Fingerprints of the Gods - Book Review

[Beagle]

If I post here and this crashes....

Bob, I came across something. We don't want to get in to this tonight but the Narmer Palette has a huge message I think.

Oh well, I'll go get it.

[Minimalist]

Things seem to be holding together, so far.

[Beagle]

http://www.terraflex.co.il/ad/egypt/nar ... lette2.htm

Here is the back side of the Narmer Palette or rather drawings of the symbols on it.

I read something while ago and some researcher says that in the upper left corner (seen in the procession picture) there is a rectangle with a picture of the Great Pyramid. It's a flat top pyramid with a pyramid inside of it.

No big deal? The Narmer Palette is dated to 3600 BC I think - but definately pre-dynastic.

A little off topic since Hancock didn't bring this up.

[Minimalist]

At least 3200 BC and it certainly looks like a pyramid...a real pyramid not a step pyramid.

I'm sure Zahi's Club will insist that it is a representation of the "triangle" section of Narmer's marching band.

[Beagle]

Ok, 3,200 BC - I've got a poor memory. Surely someone has made a comment on what it is. I'm really curious now. The link I posted simply didn't mention it.

Gettin' late here.

[Starflower]

This site has a good picture of that area of the Narmer Palett:

http://www.egyptvoyager.com/features_na ... tte_02.htm

and here is what they have to say about it:

A rectangle above this sandal-bearer's head contains a sign of uncertain meaning.

I like your idea Beagle.

[Minimalist]

One would think that a pyramid shape in Egypt would suggest something to somebody....wouldn't one?

[DougWeller]

I don't know why anyone would assume that the symbol is a pyramid, let alone any specific one. Or that the triangle inside must be a pyramid. Seriously, isn't it a huge stretch to claim that that must be a representation of the GP?

[Minimalist]

Again, why would anyone find any sort of triangle shape unusual in Egypt?

Put "Egypt" into Google Images and there are pyramids all over the place.

[Beagle]

[img][img]http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h298/LL3850/th_great_pyramid-entrance2.jpg[/img]
[/img]

Here is a picture of the "entrance " to the GP. Looks like a triangle. This might have been a prominent feature during Narmers time, without the additional stones in the way.

It might account for the smaller triangle in the picture on the palette. Maybe.

[Frank Harrist]

You guys are speculating just as you accuse the egyptology club of doing. Reading in meaning that may or may not be correct. You're right, that it could be a representation of the pyramid, but it could also be a symbol for something else entirely different. I won't speculate on the meaning, but be careful you don't fall for an easy explanation which fits your theory, as others do. It is a plausible theory, but there could be other plausible theories as well. We all speculate, well Marduk claims he doesn't, and there's nothing wrong with using your imagination, as long as you don't convince yourself that it's the only explanation. Then you're no better than the club. Just be flexible as they are not.
(For the record I agree that some egyptologysts are inflexible and hold fast to the same old theories. In that respect there is a sort of "club")

[Minimalist]

Okay. I'll say it.

Could it be that the 'experts' will not ascribe a meaning to that symbol because the Club has ruled that the pyramids were built 6 centuries or so after Narmer?

[Beagle]

Yes Frank, I'm speculating here. As you know, I'm not shy about doing that on many subjects, but in this case speculation is the only thing to do.

I have searched again today - and there isn't one scholar that will state the meaning of that symbol. I hope someone finds an explanation.

But right now, the symbol looks like a reference point. With the GP at his back, Narmer was facing south toward his vanquished foes of upper Egypt.

I'm sure Doug is looking.

[DougWeller]

Yes Frank, I'm speculating here. As you know, I'm not shy about doing that on many subjects, but in this case speculation is the only thing to do.

I have searched again today - and there isn't one scholar that will state the meaning of that symbol. I hope someone finds an explanation.

But right now, the symbol looks like a reference point. With the GP at his back, Narmer was facing south toward his vanquished foes of upper Egypt.

I'm sure Doug is looking.

Sorry, I am definitely not an Egyptologist!

