Ancient World Searfaring Proven Without a Doubt - LEXILINE JOURNAL 552

One of the pillars of my theories about ancient megaliths, the ancient survey of the earth by the stars, and the spread of languages, is the assumption that world seafaring existed prior to the modern era.

This has now been proven without a doubt.

ArchaeologyAshNews writes at Set Sail for Singapore! about the recent discovery of an ancient sailing vessel, the cargo of which convincingly proves ancient world seafaring long before the modern era.

That posting is about:

"[T]he 1998 discovery of a ninth-century shipwreck and its astonishing cargo of about 60,000 objects from Tang dynasty China, ranging from mass-produced ceramics to rare and extraordinary items of finely worked gold. The cargo had laid undisturbed on the ocean floor for more than 1,100 years until sea-cucumber divers discovered it off the coast of Indonesia's Belitung Island. The ship, an Arab dhow, and its contents confirm the existence of a direct maritime trade route (alluded to in ancient Chinese and Arabic texts) from China to the Persian Gulf and beyond-well before the Portuguese set sail in the 15th century."

For the original story, see ArtKnowledgeNews.com at
Smithsonian and Singapore Organize World Tour of Shipwreck Treasure

(http://bit.ly/awByF7)

The Origin of Is "Is": The Concepts of Everything, All, Are, Is, I, Being, Self in Proto-Indo-European based on Bantu and Other Evidence - LEXILINE JOURNAL 551

This as -- The Origin of Is "Is" -- begins a series of postings titled PROTO-INDO-EUROPEAN ORIGINS, suggesting how certain terms developed in proto-Indo-European.

This series, depending on the words chosen, may in some cases or may not in many cases accept the hypothetical word roots assigned to terms by mainstream linguists, many of which are demonstrably false.

Rather, new facts, especially in genetics, demand revision of outdated concepts that have concentrated on the languages of Western Europe, contrary to the actual genetic and archaeological record. Be sure to first read Principles of Historical Language Reconstruction (PHILANGRECON).


The text of the above graphic, created with bubbl.us 2.0 beta, is:

THE ORIGIN OF IS "IS" © 2010 by Andis Kaulins

In proto-Indo-European, the "to be" concept of "is"
and related terms are derived from a basic
concept for "all that is" applied to "the self, the I".

The conventional etymology for the English term "is" from the Online Etymological Dictionary is: "O.E. is, from Gmc. stem *es- (cf. O.H.G., Ger., Goth. ist, O.N. es, er), from PIE *es-ti- (cf. Skt. asti, Gk. esti, L. est, Lith. esti, O.C.S. jesti), from base *es- "to be." O.E. lost the final -t-."

That etymology taken from mainstream sources does not hold water as an examination of the most archaic Indo-European languages, Latvian and Lithuanian, clearly proves, supported by the evidence of the Bantu words for "all" and "everything" in existence, i.e. the full ESSence of being. There was no original "T" at the end of what was ESSentially an ES- word.

African Bantu (Bukusu) -esi "all"; (Asu) ósè "all, everything"; (Basa) so "all"; (Kinyamwezi) ɔ́sɛ̀ "all"; (Yao) kòòsè "all". The Yao form shows the term gutturalized whence Bantu ku "man", kau "young man". Compare kungs ("sir") and kundze ("lady") in Latvian. In English, the words "all" (All in German means "space"), "area", and "are" are related forms coming from the "be" form of "is", such as Latvian ir ("is") and ārā "outside", i.e. the outdoor space as extensions of self, whence Hittite arha "away (from)".

es "I (the self)" in Latvian
viss "all, everything" Latvian
aš "I (the self)" Lithuanian

esu "am" in Latvian (being as a self-extension)
ēst  "to eat", i.e. selfing,
German essen "to eat"

īst(s) "real, ex-ist-ing" in Latvian

(m)ūsu "our", (m)ēs "we" in Latvian

us in English
is in English
as in English

ich "I"
ik "I"
in German
and Nordic
languages

es "it" German
ist "is" German

ego "I" in Latin
est "is" in Latin

The widespread s-mobile prefix (the verbal prefix of "self-action", depending on language) as s-, š, z-, ž, sa-, ša si-, ši, su-, šu, aiz, iz-, uz- and variables.

In Hittite, es- is a denominative for "to become what the base word means", i.e. as (like -(n)ess).

No End of the World in Sight: 2010 Maya GMT Calendar is Off - LEXILINE JOURNAL 550

 As reported at Archaeology Daily News :

"Gerardo Aldana, associate professor at the Univ. of California at Santa Barbara, challenges the accepted Gregorian dates of all Classic Mayan historical events, including the end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it 2012 prophecies in Calendars and Years II: Astronomy and Time in the Ancient and Medieval World, the second in a series edited by John Steele, associate professor of Egyptology and Ancient West Asian Studies at Brown Univ."

See Calendars and Years II at Amazon -- I have not read the book yet myself.

I have written often before that the Maya calendric chronology as falsely interpreted by Maya scholars is off for the reasons identified by me here.

I wrote there the following:

THE MAYA CALENDAR
PIEDRAS NEGRAS
HALLEY'S COMET

Just as in the Pharaonic Egyptian calendar December 25, 3117 BC is the correct starting date for the Maya calendar (corrected for the tropical year), as will be demonstrated below. Maya scholars have failed to adjust the continuous count of solar days of the Maya Long Count to a "longer" count including intercalation for the tropical year. When this adjustment is made, the Maya and Pharaonic calendars both start on December 25, 3117 BC (-3116 by astronomy). Maya scholars start the Maya calendar on a Maya date called 4 Ahau 8 Cumku. Both of these calendric glyphs (Ahau and Cumku) fall at the "end" of the Maya series of days and months in the Maya system, i.e. at the beginning of new eras, and we thus expect a Solstice or Equinox at this point in Maya calendration. Indeed, the Encylcopaedia Britannica writes at "Calendar" about the Maya system as follows: "The 365-day year was divided into 18 named months of 20 days each, with an additional five days ... named Uayeb. In late times, the Maya named the years after their first days. Since both the year and number (20) of the names of days are divisible by five, only four names combined with 13 numbers could begin the year. These were called Year Bearers and were assigned in order to the four quarters of the world with their four associated colours." The calendar, with adjustments for the tropical year, starts on Julian date 583297. The Maya Calendar allegedly started on Julian date 584283. The Maya date is correlated to the alleged foundation of Merida, Yucatan on November 14, 1539 close to the date of the Long Count Maya katun 11.16.0.0.0   =   11 baktuns, 16 katuns, 0 tuns, 0 uinals, and 0 kins. In Maya chronology, 1 baktun = 144000 days, 1 katun = 7200 days, 1 tun = 360 days, 1 uinal = 20 days, 1 kin = 1 day. The  Maya Data 11.16.0.0.0 as a chronological date thus involves the following calculation: 11 x 144000 days (=1584000 days) + 16 x 7200 days (=115200 days) = 1699200 days i.e. 1699200 continous solar days have elapsed since the Long Count katun 0.0.0.0.0. This is a continous count WITHOUT adjustment for the tropical year. Let us now adjust that figure for the tropical year - which will give us the correct "astronomical", i.e. "star date". How many 365-day years are there in 1699200 days? = 4655 years. BUT, 4655 years of ca 365.25-days (actually 365.22 days) = 1700238 days rather than 1699200 days. 1700238 days plus the Julian date 583297 (Dec. 25, 3117 BC) as the start of the calendar gives Julian date 2283535 and that is in fact the expected Solstice date, December 25, 1539 AD at Merida. The Merida "Maya" date of November 14, 1539 AD should thus actually be December 25, 1539 AD, and that is the correct Long Count Maya katun 11.16.0.0.0. The 365-day year katun date must simply be converted to 365.25-day years, which gives an identical starting date to the Pharaonic Calendar. They ARE related. Did the Maya Adjust Their Calendar for the Tropical Year? Were the Maya themselves aware of this potential error in their calendration? Did they make intercalary notations as "leap-year type of periods" between the solar and tropical years in their system? Yes - as demonstrated here - they did. In fact, they had apparently adjusted for it periodically. As the Encyclopaedia Britannica notes, the Maya used an "Initial-Series" notation (abbreviated IS) on its dates, referring the marked date back to the start of the calendar. The oldest known such IS (Initial Series) notation is Stele 29 at Tikal in Guatemala which is written IS. 8.12.14.8.15, a date which falls 1243615 days after the start of the calendar at 4 Ahau 8 Cumku. Can we determine when that was?  We can. Often in Maya dating of the so-called Supplementary Series, the so-called IS (Initial Series date) is preceded by a notation of 819 days. This notation of 819 days is thought by Maya scholars to be merely a magical multiple of 13, 9 and 7, which equals 819. But as shown here for the first time, these 819 days are the intercalation for the tropical year. This intercalation was apparently made at Tikal, Guatemala on January 25, 293 (Julian date 1828100) and used in the Supplementary Series of dates. The Tikal IS (Initial Series) date of 1243615 days after the start of the Maya calendar is a sum of 3407.16438 years of 365-days whereas 1243615 days of ca. 365.2422-day years equals 3404.90501 years, a difference of ca. 2.25 years, which is ca. 820 days, i.e. the intercalary figure of 819. Thus, these 819 days were added to the continuous solar day count on January 25, 293 AD for the Maya Supplementary Series of dates. The continous count itself was not intercalated. The Pharaonic and Maya calendars both started on December 25, 3117 BC viz. -3116 by astronomy. The 293 AD date at Tikal was probably chosen because it involved 48 years of intercalation for precession - i.e 48 degrees of precession x 72 years = 3456 years so that 3116 BC + 293 AD= 3409 years total and 3409 + 48 = 3457 years. USE OF THE METONIC CYCLE How did the Maya, the Hebrews, the Pharaohs and the Vedic Sanskrit Hindus use the Metonic Cycle for long-term calendration? It is very simple once one sees the numbers, which allow very accurate calculations - without fractions or decimals - using the principle of common denominators.

