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Did Lucian Parody the Book of Revelation in His Satirical "True History"?

9/1/2020

70 Comments

 
Classicist Peter Gainsford made an interesting case on his blog that the humorous ancient Greek science fiction satire of Lucian called The True History includes a close parody of the New Jerusalem of the Book of Revelation. I can definitely see Gainsford’s point, but my gut instinct is that Lucian wasn’t directly drawing on the Christian text in imagining the fantastical paradise on the Isle of the Blessed where the heroic dead reside. Let’s take a quick look at what Gainsford says in order to puzzle out whether he’s right and whether Lucian had it in for Christianity’s most psychedelic text.
First, it is beyond doubt that Lucian, a second-century Syrian, knew about Christianity and didn’t think much of it. His Death of Peregrinus mocked Christians for purposely living miserable lives because of an unevidenced belief in immortality, and he scoffed at their primitive communism in which they scorned personal property without any objective guarantee of divine recompense after death.
 
However, Gainsford’s arguments rest on a comparison between True History 2.11-13 and Revelation 21-22, which he presents in brief excerpts but might better be compared in longer form:
Revelation (NRV)
Chapter 23
… It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. 12  It had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. 13  There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south and three on the west. 14  The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

15  The angel who talked with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city, its gates and its walls. 16  The city was laid out like a square, as long as it was wide. He measured the city with the rod and found it to be 12,000 stadia[c] in length, and as wide and high as it is long. 17  The angel measured the wall using human measurement, and it was 144 cubits thick. 18  The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass. 19 The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, 20  the fifth onyx, the sixth ruby, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth turquoise, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst.[f] 21 The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of gold, as pure as transparent glass.

22  I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23  The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. 24  The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. 25  On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. 26  The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. 27 Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
 
Chapter 24
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
Lucian, True History (trans. Fowler & Fowler)
Book 2

11 The whole of this city is built of gold, and the enclosing wall of emerald. It has seven gates, each made of a single cinnamon plank. The foundations of the houses, and all ground inside the wall, are ivory; temples are built of beryl, and each contains an altar of one amethyst block, on which they offer hecatombs. Round the city flows a river of the finest perfume, a hundred royal cubits in breadth, and fifty deep, so that there is good swimming. The baths, supplied with warm dew instead of ordinary water, are in great crystal domes heated with cinnamon wood.

12 [The residents’] raiment is fine cobweb, purple in colour. They have no bodies, but are intangible and unsubstantial — mere form without matter; but, though incorporeal, they stand and move, think and speak; in short, each is a naked soul, but carries about the semblance of body; one who did not touch them would never know that what he looked at was not substantial; they are shadows, but upright, and coloured. A man there does not grow old, but stays at whatever age he brought with him. There is no night, nor yet bright day; the morning twilight, just before sunrise, gives the best idea of the light that prevails. They have also but one season, perpetual spring, and the wind is always in the west.

13 The country abounds in every kind of flower, in shrubs and garden herbs. There are twelve vintages in the year, the grapes ripening every month; and they told us that pomegranates, apples, and other fruits were gathered thirteen times, the trees producing twice in their month Minous. Instead of grain, the corn develops loaves, shaped like mushrooms, at the top of the stalks. Round the city are 365 springs of water, the same of honey, and 500, less in volume however, of perfume. There are also seven rivers of milk and eight of wine.
Truthfully, I just don’t see the similarities as being all that close. Gainsford claims that their sequence proves similarity: The cities are both of gold, have gates (pearl and cinnamon, respectively), have foundations (twelve of jewels for Revelation and one of ivory for Lucian), either no temple or all the temples, a river of life or of myrrh, and magic fruit (the tree of life with twelve fruits or grape vines with twelve wines, respectively). Both exist in a twilight world with no sun or moon.
 
It’s not really all that close, truthfully, any more so than one might imagine any holy city. Lucian’s description of the city of the blessed dead would seem to draw more directly on Greek ideas about the afterlife, in their late form. The Isle of the Blessed existed in the farthest west, as Hesiod testifies, beyond where the sun and moon shine on the normal world. Its perpetual spring is merely symbolic of eternal rebirth and was known long before Lucian, or Revelation, as Plutarch testifies in Life of Sertorius 8. The formless dead conform to Homeric ideas about the loved dead existing as disembodied shades, a deeply contrary idea to Christians’ insistence that the New Jerusalem would exist on Earth, filled with the resurrected bodies of the dead.
 
Gainsford says Lucian’s account is a satire, so his substitution of a plank of cinnamon for a pearl is humorous. I guess one could make that case, since Revelation imagines a pearl as big as a gate and Lucian imagines the tiny cinnamon shrub growing equally large. But is cinnamon a funny plant? More likely he meant to tie cinnamon gates to the river of myrrh, both of which Philostratus the Elder in Imagines 2.1 and Theophrastus in On Odors 6 identify as components of unguents and perfumes used in sacred rites.
 
If the two cities share a connection, I don’t think it was a terribly direct one. Reading Lucian’s description, I can’t help but think of the Near Eastern descriptions of the underground city of the dead where the sun retires at night. A hymn to the sun-god Shamash describes his passage into the Underworld, believed to be locked within seven gates, surrounded by a river. Shamash passes through the Garden of the Sun, where the trees bear gems as fruit, and both the lapis lazuli palace of the goddess of the Underworld and the mansion of the golden sun exist there, in what they called “the Great City.” While it was a much gloomier place that Lucian imagines, the point is that similar motifs were long in circulation.
 
We similarly see echoes of magical cities with the same collections of gates, rivers, and magic trees in Arabic literature, which preserved Late Antique Greek accounts not otherwise preserved. The infamous case of Adocentyn from the Picatrix, a late corruption of an earlier Hermetic account of the city of Outiratis, contained (in the older version) four gates, a magic pond, and wonders established by a great king; “He planted a tree that bore all kinds of fruit, and he built a lighthouse whose height was eighty cubits; at the top he put a dome that changed color every day; it assumed seven colors over the seven days of the week, and then it returned to its first color” (Akhbar al-zaman 2.1, my trans.). This story is first attested around 900 CE or so, but it is obviously drawn on an older Hermetic original.
 
It should go without saying that the description Lucian gives is not exactly miles away from Plato’s Atlantis or Euhemerus’s Panchaea, also mythical, divine cities of wealth and majesty. Similarly, the fragments of Mimnertus speak of a city of the sun called Aea, at the gates of the underworld, where the solar rays are kept in a chamber made of gold. It is hardly a stretch to move from there to a city of gold, without St. John’s help. The later version of that same city, eventually reduced to the capital of Colchis in the Argonautica over the passage of time, still describes it as a miracle in stone and bronze, possessed of wondrous fountains from which flowed various liquids, and constructed by the god Hephaestus. This story derives from a Homeric account of the palace of Alcinous (itself taken over from an earlier Argonautica), and both in turn reflect a generalized set of descriptive boasts about royal and divine palaces found across Indo-European poetic traditions, according to M. L. West in Indo-European Poetry and Myth. The city of the beloved dead is merely a palace writ large and can be explained entirely on these grounds without the need for Revelation.
 
So, basically, I’m not fully comfortable with assuming that Lucian was specifically parodying a few paragraphs from Revelation without any other Christian satire in his yarn.
70 Comments
Brian
9/2/2020 09:45:46 am

Lucian was probably the funniest writer of his time, and for a long while thereafter. If he had meant to satirize the Christians in any way, I think we can confidently say that he would done it with no possible chance of our missing the joke. Gainsford's effort seems more than a bit strained.

Reply
Ashin wirathu
9/2/2020 07:02:58 pm

Indeed, he is trying to hammer a round peg into a square hole.

Reply
A C
9/2/2020 01:07:26 pm

Revelation's New Jerusalem is a symbolic building intended for a certain audience, which presumes a pre-existing symbolic language that would allow its symbolism to be interpreted.

