Djehuti -

"Horemheb, regardless of what these guys say about Greece, we are discussing Egypt..."

Thought Writes:

Djehuti seems to be implying that to understand Egypt or Egyptology we should not study the cultures that she interacted with. Is this a valid position? Or should we study the peoples and cultures that the AE interacted with to better understand and conceptualize AE culture? Could we really understand the Peopling of the Nile without understanding the peopling of the regions around the Nile?

I feel its an error to treat Greece as just a extension of ancient Egypt. Certainly there is links and influences in culture,but Greece has a completely different culture than that of ancient Egypt. Please understand I am not a geneticist,nor do I understand population genetics,so I will refrain from commenting on this.

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Originally posted by ausar:

I feel its an error to treat Greece as just a extension of ancient Egypt. Certainly there is links and influences in culture,but Greece has a completely different culture than that of ancient Egypt. Please understand I am not a geneticist,nor do I understand population genetics,so I will refrain from commenting on this.

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Thought Writes:

Ausar, you just addressed a TOTALLY different question than the one I raised. I never stated that Greece should be treated as an extension of Egypt. What I asked was should we study the regions that Egypt interacted with to better understand Egypt?

Why would we have to study the areas ancient Egypt interacted with to understand it better. Wouldn't a study of the language help us understand ancient Egypt better.

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Originally posted by ausar:

Why would we have to study the areas ancient Egypt interacted with to understand it better. Wouldn't a study of the language help us understand ancient Egypt better.

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Thought Writes:

Ausar, at one time the study of language led to the false conclusion of the hamitic Hypothesis based upon the relationship between Semitic and Ancient Egyptian. A MULTI-DISCIPLINARY approach is the best approach.

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Originally posted by Horemheb:

Multi Discplinary approaches are nice IF one has the knowledge base to understand how to put the material into context.

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Thought Writes:

"Nice", what a goof-ball.

a) That you live in a swamp and become 2-dimensional?

b) That you access as much of the available resources as you can to create a multi-disciplinary gridline approach - like they do at CERN - and build from basics?

c) None of the above?

d) All of the above - including (c)

Get the picture? It's multidisciplinary! - process AND goal oriented. So, even if an proposed adventure comes up short, those who travel the line do not necessarily come up "empty".

Ancient Egypt had significant cultural interactions with many surrounding nations and proto-colonial/imperial proprietorship over some. Lots to examine. As for the quest - it takes at least two hands to move the friction pawn. With even the simplest dialiectical approach, it's synergy or bust.

Nothing ever existed in a vacuum and if we desire to know the true extent of Egyptian influence upon other cultures and theirs upon Egypt, one must learn to pick nits or perish. To wit - comparative, synergetic studies are the only way to establish serious benchmarks in the history of civilization or the history of ideas.

To woo - despite the controversy, the baseline already established on this board vis a vis Afro-Egyptian genetic markers - presents a formidable platform from which other explorations can be launched from a position of strength. If I did not think that was the case, I would have been out of here in the bat of an eye. Whatever. There is good talent on this board and a sense of movement one does not find everywhere.

BUT - however you want to direct it, and admirable though the idea may be, multi-disciplinary approaches are gruelling. Since I have attempted this with a few collegues in a very narrow field of specialization, I can only warn you in advance that, depending on the topic, the degree of categorization and research can be overwhelming - perhaps even dangerously obsessive. On the other hand, the intrinsic rewards are there to be found... many of them alive and waiting in the WW swamp.

Tell me now. What shall we hunt today? The Pythagorean theorem or The Snark? I'm always ready to go - somewhere... and if you allow me to wrap myself around that swizzle stick of yours Thought, I would be glad to point you in 360 different directions - simultaneously - enough to make any human head spin...bodies too.

Gist of the tale of the seasick sailor is, no matter where we arrive, we will always be - somewhere - and regardless of how a few sticks in the mud feel about "right and wrong directions", the value of the pearl is in the eye of the beholder. Those who can keep their eye on a single pearl long enough may have the pleasure of watching it expand...gradually, like the universe at large.

State a course. If I can help, I will. If not, I will tell you immediately. We have six degrees of freedom to work with and not even the stars are beyond our grasp.

a bientot
DMc

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Originally posted by Thought2:
Thought Posts:

Djehuti -

"Horemheb, regardless of what these guys say about Greece, we are discussing Egypt..."

