Praxiteles

A text only post, and about history, afield from fauna and flora, sort of...and grim, so dear readers, a caution to read on...
In the news, the assassins blew up a Roman era temple in Palmyra too, along with assassinating the archaeologist, and assassinating captured opponents in the outdoor Roman theater.  I'd been meaning to look up Palmyra, insomuch as since taking along the little paperback account of archaeology in Israel  to the laundry, I've become curious to read web accounts of ancient towns.

For a long time now, I put in the search box, 'news' on google, and it opens a list of news providers like Fox, Yahoo, BBC, and without a television hook up, that's how I've been keeping track of current things.  But I've just been seeing headline things, until of late I've been doing searches by entering a subject followed by the word 'news'.  Example: 'Greek news'.  That search method brings up some very good stories!

quote

“This is the end,” he says. “This is the worst. There is no life anymore.”
The fisherman’s lament is as old as the seas. And Greeks have earned a living from fish for eons. It is the country’s second-largest agricultural export, behind fruit and nuts but ahead of olive oil and cheese. Six years of economic crisis, however, have left this way of life in a shambles.
The Fisherman's Lament
A Way of Life Drowned by Greece's Crisis

By Charles Forelle and Georgi Kantchev. Videos by Mark Kelly 
http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-way-of-life-drowned-by-greeces-crisis-1440051334

unquote

After reading that story, which I liked very much as it had me daydreaming of living in a Greek seaside village with my sailboat out fishing with Maya aboard!,  I read this one:

quote

Of all the aspects of Monday’s bailout deal that Greeks found humiliating, nothing drilled into their sense of pride quite like their government’s promise to sell off “valuable Greek assets” to the tune of 50 billion euros. The seven-page agreement, which European leaders thrashed out over the weekend, made no mention of where Greece is supposed to find that much property to sell. But as they scrambled for options, officials in Athens saw no way around the blood-curdling prospect of auctioning off Greek islands, nature preserves or even ancient ruins.
Greece May Have to Sell Islands and Ruins Under Its Bailout Deal

• Simon Shuster / Athens @shustry

http://time.com/3956017/greece-bailout-selloff/

unquote

There is a grim possibility in this for America...that some governmental breakdown, the federal, or a state government, going bankrupt, and the banks providing a bailout in return for assets, and the privatization by bank approved mangers of things like National Parks.   Something Republicans can't wait for!


I had that thought, and moved on, trying out this new search with 'archaeology news', and that's keeping me current with things being found.  A more refined search is to add 'today' to the string.

But back to Palmyra...   I learn that the blown up temple was a Phoenecian  temple to the god Baal.  I had just come away from reading some from the Bible book Jeremiah...

quote

They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind:

Jeremiah 19:5

unquote

I forget just how it happened, but...oh...it was Babylon and search of the Tower of Babylon, which too was a temple to Baal, and in reading about the archaeology of Babylon I happened on the Ubaid culture, which not much is known about, as the floods from the Tigris and Euphrates over the centuries have covered with mud their towns.  But some have been found, and in one some small clay figurines, which one can find by doing a search: 'ubaid lizard people', which I of course did, being curious about lizard people!  These small clay figures have almond eyes and snake like noses, and are of course taken up in ufo lore!  To get a good look at them, I opened google's image menu, and in the midst of all these statues' images was a Greek statue of a young man.  Why it was intermixed, I don't know.  (he's slaying a lizard I now see)  Today, looking for it there again, I find it gone, but when it was there, I clicked on it, and that took me to its story.

quote

The Cleveland Museum of Art has bought what it thinks is an ancient bronze sculpture of Apollo the Lizard Slayer by the classical Greek sculptor Praxiteles. If it is authentic, it will be one of the most important ancient bronzes in an American museum.

