Discussion:
Alexander the Great & the pitfalls of ancient sources
(too old to reply)
JTEM
2011-01-06 20:21:44 UTC
Permalink
Here's an interesting tidbit that highlights the importance
of evidence, and the near utter uselessness of tradition...

: In the courtyard of the mosque that had once been the church
: of St. Athanasius, standing inside a small open building, was
: a handsome, heavy sarcophagus carved from a single block of
: rare, beautiful, dark green breccia. It was decorated, inside
: and out, with Egyptian hieroglyphics. Although it was being
: used as a cistern for worshipers' ablutions before prayers,
: locals referred to it as "the tomb of Alexander."

So the popular belief, what was handed down by "Tradition"
was that this sarcophagus was the very tomb of Alexander
the Great...

: French troops removed it and transported it to the hold of a
: French hospital ship. It was said that they intended to bring
: it to Paris, where a monument to Napoleon would be built
: around it, thus associating the latter with Alexander the Great
: in much the same way rulers had done since Ptolemy first
: hijacked the funeral cortege in southern Turkey.

The French bought into "Tradition," believed it belonged to
Alexander the Great, and wanted to ship it back to France...

: But in 1801, the British invaded Egypt and expelled the
: French. Antiquaries attached to the British forces knew
: about the so-called "Alexander sarcophagus" from travelers'
: writings. They searched for it specifically, removed it from
: the French ship, and today the sarcophagus is not in Paris,
: but in London, on display in the British Museum.

The British believed the stories too, and stole it for themselves...

" ....made it obvious that it had been carved for the last native
: Egyptian pharaoh, Nectanebo II, who had ruled from 360 to
: 343 BC. Historians and archeologists concluded that this
: sarcophagus had never contained the body of Alexander; that
: it came to be called "Alexander's tomb" is an example of the
: great flourishing of legend and false attribution about the
: conqueror that began even during his lifetime.
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200103/alexander-the.great.mystery.htm

Human sources -- eyewitness accounts, ancient traditions --
are always inaccurate. Always. In fact, the King James version
of the bible contains just over 12 thousand words, yet is so
devoid of accuracy that people get excited over the most
feeble of archaeological "proofs."

Something to chew on....
Martin Edwards
2011-01-07 14:07:25 UTC
Permalink
Post by JTEM
Something to chew on....
As recently as the 1980s, a Greek barman told me that the cyclopes were
real because skeletons had been found with one hole in the face. My
Greek was not good enough to explain that this was simply damage.
sigge
2011-01-11 12:58:15 UTC
Permalink
Post by Martin Edwards
Post by JTEM
Something to chew on....
As recently as the 1980s, a Greek barman told me that the cyclopes were
real because
skeletons had been found with one hole in the face.  
Basically correct! Gigantic fossils with one hole in the front of the
head have really been found!
In Samos there is a "forest" (the term used by the locals) of
fossils.
They belonged to dinosaurs. The ancients humanised them into cyclops.
Fossils are the basis of many creatures appearing in the Greek myths.

A Greek palaeontologist, Solunias, has done excellent work on these
fossils, (he is a native of Samos)
and his work has been put into a prehistorical context by Adrienne
Mayor in her book "The first fossil hunters" (?).
Post by Martin Edwards
My Greek was not good enough to explain that this was simply damage.
Most likely the bartender's English was not better than your Greek
or
an Englishman drinking with a Greek bartender barely make the
constituent persons of a Symposion.

Funny you honour the guinea pig with a three-line(!!) contribution.