Thought Writes:

Djehuti seems to be implying that to understand Egypt or Egyptology we should not study the cultures that she interacted with. Is this a valid position? Or should we study the peoples and cultures that the AE interacted with to better understand and conceptualize AE culture? Could we really understand the Peopling of the Nile without understanding the peopling of the regions around the Nile?

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Kemet is thousands of years older than Greece. I don't think you particularly NEED to understand Greece in order to understand Kemet.

What Djehuti may not get is that for some prejudiced peoples, distorting African history is vital, because they are obsessed with building a myth of ws.t civilisation as an emmaculately conceived white virgin.

This myth requires the destruction of African history and the erasure of her peoples from the historical record, simply because African civilisation predates European and influenced it in every way.

That's why, for example, the thread on misclassification of ancient African remains, turns into a discussion of ancient Greece. That's why the remains were misclassified to begin with!

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Originally posted by ausar:
Thought, I am not speaking about using language as an origin. What I mean is actually reading the mdu ntr[hieroglyphs] instead of relying on second hand translations. These can help us understand the long dead culture of the ancient Egyptians. Linguistics is the time machine that allows us to travel to the past.

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Most people would have to be a trained linguist, perhaps learn Coptic, and other Egyptian words which may have now mixed with the local Arabic dialect. So, most people may not have the time, or those basic resources to go into Mdu Ntr directly. Also, stories in Mdu Ntr are at times questioned, as to whether they are meant to depict a real situation or a symbolic one. As you have already seen, despite the Egyptians being very candid about what they looked like, there are people, who still question what the Kemetians claimed to have looked like.

Another example is that of the Greek texts; there are people who claim that the Greeks were not in their right mind, when they made certain comments, which now stand in contrast to Eurocentric ideology. This is where multidisciplinary approach comes into play, taking the evidence provided in Mdu Ntr and tying it with the findings of the various disciplines within Egyptology, including bio-anthropology.

Another question: What about stuff like the beginning of agriculture in the Nile Valley, do you think that Mdu Ntr alone will provide detailed information on the specifics of this? I don't rule out the idea that there may be texts in Mdu Ntr, which may well tell us how the Kemetians dealt with agriculture, and how they prepared for the change of seasons, but the bigger picture of this behavior [agriculture] is best produced from a multidisciplinary approach.

I think it may be worthwhile digging it out of the vault and keeping it alive on a regular, ongoing day to day basis, although I see that the technical limitations of the board makes it almost like a random generator. Cards keep getting shuffled downward towards the back of the deck as new threads appear.

I personally feel inept - maybe "vulnerable" is a better word - not knowing more and would like to learn how to read Egyptian hieroglyphs independently. What a trip! What a pearl! I'd be into that. How can we engage a classroom?

a bientot

Everybody who has the time and wishes to learn mdu ntr[hieroglyphics] might want to check out glyphscribe. A new internet course designed especially for this purposed. Please note that the course is not free.

http://www.glyphdoctors.com/

This is why you have Egyptologist who often specialize is many areas. You ask what can linguist tell us about the first agritculturalist in the Nile Valley? Well, it actually can tell us alot. Christopher Ehret when reconstructing Afro-Asiatics found that many of the words for cattle pen in the ancient Egyptian language had a Nilo-Saharan origin.

Its true we need linguistics,physical anthropology,archaeology,and cultural anthropology to reconstruct the ancient Egyptian civlization.

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Originally posted by rasol:

Kemet is thousands of years older than Greece. I don't think you particularly NEED to understand Greece in order to understand Kemet.

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Thought Writes:

You are correct Rasol, to understand the people of the Nile one does not NEED to understand the nations she interacted with. But if one wants GREATER understanding of the people of the Nile one certainly does need to look into every single aspect of Nile Valley culture, which includes cultural interaction. We're back to the issue of relativity again...

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Originally posted by ausar:

Thought, I am not speaking about using language as an origin. What I mean is actually reading the mdu ntr[hieroglyphs] instead of relying on second hand translations. These can help us understand the long dead culture of the ancient Egyptians. Linguistics is the time machine that allows us to travel to the past.

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Thought Writes:

Ausar, we can chew bubble gum and walk at the same time, lets do both in a multi-disciplinary fashion.

Hoe-In-Him is at it again!