This is OT, for which I hope I can be excused. Some people seem to think there is some sort of archaeology 'club'. In fact, you will find the letters pages in the journals, for instance, show just how argumentative archaeologists can be, almost amounting to (well, sometimes not almost) 'flaming'. And not just the letter pages. The following example is not to discuss the Olmecs but to show how split over some fundamental things archaeologists can be.

Professor Bernard Ortiz de Montellano posted this on Ma'at:

Cat fight among Olmec scholars

[/i]Olmec culture developed principally in the Gulf Coast centers such as San Lorenzo or La Venta and then was spread by diffusion, trade, and/or missionary activity to the rest of Mesoamerica. The “sister cultures” camp argues that in the Formative there was a widely distributed common world-view artistic “Olmec style” and that a number of polities were involved in creating and disseminating this “Olmec style.” These do not give the entire range but give you the two extremes.

The opening salvo was:

Jeffrey P. Blomster, Hector Neff, Michael D. Glascock. 2005. “Olmec Pottery Production and Export in Ancient Mexico Determined Through Elemental Analysis,” Science 305: 1068-1072

The first Mesoamerican civilization, the Gulf Coast Olmec, is associated with hierarchical society, monumental art, and an internally consistent ideology, expressed in a distinct style and salient iconography. Whether the Olmec style arose in just one area or emerged from interactions among scattered contemporaneous societies remains controversial. Using elemental analysis, we determined the regional clay sources of 725 archaeological ceramic samples from across Mesoamerica. Exported Olmec-style ceramics originated from the San Lorenzo region of the Gulf Coast, supporting Olmec priority in the creation and spread of the first unified style and iconographic system in Mesoamerica.

And a comment:

Richard A. Diehl. 2005. ”Patterns of Cultural Primacy.” Science 307: 1055-1056

This prompted an indignant answer in he following 2 papers:

James B. Stoltman, Joyce Marcus, Kent V. Flannery, James H. Burton, and Robert G. Moyle. 2005. “Petrographic evidence shows that pottery exchange between the Olmec and their neighbors was two-way, “ Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 102: 11213-11218.

Petrographic thin sections of pottery from five Formative Mexican
archaeological sites show that exchanges of vessels between
highland and lowland chiefly centers were reciprocal, or two-way.
These analyses contradict recent claims that the Gulf Coast was the
sole source of pottery carved with iconographic motifs. Those
claims were based on neutron activation, which, by relying on
chemical elements rather than actual minerals, has important
limitations in its ability to identify nonlocal pottery from within
large data sets. Petrography shows that the ceramics in question
(and hence their carved motifs) have multiple origins and were
widely traded.

Kent V. Flannery*, Andrew K. Balkansky†, Gary M. Feinman‡, David C. Grove§, Joyce Marcus*¶, Elsa M. Redmond , Robert G. Reynolds**, Robert J. Sharer††, Charles S. Spencer , and Jason Yaeger‡‡. 2005. “Implications of new petrographic analysis for the Olmec ‘‘mother culture’’ model,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 102: 11219-1123.

Petrographic analysis of Formative Mexican ceramics by J. B.
Stoltman et al. (see the companion piece in this issue of PNAS)
refutes a recent model of Olmec ‘‘one-way’’ trade. In this paper, we
address the model’s more fundamental problems of sampling bias,
anthropological implausibility, and logical non sequiturs. No bridging
argument exists to link motifs on pottery to the social, political,
and religious institutions of the Olmec. In addition, the model of
unreciprocated exchange is implausible, given everything that
the anthropological and ethnohistoric records tell us about non-
Western societies of that general sociopolitical level.

Notice the escalation in the number of authors, and the rhetoric.

The warfare escalated and moved to Latin American Antiquity

Blomster called in the big “Mother culture” guns, Coe and Diehl and a whole group of Olmec scholars. Notice how the rhetoric escalates even in the titles and the number of pages.

Hector Neff, Jeffrey Blomster, Michael D. Glascock, Ronald L. Bishop, M. James Blackman, Michael D. Coe, George L. Cowgill, Richard A. Diehl, Stephen Houston, Arthur A. Joyce, Carl P. Lipo, Barbara L. Stark, and Marcus Winter. 2006. “Methodological Issues in the Provenance Investigation of Early Formative Mesoamerican Ceramics,” Latin American Antiquity 17: 54-76.

