Re: 7-Foot Robot Used in Black Sea Expedition

From: Franz Gnaedinger (frgn_at_bluemail.ch)
Date: 11/15/04 

Date: 15 Nov 2004 00:14:09 -0800

frgn@bluemail.ch (Franz Gnaedinger) wrote in message news:<2bf25455.0411120019.6c16c1ef@posting.google.com>...

Daryl Krupa: no need for the fantastic? What about Star Trek
with Captain Kirk? Star Wars, Raider of the Lost Ark, E.T. and
Jurassic Park? (I liked Jurassic Park, especially the scene where
the green car with burning head lights comes down the tree, looking
like a modern dinosaur, very witty, and the scene up the tree with
the brontosaurus munching leaves, and and and). Or the Hubble
pictures of the Orion nebula? or micro-organisms? or quantum
physics? There are so many realms of the fantastic in our modern
life, and we couldn't be without it, for the fantastic, as I see
it, transgresses the boundaries of our common life. Are you such
a hard "stone" of a mind that you have no need for the fantastic
in your life? Well, it takes a hard stone to strike a spark off:
I thank you for your resistance, which made me reconsider the
stories of Noah's Ark and of Adam and Eve, and of course for
the many links and ample information you provided. The Usenet is
a fantastic - sorry, a very nice - facility where interdisciplinary
research is not just a word but becomes reality.

Day Brown: I like your enthusiam. Now you need some pieces of oak
wood in order to keep the fire burning. Some solid information,
I mean. Just a skeleton find does not suffice to overthrow the
well established view of the origin of agriculture some 9,000 years
ago in the Haran plain. The people at Goebekli Tepe in the Urfa
region, living there from 11500 to 9500 BP, or 9500 to 7500 BC,
were hunters, no herdsmen; I read the archaeological reports from
there (excavation Klaus Schmidt, German Archaeological Institute
Istanbul). The shrine at Sabatinovka, Moldavia, Early Cucuteni,
is less than 7,000 years old. And the oldest farmer village I
know of in the region of the Bosporus was Ilipinar in between
the Sea of Marmara and lake Izmik, first occupation 6000 to 5400
cal. BC, or 8000 to 6400 BP; sheep and goat herding, gradually
shifting to pig and cattle herding; oak, hazel, beech, and pine
trees growing on mountain ridges; a wide array of food plants,
among them barley of the six-row type, emmer wheat, bread wheat,
lentil, bitter vetch and flax; wild fruits such as figs, black
berries, grapes, acorns and pistachios (excavation Jacob Roodenberg,
The Netherlands Institute for the Near East, Leiden, Holland).

Back in 1990, a specialist for agriculture in Africa told me about
a some 20,000 years old irrigation system north of Lake Tchad,
discovered via a photograph taken from an airplane, however, hardly
accessible in situ for beeing in a military zone; and of some 40,000
years old pollens of a cultivated grass in the Kalahari - however,
I have never been able to verify his information. But we may expect
quite some surprises in the future, and especially from Africa.
New generations of archaeologists may dispose of swarms or fleets
of mini-robots exploring wide areas of sand, soil or sea floor
on their own ... Daryl Krupa: wouldn't that simply be fantastic?

