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Evidence Synthesis of Atlantis in Greenland

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Mario Dantas
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« Reply #60 on: October 31, 2007, 05:07:39 pm »

There is also an explanation for the differences between the two shapes and their respective sizes (map/real Island):

1  When moving up, Greenland got eroded in some places due to abrasion. (Map showing location of the Illoqqortoormiut municipality in w:Greenland.) Kircher's "Insula Atlantis" Map, show the ancient form.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Greenland_17.PNG
http://picasaweb.google.com/dantaz/TheIsland02/photo#5118338485281047346

2 Iceland fractured from South East Greenland.
 
"Iceland is located in the North Atlantic Ocean just south of the Arctic Circle, which passes through the small island of Grímsey off Iceland's northern coast, but not through mainland Iceland. Unlike neighbouring Greenland, Iceland is considered to be a part of Europe, not of North America, though geologically, the island belongs to both continents. Because of cultural, economic and linguistic similarities, Iceland in many contexts is also included in Scandinavia."     
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceland

« Last Edit: May 02, 2009, 05:51:18 am by Mario Dantas » Report Spam   Logged

Mario Dantas
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« Reply #61 on: November 01, 2007, 08:40:59 am »

We are trying to show, philologically, that the word ASER and VANER might have direct influence on many cultures, and also that it might have different meanings.

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Ancient steel

"Steel was known in antiquity, and may have been produced by managing the bloomery so that the bloom contained carbon.[9] Some of the first steel comes from East Africa, dating back to 1400 BCE.[10] In the 4th century BCE steel weapons like the Falcata were produced in the Iberian peninsula. The Chinese of the Han Dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE) created steel by melting together wrought iron with cast iron, gaining ultimate product of a carbon intermediate—steel—by the 1st century CE.[11][12] Along with their original methods of forging steel, the Chinese had also adopted the production methods of creating Wootz steel, an idea imported from India to China by the 5th century CE.[13] Wootz steel was produced in India and Sri Lanka from around 300 BCE. This early steel-making method employed the use of a wind furnace, blown by the monsoon winds.[14] Also known as Damascus steel, wootz is famous for its durability and ability to hold an edge. It was originally created from a number of different materials including various trace elements. It was essentially a complicated alloy with iron as its main component. Recent studies have suggested that carbon nanotubes were included in its structure, which might explain some of its legendary qualities, though given the technology available at that time, they were probably produced more by chance than by design.[15] Crucible steel was produced in Merv by 9th to 10th century CE.

In the 11th century, there is evidence of the production of steel in Song China using two techniques: a "berganesque" method that produced inferior, inhomogeneous steel and a precursor to the modern Bessemer process that utilized partial decarbonization via repeated forging under a cold blast."

Steel from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

..........................................
ASER


Acero
Aco
Acier
Ace


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"The word "ace" comes from the Old French word 'as' (from Latin 'as') meaning 'a unit', from the name of a small Roman coin. It originally meant the side of a die with only one mark, before it was a term for a playing card. Since this was the lowest roll of the die, it traditionally meant 'bad luck' in Middle English, but as the ace is often the highest playing card, its meaning has changed to mean 'high-quality, excellence'."

Ace
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Ace of spades,
Ace of clubs,
Ace of hearts,
Ace of diamonds


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VANER

[...]"The chemical element Vanadium is named after Freyja via her alternative name Vanadís."[...]

"Approximately 80% of vanadium produced is used as ferrovanadium or as a steel additive. Other uses:
    * In such alloys as
          - specialty stainless steel, e.g. for use in surgical instruments and tools.
          - rust resistant and high speed tool steels.
          - mixed with aluminium in titanium alloys used in jet engines and high-speed airframes
    * Vanadium steel alloys are used in axles, crankshafts, gears, and other critical components.
    * It is an important carbide stabilizer in making steels.
    * Because of its low fission neutron cross section, vanadium has nuclear applications.
    * Vanadium foil is used in cladding titanium to steel.
    * Vanadium-gallium tape is used in superconducting magnets (175,000 gauss).
    * Vanadium pentoxide V2O5 is used as a catalyst in manufacturing sulfuric acid (via the contact process) and maleic anhydride. It is also used in making ceramics.
    * Glass coated with vanadium dioxide VO2 can block infrared radiation (and not visible light) at a specific temperature.
    * Electrical fuel cells and storage batteries such as vanadium redox batteries.
    * Added to corundum to make simulated alexandrite jewelry.
    * Vanadate electrochemical conversion coatings for protecting steel against rust and corrosion
    * Used to make lacrosse shafts
    * Possibly used to make Wootz steel and Damascus steel."

Vanadium
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Potential connections

[...]"Frigg is the highest goddess of the Æsir, while Freyja is the highest goddess of the Vanir. Many arguments have been made both for and against the idea that Frigg and Freyja are really the same goddess, avatars of one another.[31] Some arguments are based on linguistic analysis, others on the fact that Freyja wasn't known in southern Germany, only in the north, and in some places the two goddesses were considered to be the same, while in others they were considered to be different"[...]

Freyja
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Vanadis)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(H2O)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:SnowflakesWilsonBentley.jpg

Water
Wasser


[...]"Civilization has historically flourished around rivers and major waterways; Mesopotamia, the so-called cradle of civilization, was situated between the major rivers Tigris and Euphrates; the ancient society of the Egyptians depended entirely upon the Nile. Large metropolises like Rotterdam, London, Montreal, Paris, New York City, Shanghai, Tokyo, Chicago, and Hong Kong owe their success in part to their easy accessibility via water and the resultant expansion of trade. Islands with safe water ports, like Singapore, have flourished for the same reason. In places such as North Africa and the Middle East, where water is more scarce, access to clean drinking water was and is a major factor in human development."[...]


[...]"Water is considered a purifier in most religions. Major faiths that incorporate ritual washing (ablution) include Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Shinto. Water baptism is a central sacrament of Christianity; it is also a part of the practice of other religions, including Judaism (mikvah) and Sikhism (Amrit Sanskar). In addition, a ritual bath in pure water is performed for the dead in many religions including Judaism and Islam. In Islam, the five daily prayers can be done in most cases after completing washing certain parts of the body using clean water (wudu). In Shinto, water is used in almost all rituals to cleanse a person or an area (e.g., in the ritual of misogi). Water is mentioned in the Bible 442 times in the New International Version and 363 times in the King James Version: 2 Peter 3:5(b) states, "The earth was formed out of water and by water" (NIV).

Some faiths use water especially prepared for religious purposes (holy water in some Christian denominations, Amrit in Sikhism and Hinduism). Many religions also consider particular sources or bodies of water to be sacred or at least auspicious; examples include Lourdes in Roman Catholicism, the Zamzam Well in Islam and the River Ganges (among many others) in Hinduism. In Neo-Paganism water is often combined with salt in the first steps of a ritual, to act as a purifier of worshippers and the altar, symbolising both cleansing tears and the ocean.

Water is often believed to have spiritual powers. In Celtic mythology, Sulis is the local goddess of thermal springs; in Hinduism, the Ganges is also personified as a goddess, while Saraswati have been referred to as goddess in Vedas. Also water is one of the "panch-tatva"s (basic 5 elements, others including fire, earth, space, air). Alternatively, gods can be patrons of particular springs, rivers, or lakes: for example in Greek and Roman mythology, Peneus was a river god, one of the three thousand Oceanids. In Islam, not only does water give life, but every life is itself made of water: "We made from water every living thing".[46]

The Greek philosopher Empedocles held that water is one of the four classical elements along with fire, earth and air, and was regarded as the ylem, or basic substance of the universe. Water was considered cold and moist. In the theory of the four bodily humors, water was associated with phlegm. Water was also one of the five elements in traditional Chinese philosophy, along with earth, fire, wood, and metal."[...]

Water
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The two terms ASER and VANER are, then, directly linked with both water and metals.
« Last Edit: May 02, 2009, 05:52:34 am by Mario Dantas » Report Spam   Logged

DDDnD3D
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« Reply #62 on: November 01, 2007, 10:09:37 am »

*** Mario keep plugging away and attacking this from different angles ! These are the signs of a true researcher. . . I love how you took my suggestions and ran with them. In a few days I will present one of my outrageous Theories concerning a major event occurring in the Indian Ocean as you have suggested Hephaestus chariot may have had contact with this part of the earth? * * * Im not clear what you are trying to say about the Caribbean and the [identical?] shapes of South America and New Zealand Huh I dont see it ? Please explain. Also here is a little suggestion, instead of using left/right to describe continental /tectonic movement perhaps east/west is a more accurate terminology to use?        $hell$tar$y$tym$   **DnD**   c.
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« Reply #63 on: November 01, 2007, 11:14:30 am »

A few paragraphs from CONCERNING VAÏNÄMOÏNEN MYTHOLOGY OR THE BOCK SAGA by A. Barker at www.bocksaga.com

"Frej was the first Bock, the first As, the original Bock. Aser (plural) were the pipol (pronounced “pee-pol”, means people) living inside Odenma (pronounced “uuu-den-maaa), a ringland, a sunland, a motherland, an eternal land, 250 km in diameter, the exact center of which was Hel (means “clear”, “home” and “complete”), located at the original north pole of the bal we call Earth before Ice Time when its axis of rotation was yet perpendicular to its plane of orbit around the Sun (walking southward from Hel, in any direction, the Sun would first begin to appear to rise and set at a distance of about 125 km). Freja was the first Svan, the first feminine member of the Aser, the first matar, from whom all women born would take example.