Sigge
Martin Edwards
2011-01-11 14:02:57 UTC
Permalink
Post by sigge
Post by Martin Edwards
Post by JTEM
Something to chew on....
As recently as the 1980s, a Greek barman told me that the cyclopes were
real because
skeletons had been found with one hole in the face.
Basically correct! Gigantic fossils with one hole in the front of the
head have really been found!
In Samos there is a "forest" (the term used by the locals) of
fossils.
They belonged to dinosaurs. The ancients humanised them into cyclops.
Fossils are the basis of many creatures appearing in the Greek myths.
A Greek palaeontologist, Solunias, has done excellent work on these
fossils, (he is a native of Samos)
and his work has been put into a prehistorical context by Adrienne
Mayor in her book "The first fossil hunters" (?).
Post by Martin Edwards
My Greek was not good enough to explain that this was simply damage.
Most likely the bartender's English was not better than your Greek
or
an Englishman drinking with a Greek bartender barely make the
constituent persons of a Symposion.
Funny you honour the guinea pig with a three-line(!!) contribution.
Sigge
Thanks for the update. I didn't know that.
Yusuf B Gursey
2011-01-11 21:23:19 UTC
Permalink
Post by sigge
Post by Martin Edwards
Post by JTEM
Something to chew on....
As recently as the 1980s, a Greek barman told me that the cyclopes were
real because
skeletons had been found with one hole in the face.  
Basically correct! Gigantic fossils with one hole in the front of the
head have really been found!
they are mastadon fossils. the one hole is the nasal cavity holding
the trunk.
Post by sigge
In Samos there is a "forest" (the term used by the locals) of
fossils.
They belonged to dinosaurs. The ancients humanised them into cyclops.
to mastadons, which were mammals.
Post by sigge
Fossils are  the basis of many creatures appearing in the Greek myths.
A Greek palaeontologist, Solunias, has done excellent work on these
fossils, (he is a native of Samos)
and his work has been put into a prehistorical context by Adrienne
Mayor in her book "The first fossil hunters" (?).
Post by Martin Edwards
My Greek was not good enough to explain that this was simply damage.
Most likely the bartender's English was not better than your Greek
or
an Englishman  drinking with a Greek bartender barely make the
constituent persons of a Symposion.
Funny you honour the guinea pig with a three-line(!!) contribution.
Sigge
Christopher Ingham
2011-01-12 01:32:59 UTC
Permalink
Post by Yusuf B Gursey
Post by sigge
Post by Martin Edwards
Post by JTEM
Something to chew on....
As recently as the 1980s, a Greek barman told me that the cyclopes were
real because
skeletons had been found with one hole in the face.  
Basically correct! Gigantic fossils with one hole in the front of the
head have really been found!
they are mastadon fossils. the one hole is the nasal cavity holding
the trunk.
Post by sigge
In Samos there is a "forest" (the term used by the locals) of
fossils.
They belonged to dinosaurs. The ancients humanised them into cyclops.
to mastadons, which were mammals.
I think Adrienne Mayor was the first to make that hypothesis, in_The
first fossil hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman
times_(Princeton, 2000):
http://books.google.com/books?id=MXCQKJwLGS4C&pg=PA54

She also proposes that the invention of the griffin was based on
observations of Protoceratops fossils.

Christopher Ingham
Italo
2011-01-20 16:42:51 UTC
Permalink
Post by Christopher Ingham
Post by Yusuf B Gursey
Post by sigge
Post by Martin Edwards
Post by JTEM
Something to chew on....
As recently as the 1980s, a Greek barman told me that the
cyclopes were real because
skeletons had been found with one hole in the face.  
Basically correct! Gigantic fossils with one hole in the front of
the head have really been found!
they are mastadon fossils. the one hole is the nasal cavity holding
the trunk.
The ending -ops/-opos/-opis/-ope (Pelops, Kekrops, Knopos, Asterope,
Europe, etc.) has nothing to do with the eye in the first place as it is
pre-Greek. IMO related to -b- endings such as in Phoibos, Hekatobaios,
Hekabe.