Ohio Museum Attributes a Purchase to Praxitales
By Carol Vogel
 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/22/arts/ohio-museum-attributes-a-purchase-to-praxiteles.html

unquote

Searching out Praxiteles, I found many things, one being the story of the Lacoon statue. 

quote

The group has been "the prototypical icon of human agony" in Western art,^[4] and unlike the agony often depicted in Christian art showing the Passion of Jesus and martyrs, this suffering has no redemptive power or reward.^[5] The suffering is shown through the contorted expressions of the faces (Charles Darwin pointed out that Laocoön's bulging eyebrows are physiologically impossible), which are matched by the struggling bodies, especially that of Laocoön himself, with every part of his body straining.^[6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laoco%C3%B6n_and_His_Sons

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On reading that, and looking at the statue, I said to myself, 'Oh, that's the head I drew on 911! '   That morning, while preparing to go to Palomar College for my art classes, I turned the tv on, and watched, with my sister, the tragedy unfolding in New York.  Not knowing if there would be class or not, I left off and went to Palomar.  School was in session, and the few in attendance at my life drawing class were given the task of drawing a bust of some old Greek set up in the middle of the room.  It was Lacoon's head, I now realize!  Lacoon was tortured and tormented by the gods because he tried to forewarn the Trojans of the dangers of the Trojan Horse.  Not unlike Jeremiah, who was reviled for his dire warnings.

quote

Virgil gives Laocoön the famous line "Equō nē crēdite, Teucrī / Quidquid id est, timeō Danaōs et dōna ferentēs", or "Do not trust the Horse, Trojans / Whatever it is, I fear the Greeks even bearing gifts." This line is the source of the saying: "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts."

unquote (wiki)

A landowner improving his property found the Lacoon statue,   And as it happened, Michelangelo was present when it was dug up...

quote

The first time I was in Rome when I was very young, the pope was told about the discovery of some very beautiful statues in a vineyard near Santa Maria Maggiore. The pope ordered one of his officers to run and tell Giuliano da Sangallo to go and see them. So he set off immediately. Since Michelangelo Buonarroti was always to be found at our house, my father having summoned him and having assigned him the commission of the pope’s tomb, my father wanted him to come along, too. I joined up with my father and off we went. I climbed down to where the statues were when immediately my father said, "That is the Laocoön, which Pliny mentions". Then they dug the hole wider so that they could pull the statue out. As soon as it was visible everyone started to draw [or "started to have lunch"],^[36] all the while discoursing on ancient things, chatting as well about the ones in Florence.

same wiki page...

unquote

But back to Praxiteles...he made many statues, (all lost, and only known from descriptions and copies), and one is called the Aphrodite of Cnidus...

quote 

The statue became a tourist attraction in spite of being a cult image, and a patron of the Knidians. Nicomedes I of Bithynia offered to pay off the enormous debts of the city of Knidos in exchange for the statue, but the Knidians rejected his offer.

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

unquote

hmmph

next: the Phoenicians and their alphabet...

