Thursday, December 18, 2008

The Rosetta Stone Hoax stubbornly promoted in FYROM

Yesterday we had another  lecture hold in the amphitheater of the Mechanical Engineering Faculty in Skople where the two infamous Engineers Tentov and Boshevski promoted their Rosetta Stone Hoax to the public, on the scope of  indulging to the mind of the average FYROMian a sense of false pride based on his alleged “ancient roots”.

The result was to be expected. Their lecture was televised by several major TV houses and was part of the main-term news on all of them.  To make the things worst, TV anchors are giving false statement that the Rosetta Stone was “hitherto untranslated”, without using qualifiers in relations to Tentov/Boševski statement like “allegedly”,”according to the authors” and alike, but instead enthusiastically confirming.  Today you can see the aftermath of yesterday’s lectures in the main internet sites of FYROM.

Since FYROM’s population loves to swallow anything which will allegedly promote their non-existing links with antiquity, let us remind them for once more simple and logical Facts which they conveniently love to ignore.

(a) The two UNQUALIFIED engineers Tentov and Boshevski have admited themselves that they “are not specialists in the area of linguistics”. [*]

(b) Even Tom Boshevski’s  colleagues, members of MASA think of ”his discovery as “science fiction”". [*]

(c) The two UNQUALIFIED to Linguistics, Engineers have sent their discoveries  to the Institute (Oriental Institute in Chicago, a research centre part of the University of Chicago) but as they admitted themselves “ So far there have been no reactions, nor a reply”.  It looks the experts in Linguistics didnt even bother with the irrational findings of Tentov and Boshevski. [*]

(d) Since none from the academics coming from the US universities and from around the world who are experts in Linguistics, unlike the two Unqualified Engineers took them seriously, Tentov and Boshevski “bravely ignored the local and international intellectual community and have presented the language and script of the Ancient Macedonians”. [*]

[e] A statement from one of the two Engineers in the press “I have not heard a negative response from official experts in this field, except ignorance and refusal to meet to discuss the topic“. Actually as you admitted yourselves none even replied.  Thats why you have not heard a negative response. The reason is obvious. No expert even bothered to waste his/er time with “science fiction”.

[f] The fact that no serious Academic from the greatest Universities around the world bothered with  this “great discovery”, forced Tentov and Boshevski to make the following statements:

 I am all for holding dialogue with all that can contribute, specifically with international historians who have taken the WRONG PATH in solving this problem. ”

It would be difficult for them to deal with the news that they made a MISTAKE in translating the artifact, for which they have written and published many books and spent a lot of money.

So according to Tentov and Boshevski “International Historians are in the WRONG PATH” and Institutes have made a MISTAKE” in translating the artifact!!!!! Everybody else, including the world Academia is wrong but the two Unqualified Engineers arent!!!

To end with this pitiful demonstration of nonsense its a fact that the usage of Demotic is attested in Egypt from the mid 6th century, in other words 250 years before the start of the Ptolemaic dynasty.

Demotic has been found on stelae from the temple of Serapis at Saqqara from around 600BC. It is attested in pre-Ptolemaic administrative, legal and commercial inscriptions as well as a few literary compositions and scientific and religious texts. Therefore given that Demotic pre-dates the Ptolemies by some 250 years, the hoax promoted by the Two Unqualified Engineers is proved to be entirely nonsensical, unless they start claiming now for a greatest dose of amusement for any logical person that Egyptians spoke…Slavic!!!!

Even a cursory review of the origins and history of Demotic shows it pre-dates the period on which Bosevski and Tentov refer to. Their analysis is simply nonsense and that is why it has been treated as such both among their collegues and around the world.

