OTI:one poem, notes:4/29/18

Open To Interpretation


A New Friend

Petra's new friend, with his entourage,
Waited on the dock of Harbor,
Beneath Volcano Never,
While Black Ship Liz,
Returned from the Pinnacle Race,
Anchored.

DolphinWords

Notes: 8th in series, see previous...Giants over the Dodgers 4-2...at one time or another I've rooted for every team in California...and while so, they have all gone to the World Series!...San Diego has yet to win the Series...I rooted for them when I lived near them...home teams...just why Angel Stadium is filled up with raucous Yankee fans, Red Sox fans, I dunno...folk in Town are kind of layed back...anyway, Angels and Yankees about to begin...

I found a really nice clip of Persepolis reconstructed by the LACMA...Los Angeles County Museum of Art...and they have one of the Persian Warriors with the distinctive cylinder headdress on a limestone fragment...what is limestone?...brb...hmmph...hard to imagine all the marine organisms over time making limestone!...Persepolis is limestone...the entire Yucatan Peninsula is limestone...easy to carve and use for buildings...brb...

Head of Royal Guard from Persepolis--LACMA

and on youtube Penn University has a clip of a lecture about Tula and Chichen Itza, how they resemble one another, unique among all the Mesoamerican ruins...both have Temples of the Warriors that look just alike...narrator has it Chichen Itza imported the style of Tula, out of admiration...other idea is that Chichen Itza was invaded by the Itza who were from Tula...it's an odd muddle...narrator too mentions the 'drum' feather headdresses...and the butterfly breastplates, 'pectorals'...I've found more of those, and the ones upside down on headdresses...and the bar pectoral too...and those upside down on headdresses...thought is both of these are stylized eagle claws...brb...

from Kahn Academy

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-americas/early-cultures/maya/a/jade-plaque-of-a-maya-king

I'm having a hard time finding again the youtube clip about Tula and Chichen Itza...this is what it was called: Dr. Simon Martin speaks about "Chichen Itza: An Alien City in the Maya Lowlands"...brb...found it...I'd left a comment!

David Sharpness13 hours ago

the "drum major" feathered headdress is on the Tula Warriors, the Chacmools, and, a reach☺, Assyrian Winged Bulls-Limasuu, and the winged bulls and warriors at Persepolis, Iran. Persepolis looks to be another place with "international" architecture. The meteor crater is a nice reach! Tale needs something about the subterranean caves and such.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sj4HW8tS94I

 

unquote...chortle...wish I'd gone to game...would have liked to see CC pitch, even though a Yankee!...0-0 so far, like 3rd...Kinsler with dbl...Trout up...Upton comes up, 4 for forty, and...grounds out...Upton, Calhoun, Cozart...need to step up their hitting!

 

the meteor that 'extinct' the dinosaurs shattered the limestone of the Yucatan, and the cenotes now show a crescent pattern--the edge of the crater...brb...

 

quote

 

A very dense and hard stone, jadeite has striking acoustical qualities, particularly when the surface is highly polished. In replicative research, I have found that a set of three jadeite belt celts emits high and sharp clinking sounds, something that must have especially impressive to the non-metal-using Classic Mayas.

 

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ancient-mesoamerica/article/symbolism-of-jade-in-classic-maya-religion/63F3CD8883DE47DEE7417FFDBE4CB926/core-reader

 

unquote

 

looking for the bar pectoral took me there...Epigraphs!...brb...oh...Yanks picked up 2...Angels up...

 

quote (same as above)

 

The serpent heads and gods at the ends of ceremonial bars portray supernatural beings breathed and conjured into existence.

 

unquote

 

author goes on a lot about earspools...like out of the bars, things come out of the spools...the Mayan ball court rings are earspools!!!...my observation!:)

 

more quote

 

At Teotihuacan, one structure in particular appears to evoke the concept of och b'ih and the celestial ascent of the soul. Constructed near the beginning of the third century a.d., the Temple of Quetzalcoatl featured images of Quetzalcoatl, the rain-bringing god of wind, writhing through great rings rimmed with apparent feathers (Figure 21c). The serpents emerge from giant, three-dimensional flowers in the center of the rings, suggesting that they are breathlike emanations of the blossoms. Although I have identified the outer feathered rings as the rims of mirrors (Taube 1992a:197), it is quite possible that they are earspools, as there are examples with similar rims at Teotihuacan, including one with a four-petaled flower in the center (Figure 21b). Of course, the earspool identification would be very consistent with the breath serpent and floral earspool imagery noted for the Classic Maya. In addition, although there are portrayals of serpents emerging from mirrors in Postclassic Central Mexico (Taube 1992a:Figure 21e), serpents also pass through earspools, including the explicit Aztec portrayal of Quetzalcoatl exiting from such a device (Figure 19b).

 

unquote

 

well, I'm going beyond 'scholarly quote'...movie fans know all about 'portals' from movieStargate...what was that movie I just saw...'Arrival'...the odd alien ship floated over the ground and lifted one up into a tube where gravity was negated...and then in a room was like a mirror looking liquid wall behind which were the aliens...Valerian:City of a Thousand Planets had this wall too...it's a motif made with a popular special effect software...part of movies clip art book..and in many movies...Trout up...bottom of six...still down 2...that link is enough for those quotes, but I can't find the author's name...gathering what I have...the ear spools are related to the bars in that things, breath, serpents, wind, ?, pass through them...Upton a dink hit...Pujols up...brb...dink hit by Pujols...runners at the corners..2996 hits for Pujols...came home with his giveaway-night doll...base has a counter for his hits!...wild pitch...Upton scores...

 

quote

 

These ballcourts vary considerably in size, but all have long narrow alleys with slanted side-walls against which the balls could bounce.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_ballgame

 

unquote

 

and one ring on each wall in the center...now, in the Penn clip, the narrator shows the huge ball court at Chichen Itza...another like it at Tula...and just those two spots so huge...but many more else ware, and shows the rings thirty feet up or so...'too high to be realistic'...impossible to bounce the ball through it...'it's a temple'...stylized as a ball court...well, the ball court is a stylized 'bar', the rings, ear spools...a kind of wonderful notion...the players are the 'wind', 'breath' 'serpent' going through the spools/bar...maybe a spine shiver or two!...excitement...on the wall of that court are reliefs of really brutal sacrifices and such...why oh why is all this altruistic ritualizing couched in human sacrifice and torments?...bottom of 7th Angels 1 Yanks 2...oh, the spools are called plugs too...Mayans stretched their ear lobs like the Easter Islanders...brb...

 

quote

 

Although there are definite differences, it is interesting to observe a few similarities between these monuments. Both are placed in an elevated area (the warrior figures are placed on top of a pyramidal base, whereas the Moai figures are placed on platforms.¹ Decorative headdresses were originally found in both groups as well. The warriors wear feather headdresses and the Moai figures would have originally worn red tufa headdresses (read an interesting article about the how these red hats may have been rolled down an ancient volcano).

