Re: what is etymology? (linguistics and biology)
- From: "Franz Gnaedinger" <frgn@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 8 Jun 2006 00:17:52 -0700
While preparing a glossary of the new Magdalenian words,
part 16, calculating lunations for sixty years
The earliest lunisolar calendars I reconstructed so far - from
the Lebombo bone in Central Equatorial Africa, 35 000 BP,
and from the Lascaux cave, 17 000 BP - use the same
algorithm for calculating lunations: O o O o O ... 30 29 30 29
30 ... days for 1 2 3 4 5 ... lunations (O representing 30 days,
o representing 29 days).
The Azilian lunisolar calendar from Goebekli Tepe, 11 600
- 9 500 BP, used other numbers. A year had 12 months of
30 days each, plus 5 and occasionally 6 days, while 63
continuous periods of 30 days yield 1,890 days and equal
64 lunations.
"Beer-sheba" means The well of the divine Seven (Cyrus
H. Gordon, in one of the four volumes of Eblaitica, 1987,
1990, 1992, 2002). The week of seven days, as we are
still using it, may have been introduced by the people of
Beersheba, perhaps already by the mysterious people
of Anatolian origin who settled in Safadi 5 500 years ago.
A week of seven days, enumerated in the way we do,
not caring about months and years, allows this version
of the basic calendar. A year has 12 months of 30 days
each, plus 5 and occasionally 6 days, while 135 weeks
of seven days yield 945 days and equal 32 lunations.
For southern Crete in the Middle Minoan and the Argolis
in the Middle Helladic period of time I found another version
of the same calendar, using a week of nine days. A year has
12 periods of 45 days each, plus 5 and occasionally 6 days,
while 21 continuous periods of 45 days, or 105 weeks of
9 days, yield 945 days and equal 32 lunations.
Now let us have a look at these calculations in the light of
the above algorithm O o O o O ... 30 29 30 29 30 ... 30 59
89 118 148 177 207 236 266 295 325 354 384 413 443
472 502 531 561 590 620 649 679 708 738 ... days.
..
The numbers 266, 413, 679 are divisible by 7, while 679
plus 266 equals 945. Of interest for the calendar of Safadi
/ Beersheba: 23 plus 9 lunations are 97 plus 38 weeks of
seven days or 679 plus 266 days, all in all 945 days or
32 lunations, to be counted as follows:
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO OoOoOoOoO
The numbers 207, 531, 738 are divisible by 9, while 738
plus 207 equals 945. Of interest for the calendar of southern
Crete and the Argolis: 25 plus 7 lunations are 82 plus 32
weeks of nine days or 738 plus 207 days, all in all 945 days
or 32 lunations, to be counted as follows:
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO OoOoOoO
Using the above algorithm you can easily count lunations
for long periods of time, the mistke will be less than half
a day in sixty years.
Regards Franz Gnaedinger www.seshat.ch
Typos in the previous message corrected, 945 not 985 days
While preparing a glossary of the new Magdalenian words,
part 15, Minos and Asherah
Cyrus H. Gordon identified Linear A mi-nu-te (mi-nu-the)
with a region in Syria known as mu-nu-ti-um in Ebla, mnt
in Ugarit, Minnit in the Bible (Ezekiel 27,17). Walther Hinz
read mi-nu-the on the Linear A tablet Hagia Triada 95 as
wheat from Minnit, a fertile region belonging to (the empire
of) Ebla.
The first syllable mi of mi-nu-the is represented by the head
of a bull, the second one, nu, by the visual pun of a bull-leaper
on his feet - hands - feet, and the third one, the, by a pole and
three horizontal bars in the upper zone, which I understand
as a Tree of Life (see my thread "Linear A tablet Hagia
Triada 95"). The three signs are similar in hierogylphic
Minoan and in Linear B.
If mi in mi-nu-the (Linear A Minoan) and mu in mu-nu-tium
(Eblaite) have a Magdalenian origin, then it was MUC for
bull, as in Mycenae, hypothetical stronghold of the Zeus bull.
The Magdalenian root of nu would have been NUL for the
empty moon, German Leermond -- 3 or 2 days for the empty
moon NUL, 3 days for the young moon, 6 days for the waxing
moon, 9 days for the full moon LUN, 6 days for the waning
moon, 3 days for the old moon (as explained in the message
on the six permutations of LUN in concordance with the signs
of the bulls in the rotunda of Lascaux).
I have no Magdalenian explanation for the / ti but I can rely
on Cyrus H. Gordon who identified Eblaite ti-ni-tum with the
Linear A Minoan fertility goddess ti-ni-ta and the fig tree,
Arabic tinat. A punic version of Tin(n)it given in Greek was
Thinith.
Now we have three elements: a bull, a bull-leaper as the empty
moon, and a Tree of Life, representation of the feritlity goddess.
The bull, in this context, must be Baal as the golden calf, namely
the morning sun, rising from the Tree of Life. Surprising is the
bull-leaper as symbol of the moon, more precisely of the empty
moon. But consider that the empty moon is close to the sun,
occasionally even covering the sun, then causing a partial or
even a total eclipse of the sun. So the ceremonial Minoan
bull-sports must have been a reference to the celestial dance
of sun and moon. Sun and moon pass each other in the phase
of the empty moon, and this was represented by a daring leap
of an acrobat over a bull. The golden calf (Baal as the morning
sun) emerged from the Tree of Life, and as the empty moon is
close to the sun, also the moon must have emerged from the
Tree of Life. You may also consider the Egyptian sky goddess
Nut in the sycomore tree ...
