I recently discovered an interesting translation. Being ethnic Chinese and living and working in the Silicon Valley, I am constantly exposed to technology news in both English and Chinese. One night on the Cantonese news hour I saw the reporter referring to Oracle Corporation as 甲骨 in Chinese. Now, 甲 literally means "shell" and 骨 means "bone". Why would a high-tech software company be translated to this strange name (other than being reduced to bones after paying for their software and services (but I digress))?
Turns out an ancient Chinese script is the intermediary in this strange relationship. The earliest Chinese text were divinations carved on animal bones and turtle shells. These bones and shells were then subjected to heat to form cracks, which a priest would interpret to foretell the future. Because of this usage, Western scholars called this highly pictorial script Oracle Bone Script. However, in China the name of the script was instead 甲骨文, which translates as "shell (and) bone script".
This essentially created an equivalence between English "oracle bone" and Chinese 甲骨, despite the fact that the Chinese word doesn't really imply any kind of ritual divinatory function. Then by semantic shift, 甲骨 came to just mean "oracle" in the mind of the reporter who wrote the first Chinese news article on Oracle Corporation. From there on it entered common usage and eventually onto the news program I saw on television.
Semantic shifts like this happen quite frequently in the history of languages. For example, the word "kleenex" now practically means "soft paper tissue" but obviously it originated from the brand "Kleenex". What other such semantic shifts can you think of?
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Monday, July 4, 2011
A Long Walk and Marathon
The weather in the San Francisco Bay Area has turned hot again and I like to take long walks with my family around parks near the shore. One thing I noticed consistently was how many wild fennel plants were growing in the marshy area right next to the bay (as you can see in the picture to the left, which ironically was taken in winter). I've also seen patches after patches of wild fennel growing right on the freeway. I even had one in my front yard, and it was quite a lovely sight until it grew too big and I had to cut it down.Fennel is not native to North America, being an import from the Mediterranean brought by early European immigrants, but they grow really well here because the Bay Area has a Mediterranean climate. They could be considered an invasive species but they're already pretty much integrated into the landscapes of Northern California.
Fennel is quite a culinary chameleon in that you can use its root (or bulb), its fronds (the frilly leaves), its "seeds" (which are actually fruits) and even its pollen. And it is used in cooking from France to China and anywhere else in between, as also increasingly in regional American cooking. There is even anecdotes of restaurants using fennel in their parking lots when their stock in the walk-in runs out. It has also been used extensively as medicine. It has carminative (gas-relieving) properties that would alleviate stomach ailments. It is also an anticoagulant (prevents blood clots) and a diuretic (makes you want to pee but also lowers blood pressure). It also has low-level contraception properties, and in fact the famous contraceptive of the Classical world, silphium, might have been a relative of fennel.
Fennel is also attested quite early in ancient texts (indeed this is related to Ancient Scripts) and indirectly is quite important to world history. One very famous place in Greece is Marathon, literally meaning "Place of Fennels". In Mycenaean Greek it was marathwon, written as ma-ra-tu-wo. The modern word "marathon", which means a really long run (42 km or 26 miles), came from the semi-legendary feat of a Greek soldier who ran that distance from Marathon to Athens after the Battle of Marathon (490 BCE) to transmit the message that the Greeks had prevailed over the Persians. According to the story, the messenger died of exhaustion after delivering his verbal message.The Hittites, the Mycenaean's eastern neighbors in Anatolia, also wrote about fennel. Coincidentally, among the Hittites fennel also has a martial connotation, but one associated with defeat. According to Durnford and Akeroyd, the Hittites had a ritual of cursing a conquered town to mark it as uninhabitable by planting the seeds of a particular plant commonly written in sumerogram ZÀ.AḪ.LI. Sumerogram is a cuneiform logogram directly borrowed from Sumerian, and as such does not provide any clue to actual pronunciation of the word in Hittite.
However, the recent discovery of a partially preserved "dictionary" of useful plants between Akkadian and Hittite revealed ZÀ.AḪ.LI to be marašḫanḫaš. Through process of elimination and contextual evidence, the authors identified marašḫanḫaš to be fennel.
Why would the planting of fennel seeds be considered to curse a city so it cannot be populated again, especially since fennel has so many beneficial uses? This goes back to my observation of how common fennel is in Northern California only after two centuries of European settlement. The plant grows extremely quickly in rocky or poor soil. When a city falls into disrepair, fennel is likely the first plant to take over the ruins. In other words, the prolific nature of fennel is a symbol of the abandonment of civilized life. Quick ironic to me.