 

http://albertis-window.blogspot.com/2011/07/similarities-in-polynesia-and.html

 

unquote

 

don't know why, but I always get the feeling. reading about Easter Island. it is the last place 'they' were!...

quote

‘70 per cent of the island was transformed into open gardens and agriculture using a sophisticated stone mulching system to conserve moisture - we are mapping these plantation areas as part of our landscape survey.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1211673/Easter-Island-hat-mystery-solved-British-archaeologists.html#ixzz5E7ToUW9q
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

unquote

 

was looking at the Easter Island statue's hats...and found that...how the Maya irrigated is a curio...and Khmer...and Inca...

 

Simmons two out single...Trout at second...Cozart up...K...top of 9th..bottom...Yanks have struck out thirteen times...Angels up...will Ohtani hit?

 

Some romantic dreamers imagine Easter Island is a pinnacle of a sunken lost continent, the last resort of its inhabitants.

 

https://books.google.com/books?id=lRV1FozOqQAC&pg=PA96&lpg=PA96&dq=pukao+pinnacle&source=bl&ots=4uiFShKUEM&sig=M249_G18XJlzq8VGROBfGArlXl4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwia1NnhgOHaAhWQ94MKHeXzBHUQ6AEISDAG#v=onepage&q=pukao%20pinnacle&f=false

 

Hats are called 'pukaos' topknots...A pinnacle near the island called 'Pukao', but can't find it!

 

count 0-2, two outs, runner on second...Kinsler...another foul...fastball 101 mph...Young steals second...K...'and that's how the ballgame will end'...

 

:(

 

DavidDavid

 

 

 

 

OTI:one poem, notes:4/28/18

Open To Interpretation

Gates

The rich are behind their gates.

The poor are clamoring in the streets.

Mocking bird singing before sunrise.

Hawk circling in the warm blue air.

Brown squirrel tail shaking.

 

Dolphinwords

 

Notes: pregame on the radio...interviewers all a twitter over Ohtani's ankle...I was at game, in my 500s perch, keeping score, and Ohtani was due up, his third at bat, after HR, GO...GO, ground out, was a broken bat, again...reached first base awkward...brb...watched clip...really destroyed the bat!...tried to avoid first baseman who was too straight up on the bag!...hmmph..."he kind of covered more of first base than normal"...I'd say...fans all disappointed to see Ohtani out of the game...and today too...much concern!...on the day to day list...Simmons out today too...last night was great game...all kinds of great plays...Calhoun put on a show with a diving catch and over the wall catch of home run ball...half the stadium full of noisy NY fans...Angels 3 Yankees 4...damn Yankees...fffff uuuu Yank ees...see how tonight goes...got a ticket for May 3...poncho night against the Orioles...

more iconography curios...7th note post in series...see previous...I have to keep a list of the browsing on the tablet...I can't find the site favorite save on it...last couple days I found a lot of things!...on my own, I became curious of the hand gestures in the Mayan iconography....Pakal holds his hands in a distinctive way...one up, one down...there's another statuary with this gesture...brb...oh...another disastrous early inning...Yankees get five runs at top of 1st...4 on errors...and now I cant find that statuary...my bad for not writing down web site addresses...there...found 'm...

 

quote

 

from British Museum...

 

thinking on both the distribution of maize in the Americas (5,000BC), and American Indian Sign Languages, I came to this book on amazon...brb...

The Hidden Maya: A New Understanding of Maya Glyphs Paperback – June 1, 1998

by Martin Brennan (Author)

4.1 out of 5 stars 6 customer reviews 

 

 

                                     

author took the idea of Sign Language being used in the iconography and ran with it...wish I had funds for books...a curio is that in the Old World deaf people were regarded as mentally handicapped, until, it was discovered in the New World they spoke just fine with their hands...and so signing was introduced to the Old World...there's a similarity with the maize gods gesture and one Buddha makes...and, if I remember right...brb...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There's one of the hand gestures on King Tut's throne...I used it in my poems from King Tut visit at LA Museum...hadn't thought of it as a mudra...what Buddhists call these gestures, mudras...Angels are being punished...10 nothing New York...more on this for sometime...

now, continuing with the cylinder headdresses on the Tula warriors, I noticed in close up pic, that the cylinder below the feathers is decorated with hexagon beads...these are beneath the warrior's neck too...looks like snake skin?...on the Limasu winged bulls' heads, the headdress has round circles within circles in ordered rows...the bull's headdress are a combination of the cylinder, and the stylized horns that wrap around the front, and back a bit...this is really common on Mesopotamian iconography...the horns...not always the cylinder...from Syria to Iran...from very early, to the Persians the Greeks knew...I got to looking at Elba and Mari...now, I went to a Mari exhibit years and years ago at the LA Museum...and there was a goddess statue holding a jar pouring water, and on her head doing these searches I noted the horns on her headdress...she is really old, and this headdress is on the Innana plaque too...unfortunately, the goddess with the jar is in the Aleppo Museum...what a tale of its travails surrounded by the wars!...brb...

 

 

below some of notes I keep to remember by...dogears...try to fill them out a little on where they are going!

 

Ruins covered redwood trees

over time, ruins get covered up, become dirt hills, 'tells'...a wonder is why redwood trees don't get 'covered up'...

Toltecs on coast

did the Toltecs invade from the coast?...at Vera Cruz?...there is an odd parallel between Chichen Itza and Tula...both have identical Temples of the Warriors...a dogear

Measurements

number and measurement parallels...those things in Inanna's hands are thought to be string and a ruler....

Seals

cant find enough seals!...are they in new world?...weights for weighing?...from Elba? weights like ducks...

Irrigation

waterworks

Weapons

New world Stone Age old world iron

Mexico Guatemala Border

one side forested, other deforested

Oh, Cozart got a hit, a home run...he's had a long hitless streak...Angels are leading MLB in attendance, I think...brb...hmmph...3rd...Dodgers first perennially...

what happens with the coast redwoods is a curio...they grow on alluvial plains...and as rains and floods bring down more mud, sediment, covering the trunk, they sprout new roots into the alluvial, sorta keep growing out of it...I think...I've tried to remember the Sierra redwoods...they too seem to grow in canyon pockets, sort of little hanging valleys...the opposite of soil washing down around them, is soil being washed away...don't recall ever seeing this...ones tipped over may have had this happen...they're hundreds of years old!...so something is happening...soil does wash, erode, away from, the Bristle Cone Pines in the White Mountains...roots growing into thin air...soil doesn't stay put in Nature...oh...the eye brows...the priests with folded hand from Mari have unibrows...and this is common throughout Mesopotamia...common in Mesoamerica?...well, there's Frida Khalo...becoming an 'icon'...her image on many things...and that I think is how iconographies get started...there's an original, and it's popular, and gets copies, often stylized...oh...was thinking on stylization...the process of figuring out what something is supposed to represent...its allusion...the Ducks Hockey team recent re-did their logo...its supposed to be a duck's foot...