Thus inside Odenma, surrounding the north pole before the Earth’s axial declination, the Sun would appear to circle the horizon 24 hours a day, while at the equator the days were equally divided, 12 hours with sun, 12 hours without, there being no seasons, as we know them today, as they were caused by the later shifting of the earth’s axis, occurring, according to the linguistics, 50,010,011 years ago, on July 24.

Via Alphernas Beten, Frej and Freja understood the system of procreation they were to initiate to insure that humans born as their descendants would be god (pronounced “good”, meaning good inside) pipol and brah (means outwardly skillful and worthy), able to live lawfully within the Nature System of the Earth.

Frej and Freja, the first Bock and Svan (cf English “swan”) bore 12 sons and 7 daughters, at least. The first son was C po il Marinen, called Ra, and the first daughter Maia (cf English May and maypole). These first born became king and qvena (king and queen) of the entire human family being procreated; although they did not themselves bear children. They represented the Moon and wisdom upon Earth among humans, while Bock and Svan, their parents, represented the Sun and generation. Only very recently, in Egypt, but several millennia ago, was Ra first misappointed to represent and thus became associated with the Sun."

ALSO:


"The offspring of Bock and disa were either rabi or nar (masculine), disa or sienere (feminine).
Outside of Odenma, the planet was settled by Van pipol or Vaner (Van means “one”). Van people spoke Van language, created by Aser based upon Alphernas Beten, the sound system of Rot. Van language is architected to enable orchestration of a vast and virtually limitless range of possibilities, and allowed for exquisite definition of essential details of perception among the Vaner, those who migrated outward, southward, from the center, Hel -- the original place of human life -- to populate the globe or bal. As they encountered a broad range of terrestrial circumstances never found inside Odenma, they were able to use Van language to guide them in understanding the new lands they inhabited, communicating their existential perceptions and experiences to one another, as well as those traveling and reporting back to Hel, with vivid detail and great precision.

Let us take particular note of the fact that Van, (it is called Finnish today) was designed and created by Aser for a specific purpose: to accommodate and facilitate the role of Vaner in populating the earth.

In Van, as today in Finnish, each word can take one of at least 165,252 forms, cases, or tenses, while much of the vocabulary can assume over 200,000 forms. Many English speakers, by comparison, commonly use only a few tenses -- present, past, future, perhaps conditionals -- leaving 165,100 plus forms yet unused if given the unique capacity of Van.

Obviously, then, into no other known language, past or present, can the Van language’s unique potential and possibility for exquisite detail, association and correlation be accurately translated. But we might well wish to ponder this question: how many languages, considered rather complete to our present way of thinking, might be formed by isolating certain areas of the capacity of Van, containing within themselves distinct, if much smaller, portions of the original whole?

At the same time how many forms, nuances, and meanings might have survived or have been accommodated, without flaw, when smaller populations were separated from the continuing instruction of the original architects of language as a whole, when the primary Rot/Van system connecting Aser and Vaner was abruptly broken into pieces? "





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ILLIGITIMI NON CARBORUNDUM

Thus ye may find in thy mental and spiritual self, ye can make thyself just as happy or just as miserable as ye like. How miserable do ye want to be?......For you GROW to heaven, you don't GO to heaven. It is within thine own conscience that ye grow there.

Edgar Cayce
Mario Dantas
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« Reply #64 on: November 01, 2007, 06:11:44 pm »


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://cache.eb.com/eb/image?id=96320&rendTypeId=4
http://sam.ucsd.edu/sio210/gifimages/marine_geoid_aviso_smo.gif
http://celebrating200years.noaa.gov/foundations/gravity_surveys/ggm01_americas_650.jpg
http://www.cs.rit.edu/~joc0225/geoid_grid.JPG
http://www-lite.larc.nasa.gov/level1doc/geoid_image.gif
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Geoids_sm.jpg
http://www.math.uga.edu/~geomath/Images/Eloc2.jpg


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rockessence, thank you for your information,


"The offspring of Bock and disa were either rabi or nar (masculine), disa or sienere (feminine).
Outside of Odenma, the planet was settled by Van pipol or Vaner (Van means “one”). Van people spoke Van language, created by Aser based upon Alphernas Beten, the sound system of Rot. Van language is architected to enable orchestration of a vast and virtually limitless range of possibilities, and allowed for exquisite definition of essential details of perception among the Vaner, those who migrated outward, southward, from the center, Hel -- the original place of human life -- to populate the globe or bal. As they encountered a broad range of terrestrial circumstances never found inside Odenma, they were able to use Van language to guide them in understanding the new lands they inhabited, communicating their existential perceptions and experiences to one another, as well as those traveling and reporting back to Hel, with vivid detail and great precision."


Regards,
mario


   
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« Reply #65 on: November 01, 2007, 08:45:59 pm »

Moving glaciers - now on Spitzbergen;

http://www1.nrk.no/nett-tv/indeks/111988
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Gens Una Sumus
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« Reply #66 on: November 02, 2007, 12:34:06 am »

Boreas,

I can't seem to bring up the pictures.... what is it showing?
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ILLIGITIMI NON CARBORUNDUM

Thus ye may find in thy mental and spiritual self, ye can make thyself just as happy or just as miserable as ye like. How miserable do ye want to be?......For you GROW to heaven, you don't GO to heaven. It is within thine own conscience that ye grow there.

Edgar Cayce
Bianca
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« Reply #67 on: November 02, 2007, 10:37:37 am »






MARIO,


I don't see what the following has to do with ME.

If you want to have an argument or discussion on these subjects, please take it up with

the individuals  below.

I HAVE NO PART IN ANY OF THIS.



QUOTE:


"Hi Bianca,

I just read a closed post by Nikas on "What do you think about Georgeos Díaz-Montexano theory!" and i have found an important remark about the finding of Atlantis:

http://atlantisonline.smfforfree2.com/index.php/topic,577.0.html

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tom Hebert:
  "Spain could have been a Punic colony.  But have you also considered that Spain was a colony of Atlantis or a place where the Atlanteans fled at the time of the cataclysm?

This leads to an real problem.  How would archaeologist searching in and around the Iberian Penninsula know the difference?"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

nikas:
"Tom, this is the only nightmare I have sometimes. If some archeologist discovers a colony of Atlantis somewhere and then all searches end there. The real Atlantis will be lost for ever. On the other hand it may lead you to the real one"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


"In June 2004, satellite photos were taken over the waters of Cadiz, Spain, definitely proving the existence of  A  T  L  A  N  T  I  S."

Is this a joke? Why people haven't talked about it since 2004?


Regards
Mario






----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Furthermore, THIS is the ATLANTIC section. 

For arguments, go to:  Atlantis: Theories & Speculation


Bianca
« Last Edit: November 02, 2007, 10:42:39 am by Bianca2001 » Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Mario Dantas
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« Reply #68 on: November 02, 2007, 12:39:05 pm »

Sorry, Bianca, i am really sorry, i take it back, who am i to judge? the last thing i want is to be disrespectful to anyone, specially you. I am new to these things, one has to think first before he talks.

Regards,
Mario Dantas
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« Reply #69 on: November 02, 2007, 12:49:24 pm »






No, no, Mario.  You should question.  Thing is, I did not know Georgeous first handat all
and my comments in that thread are minimal and, frankly, I do not want to revisit the
subject.


b
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Mario Dantas
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« Reply #70 on: November 02, 2007, 11:51:23 pm »

updated

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/caboverdian/TheIsland03

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« Reply #71 on: November 03, 2007, 04:19:48 pm »

"It is possible to progressively, eye-witness" and "measure" the degree of both,
amplitude and direction where the crust displacements occurred, and where did continental
generated waves headed to, or any other fundamental data concerning the almost
complete vegetable destruction around the world. 

Probably due to massive quantities of thick mud, erosion was critical at devouring high plains to bare bone. Ayers Rock
formation, among others, in the same region, (the biggest rocks formation in the world)
near Alice Springs, show important directional traces and might indicate several revealing
aspects from this "recent" Global Orogeny.

The immense number of islands in the Pacific certainly may tell us that this earth's
crust area was submitted to shattering forces and was probably the most widely affected,
in terms of Continental surface contact."