If there weren't people expecting to read something like Revelation 23 then it wouldn't have been written. If that audience existed then there will have been other texts written for the same audience many of which would not have survived past the 2nd century let alone to the modern period.

Even if Lucien wanted to parody Revelation specifically both his parody and his target would both exist in a wider tradition.

Reply
Kent
9/2/2020 03:00:03 pm

The Revelation one, on the left, sounds like a maṇḍala मण्डल, not saying that it *is* but maybe this is how humans tend to go about building imaginary holy cities. Lucian's, on the right, sounds more like Atlantis maybe? Because of its going into detail about activities. Of course Atlantis is in my view on the same level as Garner's characterization of the vice-presidency but perhaps people who actually care will chime in.

Of course there is an Old Testament precursor so it's possible that Lucian was mocking Jews. Or Jews and Plato.

Reply
T. Franke link
9/2/2020 04:34:02 pm

I just felt excited because we have here a reasonable comparison of two cities which may look similar on a superficial level, but which are not. Exactly what I experience with Atlantis all the time. All the time somebody comes around the corner and says, "hey, doesn't this look like Atlantis?" No, it does not.

So, the following sentence disappointed me: "the description Lucian gives is not exactly miles away from Plato’s Atlantis or Euhemerus’s Panchaea, also mythical, divine cities of wealth and majesty."

Atlantis is not "mythical" at all. It is explicitly called non-mythical, Socrates is glad to have a non-mythical text to exemplify his philosophy. It may be invented and a deception. But surely not mythical. And it is not "divine". At least not more than any other ancient city. There is a foundation myth. And that is that. Which, by the way, fits perfectly into Plato's real beliefs of history's beginnings and cyclical history. There are no wonders and no monsters in Atlantis. And even the buildings and ages are not bigger or older than what Herodotus and other Greek historians reported as being true stories (and they were believed as true stories). Even the places are clearly depicted: The mud in front of the straits of Gibraltar (in which everybody believed in these times), and the city in Sais. Well-known places in the ancient world. No otherworldly stuff.

And then Lucian. We could learn so much of him.

He is one of the first to write novels in a modern sense. Stories which are not true and which expect the reader to realize this. Exactly what certain scholars say of Atlantis, hundreds of years before this literary development. Lucian even has to add at the beginning of his True Stories that they are not true. Compare this to modern novels starting with the sentence that random similarities of characters of the novel .... you know this. Still today fictional texts are tacitly marked as such, e.g. by printing the word "Novel" or "Thriller" on the cover. (Check your bookshelf: Do you find a novel without such a hint?)

So, Atlantis may be invented, but a novel-like story? No way.

This was e.g. pointed out by Wilhelm Brandenstein, find a summary of his findings here: https://www.atlantis-scout.de/atlantis_brandenstein_engl.htm

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Kent
9/2/2020 06:24:59 pm

Myths are invented. Both of the cities in this article are sold as divine and the one from Revelations certainly has predecessors so for comparison, just so you can calibrate your Think-O-Meter, nowhere in Lord of the Rings does it say either "this is invented" or "this is myth" but it is both.

In your zeal to say "Atlantis is the shizzle" you have topped yourself in the Disappointment Department.

"Still today fictional texts are tacitly marked as such, e.g. by printing the word "Novel" or "Thriller" on the cover. (Check your bookshelf: Do you find a novel without such a hint?)"

NONE of my novels have such a hint. This is one of your most idiotic assertions ever. How something can be "tacitly marked" is a mystery to me. I am sooooo disappointed today.

No foundation myth? Read the Old Testament and get back to us.

Be best!

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T. Franke link
9/2/2020 09:43:45 pm

No. Real myths are rather not invented. They have grown over time. Artificial myths are invented. But artificial myths are presented as myths. While Atlantis ... is not presented as a myth but as the opposite of a myth. So Atlantis is neither a real myth nor an artificial myth. It may still be an invention, but surely not a myth.

Yes. Both cities above are sold as divine. But not Atlantis.

Foundations myths: Athens and Rome have that, too. Both cities are real, I visited them already! And their foundation myths are alive still today. In Rome you can see the she-wolf, in Athens you can see the temples of Athena and Hephaestus. Are these words the beginning of a novel?!

The "Novel" or "Thriller" label: I checked with "Lord of the Rings", and look what I found: No label. I checked with Dan Brown and Stephen King: They have their label. I conclude the following from this: (a) The label is given predominantly to fictional books which liken reality. Obvious fantasy books don't need them. (b) Your bookshelf is full of fantasy since none of your books has such a label. No thrillers and no reality novels in your bookshelf.

You completely bypassed the crucial statements in my posting. It is worth going up and reading it again. There is more in it than you dared to deride.

Gary X.
9/3/2020 08:43:07 pm

“NONE of my novels have such a hint.”

I’d love to read your novels — where can I acquire them?

Kent
9/3/2020 09:27:14 pm

"No. Real myths are rather not invented."

Sez you, Skeezix. You don't get to decide that in the same way you don't get to tell me what's on my bookshelf.

Ernie nevers
9/4/2020 01:44:56 pm

Foundation myths tend to apply to real places that have had supernatural element added to their purported origins. Since there is no real evidence for the existence of the fantastical entity described as Atlantis, and it is supposed to have been created in part by the actions of deities, it would be difficult to avoid using myth or mythical in describing Atlantis whether it be its origin, existence, and characteristics.

Terms like real, invented, and artificial myth dont really make sense. Either something is a myth or has mythical elements or not.

T. Franke link
9/4/2020 03:58:26 pm

@Ernie Nevers:

I heavily disagree that a myth is defined only by its contents, and not also by its coming into being. Regarding the contents, the "Lord of the Rings" is not so different to ancient Greek myths. But one is a novel with a known author, always received as a novel, whereas the myths are stories of old which were really believed until a certain moment. This is a big difference. And I think it is also a big difference whether a story was invented, or whether it developed over time without intentional invention. No, you can't confuse this all. We have to sort this out very precisely. And don't say, oh come on, don't take this all too serious, and it does not matter, since it is anyway clear that Atlantis is an invention. Because it isn't.

Furthermore, you call Atlantis a "fantastical" entity. Tell me, what exactly is the fantastical about it? We discussed the foundation myths. But else? Please keep in mind: Herodotus' histories have bigger numbers of sizes and ages and are not fantastical (though simply wrong). So, what exactly is the fantastical? Do the Atlantean kings descend to hell and come back? No. Do they fly to heaven after having drunken the blood? No. Does the bull's blood write letters on the stone? No. I really do not get it. In the eyes of an ancient Greek, Atlantis is not so uncredible as many judge based on their modern point of view.

Ernie nevers
9/5/2020 10:59:13 am

The foundation myth is the primary mythical element of the tale that I was referring to. The physical descriptions of the fortifications and the use of massive quantities of then very valuable materials seems fantastical to me. The notion of a huge island completely disappearing so quickly without a trace is fantastical. I could be wrong but I thought that the story involved the notion that atlantis was destroyed because it lost favor with the gods.

Again either something is a myth or has mythical elements or not. Concepts like artificial myth simply do not make sense since any story not rooted completely in fact has involved a process of fabrication.

T. Franke link
9/5/2020 07:32:02 pm

@Ernie Nevers:

Your are right. These features are indeed all called "mythical" or "fantastical" in our days. If this was a movie from Hollywood from the 1960s, this would be as you say. But it isn't. It is a story by good old Plato, some 2500 years ago. The guy who defined man as having no feathers and walking on two legs.

- Plato criticized Homer for depicting gods as evil, but he did not criticize him for depicting gods at all. Gods were a reality for Plato. Plato is even the forerunner of later monotheistic religions, degrading gods to a kind of angels. So, gods are not mythical for Plato. Not at all. Only certain depictions of them.

Concerning the sudden disappearance of the island, the ancients did not know whether this is possible or not. This is exactly the discussion of Posidonius about Atlantis some centuries later. And Posidonius says that despite all doubts he rather stays with believing in the existence of Atlantis. This is the answer of the ancients on this subject.