I had to look it up...and the Mesoamercan iconographs are very difficult, and it must have been so too for the Mesoameircans...which seems to suggest there is some purpose to being visually obscure!...

quote

The Shigir Sculpture, or Shigir Idol (Russian: Шигирский идол), is the oldest known wooden sculpture in the world,^[1][2] made during the Mesolithic period. The wood it was carved from is approximately 11,500 years old.^[3][4] It is displayed in the Sverdlovsk Regional Museum of Local Lore (ru) in Yekaterinburg, Russia.^[

unquote

with closer and closer study, they keep finding stylized portraits on it...

quote

The idol was also covered extensively with markings, some of which depicted tiny human faces. To this day, no one knows what most of the markings depict.

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-04-wooden-shigir-idol-egyptian-pyramids.html#jCp

unquote

quote

There is also a large series of columns, which originally supported a tremendous enclosed space, surrounding the Temples of the Warriors in both of the two sites, and in other areas. A Castillo-mimicry in Tula, Hidalgo (now ruined) of the same construction in Chichen Itza, and the fact both sites have very large ballcourts set in a similar architectural context further cement the fact that there is some connection between Chichen and Tula. These bases of comparison are undisputed. However, the exact relationship between the two sites is unknown. This connection between the two sites is significant in part because Chichen Itza and Tula were both the seats of large Mesoamerican empires. That they share such constructions is unique and startling.^{[citation needed]} No other Toltec or Maya site has an equivalent set of buildings in a different city, and in a different culture. This distinctive trait, and the huge historical power of each of these two sides, makes this argument a tremendous one in Mesoamerican studies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya-Toltec_controversy_at_Chichen_Itza





http://georgia-hinton.blogspot.com/2013/02/chichen-itzatoltec-debate.html#!/2013/02/chichen-itzatoltec-debate.html



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persepolis

go figure!!!...this is nice:

quote

"Let me give you two examples of the brilliance of the underlying idea. In Yucatan, in Uxmal and Chichen-Itza, the same principle is followed, based on identical natural surroundings. Yucatan is flat lowland covered with an inaccessible jungle, which grows to a certain uniform defined height. In this jungle the Mayans lived in their villages whit small pieces of land cleared for cultivation, and their surrounding, background as well as roof, was the hot, damp, green jungle. No large views, no up and down movements. By introducing the platform with its level at the same height as the jungle top, these people had suddenly obtained a new dimension of life, worthy of their devotion to their gods.

... ... ...

By the introduction of the staircase arrangements and step-like buildings on the edge of the platform and keeping the central part at a lower level, the mountain top has been converted into a completely independent thing floating in the air, separated from the earth, and from up there you see actually nothing but the sky and the passing clouds—a new planet. Some of my projects from recent years are based on this architectural element, the platform. Besides its architectural force, the platform gives a good answer to today´s traffic problems. The simple thing that cars can pass underneath a surface, which is reserved for pedestrian traffic, can be developed in many ways.

http://www.utzonphotos.com/guide-to-utzon/inspirations/chichen-itza/

an explanation of my penchant for sitting in the upper deck at the stadium...that, and funds!...problem with quote, is that it is proving out that the Maya had pushed back the forest...they had open views...an even modern like urbanity...hmmph...Angels 1 Yankees 11...actually, Angels did well in the remaining innings after the outburst!...

:)

DavidDavid





 

OTI:notes, two pics:4/25/18

Open To Interpretation

Notes: pick off...fly out to left...on to the top of the 6th...Astros 3 Angels 0...Angels finished with a win last night...Angels 8 Astros 7...a fine effort!...Agriculture came around to inspect the citrus trees...some kind of pest on the loose...delayed the morning, and turned the radio on late for the Angels' afternoon game in Texas!...brb...

quote

The pyramids themselves represented the first mound of earth to emerge from the primeval waters of Nu in Egyptian mythology.

https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=126979308348410557#editor/target=post;postID=270662356834503797

unquote

dung beetles tunnel into the ground...brb...

quote

Many dung beetles, known as rollers, roll dung into round balls, which are used as a food source or breeding chambers. Others, known as tunnelers, bury the dung wherever they find it. A third group, the dwellers, neither roll nor burrow: they simply live in manure.

...  ... ..

The nocturnal African dung beetle Scarabaeus satyrus is the only known non-human animal to navigate and orient itself using the Milky Way.<sup>[

...  ...  ...</sup>

Perhaps the most famous example of such "heart scarabs" is the yellow-green pectoral scarab found among the entombed provisions of Tutankhamen. It was carved from a large piece of Libyan desert glass.

... ... ...

One scholar comments on other traits of the scarab connected with the theme of death and rebirth:

It may not have gone unnoticed that the pupa, whose wings and legs are encased at this stage of development, is very mummy-like. It has even been pointed out that the egg-bearing ball of dung is created in an underground chamber which is reached by a vertical shaft and horizontal passage curiously reminiscent of Old Kingdom mastaba tombs."^[

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dung_beetle

unquote

I forget what it was I was watching or reading..oh!...it was an explanation of the WAS scepter...and the DJED pillar...and ANKH, authors thought they were made from bull parts...stylized of course...brb...

quote

In this collection, we’ll look at some of the speculation concerning the Was scepter as well as compare a number of them with current artistic renderings of the Pteranodon.

http://new.s8int.com/2009/09/28/pteranodon-on-a-stick-egyptian-was-scepter-creature-no-mystery-without-darwinian-history/

unquote

oh!...that's not what I was looking for...a charming diversion!...Plutarch, or one of the other old Greeks, reported a Pteranodon like bird in India....brb...for sometime...can't find it quick...brb...and I can't find the article I read about these regalia being stylized Apis Bull parts...WAS Sceptre a bull's penis...djed pillar a bull's sacrum...forget what the ankh was...Egyptians made canes out of dried bull penises...it was a scholar's article, and at the end, he suggested that much of ancient Egypt, what their iconography was alluding too, could maybe be found in the remaining cultures in the Sudan...so, I went and read about the people who live still in the ancient ways in the Sud by the Nile...it was youtube clip actually...NatGeo...brb...the Dinka!...the Dinka love their cattle, just adore them...and their environment is such...desert up against swamp...that they are beset by stinging bugs...now, everyday they gather the cattle's dung into a mound, and set it afire, for cooking and warmth, and in the morning there is a mound of ash, and they cover themselves with the ash, and so get through the day bug free...now, I took note of the mound of dung, and how it was central, and thought dung beetles must live in the dung...all this the Egyptians must have seen...and there is the primordial mound which led to the Pyramids with the tunneling dung beetles of rebirth...Egyptians were big on tunneling...could that be?...I don't know, but it is the way the ancients seem to have seen symbols, and the principles of their gods, in Nature....those comic book animal heads on Egyptian gods are serious stuff!...Angels couldn't catch up...Angels 2 Astros 5...Verlander is too tough...so, now, I have this notion to regard insects as the Egyptians did, for their principles...on another note, I may have really found something!...the Toltec/Tula warriors have a distinctive headdress (chacmools wear it too)...a beaded cylinder topped by feathers...looking at these, I knew I'd seen them before somewhere...a comment commentator said so too, and pegged it to an Egyptian relief of Semitc foreigners...I found that, and, sorta alike...I had thought I'd seen it on the Sumerian reliefs, but they have a headdress made of horns...or so I thought...I was looking at these face on...but from the side, there's the beaded cylinder with feathers combine with the horns!...the human headed winged bulls wear them!...cattle were beloved by everyone!...brb...

