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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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When pyramids pop up in Egypt and Meso-America some say this is because the pyramid shape is archetypal or it's well suited to monumental architecture or some damn thing. That's the 'It just happened' school of history.
The Diffusionist school of history says this is yet more evidence of great pre-historical wanderungen or an ancient race of hyper-intelligent people or some damn thing.
The Applied Epistemological school of history says, "We'll suck it and see." So this thread is devoted to anything--myths, words, beliefs, customs, structures, techniques, any damn thing--that turns up in at least two different places sufficiently remote in either time or distance to make either explanation possible.
On your marks, get set... There you go, competitive races, that's one to get you started. Brought here by Atlanteans from Planet Zog.
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Pete Jones
Site Admin
In: Virginia
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Squatterman motif, it's everywhere. And I'm moving the content over here from the COIN thread.
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Pete Jones
Site Admin
In: Virginia
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The "Squatterman" petroglyph. Followed by the weird "oldest coin."
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Pete Jones
Site Admin
In: Virginia
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A funny linguistic thing, re: the TORC. It is said to come from a Latin original, meaning "twist", and giving us also English's TORQUE. Fine, okay, maybe!
But a much more on-the-nose source might be Arabic's á¹awq. It only means, you know, "anything that surrounds another thing, ring-shaped border, hoop, headband, necklace etc." Just the exact thing a TORC is.
The Arabic is said to be cognate with Proto-Semitic's *kabkab-, which means star.
Now, the other side of the coin, with "torc, sphere, and star" looks a bit odder. Are torcs themselves related to stars, planets, and, apparently, petroglyphs?
If I were going full-Electric Universe, I'd say this looks like one of the planetary gods in the midst of a plasma haze, surrounded by the torc (a representation of the "enclosing" plasma sheath itself)
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Pete Jones
Site Admin
In: Virginia
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| What would the faker have to know to keep on message? |
Good question. I'll have to think about it. One thing a faker would have already implemented is the decision NOT to include any sort of script. This is to slightly make a virtue of necessity, though, because accurate script would have been more difficult than no script.
If I'm on the right track, then this is not a coin at all, but maybe some sort of amulet created in line with the familiar images in the sky. Coins imply a coin-making facility and some trade standards (I think), but the time when this imagery made it into the civilizations, the imagery had already morphed a lot into stylized versions. The images on the coin seem more naturalistic (i.e., early?).
A stylized squatterman looks like this, in Central America:
Here's a Dogon mask/headdress of the same thing:
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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One question is of course functionality.
We can reject medium of exchange, store of value, if it's not a coin.
The function of an amulet according to ortho is to ward off bad luck.
What we appear to be saying is that pictographs and petroglyphs and now amulets have the same function. If they have different functions OK, but then should we really be classifying them together, even if the Squatterman image is the same?
The problem for AEists (Wiley failed his exam, so Mick, Hats, or anyone that passed will have to give a view) is that they are pretty suspicious of ortho when they just add in it had a ritualistic purpose as a suppossed function.
If it's an amulet, you wear it to protect against evil, it is more an individualistic thing? If it's a pictogram or petrograph it is more communal?
Don't know. The two dots "under the arms" is where I would start. Can you tell me, Pete, do they always occur? What is your understanding?
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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My first guess would be a depiction of a water carrier?
The two dots are two pails of water supported by a yoke across the shoulders?
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Wiley might be in danger of ending up in the canyon again....
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Pete Jones
Site Admin
In: Virginia
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| Wile E. Coyote wrote: | | Don't know. The two dots "under the arms" is where I would start. Can you tell me, Pete, do they always occur? What is your understanding? |
They don't. The two dots are....spotty. But variations occur all over the place, and no-dots is one of the variations.
I don't know if this is a new thought (what ever is!), but the squatterman looks like it might have morphed into the Master of Animals motif, where some dude is holding two beasts by the throat out to the side of his body.
It's all over the world:
But this one is most interesting to me, because it looks so much like the Venus of Willendorf:
The animals here are just the round heads. And the arms are not up like squatterman, but still a resemblance.
A loose pattern known to people around the world keeps getting repeated until artists get bored with the simple geometry and decide to interpret it in line with a mythological tale? That assumes that myth-makers have also interpreted the symbol and made something of it.
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Pete Jones
Site Admin
In: Virginia
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Tentative idea: Squatterman imagery became the Master of Animals motif, eventually.
The process is simply embellishment. A tale gets taller, a story gets more interesting, as it is told and retold. Whatever the starting point for the story of the Phoenix rising from the ashes, it eventually becomes Cinderella, with fairy godmothers and pumpkin carriages and a Disney movie.
BREAKING NEWS
In the course of writing this post, I thought "I should probably figure out if this is an original thought," so I did the modern version of trudging to the Library and googled it. Behold how quickly the AI is picking up on the ideas here at AEL:
The most amazing bit is how Google Gemini already knows the answer -- that squatterman did NOT become MofA -- even though I am apparently the first/only person to ever ask it.
___________
The chain link in the small red box is clickable, and takes you to the source of the claim, which is the COIN thread, which is provided on the right for easy access. No other sources present.
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Pete Jones
Site Admin
In: Virginia
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| Wile E. Coyote wrote: | | What we appear to be saying is that pictographs and petroglyphs and now amulets have the same function. If they have different functions OK, but then should we really be classifying them together, even if the Squatterman image is the same? |
A crucifix might be on hymnals, bumper stickers, and Renaissance paintings. Is that the same function? I think you could say it is, in a broad cultural sense. But then from the internal logic of Catholicism, the functions would be different.
The cultural function would apply to Salvador Dali paintings too, but Dali would be antithetical to the Catholic function.
Does this help? I'm not at all sure.
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Pete Jones
Site Admin
In: Virginia
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From the the Independent:
"at least 500 years." I wonder how they arrived at the number, but the "at least" part seems okay.
"Seasonal oceans swells cleared the sand." This is a helluva geological idea. Sand is deposited enough to bury it (and prevent quick erosion), but then the sand is wiped away completely at other times, exposing it?
"potentially about rising ocean levels." Even petroglyph-carvers were worried about global warming, I guess. And in the paradise of Hawaii.
_____________
source: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/waianae-hawaii-petroglyphs-beach-carvings-b2795829.html
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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The petroglyph in the photo looks swastika-like (to me), perhaps due to cultural association.
Anyway, on Ilkley Moor overlooking the River Wharfe there's a boulder with a carving known as the 'Swastika Stone', presumed to be prehistoric though nowadays I'd be more inclined to question the dating of the carving. Other people also seem to have voiced doubts (Iron Age? Bronze Age? Neolithic?)
| it is not clear if it dates from the same time as the other rocks on the moor which are thought to have been carved in the Bronze Age or if it belongs to a later Iron Age date. | |
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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The electrifying news about AI and the AEL jolts me into a thought. Someone (other than muggins) should go through the AEL, pick up every stray idea anybody has had here, and then ask AI a pointed question about it, especially where it comes from.
If it quotes us, well and good. If it doesn't, a follow-up question "What about this [AEL URL]?" ought to get us in, either as the source or as a confirmation. Either way, we'll be in the picture when some other cove comes knocking.
Pete reckons AI might only scan the first page of threads but it must have a trigger device that tells itself, "This source is worthy of more attention." If we badger AI enough it will get the message, whether it wants to hear it or not. Being constructed by human beings, AI will be inordinately fond of short cuts but is still hardwired by its software.
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