Concerning the valuable materials etc., I wouldn't call them "mythical" or "fantastical", since such palaces and cities did exist in reality. Just read the descriptions of Herodotus about Ecbatana or Babylon. These walls! Thicker and bigger! More colours! Etc. In Egyptian palaces, gold was used to plaster the floor of palaces. etc. etc. So, "mythical" and "fantastical" only in the figurative sense. Not really.

Conclusion: Under the ancient perspective, and even more so under the special Platonic perspective, these things are neither mythical nor fantastical.

E.P. Grondine
9/12/2020 01:48:51 pm

Hi Ernie -

"Either something is a myth or has mythical elements or not."

Plato preserved some memories of what might be called a "minoan confederation". See Man and Impact in the Americas for discussion.

An Over-Educated Grunt
9/3/2020 07:54:53 am

Just so I understand your argument, are you saying that fiction, and therefore the understanding that the story was not true or meant to be taken as such, was a late invention?

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T. Franke link
9/3/2020 11:58:22 am

@An over-educated grunt:

Literary texts which were invented, but not revealing this explicitly, and which expected their readers to enjoy them while recognizing at the same time that the text is not true developed only later. Including the typical literary devices, all known to us, which indicate that the story is not true.

This leaves open the possibilty that the Atlantis story is an invention in the sense of a Noble Lie, what a certain part of the scholars assume.

Take e.g. Homer's Odyssey, it reveals the untruthfulness of its stories (a) by the "polytropos" character of the story-teller Odysseus, (b) by the lies Odysseus uses when back at Ithaca: Each of them revealing one of his adventure stories as a lie. -- Theatre plays: They depicted myths or historical events, so they invented the details but not the story. The comedy may be an exception. Nobody expected comedy plays to reflect a real story without explicitly stating this.

An Over-Educated Grunt
9/3/2020 06:18:22 pm

Sinuhe wept.

So did Aesop.

So did the anonymous author of the Book of Daniel.

So did Virgil, won composed the Aeneid out of whole cloth as an Augustan propaganda piece.

None of them, with the possible exception of Virgil, were expected to be read as literal truth, and Virgil only because he wrote it as propaganda.

But clearly Plato, who can't even be bothered to keep his characterization of Sockpuppet Socrates consistent, must have been telling the truth about Atlantis when he has the guests at a dinner party discuss how this mythical island kingdom grew proud and was cast down by the gods. There's no way that's a metaphor for post-Peloponnesian War Athens, watching its influence get stripped away. No, clearly that's really talk about a real giant island.

Next you'll tell me a man is that which lacks feathers and goes on two legs. After all, Plato said it.

E.P. Grondine
9/4/2020 10:22:38 am

Well, T., Plato certainly succeeded in his primary task, writing a great story. I often wonder how we got the accepted text, and what the original text was. I have not seen much work done on this.

But as for me, please excuse me if I just look at primary contemporrary documents, and leave those problems for others.

T. Franke link
9/4/2020 04:29:03 pm

@An over-educated grunt:

Virgil, as you rightly say, did not invent his story. He made a poem out of an allegedly true story. And he lived long after Plato, close to the invention of the novel. -- Aesop was the author of fables. Fables are stories with animals behaving like human beings. That is a similar case like comedy. An established genre recognized as such. I come to this later. -- Sinuhe is an autobiography. Wikipedia: "There is an ongoing debate among Egyptologists as to whether or not the tale is based on actual events". You know my opinion. -- The Book of Daniel is a book of belief. You could also ask the question whether Jesus did not exist as a historical person since he allegedly walked on water. My humble opinion: He did exist, though not walking on water (but they once really believed this). The same is valid for the Book of Daniel. -- Plato's dialogues: Another established genre. Plato was not the first one to write such arranged dialogues. (Please do not confuse the fictional form of the text with the non-fictional contents of the text. Plato's philosophy is real, working with real arguments which work outside the fictional dialogue, too.)

But you are right: With comedy, Aesop's fables and philosophical dialogues there were established literary genres which expected the reader to recognize the fictionality without feeling betrayed. So, you could at least weaken my argument. Congratulations!

Nevertheless, the historicizing novel, the novel itself and as such, was invented only much later. This is not my idea, this is the common sense concerning ancient Greek literature. And you shouldn't have written "mythical island kingdom". It is not presented as such, and it has not the features of a myth. And it is both at once: A real historical story which serves as an example which can be applied also to contemporary events, such as the Persian wars.

"Next you'll tell me a man is that which lacks feathers and goes on two legs. After all, Plato said it."

Oh yes! Man has undoubtedly no feathers, and he undoubtedly goes on two legs! Plato is right ..... did you ever think about how modern biologists classify human beings in their biological schemes? Men are mammals, not belonging to the kingdom of birds etc., and man managed to go on two legs, unlike other mammals, because of which there is talk of "homo erectus", "homo habilis" etc. Plato was really not so far from modern biology. It's a Linnean-like classification scheme.

@EP Grondine:

The Platonic text is relatively well-preserved, compared to other authors. The reason is that he was much read and so many manuscripts were produced, and survived. We have also Latin translations which allow a comparison.

Kent
9/4/2020 10:53:37 pm

I too thought (immediately) of Aesop. And the Nalopakyanam, the Bhagavad Gita, etc. But die geheime Romanpolizei has spoken so my suggestion is to get in line.

And if your novels didn't come pre-labelled it would be wise to get on the stick, get off the schneid, and start labeling them yourself.
All novels must be labeled!

T. Franke link
9/4/2020 11:15:54 pm

Kent, what about facebook and Twitter labelling the president's postings as Fake News, while at the same time not labelling New York Times, although the NYT publishes very romantic novels? The schneid of "liberal" America is very polizei.

Kent
9/5/2020 04:32:17 pm

Great deflection!! So much more fun than just admitting that novels and thrillers (which are also novels) are generally not "tacitly" labelled as such.

Who would you rather hire for a children's party, a clown or a Pontificator?

"Man has undoubtedly no feathers, and he undoubtedly goes on two legs! Plato is right"

Kangaroos, gibbons, the list goes on. Hackenschmutz!

T. Franke link
9/5/2020 07:16:05 pm

Kent, it is not my fault that novels are often labelled as novels, though not as regularly as I thought, and sometimes even contain legal phrases to protect the editor from readers who take the story seriously. And yes, you should admire the beginnings of science though funny it may look, sometimes. Plato's classification project was continued by Aristotle, and guess what, there are even funnier stories about what Aristotle believed .... but that's how it all began.

Kent
9/5/2020 11:26:38 pm

Also black bears.

I don't GAF about Plato.

Settle down, Herbert. You're not selling me any hairwater.

ONE GUY is "the response of the Ancients"? Stow that nonsense.

T. Franke link
9/4/2020 08:27:49 pm

The introduction of Lucian's "True Stories" is remarkable and worth reading:

"When I come across a writer of this sort [Homer etc.], I do not much mind his lying; the practice is much too well established for that, even with professed philosophers; I am only surprised at his expecting to escape detection."

Please note that he interprets these authors as liars. So not as creative writers like novel writers (they are no liars), but as real liars who do NOT want to be detected as telling not the truth. This is key to the novelty of Lucian's time. Because he now does something else:

"I see no reason for resigning my right to that inventive freedom which others enjoy; and, as I have no truth to put on record, having lived a very humdrum life, I fall back on falsehood--but falsehood of a more consistent variety; for I now make the only true statement you are to expect--that I am a liar."

This statement may be the invention of the novel as literary genre: An untrue text, of which the reader is and shall be fully aware of, but nevertheless enjoys the text.

"This confession is, I consider, a full defence against all imputations. My subject is, then, what I have neither seen, experienced, nor been told, what neither exists nor could conceivably do so. I humbly solicit my readers' incredulity."