Period	multiplied by	= number of days	divided by	= days	calendric use
3800 years	x 360 days	= 1368000 days	/ 19	= 72000	= half a Baktun
3800 years	x 365 days	= 1387000 days	/19	= 73000	solar years
3800 years	x 365.25 days	= 1387950 days	/19	= 73050	star years

Since a complete Maya baktun is 144000 days
(compare to the half-Baktun of 72000 days in the line above),
a full cycle of the above system is 100 x 76 years = 7600 years.
 

7600 years are 2736000 days of a schematic 360-day year
which equals = 19 Baktuns. This formed the Maya calendar.
It made calendration easy by common divisors.

19 Baktuns	= 380 Katuns	/19	= 20	/20	= 1
380 Katuns	= 7600 tuns	/19	= 400	/20	= 20	/ 20	= 1
7600 Tuns	= 136800 uinals	/19	= 7200	/20	= 360	/ 20	= 18	/18	=1
136800 Uinals	= 2736000 days	/19	=144000	/20	= 7200	/ 20	= 360	/18	=20

.MAYA STELE 3 PIEDRAS NEGRAS CORRECTED READING The Corrected Reading of Maya Stele 3 of Piedras Negras This corrected reading of the Chol-Maya Stele 3 of Piedras Negras is based on my discovery of the 819-day intercalation for the tropical year made at Tikal, Guatemala and the recognition that the Maya Calendar begins on December 25, 3117 BC. This article adds evidence to the correctness of that date. The current reading of Maya Stele 3 of Piedras Negras [with glyphs] by Maya scholars is found in Michael D. Coe's book Breaking the Maya Code, pp. 368-372 of the German version Das Geheimnis der Maya-Schrift. This Stele is erroneously thought to apply to the birth and life of a "human" female called Katun Ahau and her daughter Kin Ahau, but it is actually a stele for the "birth" of a new CALENDRIC Katun Ahau. As noted at the end of Stele 3 Piedras Negras, the new Katun Ahau began on 9.14.0.0.0 .. 6 Ahau 13 Muan, which was 1396800 days after December 25, 3117 BC or 583297 + 1396800 = Julian  date 1980097 which is March 19, 709 AD, exactly at the point where the Sun is at the crossing of the Celestial Equator and the Ecliptic. The Piedras Negras date of 9.12.2.0.16 .. 5 Cib 15 Yaxkin at the start of Stele 3 is NOT the date  - as reported by Coe - of July 7, 674 AD, but is rather October 21, 671 AD. The Maya Stele 3 Piedras Negras date is correctly calculated as 9 x 144000 days plus 12 x 7200 days + 2 x 360 days + 0 + 16 days = 1296000 + 86400 + 720 + 0 + 16 = 1383136 days. This date is a continuous solar count without intercalation so it is added to the Julian Date for the start of the Maya calendar (December 25, 3117 BC), i.e. Julian Date 583297 which - added to 1383136 - gives a Julian Date of 1966433, or October 21, 671 AD for Stele 3 at Piedras Negras. This is Libra, the Maya NAH, 7th night station, - which puts on its "headband" - the term NAH perhaps found in Chinese as Se HAN, and Semitic Miz-NAIm "Libra". The stele states further that it was 27 days after the Full Moon at the Vernal Equinox (the cross of the Celestial Equator and Ecliptic) at Spica in Virgo - this was Julian date 1966406 on September 24, 671 AD. Two months of 29 days after Julian date 1966433 pass and the "three white mountain god" appeared: This is the prong of Sagittarius on December 18, 671 AD on Julian  date 1966491 [Since there is an apparent error of 44 days later, it may be that not 58 days are added here but only 14, since 58 - 14 = 14 would take care of the error. The end result, however, stays the same.] 14 Yaxkin. 10 Uinal and 12 Tun pass 10 x 20 = 200 days and 12 x 360 =  4320 days = 4520 days 4520 added to 1966491 = Julian date 1971011 or Maya date 9.12.14.13.14 .. 1 Cib 14 Kankin This (1971011) puts the Sun at the Pleiades on May 3, 684 AD where she is decorated with the great Sun, Yo' Acnal. [There is a conjunction here with Jupiter at this date and a New Moon at the Pleiades on April 20, 684 AD, Julian date 1970998.] 10 Kin 11 Uinal 1 Tun and 1 Katun pass (4 Cimi 14 Uo) 10 x 1 = 10, 11 x 20 = 220, 1 Tun = 360= 590 days total 1 Katun = 7200 days = 7790 days Kin Ahau was allegedly born on August 31, 705 AD, Julian date 1978801 at Virgo. The stele calls this the tortoise of heaven. 14 Kin 8 Uinal and 3 Tun pass ... 11 Imix 14 Yax 14 x 1 = 14, 8 x 20 = 160, 3 x 360 = 1080 = 1254 days This is February 5, 709 AD Julian date 1980055 at Aquarius. The Stele states that 5 Tun and 1 Katun have passed since the beginning of the rule of Yo'Acnal so that 5 x 360 = 1800 and 1 x 7200 = 7200 so that 1800 + 7200 = 9000 days. but 7790 + 1254 above give 9044 days. The stele  then states at this point that 9000 days have passed since the start of the rule of Yo´Acnal (rather than 9044). Hence rather than 1980055 the 9000 days end 44 days previously at Julian day 1980011 which is 9000 days after 1971011, The Winter Solstice at December 23, 708 AD. 19 Kin and 4 Uinal pass ... 6 Ahau 13 Muan 19 x 1 = 19 and 4 x 20 = 80 = 99 days These are apparently calculated from Julian day 1980011 1980011 plus 99 days = 1980110 This gives a date of April 1, 709 AD. If the 9000 days are calculated back to the Sun at the Pleiades this then gives a date of March 19, 709 AD. This is the date given for 9.14.0.0.0 .. 6 Ahau 13 Muan at the very beginning of this article. The stele closes by writing 6 Ahau 13 Muan ends. The 14th Katun begins.