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/caboverdian/TheIsland03/photo#5128733002256301922
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/caboverdian/TheIsland03/photo#5128732577054539602
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/caboverdian/TheIsland03/photo#5128733504767475570

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[...]Uluṟu, also known as Ayers Rock, is a large sandstone rock formation in the southern part of the Northern Territory, central Australia. It lies 335 km (208 mi) south west of the nearest large town, Alice Springs; 450 km (280 mi) by road. Kata Tjuṯa and Uluṟu are the two major features of the Uluṟu - Kata Tjuṯa National Park. Uluṟu is sacred to the Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara, the Aboriginal people of the area. It has many springs, waterholes, rock caves and ancient paintings. Uluṟu is listed as a World Heritage Site.[...]

http://www.environment.gov.au/parks/uluru/

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.kmzlinks.com/files/AyersRock2.jpg
http://www.auf.asn.au/navimages/ausgeoid98.jpg
   
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   
   
   "In the Sydney area of southeastern Australia, the plant extinction seems to
have been particularly devastating: 97% of the Late Permian leaf species died off
(Retallack, 1995). Though spore data from this area indicates that a higher
percentage of plants may have survived than is indicated by the leaf fossils, it is
clear that the change in vegetation was sudden and profound."(Retallack, 1995)" 

(Australia wikipedia)

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"Uluṟu is an inselberg, literally "island mountain", an isolated remnant left after the slow erosion of an original mountain range. Uluṟu is also often referred to as a monolith, although this is a somewhat ambiguous term because of its multiple meanings, and thus a word generally avoided by geologists. The remarkable feature of Uluṟu is its homogeneity and lack of jointing and parting at bedding surfaces, leading to the lack of development of scree slopes and soil. These characteristics led to its survival, while the surrounding rocks were eroded.[3] For the purpose of mapping and describing the geological history of the area, geologists refer to the rock strata making up Uluṟu as the Mutitjulu Arkose, and it is one of many sedimentary formations filling the Amadeus Basin."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamtime

Uluṟu wikipedia

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Science assumes Ayers Rock (Uluṟu) erosion to have been a "slow" process. although it might have happened quickly, as a consequence of a highly erosive phenomena.

http://www.keegan.org/jeff/googleearth/googleearthimgs/LA_la-25.34882910171622_lo131.0374693510755_r5410.763550047565_t49.23777523124146_h-51.4263840242788_p131.0376410735363,-25.35699523726501,0_n=Ayer_s+Rock.jpg
http://www.kmzlinks.com/files/AyersRock.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Himalaya-formation.gif
http://www.freepedia.co.uk/images/AUSayersrock3.jpg
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/Images/uluru_iko_2004017_lrg.jpg
http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~hajo/Bratislava/Files/grav_anom/ie_global_fa.jpg

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« Last Edit: May 02, 2009, 06:08:18 am by Mario Dantas » Report Spam   Logged

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« Reply #72 on: November 03, 2007, 08:26:22 pm »

[...]"Moses (Hebrew: מֹשֶׁה, Standard Moshe Tiberian Mōšeh (7 Adar 2368 - 7 Adar 2488 in the Hebrew calendar; 1393 - 1273 BCE); Arabic: موسىٰ, Mūsa; Ge'ez: ሙሴ Musse) was an early Biblical Hebrew religious leader, lawgiver, prophet, and military leader, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed. He is also an important prophet in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, the Bahá'í Faith, Mormonism, Rastafari, Raelism and many other faiths.

According to the book of Exodus, Moses was born to a Hebrew mother who hid him when a Pharaoh ordered all newborn Hebrew boys to be killed, and ended up being adopted into the Egyptian royal family. After killing an Egyptian slave master, he fled and became a shepherd, and was later commanded by God to deliver the Hebrews from slavery. After the Ten Plagues were unleashed on Egypt, he led the Hebrew slaves out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, and they wandered in the desert for 40 years. Despite living to 120, he did not enter the Land of Israel, as he disobeyed God when God instructed him on how to bring forth water from a rock in the desert - instead of once, he struck the rock twice, due to doubt."[...]

http://earth.imagico.de/views/sinai1_large.jpg

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[...]When the Israelites came to Sinai, they pitched camp near the mountain.[24] Moses commanded the people not to touch the mountain.[25] Moses received the ten commandments orally (but not yet in tablet form) and other moral laws.[26] Moses then went up with Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the elders to see the God of Israel.[27] Before Moses went up the mountain to receive the tablets, he told the elders to direct any questions that arose to Aaron or Hur.[28]
While Moses was on Mount Sinai receiving instruction on the laws for the Israelite community, the Israelites went to Aaron and asked him to make gods for them. After Aaron had received golden earrings from the people, he made a golden calf and said, "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt." A "solemnity of the Lord" was proclaimed for the following day, which began in the morning with sacrifices and was followed by revelry. After Moses had persuaded the Lord not to destroy the people of Israel, he went down from the mountain and was met by Joshua. Moses destroyed the calf and rebuked Aaron for the sin he had brought upon the people. Seeing that the people were uncontrollable, Moses went to the entry of the camp and said, "Who is on the Lord's side? Let him come unto me." All the sons of Levi rallied around Moses, who ordered them to go from gate to gate slaying the idolators."[...]


[...]"The people left Hazeroth and pitched camp in the wilderness of Paran.[32] (Paran is a vaguely defined region in the northern part of the Sinai peninsula, just south of Canaan) Moses sent twelve spies into Canaan as scouts, including most famously Caleb and Joshua. After forty days, they returned to the Israelite camp, bringing back grapes and other produce as samples of the regions fertility. Although all the spies agreed that the land's resources were spectacular, only two of the twelve spies (Joshua and Caleb) were willing to try to conquer it, and are nearly stoned for their unpopular opinion. The people began weeping and wanted to return to Egypt. Moses turned down the opportunity to have the Israelites completely destroyed and a great nation made from his own offspring, and instead he told the people that they would wander the wilderness for forty years until all those twenty years or older who had refused to enter Canaan had died, and that their children would then enter and possess Canaan. Early the next morning, the Israelites said they had sinned and now wanted to take possession of Canaan. Moses told them not to attempt it, but the Israelites chose to disobey Moses and invade Canaan, but were repulsed by the Amalekites and Canaanites.[...]


[...]"The Reubenites, led by Korah, Dathan, Abiram, and two hundred fifty Israelite princes accused Moses and Aaron of raising themselves over the rest of the people. Moses told them to come the next morning with a censer for every man. Dathan and Abiram refused to come when summoned by Moses. Moses went to the place of Dathan and Abiram's tents. After Moses spoke the ground opened up and engulfed Dathan and Abiram's tents, after which it closed again. Fire consumed the two hundred fifty men with the censers. Moses had the censers taken and made into plates to cover the altar. The following day, the Israelites came and accused Moses and Aaron of having killed his fellow Israelites. The people were struck with a plague that killed fourteen thousand seven hundred persons, and was only ended when Aaron went with his censer into the midst of the people.[34] To prevent further murmurings and settle the matter permanently, Moses had the chief prince of the non-Levitic tribes write his name on his staff and had them lay them in the sanctuary. He also had Aaron write his name on his staff and had it placed in the tabernacle. The next day, when Moses went into the tabernacle, Aaron's staff had budded, blossomed, and yielded almonds.[35]"[...]


[...]"After leaving Sinai, the Israelites camped in Kadesh. After more complaints from the Israelites, Moses struck the stone twice, and water gushed forth. However, because Moses and Aaron had not shown the Lord's holiness, they were not permitted to enter the land to be given to the Israelites.[36] This was the second occasion Moses struck a rock to bring forth water; however, it appears that both sites were named Meribah after these two incidents."[...]


[...]"Now ready to enter Canaan, the Israelites abandon the idea of attacking the Canaanites head-on in Hebron, a city in the southern part of Canaan, having been informed by spies that they were too strong, it is decided that they will flank Hebron by going further East, around the Dead Sea. This requires that they pass through Edom, Moab, and Ammon. These three tribes are considered Hebrews by the Israelites as descendants of Lot, and therefore cannot be attacked. However they are also rivals, and are therefore not permissive in allowing the Israelites to openly pass through their territory. So Moses leads his people carefully along the eastern border of Edom, the southernmost of these territories. While the Israelites were making their journey around Edom, they complained about the manna. After many of the people had been bitten by serpents and died, Moses made the brass serpent and mounted it on a pole, and if those who were bitten looked at it, they did not die.[37] This brass serpent remained in existence until the days of King Hezekiah, who destroyed it after persons began treating it as an idol.[38] When they reach Moab, it is revealed that Moab has been attacked and defeated by the Amorites led by a king named Sihon. The Amorites were a non-Hebrew Canannic people that once held power in the fertile crescent. When Moses asks the Amorites for passage and it is refused, Moses attacks the Amorites (as non-Hebrews, the Israelites have no reservations in attacking them), presumably weakened by conflict with the Moabites, and defeats them."[...]


[...]"The Israelites now holding the territory of the Amorites just north of Moab, desire to expand their holdings by acquiring Bashan, a fertile territory north of Ammon famous for its oak trees and cattle. It is led by a king named Og. Later rabbinical legends made Og a survivor of the flood, suggesting the he had sat on the ark and was fed by Noah. The Israelites fight with Og's forces at Edrei, on the southern border of Bashan, where the Israelites are victorious and slay every man, woman, and child of his cities and take the spoil for their bounty."[...]


"Balak, king of Moab, having heard of the Israelites conquests, fears that his territory might be next. Therefore he sends elders of Moab, and of Midian, to Balaam (apparently a powerful and respected prophet), son of Beor (Bible), to induce him to come and curse the Israelites. Balaam's location is unclear. Balaam sends back word that he can only do what God commands, and God has, via a dream, told him not to go. Moab consequently sends higher ranking priests and offers Balaam honours, and so God tells Balaam to go with them. Balaam thus sets out with two servants to go to Balak, but an Angel tries to prevent him. At first the Angel is seen only by the ass Balaam is riding. After Balaam starts punishing the ass for refusing to move, it is miraculously given the power to speak to Balaam, and it complains about Balaam's treatment. At this point, Balaam is allowed to see the angel, who informs him that the ass is the only reason the Angel did not kill Balaam. Balaam immediately repents, but is told to go on."


[...]"Balak meets with Balaam at Kirjath-huzoth, and they go to the high places of Baal, and offer sacrifices at seven altars, leading to Balaam being given a prophecy by God, which Balaam relates to Balak. However, the prophecy blesses Israel; Balak remonstrates, but Balaam reminds him that he can only speak the words put in his mouth, so Balak takes him to another high place at Pisgah, to try again. Building another seven altars here, and making sacrifices on each, Balaam provides another prophecy blessing Israel. Balaam finally gets taken by a now very frustrated Balak to Peor, and, after the seven sacrifices there, decides not to seek enchantments but instead looks on the Israelites from the peak. The spirit of God comes upon Balaam and he delivers a third positive prophecy concerning Israel. Balak's anger rises to the point where he threatens Balaam, but Balaam merely offers a prediction of fate. Balaam then looks on the Kenites, and Amalekites and offers two more predictions of fate. Balak and Balaam then simply go to their respective homes. Later, Balaam informed Balak and the Midianites that, if they wished to overcome the Israelites for a short interval, they needed to seduce the Israelites to engage in idolatry.[39] The Midianites sent beautiful women to the Israelite camp to seduce the young men to partake in idolatry, and the attempt proved successful.[40]"[...]