The (Sikel) deity on which the Kyklopes are based also reappears in the
form of Kakos and Caeculus.
Post by Christopher Ingham
Post by Yusuf B Gursey
Post by sigge
In Samos there is a "forest" (the term used by the locals) of
fossils.
They belonged to dinosaurs. The ancients humanised them into cyclops.
to mastadons, which were mammals.
I think Adrienne Mayor was the first to make that hypothesis, in_The
first fossil hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman
http://books.google.com/books?id=MXCQKJwLGS4C&pg=PA54
Which refers to Plutarchs mentions of Dionysos' war elephants and the
Neades on Samos, not the Kyklopes.
On pages 6-8 it says the 'elephant skull hypothesis' was first
introduced by one Othenio Abel in 1914.
Post by Christopher Ingham
She also proposes that the invention of the griffin was based on
observations of Protoceratops fossils.
--
b o y c o t t a m e r i c a n p r o d u c t s
V i v a H A M A S ! V i v a P A L E S T I N A !
Yusuf B Gursey
2011-01-20 21:40:21 UTC
Permalink
Post by Italo
Post by Christopher Ingham
Post by Yusuf B Gursey
Post by sigge
Post by Martin Edwards
Post by JTEM
Something to chew on....
As recently as the 1980s, a Greek barman told me that the
cyclopes were real because
skeletons had been found with one hole in the face.  
Basically correct! Gigantic fossils with one hole in the front of
the head have really been found!
they are mastadon fossils. the one hole is the nasal cavity holding
the trunk.
The ending -ops/-opos/-opis/-ope (Pelops, Kekrops, Knopos, Asterope,
Europe, etc.) has nothing to do with the eye in the first place as it is
pre-Greek. IMO related to -b- endings such as in Phoibos, Hekatobaios,
Hekabe.
The (Sikel) deity on which the Kyklopes are based also reappears in the
form of Kakos and Caeculus.
Post by Christopher Ingham
Post by Yusuf B Gursey
Post by sigge
In Samos there is a "forest" (the term used by the locals) of
fossils.
They belonged to dinosaurs. The ancients humanised them into cyclops.
to mastadons, which were mammals.
I think Adrienne Mayor was the first to make that hypothesis, in_The
first fossil hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman
http://books.google.com/books?id=MXCQKJwLGS4C&pg=PA54
Which refers to Plutarchs mentions of Dionysos' war elephants and the
Neades on Samos, not the Kyklopes.
On pages 6-8 it says the 'elephant skull hypothesis' was first
introduced by one Othenio Abel in 1914.
extinct dwarf elephants.
Post by Italo
Post by Christopher Ingham
She also proposes that the invention of the griffin was based on
observations of Protoceratops fossils.
JTEM
2011-01-21 05:24:47 UTC
Permalink
Post by Yusuf B Gursey
extinct dwarf elephants.
One reason why it is almost certainly a case where
Mastodon skeletons weren't the source of the giant
cyclops myth is that there really __Was__ dwarf
Elephants.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_elephant

See, there were dwarf Elephants living in the
Mediterranean, going back to pre-history, and
some of these were around up to historic times.

Secondly, north Africa had it's own full sized
elephant population and there was the addition
to the "Syrian" Elephant -- a very large animal
related to the Asian Elephant (or perhaps simply
a larger population). Both the north African &
Syrian Elephants weren't driven to extinction until
well into historic times.... well into ROMAN times.

