Ancient "non-utilitarian" metal bow found in Arabian Peninsula

[cdowis]

On 3/12/2016 at 6:49 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

5.  the Brass Plates,

Kevin Christensen replied July 20, 2015:

RFS reply,

The Book of Mormon nowhere suggests that the Plates of Brass were private, familial copies of biblical texts. Just the opposite, when we consider that they were in possession of Laban (probably a Manassite or Ephraimite), a Captain of Fifty, and a member of the elite.  

As I remember, this was a suggestion made by Hugh Nibley.  To me, the Book of Mormon does suggest this connection -->> a portion of it was written in Egyptian which suggests a direct connection to Joseph, it has an extended version of the blessing of Joseph, it contains prophets not found in the record of Judah suggesting they were from the house of Joseph, it specifically traced the genealogy of Joseph, of which Lehi belonged, and there is a hint here that Lehi had a right to these records -- that he was not a robber.

Edited March 17, 2016 by cdowis

[Robert F. Smith]

24 minutes ago, cdowis said:

As I remember, this was a suggestion made by Hugh Nibley.  To me, the Book of Mormon does suggest this connection -->> a portion of it was written in Egyptian which suggests a direct connection to Joseph, it has an extended version of the blessing of Joseph, it contains prophets not found in the record of Judah suggesting they were from the house of Joseph, it specifically traced the genealogy of Joseph, of which Lehi belonged, and there is a hint here that Lehi had a right to these records -- that he was not a robber.

As I said: "The Book of Mormon nowhere suggests that the Plates of Brass were private, familial copies of biblical texts. Just the opposite, when we consider that they were in possession of Laban (probably a Manassite or Ephraimite), a Captain of Fifty, and a member of the elite."  Of course, Manasseh and Ephraim are the Joseph tribes, and the Plates of Brass (like the Book of Mormon itself) is a Northern Kingdom E-document, most likely held in the archives of the royal court in the North until the Assyrian invasion, at which time the royal scribal clans saw to it that it was taken to Jerusalem.  Laban and Lehi would be descendants of those clans.  Nevo is correct to argue that such a plate collection was very expensive to produce and to maintain.  They were not simply family records, and are likely to have been Joseph's patrimony as you suggest.

[Gervin]

On 3/12/2016 at 7:21 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

One assumes that this was normal at every royal court in the Near East.  The only reason for the profusion of Assyrian and Babylonian examples is because they were incised in clay tablets,

Or written in carbon ink, as I'm sure you know.

On 3/12/2016 at 7:21 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

However, it should also be added here that the obsessive-compulsive keeping of detailed records and sequential annals is something one particularly expects from royal scribes, once again suggesting that both Lehi & Nephi (and their successors in the New World)

For how many hundreds of years did admixture of Hebrew and Egyptian exist in the New World in both oral and written form?

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, Gervin said:

Or written in carbon ink, as I'm sure you know.

Not so much, even though ostraca are the most common source of Hebrew and Egyptian hieratic inscriptions in Palestine.   We simply have no Hebrew royal archives.  They used papyrus and vellum a lot, and those don't survive as well as clay incised with cuneiform.

For how many hundreds of years did admixture of Hebrew and Egyptian exist in the New World in both oral and written form?

Hebrew and Egyptian were not mixed but used separately by the scribal elite among the Nephites.  That went on for a thousand years.

 

[Stargazer]

On 3/10/2016 at 0:33 PM, USU78 said:

Now  ...  if only the Hebrew for bronze and steel could help us out of this pickle:  http://biblehub.com/hebrew/5154.htm

 

 

There's another problem, and that is the English word "steel".  It is not always used in the sense of carburized iron.  When you say you have steeled yourself to face bad news, you have not turned yourself into metal, you have braced yourself.  Stalin didn't name himself that because he was made of iron, he was claiming to be very very tough and strong.  Stalin's assumed alias means "man of steel", essentially.  Nephi's bow of steel is most likely to have been made of wood with horn and/or animal tendon reinforcement to make it more springy and more powerful.  It was probably also made with laminations of wood, and would hold its springiness better than mere re-curved wood -- you may remember that Nephi's brothers' bows lost their springs, leaving Nephi's the one effective hunting weapon.