DavidDavid

Blue Heron



Walked my dog Maya to the Donut Shop yesterday early early, like 5:30 am, almost that time now!...bought yet another harness that fits tighter, and it seems to work okay...on return yesterday, sighted Blue Heron standing out in the Pond...water most gone, and, and looks just to be about two feet deep...realized Pond even when at its usual depth is only like five feet deep...it can fill up to the fence and street, that would maybe make it like fifteen...didn't have camera with...cameras are languishing in a box while I try to sort out how to make a usefull set of day to day routines...Heron pic is from old post...thought to just randomly see an old post to reminisce, and this is the one that came up...Dec 31 2009...as we walked further on the street past the Pond, Heron took wing and flew by...my sleep cycle is upside down...snoozing during the day, I heard Maya thrashing something on the Porch...she's nearly eaten through one wall, and I diverted her in time before she chewed through the exposed wiring!...too sleepy in the daytime to be sensible about what I'm about trying to repair the Porch, and so back away from committing funds...did yesterday buy a crowbar...want to remove the paneling inside, and the wood outside around the dog door...the price of materials is so high, that even a minor temporary fix is eye brow raising...goal is to make the porch and backyard safe for Maya, insomuch as she wants to chew and eat everything, but I lag behind, and dread she'll find some hazard I haven't anticipated...when I return from a walk, my tenant is puttering in the kitchen, and I wait, keeping Maya on leash...but twice now things have gone awry...once, I went out on the Porch, closing myself and Maya out from the kitchen, and was taking the harness off...but it got caught on the dog tag, and Maya went into a kinda panic with the harness half off and choking her a bit, and my hands paniced trying to untangle things, and by now Maya was chewing on me in earnest...the wounds aren't deep, but blood was streaming down one forearm....I finally just grabbed her up in a bear hug, and pleaded with my tenant through the back door window to let me in...this is difficult as her English isn't good!...but I got in and went to the dog carrier in the living room and shoveled Maya in...then went in the bathroom and cleaned up and sat on the edge of the tub and thought awhile...it's hard to contain one's temper when a dog bites...some very old instinct rises up I suspect, in both of us...I can contain mine in such circumstance, a spank on Maya's fanny with my open hand the most I muster, and that rarely...but I don't know what someone else will do if Maya bites them, and if some strangers reaction would cause an escalation...so that was one time, and then yesterday, when I returned, my tenant wasn't about in the house, so I went about preparing Maya's food and water in the kitchen...I set these out on the Porch, and then close the door, so inside the house is some peace!...but my tenant came out while Maya was on leash, and I asked her to remain in her room until I had Maya out on the porch secure, and Hanh did this, I thought, but after Maya was unleashed, she ran into the house to the front door...Hanh had gone outside and was coming back in, and was about to open the door...I got there just in time to hold it shut, and felt an ogre telling Hanh to wait, stay out, and I closed the door...Hanh doesn't understand, that if Maya get's out, she'll run off...I haven't been able to train Maya to respond and come back when I call...with Maya back out on the porch, I opened the door and let Hanh back in...she went about her morning, and off to work...I sat on the front step a bit, and tried to think things through...it's a dilemma...so long as I've rented to my tenant, I've always been concerned for their safety...but somethings, like when they were using hotplates to cook, having lost somehow the stove I provided years ago, and not replacing it, I just cross my fingers and hope things go okay...when I returned, and had funds, I bought another stove, and that's worked fine...but, once, when the electricity went out (car wrecked a power pole), Hanh surpised me, and brought out a little propane gas hot plate, brand new, from her room, and gestured we could use it to cook with the electricity out...I smiled, and didn't trouble to explain that the stove would be fine as it's gas...and I tried to tell her to never use the hot plate in her room...and I cross my fingers on that...anyway, sitting on the front step yesterday, I admonished myself to keep my temper when Maya, and my tenant, are troubling...so, so, what happens later, I'm in Target, at the cashier, two bags of beggn bits and a package of baloney, and I'm about to swipe my debit card, and the cashier tells me to stick it in the new slot these readers now have for the new cards with chips...my card is new, but I had just come from Home Depot where it didn't work with the chip and I swiped it and used my pin number...I don't like that we use a signature now instead of pin numbers, and I was thinking it's going to not work again, and I said, 'No, I'd like to swipe my card and use my pin numbers (which I know I can still do), but the cashier woofed at me..."You have to put it in the chip slot at the bottom...'...I rose up, and said, 'Good, I'll go somewhere else...' wheeled about and left, my purchase still on the counter, which was rude, I know, but my patience had worn thin earlier with Maya...I went to Vons, mumbling to myself, and brushed off that cashier's asking me if I wanted a vons card, and handed him a hundred dollar bill for payment for beggn bits and a package of salami...cashiers really like big bills--not...so I left two cashiers, and likely my tenant, unhappy with me in my wake yesterday!...and then much later, after eating at Denny's, and just out side, a fellow approaches me with some story...I listen a bit to catch its drift, and said...'no more, don't be asking me for money'...and he woofs at my back, but I hear his buddy laughing at his failed pitch...I tell you, to stay on an even tempered keel through a day is a challenge!...but I may have had one tiny success yesterday, I bought a tiny dog whistle, and at evening feeding time, when Maya harries my ankles while I'm putting food in her dish, I whistled the dog whistle...her eyes got big and she looked and looked, and sat!...I tried again, and she sat again!...will try this more today...don't know if it was a one time occurance, but have my fingers crossed that the whistle will work again like it did!...I need to lighten up, maybe find the Grouchy Old Men dvds at Best Buy...