One interesting linguistic observation is that the Mycenaean Greek marathwon and Hittite marašḫanḫaš seem to share a common root, namely *mara(s/t). Since both Greeks and Hittites were Indo-European whose ancestors came from the Central Asian steppes, it is quite likely they adopted the local name for fennel, a securely Mediterranean plant. Hence this common root could be part of a pre-Indo-European linguistic continuum stretching across both sides of the Aegean Sea.
My son loves curry, and I make it pretty much every weekend. I grind my own garam masala, a "warm" spice blend used in Indian cooking. My basic recipe is 3 parts cumin, 2 parts cardamom, 1 part cinnamon, 1 part caraway seeds, 1 part coriander seeds, and 1 part fennel seeds. Not only fennel but all these spices appear in ancient texts. This recipe I'm using could be 5,000 years old.
References:
- Markos, Gavala, Mycenaean (Linear b) – English Glossary, http://www.explorecrete.com/archaeology/linearB.pdf
- S. P. B. Durnford and J. R. Akeroyd, "Anatolian marashanha and the Many Uses of Fennel", Anatolian Studies, Vol. 55 (2005), pp. 1-13, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20065532
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Answer to Mystery Archaeology Picture
Many of you guessed it is one of Cleopatra's Needles but only Bob McChesney figured it out it's the one in Manhattan's Central Park. Bravo!
In reality Cleopatra's Needles didn't belong to Cleopatra or even carved during her reign. They're actually 1000 years older than Cleopatra and erected by order of Thutmose III in 1450 BCE.
When I saw it a few years ago I was struck by how faded the hieroglyphs were on it. I have also seen the one in Paris and it was substantially in better shape than the one in New York. It was in such bad condition that Zahi Hawass, Egypt's Chief Antiquities Bulldog, issued one of his numerous rants that if New York doesn't take care of the obelisk he'd taken action.
In reality Cleopatra's Needles didn't belong to Cleopatra or even carved during her reign. They're actually 1000 years older than Cleopatra and erected by order of Thutmose III in 1450 BCE.
When I saw it a few years ago I was struck by how faded the hieroglyphs were on it. I have also seen the one in Paris and it was substantially in better shape than the one in New York. It was in such bad condition that Zahi Hawass, Egypt's Chief Antiquities Bulldog, issued one of his numerous rants that if New York doesn't take care of the obelisk he'd taken action.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Another mystery archaeology picture
After a hard week at work, it's time to catch up on my non-professional life. That means it's time for mystery archaeology picture again.
Anyway, here it is. What and where is it? It might be a bit tricky so remember, context is everything. OK! Guess away!
Anyway, here it is. What and where is it? It might be a bit tricky so remember, context is everything. OK! Guess away!
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Olmec Exhibit at De Young
Last week I went to Olmec: Colossal Masterworks of Ancient Mexico in San Francisco's De Young Museum. It was a splendid exhibition of the staggering artistic achievement of the Olmecs.
A little background first. The Olmecs are often called the mother culture of Mesoamerica, its florescence between 1800 and 400 BCE in the swampy areas of the Gulf Coast of Mexico, in particular the states of Veracruz and Tabasco. They were the first people of North America to really experiment with creating large monument works, both architectural and sculptural. And their view of the cosmos and the iconography to represent it became so pervasive in Mesoamerica that it even could be found as far away as Costa Rica.
The special exhibition area of the museum is entered via a tunnel. As I turned the corner I was immediately greeted by the impassive face of a colossal head, the massive stone carving of an Olmec ruler from the first site of San Lorenzo made between 1200 and 900 BCE. It was 6 feet by 4.7 feet by 4 feet (1.86m by 1.44m by 1.25m), and made quite an impression on me. Even the name is enigmatic, simply called Colossal Head 5 by archaeologists.
Obviously I could not take picture due to the exhibit's policy but professional photographers can and are willing to share, which is what you see above.
In addition to Colossal Head 5 there were many other large stone sculptures at the exhibit. Many were in the form of Olmec shamans in kneeling poses captured in the middle of a ritual, such as Monument 9 of El Azuzul. There were also fantastic zoomorphs, fierce combinations of different animals and humans, such as Monument 7 of El Azuzul, a fierce jaguar-human supernatural being. More over, what is really interesting is that Monument 9 and its twin Monument 8 were discovered facing Monument 7, the jaguar supernatural. Perhaps they were supplicating themselves in front of the jaguar deity.