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/enemies.htm





The bulls are called Lumasi...I didn't know there were so many of them...a few less because of the wars...the warriors and the bulls have the same stiff poses too...and I hadn't thought the Lumasi would take me to Ezekiel again...it's thought Ezekiel's visions were influenced by his likely having seen Lumasi...brb...

quote

The ancient Jewish people were influenced by the iconography of Assyrian culture. The prophet Ezekiel wrote about a fantastic being made up of aspects of a human being, a lion, an eagle and a bull. Later, in the early Christian period, the four Gospels were ascribed to each of these components. When it was depicted in art, this image was called the Tetramorph.

unquote

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamassu

Sixth post in a series...see previous...some of the Lamasi are lying down, their head turned ninety degrees...

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:four pics and notes:4/24/18

 

 

Open To Interpretation

Notes: game about to begin...Ohtani on the mound...hmmph...5th post in series...see previous...the lower image is from a dream, which I wont relate...but at the end of the dream I was looking at myself, or whatever I was!...and I was bare chested...and my chest's skin was like a shield with lines across it...this wasn't on my skin, it was my skin...and around it on my upper chest were black squares growing out of my skin like chest hairs...very odd...and likely came from perusing too many Mesoamerican icons!...oh...Angels at bat, top of first...Morton pitching for Houston...pop out...now the other three drawings are...I don't know what to call them!...HR Trout!!!...ten for the season...leading majors!...we focus without eyes, and we 'focus' with out conscious attention...if you hold one finger up close before your eyes, and let your eyes un-focus, you'll see two fingers...that must have a name...brb...strike'm out throw'm out...DP!..Ohtani finishes off bottom of 1st--0-0...well, I'm just using this optical effect to allude to another 'optical' effect...going to sleep is like un-focusing your consciousness...and just before one slips into dreamless sleep...Simmons hits a HR too!...Angels up 2...one might see images...at least I do...brb...

quote

Other terms for hypnagogia, in one or both senses, that have been proposed include "presomnal" or "anthypnic sensations", "visions of half-sleep", "oneirogogic images" and "phantasmata",^[4] "the borderland of sleep", "praedormitium",^[5] "borderland state", "half-dream state", "pre-dream condition",^[6] "sleep onset dreams",^[7] "dreamlets",^[8] and "wakefulness-sleep transition" (WST).

^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia}

unquote

hmmph...and here I thought I was into something obscure!...and indeed there are names for what I'm going on about...the little drawings are from critters I saw in my Hypnagogia!...if you un-focus your attention, somewhat like with your eyes un-focusing...relaxing might be a better word...these 'dreamlets' pop up spontaneously...I don't give them much attention, though relaxing to the point they appear eases going asleep...but I'm wondering if the Mayans gave them attention...for that matter all the ancients...in the Michael Coe youtube lecture he notes a lot of things...one of them was that the Maya may have had sleep temples like in ancient Europe...to catch a poem, I kind of relax in the same way...and a line, or image, or something, will appear...this is very strange, and far afield from writing prose...it's like you're collaborating with inspiration...baseball hitters do everything to relax as the pitch is coming...hitting a baseball is a collaboration between consciousness and unconsciousness...oh, Houston scores a run, but runner at first caught off first, and out...end of 2nd--2-1...Coe is all over the map with things...at Copan, he conjectures, there was a sanctuary for scribes...this the only way they could survive the incessant Mayan warfare...and scribes were highly regarded...they individually signed their works...noting which King they served...the Yucatan peninsula has limestone for bedrock...and is permeated with caves...rain dissolves through the limestone...Coe hopeful that Mayan books will be found preserved in the caves, which were frequented by the Mayans...their underworld...in an interview Coe has with a Mormon, a youtube, the back and forth is about finding verifications for the Mormon Bible...it has Mayan things in it...and the interviewer brings up the Lidar laser scannings of the jungle...these scans see right through the jungle and find the old ruins...it's proving out how extensive they are, especially around Copan...in Egypt this is being done too with satellites...they should try it on Mars!...asked if the Egyptian astronomers compare to the Mayans, Coe laughed, and said no, Mayans much more sophisticated, but the Chinese were the Mayans equal...Trout walks, bases loaded!...there is something called the Chinese Mayan Continuum...brb...this is the notion that China contacted the Americas before Columbus...Angels 4 Houston 1 bottom 3rd...a thought is that the iconography of the Mesoamericans could induce states of mind, un-focus ones attention and refocus it on something else...well, we do that with our entertainments...three walks, two k, fly out...Ohtani gets through the third!...create an event...not knowing what one is, one could be confused looking at an empty baseball stadium...and watching the game wouldn't help, at first, until one realized what the players are about, and then each event of the game would make sense, and the overall attempt to win the game, an event, and the seasonal goal of winning the world series, another event...it's all a fabric of events...the Mayan temples, statues, books, rituals, stories, are all about events...allude to events...and their events are lost to us, though, being human beings, like people today, their events must have been self similar...DP and the inning is over!...on to 5th...insomuch as the Mesoamericans were behaving like they were nuts, what events they pursued and commemorated is to be noted!...on Coatlicue's chest are the four severed hands, and hearts, some have just two hands, some have a skull too, and on some she had a head, rather than two snakes, and the skin over her head looks odd...she's wearing a flayed human skin!...that chest pectoral with severed hands--a stylized flayed skin...brb...Bernal Diaz described the Aztec priest residing in the houses on top of pyramids--inside the walls covered in blood, and the priests wearing human skins...the Mesoamericans were given to human sacrifice, cannibalism, shrunken heads, scapling, skinning, the usual things!...brb...

quote

Xipe Totec connected agricultural renewal with warfare.^[9] He flayed himself to give food to humanity, symbolic of the way maize seeds lose their outer layer before germination and of snakes shedding their skin. Without his skin, he was depicted as a golden god. Xipe Totec was believed by the Aztecs to be the god that invented war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xipe_Totec

unquote

a lot of these gods are like swiss army knives!...hmmph...Houston picks up 2 runs...4-3 now...this to say they have a lot of attributes...how the Maya kept track of them all is a wonder...but Xipe was about as horrific as they come...images of gods that were related to planting and growing sometimes had plants literally growing out of them...boxes shaped like Osiris have been found, filled with dirt and wheat growing...and there's the Green Man...this is a nice site...

quote

As has been mentioned above, some commentators have associated the Green Man with a deity known as Khidr from esoteric Islamic Sufism. In this belief, Khidr is a kind of mediating principle between the imaginary and physical worlds, and a voice of inspiration to artists. This suggests the possibility that medieval European sculptors and carvers, in an early cross-over of cultures, may have seen the Green Man as a source of inspiration for their art.

http://www.greenmanenigma.com/theories.html

unquote

hmmph...some scarab work...brb...

