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Book and Sword

~ Pontifex minimus

Book and Sword

Monthly Archives: March 2015

From Aleph Bet to Alphabet

28 Saturday Mar 2015

Posted by Sean Manning in Ancient

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ancient, Aramaic, Greek, Iron Age, Latin, writing systems

Table with the Hebrew Samaritan Syriac Phoenician Greek etc.  scripts side by side

An old chart of ancient abjads and alphabets, from a class handout

The Greek alphabet is adapted from the consonantal writing systems of the Levant, and I used to have a vague idea that Greek got its vowel signs by adapting signs for Semitic consonants not present in Greek. Greek has no aspirated “s”, for example, so Greeks using the Northwest Semitic abjad to write Greek found that they did not need the sign shin ש for transcribing Greek consonants and could use it for something else. As I learn a bit of Aramaic I realize that the process was much more straightforward.
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One of the Quirks of Sumerian

21 Saturday Mar 2015

Posted by Sean Manning in Ancient, Uncategorized

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ancient, Bronze Age, Sumerian, Sumerian grammar

A stepped terrace of sand with several clay artifacts on it including a pyramid and several statuettes

My collection of photos of Mesopotamian artifacts is small, so here is another set from Palazzo Te in Mantua

One of the quirks of Sumerian is that things are often referred to twice, once as substantives and once as affixes to the verb. The following example comes from Gudea Cylinder A (column ii, line 4) courtesy of the ETCSL.

The individual signs were pronounced something like this:

ma2-gur8-ra-na ĝiri3 nam-mi-gub

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Astyages’ Thanksgiving Banquet

16 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by Sean Manning in Ancient, Modern

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ancient, Herodotus, modern, not_an_expert

Life-sized head of a bearded man carved of smooth stone

They told another version of this story about Zeus (Porphyry head of a bearded Olympian in the Burrell Collection, Scotland, photographed by author)

If you wandered through the ports and festivals of the Aegean 2500 years ago, Herodotus would tell you a story about Astyages’ banquet. One day Astyages the king of the Medes went to his lieutenant Harpagos and ordered him to take the newborn son of Astyages’ daughter Mandane and kill him, because he had dreamed that this son would become king of the world, and because the boy’s father was no Mede but a Persian. Harpagos took the son but refused to kill him, instead giving him to one of Astyages’ slaves to kill, and when this slave went home he found that his wife had given birth to a stillborn child. His wife offered to raise this other child instead, and so Mandane’s son was spared. One day Astyages noticed that this boy had a lordly manner and a face which resembled his own, and he questioned Harpagos and uncovered what had happened. Astyages declared that it was good that the boy lived, because the fate of the boy had troubled him, and that he would feast with Harpagos and make a sacrifice to thank the gods who had preserved the boy.
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Cosmic Horror

07 Saturday Mar 2015

Posted by Sean Manning in Ancient, Modern

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ancient, Mesopotamia, modern

A rectangular block carved into a creature with the body of a bull, the wings of a bird, and the head of a man with a square beard

Before speaking of something inauspicious, its always wise to invoke the protection of a lamassu. This one has accepted the change from guarding a palace to guarding a museum, so I’m sure he won’t mind guarding a blogger. (British Museum, ME 118872, photo used with permission)

As a layman it often seems that authoritative statements by official-sounding people represent what experts think. The sort of people who appear on television, write columns for newspapers, and sell books in every airport stand in for a larger group whose works one lacks the time and training to understand. As one studies a field one realizes that the most visible experts are often more knowledgeable about how to win a large audience than the subject itself, so one should look for literature which makes certain social signals to understand what the experts think. If the Oxford Classical Dictionary or the Reallexikon der Assyriologie tells you to read something, that something is probably widely respected by experts in its field; if a book was published by Harvard University Press or in the series Achaemenid History, it at least has its nihil obstat.

As one spends time chatting with scholars from different universities, however, one realizes something else. A view can be commonly held for years before it appears in print if the holders are reluctant to cause trouble or lack standing in the right sub-field. If one thinks that most of the scholars in a particular field are starting from shaky assumptions or not thinking clearly, it can be difficult to get one of them to sign off on your article telling them so. In other words, scholarly literature does not necessarily tell you what the experts think either; it just tells you what those with the determination and resources to publish are willing to proclaim in public. To quote Danforth, that great man of science, “Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!”

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