[...]"Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron, put an end to the matter of the Midianite seduction by slaying two of the prominent offenders, but by that time a plague inflicted on the Israelites had already killed about twenty-four thousand persons. Moses was then told that because Phinehas had averted the wrath of God from the Israelites, Phinehas and his descendents were given the pledge of an everlasting priesthood.[41]

After Moses had taken a census of the people, he sent an army to avenge the perceived evil brought on the Israelites by the Midianites. Numbers 31 says Moses instructed the Israelite soldiers to kill every Midianite woman, boy and the non-virgin girl, although virgin girls were shared amongst the soldiers.[42] The Israelites killed Balaam, and the five kings of Midian: Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba.[43]

Moses appointed Joshua, son of Nun, to succeed him as the leader of the Israelites.[44] Moses then died at the age of 120.[45]"[..]

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Death of Moses

After all this was accomplished Moses was warned that he would not be permitted to lead Israel across the Jordan, but would die on the eastern side (Num. xx. 12).[46] He therefore assembled the tribes and delivered to them a parting address, which forms the Book of Deuteronomy.[46] In this address it is commonly supposed that he recapitulated the Law, reminding them of its most important features.[46] When this was finished, and he had pronounced a blessing on the people, he went up Mount Nebo to the top of Pisgah, looked over the country spread out before him, and died, at the age of one hundred and twenty.[46] God Himself buried him in an unknown grave (Deut. xxxiv.).[46][4] Moses was thus the human instrument in the creation of the Israelitish nation; he communicated to it all its laws.[46] More meek than any other man (Num. xii. 3), he enjoyed unique privileges, for "there hath not arisen a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face" (Deut. xxxiv. 10).[46]



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Moses in Strabo

The following excerpt comes from the Roman historian Strabo (c. 24 AD):

“ 34 As for Judaea, its western extremities towards Casius are occupied by the Idumaeans and by the lake. The Idumaeans are Nabataeans, but owing to a sedition they were banished from there, joined the Judeans, and shared in the same customs with them. The greater part of the region near the sea is occupied by Lake Sirbonis and by the country continuous with the lake as far as Jerusalem; for this city is also near the sea; for, as I have already said, it is visible from the seaport of Iopê. This region lies towards the north; and it is inhabited in general, as is each place in particular, by mixed stocks of people from Aegyptian and Arabian and Phoenician tribes; for such are those who occupy Galilee and Hiericus and Philadelphia and Samaria, which last Herod surnamed Sebastê. But though the inhabitants mixed up thus, the most prevalent of the accredited reports in regard to the temple at Jerusalem represents the ancestors of the present Judaeans, as they are called, as Aegyptians.

35 Moses, namely, was one of the Aegyptian priests, and held a part of Lower Aegypt, as it is called, but he went away from there to Judaea, since he was displeased with the state of affairs there, and was accompanied by many people who worshipped the Divine Being. For he says, and taught, that the Aegyptians were mistaken in representing the Divine Being by the images of beasts and cattle, as were also the Libyans; and that the Greeks were also wrong in modeling gods in human form; for, according to him, God is this one thing alone that encompasses us all and encompasses land and sea — the thing which we call heaven, or universe, or the nature of all that exists. What man, then, if he has sense, could be bold enough to fabricate an image of God resembling any creature amongst us? Nay, people should leave off all image-carving, and, setting apart a sacred precinct and a worthy sanctuary, should worship God without an image; and people who have good dreams should sleep in the sanctuary, not only themselves on their own behalf, but also others for the rest of the people; and those who live self-restrained and righteous lives should always expect some blessing or gift or sign from God, but no other should expect them.

36 Now Moses, saying things of this kind, persuaded not a few thoughtful men and led them away to this place where the settlement of Jerusalem now is; and he easily took possession of the place, since it was not a place that would be looked on with envy, nor yet one for which anyone would make a serious fight; for it is rocky, and, although it itself is well supplied with water, its surrounding territory is barren and waterless, and the part of the territory within a radius of sixty stadia is also rocky beneath the surface. At the same time Moses, instead of using arms, put forward as defense his sacrifices and his Divine Being, being resolved to seek a seat of worship for Him and promising to deliver to the people a kind of worship and a kind of ritual which would not oppress those who adopted them either with expenses or with divine obsessions or with other absurd troubles. Now Moses enjoyed fair repute with these people, and organized no ordinary kind of government, since the peoples all round, one and all, came over to him, because of his dealings with them and of the prospects he held out to them."

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Moses in Tacitus

The Roman historian Tacitus (ca. 100 AD) mentions several possible origins of the Jews that were taught by those of his time.

“ As I am about to relate the last days of a famous city, it seems appropriate to throw some light on its origin. Some say that the Jews were fugitives from the island of Crete, who settled on the nearest coast of Africa about the time when Saturn was driven from his throne by the power of Jupiter. Evidence of this is sought in the name. There is a famous mountain in Crete called Ida; the neighbouring tribe, the Idaei, came to be called Judaei by a barbarous lengthening of the national name. Others assert that in the reign of Isis the overflowing population of Egypt, led by Hierosolymus and Judas, discharged itself into the neighbouring countries. Many, again, say that they were a race of Ethiopian origin, who in the time of king Cepheus were driven by fear and hatred of their neighbours to seek a new dwelling-place. Others describe them as an Assyrian horde who, not having sufficient territory, took possession of part of Egypt, and founded cities of their own in what is called the Hebrew country, lying on the borders of Syria. Others, again, assign a very distinguished origin to the Jews, alleging that they were the Solymi, a nation celebrated in the poems of Homer, who called the city which they founded Hierosolyma after their own name.

Most writers, however, agree in stating that once a disease, which horribly disfigured the body, broke out over Egypt; that king Bocchoris, seeking a remedy, consulted the oracle of Hammon, and was bidden to cleanse his realm, and to convey into some foreign land this race detested by the gods. The people, who had been collected after diligent search, finding themselves left in a desert, sat for the most part in a stupor of grief, till one of the exiles, Moyses by name, warned them not to look for any relief from God or man, forsaken as they were of both, but to trust to themselves, taking for their heaven-sent leader that man who should first help them to be quit of their present misery. They agreed, and in utter ignorance began to advance at random. Nothing, however, distressed them so much as the scarcity of water, and they had sunk ready to perish in all directions over the plain, when a herd of wild asses was seen to retire from their pasture to a rock shaded by trees. Moyses followed them, and, guided by the appearance of a grassy spot, discovered an abundant spring of water. This furnished relief. After a continuous journey for six days, on the seventh they possessed themselves of a country, from which they expelled the inhabitants, and in which they founded a city and a temple.”


Moses in The Antiquities of the Jews

    Main article: Osarseph

Flavius Josephus relates several other incidents in connection with the Biblical account of Moses:

"Before the incident in which Moses slew the Egyptian, Moses had led the Egyptians in a campaign against invading Ethiopians and routed them. While Moses was besieging one of the Ethiopians' cities, Tharbis, the daughter of the Ethiopian king, fell in love with Moses and wished to marry him. He agreed to do so if she would procure the deliverance of the city into his power. She did so immediately, and Moses promptly married her. [30] This marriage is also mentioned in Numbers 12:1 (Cushite meant Ethiopian; Zipporah was Midianite, definitely not Ethiopian). The account of this expedition is also mentioned by Irenaeus[62], and the event would explain why St. Stephen refers to Moses as "mighty in his words and in his deeds" before Moses slayed the Egyptian.[63][64]

Flavius Josephus also gives significantly detailed accounts of the aftermath of Baalam's blessings and the events that lead to the slaying of Zimri.[65]"




[...]"There is also a psychoanalytical interpretation of Moses' life, put forward by Sigmund Freud in his last book, Moses and Monotheism, in 1937. Freud postulated that Moses was an Egyptian nobleman who adhered to the monotheism of Akhenaten. Freud, a committed atheist, also believed that Moses was murdered in the wilderness, producing a collective sense of patricidal guilt that has been at the heart of Judaism ever since. "Judaism had been a religion of the father, Christianity became a religion of the son", he wrote. The possible Egyptian origin of Moses and of his message has received significant scholarly attention.[71] Opponents of this view observe that the religion of the Torah seems different to Atenism in everything except the central feature of devotion to a single god,[72] although this has been countered by a variety of arguments, e.g. pointing out the similarities between the Hymn to Aten and Psalm 104.[73][74] Freud's interpretation of the historical Moses is not a prominent theory among historians, and is considered pseudo-history by most."[...]


Criticisms

Based on the account of Moses in the Bible, many criticise his laws and the way in which he ruled. Moses prescribed the death penalty for a huge range of offences,[75] Thomas Paine is probably the most famous critic of Moses:

    Among the most detestable villains in history, you could not find one worse than Moses. Here is an order, attributed to 'God' to butcher the boys, to massacre the mothers and to debauch and **** the daughters.[76]


Moses
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Ethnicity and race

"In Medieval Europe, all Asian peoples were thought of as descendants of Shem. By the nineteenth century, the term Semitic was confined to the ethnic groups who have historically spoken Semitic languages. These peoples were often considered to be a distinct race. However, some anti-Semitic racial theorists of the time argued that the Semitic peoples arose from the blurring of distinctions between previously separate races. This supposed process was referred to as Semiticization by the race-theorist Arthur de Gobineau. The notion that Semitic identity was a product of racial "confusion" was later taken up by the Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg.