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Machala
9/6/2020 12:26:51 pm

There is a very fine line in Greek between liar and storyteller. I am not sure, without looking at the original text that Lucian did not call himself a fabalist or storyteller rather than a liar.
The Greek translation of ψεύτης
(pséf̱ti̱s) is storyteller.
A variation of common variation ψέστης

(psésti̱s) is ψεύτη

(pséfti) meaning liar

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T. Franke link
9/6/2020 05:25:14 pm

Machala, it is an absolute classical passage and what I told is not my own idea but the prevailing interpretation since ... I don't know, the 19th century, if not earlier.

The original is: κἂν ἓν γὰρ δὴ τοῦτο ἀληθεύσω λέγων ὅτι ψεύδομαι. That translates roughly to: "And now there's one thing then, about which I will be truthful in telling (about which I will tell the truth), that I lie / am lying." So he is lying. Without this, his whole argument would not work and lost its sense.

An Over-Educated Grunt
9/6/2020 03:58:10 pm

That sword has two edges, you may note, as he also describes philosophers as liars.

Such as Plato.

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T. Franke link
9/7/2020 05:58:39 am

An over-educated grunt:

Exactly, you start to realize why I am saying, it cannot be a novel-like text (readers expected to see the invention) but it could be a deception, a "Noble Lie" (readers not expected to see the invention).

Bezalel
9/5/2020 10:08:46 pm

I like the idea of myth as "truthy history wrapped in fictions", sort of like the Zohar or Gita or Odyssey, but I don't know for sure the author's ('s) intentions.

What I do know is a healthy sniff of cinnamon helps me remember stuff, so homage to Lucian!

Mostly the George Carlin kind of stuff.

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Charles Verrastro link
9/6/2020 05:59:38 pm

Or, as Aristotle distinguished as a secondary category of conviction in rhetoric, it would be 'pisteis entechnoi', an 'artistic proof'. Was Jesus a liar in his parables? (Opening a huge can of worms here, no doubt).

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Charles Verrastro link
9/6/2020 01:18:19 pm

Lucian could just as easily have taken the extravagant palaces of Roman Emperors, such as Nero's scandalously bedecked "Golden House", as his model to satirize, as Jason alludes in passing in his comments.

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Bezalel
9/7/2020 06:23:07 pm

What evidence is there Plato ever wrote/spoke without using allegory?

I'm surprised no one brings up his Laws book II where he has his Athenian speak of Egyptian art flourishing "literally 10,000 years ago..." as "evidence" he must have also been serious in his Timaeus about Atlantis ~9500 BC

No Takers?

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T. Franke link
9/12/2020 03:11:37 pm

Bezalel, very true that Plato meant these numbers seriously. It is just what had been believed by all ancient Greeks in this time. Herodotus wrote of Egypt as being 11,340 years old and older.

Now, since the 19th century, we know that Egypt had its beginnings only in 3,000 BC.

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Charles Verrastro link
9/8/2020 02:04:43 pm

Perhaps because, like other extra-canonical quotations outside Plato's two main narratives by later writers they can be quite equivocal as to their import. In this case it is wise to remember the argument starts about the value of drinking.
As to the point you raise, it is worthwhile to show the fuller statement.
"CLEINIAS: And what are the laws about music and dancing in Egypt?
ATHENIAN: You will wonder when I tell you: Long ago they appear to have recognized the very principle of which we are now speaking—that their young citizens must be habituated to forms and strains of virtue. These they fixed, and exhibited the patterns of them in their temples; and no painter or artist is allowed to innovate upon them, or to leave the traditional forms and invent new ones. To this day, no alteration is allowed either in these arts, or in music at all. And you will find that their works of art are painted or moulded in the same forms which they had ten thousand years ago;—this is literally true and no exaggeration,— their ancient paintings and sculptures are not a whit better or worse than the work of to-day, but are made with just the same skill.
CLEINIAS: How extraordinary!
ATHENIAN: I should rather say, How statesmanlike, how worthy of a legislator! I know that other things in Egypt are not so well. But what I am telling you about music is true and deserving of consideration, because showing that a lawgiver may institute melodies which have a natural truth and correctness without any fear of failure.
The image of Socrates as a jolly, wily wit whose descendants (Plato/Aristotle) show an increasingly sober if not pedantic idea of lofty philosophy has been so ingrained over the years it is often stated categorically Plato would not have created a false narrative to prove some rhetorical point. What else are virtually all of his writings but fictive "dialogues" to unfold philosophic principles? Don't forget the Socratic "writings" are actually composed by Plato, nothing surviving of the Sage's original teachings by his own hand. There is a trove of playful irony in Plato.
The Athenian gives away some of his rhetorical tricks just after this: "ATHENIAN: Is it altogether unmeaning to say, as the common people do about festivals, that he should be adjudged the wisest of men, and the winner of the palm, who gives us the greatest amount of pleasure and mirth? For on such occasions, and when mirth is the order of the day, ought not he to be honoured most, and, as I was saying, bear the palm, who gives most mirth to the greatest number? Now is this a true way of speaking or of acting?
CLEINIAS: Possibly.
ATHENIAN: But, my dear friend, let us distinguish between different cases, and not be hasty in forming a judgment: One way of considering the question will be to imagine a festival at which there are entertainments of all sorts, including gymnastic, musical, and equestrian contests: the citizens are assembled; prizes are offered, and proclamation is made that any one who likes may enter the lists, and that he is to bear the palm who gives the most pleasure to the spectators—there is to be no regulation about the manner how; but he who is most successful in giving pleasure is to be crowned victor, and deemed to be the pleasantest of the candidates: What is likely to be the result of such a proclamation?
CLEINIAS: In what respect?
ATHENIAN: There would be various exhibitions: one man, like Homer, will exhibit a rhapsody, another a performance on the lute; one will have a tragedy, and another a comedy. Nor would there be anything astonishing in some one imagining that he could gain the prize by exhibiting a puppet- show. Suppose these competitors to meet, and not these only, but innumerable others as well—can you tell me who ought to be the victor?
CLEINIAS: I do not see how any one can answer you, or pretend to know, unless he has heard with his own ears the several competitors; the question is absurd.
ATHENIAN: Well, then, if neither of you can answer, shall I answer this question which you deem so absurd?
CLEINIAS: By all means.
ATHENIAN: If very small children are to determine the question, they will decide for the puppet show."
Do not be entranced by the puppet, my son. Train your eye on who pulls the strings.

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T. Franke link
9/9/2020 09:18:03 am

The Victorian age brought up the idea of much irony in Plato's dialogues, but in recent decades it became clear that this is a wrong idea. Many statements which appear to be ironic are not ironic.

A milestone is e.g. Melissa Lane, Reconsidering Socratic Irony, in: Donald R. Morrison (Hrsg.), The Cambridge Companion to Socrates, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2010; S. 237-259.

Even the Greek word eironeia shall not be translated with "irony".This is the same as with mythos and "myth". When Plato says "mythos" it is often not a myth he is talking about.

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Charles Verrastro link
9/9/2020 05:35:34 pm

I'm aware of Lane's (et al) revisionism. It didn't start with the Victorians, it even precedes the Alexandrians. Especially as regards the Atlantis tale.
The distinctions are subtle and most scholars don't deny they are mostly intentionally framed as set pieces to be used as basis for arguments. Of course, as grammarians insist on telling us, even in the English language 'ironic' doesn't mean what 98% of even educated people think it does. And Socratic Irony was it's own original category of discourse.
However, the point I was trying to make is one simply can't take what Plato states at face value at each and every turn, or we must also believe he actually conceived people were created as bi-sexed globes fused back to back. Socrates may come off as an ancient prototype for Detective Columbo but it was an effective for leading his hearers to discover some truths for themselves.
The Prehistoric, Classical and late Greeks could mean several different things by the terms 'legend' and 'myth'. But if one accepts that he essentially created the Atlantis tale in all it's specificity as it appears in his writings, even if based on some largely forgotten events, than Plato was creating a Myth in the general sense.

