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Post by djoser-xyyman on Apr 21, 2010 9:21:37 GMT -5
=== It is also clear enough, as the title "Queen's Megaron" itself hints, that Evans's preconceptions about Minoan society -- a peace-loving monarchy, with a powerful role for women and a mother goddess at the center of the religious system -- strongly influenced his reconstructions, not only of the architecture and decoration, but of the other finds too. A classic case of this is two famous faience figurines of "snake goddesses" (a key figure in Evans's Minoan pantheon) unearthed on the site. "Snake goddesses," or "snake priestesses," they may have been, but once again considerably less of the original objects survives than what you now see in the museum display. Everything below the waist of one is a restoration; most of the snakes as well as the head and face of the other are the work of Halvor Bagge, one of the other artists in Evans's team.
In some recent accounts of the history of Minoan archaeology, Evans himself has taken a lot of criticism. At best, he has seemed a dupe of his own obsessions with a particular vision of prehistory and of his fixation with the idea of a primitive mother goddess (a fixation unconvincingly explained in J.A. MacGillivary's hostile 2000 biography, Minotaur, by the loss of Evans's own mother when he was only six years old). At worst, he has been presented as a rich, upper-class racist, working out his sexual hang-ups and his British imperialist prejudices on the archaeology of Minoan Crete.
Evans was also capable of writing with contempt of the "inferior races," and at the age of seventy-four he was convicted in London of "an act in violation of public decency" with a young man (he had been married briefly -- but whether this offense was part of a habitual pattern of conduct or a one-off incident we do not know).
There is also the question of quite how far he was aware of the brisk trade in Minoan forgeries during the early decades of the twentieth century, many of which he authenticated, some of which he bought for himself. Apart perhaps from prehistoric "Cycladic figurines," no category of objects has ever been more systematically faked than Minoan antiquities.
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Post by djoser-xyyman on Apr 21, 2010 10:03:20 GMT -5
more
== = = = Yet even with these biographical details and with such clearly documented links between the characters, the pattern of influence remains hard to pin down. Whatever the young de Chirico learned from his childhood teacher, those drawing lessons took place before Gilliéron had undertaken any major work at Knossos. And indeed the apparent reminiscences of the modernist architecture of Knossos in de Chirico's paintings predated the large-scale architectural reconstruction of the palace site by more than a decade. Perhaps we should be thinking of the influence flowing from de Chirico to the restorers of the palace. More likely, as Gere implies, the reinvention of primitive Knossos was a much more communal cultural project than that. We should not see it simply as the construction of Evans and his staff, but as a shared obsession of the early-twentieth-century intellectual élite. This obsession drew not only on a powerful combination of archaeology and modernism, but also on new views of the nature of ancient Greek culture (largely inspired by Nietzsche -- who was certainly de Chirico's bedside reading) and on a radical sense that the distant past could provide a way of rethinking the present. Not that Gere entirely neglects the investment of Evans himself in the whole Minoan project. Apart from the occasional flight of fancy (we find more speculation here on how the loss of Evans's mother caused his fixation with the Cretan Mother Goddess), she is much more levelheaded, and evenhanded, than many recent writers -- particularly on questions of race. There is no doubt that Evans shared the casual disdain for other cultures and ethnicities that was typical of his age and class. Gere admits that it is not hard to assemble from his writing A DOSSIER OF QUOTATIONS ABOUT "NIGGERS" AND "NEGROID INFLUENCE" THAT