Modern science, in contrast, identifies a population's common physical descent through genetic research, and analysis of the Semitic-speaking peoples suggests that they have some common ancestry. Though no significant common mitochondrial results have been yielded, Y-chromosomal links between Semitic-speaking Near-Eastern peoples like Arabs, Assyrians and Jews have proved fruitful, despite differences contributed from other groups (see Y-chromosomal Aaron). Although population genetics is still a young science, it seems to indicate that a significant proportion of these peoples' ancestry comes from a common Near Eastern population to which (despite the differences with the Biblical genealogy) the term "Semitic" has been applied. However, this correlation should rather be attributed to said common Near Eastern origin, as for example Semitic-speaking Near Easterners from the Fertile Crescent are generally closerly related to non-Semitic speaking Near Easterners, such as Iranians, Anatolians, and Caucasians, than to other Semitic-speakers, such as Gulf."




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[...]"Proto-Semitic is the hypothetical proto-language of the Semitic languages. The earliest attestations of a Semitic language are in Akkadian, dating to ca. the 23rd century BC (see Sargon of Akkad). Early inscriptions in the (pre-)Proto-Canaanite alphabet, presumably by speakers of a Semitic language, date to ca. 1800 BC. Proto-Semitic would most probably have been spoken in the 4th millennium BC, roughly contemporaneous to Proto-Indo-European."[...]

Proto-Semitic language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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[...]"Semitic languages seem to have developed first in the Middle East, more specifically, Kienast (2001) advocates the Arabian peninsula as the Semitic Urheimat, based on the fact that the Canaanite, Aramaic, and Arab nomadic tribes are recorded to have emerged from there, and the same area of origin is likely for the Akkadians. South Semitic speakers migrated to Africa before the 8th century BC (see Dʿmt), either via Sinai or the Yemen gap. Alternative scenarios make Ethiopia the Proto-Semitic homeland[1]. If the Afro-Asiatic hypothesis is accepted, the question of the Proto-Afro-Asiatic homeland is a related debate."[...]


Semitic
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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The Afro-Asiatic languages constitute a language family (Languages of Africa) with about 375 languages (SIL estimate) and more than 300 million speakers spread throughout North Africa, East Africa, West Africa, Central Africa, and Southwest Asia (including some 200 million speakers of Arabic). Other names sometimes given to this family include "Afrasian", "Hamito-Semitic" (French and European scholars), "Lisramic" (Hodge 1972), "Erythraean" (Tucker 1966).


Afro-Asiatic languages

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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[...]Proto-Afro-Asiatic is the hypothetical proto-language from which modern Afro-Asiatic languages are descended.[...]


The Middle East


Yuri Militarev and V. Shairelman (1988) have suggested that the Afroasiatic homeland was the Middle East and the Arabian Peninsula. They suggested that Proto-Afroasiatic was the language spoken by the Epi-Paleolithic (i.e. mesolithic) Natufian culture of Palestine and Syria. The Natufian culture is certainly well documented. The earliest sites, in Palestine, have been dated to 10,900 BCE and the culture continued to 7,800 BCE, during which it metamorphosed, between 8,500 and 8,000 BCE into the first fully blown agricultural neolithic Pre-Pottery A culture, found throughout the Levant. This would correspond well with the date given by Igor Diakonoff for the Proto-Afroasiatic parent culture (i.e. approximately 12,000 years ago). The Natufian culture certainly did spread, northwards to Syria and Mesopotamia, and the Belbasi culture of interior Anatolia certainly was of clear Natufian derivation. To the south east, the well studied site of al Beidha, about 4 kilomtres north of Petra, and the rock shelter of Wadi al-Mataha has been extensively studied, and show its extension into the fringes of the arid Arabian sub-continent.

Alan Bomhard (1996) tries to keep Afro-Asiatic in within Nostratic, despite his admission that Proto-Afroasiatic is very different from the other members of the proposed linguistic Nostratic superfamily. As a result he suggests it was probably the first language to have split from the Nostratic speech community. Whatever was the case; by 8,000 BCE the Natufian culture itself had begun to disperse. In Palestine, Natufian developed into the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) culture, first identified by Kathleen Kenyon (1906-1978) in her 1950s excavations at Jericho. Kenyon also remarked at the hiatus and seeming abandonment of PPNA sites, and was followed by a limited extent of the PPNB culture that was very different. Rectilinear dwellings in the PPNB, from 7,000 BCE, replaced the round beehive dwellings seen since Natufian times, in the PPNA period. Since the 1960s, however, it has been shown that PPNB developed in an unbroken sequence from the Natufian cultures north of Damascus, forging a link between Palestine, Mesopotamia and the Anatolian cultures of Catal Huyuk, and Halicar, with which it shares some similarity. It has been suggested that this northern part of the range was developing as Proto-Semitic. Certainly, there is evidence that the PPNB culture, spread southwards to sites in Israel, lasting until 6,000 BCE ending with the brief spread of a more arid climate through the region. Christopher Edens (2001) has reported a bladelet tradition in South Western Saudi Arabia, possibly synchronous with the Epi-Paleolithic spread of tools of the Arabian bifacial tradition which lasted from 5,000 - 3,000 BCE characterised by beautifully pressure-flaked arrowheads and knives. They also used scrapers and awls or drills, probably for working leather and making beads. The Bifacial tradition, seems to have been the period during which a hunting and gathering way of life was progressively replaced by a lifestyle of nomadic pastoralism from the north, which has since then characterised the Peninsula. This, it has been suggested, saw the first spread of the Semitic languages throughout Arabia.

Bomhard, following John Kern’s suggestion, proposed that further spread took the Afro-Asiatic languages across the Bab al Mandib in Yemen into Ethiopia and thence into the Horn of Africa and further south. To the north Afro-Asiatic languages are presumed to have crossed with the Neolithic revolution into Egypt, spreading from there into North Africa, and the Sudan, and thence across the Sahara to the area of Lake Chad.

There is thus some evidence in support of this thesis. No evidence has ever been found of a pre-Semitic substratum in Palestine, indicating a long development there. However, more recent work in African archaeology has pointed to weaknesses in the Nostraticists’ argument. Firstly it appears that the Neolithic in Africa did not develop as a result of immigrants from the Middle East speaking a new Afroasiatic language. Rather it developed out of a deep tradition of Egyptian Epi-Paleolithic cultures undergoing a long-process of Neolithicisation, with a full Neolithic tradition emerging with the Badarian (and possibly Tasian), about 5,000 - 4,500 BCE. It is only with the Naqada II and III periods that any evidence of incursions of people from South West Asia can be distinguished. By then agricultural Egyptian Neolithic cultures had a long tradition of their own. Although earlier links can be shown to have existed between Badarian and the Western Desert, and even with Merimde and the Fayyum, there are no clear early links back into Palestine or Syria.

Equally in the Horn of Africa, although Arabian influence has now been extended before the Axumite civilisation, most of the early Epi-paleolithic links seem to have happened in the other direction, from Africa into Arabia, and it is difficult tracing a cultural trajectory sufficiently early enough to have carried the Omotic and Cushitic languages into Africa.

Problems with the Middle Eastern theory

This archaeology seems to pose insurmountable problems to a theory of a Nostratic-linked Proto-Afroasiatic language in the Middle East. There is also significant linguistic evidence that suggests that this was not the area in which Proto-Afro-Asiatic languages first evolved. Afro-Asiatic linguistic diversity is far greater in Africa than it is in the Middle East. All six of the Afro-Asiatic families are found in the African continent, only one is found in the Middle East. Even in the case of the Middle Eastern Semitic language, the diversity of Semitic languages in Ethiopia, for instance, is greater than that in Arabia, Mesopotamia or the Levant. The suggestion of a Middle Eastern origin of Proto-Afro-Asiatic of Kerns and Bomhard, just represents a later continuation of the dominance in Afro-Asiatic studies by the Semiticists, and the relative depth of the understanding of the archaeology of this region, by comparison to the much less well understood archaeology of Africa and the Sahara.

The spread of Afro-Asiatic languages has recently been linked to the evolution of the Y chromosomal E3b Haplogroup. About 21-25 000 years ago the subbranch E3b arose in East Africa and spread northward into North Africa and West Asia, splitting further into another three haplogroups: haplogroup E3b3 spent the last ice age in the Levant and north-east Africa, E3b2 was present in the Maghreb and today it is the most important haplogroup of the Berbers (having arisen among the ancestral population to the Beta Israel, or Ethiopian Jews[1]); E3b1 originated in East Africa and after the end of the ice age, it expanded north and west. The spreading of E3b1 is probably connected with the spread of the Afro-Asiatic languages.

African homelands of PAA languages have been suggested. Igor Diakonoff (1988) suggested that the Urheimat of Afro-Asiatic was in the South Eastern Sahara, between Tibesti and Darfur. Martin Bernal (1980) also suggests an African origin. Quoted by Bomhard, he states that “archaeological evidence from the Magreb, the Sudan and east Africa [makes it seem] permissible to postulate at least three branches of Afroasiatic existed by the 8th millennium BCE”. Bomhard concludes, “The implications of Bernal’s views are enormous. Although his views are highly speculative, they are by no means implausible. Should they turn out to be true, it would give substantial weight to the arguments that Afroasiatic is to be viewed as a sister language to Proto-Nostratic rather than a descendent.”