quote

Khepri ḫprj is derived from Egyptian language verb ḫpr, meaning "develop", "come into being", or "create".^[1] The god was connected with the scarab beetle (ḫprr in Egyptian), because the scarab rolls balls of dung across the ground, an act that the Egyptians saw as a symbol of the forces that move the sun across the sky. Khepri was thus a solar deity. Young dung beetles, having been laid as eggs within the dung ball, emerge from it fully formed. Therefore, Khepri also represented creation and rebirth, and he was specifically connected with the rising sun and the mythical creation of the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khepri

unquote

"Egyptians saw as a symbol of the forces that move the sun across the sky."...its disconcerting that they regarded a bug as a god...but, that's where gods come from, Nature...Ohtani done...w, k, top of 6th...Rivera in for relief...Nature's Events!...

quote

Hamlet:
Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this
special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature:
for any thing so o'erdone is from the purpose of playing, whose
end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold as 'twere the
mirror up to nature: to show virtue her feature, scorn her own
image, and the very age and body of the time his form and
pressure.
Hamlet Act 3, scene 2, 17–24

https://www.enotes.com/shakespeare-quotes/hold-mirror-up-nature

unquote

HR Astros...Angels 4 Houston 5...maybe in one of those caves they'll find a Mayan Shakespeare...and it's annoying, the odd stories of the gods and goddesses...they were shaped somehow...from some events...and...the odd stories of insects have caught my attention...and what they could possibly allude to!...tomorrow morrow...time to foray out for a snack!...Angels now 8, Astros 5, and in peril, two Astros on...

:)

DavidDavid

OTI:one poem, notes:4/23/18

Open To Interpretation

 

Sketch For Sonnet

 

Opening, inside I see the welter:

Balsa wood pieces unassembled--

Propeller, rubber band, tissue paper--

Instructions to be deciphered

Khufu's boat

Mayan hieroglyphs

Someone could have just explained it all,

Like the fascination with Mickey Mouse.

 

DolphinWords

 

Notes: Angels game came on early...forgot they were in Houston...bottom of second...thought, which is silly, is to do these posts while the Angels games are in progress, or in close proximity, like when I come back from seeing one live...that may be a longer row to hoe than I can do...season has a hundred and sixty games...but...I've done the like before!...anyway...this fourth post...see previous...

I remembered the Egyptian god Geb is in a relining pose too like the Chacmools, and Pakal in the 'astronaut' pose...are they falling, rather than reclining on the ground?...Pakal is associated with maize, Geb with wheat...thought to see what the gods of rice look like...DewiSri is knockdown gorgeous...and still worshipped in Indonesia side by side with Islam...one thing wheat, maize, rice gods have in common is being androgynous...that, and snakes...

oh, the 'Sketch For Sonnet'...this is how one of mine looks starting out...I have the conceit...a balsa wood model in its box just opened...and what I wanted to reach for is that the instructions are without words...just drawings with arrows and parts numbers indicating what goes with what, and the order of assembly...now, beneath the Great Pyramid was found a wooden boat, disassembled...and just made of ropes and wood...and without instructions...its been put together...and early on, a fellow who was independently wealthy, as he was married to a rich girl from California, involved his time in an unheralded effort to meticulously copy with painting and drawing all the Mayan hieroglyphs he could find...this when everything covered by jungle still...that I learned this by watching a youtube clip in the wee hours of a lecture by Michael Coe about Mayan hieroglyphs...so, the sonnet's elaborated conceit would try to reach for the puzzling something out without much help...or instructions that are minimal...thought is what has come down to us from ancient cultures is like minimalist instructions, or, in the case of the Khufu boat, and Mayan Hieroglyphs, no instructions at all....obvious of the balsa wood model is that it is an airplane, obvious of the Khufu boat was that it was a boat...it's a big help if you know what something is supposed to be!...the Mayan hieroglyphs didn't give a clue, until it was noted the numbering, and then the calendars...that's something all the ancient cultures had in common--numbers and calendars...the temples, and stories, oriented to the seasons and the stars...end of four...no scores yet...
since van Daniken noted Pakal looks like an astronaut, everyone has been scouring ancient things for ancient astronaut stuff...brb...

quote

The idea that ancient astronauts existed is not taken seriously by academics, and has received no credible attention in peer reviewed studies.^[

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_astronauts

unquote

for the sonnet I'm trying to think up a couplet too for the end that has a horde of starwars figurines buried and dug up far in the future, and the future is amazed that we had space travel and contact with aliens!...of course we know better...all that is from the movies...and I'm wondering if that is what we are finding in the ancient cultures...'movie' things...near as I can tell, there are no spaceships depicted, but there is no shortage of fantastic things from somewhere...
when I was a kid, it had to have been something of a shock to open the pages of Nat Geo and read about the Ancient Egyptians and their dung beetles...right there on King Tut's chest, a pectoral with a scarab...wonderfully rendered, but still, a dung beetle rolling a ball of dung!...it may as have well have been a tangled ball of thread...and I've been trying to unravel it for months now...it was the start of these posts, but hung fire...Valbuena gets a hit...first hit through five...this happened in the last game in the Boston series, no hit through five...and yesterday they were no hit through six...this is not good!...a walk, and single by drought ridden Calhoun...his first hit in like eighteen at bats...there's a bug on some island near New Zealand that went extinct, it was thought...a ship wreck populated the island with rats which ate all the bugs in short order...but some recent rock climbers on another nearby island, a pinnacle (I have this fascination with pinnacles now having done the Pinnacle Race Black Deck Tale--see moveTombRaider!), found some surviving bugs...Tree Lobsters they are nicknamed...and these bugs, somewhat uniquely for bugs, mate, male with female, loyally, though the females can give birth too without mating...which is a boon to the bug folk...a few bugs have been sent here and there to establish populations, and insure they wont go extinct again!...they lay eggs like in the thousands...I could make an allusion from that for the archaeologists digging up Aztec things...early Christians buried them, least they continue, and there is voiced a concern that digging them back up will reestablish the savagery of the Aztecs...we may not be immune to contamination by former cultures!...brb...

quote

Caltiki, The Immortal Monster (Italian: Caltiki, il mostro immortale) is a 1959 black-and-white science fiction-horror film. The film's storyline concerns a team of archaeologists investigating Mayan ruins who come across a creature that is a shapeless, amorphous blob. They manage to defeat it using fire, while keeping a sample of the creature. Meanwhile, a comet is due to pass close to the Earth, the very same comet that passed near the Earth at the time the Mayan civilization collapsed, raising the question: "Is there a connection between the creature and the comet"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caltiki_%E2%80%93_The_Immortal_Monster

unquote

a recurring refrain in the movies!...Angels got another run...Pujols walks, two on two out...Valbuena up again...K...bottom six...Sumerian gods of wheat?...brb...