.FURTHER PROOF
HALLEY'S COMET AND MAYA CHRONOLOGY

The current Maya chronology includes a spectacular event called the Entrada of 378, for the arrival at Tikal of a lord called Siayaj K'ak' (meaning and translated "Fire Born" by the Mayanolgists), dated to January 31, 378 by the Mayanologists.

At the same time, the "king" Chak Tok Ich'aak allegedly passed away on January 15, 378 (8.17.1.4.12) - whose name means "Great Burning Claw". This Entrada (Entrance) of Siyaj K'ak' took place on January 31, 378 according to mainstream Mayanology - indeed, the appearance of this mysterious "fire born" is documented 8 days earlier and his "route" is even traced in Maya records.

Now - if this were a HEAVENLY BODY it would be a fiery comet - AND it is a comet, Halley's Comet, which came very close to earth in what the serious astronomers today estimate to be 374 A.D. According to MY chronology, the Maya date January 31, 378 is correctly May 4, 375 A.D. and this is the Maya record of the sighting of this very near passage of Halley's Comet, one of the closest to Earth on record.

We find Halley returns at ca. 76-year multiples in the names of Maya "rulers".... though all the mainstream dates are off by the error of 2+years in mainstream chronology which I have discussed above.

Halley is the Accession of K'an Chitam in 458 A.D. - actually, this was 2+ years earlier. Ruler "Bird Claw?" - also known as "Animal Skull I" - this is Halley again - is dated by Mayanologists to between ca. 527 and 537 A.D.

Ca. 76- years we then have Halley again as Animal Skull II.

Halley appears again as the illustrious king Yich'aak K'ak' (Fiery Claw) whose "flint and shield" are brought down by Jasaw Chan K'awiil I on (sic) August 5, 695 A.D. - but of course this is 2+ years earlier in fact.

So, Halley has been clearly identified, and mainstream Maya chronology is off by the period of time I have previously described in great detail in other LexiLine postings.

Modern Civilization Threatened by New World Order - LEXILINE JOURNAL 549

Newsweek has a map of The New World Order pointing out that:

"Across the world a resurgence of tribal ties is creating more complex global alliances. Where once diplomacy defined borders, now history, race, ethnicity, religion, and culture are dividing humanity into dynamic new groupings."

That development is definitely not a good thing because it places inferior, fixed, and often erroneous variables that human beings "inherit" at the top of human alliance priorities, and places the mutable and superior variables such as education, performance and individual MERIT below them.

The fixed variables always lead to war and conflagration between various "groups of inheritance".

The unfixed variables have led to modern civilization, a civilization which thrives on merit.

The "New World Order" that Newsweek identifies is thus a retreat of the world from civilized society and poses a threat to modern civilization.

Stonehenge as a Timepiece: LEXILINE JOURNAL 548

I ran across a nice short posting by Michael Balfour about Stonehenge as a timepiece at Europa Star Magazine:

Stonehenge – The world's oldest timepiece .

The graph presented reflects inter alia the computer analysis of Stonehenge by Gerald S. Hawkins .

For detailed analysis of Stonehenge, see the Megalithic Wiki at Wikia .

Cleaning House in Education via Reduced Spending of Taxpayer Funds and Foundation Monies: Mainstream Archaeology as One Example: LEXILINE JOURNAL 547

What is important ... is ... the recognition of how mainstream archaeology operates under the surface using the same kinds of methods that we know in law enforcement for organized crime.

That is why so many of the theories of mainstream archaeology are woefully wrong, because the environment in which such theories are developed has little to do with objective impartial fact-finding or critical analysis of the best evidence. Quite the contrary.

One of the reforms that is desperately needed in higher education is the cleaning of house of the whole educational establishment, which has become top-heavy with lightweights and not just in archaeology. All of these "academic" businesses are rackets and the academics utilize the same methods that are known for criminal conspiracies.

Frankly, much of the federal and other funding for mainstream archaeology should be halved, if not more, and thorough investigations should be made of how these people spend taxpayer funds and/or donor and foundation money.

Recognizing Truth Out of Context and Mainstream Archaeology: LEXILINE JOURNAL 546

This is a copy of a posting I recently made to LawPundit which illustrates one of the major problems confronted in dealing with mainstream archaeologists. They recognize as good as nothing outside of their own self-proclaimed theater, in which they own the home court advantage - and this is the result:

How Competent is Your Average Man in Recognizing Talent or Ability Outside of Context and Beyond Being Told Something is True or Good?

This email circulates through cyberspace. True or false?

In Washington , DC , at a Metro Station, on a cold January morning in 2007, this man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes.  During that time,approximately 2,000 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.  After about 3 minutes, a middle-aged man noticed that there was a musician playing.  He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds, and then he hurried on to meet his schedule.

About 4 minutes later The violinist received his first dollar.  A woman threw money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk.

At 6 minutes A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.

At 10 minutes A 3-year old boy stopped, but his mother tugged him along hurriedly.  The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head the whole time.  This action was repeated by several other children, but every parent - without exception - forced their children to move on quickly.

At 45 minutes The musician played continuously.  Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while.  About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace.  The man collected a total of $32.

After 1 hour He finished playing and silence took over.  No one noticed and no one applauded.  There was no recognition at all.

No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world.  He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars.  Two days before, Joshua Bell sold-out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100 each to sit and listen to him play the same music.

This is a true story.  Joshua Bell, playing incognito in the D.C.  Metro Station, was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people's priorities.

This experiment raised several questions:

* In a common-place environment, at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty?

* If so, do we stop to appreciate it?

* Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?

One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be this If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made .  .  .

How many other things are we missing as we rush through life?

Snopes confirms that the story is true

The kids instinctively heard that the "fiddler" was special and wanted to hear him play -- shades of the Pied Piper.

However, with the exception of a miniscule percent of adults, on the other hand, "grown-ups" had no clue whatsoever that the street violinist represented the pinnacle of his profession.

My experience definitely confirms the truth of Joshua Bell's story. Most "adults" in real life know that something is "true" or "good" only if they are told that it is "true" or "good" and if the attendant environment fits their expectations, regardless of the actual reality.

In fact, we were led to post the above story because of an email from a critic who explained to us that some of our ideas about economics would not cut it with "mainstream" economists, as if that made any difference to us.

Some people only know or think they know that which the so-called "established" world tells them. How sad to be unable to have a mind of your own and to determine for yourself what is good and not good and what is true and not true.

Indeed, in the course of their seemingly "own" life", almost all adults ultimately adopt the religion and political views of their parents, all the while proclaiming that they are thinking independently for themselves, whereas in fact they merely inherit their views from their elders. It is no difference with science, law or economics. Perhaps it takes a special character not to be just a parrot.

Hat tip to CaryGee.

Gobekli Tepe and Archaeology on the Run as a Profession: LEXILINE JOURNAL 545

Mainstream Archaeology is on the run, and for good reason. Their current situation could be defined as "Archaeology Gate".