So, the point is that the ancients knew what these
animals looked like. And although you can argue
that the remains the ancient Greeks would have
found -- and supposed mistaken for giants -- belonged
to a different species than anything alive at that
time, they certainly did share in such concepts, and
the skeletons would have been more than similar
enough for them to recognize as "Elephants" of some
sort.
Yusuf B Gursey
2011-01-21 10:29:37 UTC
Permalink
Post by JTEM
Post by Yusuf B Gursey
extinct dwarf elephants.
One reason why it is almost certainly a case where
Mastodon skeletons weren't the source of the giant
OK. I must have remembered wrong. the dwarf elephant skull more
aproxiamtes a giant human skull.
Post by JTEM
cyclops myth is that there really  __Was__  dwarf
Elephants.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_elephant
See, there were dwarf Elephants living in the
Mediterranean, going back to pre-history, and
some of these were around up to historic times.
Secondly, north Africa had it's own full sized
elephant population and there was the addition
to the "Syrian" Elephant -- a very large animal
related to the Asian Elephant (or perhaps simply
a larger population). Both the north African &
Syrian Elephants weren't driven to extinction until
well into historic times.... well into ROMAN times.
So, the point is that the ancients knew what these
animals looked like. And although you can argue
that the remains the ancient Greeks would have
found -- and supposed mistaken for giants -- belonged
to a different species than anything alive at that
time, they certainly did share in such concepts, and
the skeletons would have been more than similar
enough for them to recognize as "Elephants" of some
sort.
JTEM
2011-01-21 10:48:58 UTC
Permalink
Post by Yusuf B Gursey
OK. I must have remembered wrong. the dwarf elephant skull more
aproxiamtes a giant human skull.
You've completely missed the point. Total miss. What
I was saying in no uncertain terms is that these ancients
were familiar with Elephants. It's not that they'd recognize
a full sized Elephant's skeleton as an Elephant but be confused
by the exact same thing only smaller. They were familiar with
Elephants. These weren't animals known only from bones and/or
legend.
Elijahovah
2011-01-21 14:04:15 UTC
Permalink
all traidtions have origin in truth. Tradition is changed by the lies
people add ot it or alter of it. Very few actual direct lies survive.
Most lies are indirect truth. So Google up Nectanebo and it says
Nectanebo was placed on the Egyptian throne by the Spartan king
Agesilaus II. There you have the reason why it is presumed that a
Persian taking of Egypt is traditinally given to Greece. Could it not
be said that Alexander conquering Persia brought revenge for
Nectanebo's death.
Italo
2011-01-21 14:20:32 UTC
Permalink
Post by JTEM
Post by Yusuf B Gursey
OK. I must have remembered wrong. the dwarf elephant skull more
aproxiamtes a giant human skull.
You've completely missed the point. Total miss. What
I was saying in no uncertain terms is that these ancients
were familiar with Elephants. It's not that they'd recognize
a full sized Elephant's skeleton as an Elephant but be confused
by the exact same thing only smaller. They were familiar with
Elephants. These weren't animals known only from bones and/or
legend.
The tomb-chapel of Rekhmire shows Keftiu carrying elephant tusks, others
(in Asiatic dress) even bringing along a dwarf elephant.
--
b o y c o t t a m e r i c a n p r o d u c t s
V i v a H A M A S ! V i v a P A L E S T I N A !
Yusuf B Gursey
2011-01-21 16:35:14 UTC
Permalink
Post by JTEM
Post by Yusuf B Gursey
OK. I must have remembered wrong. the dwarf elephant skull more
aproxiamtes a giant human skull.
You've completely missed the point. Total miss. What
I was saying in no uncertain terms is that these ancients
were familiar with Elephants. It's not that they'd recognize
a full sized Elephant's skeleton as an Elephant but be confused
by the exact same thing only smaller. They were familiar with
Elephants. These weren't animals known only from bones and/or
legend.
b
they were not familiar with dwarf elephants and probaly didn't know
the anatomy of the elephant. at any rate it is just a theory.
JTEM
2011-01-22 14:30:24 UTC
Permalink
Post by Yusuf B Gursey
they were not familiar with dwarf elephants
Yes they were, as the cite I initially provided demonstrated.
So kind of you to miss the bleeding obvious like that...
Post by Yusuf B Gursey
and probaly didn't know the anatomy of the elephant.
They did.

It's ridicules to think that people ever needed a literal
basis for any myth. You've got the tail wagging the
dog here. It makes far more sense that they shoehorned
their myths onto any physical "Evidence" than the other
way around.
Yusuf B Gursey
2011-01-23 11:33:33 UTC
Permalink
Post by JTEM
Post by Yusuf B Gursey
they were not familiar with dwarf elephants
Yes they were, as the cite I initially provided demonstrated.
So kind of you to miss the bleeding obvious like that...
OK. in one island they survived.
Post by JTEM
Post by Yusuf B Gursey
and probaly didn't know the anatomy of the elephant.
They did.
illiterate peasants who started the myth probably didn't.

as I said it's just a theory, which has appeared in respectable
academic publications. the refuttation of it hasn't.