Despite this caveat, Bomhard tries to resuscitate the Middle Eastern origin by approvingly quoting at length from Kerns. “If we assume that the speakers of pre-Indo-European remained in the vicinity of the Caucasus to a fairly late period (say 7,500 BCE), with the Afroasiatic already extending through Palestine and into Egypt and eventually the rest of North Africa, but with its Semitic branch still in Northern Mesopotamia, high on the upper slopes of the fertile crescent, we have an explanation for the similarity in vocabulary. That this similarity existed to a late period is suggested by the shared words for field, bull, cow, sheep and goat, animals that were domesticated first in the Fertile Crescent. In addition, shared words for star, and seven suggest a common veneration for that number and perhaps a shared ideology…. If true, it suggests an association that is social as well as geographical”.

Proto-Afro-Asiatic
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



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Original homeland (Urheimat)

No agreement exists on where Proto-Afro-Asiatic speakers lived (i.e. the Afro-Asiatic Urheimat), though the language is generally believed to have originated in Northeast Africa[2][3]. Some scholars (such as Igor Diakonoff and Lionel Bender) have proposed Ethiopia, because it includes the majority of the diversity of the Afro-Asiatic language family and has very diverse groups in close geographic proximity, often considered a telltale sign for a linguistic geographic origin. Other researchers (such as Christopher Ehret) have put forward the western Red Sea coast and the Sahara. A minority (such as Alexander Militarev) suggest a linguistic homeland in the Levant (specifically, he identifies Afro-Asiatic with the Natufian culture), with Semitic being the only branch to stay put.[4]

The Semitic languages form the only Afro-Asiatic subfamily extant outside of Africa. Some scholars believe that, in historical or near-historical times, Semitic speakers crossed from South Arabia back into Ethiopia and Eritrea, while others, such as A. Murtonen, dispute this view, suggesting that the Semitic branch may have originated in Ethiopia[1]. A third view, based upon similarities between Semitic and ancient Egyptian, is that the two languages developed from a common ancestral tongue along the Nile, crossing the Sinai with the dry phase from 6,000-5,800 BCE, at the end of the pre-pottery neolithic (PPNB) phase in the Levant [2]. Hunter-gatherers of the el-Harif mesolithic culture, crossing the Sinai and from Northern Egypt, and adopting animal domestication but not agriculture could then have created what Juris Yarins calls the Syro-Arabian nomadic pastoralism complex, spreading south along the shore of the Red Sea, and north eastwards around the edge of the "fertile crescent". In the Levant this development appears as the Minhata, and later Yarmoukian culture, which came from the same semi-arid zone as did the later Ghassulian and Semitic Amorites cultures[3][4].

Tonal languages appear in the Omotic, Chadic, and South and East Cushitic branches of Afro-Asiatic, according to Ehret (1996). The Semitic, Berber, and Egyptian branches do not use tones phonemically. Given the diversity that exists within the Afro-Asiatic group, and the lack of common vocabulary for agricultural items, it is suggested that the languages dispersed before the commencement of the Neolithic. The finding of a common vocabulary for pottery containers, however, suggests that this technology was known.

For example Proto-Semitic *k'ad-ah- "vessel", found in Arabic kadah "drinking bowl, cup, goblet, glass, tumble"; Sabaean m-kdh(m,n) "cup; Ethiopic / Geez kadho "vessel, gourd", ma-kdeht "jar, jug, bucket"; Lowland East Cushitic *k'adad- "vessel, gourd; Oromo k'odaa "vessel, gourd; Egyptian qd "pot"; Lowland East Kushitic *k'od- "receptical"; Oromo k'odaa "receptical"; West Chadic *k'wad- "calabash"; Dangla koda "pot" gives Proto-Afro-Asiatic *k'ud-/*k'od- "Vessel, pot"[5].

Ehret [6] suggests that early Afro-Asiatic languages were involved in the domestication of Ethiopian food crops, but this is disputed by others who suggest these words were found only in the Cushitic and possibly Omotic families, and common cognates for agriculture are not present. Given that wavy line pottery is found widely in the Sahara from 8,000 BCE[7], and that the neolithic agriculture technologies arrived 5000 BCE[8], this sets a possible context for Proto-Afro-Asiatic dispersal. As it is known that the Ethiopian farmers moved into the highlands from the direction of Nubian Sudan, and attempts to translate the Meroitic script found in this area show significant Afro-Asiatic characteristics, linguist Lionel Bender suggests that it was out of this area of the Southern Nile that was the centre for dispersion of the Afro-Asiatic languages occurred[9]. The dates of pottery and agriculture sets approximate early and late dates for this linguistic dispersal. Climatically this was a period of a "wet Sahara" phase with large rivers and lakes. The dispersal of Afro-Asiatic may thus have been a response to the recent operation of the "Sahara pump"[10][11].

Afro-Asiatic languages
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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The history of the alphabet begins in Ancient Egypt, more than a millennium into the history of writing. The first pure alphabet emerged around 2000 BCE to represent the language of Semitic workers in Egypt (see Middle Bronze Age alphabets), and was derived from the alphabetic principles of the Egyptian hieroglyphs. Most alphabets in the world today either descend directly from this development, for example the Greek and Latin alphabets, or were inspired by its design. [1]



History of the alphabet
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Proto-Greek

The Proto-Greek language is the assumed last common ancestor of all known varieties of Greek, including the Mycenaean language, the classical Greek dialects Attic-Ionic, Aeolic, Doric and North-Western Greek, and ultimately the Koine and Modern Greek. Some scholars would include the fragmentary Ancient Macedonian language, either as descended from an earlier "Proto-Hellenic" language, or by definition including it among the descendants of Proto-Greek as a Hellenic language and/or a Greek dialect.

Proto-Greek would have been spoken in the late 3rd millennium BC, most probably in the Balkans. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants, speaking the predecessor of the Mycenaean language, entered the Greek peninsula either around the 21st century BC, or in the 17th century BC at the latest. They were separated from the Dorian Greeks, who entered the peninsula roughly one millennium later (see Dorian invasion, Greek Dark Ages), speaking a dialect that had in some respects remained more archaic.

The evolution of Proto-Greek should be considered with the background of an early Palaeo-Balkan sprachbund that makes it difficult to delineate exact boundaries between individual languages. The characteristically Greek representation of word-initial laryngeals by prothetic vowels is shared by the Armenian language, which also shares other phonological and morphological peculiarities of Greek. The close relatedness of Armenian and Greek sheds light on the paraphyletic nature of the Centum-Satem isogloss.

Close similarities between Ancient Greek and Vedic Sanskrit suggest that both Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian were still quite similar to either late Proto-Indo-European, which would place the latter somewhere in the late 4th millennium BC, or a post-PIE Graeco-Aryan proto-language. Graeco-Aryan has little support among linguists, since both geographical and temporal distribution of Greek and Indo-Iranian fit well with the Kurgan hypothesis of Proto-Indo-European.



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Phonology

Greek is a Centum language, which would place a possible Graeco-Aryan protolanguage before Satemization, making it identical to late PIE. Proto-Greek does appear to have been affected by the general trend of palatalization characteristic of the Satem group, evidenced for example by the (post-Mycenaean) change of labiovelars into dentals before e (e.g. kwe > te "and"), but the Satemizing influence appears to have reached Greek only after it had lost the palatovelars (i.e. after it had already become a Centum language).

The primary sound changes separating Proto-Greek from the Proto-Indo-European language included

    * Aspiration of /s/ -> /h/ intervocalically
    * De-voicing of voiced aspirates.
    * Dissimilation of aspirates (Grassmann's law), possibly post-Mycenaean.
    * word-initial y- (not Hy-) is strengthened to dy- (later ζ-)

The loss of prevocalic *s is was not completed entirely, famously evidenced by sus "sow", dasus "dense"; sun "with" is another example, contaminated with PIE *kom (Latin cum, Proto-Greek *kon) to Homeric / Old Attic ksun.

Sound changes between Proto-Greek and Mycenaean include:

    * Loss of final stop consonants; final /m/ -> /n/.
    * Syllabic /m/ and /n/ -> /am/, /an/ before resonants; otherwise /a/.
    * Vocalization of laryngeals between vowels and initially before consonants to /e/, /a/, /o/ from h₁, h₂, h₃ respectively.
    * The sequence CRHC (C = consonant, R = resonant, H = laryngeal) becomes CRēC, CRāC, CRōC from H = h₁, h₂, h₃ respectively.
    * The sequence CRHV (C = consonant, R = resonant, H = laryngeal, V = vowel) becomes CaRV.
    * loss of s in consonant clusters, with supplementary lengthening, esmi -> ēmi
    * creation of secondary s from clusters, ntia -> nsa. Assibilation ti -> si only in southern dialects.

These sound changes are already complete in Mycenaean. For changes affecting most or all later dialects see Ancient Greek.



Proto-Greek language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



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Greeks



The Greeks (Greek: Έλληνες, IPA: [ˈelines]) are a nation and ethnic group who have populated Greece and the area of the Aegean Sea for over 3,500 years.[13] Today they are primarily found in the Balkan peninsula of southeastern Europe, the Greek islands, Cyprus, and throughout the world as part of the Greek diaspora.