  :-) Franz Gnaedinger www.seshat.ch

> Daryl Krupa: the hallucinogenia of the Ediacara fauna was wrongly
> understood, even by Stephen Jay Gould. Turn the animal upside down,
> place it on its rather short legs, make the long spines on the back
> point upward, and it looks rather normal and common (for an Ediacara
> being, that is). The mistake was corrected a decade ago, as I recall.
> I wonder why the wrong illustrations are still making the round.
> Perhaps to satisfy a need for the phantastic?
>
> That need for the phantastic was also satisfied by the myths.
>
> A simple twist, and you step from this world into a phantastic
> scenery: a winding river becomes a snake, a flash becomes the
> sword of Gabriel, a Tell rising above a flooded river plain
> becomes Noah's Ark, the Sea People arriving in Egypt become
> the Seven Plagues ...
>
> People in the humanities should learn more from the natural
> sciences, and people in the sciences should learn about symbols.
>
> Telling a good story, speaking in symbols, ain't just hallucinating
> but requires what Goethe called an exact sensual phantasy.
>
> Claude Levy-Strauss discerned between lyrics and mythems as follows.
> A lyric poem lives in the specific language and suffers much from
> getting translated, whereas a mythem can be translated into any
> language without loosing its value.
>
> I am fascinated by that ability of a good story: to survive for
> millennia, every translation and inevitable deformation and
> distortion. Richard Dawkins would speak of good "memes" in analogy
> to genes, that have a very long life compared to single human beings.
>
> Regards Franz Gnaedinger www.seshat.ch
>
>
> > Peter T. Daniels: the Usenet we have today if just a forerunner
> > of an improved version that will allow sub-titles: from the Black
> > Sea to Flood stories in general, and other early Biblical stories
> > such as "Adam and Eve." I work in the Usenet, and my work carries
> > me somewhere. I began with a question regarding that computer
> > simulation of the hypothetical Black Sea infill, then I realized
> > that an earlier date than the one proposed by Ryan and Pitman
> > won't allow to call it Noah's Flood, since, as I pondered the
> > Noah chapter in the Bible, this must have referred to early
> > cattle breeders and their enclosures built on eminences. I
> > identified Noah's ark with every hill or later Tell. Interestingly,
> > the Ark in the Bible has three storeys, which may well allude to
> > the layers of a Tell. I am fascinated by seeing how a good story
> > survives all translations and deformations. I interpreted the
> > Accadian sign of Uruk as a cattle enclosure, whreupon you sighed
> > a "Good grief" and told me to look up the earlier forms of the
> > signs. Well, I found much the same sign again on archaic tablets
> > from Unug / Uruk in the Heidelberg collection. Looking out
> > for archaic seals I saw a drawing of a cylinder seal impression
> > from the Anu Ziqqurat at Uruk that reminded me ot Noah and his
> > wife and animals, and, even more, of Adam and Eve. So I delved
> > into Genesis II and III, did my researches, and finally, when I
> > saw the Fall cylinder seal impression, it all went very quickly:
> > I was able to render it all in the form of a fable. The subject
> > matter organized itself into such a form, and that is always
> > a pleasing moment for me, since new ideas come to light just
> > by themselves. For example that Gabriel's sword must have
> > been a flash. As I wrote this morning in another thread, such
> > a story won me a prize by the University of Zurich back in 1994.
> > The prize was explicitely for that half scientific, half literary
> > form. The ancient ones had good reasons for rendering their
> > understanding of the world in the form of myths. For there are
> > so many layers in a good story that it can soak up plenty of
> > details, and in the case of Adam and Eve, regarded as an allegory
> > on early agriculture, the amount of truly conveyed historical
> > details is just amazing. For me, that is. Anything wrong with
> > demonstrating my method to young and interested people? And
> > when the Adam and Eve section is done, one more message, perhaps,
> > I will turn to another legend of old that will again have to do
> > with the Black Sea, and will include an advice for Robert Ballard
> > to go on another mission somewhere else. The Usenet is not only
> > for short-breathed discussions, I like long ones that develop and
> > lead somewhere.
> >
> > Or I may stop posting to this thread altogether and go on in
> > the thread on the Trojan war, where I wish to publish a series
> > on Homer's gods and Richard Dawkin's book on the selfish genes.
