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Post by anansi on Apr 19, 2010 21:07:30 GMT -5
Thank you for the information. So is it accurate enough to discuss the Minoan civilization in a different light then lets say the Mycenaean and Classical Greece. In that they shouldn't be simply lumped into a category with later periods of civilization in geographic Greece, since not only have they been proven to be of none Greek extration, they don't show any continuation in which the Mycenaeans showed with Classical Greece. Yes the the "Greeks" were essentially an Iron age people..there was about a 400yrs difference between the collapse of the Minoans and the rise of the classical Greeks..however the Mycenaeans did invade Minoa and picked up some of the civilizing arts..But for the most part they go done in by earth-quakes and tsunamis.
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Post by djoser-xyyman on Apr 21, 2010 10:06:58 GMT -5
@ doc
came across this. . .
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KNOSSOS: FAKES, FACTS, AND MYSTERY By Mary Beard --Mary Beard is Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge. Her latest book is Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found, which won the Wolfson History Prize for 2008.
New York Review of Books August 13, 2009 (posted circa Aug. 4) Pages 58 & 60-61
[Review of Cathy Gere, Knossos and the Prophets of Modernism (University of Chicago Press, 2009). 277 pp. $27.50.] 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.
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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 Tukuler al~Takruri on Apr 21, 2010 17:09:54 GMT -5
Getting back on topic ... The inscription in the upper right corner of the entire painting explicitly names only three tributaries -- Punt, Retenu, Keftiu -- being the 1st, 4th, and 2nd registers respectively. As for the 3rd and 5th registers the selfsame inscription only says they are from the "south country" and "all countries" beholden to Tuthmosis III. Except for the far top right the hieroglyphics are too small to read for the most part and zooming in only makes it even harder to see. According to Hodel-Hoenes & Warburton register 1: the prince of Punt register 2: princes of Crete and Mediterranean islands register 3: princes of southern lands and the Antiu (cavern dwellers) register 4: princes of Retenu and northern lands clear to the far north register 5: captive children of southern and northern lands for workshops Now from the reading they label the 5th group which I am guessing are These Folks here They label them as people from "Various Lands" which leads me to think that either 1) The Egyptologists who provided the information on the link have no idea who any of the people are and are guessing by the good they are bringing.(like us) or 2) The Egyptologists do not know the name of the folks in the 5th group unless there is a glyph for "Various Nations" in Mdr Ntr...
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Post by djehuti on Apr 24, 2010 5:13:06 GMT -5
Anasi posted and asked: Question for Wally or anyone who can read Mdu Ntr What is the label on the Blacks far upper right-hand corner??
If you can give us more, like where you got it from, there may be more information useful in tracking down who's tomb it's from that'd help identifying. Just judging from the products they bring: * register 1 is Punt and surrounding Nehesi (Irem, Nem`i) * register 2 is Crete or some Kefti (islanders more so than Levantine * register 3 is Kush or Nehesi of their kingdom. I agree; judging from the products, the men in the top register are Puntites and that includes the dark-skinned men of the upper-right corner. Explorer spoke about this at more length in his blog. That is how such men are denied to be Puntites because of their darker complexion and appearance and so were dismissed to be 'Nehesi' when their actual designation said no such thing in Hatshepsut's funerary mural.
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Post by olehint on May 30, 2010 12:45:53 GMT -5
This reminds me of pictures of Kemites where you see lighter skinned females with darker skinned males. They got the males in front with the leather belts and before them they alternates with the females
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Post by Tukuler al~Takruri on Jun 28, 2010 10:47:09 GMT -5
Your belief is well founded and correct. The Grand Procession is from TT100 the tomb of Rekhmire (who was Tuthmosis III's vizier) as was noted here by Jari. I know it has been answered already, but I do not believe it to be Tuthmosis III's tomb. Looks like it's from Tutmosis III's tomb. The repro is from George Alexander HoskinsTravels in Ethiopia above the 2nd cataractLondon: Longman (1835)
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