Ancient Greek colonies and communities were established throughout the Mediterranean, including Magna Graecia, Marseille and Barcelona, but Greek people have always concentrated around the Aegean coasts, where the Greek language has been spoken since antiquity. The Mycenaeans were the first historical people to arrive in the area now referred to as 'Greece'. According to Thucydides, the name of Hellas spread from a valley in Thessaly to all Greek-speaking peoples through Homer's works."


Greeks

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Mycenaean Greeks

The Mycenaean proto-Greeks were probably the first historical people to arrive in the area now referred to as 'Greece' (the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula) in the 16th century BC and the first that can be considered 'Greek' as an ethnic identity taking into account the Linear B syllabary (used for writing Mycenaean) as the earliest attested form of Greek. There are clear elements of cultural continuity through the Greek Dark Ages (1200 BC - 800 BC), until the advent of Classical Greece (800 BC onwards) and the rise of the Polis and in particular Athens. For example, in Homer's epic poems the Odyssey the Iliad - the latter describes the epic Trojan War - it is quite clear that he views the Greeks of Prehistory as the forefathers of the early classical civilization he inhabited, the likes of Achilles and Odysseus were viewed by Athenians, as well as others, as prime-examples of the ideal citizen of a Polis.

These elements of self-identification on its own clearly constitutes cultural continuity, but there are other elements as well that solidify this idea, the first being that Mycenaean Architecture, echoing influence from other civilizations around the basin, as well as the Mycenaeans' own particular style, owing as much as to limitations of the geography of the area (see: Geography of Greece), that would eventually lead to the formation of Classical Greek Architecture and Hellenistic Architecture, for example, the ruins of the columns at Knossos echoing a very archaic version of the Doric style of architecture so widely used in the Classical period.

Religion is another factor, with the Mycenaeans own pantheon of gods mirroring in many ways the pantheon of that of the Classical Greeks, this influence defined not only culture but part of Classical Greece's value system as well as their art. There is also clear linguistic continuity between the Proto-Greek language and the various dialects of Classical Greece. In particular, the Greek language written in the Linear B script is clearly an archaic form of the latter Koine Greek language.

These elements combined together do not amount to say, the same cultural output and continuity that Modern Greeks feel with Classical, Hellenistic and Byzantine periods of Greek History, but they nevertheless constitute the beginnings of the Greek identity, and the foundation, albeit in comparison to 5th century Athens a basic one, of Greece's Pagan religion, language, architecture and art.


Classical and Hellenistic


Herodotus states that the Athenians declared, before the battle of Plataea, that they would not go over to Mardonius, because in the first place, they were bound to avenge the burning of the Acropolis; and, secondly, they would not betray their fellow Greeks, to whom they were bound by:

    * A common language (ομόγλωσσον homoglosson – the use of one of the dialects of the Greek language),
    * Common blood (όμαιμον homaimon – descent from Hellen, son of Deucalion),
    * Common shrines, statues and sacrifices (practice of the ancient Greek religion – compare the Christian Greek and Demotic term ομόθρησκον omothriskon), and
    * Common habits and customs.

As Thucydides observes that the name of Hellas spread from a valley in Thessaly to the Greek-speaking peoples after the formation of the text of Homer (the Panellenes of Il. 2.530 are the troops of Thessaly, contrasting with the Achaeans), not long before his own time. This places the idea in the Archaic period, when Greeks discovered that the world was wider, wealthier, and more cultured than they had imagined.
Homer's Trojan War is, indeed, a conflict among Greeks: the Trojans speak Greek (although most modern historians believe they were more likely an Anatolian people, based mostly on later translations of the story by late writers), bear Greek names, and worship the Greek gods; and Priam is descended from Zeus (see Alaksandu). The Carians are the only people Homer considers barbarophonoi.

Hellen, son of Deucalion, combined into one group the smaller tribes that participated in the Delphic Amphictyon, such as the Aeolians, the Achaeans, and the Dorians.


As early as the 5th century BC, Isocrates, after speaking of common origin and worship, says: "the name Hellenes suggests no longer a race but an intelligence, and... the title Hellenes is applied rather to those who share our culture than to those who share a common blood". Panegyric 4.50. After the 4th century BC and Alexander the Great's conquest of the East, Greek became the lingua franca of the East Mediterranean region and was widely spoken by educated non-Greeks.

After the creation of the Byzantine Empire, Greek culture changed from Hellenic (Greek pagan) to Eastern Roman (Greek Christian culture), and the word "Hellene" became associated with the pagan past. Distinctions of nationality still existed in the empire, but became secondary to religious considerations as the renewed empire used Christianity to maintain its cohesion. However, the Byzantine Empire was dominated by the Greek element to such an extent that Emperor Heraclius (575 CE - 641 CE) decided to make Greek the official language. From then on, the Roman and Greek cultures were virtually fused in the East. By that time, the Latin West had began referring to Byzantium as "Empire of the Greeks" (Imperium Graecorum).

Greek nationalism re-emerged in the 11th century within specific circles and became more forceful after the fall of Constantinople to the Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade in 1204, and the establishment of a number of Greek kingdoms (such as the Empire of Nicaea and the Despotate of Epirus). When the empire was revived in 1261, it became essentially a Greek national state. Adherence to Greek Orthodox rites and the Greek language, became the defining characteristic of the Greek people.

Greeks in the Ottoman Empire

Under the Ottoman Empire, religion was the defining characteristic of "national" groups (milletler), so "Greeks" (Rumlar) were defined by the Ottomans as members of the Greek Orthodox Church, regardless of their language or ethnic origin. Conversely, those who adopted Islam during that period were considered 'Turks', regardless of their language or origin. Yet, the Greeks themselves upheld the autocephalous concept whereby they maintained their unique ethno-religious identity and consistently distinguished themselves from other non-Greek Orthodox Christian populations. However, some Greeks such as Alexander Ypsilanti, expected non-Greek populations such as the Moldavians and the Wallachians to rise for Greek independence because they were Greek Orthodox Christians. However, both the Moldavians and the Wallachians were cognizant of their non-Greek identities and refused to contribute.



Greeks

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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Noam Chomsky

Avram Noam Chomsky (Hebrew: אברם נועם חומסקי Yiddish: אברם נועם כאמסקי) (born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist, philosopher, political activist, author, and lecturer. He is an Institute Professor and professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Chomsky is credited with the creation of the theory of generative grammar, considered to be one of the most significant contributions to the field of linguistics made in the 20th century. He also helped spark the cognitive revolution in psychology through his review of B. F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior, in which he challenged the behaviorist approach to the study of behavior and language dominant in the 1950s. His naturalistic approach to the study of language has also affected the philosophy of language and mind (see Harman and Fodor). He is also credited with the establishment of the Chomsky hierarchy, a classification of formal languages in terms of their generative power. According to the Arts and Humanities Citation Index in 1992, Chomsky was cited as a source more often than any other living scholar during the 1980–1992 time period, and was the eighth-most cited scholar in any time period.[1][2][3]

Beginning with his critique of the Vietnam War in the 1960s, Chomsky has become more widely known—especially internationally—for his media criticism and politics. He is generally considered to be a key intellectual figure within the left wing of United States politics. Chomsky is widely known for his political activism, and for his criticism of the foreign policy of the United States and other governments.


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Contributions to linguistics


Syntactic Structures was a distillation of his book Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory (1955, 75) in which he introduces transformational grammars. The theory takes utterances (sequences of words) to have a syntax which can be (largely) characterized by a formal grammar; in particular, a Context-free grammar extended with transformational rules. Children are hypothesized to have an innate knowledge of the basic grammatical structure common to all human languages (i.e. they assume that any language which they encounter is of a certain restricted kind). This innate knowledge is often referred to as universal grammar. It is argued that modeling knowledge of language using a formal grammar accounts for the "productivity" of language: with a limited set of grammar rules and a finite set of terms, humans are able to produce an infinite number of sentences, including sentences no one has previously said. He has always acknowledged his debt to Panini for his modern notion of an explicit generative grammar.

The Principles and Parameters approach (P&P)—developed in his Pisa 1979 Lectures, later published as Lectures on Government and Binding (LGB)—make strong claims regarding universal grammar: that the grammatical principles underlying languages are innate and fixed, and the differences among the world's languages can be characterized in terms of parameter settings in the brain (such as the pro-drop parameter, which indicates whether an explicit subject is always required, as in English, or can be optionally dropped, as in Spanish), which are often likened to switches. (Hence the term principles and parameters, often given to this approach.) In this view, a child learning a language need only acquire the necessary lexical items (words, grammatical morphemes, and idioms), and determine the appropriate parameter settings, which can be done based on a few key examples.

Proponents of this view argue that the pace at which children learn languages is inexplicably rapid, unless children have an innate ability to learn languages. The similar steps followed by children all across the world when learning languages, and the fact that children make certain characteristic errors as they learn their first language, whereas other seemingly logical kinds of errors never occur (and, according to Chomsky, should be attested if a purely general, rather than language-specific, learning mechanism were being employed), are also pointed to as motivation for innateness.

More recently, in his Minimalist Program (1995), while retaining the core concept of "principles and parameters", Chomsky attempts a major overhaul of the linguistic machinery involved in the LGB model, stripping from it all but the barest necessary elements, while advocating a general approach to the architecture of the human language faculty that emphasizes principles of economy and optimal design, reverting to a derivational approach to generation, in contrast with the largely representational approach of classic P&P.

Chomsky's ideas have had a strong influence on researchers investigating the acquisition of language in children, though some[specify] researchers who work in this area today do not support Chomsky's theories, instead advocating emergentist or connectionist theories reducing language to an instance of general processing mechanisms in the brain.