A recent study of Early Formative Mesoamerican pottery by instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) yielded surprising results that prompted two critiques in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The INAA study indicated that the Olmec center of San Lorenzo was a major exporter of carved-incised and white pottery and that little if any pottery made elsewhere was consumed at San Lorenzo. The critiques purport to “overturn” the INAA study and demonstrate a more balanced exchange of potter3y among Early Formative centers. However, the critiques rely on a series of mistaken claims and misunderstandings that are addressed here. New petrographic data on a small sample of Early Formative pottery (Stoltman et al. 2005) are potentially useful, but they do not overturn INAA of nearly 1000 pottery samples and hundreds of raw material samples.




The other side increases the number of authors, the page lengths and the rhetoric;

Robert J. Sharer, Andrew K. Balkansky, James H. Burton, Gary M. Feinman, Kent V. Flannery, David. C. Grove, Joyce Marcus, Robert G. Moyle, T. Douglas Price, Elsa M. Redmond, Robert G. Reynolds, Prudence M. Rice, Charles S. Spencer, James B. Stoltman, and Jason Yaeger. 2006. “On the Logic of Archaeological Inference: Early Formative Pottery and the Evolution of Mesoamerican Societies,” Latin American Antiquity 17:90-103

The 2005 articles by Stoltman et al. And Flannery et al. to which Neff et al (this issue) have responded are not an indictment of instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) but, rather, of the way Blomster et al (2005) misuse it and of the hyperbolic culture-historical claims they have made from their INAA results. It has long been acknowledged that INAA leads not to sources but to chemical composition groups. Based on composition groups derived from an extremely unsystematic collection of sherds from only seven localities, Blomster et al claim that the Olmecs received no carved gray or kaolin white pottery from other regions; they also claim that neighboring valleys in the Mexican highlands did not exchange such pottery with each other. Not only can one not leap directly from the elements in potsherds to such sweeping culture-historical conclusions, it is also the case that other lines of evidence (including petrographic analysis) have for 40+ years produced empirical evidence to the contrary. In the end, it was their commitment to an unfalsifiable model of Olmec superiority that led Blomster et al. to bypass the logic of archaeological evidence.


A further blast from the Coe camp:

Hector Neff, Jeffrey Blomster, Michael D. Glascock, Ronald L. Bishop, M. James Blackman, Michael D. Coe, George L. Cowgill, Ann Cyphers, Richard A. Diehl, Stephen Houston, Arthur a. Joyce, Carl P. Lipo and Marcus Winter. 2006. “Smokescreens in the Provenance Investigation of Early Formative Mesoamerican Ceramics,” Latin American Antiquity 17: 104-118

WE are glad that Sharer et al. (this issue) have dropped their original claim that the INAA data demonstrate multidirectional movement of Early Formative pottery. Beyond this, however, they offer nothing that might enhance understanding of Early Formative ceramic circulation or inspire new insights into Early Formative cultural evolution in Mesoamerica. Instead, their response contains fresh distortions, replications of mistakes made in their PNAS articles, and lengthy passages that a re irrelevant to the issues raised by Neff et al. (this issue). We correct and recorrect their latest distortions and misunderstandings here. Besides showing why their discussion of ceramic sourcing repeatedly misses the mark, we also correct a number of erroneous assertions about the archaeology of Olmec San Lorenzo. New evidence deepens understanding of Early Formative Mesoamerica but requires that some researchers discard cherished beliefs.

The fight will continue. I know people on both sides.. fun and games.

Bernard

If anyone wants to discuss the content above, please either start a new thread or join in at http://www.hallofmaat.com/read.php?1,41 ... msg-418141

[DougWeller]

[img][img]http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h298/LL3850/th_great_pyramid-entrance2.jpg[/img]
[/img]

Here is a picture of the "entrance " to the GP. Looks like a triangle. This might have been a prominent feature during Narmers time, without the additional stones in the way.

It might account for the smaller triangle in the picture on the palette. Maybe.

You think it was open?

How would your reconcile such a date with the C14 dating results and any meaningful sequence of pyramid development?

Someone named Khufu certainly built the GP, the grafitti are evidence for that.