As I wrote previously at ArchaeoPundit:

"Göbekli Tepe is featured at Newsweek online in an article from the March 1, 2010 issue of Newsweek magazine. At History in the Remaking: A temple complex in Turkey that predates even the pyramids is rewriting the story of human evolution, Patrick Symmes writes: "

    "The new discoveries are finally beginning to reshape the slow-moving consensus of archeology. Göbekli Tepe is 'unbelievably big and amazing, at a ridiculously early date,' according to Ian Hodder, director of Stanford's archeology program. Enthusing over the 'huge great stones and fantastic, highly refined art' at Göbekli, Hodder -- "who has spent decades on rival Neolithic sites" -- says: 'Many people think that it changes everything…It overturns the whole apple cart. All our theories were wrong."

Ponder that for a moment. One of the world's leading archaeologists admits that "all" of the main theories of mainstream archaeology about ancient man are wrong. I call that Archaeology Gate and it is something that I have been writing about for years, pointing to the flimsy house of cards that mainstream archaeologists have constructed.

Turn where you will, the established ideas of mainstream archaeology are falling like a house of cards. Their long-held theories as we have long alleged - were wrong and so some "angry" archaeologists -- or those who profess to be archaeologists -- I can not be sure, since these people are posting anonymously -- are by their own admitted intention trying to discredit criticism and alternative theories wherever they can. We all now know and understand this better since Climategate. For a nice discussion of the gangster methods used by academia against the opposition read James Delingpole at the Telegraph in Climategate: the final nail in the coffin of 'Anthropogenic Global Warming'?

Climategate is merely the tip of the iceberg, revealing something about how academia works under the surface. The reality is much worse than Climategate.

In this regard, I would like to point out that an organized group of posters have discovered my book Stars Stones and Scholars and are trying to discredit my book in the comments section at http://www.amazon.com/Stars-Stones-Scholars-Decipherment-Megaliths/dp/1412013445 -- all without ever having read the book!

No wonder that mainstream archaeology is in such bad shape.

Nevertheless, it is instructive to read what these people are using as methods against ideas that run contrary to their own "wrong theories". There is no discussion of ideas, there is only ad hominem argumentation -- strange, none of these people know me personally, so they are hardly competent to comment about my person. SCIENTISTS would discuss the ideas. Alas, few true scientists are to be found in archaeology.

Our Progress on Deciphering the Megaliths of Gobekli Tepe - LEXILINE JOURNAL 544

The history of civilization is a wrongly neglected topic at our educational institutions, and yet, that history exerts a POWERFUL influence on modern affairs -- just look at the political cesspool of the Middle East in our modern day an age, which is a direct consequence of events, long ago, in the Ancient Near East. Worse, we do not even have that ancient history right at all, so that modern happenings are greatly formed by erroneous views of ancient times -- this applies particularly to the history of the Jews and their impact on the development of advanced human culture in the Fertile Crescent.

I myself am working hard on my Gobekli Tepe decipherment and it has proven to be a hard nail to chew because of the lack of a comprehensive map with individual photos of the exact location of megaliths at that archaeological site. That is typical for the dilettantic "professionalism" in archaeology.

I am using Klaus Schmidt's book -- which does have a barely usable map at page 76 of that book -- as also online materials posted by others.

I can report to you unequivocally in advance of publication of my ideas that the megaliths of Gobekli Tepe were erected by the predecessors of the Biblical Abraham and that they represent stars viz. star groups (asterisms viz. constellations as the ancients saw them -- this of course is my discovery) and that these date to ca. 3800 BC. This is where the Hebrew Calendar began, as currently dated to a starting date of ca. 3761 B.C. I am refining the accuracy of that date a bit in my current research.

The dating of these megaliths by Schmidt and others -- based apparently on false radiocarbon dating of debri found covering the site -- as allegedly being much older is incorrect -- and that is quite logical actually.

People did not work stone to this degree of sophistication thousands of years prior to the dawn of megalithic culture in the 4th millennium, only to see that technology disappear from the face of the earth, only to resurface miraculously thousands of years later.

Technology development and technology transfer do not work that way.

Wherever the megalith makers went after leaving Gobekli Tepe, they took their stone technology with them. Indeed, there are great similarities between numerous sculptures of animals at Gobekli Tepe and later similar cultures.

From Teosinte to Maize : The Single Domestication of Corn in the Balsas Valley of Southern Mexico 9000 Years Ago - LexiLine Journal 543

Tracking the Ancestry of Corn Back 9,000 Years - NYTimes.com

This is a delightful article by Sean B. Carroll tracing the history of maize as it developed out of a single domestication of teosinte in ca. 7000 B.C. in the Balsas Valley of southern Mexico.

For the scientific article at the root of the story, see A single domestication for maize shown by multilocus microsatellite genotyping by Yoshihiro Matsuoka, Yves Vigouroux, Major M. Goodman, Jesus Sanchez G., Edward Buckler, and John Doebley, where the Abstract reads:

"There exists extraordinary morphological and genetic diversity among the maize landraces that have been developed by pre-Columbian cultivators. To explain this high level of diversity in maize, several authors have proposed that maize landraces were the products of multiple independent domestications from their wild relative (teosinte). We present phylogenetic analyses based on 264 individual plants, each genotyped at 99 microsatellites, that challenge the multiple-origins hypothesis. Instead, our results indicate that all maize arose from a single domestication in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago. Our analyses also indicate that the oldest surviving maize types are those of the Mexican highlands with maize spreading from this region over the Americas along two major paths. Our phylogenetic work is consistent with a model based on the archaeological record suggesting that maize diversified in the highlands of Mexico before spreading to the lowlands. We also found only modest evidence for postdomestication gene flow from teosinte into maize. "

See also Rio Balsas most likely region for maize domestication by Christine A. Hastorf who writes, inter alia:

"It is curious that with so much interest in the topic of plant domestication in archaeology, geography, and botany, it took until 2005 to include this region of Mexico in our search for the roots of domestication. This investigatory blind spot is most probably because visible early plant evidence was uncovered in dry conditions. Following the data, scholars pursued domestication where they could easily find the evidence, ignoring the regions where the interactions were more likely to occur."

In other words, without the genetic evidence, mainstream archaeology would still be looking for evidence of domestication in the WRONG places because that is where "drilling" for the truth was the easiest.

Revisited: Neandertal Man Rediscovered by Mainstream Science as Us - LexiLine Journal 542

In spite of unequivocal genome-based evidence that the Neandertals*** did not die out but left their traces in modern man, the nay-sayers in the long-deluded archaeological profession are apparently not easily giving up their totally erroneous theories.

As written by David Perlman, Science Editor at the San Francisco Chronicle in Neanderthal in all of us, DNA study indicates:

"... Richard G. Klein, a noted archaeologist at Stanford who has long worked on the evolution of Neanderthals and humans, has serious reservations about the work. He is known for his research into the fossil record showing how modern humans replaced the Neanderthals throughout Europe thousands of years ago.
The Pääbo group's report, he said, "contradicts everything we know about the archaeological record. Their evidence is really wobbly and it bothers me a lot. But it's very important stuff if it's right - and I really do hope it's right."

One of the main problems that I have found in dealing with mainstream archaeology over the years in fact has been the archaeologists' hopeless reliance on their own home-spun theories, whatever their origin, regardless of the actual probative evidence.

The Neandertal issue is only one very representative example of the absolute evidentiary follies which pervade mainstream archaeology, and which have in many areas of archaeological study become so entrenched that no voice of reason challenging those theories is heard.

Thankfully, genetic studies are changing and will continue to change many of the totally nonsensical notions published by archaeologists over the last centuries, decades and years.