quote

Nidaba...was the Sumerian goddess of writing, learning, and the harvest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nidaba

unquote

That!, that's very good!...harvesting, planting, and such, can allude to writing, reading and learning and such...but there is another Sumerian harvest I've been curious about...brb...well, Sumerian god Dumuzi is together with Innana and both together with Date Palms...but I can't find a good quote to snag...there are some, but inside books...wiki's letting me down!...much is made of the winged eagle headed being with a bucket in one hand, and a pine cone in the other, standing before a tree...this works out to the bucket having pollen in it, and the pine cone, or pine cone looking thing, a way to spread the pollen on the tree, which is a date palm...spreading pollen on date palms is familiar to date palm farmers to this day...I need to go to the store and get some dates!...this icon is found on the Sumerian palaces--now in museums...I don't know what the Eagle head and wings are about...the allusions of these icons are lost...the 'assembly' in all this is to re-discover the allusions!...difficult as so many see illusionary allusions!...the bucket is compared to what looks like a bucket held by the Tula Warriors...and from there more ancient astronaut conjectures...hmmph...brb...

quote

Kisilevitz tells Megan Gannon at LiveScience that they are not certain if the toads were buried as a posthumous snack. The Egyptians considered toads a symbol of regeneration, and that may have influenced the choice of offering. But the decapitation may be an indication the toads were prepared as food, similar to the way indigenous people in South America remove the head and toes of frogs to more easily remove their toxic skin, reports Borschel-Dan.
Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/jar-headless-toads-found-bronze-age-tomb-180965031/#bkVtxYxj0WVLgmd2.99
Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv
Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter

 

unquote

 

routinely I do a 'news archaeology' search, and just back two posts while I was going on about magic toads, that showed up...and I had to wonder if the heads had been ingested for their hallucinating toxins...a dogear....but in the jar too was date pollen, which was unusual, as date palms not native to Jerusalem...thought is an orchard had been planted and maintained...I imagine along with it came Innana and Dumizi...early Israelites held to pagan gods, much as I imagine the Indonesians worship Sri while holding to Islam now...one inning to go!...Angels hanging on--2-0...9th...Pujols up...Dumizi is mixed up with, or is, Tammuz...brb...

 

quote

 

Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD'S house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz. 15Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these.

 

Ezekiel 8

 

unquote

 

hmmph...come on guys...tying run at the plate...bottom of 9th...Middleton pitching...walk...no outs...1st and 2nd...k...K...play at third under review...pass ball throw 'm out...he's out!...a halo over this one!...lol...

 

more tomorrow morrow...

 

:)

 

DavidDavid

 

OTI:two poems, notes:4/22/18

Open To Interpretation

Store

 

Nothing's ever certain when I walk into your store.

Memoralbilia

The Homeridae beneath the Dodona Oak, a Springtime breeze in the leaves...

It's every wheres' sound...

How's that?

The waterfall's loud...

A beach with long continuous ocean waves...

On the stone benches, the audience visiting before the play...

A quietous...

Where is beyond beyond?

Below below...

Above above...

Beside beside...

The stars are loud...

Silence between the galaxies...

He's found Boccaccio...

Petrarch: My friend.

 

DolphinWords

 

Notes:  Dodger and Nationals on the radio...Angels and Giants earlier...Giant's Panik took twenty one pitches by Angels' Barria in one at bat...a new record...and a remarkable one!...how that happens is the batter keeps fouling off the ball...a Dodger player got hit by pitch for the 200th time...now 19th on that list...Angels lost 2-4...Dodgers trying to come back...trailing by a couple I think...

Boccaccio wrote a long book of the Greek gods and myths, but it's in Latin, and apparently never yet translated entire...part of it recently...and he wrote the Decameron...it has a 'frame' not unlike what I thought up for the Black Deck Tales...read the first one...there are a hundred!...and it's good!...a merchant needs to go on a business trip, and leaves a friend, who happens to be a Mafioso, to manage his affairs, collect debts, while he is away...the Mafioso falls ill, and while in a monestaries care, presents a dilemma for the monks...he can't be buried in the graveyard because he's a criminal, but the Mafioso says not to worry, bring me a priest...and he commences to confess his sins to the priest, careful not to make them sound to harsh...and the priest forgives him for each one, telling him he's being righteous for confessing, and not to worry!...the Mafioso dies forgiven, and is buried in the graveyard, rather than else ware, 'like a dog'...but the story doesn't end there...the priest goes on and on to the public how righteous the Mafioso was in his confessions, which were just a kind of inside joke to the Mafioso, that he becomes regarded as a Saint, and his grave a holy spot of pilgrimage...apparently Boccaccio could take religious sorts to task, and this may be why his works obscure...there's some on the web, but not much...the Decameron is famous, and an influence in Shakespears'  era...religions are resilient in how they can absorb sarcasim and such...anyway...

too continue with Chacmools, see last two previous posts...I was up all night searching Mesoamerican iconographies...and more today...on Coatlicue's chest is a pectoral holding four severed hands and two cut out hearts arrayed just like the butterfly chestplate pectoral on the Chacmools and the Tule Warriors...let me back up a sec...

Dectective stories always begin with some crime, completely mysterious except that it is a menace, and if not solved, will manifest again...and the story brings in the detective who bit by bit gathers evidence until the truth is uncovered...trick in this, is to gather evidence with out jumping to conclusions!...or making false accusations...so, I'm just jotting down notes...for now!...

an odd thing is that the Incas didn't have chocolate, and conversely, Mesoamericans didn't have coca leaves...cocoa beans and coca leaves often get confused...so, Mesoamerica didn't culturally connect trade wise with South America?...a query...

I thought to look at Mayan iconography, and some of the kings have a pectoral called 'bar pectoral'...it has the distinctive six notches, but is very narrow...this is where I am now... brb...hmmp...tried to finish this post up and lost half of it...Dodgers won 4-3...as for the missing part, I can summarize, the Chacmools' pose is the same as Pakal's, the famous Mayan astronaut...brb...

quote

The king himself wears the attributes of the Tonsured maize god - in particular a turtle ornament on the breast - and is shown in a peculiar posture that may denote rebirth.^[

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%27inich_Janaab%27_Pakal

too sleepy to rework it...onward...will catch it up with next post...dung beetles!

Butterfly Breastplates, Coatlicue's pectoral, Mayan Bar Pectoral, Ollin Glyph, Chacmools, Tule Warriors, Coatlicue, Tlaloc, Chaac, Pakal

:)

DavidDavid

 

 

 

OTI:three poems and notes with one pic:4/21/18

Open To Interpretation

 

Housing

It's like we sleep in separate beds,

Me and the rest of humanity,

We go about our daily bread

Trying to keep our sanity.

It's not so bad...

Who am I kidding?

Star
 

There are stars,

There are actors,

And there are stage hands.

The audience hadn't a clue

I was in love with you.

Chickens Or Eggs

Who am I to say how it began,

Or how it will end?

Lol!

You can see the dilemma!

There is no before or after,

Every thing is simultaneous!

 

DolphinWords

 

Notes: hooey...the Angels/Giants game must have started early...4th--2-2...Pujols...K...last night was more meanness...almost bailed from my perch in the fifth inning...stuck around...wonderful dbl play by Simmons/Kinsley...double by Pujols...HR by Trout...a couple out of the strike zone, one high, one low, hits by Ohtani...not much to crow about...ah...Simmons hits a double...the Angels have a really entertaining team, both defensively and offensively...maybe not so much the pitching...anyway...game in progress tonight on my radio...7:30 about...old fellows follow baseball...and ponder ancient mysteries!...