A few of the great monuments contain some of the earliest writing in Mesoamerica. I was very happy to finally see Stela C of Tres Zapotes, which contains a Long Count date corresponding to 32 BCE. It is one of the few examples of the epi-Olmec writing system.
(Note image is not from the exhibit but from the Smithsonian Institute)
They also had the Stela 3 of Chiapa de Corzo, with an even older date of 36 BCE. I was amazed that they even call it a stela because it was quite small. The one fragment was no bigger than an iPad! One exciting thing about this "stela" is that there is currently a very active excavation at this ancient city, and just last year the team discovered the oldest royal burial inside a pyramid, and I expect in upcoming years to hear of discoveries of new epi-Olmec texts.
There were also other examples of monumental writing, like Monument 13 of La Venta, also called "Ambassador Relief". Its dating is very controversial, ranging from 1000 to 400 BCE. Its glyphs are also much different than epi-Olmec glyphs. Perhaps it is an older writing system that we know nothing about.
The last inscribed monument was the Chapultepec Stone. Although of unknown provenance, it is thought to be from the Late Classic period, between 500 and 800 CE, almost a thousand years after the Olmecs. Its inscriptions are completely unknown and unlike anything else, although given its location is it might be a late form of the epi-Olmec script. It is certainly another enigma to be tackled by future archaeologists.
While the colossal heads, full-size sculptures, stelae carved with text, and other stone works truly embody the "colossal" character of the exhibit, a substantial portion was dedicated to small-scale, portable objects as well. In particular, green stones like jade were prized by the Olmecs (and Mesoamericans in general) for its brilliant blue green hue and symbolic of life. It was carved into myriads of shapes and forms, from simply ceremonial axe heads to human portraits.
The jade piece on the left is called the Kunz Axe (after its discoverer) and depicts the so-called "werejaguar", originally thought to be a combination of human and jaguar aspects but more recently thought to be a human-reptilian conflation.
The piece on the right is a "celt", a ceremonial axe, and likely hung from a lord's belt (note the hole on the bottom that rope possibly went through). The carvings on it are very hard to discern but they represent the Olmec maize god, as identified by cruciform maize sprouting from its cleft head. The downturned mouth, also present in the Kunz Axe, is a prominent motive in Olmec art to mark deities, and even later Zapotec and Maya cultures continued this tradition. In fact compare the Olmec maize god to the Maya maize god on the San Bartolo murals and you'll see that they are basically the same.
It would seem that all the Olmecs ever carved were formal, rigid works displaying political and religious iconography. While certainly quite true for a majority of the artifacts, there is a small number of Olmec carvings that display remarkable humanity.
Take, for instance, my wife's favorite piece of the exhibition, very simply titled "Fragmentary Figure". As you can see in the picture above, it is quite broken, but fortunately the head is intact and one can almost feel a serious tension emanating from the character's face. There is also remarkable refinement and individualism in its facial features.
A jade statuette from La Venta depicts a woman with a hematite mirror on her chest. Sexist jokes aside, the mirror was in fact a symbol of power. This piece was found in a burial, and while the bones did not survive the acidic soil of La Venta, it means that the statuette was possibly buried with an elite lady who held some sway in Olmec politics. However, what intrigued me the most is her enigmatic smile, quite different than the typical scowl of Olmec sculptures.
However, this lady has nothing on the biggest smile of them all. There was a second colossal head in the exhibition, Colossal Head 9 of La Venta, who stood at the last room of the exhibition.
Who knows why this colossal head is smiling while its companion at the entrance showed a poker face? Maybe there was a reason or maybe the ruler who commissioned the work just felt like it. One thing we tend to forget about ancient people is that they have the same cacophony of emotions, needs, and opinions as we do. I think even the stone-faced Olmecs sometimes have to let loose a bit.
PS. Even though the Olmecs lived thousands of years ago, they left a legacy that permeated into later times and even into modern Mexico. After spending the morning staring at impressive stone sculptures my wife and I decided to go to our favorite Mexican restaurant in San Francisco, Nopalito. (No I am not turning this into a food blog. There is a point to this.) One dish we got was their excellent enchiladas de mole con pollo, the chocolate nicely prominent in this most Mexican of sauces. However, did you know that the other word for chocolate, cacao, originally came from the ancient Zoque language, the language most likely spoken by Olmecs? Say "cacao"...You just spoke Olmec! See, there is a point to this tangent.