The Dog Star

A text only post, and about history, afield from fauna and flora, sort of...and grim, so dear readers, a caution to read on...


In the news of the day, was the assassination of an archeologist in the Syrian war, his corpse hoisted onto one of the columns in Palmyra, the ancient Roman ruin...myself, I'd rather not  deign to even mention events over there, as clearly that's what the assassins want--attention.  But, but, in my after midnight sojourn about the web tonight, I was going over again Robert Graves and  his take on the Dog Star Sirius...that in a sec...but in my reading I happened on this ancient account, and it's striking similarity to the news of the day...it wasn't a bit ago someone asked me what became of the ancient Library of Alexandria...I'm not sure...one thought is it had many mishaps, like fires and looting, and so perished, but the legendary one is that it was sacked and burned (not unlike the fate of the libraries and treasures of Peking!) at one fell stroke.

quote


Eunapius mentions that the Christians destroyed the temples in the vicinity and demolished the Serapheum at Alexandria, and settled their black-robed monks on the spot of Canopus in order to supplant paganism there. Hence, we see that that particular place had a unique importance. Surely it should be excavated. The pagan mysteries of the place, eventually destroyed by the Christians, probably continued the Behdet tradition and were related to our Sirius question.

The Sirius Mystery
Was Earth visited by Intelligent Beings from a Planet in the Star System Sirius
by Robert K. G. Temple

unquote



I had to look up who Eunapius was...

The Lives of Philosophers and Sophists, a collection of the biographies of 23 older and contemporary philosophers and sophists of the author, is valuable as the only source for the history of the Neoplatonism of that period. The style of both works is marked by a spirit of bitter hostility to Christianity.

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

unquote

Eunapius wrote two works, one about the Philosophers, and another a history of those times 207-404 AD, which was lost, but much quoted in another ancient history, which apparently tones down Eunapius' depictions of early Christians, which likley was an exaggeration, though I think many books, and indeed, classical temples and such, were lost then.  The time frame I find curious, as it's about where I left off with the Sanhedrin and The Temple history...there's an explanation of why the membership of the Greater Sanhedrin was seventy one at wiki's site,  but that number, seventy, and other numbers, keep re-occurring in classical mythology...this author mentions that the ancients liked puns, not for humor, but to use for concealment...which may explain why the Bible is cryptic, and fosters so many interpretations!...and in his book he tries to present the commonalities showing up in wide spread myths which suggest something hidden, his premise of ancient astronauts, and of course he goes a lot to Robert Graves' Greek Myths for support.

Graves authored more than a hundred books, and I imagine too, his day to day was non stop discussion of many things beyond most people's day to day, including mine!...and I imagine he was never happier than when he was going on about the old myths...read the Myths, or the White Goddess, and it is his rhapsody...myself, I cant make heads or tails of it all, but read on...and this author has kindof picked up the same style...

Now, how did I come to this web page, The Dogon,  in his book?   Well, I webchecked on Pluto and Ceres, no new pics, but took note of a a site touting a Russian made youtube about Nibiru, that Planet X the ufo folk go on about.  It may well be that Dawn, or New Horizons, the space crafts out there, may go on further, and actually see Planet X...the astronomers seem to acknowledge now that there could be big planets out in the Ort Cloud waiting to be discovered...the unwarranted fear is that Planet X, if it exists, has an elipitcal orbit that brings it into the inner solar system...a cycle of 3600 years some say...that may or may not be...clearly there's a lot of things in Outer Space, and just as clearly Outer Space is spacious enough, and ordered enough, that the bigger things rarely intersect...

