"Brit-Am Now"-293

September 15, 2003
1. Scottish Place-Name Society
2. Korea and Japan = Ammon and Moab?
3. Supermarket molluscs reveal Roman secret
4. Afro-Centric View Probably Partially Correct.
5. Biblical Proofs no.22: Best Places


1. Scottish Place-Name Society
Visit the Scottish Place-Name Society website at
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/institutes/sassi/spns/index.htm

2. Korea and Japan = Ammon and Moab?
Are Korea and Japan descended from Ammon and Moab? Reactions?
As far as I know no-one has previously raised this possibility but it could
explain a lot.
DNA tests reveal a possibility of significant overlap in the male line between
Tibet and Japan.

3. Supermarket molluscs reveal Roman secret
By Kristine Krug, in Salford
The secret of imperial purple has been rediscovered.

A British amateur chemist has worked out how the ancient Romans dyed the
togas of emperors this deep colour thanks to a bacterium found in cockles
from the supermarket Tesco.

The hue had special significance as the colour of imperial power. Cleopatra
also had the sails on her ship dyed the same colour.

The recipe for the dye had been kept a craft secret, even in ancient Egypt
and Rome. There are few references to the dying process in the historical
literature.

Green to purple

Modern chemistry can make every shade of every colour, but retired engineer
John Edmonds is interested in how the ancients managed to make dyes from
natural materials.

He explained to the British Association science festival in Salford,
Greater Manchester, how he rediscovered the secret of imperial purple after
studying the fermentation process of indigo pigments from the woad plant.

With help of researchers in Reading and from Israel he has been able to
establish the vital role played by a bacterium in chemically reducing (the
addition of electrons) the ancient pigments so that they will dissolve in a
dye solution.

The pigment for imperial purple was derived from Murex molluscs, a form of
shellfish. So, Mr Edmunds reasoned that he could try to use the related
common cockle.

He bought a jar of them from Tesco. "Having removed the vinegar, I placed
several of the cockles with some of the purple pigment in a vat consisting
of a 2 lb jam jar."

Modern jeans

The cockles are thought to harbour a bacterium that is crucial in reducing
the dye. Wood ash was added to the vat to ensure the mixture did not turn
acidic.

The mixture was then kept at 50 Celsius for about 10 days.

Wool dipped in the pigment turned green at first but, eventually, in
contact with light, it turned purple.

The recreation of the old dying method might have implications for
present-day practice.

Currently, tonnes of chemicals are needed to reduce the dye for denim blue
jeans, resulting in large quantities of sulphur waste.

Mr Edmonds said: "University of Reading scientists are trying to understand
how the bacterium reduces indigo in order to develop a clean biotechnology
to replace the chemical process for indigo reduction in the future." Story
from BBC NEWS:

4. Afro-Centric View Probably Partially Correct.
Afro-Centric theories claim that people from Africa were primarily
responsible for founding civilization and spread all over world. These
ideas are considered eccentric and part of the lunatic fringe.
Even though these people exaggerate however they do seem to have a point.
Ancient Egyptian civilization and its offshoots was important on a
world-wide scale; there were connections between Africa and India,
etc.  This is consistent with the Bible and with Brit-Am understanding.
The following article may therefore be of interest:
It is based on the work of Clyde Winters  whom we have quoted in the
past  and whose views in my opinion are worth considering.

From: "M. Washington" <best@mail.datanet.hu>

MEROITIC, EGYPTIAN, AND OTHER ANCIENT RELATED SCRIPTS

OUTLINE

[A] SUMMARY
[B] MORE ON THE CONTENT
[C] THE LINKS
      I.       SOUTH AFRICAN PREHISTORIC SAN ROCK ENGRAVINGS
      II.     MEROITIC WRITING OF NORTHERN SUDAN ON THE NILE
      III.    HIEROGLYPHICS OF MAORI IN NEW ZEALAND
      IV.    HIEROGLYPHICS OF THE UBAID PERIOD OF SUMER
      V.      THE DOGON SCRIPT OF MALI
      VI.    A SOMALI WOMAN WITH A DOT IN THE MIDDLE OF A CIRCLE
      VII.   AN INDIAN GIRL WITH A DOT IN THE MIDDLE OF A CIRCLE
      VIII.  CLYDE WINTERS ON MEROITIC, EGYPTIAN, AND OTHER
     ANCIENT RELATED SCRIPTS