There is no probative evidence in archaeology or elsewhere -- and there never has been such evidence -- that Neandertals died out as a separate species, to be replaced by modern man.
Rather, it is equally compelling to argue that Neandertal man in one way or another evolved into viz. merged into modern man, either by the path of evolution or by the path of interbreeding with another human primate form.

The details, of course, will remain a conundrum for many years to come, but we can at long last bury the useless theory that Neandertal man occupied all of Europe and western Asia, only to be fully replaced by newcomers from Africa. That theory was always based on sand.

Neandertal Man Rediscovered by Mainstream Science as Us - LexiLine Journal 541

Neandertal is a location in Germany and I have been there. The popular spelling Neanderthal is incorrect. But, that is a minor matter. The Neandertal Genome right now is a blockbuster story, as headlined by the New York Times, Signs of Neanderthals Mating With Humans.

But first, let us ask a serious question. What in world is wrong with a good deal of the people in mainstream science, especially those in the humanities-related professions? Is your average alleged "mainstream scientist" just a well-educated but otherwise uncritical and unthinking "yes man" running like a lemming to the sea blindly following whichever theory or professor in authority happens to be in vogue at the moment??

The above question has surfaced again as relates to "new" genetic research findings just published in Science magazine concerning Neandertal Man in A Draft Sequence of the Neandertal Genome.

The team of researchers under the direction of Svante Paabo at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, but involving numerous universities throughout the world, relate findings which -- totally contrary to the established faith in mainstream science -- now suggest that Neandertal Man did not just "die out", never to be seen again, but in fact left significant genetic traces in our modern human heritage, as normal logic would have expected. The Abstract to the May 7 publication provides:

"Neandertals, the closest evolutionary relatives of present-day humans, lived in large parts of Europe and western Asia before disappearing 30,000 years ago. We present a draft sequence of the Neandertal genome composed of more than 4 billion nucleotides from three individuals. Comparisons of the Neandertal genome to the genomes of five present-day humans from different parts of the world identify a number of genomic regions that may have been affected by positive selection in ancestral modern humans, including genes involved in metabolism and in cognitive and skeletal development. We show that Neandertals shared more genetic variants with present-day humans in Eurasia than with present-day humans in sub-Saharan Africa, suggesting that gene flow from Neandertals into the ancestors of non-Africans occurred before the divergence of Eurasian groups from each other."

But, in fact, the influence of Neandertals is surely far greater on modern man  than the above abstract suggests, especially for the dawn of modern man in Europe and western Asia.  We need only to examine a National Geographic News article of October 25, 2007 by Brian Handwerk titled Some Neandertals Were Pale Redheads, DNA Suggests, which points to the Neandertal DNA test results of Carles LaLueza-Fox of the University of Barcelona, whose team:

"[F]ound an unknown mutation in a key gene called MC1R.
Also present in modern humans, the gene regulates a protein that guides the production of melanin, which pigments hair and skin and protects from UV rays.
Variations in this gene's sequence limit melanin production in people with pale skin and red hair, although the particular mutation found by the researchers is not known to occur in modern humans.
The team tested the gene in living cells to see what effect the previously unknown variant would have had on the Neandertals who carried it. The test tube experiment showed that the variant suppressed the production of melanin, and thus likely gave the Neandertals who carried it red hair and pale skin."

Handwerk also has an article at National Geographic News on Odd Skull Boosts Human, Neandertal Interbreeding Theory where he writes:

"A human skull from a Romanian bear cave is shaking up ideas about ancient sex.
The Homo sapiens skull has a distinctive feature previously found only in Neandertals, providing further evidence of interbreeding between the two species, according to a new study....

Recently the fossil was radiocarbon dated to 33,000 years ago and thoroughly examined, revealing the controversial anatomical feature.
The otherwise human skull has a groove at the base of the back of the skull, just above the neck muscle, that is ubiquitous in Neandertal specimens but has never been seen in the remains of a modern human, argues study leader Erik Trinkaus, an anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri."

Accordingly, there is far more yet to be found as concerns the relationship of Neandertal man to modern humans, especially in Europe and western Asia, you can be sure.

So why have the majority of mainstream scientists and, unforgivably, the mainstream news media, been comfortable with accepting the position that seemed the most illogical, i.e. that the Neanderthals died out without leaving a trace? I presume that this must be either a kind of Rorschach test into the minds of many of those professing to be independent scientists, or it shows that many scientists are merely "followers" and not independently-thinking researchers. Similarly and unfortunately, much of the news media has merely a parrot function.

At LexiLine -- the discussion group on the History of Civilization -- I wrote in the year 2005 as follows in connection with my thoughts on Human Migration and the Rh Blood Protein:

"It is true that the current Neanderthal discussion is vexing. What I myself have seen written about the Neanderthals in past and present writings seems mostly to consist of overly broad conjectures based on very little evidence. I am of the impression that neither laymen, nor the news media, nor even mainstream scientists know enough about this yet. See in this regard also Michael P. Germano and his posting on Neanderthals Again? Has the Media Got It Right?

What is significant is the geographic area in which we have thus far found Neanderthal remains, which largely corresponds to what we would today call Europe. See http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo2/mod_homo_2.htm

A number of years ago, before it became fashionable, I suggested that humans formed from an interbreeding of two primate groups, based upon blood types. See http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi9.htm, see in this regard also http://www.dadamo.com/wiki/wiki.pl/Related_blood_group_factors_in_animals where it is written:

"In the ABO blood group system, humans and chimpanzees both have A blood group antigens, but the DNA nucleotide sequences are different. The differences are not minor.

Surprisingly, humans and gorillas both have blood group B, and their DNA nucleotide sequences are pretty much identical, with only minor differences."

However, I would imagine that such interbreeding, if it occurred, would have to have taken place before Man arrived in Europe. Indeed, where the territories of gorillas and chimpanzees in Eastern Africa meet is where we find the first evidence of human skulls. How the Neanderthals fit into this picture is still anybody's guess and will ultimately have to be decided by deciphering their human genome, as is being done."

You don't find any mainstream scientists quoting my work because they only quote people they know, whether they be right or wrong, the main thing being that they are considered "authorities" in their field. The "correctness" of the science of such authorities is beside the point.

However, I am at least gratified to read at BBC that one of the people, John Hawks, who I sometimes read for his apparent openness of mind in this field, is quoted at the BBC in Neanderthal genes 'survive in us' as follows:

"John Hawks, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US, told BBC News: "They're us. We're them. ""

At his john hawks weblog Hawks has a longish posting titled "Neandertals Live!" which is well worth reading to consider some of the new fascinating issues beyond the normal news hype.

Crossposted from LawPundit.

Roman Calendration, Sosigenes and Numa Pompilius - LexiLine Journal 540

Happy Easter! (this is a bit late, but I have been traveling)
A movable calendric feast!
It is thus time again write a bit about calendration, this time, about the Roman Calendar:

"The Roman Calendar was a curious conglomeration of historical inputs, and yet, our own modern calendar in the Western world - with our non-astronomical months of varying durations and strange numerically disjointed names - was inherited directly from that Roman system as the Julian Calendar (Wikipedia), reflecting calendric reform made under Julius Caesar, who called upon the Egyptian astronomer priest Sosigenes of Alexandria (see also e.g. the Encyclopaedia Britannica) to correct the Roman calendar:

"[The Julian Calendar] has a regular year of 365 days divided into 12 months, and a leap day is added to February every four years. Hence the Julian year is on average 365.25 days long."