T. Franke link
9/10/2020 05:48:04 pm

Charles Verrastro,

The Romantic idea of irony of the 19th century surely did not start with the Alexandrians. And especially not with regard to the Atlantis story. Is there any Alexandrian talking about the Atlantis story? Or even questioning it? Not that I have heard of. Some guess that Eratosthenes is behind the doubts in Strabo 2.3.6 (and not Aristotle). This may be. But this is speculation.

Philon of Alexandria cited Theophrastus with a positive statement about the existence of Atlantis, so we can conclude that Philon with all likelihood himself was of this opinion.

Of course we cannot take Plato at face value "at each and every turn". This would be crazy since he himself is very open about the varying quality of talks he presents. The bi-sexed globes e.g. are described in a story explicitly qualified as "myth". And the dialogue participant presenting it is the comedian Aristophanes. -- Also the dialogues as such are literary compositions, obviously.

With Atlantis, Plato was not creating a "myth", and this with absolute certainty, since neither does the story meet the criteria of a myth, nor is it presented as a myth. It may be an invention, though, but if so, then with the intention not to be recognized as such but with the intention to deceive. (But there are arguments against this possibility, too, but I leave it at that.)

E.P. Grondine
9/12/2020 01:41:59 pm

Hi T. -

I believe that Augustine wrote in De Res Novo about Romans sailing off to find Atlantis, but I've had a stroke

Kent
9/12/2020 05:13:54 pm

You've been playing that stroke card for years and you generally refer people to your own self-published work as a reference. As Dana Carvey doing G.W.H. Bush said, "Nuh guh duh."

What you call "my Etruscan dictionary" is as you honestly state, a reworking of someone else's Etruscan dictionary.

Stop the madness. Be best!

E.P. Grondine
9/12/2020 08:34:30 pm

Hi Kent -

It is,"my" etruscan dictionary. All of the U3 mt DNA cognates are my own. I am the first to spot this, the migration of the first farmers. That is one of the reasons I am a great intellect, and you are not. There are several other reasons, but that is not my problem.

So what have you done lately? Anything at all?

T. Franke link
9/13/2020 11:01:05 am

Thank you, E.P. Grondine, and good health!

Augustine believed in an age of the world of only 6000 years and criticized therefore the idea of Egypt being 10,000+ years old, and he rejected the idea of cyclical history and all connected with it. Atlantis is not explicitly mentioned in Augustine's works.

Kent
9/13/2020 06:25:48 pm

"How can people see my genius?"
"I am a great intellect"

Jeebus Chreebus you are full of yourself! Okay, it's "your" dictionary because YOU ADDED STUFF TO SOMEONE ELSE'S DICTIONARY and now you're playing the dead girlfriend card which you trotted out some time ago. You like to replay cards.

And you think Proto-Indoeuropean is a people. That's totes adorbs.

I have some minor accomplishments as anyone does but I don't go around talking about them. Seriously dude. You're a buffoon. With all due respect.

E.P. Grondine
9/9/2020 06:24:24 pm

"The Platonic text is relatively well-preserved, compared to other authors. The reason is that he was much read and so many manuscripts were produced, and survived. We have also Latin translations which allow a comparison."

The reason I ask is the 10,000 year number, as I am wondering if it was not 1,000 in the original. For my commentary, see "Man and Impact in th Americas". From what I can make out from Mesoamerican texts, and now the geological record, we're looking at an impact tsunami in the Atlantic Ocean. I have not worked through all of the contemporary records yet By the way, wasn't Timaeus an astronomer?

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T. Franke link
9/10/2020 10:00:15 am

Hello E.P. Grondine,

the Platonic text most certainly has 9000 years in its original, simply because this fits to a number mentioned in an other dialogue, the age of Egypt of 10,000 years (and more) mentioned in the Laws II 656e.

The speculation about mistakes in the number is mostly about a mistake on the translation from Egyptian to Greek language. But I do not find this convincing, because the Egyptians did not sum up their king lists and counted the years, until the Greeks started to ask questions.

The Timaeus of the dialogue is presented as a philosopher with specal qualities in astronomy. Most probably of Pythagorean background. Platonists are sometimes described as the "Protestants of Pythagoreanism" since they take over everyhing reasonable but omit the mythical stuff.

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E.P. Grondine
9/10/2020 06:04:29 pm

Hi T. -

Ah, but you are forgetting what got Socrates into so much trouble.

10,000 for the age of Egypt puts it back to the second Holocene Star Impact Event.

We can set the Thera eruption to 1628 BCE through tree rings.

We can set the Atlantic Impact Mege-tsunami to sometime in the 1000's BCE.

I prefer to work with contemporary documents for Bronze Age history. For my work, detailed catastrophe research, playing around with Plato's tale is not very useful See my notes over on academia.

I am waiting for Jason to give us a half way decent translation of Al Idrisi.



T. Franke link
9/11/2020 03:30:05 pm

E.P. Grondine, the 10,000 years do not take us back to "second Holocene Star Impact Event". Only, if you take them literally. But you should not. It's wrong. This date is related to a wrong chronology where Egypt is 11,000 years old (and more). I think I explained this a lot in this forum.

E.P. Grondine
9/12/2020 01:37:59 pm

Hi T. -

Given what has been found at Gobekli Tepe, I think it is quite likely that a very early advanced culture will be found in Egypt. I also think that an advanced symbol set will be found in use there pretty early on.

See contemporary records over at academia. I suppose that when the history is worked out, the myths and their construction will fall into place.

Stella Drifter
9/13/2020 08:01:57 pm

Most myths have been worked out. People just refuse to accept the conclusions because it impinges upon their religion.

I am certain ancient peoples experienced major comets. Our annual meteor showers are the remnants of these comets.

Charles Verrastro link
9/10/2020 05:39:34 pm

Not to be pedantic but just in an effort to clarify the last remark. The 10,000 + years is not referring to the start of Egyptian civilization, just the formation of a cultural style (specifically Dance and the Arts) that codified (or stultified, which seems the final judgement by art historians) over the millennia. Egypt had it's own mythic prehistory before the pharaohs, just like Greece had before the Heroic Age. Although noted Aristotle in Politics that "Egyptians are reputed to be the oldest of nations, but they have always had laws and a political system." Which became something of a mantra for the notion it sprang full blown from the sands like Athena from Zeus' brow. So the one date has little to do with the other. Plato's Egyptian priests pretend to recall several cataclysms of the earth while the Greeks merely had Deucalian's Flood.
Many people try to produce a more reasonable timeframe by reducing the 9,000 figure by subtracting a zero (or dropping a letter in the case of Greek) and ascribing it to scribal corruption. Hardly a rare occurrence when so many texts that survive are in late copies. But contemporary writers and slightly later commentators quote the Atlantis account, so we assume they at least had fairly good texts. So his point stands on good grounds there. And while the Egyptians were renowned for keeping ancient records they were extremely unhistorical in their methods, and even Manetho had to do some syncretism with Greek chronology to put solid dates to the king lists and flesh out the earliest events.

Reply
E.P. Grondine
9/11/2020 01:58:21 pm

Hi Charles -

Thanks for you information on the texts.

We have to remember that the blasphemy charges against Socrates were based in part on his understanding of ancient history. Plato had a real incentive to distance his account.

For my work on impacts, I use the best information available.
I prefer to work with contemporary records when they are available.

I am pretty certain, based on Native American records and the geological evidence, that there was an impact tsunami in the Atlantic in the 1,000's BCE. This had to collapse the Atlantic tin trade in Europe.

I am preparing for work on the Yazoo people, and this is my priority 1..

I how to make another run on Linear A next year. You may enjoy using my Etruscan Dictionary.

Reply
Kent
9/11/2020 06:38:40 pm

Would we find the Native American records on academia.edu or through interlibrary loan? At least Plato's stuff (and the Gospels) got written down in a reasonable amount of time.