A little background first. The Olmecs are often called the mother culture of Mesoamerica, its florescence between 1800 and 400 BCE in the swampy areas of the Gulf Coast of Mexico, in particular the states of Veracruz and Tabasco. They were the first people of North America to really experiment with creating large monument works, both architectural and sculptural. And their view of the cosmos and the iconography to represent it became so pervasive in Mesoamerica that it even could be found as far away as Costa Rica.
The special exhibition area of the museum is entered via a tunnel. As I turned the corner I was immediately greeted by the impassive face of a colossal head, the massive stone carving of an Olmec ruler from the first site of San Lorenzo made between 1200 and 900 BCE. It was 6 feet by 4.7 feet by 4 feet (1.86m by 1.44m by 1.25m), and made quite an impression on me. Even the name is enigmatic, simply called Colossal Head 5 by archaeologists.
Obviously I could not take picture due to the exhibit's policy but professional photographers can and are willing to share, which is what you see above.
In addition to Colossal Head 5 there were many other large stone sculptures at the exhibit. Many were in the form of Olmec shamans in kneeling poses captured in the middle of a ritual, such as Monument 9 of El Azuzul. There were also fantastic zoomorphs, fierce combinations of different animals and humans, such as Monument 7 of El Azuzul, a fierce jaguar-human supernatural being. More over, what is really interesting is that Monument 9 and its twin Monument 8 were discovered facing Monument 7, the jaguar supernatural. Perhaps they were supplicating themselves in front of the jaguar deity.
A few of the great monuments contain some of the earliest writing in Mesoamerica. I was very happy to finally see Stela C of Tres Zapotes, which contains a Long Count date corresponding to 32 BCE. It is one of the few examples of the epi-Olmec writing system.
(Note image is not from the exhibit but from the Smithsonian Institute)
They also had the Stela 3 of Chiapa de Corzo, with an even older date of 36 BCE. I was amazed that they even call it a stela because it was quite small. The one fragment was no bigger than an iPad! One exciting thing about this "stela" is that there is currently a very active excavation at this ancient city, and just last year the team discovered the oldest royal burial inside a pyramid, and I expect in upcoming years to hear of discoveries of new epi-Olmec texts.
There were also other examples of monumental writing, like Monument 13 of La Venta, also called "Ambassador Relief". Its dating is very controversial, ranging from 1000 to 400 BCE. Its glyphs are also much different than epi-Olmec glyphs. Perhaps it is an older writing system that we know nothing about.
The last inscribed monument was the Chapultepec Stone. Although of unknown provenance, it is thought to be from the Late Classic period, between 500 and 800 CE, almost a thousand years after the Olmecs. Its inscriptions are completely unknown and unlike anything else, although given its location is it might be a late form of the epi-Olmec script. It is certainly another enigma to be tackled by future archaeologists.
While the colossal heads, full-size sculptures, stelae carved with text, and other stone works truly embody the "colossal" character of the exhibit, a substantial portion was dedicated to small-scale, portable objects as well. In particular, green stones like jade were prized by the Olmecs (and Mesoamericans in general) for its brilliant blue green hue and symbolic of life. It was carved into myriads of shapes and forms, from simply ceremonial axe heads to human portraits.
The jade piece on the left is called the Kunz Axe (after its discoverer) and depicts the so-called "werejaguar", originally thought to be a combination of human and jaguar aspects but more recently thought to be a human-reptilian conflation.
The piece on the right is a "celt", a ceremonial axe, and likely hung from a lord's belt (note the hole on the bottom that rope possibly went through). The carvings on it are very hard to discern but they represent the Olmec maize god, as identified by cruciform maize sprouting from its cleft head. The downturned mouth, also present in the Kunz Axe, is a prominent motive in Olmec art to mark deities, and even later Zapotec and Maya cultures continued this tradition. In fact compare the Olmec maize god to the Maya maize god on the San Bartolo murals and you'll see that they are basically the same.
It would seem that all the Olmecs ever carved were formal, rigid works displaying political and religious iconography. While certainly quite true for a majority of the artifacts, there is a small number of Olmec carvings that display remarkable humanity.
Take, for instance, my wife's favorite piece of the exhibition, very simply titled "Fragmentary Figure". As you can see in the picture above, it is quite broken, but fortunately the head is intact and one can almost feel a serious tension emanating from the character's face. There is also remarkable refinement and individualism in its facial features.