Pliny the Elder, Book 18, 210-212 wrote:

"... There were three main schools, the Chaldaean, the Egyptian, and the Greek; and to these a fourth was added in our country by Caesar during his dictatorship, who with the assistance of the learned astronomer Sosigenes (Sosigene perito scientiae eius adhibito) brought the separate years back into conformity with the course of the sun. (Wikipedia translation - source unknown)

(or, from Perseus at Tufts, translation by John Bostock)

"There have been three great schools of astronomy, the Chaldæan, the Ægyptian, and the Grecian. To these has been added a fourth school, which was established by the Dictator Cæsar among ourselves, and to which was entrusted the duty of regulating the year in conformity with the sun's revolution, under the auspices of Sosigenes, an astronomer of considerable learning and skill."

A history of that Early Roman Calendar is found at WebExhibits.org in their Calendars through the Ages.
The Roman system of calendration prior to calendar reform was described by Plutarch in "Numa Pompilius," C.E. 75, Sanctum Library: 8th-7th Century B.C.E., in a translation by John Dryden as follows (from WebExhibits.org):

"During the reign of Romulus, they had let their months run on without any certain or equal term; some of them contained twenty days, others thirty-five, others more; they had no sort of knowledge of the inequality in the motions of the sun and moon; they only kept to the one rule that the whole course of the year contained three hundred and sixty days.

"Numa, calculating the difference between the lunar and solar years at eleven days, for that the moon completed her anniversary course in three hundred and fifty-four days, and the sun in three hundred and sixty-five, to remedy this incongruity doubled the eleven days, and every other year added an intercalary month, to follow February, consisting of twenty-two days, and called by the Romans the month Mercedinus...

"Many will have it, that it was Numa, also, who added the two months of Januarius and Februarius; for in the beginning they had a year of ten months...

"That the Romans, at first, comprehended the whole year within ten, and not twelve months, plainly appears by the name of the last, December, meaning the tenth month; and that Martius was the first is likewise evident, for the fifth month after it was called Quintilis, and the sixth Sextilis, and so the rest; whereas, if Januarius and Februarius had, in this account, preceded Martius, Quintilis would have been fifth in name and seventh in reckoning.

"It was also natural that Martius, dedicated to Mars, should be Romulus’s first and Aprilis, named from Venus, or Aphrodite, his second month; in it they sacrifice to Venus, and the women bathe on the calends, or first day of it, with myrtle garlands on their heads.

"But others, because of its being p and not ph, will not allow of the derivation of this word from Aphrodite, but say it is called Aprilis from aperio, Latin for to open, because that this month is high spring, and opens and discloses the buds and flowers.

"The next is called Maius, from Maia, the mother of Mercury, to whom it is sacred; then Junius follows, so called from Juno; some, however, derive them from the two ages, old and young, majores being their name for older, and juniores for younger men.

"To the other months they gave denominations according to their order; so the fifth was called Quintilis, Sextilis the sixth, and the rest, Septembris, Octobris, Novembris and Decembris. Afterwards, Quintilis received the name of Julius (July), from Caesar, who defeated Pompey; as also Sextilis that of Augustus, (August) from the second Caesar, who had that title...

"Of the months which were added or transposed in their order by Numa, Februarius comes from februa; and is as such a Purification month; in it they make offerings to the dead, and celebrate the Lupercalia, which, in most points, resembles a purification. Januarius was also called from Janus, and precedence given to it by Numa before Martius, which was dedicated to the god Mars; because, as I conceive, he wished to take every opportunity of intimating that the arts and studies of peace are to be preferred before those of war."

When did Numa institute this calendar reform?
Six years ago in my posting at 31 LexiLine Newsletter 2004 I gave the following chronology based on 480-year intervals from the time of what I consider to be the official calendric founding of "dynastic" Egypt (see also Ancient Calendric Stele Newly Discovered in Egypt):

"3117 BC start of the calendar
2637 BC reform of the Calendar by Khasekhemwy for the tropical year
2157 BC First Intermediate Period
1677 BC Second Intermediate Period
1197 BC Rule of King David (Sethos) begins - whence his Hall of Records
717 BC Start of the reign of Numa Pompilius, the 1st calendric king of Rome, begins
237 BC Restoration of the Etruscan "Secular (calendric) Games" in Rome - whence the building of Edfu" [emphasis added]

I have since then considered moving the start of the modern calendar even further back to an earlier date at Göbekli Tepe, perhaps having a close relationship with the start of the Hebrew Calendar, but although that is relevant to the question of the date of the start of the calendar in Egypt, I am not yet finished with that ongoing analysis.
For purposes of demonstration only of the multiple intervals of 240 years and 480 years in a calendric system going back (at least) to Göbekli Tepe -- we can turn the clock back a couple of years as follows to get round BCE numbers - the astronomical year would however not change:

""3840 BCE start (?) of the calendar at Göbekli Tepe near Urfa, i.e. Ur, the birthplace of Abraham (the Hebrew Calendar starts by current calculation on October 7, 3761 BC according to the Julian Calendar and on September 7, -3760 according to the Gregorian Calendar - see the instructive Calendar Converter at Fourmilab.com from John Walker)
3600 BCE ??
3360 BCE start of the "calendric predynastic period" in Egypt
3120 BCE start of the dynastic calendar in Pharaonic Egypt - actually -3116 by astronomy
2640 BCE reform of the Calendar by Khasekhemwy for the tropical year
2160 BCE First Intermediate Period in Pharaonic Egypt
1680 BCE Second Intermediate Period in Pharaonic Egypt
1200 BCE Rule of King David (Sethos) begins - whence his Hall of Records
720 BCE Start of the reign of Numa Pompilius, the 1st calendric king of Rome, begins
240 BCE Restoration of the Etruscan "Secular (calendric) Games" in Rome - whence the building of Edfu - this is the same date as the ancient Ancient Calendric Stele Newly Discovered in Egypt which the archaeologists date to 238 BC....
0 BC viz. 0 AD The start of the modern method of calendration and the alleged birth of Jesus

Just what year BC or BCE is correct depends on when one puts the birth of Christ viz. the alleged birth of Jesus.

Originally I set the 3117 BC date near what my astronomy software program identified as a solar eclipse at the Winter Solstice at that time, whereas more recent tentative results indicate that it may in fact have been a solar eclipse near the Summer Solstice -- this is a calendric calculation problem caused by academic dispute on the matter of the variable Delta T, the change in the rate of the spin of the earth over millennia -- which determines the location of ancient solar eclipses -- about which there is a great deal of uncertainty, but this matter is not critical for the 480-year interval dates, although all will ultimately require some calibration.
At any event, there is in my opinion strong evidence in the ancient sources that a ca. 480-year interval was used for calculation in ancient Egypt [this was 479 years plus 120 days as inscribed on the statue of Khasekhemwy (my discovery)]:

"The casualties that are portrayed at the side of the pedestal to Khasekhemwy’s statue symbolize the dead, expired years. It is quite clear that the first nail-formed hieroglyph, written four times consecutively, stands for four 100’s and not for four 10000’s. The seven middle flower-shaped hieroglyphs represent seven 10’s. This is not disputed. The nine left "stick" hieroglyphs represent nine 1’s. This is also not disputed. The number represented here is thus the number 479 and not, as the Egyptologists would have us believe, he number 40079. A study of the magnified hieroglyphs confirms our analysis.

Figure 20 (ab0ve):
Khasekhemwy and his Numbers (slightly magnified).


Figure 21 (above):
Khasekhemwy and his Numbers (strongly magnified)

The individual numbers from the right to the left are 4-7-9 = 479 years, plus 120 days intercalated (2x 60), the @-shaped hieroglyphs. These numbers are clear. The Pharaohs would never have written the number 40279 this way, with 100's between the 10's and 1's, above the 1's."