But, but, reading as I was, I thought to look up again Graves and his take on the Dog Star Sirius...he writes that a small gold balance weight, a figurine with one eye, a token souvenir someone gave him, its origin an African tribe called the Dogon, was sitting on his writing table while he was writing the book Hercules My Shipmate, a redo of Jason and the Golden Fleece story, and that this figurine diverted him into his writing out an inspired work:  The White Goddess...a book which is a kinda Celtic Myths counterpart to his Greek Myths...Graves loved that book the most of all he wrote, I think, though Laura Riding, his girl for a time, and muse, carped that he stole its contents  from her...Graves had a messed up domesticity!...anyway, Mythology permeates all his books, and something in them is like the north pole to his compass, and maybe it was the Dogon tribe, and their traditions about the Dog Star Sirius...

Maya, my dog, has grown up to sometime look so much like the ancient Egyptian dog Anubis, that I sometimes think to have named her Anubis...and she has a personality so wild and unfettered, that she is like out of some myth...I don't dare any more to go on walks...if she got off the leash, she would run to the nearest person, leap up on them, smother them with sloopy tongue kisses, and after awhile, I haven't permitted things beyond this while she is on leash, after awhile, she will tug a war their clothing, and then eat them...:)...as she does me most every day!....she began eating the bunk I made out on the porch, so I took the mattress away...since that, she's devoured the lamp, and floor molding, and even a wall plug...I have a double bunk bed on order for the porch...thinking I can sleep on the top, and so be out of reach!...behind the now gone molding, I can see the black mold on the gypsum board behind the thin paneling, so must deal with that...I cant lock up the dog door as she's torn away around it...nothing now to anchor hooks to!...so must deal with that, so I will have way to keep her outside while I deal with the porch inside...I'm always a step behind, and reminds me of dealing with someone in poor health that has lost their reason, which I've done, but Maya is in excellent health, and sensible, in her way, which makes me question my own sense!...lol...

anyway, the Sirius/Dogon tale is in a lot of ufo lore, and easy to find, and the common notion is that from priesthood to priesthood through history, star lore has been passed down...pied as it were...an example...for seventy days Sirius is gone from the night sky...and again and again, seventy, and other numbers, show up in mythology...

the author has a bit about werewolves, a hark to my post Top Hat...

quote

When Danaos fled from Egypt to Argos, he is specifically said to have brought Egyptian mysteries, the Thesmophoria. Presumably the Sirius-complex was thus transplanted. (One should read Herodotus II, 165-70.) The element of the wolf, sometimes substituted for the dog in the Sirius tradition of the Dog Star, is important. It is an obvious European substitute for the non-existent jackal of Anubis.

 

With no jackal in Europe, the wolf was the candidate. Wolfish Apollo is jackalish. It was from this changing of the jackal into the wolf through adaptation to the European clime that those peculiar wolf traditions arose in wild Arcadia which developed in pre-classical times into the werewolf concepts. Human blood-sucking vampires, the use of garlic for protection against them, and lycanthropy of werewolves all luxuriated in the wilds of Arcady among the Pelasgian survivors in pre-classical Greece after the Dorian invasion.

 

The phenomenon is rather like the plethora of fairy-tales and 'Celtic twilight' to be found in Ireland, with the multitude of fantastic stories and creatures. What is a werewolf? It is a man's body with a wolf's head.

 

That is exactly what Anubis became when transferred to Greece; instead of a man's body with a jackal's head, he was a man with a wolf's head because there was no jackal in Greece. And the temples of Wolfish (or Lycian) Apollo, were not altogether rare in Greece. Aristotle's famous school at Athens the Lyceum, was in the grounds of the Lycian Apollo's temple just outside the Athens Gate of Diochares. The name 'Lyceum' comes from the Lycian Apollo, which is the Wolfish Apollo.

 

Origins of the Dogon

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/universo/siriusmystery/siriusmystery07.htm

 

unquote

 

and here from the author's text is the footnote to his take on the Library at Alexandria and Eunapais...