T. Franke link
9/12/2020 11:38:18 am

E.P. Grondine, you wrote:

"We have to remember that the blasphemy charges against Socrates were based in part on his understanding of ancient history. "

I do not understand this. When I look up the charges against Socrates I do not find any such thing. It would be interesting to know which sources support your idea that the charges against Socrates were based in part on his understanding of ancient history.

Apology:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0170%3Atext%3DApol.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Socrates

E.P. Grondine
9/12/2020 01:27:23 pm

Hi Kent -

I find that my collection of Native American memeories of the Holocene Start Impact Events has been replaced on academia by Stirling Webb's excellent note on cometary impacts and the stochastic periodicity of geological ages.

How can anyone acknowlege my genius if they can not read my papers? Well, you can still enjoy my Etruscan Dictionary in the meantime. I am still waiting for Jason to tackle Al idrisi, in particular on North Africa.

E.P. Grondine
9/13/2020 12:00:33 pm

Hi T. -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Socrates

The exact charge was: asebeia (impiety) against the pantheon of Athens. If you think that Socrates did not have a pretty exact understanding of ancient Greek history, I'll have to differ with you.

T. Franke link
9/11/2020 03:43:16 pm

Charles Verrastro, you are right, the 10,000 years in Plato's Laws point to wall paintings, not to the foundation of Egypt. But the 10,000 years imply an age of Egypt which is at least 10,000 years old (meaning the non-mythical post-god-rulers period). Therefore I always write "xxx years (and more)". Herodotus set the mark with his 11,340 years (and more).

You are also right that the Egyptian annals which were "extremely unhistorical", since they were produced for religious purposes, not out of historical interest. The Egyptians did not provide any such number, and I am pretty sure that the succession of floods was Plato's own theory which he put into the mouth of the Egyptian priest.

In the end, the correct interpretation of these numbers is neither to take them literally, nor to suspect any number manipulation. The correct interpretation takes the historical context into consideration. And there we find the common mistake that all ancient Greeks believed in such an old age of Egypt. And all other given dates are related to this wrong chronology of Egypt. So the 9,000 years point to a real date after 3,000 BC when Egypt really had its beginning.

Reply
E.P. Grondine
9/15/2020 10:13:36 am

Hi T. -

You have to remember thtat the Black Sea flooded after the impact of 10,800 BCE. This drove out a fairly advanced population, one that used a symbol set.

Where this population landed in Egypt is currently not known, as there has been many years of erosion and sedimentation. There will have to be many years of geological work done before archaeology can proceed.

But as I mentioned earlier, I prefer to work with contemporary records, and thus I have nothing to add to my analysis of Plato's tale which I set out in Man and Impact in the Americas.

So I will leave Plato's construction of his moral tale to others such as yourself.

Charles Verrastro link
9/12/2020 04:57:29 pm

The antiquity of the Egyptians (and other cultures) was indeed overstated by the Greeks. They even stated one group had songs recording an oral history going back an impossible 40,000 years (the same figure modern science says the Neanderthal line went extinct and the very first primitive musical instruments were created.
I have always been leery of accepting Mesoamerican oral histories as historical records. Firstly, so many are either fraudulently used or newly forged by European writers to drive a particular theory (as with the Mound Culture, as Jason details so thoroughly. Or the vagueness of the traditional recitals can be used to make virtually any point. I am unconvinced, for instance about the recent reports there are memories of tsunamic events thousands of years in the past, either by Amerindians or Australian Aboriginals. Grondine knows more about impact events, and I can see some stories surrounding still visible impact craters being told. But whether they go back to original observations or were later reconstructions of what tribal people assumed must have occurred is another matter.
My own experiences make me jaundiced in this area. I grew up in Tonawanda, NY cheek-by-jowl alongside the Tonawanda tribal reservation. I also spent part of each year in Hollywood, FL, which also borders the Miccosukee/Seminole tribal lands. I've had the honor of knowing many clan chiefs such as Billy Bowlegs, Joe Dan and Bill Osceola and Betty Mae Tiger Jumper, the later of whom I worked with for many years. I am currently working on a book project begun with the latter on the unique history of Alligator Wrestling.
Now, among the many stories I heard from Betty Mae was one that sounded eerily like the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf tale. Moreover, I had heard almost the exact story among the Tonawanda storytellers. I discounted it as a loan-tale from one to the other by the fact in modern times many tribes meet and exchange cultural information along the Pow Wow meetings.
However, both said the story was very old. It was indeed, as I found later studying anthropology in University. It appears in Schoolcraft's compendium of Amerindian folktales. But as I subsequently learned it had been taken over originally by recensions of the Beowulf story by natives forcibly "re-educated" in European style schools.
Now, it is an odd fact that the first Gypsies to settle in America came by chance to Tonawanda and were allowed to camp on tribal lands. After many years of hearing from the Tonawanda Creeks who went to the Pow Wow gatherings in Florida bout the amenities of wintering there they followed suit and to this day appear here en mass each season. I also made many close friendships with them, and learned the Romish language. I even began what would have been the first written Rom-English dictionary with one of them who, unfortunately decided to seek out his family forebears in Romania, scuttling the project. I mention this because he too told a variant of the 'Beowulf' story, and it was actually closer to the Seminole than the Tonawanda version, showing how quickly oral history can be contaminated.
Perhaps Edmund's memory of Socrates' charges was similarly tainted by some modern theory (there was a strong effort by some recent scholars to paint Socrates as a Christ-like figure orchestrating his own death as a statement of some sort). But then again I believe he had a stroke, so I will not fault him with a minor correction.

Reply
E.P. Grondine
9/13/2020 11:52:59 am

Hi Charles -

For Meso America we have the books of the Chilam Balam, written records of great antiquity, not simply oral tales. And they are quite explicit about an impact tsunami in the Atlantic Ocean shortly before 1,000 BCE. The geological data from the Outer Banks here in the US shows the same, and as time progresses further geological research will likely show the same along the entire coastal margin.To sum up, based on historical data, impact presents a threat to the area occupied by the US today.

This impact tsunsmi would have stopped the tin trade from Britain, and left those peoples open for invasion, but then iron was being adopted at the same time. Welcome to late Bronze Age archaeology.

(Welcome also to the real world of global archaeology and global catastrophes. It includes global climate collapses, such as the 536 CE event caused by volcanic eruption.)

As far as the second of the Holocene Start Impact Events goes, they were devastating and formed a key chapter in most peoples tribal memories. Again, that is the area occupied by the US today.

The fight for the money for the NEOcam space telescope has been quite a struggle, but when it launches in 2022 the US and everyone else on this planet will be substantially safer.

(My Miccosukee lady friend of some 14 years, Kookidilla, has just passed, and I need to visit the res and share the news.)

Gypsies and alligator wrestlers! good luck with your efforts..

Reply
Charles Verrastro link
9/13/2020 09:52:00 pm

Didn't mean to disagree with you on your impact findings (I've read your impact studies since our last post and find them very impressive and painstaking). BTW, I was watching what seemed to be a typical feel good puff piece on this morning's CBS Sunday Morning show about backyard astronomers and the light pollution which increasingly narrows any ground-based windows to the sky. They actually mentioned how we don't have a comprehensive watch on our immediate environment with our best systems trained on deep space events, and how amateurs often catch meteorite and even Solar System impact events that the space telescopes and observatories miss. We need that system.
I was just pointing out while it may be possible for an oral tradition to hold unchanged for quite a while they are often not fixed to any specific site or date. But having a photographic memory myself and having studied mnemotics I believe traditional oral records can be quite enduring. But then again, somehow the Jews inexplicably forgot there was a Book of the Law and couldn't even make heads or tails of it after finding it in a treasure chest in the Temple until consulting a prophetess.
I was lambasted by my history professors for indicating in a paper the Druidic oral tradition may well have matched the Vedic Brahmin, just as the Greeks said. They felt I took it too far in defending the likes of forgers Iolo Morganwg, James Macpherson, and T. H. La Villemarque . I emailed him each time manuscripts turned up (like recently finding Villemarque's field notes) that indicate among their forgeries or interpolations they transmitted real folklore traditions.
Your Dictionary is the real thing. Always was stymied by the Etruscan language, despite speaking Italian and Sicilian and taking Classical Latin and Greek. But then I suspect even the Romans may have struggled a bit on first contact. My Grandmothers barely understood each other and they were from two villages just a few miles apart. I wonder if you think Charles Leland's 'Aradia' and his other Etruscan studies are worth a second look. Maddalena may have been a con artist but so was Edward Kelly and yet learned scholars like Leland and Dee felt each were on to something real even while suspecting their private agendas and impostures.