if you don't want to accept it, that's fine with me.
Post by JTEM
 It's ridicules to think that people ever needed a literal
basis for any myth. You've got the tail wagging the
dog here. It makes far more sense that they shoehorned
their myths onto any physical "Evidence" than the other
way around.
Yusuf B Gursey
2011-01-21 10:44:04 UTC
Permalink
Post by JTEM
Post by Yusuf B Gursey
extinct dwarf elephants.
One reason why it is almost certainly a case where
Mastodon skeletons weren't the source of the giant
cyclops myth is that there really  __Was__  dwarf
Elephants.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_elephant
See, there were dwarf Elephants living in the
Mediterranean, going back to pre-history, and
some of these were around up to historic times.
the "dwarf elephants" that survived until historic times were in
Wrangel Island and were mammoths, not the dwarf elephants of the
prehistoric Mediterranean region. see the article you cited.

see also:

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~loxias/cyclops02.htm
Post by JTEM
Secondly, north Africa had it's own full sized
elephant population and there was the addition
to the "Syrian" Elephant -- a very large animal
related to the Asian Elephant (or perhaps simply
a larger population). Both the north African &
Syrian Elephants weren't driven to extinction until
well into historic times.... well into ROMAN times.
So, the point is that the ancients knew what these
animals looked like. And although you can argue
that the remains the ancient Greeks would have
found -- and supposed mistaken for giants -- belonged
to a different species than anything alive at that
time, they certainly did share in such concepts, and
the skeletons would have been more than similar
enough for them to recognize as "Elephants" of some
sort.
Yusuf B Gursey
2011-01-20 21:29:55 UTC
Permalink
Post by Christopher Ingham
Post by Yusuf B Gursey
Post by sigge
Post by Martin Edwards
Post by JTEM
Something to chew on....
As recently as the 1980s, a Greek barman told me that the cyclopes were
real because
skeletons had been found with one hole in the face.  
Basically correct! Gigantic fossils with one hole in the front of the
head have really been found!
they are mastadon fossils. the one hole is the nasal cavity holding
the trunk.
Post by sigge
In Samos there is a "forest" (the term used by the locals) of
fossils.
They belonged to dinosaurs. The ancients humanised them into cyclops.
to mastadons, which were mammals.
I think Adrienne Mayor was the first to make that hypothesis, in_The
first fossil hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman
times_(Princeton, 2000):http://books.google.com/books?id=MXCQKJwLGS4C&pg=PA54
She also proposes that the invention of the griffin was based on
observations of Protoceratops fossils.
yes, that is the book that I had in mind.
Post by Christopher Ingham
Christopher Ingham
JTEM
2011-01-12 05:26:16 UTC
Permalink
Post by Yusuf B Gursey
they are mastadon fossils. the one hole is the nasal
cavity holding the trunk.
Using fossils to explain Greek myth is no different than
using tidal waves to explain "The parting of the Red Sea."

Small minds need literal truths. The sad fact is, humans
are quite capable of imagining things that never existed.
Matt Giwer
2011-01-12 06:48:09 UTC
Permalink
Post by JTEM
Post by Yusuf B Gursey
they are mastadon fossils. the one hole is the nasal
cavity holding the trunk.
Using fossils to explain Greek myth is no different than
using tidal waves to explain "The parting of the Red Sea."
Small minds need literal truths. The sad fact is, humans
are quite capable of imagining things that never existed.
No question about that. Anyone who can go from a narwhal tusk to a unicorn
really doesn't need the tusk to invent the unicorn. And if Herodotus can write
of ants hoarding gold... to be fair it was a story told to him.