 

 

From the British Museum we find:

http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/article_index/r/the_rosetta_stone_translation.aspx

“..and the decree should be written on a stela of hard stone, in sacred writing, document writing, and Greek writing, and it should be set up in the first-class temples, the second-class temples and the third-class temples, next to the statue of the King, living forever. ”

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/rosetta-stone-translation.html

Ancient History Sourcebook:
The Rosetta Stone: Translation of the Greek Section

“54. Hard stone in sacred [that is hieroglyphic] and native [that is demotic] and Greek characters and set up in each of the first, second, ”

You can read also the refutation of the Rosetta Stone hoax promoted in FYROM here:

http://issuu.com/history.of.macedonia/docs/boshevski_and_tendov_s_egyptian_illusions

From “Chicago Demotic Dictionary”, Janet H. Johnson, The Oriental Institute 2002-2003 Annual Report we read:

“I have, over the years, talked about different aspects of dictionary making and of the range of vocabulary attested in Demotic. Many of you may find it interesting to know how the Egyptians conceptualized their own language/writing systems. At the end of the Decree of Canopus, one of the so-called “trilingual” decrees set up by the Egyptian priesthood to honor various Ptolemaic rulers, it is stated that various officials are supposed to write the text of the decree on a monument of stone or copper to be posted in the open areas of the first, second, and third class temples of Egypt. It further indicates that the text is to be written in the “writing of the ‘house of life,’ document-writing, and the writing of the Greeks.” The “house of life” was an institution associated with temples, serving as a scriptorium, library, and center for performance of rituals.

The writing of the “house of life” was hieroglyphs, the script used in the topmost inscription of the trilingual. In the Rosetta Stone, another of these trilingual decrees in honor of Ptolemaic rulers, the hieroglyphs are called the “script of the divine word.” The Demotic section, in the middle of the decree, is here, and elsewhere, referred to as “document-writing.” This name reflects the fact that Demotic, when it first came into use, was used exclusively for personal documents (letters, contracts, and so on). Gradually Demotic replaced hieratic (a cursive script derived from hieroglyphs) for administrative documents and then for literary, including religious, texts. Hieroglyphs continued to be used for formal monumental inscriptions. Most classical Greek authors who discussed Egyptian scripts distinguished between a “sacred” script (hieroglyphs and hieratic) and a “popular” (Herodotus’s “demotika”) script. Greek texts written in Egypt usually distinguished two Egyptian scripts, the sacred and the “Egyptian” (as in the above-mentioned Canopus Decree). Clement of Alexandria, writing in the second or third century of our era, distinguished all three Egyptian scripts: “hieroglyphic,” “hieratic,” and “epistolary.”

Greek was not, of course, the only non-Egyptian language and script with which Demotic writing Egyptians came into contact. During the time of the Persian Empire, before 330 B.C. and before Alexander and the Ptolemies, Aramaic was the lingua franca of the Near East.

Numerous documents written in Aramaic have been found in Egypt. Many of these were personal documents written by or for Persian administrators or Aramaic-speaking immigrants or settlers in Egypt, especially the communities of mercenaries settled at various posts throughout Egypt (including the Jewish colony at Elephantine). But some official documents were also written in Aramaic. One such document was a summary of the laws of Egypt, drafted by senior Egyptian “soldiers, priests, and scribes” at the request of the Persian King Darius. Although no copy of this “code” of the laws of Egypt has been preserved, a reference to its composition is found in a short Demotic text (currently in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris) which notes that copies were prepared in the “writing of (As)syria” (i.e., Aramaic) and in “document writing” (i.e., Demotic). One assumes that this compilation was made to enable Persian administrators to run Egypt, but it is important to note that they were to do so according to Egyptian law and custom.”

 

[*]Interview in Dnevnik.

 http://www.dnevnik.com.mk/?itemID=EBE00D5F1DA4DA488BD360F278A7533B

Thanks to Battlefield of Cannae and Samios Makedonas for their infos.

source :history-of-macedonia.com

3 comments:

  1. Great post! There is a new Peterman's Eye Travel site and today's post is about medieval city planning and such. Thought I'd share!

    http://www.petermanseye.com/travel/travel/437-the-medieval-port

    Cheers!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous1:25 PM

    i thought no one could understand the rosetta stone.I thought it was similar to macedonian.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous(1:25 PM) the Rosetta Stone scripts has been decipher 200 years now.The Rosetta Stone is written in three scripts because when it was written, there were three scripts being used in Egypt.

    The first was hieroglyphic which was the script used for important or religious documents.

    The second was demotic which was the common script of Egypt.

    The third was Greek which was the language of the rulers of Egypt at that time.

    The Rosetta Stone was written in all three scripts so that the priests, government officials and rulers of Egypt could read what it said.

    more in the British museum site

    ReplyDelete