WOULD MAKE A STRONG CASE AGAINST HIM "AS AN UNRECONSTRUCTED CONRADIAN VILLAIN." YET, SHE ARGUES, THAT WOULD BE TO MISS THE PUZZLING CONTRADICTIONS THAT MUST COMPLICATE ANY SUCH SIMPLE PICTURE. VIRULENTLY PREJUDICED HE NO DOUBT WAS; BUT AT THE SAME TIME HE BELIEVED THAT THE ORIGINS OF THE DISTINCTIVE CHARACTER OF MINOAN CIVILIZATION LAY PARTLY IN EGYPT AND LIBYA, PARTLY IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA. For Evans, the Minoans were emphatically not pure Greek, and he would have been irritated to learn that the "Linear B" tablets, which he excavated at Knossos (and which remained undeciphered in his lifetime), were actually written in an early form of the Greek language. IN HIS VIEW, AS GERE SUMMARIZES IT, "CRETE ROSE ABOVE THE INERTIA OF HER NORTHERN NEIGHBORS AS A RESULT OF SUCCESSIVE WAVES OF IMMIGRATION FROM THE SOUTH, INCLUDING THAT OF 'NEGROIZED ELEMENTS' HAILING FROM LIBYA AND THE NILE VALLEY." And Evans lays particular stress on the trade and caravan routes leading from the African interior (for example, from Sudan and Darfur) to the coast -- and so to within easy sailing reach of Crete. This is not so very far from the arguments of Martin Bernal's Black Athena (1987). It is ironic, given his modern reputation as an out-and-out racist, that one of the most tendentious restorations of a Minoan fresco, carried out under his direction and partly to his bidding, actually introduced a pair of black African soldiers as major figures. Known by Evans as the "Captain of the Blacks" fresco, it was restored to show a Minoan warrior running ahead of two black comrades or subordinates. In fact the only evidence for the black soldiers is a handful of fragments of black paint, which need not have been from human figures at all. But Evans was keen to find visual confirmation of his view that the Minoans used black "regiments" in their conquest of mainland Greece (these peace-loving people at home did not always hold back from military expansion overseas). He did not envisage an equal collaboration between black and white, of course. Even here, ideas of white racial superiority still hover awkwardly at the margins: not only in the very British military title given to the fresco but also in part of Evans's imaginative description of the restored scene. "There is no reason to suppose," he wrote condescendingly, "that negro mercenaries drilled by Minoan officers . . . were otherwise than well-disciplined."
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Post by imhotep06 on Apr 21, 2010 18:37:27 GMT -5
You should check out GJK Campbell-Dunn's information: THE ETRUSCAN DECIPHERMENT By GJK Campbell-Dunn M.A. (NZ), M.A. (Camb.) Ph.D. Recent genetic research at Universidad Complutense, Madrid shows an African–Egyptian presence in prehistoric Italy. We identify Etruscan as Niger-Congo. Etruscan has now been deciphered as Niger-Congo. Our work is based mainly on that of M. Pallottino (1975), L. Bonfante (2002) for Etruscan and D. Westermann (1927), H. Mukarovsky (1977) for Niger-Congo. Evidence from comparative morphology and sound correspondences follows. PWS Proto-Western Sudanic “Sudan” (Westermann) PWN Proto-Western Nigritic (Mukarovsky). ETRUSCAN MORPHOLOGY COMPARED WITH NIGER-CONGO Etruscan is agglutinative, not an inflected language like Latin. Its morphology is made by the free addition of affixes, ie. by lateral extension, not by vertical paradigms: zal, e-sal; u-nu ; uni, uni-al, uni-al-ti ; aule, aule-s, aule-s-la etc. The last ex has the Niger-Congo postposed article -la. Niger-Congo is likewise agglutinative in structure, with prefixes before the root, suffixes after it. (continue) home.clear.net.nz/pages/gc_dunn/Etruscans.html
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Post by djoser-xyyman on Apr 22, 2010 6:50:30 GMT -5
I am trying to understand what is meant by “decipherment”. Is it the same as translation? I am a skeptic.
If I can’t see it, feel it or touch it, I have doubts. So I assume Dr. GJK Campbell-Dunn has TRANSLATED Minioan text.
If the Minioan text can now be translated, similarly to how hieroglyphics can now be translated, then all their ancient text can now be read. No???
