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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Actually that does make it a coincidence. You see, we read all the etymological stuff too and decided it was a bunch of bollocks and we would go with the Phoenician explanation rather than the weird stuff about Jews clumping around. Though of course I am all in favour of Jews being Phoenicians (as it were).
If only you realised that orthodoxy does exactly what we do, the only difference is that because there are more of them and they've been at it longer, their explanations are, how can I put this delicately, more multilayered.
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Donmillion
In: Acton, Middlesex
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I may have exaggerated, Hatty. Nevertheless:
| This monument's course is rather unusual amongst its class, as it lies perpendicular to the prevailing local topography, which has a NE/SW axis. The South-West end crests the top of a ridge and during its North-Easterly course crosses two further significant ridges and three river valleys. ... Descending from Thickthorn Down [the Gussage Cursus ] crosses the Gussage valley and climbs up to the next ridge, Gussage Down, where it incorporates a long barrow at approximately its half-way point. It then descends into the Allen Valley [and] incorporates a Pleistocene river cliff before climbing up to near the top of the next ridge where it terminates. |
Naturally, a photo of a short stretch may not show these phenomena.
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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| Marghas Yow (1250 "Marhasȝon", 1470 "Marchasyowe": 'Thursday Market' in Cornish) |
Yow = Jove. Jove's Market doesn't sound very Cornish.
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Donmillion
In: Acton, Middlesex
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OK, Mick, Phoenician it is: Mara-Zion. Despite the totally discrepant pronunciation, Ma-Rahzhun.
Incredible, really, how folk memory works: a foreign name preserved, unrecorded, from 600 BC (say) through to the 17th Century, when the form "Marazion" first appears in writing.
Incredible, too, how by an amazing coincidence the Cornish name (recorded 1250, 1309, 1313, 1470, 1540, 1595), so accurately mirroring the 11th Century charter establishing the fair, is also so similar to the Phoenician name, which never emerged in all those centuries.
I've seen several Interweb references (well, one several times) to Marazion appearing in Domesday, but not under what form. I'll look it up when I get home tomorrow night. Perhaps it'll be "Marazion" after all.
What's the Phoenician etymology?
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Donmillion
In: Acton, Middlesex
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| Hatty wrote: | | Marghas Yow (1250 "Marhasȝon", 1470 "Marchasyowe": 'Thursday Market' in Cornish) |
Yow = Jove. Jove's Market doesn't sound very Cornish. |
- French Jeudi = Jove's Day = Thursday.
- Irish D'ardaoin = Jove's Day = Thursday.
- Welsh Dydd Iau = Jove's Day = Thursday.
Allowing for the vagaries of Mediaeval spelling:
- Marghas Yow = Cornish Marhas De Yow = Market on Jove's Day = on Thursday, as mandated by Robert, 1st Earl of Cornwall.
"Thursday", of course, names Old English Thunor ("Thunder"), whom the Germanic peoples equated with Roman Jove.
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N8 has misssed all the AE fun, as his dtr decided to treat him to a showing of Werner Herzogs documentary "Cave of forgotten dreams" in 3D.
I have to say it was brilliant, the 3D works really well in the cave. You really feel you are exploring the cave and the paintings come alive.
I thought that 3D was just a gimmick but I was very wrong.
Came out with zillions of ideas about prehistoric cave paintings.
Its well worth your hard earned cash. Of course Herzog throws in the odd albino, nuclear warmed croc, but thats Herzog.
Short of visiting the caves......
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Donmillion
In: Acton, Middlesex
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Forgot to say--The "De Yow" accounts for Leland's and Camden's form, "Markesju", and hence the theory that mediaeval Jews were involved.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Just as the fact that Russians soldiers had reached Britain to help on the Western Front in the First World War was confirmed by the telling detail that there was snow on their boots, so Cornish eye-witnesses of the Phoenicians crossing the local river on their strange beasts was henceforth and forevermore called Camelford.
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Donmillion
In: Acton, Middlesex
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | their explanations are, how can I put this delicately, more multilayered. |
Does that mean, they're able to substantiate their claims with evidence (which, agreed, needs interpretation), whereas AE doan' need no steenkeen' evidence?
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Donmillion
In: Acton, Middlesex
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | Just as the fact that Russians soldiers had reached Britain to help on the Western Front in the First World War was confirmed by the telling detail that there was snow on their boots, so Cornish eye-witnesses of the Phoenicians crossing the local river on their strange beasts was henceforth and forevermore called Camelford. |
Nice.
Though the Russians apparently had snow on their boots, and not sneg on their botinki. How'd the Corns (hiding behind their Wall) know they were camels?
Have you discovered the origin and true meaning of the old-fashioned English road sign, formerly attributed to a Diana Dors admirer, and classically interpreted to mean "bridge ahead"?
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Donmillion
In: Acton, Middlesex
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(Would camels be ideal animals for crossing a river? It occurs to me now that the name, "ships of the desert," might not mean what it seems.)
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Donmillion wrote: | | Incredible, really, how folk memory works: a foreign name preserved, unrecorded, from 600 BC (say) through to the 17th Century, when the form "Marazion" first appears in writing. |
It is incredible. So why can't the chronology be wrong?
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Donmillion
In: Acton, Middlesex
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Ah! How incredibly thick of me! I'd never thought of that! The Phoenician tin trade with Cornwall took place in the 17th Century AD, not the 4th BC, and the Greek historian Strabo was writing in--well, round about now actually!
It all becomes so simple when you look at it properly, doesn't it?
(Still in fey mood--sorry, Ishmael! But if the Phoenician place-name first appears in the 17th Century, replacing a Cornish name that's been in use for 400 to 600 years and which makes absolute sense historically, what else are we to conclude?)
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Ishmael, we're paying Don a small fortune to be our fact-checker. Try not to distract him with fripperies that, however true, do not advance The Book.
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Donmillion
In: Acton, Middlesex
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I've used the search facilities of five different on-line resources providing full access to the Domesday Book, and none of them can find a record for Marazion. Looks like Wikipedia is wrong, and all the sites that have copied it (which may be why Wikipedia says "citation needed" against the Domesday reference).
The equally oft-repeated claim that Marazion is "the oldest town in Britain" refers to the charter granted by King Henry III in 1257. This isn't the same as "the longest [known] continually inhabited town in the UK", an honour which goes to Thatcham in Berkshire (habitation traced back to 10,000 BC).
Johnston, Place-Names ..., doesn't give the 1257 form for Marazion.
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