A jade statuette from La Venta depicts a woman with a hematite mirror on her chest. Sexist jokes aside, the mirror was in fact a symbol of power. This piece was found in a burial, and while the bones did not survive the acidic soil of La Venta, it means that the statuette was possibly buried with an elite lady who held some sway in Olmec politics. However, what intrigued me the most is her enigmatic smile, quite different than the typical scowl of Olmec sculptures.
However, this lady has nothing on the biggest smile of them all. There was a second colossal head in the exhibition, Colossal Head 9 of La Venta, who stood at the last room of the exhibition.
Who knows why this colossal head is smiling while its companion at the entrance showed a poker face? Maybe there was a reason or maybe the ruler who commissioned the work just felt like it. One thing we tend to forget about ancient people is that they have the same cacophony of emotions, needs, and opinions as we do. I think even the stone-faced Olmecs sometimes have to let loose a bit.
PS. Even though the Olmecs lived thousands of years ago, they left a legacy that permeated into later times and even into modern Mexico. After spending the morning staring at impressive stone sculptures my wife and I decided to go to our favorite Mexican restaurant in San Francisco, Nopalito. (No I am not turning this into a food blog. There is a point to this.) One dish we got was their excellent enchiladas de mole con pollo, the chocolate nicely prominent in this most Mexican of sauces. However, did you know that the other word for chocolate, cacao, originally came from the ancient Zoque language, the language most likely spoken by Olmecs? Say "cacao"...You just spoke Olmec! See, there is a point to this tangent.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Answer to Mystery Archaeology Picture #2
Work heated up again and two weeks passed before I realized that I didn't post the answer to the last mystery archaeology picture. To recap, here is the picture.
It's a carved panel in the doorway of the temple at the top of the Pyramid of Kukulcan, aka El Castillo, in Chichen Itza. Note the paint is still visible after a thousand years due to the arid conditions of the Yucatan peninsula.
Many of you were confused as to whether it's Maya or Aztec. That's because I threw a tricky curve ball at you. Many of the works of art in Chichen Itza display a highly cosmopolitan flavor, often with Central Mexican styles thrown in. To explain this similarity, archaeologists and historians proposed that the semi-historical Toltec king Topiltzin Ce Acatl Quetzalcoatl was exiled from Tula, the capital of the Toltec state in Central Mexico, traveled across the Gulf of Mexico to the Yucatan Peninsula, and took over Chichen Itza. However, recent research into Chichen Itza proved that it thrived during the Late and Terminal Classic (600-1000 CE) whereas Tula was a Post-Classic city (1000-1200 CE). It is more likely that both cities adopted an inter-regional artistic style that was prevalent throughout Mesoamerica and even to a small extent the American Southwest.
It's a carved panel in the doorway of the temple at the top of the Pyramid of Kukulcan, aka El Castillo, in Chichen Itza. Note the paint is still visible after a thousand years due to the arid conditions of the Yucatan peninsula.
Many of you were confused as to whether it's Maya or Aztec. That's because I threw a tricky curve ball at you. Many of the works of art in Chichen Itza display a highly cosmopolitan flavor, often with Central Mexican styles thrown in. To explain this similarity, archaeologists and historians proposed that the semi-historical Toltec king Topiltzin Ce Acatl Quetzalcoatl was exiled from Tula, the capital of the Toltec state in Central Mexico, traveled across the Gulf of Mexico to the Yucatan Peninsula, and took over Chichen Itza. However, recent research into Chichen Itza proved that it thrived during the Late and Terminal Classic (600-1000 CE) whereas Tula was a Post-Classic city (1000-1200 CE). It is more likely that both cities adopted an inter-regional artistic style that was prevalent throughout Mesoamerica and even to a small extent the American Southwest.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Mystery Archaeology Picture #2
It's time for another mystery archaeology picture. Actually, this one is not much of a mystery, as it is from a fairly well-known site. Make sure you tell me your guess in the comments.
And if you can't comment on Blogspot for some reason as one reader has said, you can always do it on the Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/ancientscripts) or Twitter (http://twitter.com/#!/ancientscripts).
Once again, have fun guessing!
And if you can't comment on Blogspot for some reason as one reader has said, you can always do it on the Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/ancientscripts) or Twitter (http://twitter.com/#!/ancientscripts).
Once again, have fun guessing!
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