 

quote

 

Ibid., pp. 421-5 (text 472): 'Next, into the sacred places they imported monks, as they called them, who were men in appearance but led the lives of swine, and openly did and allowed countless unspeakable crimes. But this they accounted piety, to show contempt for things divine. For in those days every man who wore a black robe and consented to behave in unseemly fashion in public possessed the power of a tyrant, to such a pitch of virtue had the human race advanced! All this however I have described in my Universal History. They settled these monks at Canobus also, and thus fettered the human race to the worship of slaves . . .' Among the unspeakable crimes being referred to was the destruction by Bishop Theodosius of the Great Library of Alexandria because it contained 'heathen literature'. Hence, the loss of the hundreds of thousands of books from the ancient world, which everyone laments so often, took place at the hands of a fanatical Christian bishop attempting to wipe out all trace of history before Christ, and not as the result of an accidental fire from the time of Mark Anthony, as the story is usually told.

 

unquote

 

Which brings to mind post I did about the old Russian 'black robes'...

 

quote

 

Modern theorists suggest that the motivating purpose for the organization and existence of the Oprichniki was to suppress people or groups opposed to the Tsar. Known to ride black horses and led by Ivan himself, the group was known to terrorize civilian populations. Sometimes called the "Tsar's Dogs"^{[by whom?]} because of their actions and blind loyalty,^{[citation needed]} they dressed in black garb, similar to a monastic habit, bearing the insignia of a severed dog's head (to sniff out treason and enemies of the Tsar) and a broom (to sweep them away). The dog's head was also symbolic of "nipping at the heels of the Tsar's enemies".^[

 

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

 

Oh, and this, found while trying to find if  the star in the Star and Crescent Moon motif is Sirius (it would seem to be Venus)...

quote

"In 340 B.C., however, the Byzantines, with the aid of the Athenians, withstood a siege successfully, an occurrence the more remarkable as they were attacked by the greatest general of the age, Philip of Macedon. In the course of this beleaguerment, it is related, on a certain wet and moonless night the enemy attempted a surprise, but were foiled by reason of a bright light which, appearing suddenly in the heavens, startled all the dogs in the town and thus roused the garrison to a sense of their danger. To commemorate this timely phenomenon, which was attributed to Hecate, they erected a public statue to that goddess [...]" William Gordon Holmes, The Age of Justinian and Theodora, 2003 p 5-6

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

Justinian paired down the many stories and books of the time to what we now know as the New Testament...but let me find if Sirius might be the star in the Crescent Moon and Star...

quote

 

The spiritual meaning of the moon and star can vary. The Quran includes a chapter titled the "The Moon," in which the split or crescent moon is a harbinger of the day of judgment. The Quran also has a chapter called "The Star," which refers to God as the lord of the day star Sirius worshipped by pagans. Moreover, the moon is associated with Muhammad in Muslim poetry, and the mystical tradition known as sufism uses the moon as a symbol of the heart responsive to the light of truth. In addition, one popular interpretation of the five-pointed star is that it represents the five pillars of Islam, which are the five foundational obligations of the obedient Muslim life.

http://people.opposingviews.com/islam-symbols-moon-stars-6982.html

unquote

I forget where I got it, but I picked up somewhere that Islam adopted the Egyptians' 'Tear of Isis'...(the Crescent Moon and Star motif is much older than Islam..see the wiki pages)...brb...

quote

The Beautiful Star of Isis now called Sirius, but anciently called Sothis by the Greeks and Sopdet by the Egyptians, was considered to open the way for the Nile flood, which brought life and fertility back to the land of Egypt. About five thousand years ago the heliacal rising of Sirius occurred on the Summer Solstice which falls on June 21st. This means that Sirius rose just ahead of the Sun and was visible again for a few brief moments after a 70 day absence from the skies of Egypt.