This interval is also reflected in Biblical chronology, e.g. we can read in the Book of Kings, Chapter 6:1, King James Version of the Bible:

"And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month Zif, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the LORD."

That date too will have been a calendric construction.
Sosigenes, as an astronomer priest of Egypt will also have utilized the 240-year and 480-year calendric intervals for his secret and expert calculations for the Romans.
In this manner, our modern calendar, strangely enough, is also a direct descendant of the Pharaonic system, thanks to the astronomer priests of Pharaonic Egypt working with the Romans.

Ian Hodder: All Our Theories Were Wrong - LexiLine Journal 539

Göbekli Tepe is featured at Newsweek online in an article from the March 1, 2010 issue of Newsweek magazine. At History in the Remaking: A temple complex in Turkey that predates even the pyramids is rewriting the story of human evolution, Patrick Symmes writes: "

"The new discoveries are finally beginning to reshape the slow-moving consensus of archeology. Göbekli Tepe is 'unbelievably big and amazing, at a ridiculously early date,' according to Ian Hodder, director of Stanford's archeology program. Enthusing over the 'huge great stones and fantastic, highly refined art' at Göbekli, Hodder -- "who has spent decades on rival Neolithic sites" -- says: 'Many people think that it changes everything…It overturns the whole apple cart. All our theories were wrong.
[Klaus Schmidt - chief archaeologist at Göbekli Tepe -  theorizes that] it was the urge to worship that brought mankind together in the very first urban conglomerations. The need to build and maintain this temple, he says, drove the builders to seek stable food sources, like grains and animals that could be domesticated, and then to settle down to guard their new way of life. The temple begat the city."

All of THEIR theories (the theories of mainstream archaeology and astronomy) were wrong.

OUR megalithic archaeological and astronomical theories, on the other hand, are looking better all the time.

We have always linked the stones to astronomy and both to ancient belief.
There is more to these stones than just having an ancient sundial in your backyard.
The ancients were doing important things with these ancient megalithic sites.

Schmidt's rather esoteric idea that the temples were the reason for human urbanization and agricultural domestication is of course far-fetched. Forget that.

A hat tip and thank you to Boris of our LexiLine group for calling this Newsweek article to my attention.

Why Study Ancient Mankind and the Past? - LexiLine Journal 538

I just wrote this to someone interested in my work who themselves was studying mankind's ancient past:

"In this field, the fun is in the doing.

I for example work almost entirely for myself, beacuse I am sincerely interested in what actually happened in ancient history.
It is my way of uncovering and tracing - for me - what I think to be the tracks of mankind.

Whether others agree with me or not or whether one is "correct" or not in some future "court" that decides these things,
I doubt very much that it matters."

I hope we have a lot of members in our group who share that view.

WANTING to know is the first prerequisite to learning new things
and making new discoveries,
especially for ourselves,
but we seldom have any guarantees
that we are right in our conclusions
about any of these things.

Evidentiary Archaeology: Akhenaten Identified by CT and DNA - LexiLine Journal 537

Tutankhamun and "Where the Great Akhenaten Lies" : Asharq Alawsat Newspaper (English)

Zahi Hawass reports on the great discovery made regarding the identification of Akhenaten among the mummies of Egypt, where it appears quite clearly from the Hawass statements that Akhenaten has been convincingly identified, writing inter alia:

"At a press conference for international media figures held by the Supreme Council of Antiquities last Wednesday at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, I announced that important [archaeological] discoveries had been made that shed more light on the dynasty of the golden pharaoh Tutankhamen. These discoveries marked the beginning of a new chapter in using modern techniques and advanced technology in the field of archeological discoveries."

Read the rest here.

As regards those remarks, Mark Rose, the executive editor at Archaeology Magazine in Tut: Disease and DNA News had previously - and typically for Egyptology - raised the question of whether the DNA and CT Akhenaten identification was accurate, since mainstream Egyptology had previously alleged that the mummy KV55 in question was only ca. 25 years of age, which would be much too young for Akhenaten [who I equate with King Saul]. The CT, however showed the age to be 45 to 55 years. How mainstream archaeologists could be that far off on the age of KV55 up to now is remarkable, but to be expected from Egyptology, where unproven hypotheses based on little evidence are rampant. It is equally puzzling, by the way, that the report which contains the most necessary information on the CT and DNA studies that we have been able to find online up to know comes from distant China, where a Xinhua article - Egypt reveals Tutankhamun's lineage, cause of death - writes (editor yan):

"According to the CT scan, Tutankhamun's [who I equate with Saul's son, Jonathan, "Young ATON"] father Akhenaten died at the age between 45 and 55, not at the age between 20 and 25 as previously thought."

To see the sometimes appalling historical handling of the "evidence" relating to KV55 prior to now by the Egyptological community - "evidence" is something the Egyptologists are not trained for in their studies, and their work shows it - read KV55 in the Valley of the Kings on the West Bank at Luxor by Mark Andrews at TourEgypt.net.

Thankfully, as Hawass correctly observes, Egyptology will now be much corrected over time through modern means, i.e. via genetics and more modern means of assessing artefacts.

I wrote about this new "evidentiary archaeology" some time ago.

Cave Writings as Messages from the Stone Age - LexiLine Journal 536

At

Messages from the Stone Age : Cave Writing Underestimated : 17 February 2010 : New Scientist

Kate Ravilious in "The writing on the cave wall" reports:

"While some scholars like [Jean Clottes] Clottes had recorded the presence of cave signs at individual sites, Genevieve von Petzinger, then a student at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada, was surprised to find that no one had brought all these records together to compare signs from different caves. And so, under the supervision of April Nowell, also at the University of Victoria, she devised an ambitious masters project. She compiled a comprehensive database of all recorded cave signs from 146 sites in France, covering 25,000 years of prehistory from 35,000 to 10,000 years ago.

What emerged was startling: 26 signs, all drawn in the same style, appeared again and again at numerous sites (see illustration). Admittedly, some of the symbols are pretty basic, like straight lines, circles and triangles, but the fact that many of the more complex designs also appeared in several places hinted to von Petzinger and Nowell that they were meaningful - perhaps even the seeds of written communication."

Mainstream archaeology is slowly moving forward toward OUR already long-term understanding of the significance of ancient cave and rock art

and we see that this new understanding will be dependent upon young people to tackle these topics in their academic papers.

Read the full article here.

DNA Proves Tutankhamun as Son of Akhenaten - LexiLine Journal 535

Who was Tutankhamun and was he murdered by the Philistines?

Nearly five years ago I made a posting to the LexiLine group on the History of Civilization at 33 LexiLine Newsletter 2005 Who was Tutankhamun - Jonathon Aton - The Me'il in which I identified the young "co-regent" Tutankhamun as the son of Akhenaten (Echnaton). Tut was NEVER the Pharaoh himself. My identification has now been proven correct by DNA evidence in a study conducted by Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) under the leadership of Secretary General Zahi Hawass, a study published in Vol. 303 No. 7, February 17, 2010 of the Journal of the American Medical Association, of which the following is the Abstract:

"Ancestry and Pathology in King Tutankhamun's Family

Zahi Hawass, PhD; Yehia Z. Gad, MD; Somaia Ismail, PhD; Rabab Khairat, MSc; Dina Fathalla, MSc; Naglaa Hasan, MSc; Amal Ahmed, BPharm; Hisham Elleithy, MA; Markus Ball, MSc; Fawzi Gaballah, PhD; Sally Wasef, MSc; Mohamed Fateen, MD; Hany Amer, PhD; Paul Gostner, MD; Ashraf Selim, MD; Albert Zink, PhD; Carsten M. Pusch, PhD

JAMA. 2010;303(7):638-647.