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Post by djoser-xyyman on Apr 22, 2010 6:52:20 GMT -5
Fake! See, the original parts are dark colored. The masterpieces of Minoan art are not what they seem. The vivid frescoes that once decorated the walls of the prehistoric palace at Knossos in Crete are now the main attraction of the Archaeological Museum in the modern city of Heraklion, a few miles from the site of Knossos. Dating from the early or mid-second millennium BC, they are some of the most famous icons of ancient European culture, reproduced on countless postcards and posters, T-shirts and refrigerator magnets: the magnificent young "prince" with his floral crown, walking through a field of lilies; the five blue dolphins patrolling their underwater world between minnows and sea urchins; the three "ladies in blue" (a favorite Minoan color) with their curling black hair, low-cut dresses, and gesticulating hands, as if they have been caught in mid-conversation. The prehistoric world they evoke seems in some ways distant and strange -- yet, at the same time, reassuringly recognizable and almost modern. [/img] Attachments:
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Post by djoser-xyyman on Apr 22, 2010 7:00:01 GMT -5
Fake!!! Notice the original skin is dark. The recreation is light. Attachments:
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Post by djoser-xyyman on Apr 22, 2010 7:02:17 GMT -5
Fake. ditto Attachments:
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Post by djoser-xyyman on Apr 22, 2010 7:03:15 GMT -5
Fake!! reconstituted! notice the dark original pieces compared to the retouched lighter sections. Attachments:
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Post by djoser-xyyman on Apr 22, 2010 7:08:05 GMT -5
re-touched! Attachments:
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Post by djoser-xyyman on Apr 22, 2010 7:09:41 GMT -5
Minoan Crete: A review. Sir Arthur Evans 1928 Attachments:
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Post by djoser-xyyman on Apr 22, 2010 7:48:03 GMT -5
Fake! re-touched sections are lighter than the original sections Attachments:
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Post by Tukuler al~Takruri on Apr 22, 2010 12:54:50 GMT -5
I think the word is restoration.
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Post by djoser-xyyman on Apr 22, 2010 13:02:51 GMT -5
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! What. messing with me Sage. Thesauras needed? LOL.
Nah!. "Restoration" implies original.
reconstitute - :to restore to its former or natural state or a semblance of it,
point being: they are a far cry from the original.
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Post by Tukuler al~Takruri on Apr 22, 2010 13:51:59 GMT -5
I don't have time for clowning around.
When an artifact is not whole and intact supplying the missing parts (no matter how imaginative) is called restoration.
I think it's dull and chauvinist to declare restorations one dislikes as fake but restorations one likes are not fake.
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Post by imhotep06 on Apr 22, 2010 16:03:18 GMT -5
Here is a note, when linguists say that a language is an isolate in the middle east or the Mediterranean, then it is more than likely an African language. This is the case with Etruscan and the author, based on regular sound correspondences, morphology, and lexical cognate matches has determined that the Etruscan language is an offshoot of the early Niger-Congo. This is from personal correspondence, he believes that the world's languages started off as Niger-Congo languages and even has a book out describing Proto-Indo European as a branch of Niger-Congo. There are others who claim a "Borean" origin for the world's languages starting in the middle east. African languages are offshoots of those and they back migrated into African. I find this not creditable. There has always been a mystery as to how to classify Etruscan and he says in the first line of the link I provided that "Etruscan has now been deciphered as Niger-Congo." I think this is as plain as it can get. In simple terms, Etruscan is a Niger-Congo language. You need to get his book Who Were The Minoans: An African Answer. I am trying to understand what is meant by “decipherment”. Is it the same as translation? I am a skeptic. If I can’t see it, feel it or touch it, I have doubts. So I assume Dr. GJK Campbell-Dunn has TRANSLATED Minioan text. If the Minioan text can now be translated, similarly to how hieroglyphics can now be translated, then all their ancient text can now be read. No???
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