Sirius: The Sacred Star of Isis
The Star of the New Year
Cynthia Isis Anderson

http://www.mirrorofisis.freeyellow.com/id63.html

search term 'isis' is impossible at the moment, as it just brings up news of the assassins...and likely adds my posts/searches to a 'snowden like list' that sends John Oliver running after interviewing Snowden!...:)

but...

quote

The cult of Isis and Osiris continued up until the 6th century CE on the island of Philae in Upper Nile. The Theodosian decree (about 380 CE) banning all pagan religions was not enforced there until the time of Justinian.

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

and there's Theodosius and Justinian together, with Mohammad's purges nearby in time and place too...is Syria named after Sirius?...brb...

quote

"All Syriac writers have throughout times unanimously explained that the word Suroye comes from a person that was called Sures or Syrus. But we haven't found this Sures/Syrus in history, so it is nothing scientific, one can call it a legend or a myth. There are many such legends people have made up in order to explain things", Dr. Assad reasons.

All Things Assyrian

Inscription From 800 BC Shows the Origin of the Name 'Syria'

Posted 2007-02-18 19:41 GMT

http://www.aina.org/ata/20070218144107.htm

well...I'll do the simple search: Syria star Sirius..brb

there's this, where I've already been!

www.bibliotecapleyades.net/universo/siriusmystery/siriusmystery06.htm

 

'The Dog-men' are probably connected with Sirius the Dog Star and Hebron is .... tablets from Ugarit on the coast of present-day Syria, dating from about 1800 ...

brb

oh,...and this is goosebump time...

quote

Its risings and settings were regularly tabulated in Chaldaea about 300 B.C., and Oppert is reported to have recently said that the Babylonian astronomers could not have known certain astronomical periods, which as a matter of fact they did know, if they had not observed Sirius from the island of Zylos in the Persian Gulf on Thursday, the 29th of April, 11542 B.C.!

http://www.constellationsofwords.com/stars/Sirius.html

It's almost sunrise...11,000 years ago for another sojourn...:)

quote (same site)

Shines eminent amid the depth of night,

Whom men the dog-star of Orion call.

 

from Homer's Illiad, on Priam seeing the arrival of Achilles...

 

oh...Orion's belt, and the men in black, for sometime!

 

Anubis is watching Sirius, I just realized, and that enigmatic looking into the distance of old Egyptian statuary the same star gazing...

DavidDavid

No Man's Sky



No Man's Sky is a new mmo (massive role playing computer game) that is still in development...I happened upon it reading a story about an archaeologist who had taken up the subject of the world of World of Warcraft, and other games, as an archaeological dig...seriously...which reminds me of a conversation while a docent cataloging seashells at Bower's Museum with a precocious visiting kid about just when something becomes a fossil...but that's an aside!...thought here is just what can be studied in the fashion of archaeology, and it would seem anything, and it doesn't have to be old, or fossilized!...but in reading the archaeology story, I stemmed off into the No Man's Sky story, and it has something that I thought of way back when I worked at Disney (maintenance deliveries)...I'm not a mathematician, but back then I was so taken with the books, and posters, coming out about fractal geometry, that my interest acquired a glimmering of how things can be random, and yet ordered, different yet the same, and I sent in an I Have An Idea idea that envisioned a Disney ride that would be different each time through, that algorithms could do that...and so they can!...one of the designers of this new game in this video link goes over how it works...the 'math'...he explains it very well, in a charming modest fashion...in one part he explains that where we see creatures and landscapes appearing as we move about, he sees the 'math'... there are pages in the book, The Power of Limits, that shows how different fish, their body shapes, are proportionally self similar, which is how the creatures in this game are morphed...and, and, there was an old mac computer game, The Blind Watch Maker, I think it was called, where one could morph a creature...there would be a grid of creatures somewhat alike in little boxes...the creature in the middle box was the start, and one would click on one of the other boxes...that creature would swap places with the middle box, and the new creature in the middle would combine elements of both...and so the game would go...in one portion of this video is just such a grid of creatures in boxes...apparently, the 'math' the algos, in very sophisticated fashion, make worlds inhabited with creatures, plants, buildings, and such, from a library of grid boxes...and a kind of role of the dice makes each realm/planet unique...

have a look:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/ueBCC1PCf84"

And this term, 'procedural' is at the heart of the method...