He also theorizes that unlimited extension of a language such as English is possible only by the recursive device of embedding sentences in sentences.


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Generative grammar


The Chomskyan approach towards syntax, often termed generative grammar, studies grammar as a body of knowledge possessed by language users. Since the 1960s, Chomsky has maintained that much of this knowledge is innate, implying that children need only learn certain parochial features of their native languages.[12] The innate body of linguistic knowledge is often termed Universal Grammar. From Chomsky's perspective, the strongest evidence for the existence of Universal Grammar is simply the fact that children successfully acquire their native languages in so little time. He argues that the linguistic data to which children have access radically underdetermine the rich linguistic knowledge which they attain by adulthood (the "poverty of the stimulus" argument).

Chomsky's theories are still popular, particularly in the United States, but they have never been free from controversy. Criticism has come from a number of different directions. Chomskyan linguists rely heavily on the intuitions of native speakers regarding which sentences of their languages are well-formed. This practice has been criticized both on general methodological grounds, and because it has (some argue) led to an overemphasis on the study of English. As of now, hundreds of different languages have received at least some attention in the generative grammar literature,[13][14][15][16][17] but some critics nonetheless perceive this overemphasis, and a tendency to base claims about Universal Grammar on an overly small sample of languages. Some psychologists and psycholinguists, though sympathetic to Chomsky's overall program, have argued that Chomskyan linguists pay insufficient attention to experimental data from language processing, with the consequence that their theories are not psychologically plausible. More radical critics have questioned whether it is necessary to posit Universal Grammar in order to explain child language acquisition, arguing that domain-general learning mechanisms are sufficient.

Today there are many different branches of generative grammar; one can view grammatical frameworks such as head-driven phrase structure grammar, lexical functional grammar and combinatory categorical grammar as broadly Chomskian and generative in orientation, but with significant differences in execution.

Cultural anthropologist and linguist Daniel Everett of Illinois State University has proposed that the language of the Pirahã people of the northwestern rainforest of Brazil resists Chomsky's theories of generative grammar. Everett asserts that the Pirahã language does not have any evidence of recursion, one of the key properties of generative grammar. Additionally, it is claimed that the Pirahan have no fixed words for colors or numbers, speak in single phonemes, and often speak in prosody.[18] However, Everett's claims have themselves been criticized. David Pesetsky of MIT, Andrew Nevins of Harvard, and Cilene Rodrigues of the Universidade Estadual de Campinas in Brazil have argued in a joint paper that all of Everett's major claims contain serious deficiencies.[19] The dispute continues, pending further field research and analysis.[20]


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Chomsky hierarchy


Chomsky is famous for investigating various kinds of formal languages and whether or not they might be capable of capturing key properties of human language. His Chomsky hierarchy partitions formal grammars into classes, or groups, with increasing expressive power, i.e., each successive class can generate a broader set of formal languages than the one before. Interestingly, Chomsky argues that modeling some aspects of human language requires a more complex formal grammar (as measured by the Chomsky hierarchy) than modeling others. For example, while a regular language is powerful enough to model English morphology, it is not powerful enough to model English syntax. In addition to being relevant in linguistics, the Chomsky hierarchy has also become important in computer science (especially in compiler construction and automata theory).

Noam Chomsky
From Wikipedia, the free encyc
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« Reply #73 on: November 03, 2007, 10:22:14 pm »

Moving glaciers - now on Spitzbergen;

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Mankind in Amnesia

Velikovsky's Lecture before the Graduate Student Forum in Princeton, December 6, 1967

"There is a phenomenon that traumatic experiences to which a human being is subjected are forgotten, are erased from the conscious, but conserved in his unconscious mind. This is one of the major contributions of Freud to the psychology of the unconscious mind. The irrational behavior of man comes from a traumatic experience in the past, that the person tries not to know, to forget, not to be aware of, to explain away. All kinds of phenomena come out of this. Criminal behavior, running away from reality, suicidal urge—and we are today a society which is certainly irrational."

As historian and psychologist I felt a duty to continue on Freud’s path, from single individual to the entire human race, because the human race forgot the traumatic experiences to which it was subjected, and only very recently so. (I will read to you from the first page of the future book, Mankind in Amnesia.)"


[...]“Contorted figures in discotheques till morning hours, self-immolating young nuns in blazing robes in Vietnam, uncouth beatniks declaiming verse, racing cars overturning in flames onto onlookers who came to witness disaster, assemblages of co-eds in hallucinogenic leave from reality, crowds of negroes reducing city-quarters to shambles, men in capsules revolving around the earth in 90 minutes, next aiming at the moon. All this and much more is the outward picture of mankind in dismay."[...]



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"The Copernican revolution met with opposition because man does not like to think that he is not in the center of the universe, and even more so he does not like to think that he lives on a planet that travels, that moves. The opposition to Darwin came because it was most unpleasant to think, especially in the church-going England, that there is no distinction in principle between man and animal, man with the soul and the soulless animal, only in gradation. But the idea of Darwin that we are secure in our future, that nothing will happen to this earth because nothing did happen in the past, made him acceptable. Changes are small, infinitesimally small, homeopathically small—Darwin in his private life was a homeopath. At the very end of his Origin of Species he wrote that since there is a direct line from pre-Cambrian life to our own time, there could not have been any great catastrophes in the past and we can be certain there will be none. But this was nothing less than psychological scotoma. Psychological scotoma, like ophtalmological scotoma, is an inability to see. Darwin saw through his own eyes on his travels in South America in the pampas of Patagonia, on the plains of Brazil, in the Cordillera of Peru, immense hecatombs of animals big and small, forms still extant and also extinct. He wondered and wrote in his diary: “But to destroy all these animals, small and big, from Tierra del Fuego in South America to the Bering Strait of North America, nothing less than shaking of the entire framework of the world could suffice.” Of the extinction of species he wrote, also in Origin of Species, that it is the most amazing, unexplained, and perplexing phenomenon. He built up a theory of which the main thesis is that the geological record has gaps. On these gaps he built his work, because without them there is no theory of evolution in the Darwinian sense. The argument is ex silentio and is but absence of evidence. Darwin uses the postulated large lacunae in the geological and paleontological records to explain the perplexing accumulations of bones in numerous localities by slow evolution and by slow extinction. But they are not explainable that way, already because in so many assemblages bones were found heaped together of animals from the polar circle, like arctic fox, polar bear or seal, and from the tropical regions, like boa constrictor, crocodile and ostrich, and from the depth of the ocean, all thrown together, and not in one or two places, but in very many all over the world. Alfred Wallace, who simultaneously with Darwin came to the same idea of evolution by natural selection, described the Siwalik Hills at the foot of the Himalayas, bursting with hundreds of miles of deposits of broken bones of animals that do not belong together. Beyond the clerical circles Darwin’s revolution was not met with what is usually described as great opposition. The scientific world accepted him rather soon, rather from the beginning. We are living in a peaceful world and nothing will happen to us. You can invest your money in the stock exchange or in real estate. All is secure. The sea and land will not change their borders."


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If you don’t have a Bible just stop at a motel and you find one there. And there you will read if you open it twice—the chances are better than fifty-fifty—a description of some phenomena that are certainly not peaceful. The foundations of the earth were discovered, coal was falling from the sky, earth was trembling, hills were moving into the sea, sea and land were changing places, mountains vomited lava and were molten like wax. And this kind of pictures are found in the prophets through the Psalms and also in the books of Genesis, Exodus and Numbers, without end. Even fundamentalists read them as metaphors. Follow the description the Dominican monks wrote down as told by the aborigines of this continent—I quote it in Worlds in Collision—and imagine stones falling from the sky with crashing noises and bitumen pouring down, and men trying to go on the roofs, while the buildings collapse, or to climb the trees which throw them away; imagine the Pacific Ocean rising like a towering wall and approaching the continent, the entire land burning with a thousand volcanoes; new mountains going up and the water carrying everything away. This is not a vision: it is described in historical texts and folk traditions and in epics of many races of the world. We don’t like to think about those things as real events. Already about the time of the first century B. C. started the forgetfulness. In the Sibylline books or in the New Testament many sentences tell of the expectations of Doomsday—a scene taken from the experiences of the past. The phenomenon of the creeping-in oblivion you can observe in the debate between the anti-clerical Lucretius who understood the heritage of ages and the clerical Cicero who claimed that the planets are gods. Nothing can happen to them and whoever claims that at any time they can be at fault should be brought to court and for a capital punishment. The Pythagorean secret teaching, the Stoic philosophy, all the mysteries and various rites, all go back to those experiences, in order to re-live them."


"It is very well to start the morning by finding your shoes, your textbooks to come to classes and spend the day in classes or in the library, never thinking that we are travelling in space—so safe is the ship. Safe it is—the planets came to a peaceful co-existence. But they still show their wounds. They are still in fever—Mars, Venus and Jupiter and the rest of them are hotter than theoretical would anticipate. Their wounds and the fever are the consequence of their having participated recently in theomachy, the battle of the gods. But today almost every orbit is free of being interchained with another orbit. Nothing spectacular from cosmic spaces is in store for us."



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"And why I ask, did the ancient man worship the planets? And why Zeus, Jupiter, was the main deity? And would you know if you go out, would all of you know to identify among the stars the main deity, planet Jupiter, worshiped by all ancient world? And why was the sun a secondary deity, if everything was always as it is now? Why human sacrifices were brought to planetary gods?"


Mankind in Amnesia

Velikovsky's Lecture before the Graduate Student Forum in Princeton, December 6, 1967

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