(If the links wrap around, they wont display. You may have to copy and
paste the second part of a broken url onto the first in the Explorer address
panel)

  [A] WHY THIS POST WAS WRITTEN

I was drawn to write this post some days ago when encountering the
translation in [I] below of the Meroitic script of Nubia because I so often
read that it has not been translated. But, for those few of you who dont
know, it has been translated (see II and VIII). And it is similar to scripts
found in Egypt, Sumer, India, and New Zealand. The links provide the visual
evidence. When seeing the scholarly contribution that Clyde Winters has made
to this discussion over 20 years, I thought to upgrade the original post.

The present writer has seen a commonality in Egyptian script with so-called
prehistoric and ancient (historic) writing systems. He believes in what
might be called the verifiable prehistoric: that meaning that whenever a
cluster of common features (not a single one or two) is found among near or
distant cultures, that it must indicate common origins. Ten years or earlier
back, such a claim might be pooh-poohed. But, today, genetic evidence at
Stanford, Oxford, and elsewhere, shows the most ancient of the modern
cultures existed in common cultural sphere from late Pleistocene to early
Holocene Northeast Africa through Anatolia. A cultural sphere which existed
before European hunter-gatherer incursions after the outset of the
Neolithic. Those lands were initially covered by Africans; by people
originating in Northeast Africa.

Why common scripts? So, where these people traveled (as in a closed hand in
Northeast Africa geographically opening with fingers ending in, well & the
five corners of the world) the same cluster of Neolithic advances are seen
in the places geneticists show they went be it Polynesia, North America, or
Asia. UNDERSTANDING THE MONGOLOID ISSUE: If we understand the San as
almond-eyed and being more heavily concentrated in the higher North African
regions and the Negroid types being more southerly placed, that can account
for the Neolithic Asian population with the almond eye in Asia and North
America (Indians) originating, none the less, in Africa. See, for instance:
Yuehai Ke and Li Jin, et. al., African Origin of Modern Humans in East Asia:
A Tale of 12,000 Y Chromosomes, Science, 292:5519, pp. 1151-1153, Issue of
11 May 2001.

The present posts shows symbols found in writing that are common to
prehistoric South Africa, the Sudan, Egypt, Sumer of the Ubaid period
preceding cuneiform, India, and used by the Maori of New Zealand. It was not
professional Egyptologists but drunk sailors with women on their minds who
recorded this script in New Zealand back in the 1850s (the book was
published in the 1860s). They probably didnt even know of Egypt or
hieroglyphics and surely didnt care even if they knew. This shows all the
more how genuine their recordings are in their representation of
hieroglyphics. They wrote them down when they were drunk with women in their
arms!

This writing is variously found inscribed on outdoor rock surfaces, tablets,
clothes, and variously tattooed or painted on the human body (as in the case
of VI and VII. I think a problem in Egyptology is that the purists cant
conceive of cultural influences upon Egypt from earlier southern cultures
nor imagine the migration of families and tribes from Egypt to India and
such places where people went. Keep in mind that Buddhism shares at least
half-a-dozen features in common with Egyptian religions. And I havent yet
discussed the Shinto of Japan and its apparent Osirian connections.  Simply
because not every tribe in Asia has written documentation of the prehistoric
travels of their ancestors does not mean that they originated in those
places 40 trillion years ago springing up from the earth like seeds in a
garden.

THE FUTURE OF THE PURIST EGYPTOLOGIST: The purist form of Egyptology, in the
opinion of the present writer, is forcing itself into extinction and making
itself a less-and-less viable social science when it attempts to keep Egypt
in a geo-temporal box that largely only subjected lands to the south and had
little or nothing to do with lands beyond the classical Middle East. But,
what am I. Just a little peon. A little twerp offering ideas that should
remain in the realm of professional discussion. I. An arm chair philosopher.
A stupid idiot. They say that ignorance is bliss. Well. I be happy.

Here are the links. Are they the result of people independently inventing
them? Are the similarities freaks of nature?