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Procedural modeling is an umbrella term for a number of techniques in computer graphics to create 3D models and textures from sets of rules. L-Systems, fractals, and generative modeling are procedural modeling techniques since they apply algorithms for producing scenes

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

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oh...on another note, it's been difficult to sleep because of the heat, and I find myself looking up things on my iphone in the middle of the night...last night some John Oliver youtubes, one in particular, his interview of Stephan Hawking...don't know why, but my ears perked up when Hawking mentions 'imaginary time'...

quote

“

One might think this means that imaginary numbers are just a mathematical game having nothing to do with the real world. From the viewpoint of positivist philosophy, however, one cannot determine what is real. All one can do is find which mathematical models describe the universe we live in. It turns out that a mathematical model involving imaginary time predicts not only effects we have already observed but also effects we have not been able to measure yet nevertheless believe in for other reasons. So what is real and what is imaginary? Is the distinction just in our minds? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaginary_time unquote Hawking's take on what is 'real', and what is 'imaginary' laps over my thinking about the archaeologist, and if digging World of Warcraft was a serious, 'real' pursuit...sometimes, sometimes, the everyday has a kind of wow look and feel to it...don't know but my brain is confusing the two!... quote And asked what keeps him awake at night, he replies: "If I have questions about the universe on my mind when I go to bed, I can't turn off. I dream equations all night." from interview of Stephan Hawking http://www.news.com.au/world/stephen-hawking-reveals-hes-often-mistaken-for-a-character-from-the-simpsons-and-that-he-dreams-equations/story-e6frfkyi-1225918794511 unquote Dreams, I'm thinking now, may be 'procedurally' generated...they blossom out of some thought or feeling we have that stimulates  a rich library to make a dream for us...took a bit to find the two 'ls' in procedurally! editeditedit always

Galen Clark's Cabin

quote

Portrait of Galen Clark, the first white man in Yosemite Valley Mr. Clark sits in front of his cabin's fireplace in his rocking chair, facing to the left. He is dressed in a shirt, pants and vest while his hat sits on the floor to the side of his chair. He is bald and sports a long, white beard. A kettle has been hung inside the fireplace, over whose mantle a clock has been mounted among other brick-a-brac. A poster mounted near a rifle to the left reads "Recruits WANTED for the United States Army. Able-bodied men of good character".

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Portrait_of_Galen_Clark,_the_first_white_man_in_Yosemite_Valley.jpg unquote pic and text from wiki commons...

I don't know which Cabin this is..the one in Mariposa Grove, or the one by Swinging Bridge...

Top Hat



oh...an update...what's today...Aug. 4th I think(oh..it's past midnite a bit...5th...ahooooooo!)...here's link to article going on about it looks the same thing I was in previous Keyboard post...:)..:

quote

In a provocative new paper in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, a team led by Dr. Ezequiel Morsella at San Francisco State University came to a startling conclusion: consciousness is no more than a passive machine running one simple algorithm — to serve up what’s already been decided, and take credit for the decision.
... ... ...
When you speak, you’re only consciously aware of a few words at a time, and that is only so you can direct the muscles around your mouth and tongue to form those words. What you’re saying is prescribed under the hood; your conscious mind is simply following a script.




Think Your Conscious Brain Directs Your Actions? Think Again

http://singularityhub.com/2015/08/02/think-your-conscious-brain-directs-your-actions-think-again/

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All the while I've been doing posts, I've taken note how, somehow, I'm able to pull things together, or even 'rabbits out of the hat'...tried to find a Top Hat on WoW to transmog...I have Lord Walden's, but it has no stats so isn't armor at all...could still wear it...in wow, Worgens, (werewolves) come from a Victorian town called Gilneas, and have that old timey formal look of Top Hats and Black Suits, along with looking wolfish...need to get one for Maya..:)

 

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