This does show our obsession with finding causality among a people in a time
which had no interest in causality at all or or a need for a factual basis for
much of anything. In a world run by whimsical gods anthropomorphic
explanations are always credible and have the virtue of not needing to go
further.
--
With regard to human rights there is a decisive difference between what a
government does to its own citizens and what a country's military does to an
occupied people.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4278
http://www.giwersworld.org/israel/is-seg.phtml a14
Wed Jan 12 01:19:37 EST 2011
Martin Edwards
2011-01-12 13:22:56 UTC
Permalink
Post by Matt Giwer
Post by JTEM
Post by Yusuf B Gursey
they are mastadon fossils. the one hole is the nasal
cavity holding the trunk.
Using fossils to explain Greek myth is no different than
using tidal waves to explain "The parting of the Red Sea."
Small minds need literal truths. The sad fact is, humans
are quite capable of imagining things that never existed.
No question about that. Anyone who can go from a narwhal tusk to a unicorn
really doesn't need the tusk to invent the unicorn. And if Herodotus can write
of ants hoarding gold... to be fair it was a story told to him.
This does show our obsession with finding causality among a people in a time
which had no interest in causality at all or or a need for a factual basis for
much of anything. In a world run by whimsical gods anthropomorphic
explanations are always credible and have the virtue of not needing to go
further.
Nonetheless the quote from the barman is authentic, though I'll have to
ask you to take it on authority.
Matt Giwer
2011-01-13 07:43:51 UTC
Permalink
This post might be inappropriate. Click to display it.
JTEM
2018-10-23 22:12:45 UTC
Permalink
I'm going to disagree with myself here...
Post by JTEM
Here's an interesting tidbit that highlights the importance
of evidence, and the near utter uselessness of tradition...
: In the courtyard of the mosque that had once been the church
: of St. Athanasius, standing inside a small open building, was
: a handsome, heavy sarcophagus carved from a single block of
: rare, beautiful, dark green breccia. It was decorated, inside
: and out, with Egyptian hieroglyphics. Although it was being
: used as a cistern for worshipers' ablutions before prayers,
: locals referred to it as "the tomb of Alexander."
So the popular belief, what was handed down by "Tradition"
was that this sarcophagus was the very tomb of Alexander
the Great...
: French troops removed it and transported it to the hold of a
: French hospital ship. It was said that they intended to bring
: it to Paris, where a monument to Napoleon would be built
: around it, thus associating the latter with Alexander the Great
: in much the same way rulers had done since Ptolemy first
: hijacked the funeral cortege in southern Turkey.
The French bought into "Tradition," believed it belonged to
Alexander the Great, and wanted to ship it back to France...
: But in 1801, the British invaded Egypt and expelled the
: French. Antiquaries attached to the British forces knew
: about the so-called "Alexander sarcophagus" from travelers'
: writings. They searched for it specifically, removed it from
: the French ship, and today the sarcophagus is not in Paris,
: but in London, on display in the British Museum.
The British believed the stories too, and stole it for themselves...
" ....made it obvious that it had been carved for the last native
: Egyptian pharaoh, Nectanebo II, who had ruled from 360 to
: 343 BC. Historians and archeologists concluded that this
: sarcophagus had never contained the body of Alexander; that
: it came to be called "Alexander's tomb" is an example of the
: great flourishing of legend and false attribution about the
: conqueror that began even during his lifetime.
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200103/alexander-the.great.mystery.htm
Human sources -- eyewitness accounts, ancient traditions --
are always inaccurate. Always. In fact, the King James version
of the bible contains just over 12 thousand words, yet is so
devoid of accuracy that people get excited over the most
feeble of archaeological "proofs."
Something to chew on....
So Nectanebo II is a bit of an enigma. We don't really
"Know" what happened to him, except it is a virtual
certainty that he did NOT die anywhere near Alexandria.

It *Is* entirely feasible that Alexander the great was
laid to rest within this sarcophagus!

Why not?

Things like this sarcophagus were reused all the time.
And one likely scenario is that pharaoh Nectanebo II
had it carved for himself during his reign, in preparation
of a lavish tomb befitting a king of such great stature,
and he was forced to leave it behind when he fled.

...the man wasn't going to carry it on his back.

Anyway, a big beautiful sarcophagus in the Egyptian
tradition was exactly what Ptolemy would have wanted
for Alexander's body, and here was this empty tomb
one resting right there...

So it's not implausible that Nectanebo II's sarcophagus
would be repurposed later. Even if he was in it! But I
doubt he was in it.

So, yes, this is one of the few very public times I
must retract an argument/conclusion. In hindsight I
don't believe we can EXCLUDE this sarcophagus as having
been used for Alexander the Great.

At this point? I'm willing to say "Yes."





-- --

http://jtem.tumblr.com/post/179353843968

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