Comments on Walking Ancient Landscapes (British History)

[Donmillion]

[Donmillion]

[Donmillion]

[Donmillion]

Some of Velikovsky's arguments, including some of his better-known ones, are demonstrable tosh, but I find his location of the Chaldaeans ("the Chaldees") and their city, Ur, in northern Syria/eastern Anatolia more convincing than some. Independently of V, it has a minor following among professional archaeologists.

Doesn't make 'em Phoenicians or Tin-Landers, but I'm looking forward to meeting 'em in the book.

[Mick Harper]

Quite the opposite. You can make yourself useful by running down who the Culdees were.

[Donmillion]

Re the relationship twixt "Zion" and "Sinai"--well:

• They're both in the Hebrew Bible;
  
• They're both mountains;
  
• They both have sacred connotations;
  
• In some spellings, they both have Si and an n.

In the web site you reference, Mick, Paisley doesn't equate "Sion" and "Sinai"; the site's author criticises him for using a passage from Hebrews to "demonstrate" that Christ's blood is "in heaven". The passage itself clearly "was contrasting Mount Sion with Mount Sinai", not equating them.

Hebrew didn't write vowels, only consonants, so Zion should be transliterated from Hebrew as ZYWN. Sinai should be transliterated as SYNY.

At once, the similarities are seen to be less. There are difficulties, though: Z ("tzadde") was probably pronounced TS, where S ("samekh") was a dull "S" sound, different from normal English "S". Both sounds are found in Arabic, and we known from various evidences that Greek ZETA was pronounced DS.

In ancient Semitic languages generally, meanwhile, the consonant W was often used for a long O sound ("awww"), and Y for a long I sound ("eeee"). Comparing the most probable pronunciations, then, we have approximately (using English spelling): TZEE-YAWN and SEEN-EYE.

Both words are probably pre-Hebrew, and their etymologies and meanings are far from clear. With regard to ZION: the most usual derivation is from a root meaning "dry", related to ZIAH, "drought", in the Psalms. Other etymologies relate it to Hebrew roots meaning respectively "set up" and "protect", or to an Arabic root meaning "mountain ridge" or "citadel". I've seen a couple of sites also give the explanation "waymarker", but I haven't found any that give a corresponding Hebrew root.

SINAI is usually related to the Sumerian moon-deity SIN, but "SIN" should be "ZU-EN" according to more modern interpretations of Sumerian writing. The strongest alternative explanation relates it to the plain of "Sin" and an Arabic word meaning "bush". But who knows?

[Ishmael]

[Mick Harper]

Well, we have developed a method of coat-trailing for this kind of proposition. Mentioned but not developed. In the Age of the Internet, dangling bait is quite OK.

There is still the matter of the overall pitch which can only be decided right at the end: whether to write a maximilist book that appeals to conspiracy theorists and bleeds over to the masses, or a sensibilist one that appeals to 'the interested layman' and thus is forced onto the attention of the experts. Obviously we have to forsake the latter from the off.

[Chad]

[Mick Harper]

The Hebrew-Phoenician word MIKHER comes from the English word 'market'. Do try ro keep up, Chad, but congratulations, it looks like your City are going to win something after thirty-six years.

[Donmillion]

Final words on Zion -- I found the "waymarker" reference via Strong's concordance. It's to a possibly related word TSEYUN, with a basic meaning "something conspicuous". According to Strong, it's used in the Bible to mean a "sign" or "marker", and may have been some form of pillar. Various translations offer "waymark", "landmark", "guidepost", "roadmark", "road sign", or simply (like the King James Version) "sign". They do seem to have been something you "set up" or "erect", however.

With regard to MIKHER, though--Quite a step, I think, from a consonant shape, "MKhR" to "MRK", Chad. Etymonline traces "market" to an "Italic root merk-" (merk-s, spellt merx "wares, merchandise"), " possibly from Etruscan, referring to various aspects of economics".

Strong gives the spelling, "MAKhAR". Gesenius finds possible analogues in Arabic and Syriac, but can find no definite cognates outside Hebrew (e.g., in Canaanite or "Phoenician"). Quite a step, I think from "MRK" to "MKhR", Ishmael.

But strange things do happen with the transmission of words between languages.

[Donmillion]

Having begun on Chapter 3, and researching the St Michael alignment (again, after several years), I found these heartening words for Ishmael:

Setting out long distance alignments are not so difficult providing there is a sufficient number of workers and care is taken in the sighting of the alignment. The most obvious way to do this would be by sighting to the rising or setting of a specific star. It has been suggested that the Michael Line is aligned to the May Day sunrise, which is broadly on the same azimuth. This however is most likely to be coincidental as it would be nigh impossible to establish an alignment based on only one or two days a year. Stellar alignments are much more tenable.

(From http://www.kch42.dial.pipex.com/michael_alignment.htm.)

[Mick Harper]

Last word on Marazion/ St Michael's Mount. It is an islet joined to the mainland by a causeway. As was Tyre, reputed home port of the Phoenicians. Same pattern in Cadiz. Any others?

[Hatty]

Pharos.

As Wiki kindly points out

[Mick Harper]

Syracuse, in the south-east corner of Sicily, is another one. The island is called Ortygia.