More Chacmool...see yesterday's post...on the Chacmools chests is something called the 'butterfly breastplate'...it's on the Tula standing warriors too...they have the same headdresses too...I was pondering that before I went off on the mirrors...oh...on the Warriors' behinds is a decorative disc thought to have once been a pyrite mirror...was the breastplate too a mirror?!...the breastplate shows up as a glyp...the ollin glyp...no, wait...that's the centerpiece in the famous Aztec calendar...that shows up a lot...and it reminds me of the butterfly breastplate...maybe both have to do with the calendar...there are some statuettes of warriors with butterfly chest plates, and another plate like it in the headdress, but upside down...it is very very hard to track down a 'notice' like that!...and these other things...before the web, it was impossible just going to libraries, bookstores...now I can search these things out on the web...I'm going to have to post up a storyboard on the wall like detectives do!...looking at the breastplates on the warrior, one cant help but wonder something was on them...their flat smoothness a substrate, like the discs the chacmools have...maybe the pyrite mirrors...the odd position of the chamools is a puzzle...their like doing a sit up exercise crunch...the stomach muscles tensed...I've wondered if originally they were female...a woman giving birth...and I did find one Aztec drawing of a female on their back like the chacmool, their head not raised, and a snake emerging from their abdomen where the disc would be...a curio...while looking, took note of a clip showing how Incas might have cut stone with rope, water, and sand...backpacking, one carries a wire saw, and I've wondered my self about cutting stone with ropes...looked about, rope saws and such, and found clips of cutting limestone with saws...this modern...apparently, if one is cutting wet limestone, it is easy to cut with a saw...and the masons in the clip cut out nice smooth blocks pretty easily...the great Pyramid is mostly limestone blocks...so I looked up cutting stone with saws in ancient Egypt...and there's a clip of masons demonstrating using a long copper rectangular saw without sharp teeth...just notches...the soft copper imbeds with sand as it saws, and the sand's abrasion cuts the stone...it works...works better if wetted...and leaves the mysterious striations...and I thought, the rope would do this too maybe...then I went and contemplated the unfinished obelisk...still a puzzle...and then I thought, I need to reduce all this to the very basics, how Nature works stone....the first thing people say on seeing Yosemite Valley, is 'how did that happen?!'...oh...Trout and Marti with the scores...homeruns...still tied 2-2 bottom 6th...Belt hit two run HR  for Giants...hmmph....well, Half Dome was made by erosion, exfoliation. and glacier grinding, tectonic uplift...glaciers grind away with their bottoms which have collected abrasive stones and such...they leave 'glacial polish', and striations/scratches...a mile high glacier is pretty heavy, so they grind away pretty good!...the explanation for how the Valley was formed...oh...Pujols hit a two run HR!!!...basically, Nature shapes stones by grinding stones against stones...and moves them against one another with rain/rivers...there's other things, volcanos, water freezing and cracking...earthquakes...us...lol...I left off with all that, and wondered what the California Indians did with stone...they're artifacts are close by...and they had grinding stones...BoSox no hit in Oakland!...chortle...in the Valley there are outcrops of granite near the Black Oaks with holes in them for grinding acorns...and they had mortars and pestles, I think...in Egypt they ground wheat, in Mesoamerica, corn, China rice...mortars and pestles are world wide...now, stored away, is the memory of the clip of stone masons near Angkor Watt...if I remember right...on a wall relief was a picture of how stones were shaped...a kind of scaffold crossbeam held a hanging stone that was moved across the stone to be shaped...the narrator had one of these rigged up, but it didn't work too well grinding back and forth...but he was in a local quarry, and the workers came over and showed how to rotate the hanging grinding stone, and that worked fine!...go figure!...grinding stone against stone is worldwide...oh, heck, Sandoval an rbi...and old...mortars and pestle from 40,000 years ago...but to make pyramids and such, stone grinding stone, that seems so slow...and I thought of millstones...apparently, Mesoamerica doesn't have millstones...which begs the question, how did they grind corn for large populations!...millstones are all over Europe and Asia...did they do all their grinding in the New World with Metates?...thing I'm noting here is that the grinder shapes the stone below it, same as a pestle and mortar...that's done with rotation to make the mortar...pounding to grind the grain or corn...details!...anyway...that's where the contemplation is 'bout now...brb...

 

quote

 

A metate or metlatl (or mealing stone) is a type or variety of quern, a ground stone tool used for processing grain and seeds. In traditional Mesoamerican culture, metates were typically used by women who would grind lime-treated maize and other organic materials during food preparation (e.g., making tortillas). Similar artifacts are found all over the world,^[1] including China.^[2]

^...
While varying in specific morphology, metates adhere to a common shape. They typically consist of large stones with a smooth depression or bowl worn into the upper surface. The bowl is formed by the continual and long-term grinding of materials using a smooth hand-held stone (known as a mano). This action consists of a horizontal grinding motion that differs from the vertical crushing motion used in a mortar and pestle. The depth of the bowl varies, though they are typically not deeper than those of a mortar; deeper metate bowls indicate either a longer period of use or greater degree of activity (i.e., economic specialization). The specific angles of the metate body allow for a proficient method of turning grains into flour.^[3]
Another type of metate called a grinding slab may also be found among boulder or exposed bedrock outcroppings. The upper face of the stone is used for grinding materials, such as acorns, that results in the smoothing of the stone's face and the creation of pocked dimples

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metate

 

unquote

 

...are the chacmools metates?...a 'note'!...did Mesoamerica have anything like the Old World's millstones?...brb...Sweet!...Middleton saves it for Richards!...Angels 4-Giants 3...now I'm at cocaa beans!...I just saw in a passing the Aztec aristocracy didn't drink pulqui, the intoxicating cactus drink, but only chocolate...cocaa beans were used for money!...and they were ground too like corn...trying to narrow that...hmmph...

 

quote

 

Analogous to the mortar and pestle, the monolithic hand stone and quern – stone slab for grinding seed or grain substances into powder – are ubiquitous throughout history in nearly every culture. Archaeologists and anthropologists believe the mano ( derived from the Spanish word for hand) and metate (quern in Spanish) were the primary tools for chocolate-based consumables in the Mesoamerican household since settlement around 2000 BC approximately through the 1800s.