[Stargazer]

On 3/10/2016 at 2:05 PM, Nevo said:

Nephi didn't have a steel bow in Arabia either. Nobody had a steel bow in 600 BC. Steel bows wouldn't come into use for another thousand years. William Hamblin tries to salvage the plausibility of the broken bow story by suggesting that Nephi's "steel bow" was "an ordinary wooden weapon decorated or reinforced in certain parts . . . with bronze," but even that is a stretch. As others have noted, "metal plating of the body, even of ornamental kind, would undermine its pliability, increase its weight, and hamper aiming without adding any advantages." Any bronze(d) bows in Arabia in Iron Age II would have been strictly ceremonial and non-functional.

I didn't read this before posting my own comment.  But mine supports yours.

[Robert F. Smith]

3 hours ago, Stargazer said:

There's another problem, and that is the English word "steel".  It is not always used in the sense of carburized iron.  When you say you have steeled yourself to face bad news, you have not turned yourself into metal, you have braced yourself.  Stalin didn't name himself that because he was made of iron, he was claiming to be very very tough and strong.  Stalin's assumed alias means "man of steel", essentially.  Nephi's bow of steel is most likely to have been made of wood with horn and/or animal tendon reinforcement to make it more springy and more powerful.  It was probably also made with laminations of wood, and would hold its springiness better than mere re-curved wood -- you may remember that Nephi's brothers' bows lost their springs, leaving Nephi's the one effective hunting weapon.

An interesting theory, but which creates some degree of confusion when the word "steel" can mean nearly anything in the same text.  No one has suggested that Laban was carrying around a bronze sword (or a wooden toy) in a day when it was no match for the standard steel swords used for all the centuries since the Philistines had a monopoly on steel in Palestine.  The problem is that fine steel was readily available for a price.  This was at a time when technology permitted the construction of a steel bow, even if it was a composite.  What is more, that notion of actual steel is reinforced by the existence of bronze models.  We have actual steel bows later, in India for example.  There is no technical reason why a bow could not have been manufactured using carburized iron.  The critical factor there is primarily one of brittleness, and whether steel was merely one component in its composite manufacture.  Breakage suggests that the steel used was too brittle.

[Stargazer]

2 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

An interesting theory, but which creates some degree of confusion when the word "steel" can mean nearly anything in the same text.  No one has suggested that Laban was carrying around a bronze sword (or a wooden toy) in a day when it was no match for the standard steel swords used for all the centuries since the Philistines had a monopoly on steel in Palestine.  The problem is that fine steel was readily available for a price.  This was at a time when technology permitted the construction of a steel bow, even if it was a composite.  What is more, that notion of actual steel is reinforced by the existence of bronze models.  We have actual steel bows later, in India for example.  There is no technical reason why a bow could not have been manufactured using carburized iron.  The critical factor there is primarily one of brittleness, and whether steel was merely one component in its composite manufacture.  Breakage suggests that the steel used was too brittle.

I know.  But a composite bow could break, too.  On the other hand I'm not brittle enough to break on metallic steel in Nephi's bow.  And neither should anyone else be.  Or for that matter, Ammon's sword he used to cut off all those arms.  A macahuitl works fine there, no need for a metalllic sword.

The only reason I bring this particular argument to the table is because there are those who just get all wound around the axle about "steel" in the 6th Century BC.  Same nitwits get all excited about "adieu".  Or any of a number of other so-called anachronisms.  Archaeology is constantly making new finds that push the discovery dates of various technologies back further and further all the time.  Including the first computer ever developed, the Antikythera mechanism, which was a couple thousand years ahead of its time.  Heck, maybe someday it will be discovered that Abraham had developed the first nuclear weapon, which was what he used to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah!  Interestingly enough, there was a natural nuclear fission reactor site at Oklo in Gabon, Africa -- not an artifact, but a natural deposit which is reckoned to have produced 100 kW of thermal energy over a couple hundred thousand years, some 1.7 billion years ago.  

