remember Woden-Lithi, Mjolnir, Fenris? All
read by Fell, and all asserted to be at least 1500 years before
anything like the classic Norse Odinic religion?

As I'm sure you well know, Kelley only supported Fell's reading of the
inscriptions.

And his 'reading' of the inscriptions, sans cultural or
archaeological context, is cloud-gazing pattern matching at its
purest. And that particular air-castle still hangs, unsupported,
over this ng, ready to be noticed by new crops of enthusiasts and
newbies. I think it may be useful, every now and again, to take
the opportunity to point this out to those who might otherwise
think there is something securing the castle to the ground.

There is not, AFAIK.

I presume that one day you might say something meaningful on the
subject.

And remember all of the archaeological evidence of a major
European presence in Ontario more than a millennium before
Christ? All that zero evidence?

I respect Kelley for his work on Mayan and his archaeology. He
certainly knows more than I about the situation on the ground.
But unless I am forgetting something, even Kelley had no
unambiguous archaeological evidence for Tiffinagh-writing
Northern European copper merchants.

As I said, there are places where this sort of thing could be
profitably discussed. But without archaeological evidence, here
is not such a place.

The inscription is archaelogical evidence but I agree that arguing
over its meanings is more a linguistic problem than anything else.
Nevertheless it is not entirely irrelevant to archaeology.

Of course the inscriptions are archaeological evidence. And yes,
their interpretation is primarily a linguistic endeavor, not an
archaeological one.

But what I meant was archaeological evidence for the presumed
presence of Tiffinagh writers from Europe in the form of
artifacts, sites, genetic evidence, changes in population
distribution, etc.

The inscriptions _are_ archaeological evidence for the presence of
Tiffinagh writers from Europe. As for the rest, there may already be
archaeological evidence which has been misinterpreted as originating
with native americans.

And that really goes for both sides of the Atlantic. If there
were the massive and prolonged Bronze Age copper trade required
by most of the adherents of, or those leaning toward, Fell's and
others' concept of this huge trans-Atlantic trade, one would
expect to find evidence in the Old World. I have never yet seen
any such evidence, although it should be quite easy to find via
source testing of copper and bronze items in Europe at the
relevant time.

Forget the presumed copper trading. That is another matter altogether.

If I had archaeological evidence in hand to suggest Fell, et
al's, scenario had some merit, I'd be quite happy. I've not seen
any to date. While absence of evidence does not mean there never
can be evidence, evidence would be nice. Especially in an
archaeology ng in the sci. hierarchy.

So, as always, if someone has new or re-evaluated evidence that
supports Fell, bring it on. I'd love to read it.

However -- and this is a big however -- I'm assuredly not
interested in URLs or articles or books rehashing what is already
known or asserted. (David, this is particularly aimed at your
penchant for googling stuff and throwing links into the group
without evaluating their cogency for those of us who have gone
through the whole business several times before.)



Eric Stevens
.

Loading