Reply
E.P. Grondine
9/14/2020 01:24:30 pm

Hi Charles -

I am very glad you are enjoying my Etruscan Dictionary. You will also find a few crude initial reading of inscriptions there on academia. You will probably be able to use my dictionary to read about any inscriptions you like.

Michael Grant has is a current book on the Etruscans which in very nice.

My current question is whether "Minoan" is closer to Lycian or Lydian. We'll see, G*d willing.

Concerning Druids, you will probably enjoy reading Adomnan's Life of Saint Columba. A real glimpse into Arthurian Dark Age Britain. I am pretty sure Mike Bailie would like to me look at early Irish literature, but it does notfascinate.

Yes, we really need the NEOcam.

Kent
9/14/2020 12:50:00 am

Oh my goodness. Chilam Bilam, written in the 1600s CE IN THE ROMAN ALPHABET and borrowing from Greek and Arab sources.

Not ancient, not records, not reliable.

I was wrong to call you a buffoon, but it was the best word I could come up with at the time. The well is deep but my rope is short.

On another note, an imaginary tsunami killed the tin trade??? Something bad happened (it didn't) and was over in an hour, and everyone decided "No more boats for us!" It buggers the imagination.

You need to sell your stuff further down the road.

Reply
Dean Key Cox
9/14/2020 01:00:31 pm

"my rope is short"


It's about time you were honest with everyone. Certainly explains your anger issues.

Be best.

E.P. Grondine
9/14/2020 01:05:20 pm

Good Morning, Kent -

Your desire to get your imagination buggered is not my problem.

It looks like I need to remind you that the Maya were literate.
Yes, there are European inclusions in the surviving texts in the surviving copies of the Chilam Balam books. But as a matter of fact, a great deal of work has been done on their history and construction, of which you know nothing. As in nada, zero, zilch.

There is nothing imaginary abut the Great Atlantic Impact Tsunami, which is something you are likely to learn any year now.

When I first wrote about the Holocene Star Impact Events, I met with similar derision from very limited minds. But I get up in the morning and continue work.

Kent
9/14/2020 07:35:21 pm

@Dean: I stole that from someone I don't respect, who stole it from someone else.

@Fake Indian:

"Your desire to get your imagination buggered is not my problem."
Similarly your focus on junior high school humor is not mine.

"It looks like I need to remind you that the Maya were literate."
In other news the sky is blue. How the Maya wrote their ancient records in the Roman alphabet drawing on Greek and Arab sources remains a mystery.

"Yes, there are European inclusions in the surviving texts in the surviving copies of the Chilam Balam books."

ALL written in the Roman alphabet. Mayan writing had not yet been deciphered.

"But as a matter of fact, a great deal of work has been done on their history and construction, of which you know nothing. As in nada, zero, zilch."
You really like to make assumptions don't you?

"There is nothing imaginary abut the Great Atlantic Impact Tsunami, which is something you are likely to learn any year now."
Of course there is. Its existence and facticity are imaginary. And you continue to assert but not prove that one bad day at sea caused the curtailment of a coast-hugging trade in tin. If indeed such trade existed.

"When I first wrote about the Holocene Star Impact Events, I met with similar derision from very limited minds. But I get up in the morning and continue work."
When even very limited minds deride you you should reconsider your assumptions, positions, and place in the universe.

You are a fluke of the universe.
You have no right to be here.
And whether you can hear it or not,
The universe is laughing behind your back.

E.P. Grondine
9/15/2020 08:00:34 pm

Hi Kunt -

One again, you know nothing about the books of the Chilam Balam. That is nothing, nada, zip, zilch.

While you refuse to acknowledge my Native American ancestry, there are very few Native Americans who do,except for some casino Indian wannabees.

By the way, have I ever mentioned to you before that my book is used for graduate level geology?

"When even very limited minds deride you you should reconsider your assumptions, positions, and place in the universe."

Your knowledge of Plato is as limited as your knowledge of geology and archaeology.Last time I checked, I am just another passenger on this planet. Perhaps I have done some good with my time here.

Kent
9/16/2020 01:52:54 am

Oh my goodness. Again with the profanity, which I'm surprised Jason allows, but his site, his rules. But when you've back-pedalled as far as you can go and your back is against the wall, sometimes profanity is your only option. Because you are a person of limited capabilities in a sad situation.

Chilam, Chillam, Baby Back ribs. Jeepers Creepers, written in the Latin alphabet, drawing on sources from Europe and the Arab world, in a time when Maya language was a mystery. How obvious do I have to make it to get you to do the right thing?

"While you refuse to acknowledge my Native American ancestry"

I join the U.S. Census in this matter. You are as Indian as Dhyani Ywahoo. Less Indian than James "Rockford" Garner or Chuck "Chuck Norris" Norris.

Still waiting to see ONE photo of ONE seven foot tall Indian. Never gonna happen because no such person exists.

E.P. Grondine
9/17/2020 12:43:22 pm

Here you go:
https://youtu.be/TbM4vHcRyz0

Perhaps I'll have some pictues of Osage soon.

Kent
9/17/2020 05:34:24 pm

The internet is full of videos with no 7 foot tall Indians in them and this is one of them. I minimized the waste of my time by watching it on mute and at maximum speed.

Important Numbers
9/26/2020 01:08:00 am

The whole purpose of a code is to break something down into numbers so it can be reconstituted later. Everything else is irrelevant gloss. Science fiction is just as capable of conveying a coded message as a religious allegory. With these numbers you can create a calendar or a calendar in stone and call it a cathedral. The same numbers were used by their builders. Nova on PBS showed this over 10 years ago. Pretty neat stuff.