[Rajah Manchou]

8 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

No one has suggested that Laban was carrying around a bronze sword (or a wooden toy) in a day when it was no match for the standard steel swords used for all the centuries since the Philistines had a monopoly on steel in Palestine.  The problem is that fine steel was readily available for a price.  This was at a time when technology permitted the construction of a steel bow, even if it was a composite.  

I've heard of wootz steel reaching the Middle East, but probably only in the form of ingots and not as early as 600 BC. I haven't been able to find any references earlier than 300 BC.

Edited March 21, 2016 by Rajah Manchou

[Robert F. Smith]

3 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

I've heard of wootz steel reaching the Middle East, but probably only in the form of ingots and not as early as 600 BC. I haven't been able to find any references earlier than 300 BC.

Yes, and such sophisticated technology is absent from the Middle East in Lehi's time, thus explaining why smiths were not yet able to temper their steel adequately to prevent extreme brittleness.  Nephi's bow would not have broken if made with wootz steel., composite or not.  The thing which most do not understand is that steel was being made everyday in the Middle East from at least 500 years before Lehi, and was characteristic of the Iron Age (which would better be called the "Steel Age").

[USU78]

Just to stir the pot a bit:
 

Quote

 

steel (n.)

modified form of iron with a small portion of carbon, not found in nature but known in ancient times, Old English style "steel," from noun use of Proto-Germanic adjective *stakhlijan "made of steel" (cognates: Old Saxon stehli, Old Norse, Middle Low German stal, Danish staal, Swedish stål, Middle Dutch stael, Dutch staal, Old High German stahal, German Stahl), related to *stakhla "standing fast," from PIE *stek-lo-, from root *stak- "to stand, place, be firm" (see stay (n.1)). The notion is perhaps "that which stands firm." No corresponding word exists outside Germanic except those likely borrowed from Germanic languages.

 

I'm wondering if the etymology of the Hebrew word for steel, פְּלָדָה, is similar.

[Rajah Manchou]

40 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The thing which most do not understand is that steel was being made everyday in the Middle East from at least 500 years before Lehi, and was characteristic of the Iron Age (which would better be called the "Steel Age").

True, I did not know this. Was there carbonized iron in the Middle East in 600 BCI've googled but am not having much luck. Do you know where I can read more about this? 

Edited March 21, 2016 by Rajah Manchou

[Rajah Manchou]

(edit: nevermind, I found some articles and am satisfied that iron was being carburized in 600 BC)

Edited March 21, 2016 by Rajah Manchou

[Gervin]

19 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Hebrew and Egyptian were not mixed but used separately by the scribal elite among the Nephites.  That went on for a thousand years.

I would think that it is not a simple undertaking to pass on, generation after generation, both an oral and written language while living in the midst of an entirely different language and writing system.  Folks here will sarcastically deflect a call for a BoM artifact by asking for a sign bearing a "Zarahemla" inscription.  Is it so unreasonable to expect a remnant of a writing system that existed for one thousand years? 

[Kevin Christensen]

1 hour ago, Gervin said:

I would think that it is not a simple undertaking to pass on, generation after generation, both an oral and written language while living in the midst of an entirely different language and writing system.  Folks here will sarcastically deflect a call for a BoM artifact by asking for a sign bearing a "Zarahemla" inscription.  Is it so unreasonable to expect a remnant of a writing system that existed for one thousand years? 

http://www.shields-research.org/General/SEHA/SEHA_Newsletter_122-2.PDF

FWIW, yet again.

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

 

[Nevo]

20 minutes ago, Kevin Christensen said:

http://www.shields-research.org/General/SEHA/SEHA_Newsletter_122-2.PDF

FWIW, yet again.