 

https://chocolateclass.wordpress.com/2016/02/18/examining-the-mesoamerican-metate-and-mano/

 

unquote

apparently, grinding corn/cacao in the New World was very labor intensive...for women...and the mills with millstones across Europe and Asia unknown...both attached much religious thought to milling...and as a metaphor, the pole with a stone rolling around over a lower stone, grinding grain, was taken up...see book Hamlet's Mill!...brb...

quote

The eleven-page introduction, written by de Santillana, provides an excellent orientation to the authors' thoughts, motivations, goals, and conclusions. Shakespeare's Hamlet is traced back to the story of Amlohdi and from there to the Viking tale of Grotte's Mill. The popular Norwegian fairy tale called "why the sea is salt," recorded in the early nineteenth century, descends directly from the myth of Grotte's Mill. The Hamlet's Mill "essay" then moves farther afield, drawing in a huge amount of related cosmogonic imagery. We first move to Finland, where the incredible Sampo story-its forging and theft-provides detailed imagery describing a World Age shifting of the celestial "frame of time." From there to Iran, India, Polynesia, back to Greece, Egypt, Babylonia and China; even New World mythology fits the criteria. The entire discussion indicates that ancient people around the globe observed the slow shifting of the celestial framework, what we call the precession of the equinoxes. Among academics and without good reason, the suggestion of this knowledge in ancient times has been dismissed out of hand, and this is exactly the problem. It is considered to be so patently impossible that no rational examination of the mythic forms describing precession has ever taken place. Hamlet's Mill is the first study to seriously address this question. 

http://edj.net/mc2012/mill1.htm

unquote

hmmmp...the pole the millstone rotates around is compared to the earth spinning on its axis...that's how the metaphor begins...and the other things happening in the grinding add on with more metaphors...how it all pinned to the sky is probably humanities greatest invention...arrived at convergent, or cultural interaction, I don't know...Robert Graves dabbled with magic mushrooms, and in his hallucinations saw a frog with a jewel in its forehead...brb...

quote

The toadstone, also known as bufonite, is a mythical stone or gem that was thought to be found in the head of a toad. It was supposed to be an antidote to poison and in this it is not unlike batrachite, supposedly formed in the heads of frogs. Toadstones were actually the button-like fossilized teeth of Lepidotes, an extinct genus of ray-finned fish from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. They appeared to be "stones that are perfect in form" and were set by European jewellers into magical rings and amulets from Medieval times until the 18th century.^[

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toadstone

hmmph....wait!

quote

I have eaten the Mexican hallucinogenic mushroom psilocybe Heimsii in Gordon Wasson's company, with the intention of visiting the Mexican paradise called Tlal6can to which it gives access. The god Tlal6c, who was toadheaded, corresponded exactly with Agni and Dionysus.

https://www.math.uci.edu/~vbaranov/nicetexts/eng/mushrooms.html

...

What Graves is suggesting is that hallucinogens open to realms common to everyone...somewhat like dreams, I'd say...and best eschew drugs...but apparently while things like toads with forehead jewels show up across oceans, mundane things like technologies don't...Graves was a charlatan too in the vein of the youtube mysterians, though he vehemently denied he wrote 'potboilers'...just what his books, I, Claudius, are, if not soap operas, I dunno!...on that page he seems to suggest toads secrete a toxin that makes a crust on their head, the jewel, and ingesting that brings on the hallucinations...this is something I haven't much interest in nailing down!...but he references Tlaloc...brb...

quote

The chacmools of Chichen Itza and Tula depict young men with warrior attributes, while the chacmools of Michoacán depict elderly men with wrinkled faces and erect penises.^[2] A chacmool from Guácimo, Costa Rica, combines human and jaguar features and grips a bowl.^[3] The face of the figure looks upwards and the bowl was apparently used to grind foodstuffs.^[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chacmool

unquote

oh!...a dogear (note)!...Tlaloc?...brb...

quote--same wiki

Two chacmools have been recovered that were associated with the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital. The first was discovered in 1943, on the junction of Venustiano Carranza and Pino Suarez, about two blocks south of the temple itself. The second chacmool was excavated in the sacred precinct.^[15] This is the only fully polychrome chacmool that has been recovered anywhere;^[15] it had an open mouth and exposed teeth and stood in front of the temple of Tlaloc, the Aztec rain god; its sculpted bowl probably received heart and blood sacrifices.^[16] This latter sculpture is by far the older of the two

unquote

quote

Tlaloc is also associated with caves, springs, and mountains, most specifically the sacred mountain in which he was believed to reside. His animal forms include herons and water-dwelling creatures such as amphibians,
...
The cult of Tlaloc is one of the oldest and most universal in ancient Mexico. Although the name Tlaloc is specifically Aztec, worship of a storm god like Tlaloc, associated with mountaintop shrines and with life-giving rain, is as at least as old as Teotihuacan and likely was adopted from the Maya god Chaac or vice versa, or perhaps he was ultimately derived from an earlier Olmec precursor. An underground Tlaloc shrine has been found at Teotihuacan.^[

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tlaloc

unquote

that last bit references the cavern in yesterday's post, I think...brb...

quote

They scanned the earth under the Ciudadela, returning every afternoon to upload the results to Gómez’s computers. By 2005, the digital map was complete. The archaeologists explored the tunnel with a remote-controlled robot called Tlaloc II-TC, equipped with an infrared camera and a laser scanner that generates 3D visualization to perform three dimensional register of the spaces beneath the temple.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teotihuacan#Recent_discoveries

unquote

:)...anyway, let me see if I can find the jeweled toad...keeps slipping away...

quote

In years leading up to 1942, a series of murals were found in the Tepantitla compound in Teotihuacan. The Tepantitla compound provided housing for what appears to have been high status citizens and its walls (as well as much of Teotihuacan) are adorned with brightly painted frescoes. The largest figures within the murals depicted complex and ornate deities or supernaturals. In 1942, archaeologist Alfonso Caso identified these central figures as a Teotihuacan equivalent of Tlaloc, the Mesoamerican god of rain and warfare. This was the consensus view for some 30 years.
In 1974, Peter Furst suggested that the murals instead showed a feminine deity, an interpretation echoed by researcher Esther Pasztory. Their analysis of the murals was based on a number of factors including the gender of accompanying figures, the green bird in the headdress, and the spiders seen above the figure.^[1] Pasztory concluded that the figures represented a vegetation and fertility goddess that was a predecessor of the much later Aztec goddess Xochiquetzal.

https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=126979308348410557#editor/target=post;postID=8389096902116923222;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=0;src=link

unquote

Graves references that mural for the toad...first discovered in 1942, and in 1974 the speculation that it depicts a goddess...Graves is like a cat landing on its feet...the toad?

quote

The bumps and warts on toads’ skins served an important purpose in Mexica religion as they secreted poisons that could cause hallucinogenic states used in ritual practice. The poison, called bufotenin, impacted the cardiovascular system and could be deadly when ingested in large amount. Therefore, to transport themselves to mind-altering states priests only consumed tiny quantities. According to Spanish chroniclers, the Mexicas boiled, ground, and licked toads to obtain the substance.

Pic 3: Aztec stone sculpture of a toad, National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City (Click on image to enlarge)

Excavations of the Templo Mayor in Mexico City reveal that toads were the only amphibians the Mexicas left in ritual caches (offerings to the gods) at the site, often as offerings to the god of rain and water, Tlaloc. Mexica sculptors also carved toads into large and small stone sculptures. One particularly large and robust sculpture (Pic 3) emphasizes the hallucinogenic properties of the toad, as the sculptor carved circular, wide eyes and glands atop the head that...


http://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/flora-and-fauna/frogs-and-toads

go figure!!!


Sweet are the uses of adversity;
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.

As You Like It--Shakespeare

:)

DavidDavid