[I] SOUTH AFRICAN PREHISTORIC SAN ROCK ENGRAVINGS

http://www.mightymall.com/TheSecondBookImages/08-10-100-48-10_S.Africa.Prehi
storic.San.engravings.found.from.there.to.Egypt,.India.jpg

Linda M. Slack, Rock engravings from Driekops Eiland, and other sites
south-west of Johannesburg, (Centaur Press, London, 1962), p. 15.

[II] MEROITIC WRITING OF NORTHERN SUDAN ON THE NILE

http://www.mightymall.com/TheSecondBookImages/08-10-100-50-01_Sudan.Meriotic
.Writing.like.Predynastic.S.African.jpg

In: Dietrich Wildung, Sudan ­ ancient kingdoms of the Nile, (Flammarion,
Paris, 1997), p. 254.

[III] HIEROGLYPHICS OF MAORI IN NEW ZEALAND

http://www.mightymall.com/TheSecondBookImages/08-10-300-15-01_New-Zealand-Ma
ori-writing-like-hieroglyphics-from-1861-book.jpg

Richard Taylor, Te Ika a Maui; or New Zealand and its inhabitants, 2nd
edition, (William Macintosh, London [1861] 1870).


[IV] HIEROGLYPHICS OF THE UBAID PERIOD OF SUMER

http://www.mightymall.com/TheSecondBookImages/08-10-500-09-01_Sumer.Ubaid.4t
h-Mill.African.writing.like.Egyptian.,Maori.jpg

In an A. Parrot book. The hut used by the Bambotides (Pygmy), San, and
Nubians is the beehive hut and has been in the archeological record for
deca-millenniums. It is the beehive hut hieroglyphic used during the Ubaid
period that represented House.


[V] THE DOGON OF MALI

http://www.mightymall.com/TheSecondBookImages/08-10-100-32-07_Mali.Dogon.wri
ting.similar.to.Egptian.jpg

Not all. A few similarities. Found in National Geographic

[VI] A SOMALI WOMAN WITH A DOT IN THE MIDDLE OF A CIRCLE

http://www.mightymall.com/TheSecondBookImages/08-10-100-47-01_Somali.Woman.w
ith.Circle-Dot-Sun.Hieroglyphic.on.Face.jpg
<http://www.mightymall.com/TheSecondBookImages/08-10-100-47-01_Somali.Woman.
with.Circle-Dot-Sun.Hieroglyphic.on.Face.jpg>

That the woman is Somali. That she is from a culture in Northeast Africa

In a Beckwith book.

[VII] AN INDIAN GIRL WITH A DOT IN THE MIDDLE OF A CIRCLE

http://www.mightymall.com/TheSecondBookImages/08-10-400-05-01.02_India.a.Mar
ia.Girl.Central.India.w.Dot-Circle.Hieroglyphic.jpg
<http://www.mightymall.com/TheSecondBookImages/08-10-400-05-01.02_India.a.Ma
ria.Girl.Central.India.w.Dot-Circle.Hieroglyphic.jpg>

Karl Gröning, Decorated skin ­ a world survey of body art, (Thames and
Hudson, London, 1997), p. 186.

He writes: The face of this young Maria is decorated with the traditional
tattoo patterns. A circle on the forehead symbolizes the full moon, a
crescent the half moon; a circle with a dot in the middle is the sign of the
sun.

[VIII] MEROITIC AND OTHER ANCIENT RELATED SCRIPTS

Clyde Winters deciphered the Meroitic script back in 1983. A list of his
publications on its decipherment and can put the entire discussion into
better perspective:

Winters, A.A. 1984. "A note on Tokharian and
         Meroitic".Meroitic Newsletter, no. 23: 18-21.
____________.1988. "The Dravidian and Manding substratum in
      Tokharian". Central Asiatic Journal, 32 (1-2): 131-141.
------------.1989. "Chiekh Anta Diop at le Dechiffrement de
      l'ecriture Meroitique", Revue Martiniguaise de Sciences
      Humaines et de Litterature, no.8: 141-153.
Winters, A.A. 1984. "A note on Tokharian and Meroitic".Meroitic Newsletter,
no. 23: 18-21.
____________.1988. "The Dravidian and Manding substratum in Tokharian".
Central Asiatic Journal, 32 (1-2): 131-141.
------------.1989. "Chiekh Anta Diop at le Dechiffrement de l'ecriture
Meroitique", Revue Martiniguaise de Sciences Humaines et de Litterature,
no.8: 141-153.
       Winters, C.A.(1998). Meroitic funerary text. Part 1, Inscription
Journal of Ancient Egypt, 1 (1), 29-34.
      Winters, C.A.(1998b). Meroitic funerary text. Part 2, Inscription
Journal of Ancient Egypt, 1 (2), 41-55.
      Winters,C.A. (1999). Inscriptions of Tanydamani, Nubica et Ethiopica,
IV/V, 355-388.
I discuss the decipherment of Meroitic and other African writing systems at
the following site:
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Bay/7051/anwrite.htm
Well. I guess that does it. Have a nice day, everybody.
Marc Washington


5. Biblical Proofs no.22: Best Places

The Lost Ten Tribes will be in islands (Isaiah 41:1), in the best places
(translated in the KJ as chief men), at the ends of the earth meaning
geographical extremities (41:8-9).

[Isaiah 41:9] THOU WHOM I HAVE TAKEN FROM THE ENDS OF THE EARTH, AND CALLED
THEE FROM THE CHIEF MEN THEREOF, AND SAID UNTO THEE, THOU ART MY SERVANT; I
HAVE CHOSEN THEE, AND NOT CAST THEE AWAY.

  THE CHIEF MEN THEREOFin Hebrew Atsiliah. Atselmeans height, noble,
nobility, quality. The expression can preferably be tranlsated as the best
(or most noble) places thereof.

I once saw a book for professional scribes. Amongst the subjects discussed
in this work were parchments made out of animal skins. Torah scrolls,
mezuzahs, and the like are written on animal parchment. The parchment needs
to be of good quality to enable writing. The best cowhides, the book said,
come from North America due to the climate and environment of that area. It
quoted a Talmudic verse saying that some places are more blessed than others.

All those areas where the Lost Ten Tribes now populate are naturally
blessed regions when compared to the rest of world. North America, the
British Isles, Scandinavia, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and
South Africa have all blessed physically in so far as they are full of
natural resources, relatively free from diseases and plague, and have
envigorating climates on the whole. In Australia there is a problem of skin
cancer due to the plentiful sunshine but from other considerations the
environment is an inspiring and joyful one.



Even Scandinavia which is often considered a cold forbidding area is
actually a healthy blessed region, as the following quotations (from the
Cybalist Linguistic list) confirm):

<< People tend to think of Scandinavia as a frozen wasteland, but in fact
it's not; the winters are less severe than Russia's. In Norway, you also
have stupendous fishery resources (Atlantic salmon, among others) which
tend to be ignored in the literature. While you had to work hard in the
midnight sun of summer to ensure you kept warm in the winter, a virgin,
relatively thinly-populated Scandinavia can almost be thought of as
paradisical.

<<Scandinavia is also physically isolated. The continent-wide disturbances
which have periodically afflicted Europe (e.g., warlike Indo-Iranians,
Huns, Mongols, Charles V, Napoleon, to mention only a few) tend to bypass
the Northland. The Fenno-Scandian block has pretty much been left alone all
through history.>> Mark Odegard.

<<The main problem with living in these parts is: How do stay alive in
the winter? You can keep out the cold by proper housing and clothing
but what would you eat?
Since Nature provides nothing in those months (except for ice
fishing, brrrr) survival hinges on technologies to preserve food.
One method is to keep farm animals and slaughter them in winter.
Another is to keep durable stuff about, like cereals (no, not corn
flakes). But you could also salt or smoke fish.
(Lower) Saxony, the old home of the Saxons has the salt mines at
Lüneburg. Denmark and Scania had the fishing in the Sound. Until the
16th century herring would leave the Baltic at certain seasons, and,
according to some chroniclers, in such numbers that you could place a
spear in the water and it would stand upright. In the late middle
ages this was the basis of Danish wealth: Sound herrings, bought and
salted by the Hanse Merchants on the markets in Skanör and Falsterbo.
Standard history will tell you that the importance of this export was
due to Catholics eating fish during fast; personally I think they
constituted a large part of food produced in Denmark then.>>
Torsten

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