What do you think it's worth, Kevin? How, in your view, do the two alleged examples of Olmec writing cited in the article—a fragment of a cylinder seal (or a bead) from La Venta and a cylinder seal from Tlatilco—support Robert's assertion that Hebrew and Egyptian writing systems were used among the Nephite elite between ca. 590 BCE and 420 CE?

 

[JarMan]

This article has some images of the items.

http://phys.org/news/2016-03-non-utilitarian-weapons-arabian-peninsula.html

[Robert F. Smith]

6 hours ago, Gervin said:

I would think that it is not a simple undertaking to pass on, generation after generation, both an oral and written language while living in the midst of an entirely different language and writing system.  Folks here will sarcastically deflect a call for a BoM artifact by asking for a sign bearing a "Zarahemla" inscription.  Is it so unreasonable to expect a remnant of a writing system that existed for one thousand years? 

As I said " Hebrew and Egyptian were not mixed but used separately by the scribal elite among the Nephites.  That went on for a thousand years."

That is, of course, what the text of the BofM reports.  Whether true or not is another matter.  How would one go about finding evidence that such a claim is factual?  Might be very difficult for a dead civilization.  However, we do have some indications that it could be true:

The Jews kept their languages and culture alive for thousands of years of diaspora, so we know that it can and has been done.

The so-called "Anthon Transcript" contains many authentic hieratic symbols, all facing in the proper direction to be read from right to left.

The BofM is rife with Egyptianisms (including Egyptian poetry, tropes, and puns).

Several languages in the Americas were deeply influenced by both Semitic and Egyptian languages (Sawi-Zaa, Uto-Aztecan, Mixe-Zoque, and Maya).

Edited March 22, 2016 by Robert F. Smith

[Rajah Manchou]

6 hours ago, Kevin Christensen said:

http://www.shields-research.org/General/SEHA/SEHA_Newsletter_122-2.PDF

FWIW, yet again.

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

 

The script on the Tlatilco seal was thought to have its origins in Asia, Burma and China specifically:

"The seal with lineal markings bears no resemblance, as Kelley notes, to any known Mesoamerican script and would probably, as Kelley suggests, represent the most advanced script ever developed in the New World. Although not commented upon by Kelley, the markings of this seal closely resemble various Oriental scripts ranging from Burma and China to the rim of the Mediterranean. If the signs of this seal were writing, and the seal were accepted as authentic, we would almost surely be dealing with an instance of Trans-Pacific contact during the PreClassic." (source)

For what its worth, a seal found in Mesoamerica with an oriental script that appears to match the characters on the Anthon transcript supports the idea that the Book of Mormon has an Asian source.

[canard78]

Several languages in the Americas were deeply influenced by both Semitic and Egyptian languages (Sawi-Zaa, Uto-Aztecan, Mixe-Zoque, and Maya).

@Robert F. Smith, aren't you perhaps over-reaching with your conclusion there?

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that those languages appear to have some parallels with Hebrew & Egyptian? 

To say they "are deeply influenced" isn't a conclusion universally supported. 

[cdowis]

4 hours ago, canard78 said:

To say they "are deeply influenced" isn't a conclusion universally supported. 

What a profound observation.

Please share with us how many scholars have the expertise and experience to come to an informed opinion.  This requires a knowledge of the Semitic, Egyptian, and the American Indian languages.  One, perhaps two?  

 

Edited March 22, 2016 by cdowis

[Robert F. Smith]

10 hours ago, canard78 said:

........, aren't you perhaps over-reaching with your conclusion there?

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that those languages appear to have some parallels with Hebrew & Egyptian? 

To say they "are deeply influenced" isn't a conclusion universally supported. 

No.  What I said is quite accurate and is on the cutting edge of linguistic research.  It was said in response to the false statement that there was no evidence at all.

Robert F. Smith,  “*Sawi-Zaa,” 2016 version 3, online at http://www.scribd.com/doc/56696298/SAWI-ZAA .

Brian D. Stubbs, "Egyptian and Semitic in Uto-Aztecan," book summary available online at http://www.bmaf.org/sites/bmaf.org/files/image/Egyptian-Semitic-in-Uto-Aztecan-by-Brian-Stubbs-Jerry-Grover.pdf .

