Posted on 08/15/2017 8:38:50 PM PDT by marshmallow
A new technique is revealing traces of lost languages that have been erased from ancient parchments.
For centuries they have gathered dust on the shelves of a library marooned in a rocky patch of Egyptian desert, their secrets lost in time. But now a collection of enigmatic manuscripts, carefully stored behind the walls of a 1,500-year-old monastery on the Sinai Peninsula, are giving up their treasures.
The library at Saint Catherine’s Monastery is the oldest continually operating library in the world. Among its thousands of ancient parchments are at least 160 palimpsests—manuscripts that bear faint scratches and flecks of ink beneath more recent writing. These illegible marks are the only clues to words that were scraped away by the monastery’s monks between the 8th and 12th centuries to reuse the parchments. Some were written in long-lost languages that have almost entirely vanished from the historical record.
But now these erased passages are reemerging from the past. In an unlikely collaboration between an Orthodox wing of the Christian faith and cutting-edge science, a small group of international researchers are using specialized imaging techniques that photograph the parchments with different colors of light from multiple angles. This technology allows the researchers to read the original texts for the first time since they were wiped away, revealing lost ancient poems and early religious texts and doubling the known vocabulary of languages that have not been used for more than 1,000 years.
Isolated at the mouth of a precipitous gorge at the foot of Mount Sinai—a mountain sacred to the Christian, Islamic, and Jewish faiths—Saint Catherine’s Monastery has persisted relatively unscathed since the sixth century. Its library was famous as a center of learning even its very earliest days, and the tinder-dry climate has helped to preserve the delicate parchments.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
BTTT
1000 years from now scientists will be using techniques to uncover the lost poetry on the walls of 20th century restrooms.
“Here I sit, Broken hearted.....”
I wonder if some of those long-lost languages that have almost entirely vanished from the historical record may shed some light on the Voynich Manuscript.
“Almost all written records from the kingdom were lost in the 8th and 9th century when its churches were destroyed.”
Gee, who would have destroyed all of those churches?
“Known as Christian Palestinian Aramaic, it is a strange mix of Syriac and Greek that died out in the 13th century.”
The Crusaders were kicked out of Palestine in 1296. So, gee, who would have snuffed out that whole Christian Palestinian Aramaic they’re talking about? Who could it be?
“It is a timely effort: Recently Saint Catherine’s...has come under threat from nearby attacks by groups affiliated with the Islamic State.”
And there’s the answer to my other questions.
|
First the sun riseth, And then the sun sinketh, This place where I sitteth Doth verily stinketh! |
Whale hunting Laplanders?
What follows is the oldest known and shortest known poem known.
It is called “Fleas”.
Adam had’em.
That place in question has an agreement with the Muslims via the handprint of the founder to leave St. Catherine’s alone.
I wonder if the 8th century monks thought that what they had to say was more important than the 6th century monks?
This old poem is a little longer, but it's also a palindrome (reads the same backward as forward):
| "Madam, I'm Adam." |
Her reply is not a poem, but it is another palindrome:
| "Name no one man." |
bttt
“That place in question has an agreement with the Muslims via the handprint of the founder to leave St. Catherine’s alone.”
Nah, that’s all malarkey. The “copy” they have - the original was supposedly taken away by the Ottomans centuries ago for safe keeping - has a hand drawn on it not a hand print. The original seems like a fake, a forgery, and even those who think it is genuine admit there’s no attestation of it until 150 years after Muhammad died and long after Egypt was conquered. http://www.lastprophet.info/covenant-of-the-prophet-muhammad-with-the-monks-of-mt-sinai Why would the monks of Sinai have even sought out such a “protection” when Muhammad never lived to conquer Egypt?
Modern dhimmis - and Eastern Orthodoxy is filled with them (yeah, I said it) - have bowed to this document as some sort of proof that Muslims and Christians can get along. This idea is being furthered by a recent book: https://www.amazon.com/Covenants-Prophet-Muhammad-Christians-World/dp/159731465X
It’s all nonsense.
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