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        • Ancient Chinese Automaton
        • The Orphic Argonautica
        • Fragments of Panodorus
        • Annianus on the Watchers
        • The Watchers and Antediluvian Wisdom
      • Medieval Texts >
        • Medieval Legends of Ancient Egypt >
          • Medieval Pyramid Lore
          • John Malalas on Ancient Egypt
          • Fragments of Abenephius
          • Akhbar al-zaman
          • Ibrahim ibn Wasif Shah
          • Murtada ibn al-‘Afif
          • Al-Maqrizi on the Pyramids
          • Al-Suyuti on the Pyramids
        • The Hunt for Noah's Ark
        • Isidore of Seville
        • Book of Liang: Fusang
        • Agobard on Magonia
        • Book of Thousands
        • Voyage of Saint Brendan
        • Power of Art and of Nature
        • Travels of Sir John Mandeville
        • Yazidi Revelation and Black Book
        • Al-Biruni on the Great Flood
        • Voyage of the Zeno Brothers
        • The Kensington Runestone (Hoax)
        • Islamic Discovery of America
        • The Aztec Creation Myth
      • Lost Civilizations >
        • Atlantis >
          • Plato's Atlantis Dialogues >
            • Timaeus
            • Critias
          • Fragments on Atlantis
          • Panchaea: The Other Atlantis
          • Eumalos on Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Gómara on Atlantis
          • Sardinia and Atlantis
          • Santorini and Atlantis
          • The Mound Builders and Atlantis
          • Donnelly's Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Morocco
          • Atlantis and the Sea Peoples
          • W. Scott-Elliot >
            • The Story of Atlantis
            • The Lost Lemuria
          • The Lost Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Africa
          • How I Found Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Termier on Atlantis
          • The Critias and Minoan Crete
          • Rebuttal to Termier
          • Further Responses to Termier
          • Flinders Petrie on Atlantis
        • Lost Cities >
          • Miscellaneous Lost Cities
          • The Seven Cities
          • The Lost City of Paititi
          • Manuscript 512
          • The Idolatrous City of Iximaya (Hoax)
          • The 1885 Moberly Lost City Hoax
          • The Elephants of Paredon (Hoax)
        • OOPARTs
        • Oronteus Finaeus Antarctica Map
        • Caucasians in Panama
        • Jefferson's Excavation
        • Fictitious Discoveries in America
        • Against Diffusionism
        • Tunnels Under Peru
        • The Parahyba Inscription (Hoax)
        • Mound Builders
        • Gunung Padang
        • Tales of Enchanted Islands
        • The 1907 Ancient World Map Hoax
        • The 1909 Grand Canyon Hoax
        • The Interglacial Period
        • Solving Oak Island
      • Religious Conspiracies >
        • Pantera, Father of Jesus?
        • Toledot Yeshu
        • Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay on Cathars
        • Testimony of Jean de Châlons
        • Rosslyn Chapel and the 'Prentice's Pillar
        • The Many Wives of Jesus
        • Templar Infiltration of Labor
        • Louis Martin & the Holy Bloodline
        • The Life of St. Issa (Hoax)
        • On the Person of Jesus Christ
      • Giants in the Earth >
        • Fossil Origins of Myths >
          • Fossil Teeth and Bones of Elephants
          • Fossil Elephants
          • Fossil Bones of Teutobochus
          • Fossil Mammoths and Giants
          • Giants' Bones Dug Out of the Earth
          • Fossils and the Supernatural
          • Fossils, Myth, and Pseudo-History
          • Man During the Stone Age
          • Fossil Bones and Giants
          • American Elephant Myths
          • The Mammoth and the Flood
          • Fossils and Myth
          • Fossil Origin of the Cyclops
          • Mastodon, Mammoth, and Man
        • Fragments on Giants
        • Manichaean Book of Giants
        • Geoffrey on British Giants
        • Alfonso X's Hermetic History of Giants
        • Boccaccio and the Fossil 'Giant'
        • Book of Howth
        • Purchas His Pilgrimage
        • Edmond Temple's 1827 Giant Investigation
        • The Giants of Sardinia
        • Giants and the Sons of God
        • The Magnetism of Evil
        • Tertiary Giants
        • Smithsonian Giant Reports
        • Early American Giants
        • The Giant of Coahuila
        • Jewish Encyclopedia on Giants
        • Index of Giants
        • Newspaper Accounts of Giants
        • Lanier's A Book of Giants
      • Science and History >
        • Halley on Noah's Comet
        • The Newport Tower
        • Iron: The Stone from Heaven
        • Ararat and the Ark
        • Pyramid Facts and Fancies
        • Argonauts before Homer
        • The Deluge
        • Crown Prince Rudolf on the Pyramids
        • Old Mythology in New Apparel
        • Blavatsky on Dinosaurs
        • Teddy Roosevelt on Bigfoot
        • Devil Worship in France
        • Maspero's Review of Akhbar al-zaman
        • The Holy Grail as Lucifer's Crown Jewel
        • The Mutinous Sea
        • The Rock Wall of Rockwall
        • Fabulous Zoology
        • The Origins of Talos
        • Mexican Mythology
        • Chinese Pyramids
        • Maqrizi's Names of the Pharaohs
      • Extreme History >
        • Roman Empire Hoax
        • American Antiquities
        • American Cataclysms
        • England, the Remnant of Judah
        • Historical Chronology of the Mexicans
        • Maspero on the Predynastic Sphinx
        • Vestiges of the Mayas
        • Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel
        • Origins of the Egyptian People
        • The Secret Doctrine >
          • Volume 1: Cosmogenesis
          • Volume 2: Anthropogenesis
        • Phoenicians in America
        • The Electric Ark
        • Traces of European Influence
        • Prince Henry Sinclair
        • Pyramid Prophecies
        • Templars of Ancient Mexico
        • Chronology and the "Riddle of the Sphinx"
        • The Faith of Ancient Egypt
        • Spirit of the Hour in Archaeology
        • Book of the Damned
        • Great Pyramid As Noah's Ark
        • Richard Shaver's Proofs
    • Alien Encounters >
      • US Government Ancient Astronaut Files >
        • Fortean Society and Columbus
        • Inquiry into Shaver and Palmer
        • The Skyfort Document
        • Whirling Wheels
        • Denver Ancient Astronaut Lecture
        • Soviet Search for Lemuria
        • Visitors from Outer Space
        • Unidentified Flying Objects (Abstract)
        • "Flying Saucers"? They're a Myth
        • UFO Hypothesis Survival Questions
        • Air Force Academy UFO Textbook
        • The Condon Report on Ancient Astronauts
        • Atlantis Discovery Telegrams
        • Ancient Astronaut Society Telegram
        • Noah's Ark Cables
        • The Von Daniken Letter
        • CIA Psychic Probe of Ancient Mars
        • Scott Wolter Lawsuit
        • UFOs in Ancient China
        • CIA Report on Noah's Ark
        • CIA Noah's Ark Memos
        • Congressional Ancient Aliens Testimony
        • Ancient Astronaut and Nibiru Email
        • Congressional Ancient Mars Hearing
        • House UFO Hearing
      • Ancient Extraterrestrials >
        • Premodern UFO Sightings
        • The Moon Hoax
        • Inhabitants of Other Planets
        • Blavatsky on Ancient Astronauts
        • The Stanzas of Dzyan (Hoax)
        • Aerolites and Religion
        • What Is Theosophy?
        • Plane of Ether
        • The Adepts from Venus
      • A Message from Mars
      • Saucer Mystery Solved?
      • Orville Wright on UFOs
      • Interdimensional Flying Saucers
      • Flying Saucers Are Real
      • Report on UFOs
    • The Supernatural >
      • The Devils of Loudun
      • Sublime and Beautiful
      • Voltaire on Vampires
      • Demonology and Witchcraft
      • Thaumaturgia
      • Bulgarian Vampires
      • Religion and Evolution
      • Transylvanian Superstitions
      • Defining a Zombie
      • Dread of the Supernatural
      • Vampires
      • Werewolves and Vampires and Ghouls
      • Science and Fairy Stories
      • The Cursed Car
    • Classic Fiction >
      • Lucian's True History
      • Some Words with a Mummy
      • The Coming Race
      • King Solomon's Mines
      • An Inhabitant of Carcosa
      • The Xipéhuz
      • Lot No. 249
      • The Novel of the Black Seal
      • The Island of Doctor Moreau
      • Pharaoh's Curse
      • Edison's Conquest of Mars
      • The Lost Continent
      • Count Magnus
      • The Mysterious Stranger
      • The Wendigo
      • Sredni Vashtar
      • The Lost World
      • The Red One
      • H. P. Lovecraft >
        • Dagon
        • The Call of Cthulhu
        • History of the Necronomicon
        • At the Mountains of Madness
        • Lovecraft's Library in 1932
      • The Skeptical Poltergeist
      • The Corpse on the Grating
      • The Second Satellite
      • Queen of the Black Coast
      • A Martian Odyssey
    • Classic Genre Movies
    • Miscellaneous Documents >
      • The Balloon-Hoax
      • A Problem in Greek Ethics
      • The Migration of Symbols
      • The Gospel of Intensity
      • De Profundis
      • The Life and Death of Crown Prince Rudolf
      • The Bathtub Hoax
      • Crown Prince Rudolf's Letters
      • Position of Viking Women
      • Employment of Homosexuals
      • James Dean's Scrapbook
      • James Dean's Love Letters
      • The Amazing James Dean Hoax!
    • Free Classic Pseudohistory eBooks
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