Brian D. Stubbs, Exploring the Explanatory Power of Semitic and Egyptian in Uto-Aztecan (Jerry Grover, 2015).

Mary LeCron Foster, “Old World Language in the Americas, 1,” paper presented April 20, 1992, at the annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers, San Diego, CA, in UCB Archives, BANC MSS 2012/225, series 4, carton 4, folder 26.

Mary LeCron Foster, “Old World Language in the Americas, 2,” paper presented Sept 7-10, 1992, at the annual meeting of the Language Origins Society, Selwyn College, Cambridge University, Cambridge, England.

Mary LeCron Foster, “Egyptian, Mixe-Zoque,” research 1939-2000, UCB Archives, BANC MSS 2012/225,  series 6, carton 6, folder 40.

Mary LeCron Foster, “Egyptian, Mixe-Zoque: Cognate Sets ,” research 1939-2000, UCB Archives, BANC MSS 2012/225,  series 6, carton 6, folders 42-43.

Mary LeCron Foster, “Egyptian, Mixe-Zoque, Mayan: Cognate Sets ,” research 1939-2000, UCB Archives, BANC MSS 2012/225,  series 6, carton 6, folder 45.

[canard78]

6 hours ago, cdowis said:

What a profound observation.

Please share with us how many scholars have the expertise and experience to come to an informed opinion.  This requires a knowledge of the Semitic, Egyptian, and the American Indian languages.  One, perhaps two?  

 

Do you? Does Robert? I certainly don't. I guess we're all three reading other people's conclusions. 

 

Edited March 22, 2016 by canard78

[Gervin]

7 hours ago, cdowis said:

Please share with us how many scholars have the expertise and experience to come to an informed opinion.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of experts in each of the fields listed. The challenge of the LDS member who believes in Hebraic or Egyptian influences in the New World is to make a cogent and credible argument.  It hasn't been done.  Not because there are no cross-disciplined experts, but because LDS aren't able to make their claim to an audience who doesn't believe in the Book of Mormon.  Exhibit A is Robert Smith's "references", above: himself, unpublished talks and papers from 25 years ago, residing in folders in a university archive, and one book published last October that (based on a quick internet search) seems to have generated zero interest or commentary.  Who honestly believe this represents "cutting edge" linguistic research? 

I'm back to my original (unanswered) question: Is it unreasonable to expect that a writing system that existed for one thousand years would leave behind some evidence of its existence? 

Edited March 22, 2016 by Gervin

[Rajah Manchou]

Not sure if this has been discussed in LDS circles already, but I hadn't heard about it before:

"The tomb was found during an excavation located around 22km south of Sinaw in Oman. The underground chamber, which dates back to 300 BC, contained the remains of a middle-aged man with a robe, woollen cap, and leather boots, along with his personal arms – a sword and two daggers. The sword has an intricate handle partly covered with textured ivory shaped like an eagle's beak. The daggers were tied on the right and left sides of his waist, and nearby were the remains of three camels which had been slaughtered. The man’s garments and sword suggest he was a chieftain of a tribe.

The weapons were found to be made of iron and steel and scientific analysis has linked them to the Indus Valley civilization, a Bronze Age civilization (3300–1300 BC) which extended from what is today northeast Afghanistan to Pakistan and northwest India. It is one of the three oldest urban civilizations, along with Egypt and Mesopotamia, but it is the least understood. Its script is yet to be deciphered, and the knowledge of social structures and life during that period is scant."

http://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/ancient-tomb-discovery-reveals-traces-indus-valley-civilization-oman-001761
http://timesofoman.com/article/35874/Oman/Sinaw-excavation-finds-links-to-Indias-Indus-Valley-civilisation-in-Oman
http://www.muscatdaily.com/Archive/Oman/2-300-years-old-grave-in-Sinaw-could-be-Oman-s-biggest-archaeological-find-37sy

Edited March 23, 2016 by Rajah Manchou