The year of Ebla had 12 months, plus an intercalary period
of time between the old and the new year. This goes along
with the lunisolar calendar of Goebekli Tepe: a year had 12
months of 30 days each, plus 5 and occasionally 6 days, while
63 continuous periods of 30 days yield 1,890 days and equal
64 lunations. Goebekli Tepe lasted from 11 600 - 9 500 BP.
Later on, the same calendar may have been used in Upper
Mesopotamia and Syria. In the wide river plains with a level
horizon it may have been represented by a Tree of Life in
the center of a circle of 12 poles that marked the four cardinal
directions plus the intermittent 30-degree angles, providing
sighting lines for the observation of the rising and setting sun
on the solstices and equinoxes.
This calendar must have been in general use for a long time.
It became the mysterious Asherah sanctuary of a tree and
poles, involving a fertility goddess and all gods, with an altar
of El and then Baal and then Jahveh; it was encoded on the
lid of the ivory box from Safadi near Beersheba, 5 500 BP;
it was the basis for the visions of Solomon and Ezekiel (as
explained in previous messages); and it was the calendar
of the Minoans, who left Syria for Crete - munutium minuthe
Minos - and kept an old ritual of ceremonial bull-leaping.
Rituals such as this may have been what the Jewish prophets
rejected in later times.
In southern Crete of the Middle Minoan period of time, and
in the Argolis of the Middle Helladic period of time, the above
calendar was modified as follows: a year had 8 long months
of 45 days each, plus 5 and occasionally 6 days, represented
by a rosette of 8 petals and a small circle in the center. A week
had 9 days (according to a suggestion in Homer's Odyssey)
and a month had 5 weeks. Count long months continuously.
21 periods of 45 days yield 945 days and equal 32 lunations.
945 days or 32 lunations are 135 shorter weeks of 7 days.
This may have been the week of Beersheba, a place name
that means The well of the divine Seven (Cyrus H. Gordon),
and not seven wells, or well of the oath, which are biblical
folk etymology.
While preparing a glossary of the new Magdalenian words,
part 14, a lucky misunderstanding, and why Solomon may
well have been a historical figure
A misunderstanding of the biblical "bath" led me to my fable
of Solomon. I read "bath" in the English way, as the amount
of water required for filling a bathtub, and equalled it with
four cubic cubits, about 578 liters. In a book on measures
I have at home I found a measure "bat," a bucket, 22 liters,
one tenth of a barrel. Now this bat must be the bath in the
Bible. I went completely wrong, but it was a fruitful mistake
as it made me postulate a new measure that I may still call
bath, or bathtub, or tub: four cubic black cubits, 578.8125
liters, while the bucket bath was 3/20 of one cubic black
cubit in my system of measures, 21.7... liters.
The "molten sea" described in I kings and II Chronicles
had a diameter of 10 cubits, a circumference of 30 cubits,
a depth of 5 cubits, the curved form of a lily, and a capacity
of 2,000 bath (Kings) or 3,000 bath (Chronicles). Assuming
two buckets, a larger one in the first case, a smaller one in
the second case, we may just consider a capacity of 2,000
bath of 21.7 liters. The calculation reveals that the vessel
in the given form required a cubit of the length I chose,
52.5 centimeters, the Egyptian royal cubit of the New
Kingdom, whereas the Hebrew cubit measured 45 cm.
The circumference measured 30 cubits, the diameter
10 cubits, yielding 3 for pi, a poor value that made many
a scholar wonder, and many a mathematician make fun
of the Bible. A clever way to explain that poor value is
to say that we have to consider the inner circumference
of the vessel, not the longer outer circumference. Let me
ponder the numbers we can get this way. The walls of
the "molten sea" had a thickness of one handbreadth.
The Hebrew handbreadth measured 7.5 centimers,
one seventh of 52.5 centimerts, one sixth of 45 cm.
The calculation yields:
inner diameter 7 short cubits of 45 cm or 315 cm
thickness of the wall one handbreadth or 7.5 cm
outer diameter wall-void-wall 330 cm
inner circumference 989.6... or practically 990 cm
The resulting vessel is way too small, it would never
contain 2,000 bath.
We must therefore reject that clever explanation,
and the only remaining one is the explanation that
uses two cubits of nearly the same length: a black
cubit of 21 units, measuring 52.5 centimeters, and
a red cubit of 22 units, measuring 55 centimeters.
Diameter of the circle 10 black cubits or 210 cm,
circumference 30 red cubits or 660 cm, yielding
660 / 210 or 22 / 7 for pi.
This method works for the vessel, and yields
a capactiy in the range of the 2,000 bath.
Ezekiel invented an ideal Jersualen on the basis of
two combined measures: a cubit of 63 units, and
a cubit of 64 units. Now the authors of the books of
the Kings and Chronicles may have done the same.
They might have invented an ideal Jerusalem on the
basis of two measures of nearly the same length:
a cubit of 21 units, and a cubit of 22 units.
However, there is a crucial difference between the text
by Ezekiel on the one hand, and the reports in Kings and
Chronicles on the other hand. Ezekiel discerns between
the cubit and a "measure" for the circumference of the
ideal city, while the authors of the books of the Kings and
Chronicles make no such difference, they simply speak
of a cubit. They should have discerned between a cubit
for the diameter, and a "measure" for the circumference.
But no, there is only the cubit. And this crucial difference
between Ezekiel and the reports in Kings and Chronicles
makes me assume that the latter are grossly distorted
commemorations of an early text which was no longer
understood and therefore misinterpreted, yet, as the
original numbers are preserved, we can reconstruct
the vision of the ideal Jerusalem in the hypothetical
poem by "Solomon," whoever he was.
.
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