From: DJ Vollkasko (DJ_Vollkasko_at_gmx.net)
Date: Fri Mar 26 2004 - 04:38:49 PST
>Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 05:39:59 -0800 (PST)
>From: Eric Engle <engleerica_at_yahoo.com>
>Subject: Re: [NTLK] Etymology of Mathematics. Can't let that slide.
>
>I'm going to regret this.
>
><gets out can opener>
>
>Sure, the Greeks acknowledge the Egyptian source of mathematics - however...
>1) The Ptolemaic dynasty was Greek.
>2) Alexander conquered Egypt - you remember him, pupil of Aristotle
>3) There were Greek colonies in ancien Egypt: Namely, Heliopolis,
>Alexandria. I
>believe Heliopolis predates Alexander
>4) Greeks also claimed that Egypt was formerly a colony of Atlantis
>
><applies can opener to can of worms>
Eric, but this is already in *historic* times. Alexander III (* 356 B.C.)
was already pretty late in Greek history, and the Ptolemaic dynasty more or
less started right after his death in 323 B.C. in Babylon (today in Iraq,
and then heiress to even older science and scripture than Egypt, see Code
of Hammurabi, Gilgamesh epos, etc.). Gotta keep yer time lines straight if
you wanna go fishin':
>I believe Heliopolis predates Alexander
[yes, it does - and it predates pretty much everything else incl. Greece:
founded around 2900 BC, in the Bible known as "On", peak around 1500 BC,
center of religious literature, lost importance after Alexandria was
founded. - DJV.]
>4) Greeks also claimed that Egypt was formerly a colony of Atlantis
[written down around 370 BC by Socrates' student Plato, himself teacher of
Aristotle - who was Alexander III's teacher. The whole writing is result of
a forth of fifth generation oral tradition starting with Solon, who brought
this tale from Egypt around 590 BC. - DJV.]
>2) Alexander conquered Egypt - you remember him, pupil of Aristotle
[332 BC - DJV.]
>3) There were Greek colonies in ancien Egypt: Namely, Heliopolis, Alexandria
[est. 331 BC by Alexander III; there are many much earlier Greek colonies -
e.g. Troja, Syracuse on Sicily, even over in Spain and France they settled
- DJV.]
>1) The Ptolemaic dynasty was Greek
[running less than 300 years from the death of Alexander III in 323 BC to
the death of Cleopatra - DJV.]
There's more to history than Mummy I and II, there's also Google! ;=} If
you want to get to this ma'at/mathematics topic, I reckon you have to dig
deeper into prehistoric strata, apply comparative linguistics to languages
found today, reconstruct moves of concepts, languages and peoples and
evolution of all three. But in these areas I'm not certified as trail
guide, sorry. I'm just wondering: Africa - what Africa? I mean, I
understand it's like a fairly largish place, with a lot of very different
people, and most of them been there a pretty long time, others not, so...
What Africa are we talking about and what era - the Zimbabwan stone tower
builders, or Ethiopia, or those folks who lived around the upper Nile?
>If you study ancient egyptian art you see it is a racially diverse place.
>
><steps back from worms>
Indeed. They raided, treated and traded with many other nations, and had a
lot of foreign prisoners of war and slaves (most prominently Joseph's
family from the North, but also plenty folks from way down South - that's
from upper Nile).
>Just like modern society.
>
><waits to see if anyone takes the bait>
Just like human society, actually.
Take any spot in the world and write down which people moved through it
over a couple millenia leaving traces and sharing genetic material, you'd
be surprised. There's bronze buddhas found in viking graves, chinese
mirrors in burial mounds in the Russian and Ukrainian steppe, and Chinese
silk in Celtic graves along the Danube. There's Roman coins in China, and
Icelandic settlements in Greenland and North America.
And don't think that's just hardware exchanges: The original settlers of
Zanzibar were not Africans, but Asians - though the island is off the coast
of Africa. There used to be beautiful Greek buddhist sculture in
Afghanistan, huge stuff - it ran on tv when these were blown up, you might
remember it; that culture was founded after Alexander III turned back west
again and did not attack the Indus cultures. There's a town in France where
new born babies show a discoloration called "Mongol spot" (bluish spot in
lower back), something only found in people with genuine Mongolian genotype
(got into the gene-pool courtesy of Attila's wounded soldiers, who were
left behind, fortified themselves and stayed there, instead of trying to
make for the Hun capital in Hungary). There's blue-eyed berbers in the
mountains of Morocco - might be descendants of the Goths who walked from
Denmark south to Romania, westwards to France, on to Spain and crossed to
Africa in 429 AD (later to also become kings of Karthage, Sicily, Sardinia,
Corsica, the Baleares and conquerors of Rome, then went on to armwrestle
with the Christian emperors of Byzantium - today Turkey). There's a
relation between the Finnish and the Hungarian languages - but with none
else in the thousands of miles between Finland and Hungary!
That's just what readily comes to mind. Considering these are areas I
virtually don't have the slightest clue about, it's gotta be only a
fraction of a segment of a little bit of a part of what's *really* been
going on.
Please excuse the interlude. Now back to the mathematics-thing.
DJ Vollkasko.
P.S.: Talking about folks and relations, is there anywhere a fully
functional geneological abandonware or freeware available that's any good
and uses standardized, exchangeable data formats? I'd only found demos and
commercial stuff.
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