> > A series of messages that I announced a long time ago and that
> > will refer to my definition of language given by the middle of
> > Oktober in the thread on the Trojan war. I will have to do
> > very much with language, and, hopefully, in an astonishing way.
> >
> > I must use my time, since I am heading for doom, what with
> > Marie Jean Faucounau and Dr.iur. Marcel Rochaix of Eberle
> > Kämpfen Bösiger Theiler www.ekbt-law.ch suing me for at least
> > 8,487 Swiss Francs if I am willing to pay, and if not for at
> > least 20,000 Swiss Francs.
> >
> > Still a little shaky from that surprise. But grapheus had announced
> > a surprise for me, in a reply to Inger Johannsson: someone will
> > get a surprise, perhaps in November. Well, we have November, and
> > I got my surprise. Peter T. Daniels: be happy to get just surprises
> > in the form of my meandering messages.
> >
> > Regards Franz Gnaedinger www.seshat.ch
> >
> >
> > > The legend of Adam and Eve as it might have been told in Sumer,
> > > based on Genesis II-III, on the Adam and Eve seal impression
> > > from the Anu ziqqurat at Uruk, and on the Fall seal impression,
> > > Or: an allegory of early agriculture and its consequences
> > > as revealed by present-day archaeology:
> > >
> > > The Lord of the Heavens resided on the Taurus mountain range
> > > in southern Anatolia. The mountains themselves and the surrounding
> > > valleys and plains were called Eden. The river of Eden were the
> > > clouds drifting along the mountains. There was no rain in those
> > > days, but a giant Snake standing with her tail on earth and
> > > reaching the sky with her head drank sweet water from the clouds,
> > > then lowered herself to the earth and watered the whole surface
> > > of the ground with a gentle spray coming from her mouth. And the
> > > Lord made a garden in the Haran plain, planted all kinds of trees
> > > therein, made Adam out of clay, and gave him a wife by the name
> > > of Eve. The couple lived happily in the garden eastward in Eden.
> > > The Lord was so pleased with his work that he made new gardens:
> > > one in the Danube basin; one in northeast Africa; and one in
> > > Mesopotamia. Then he called for the Snake and told her to fill
> > > the basins of the large gardens with the rivers Danube, Nile,
> > > Tigris and Euphrates. Now the Snake had plenty of work. She got
> > > tired and felt she deserved better than just working all day
> > > and night. One sunny afternoon she saw Eve lying in the shadow
> > > of a date palm and spoke to her: 'Eve, you seem to like those
> > > dates, and yet, they are nothing compared to the ones I know!'
> > > Eve replied: 'I am happy with the sweet dates from this palm.'
> > > Hereupon the Snake: 'And if I tell you that I know much sweeter
> > > ones? Do as I instruct you. Plant these kernels here, ask your
> > > man to dig canals in order to irrigate the sprouting dates palms,
> > > and you will see a wonderful tree bearing the sweetest fruit
> > > grow into heaven. You can climb up that tree and join the Lord
> > > himself ...' By speaking in such a way the Snake hoped to bring
> > > Eve and Adam on her side and gain more power and influence. And
> > > really, Eve and Adam followed her advice. When the Lord saw it
> > > he got angry. He made a torrent rain on earth, which uprooted
> > > the trees and ruined the gardens. And the Lord told Adam and Eve:
> > > 'You wish to become like me? So build your own garden, and by
> > > doing so you will gain plenty of insight, knowledge and wisdom,
> > > but know that your life will be hard work from now on, and you
> > > will have to decide by yourself what is good and what is evil,
> > > what is right and what is wrong. You wish to be like me? Then
> > > be like me and see how my life is.' Hereupon he said to the Snake:
> > > you won't drink from the sweet water of the clouds anymore, from
> > > now on I make it rain, while you are obliged to eat dust.' And the
> > > Lord turned the Snake into the rivers that flow and creep through
> > > wide expanses of dry land, as if eating dust, and the sweet water
> > > turned bitter and salty.
> > >
> > >
> > > Next time: the enlarged garden of Eden stays for Europe, Africa
> > > and Asia = for the whole world; the sword of Gabriel was a flash;
> > > the gentle spray coming from the mouth of the snake turned into
> > > venom; the poor humans became like God, however, mortal gods;
> > > they got angels to help them in the Bible, while Enki, the god
> > > of sweet water and wisdom, was helping them in Sumer; and further
> > > ideas for a longer version of the above allegory.

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