Context The New Kingdom in ancient Egypt, comprising the 18th, 19th, and 20th dynasties, spanned the mid-16th to the early 11th centuries BC. The late 18th dynasty, which included the reigns of pharaohs Akhenaten and Tutankhamun, was an extraordinary time. The identification of a number of royal mummies from this era, the exact relationships between some members of the royal family, and possible illnesses and causes of death have been matters of debate.

Objectives To introduce a new approach to molecular and medical Egyptology, to determine familial relationships among 11 royal mummies of the New Kingdom, and to search for pathological features attributable to possible murder, consanguinity, inherited disorders, and infectious diseases.

Design From September 2007 to October 2009, royal mummies underwent detailed anthropological, radiological, and genetic studies as part of the King Tutankhamun Family Project. Mummies distinct from Tutankhamun's immediate lineage served as the genetic and morphological reference. To authenticate DNA results, analytical steps were repeated and independently replicated in a second ancient DNA laboratory staffed by a separate group of personnel. Eleven royal mummies dating from circa 1410-1324 BC and suspected of being kindred of Tutankhamun and 5 royal mummies dating to an earlier period, circa 1550-1479 BC, were examined.

Main Outcome Measures Microsatellite-based haplotypes in the mummies, generational segregation of alleles within possible pedigree variants, and correlation of identified diseases with individual age, archeological evidence, and the written historical record.

Results Genetic fingerprinting allowed the construction of a 5-generation pedigree of Tutankhamun's immediate lineage. The KV55 mummy and KV35YL were identified as the parents of Tutankhamun. No signs of gynecomastia and craniosynostoses (eg, Antley-Bixler syndrome) or Marfan syndrome were found, but an accumulation of malformations in Tutankhamun's family was evident. Several pathologies including Köhler disease II were diagnosed in Tutankhamun; none alone would have caused death. Genetic testing for STEVOR, AMA1, or MSP1 genes specific for Plasmodium falciparum revealed indications of malaria tropica in 4 mummies, including Tutankhamun’s. These results suggest avascular bone necrosis in conjunction with the malarial infection as the most likely cause of death in Tutankhamun. Walking impairment and malarial disease sustained by Tutankhamun is supported by the discovery of canes and an afterlife pharmacy in his tomb.

Conclusion Using a multidisciplinary scientific approach, we showed the feasibility of gathering data on Pharaonic kinship and diseases and speculated about individual causes of death."

The results of the study were released within the last 24 hours (February 16/17, 2010) to the public and have already been summarized in part at the Wikipedia:

"Scholars had not reached consensus on the identity of Tutankhamun's parents. An inscription calls him a king's son [emphasis added], but it was not clear which king was meant. An extensive DNA analysis whose results were publicized in February 2010 confirmed that he was the son of Akhenaten and Akhenaten's sister (also his wife).^[8]

At one time Tutankhamun had been thought to be a son of Amenhotep III and his Great Royal Wife Queen Tiye [added insert from us: the hieroglpyh from which this erroneous idea came actually reads "ancestor" rather than "father"]. Instead, he has been confirmed as their grandson, child of their son and daughter.^[9] Later research claimed that he may have been a son of Amenhotep III, although not by Queen Tiye. She would have been more than fifty years old at the time of Tutankhamun's birth.

DNA results released in February 2010 confirm Tutankhamun as the biological son of Akhenaten and grandson of Queen Tiye. Tutankhamun's mother has been confirmed as Mummy KV35YL, a sister of Akhenaten. Her identity as of this date is still unidentified.^[10]

A common hypothesis held that Tutankhamun was the son of Akhenaten, also known as Amenhotep IV, and his minor wife Queen Kiya. Queen Kiya's title was "Greatly Beloved Wife of Akhenaten" so it is possible that she could have borne him an heir. Supporting this theory, images on the tomb wall in the tomb of Akhenaten show a royal fan bearer standing next to Kiya's death bed, fanning someone who may be a princess. Researchers also thought the figure was a wet nurse holding a baby, considered to be the boy king-to-be.

Professor James Allen [link added: President of the International Association of Egyptologists] argued that Tutankhamun was more likely to be a son of the short-lived king Smenkhkare rather than Akhenaten. Allen argued that Akhenaten chose a female co-regent named Neferneferuaten as his successor, rather than Tutankhamun. He thought that would have been unlikely if the latter were his son.^[11][12] Smenkhkare appears when Akhenaten entered year 14 of his reign. Scholars believe that during this time Meritaten married Smenkhkare. Smenkhkare, as the father of Tutankhamun, would have needed at least a three-year reign to bring Tutankhamun to the right age to have inherited the throne. However, if there had been lengthy co-regency between Amenhotep III and Akhenaten, Amenhotep could have been Tutankhamun's father (later disproved by DNA testing).^[12][13]

Recently, Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, announced the recovery of a part of a limestone block depicting Tutankhamun and his wife Ankhesenamen, along with text. These identify both Tutankhamun and his wife Ankhesenpaaten as "children of the king's body" or the biological son and daughter of Akhenaten. This shows the repetition of marriage between royal siblings."

The junk that the mainstream media have written about the new - mostly DNA evidence - is further proof that mainstream academia and mainstream journalists feed the clueless public with more-or-less pablum nonsense, concentrating not on important matters of the identity of Pharaohs but rather on the speculatively sensationalistic question of Tut's cause of death, whereas the identity question is far more important to Egyptology and the reconstruction of man's ancient history. The mainstream media and Egyptologists have already announced that the cause of Tut's death is clear, whereas the actual study says:

"These results suggest avascular bone necrosis in conjunction with the malarial infection as the most likely cause of death in Tutankhamun."

That "suggestion" is pure IDLE speculation given the fact that 4 of the 11 mummies examined showed signs of malaria and that Tut's foot malformation must have been of very long standing.

As written at Why Evolution is True in What killed King Tut?

"... Hawass, with his usual penchant for publicity, is going around telling reporters, with no reservations, that malaria definitely killed the young king. Well, maybe, but falciparum malaria isn’t always fatal. Two of of Tut’s great-grandparents had it, and, as the authors note, they died in their 50s, and the infection might have been chronic, or suppressed by their immune systems."

Already in the year 1923, as can easily be seen from a photograph of Tut's body, which is reproduced at page 297 of the 1996 British Museum Dictionary of Ancient Egypt (reproduced there courtesy of the Griffith Institute), it was well known already nearly 87 years ago that Tut had suffered a broken leg in his life and that there was a serious problem with his unequally sized feet - as can be seen from our cut-out and coloring of the lower half of that image (our added red circles show the leg break and the foot malformation):
The notion that the new DNA and CT study dispells the possibility that King Tut met a violent death is sadly mistaken - it proves nothing, merely adding the malaria element to an already shaky theory.

As written at TourEgypt.net in Who Killed King Tut? by The Government of Egypt and edited by Jimmy Dunn:

"The possibility that Tutankhamen did not die of natural causes was first raised 28 years ago when an X-ray analysis of his mummy was made by the anatomy department of the University of Liverpool. It revealed that the king may have died from a blow to the back of his head.

Early this year, a new X-ray analysis cast more light on the subject, this time suggesting that Tutankhamen may have been murdered in his sleep. The examination was conducted by a trauma specialist at Long Island University, USA, "The blow was to a protected area at the back of the head which you don't injure in an accident, someone had to sneak up from behind," said the specialist.

X-rays also show a thickening of a bone in the cranium which could occur only after a build-up of blood. This would indicate that the king might have been left bleeding for a long time before he actually died. In short, scientists suggest that the king was most probably hit on the back of his head while asleep and that he lingered, maybe for as long as two months, before he died....

[O]n the pedestal of one of Horemhab's statues is a text in which he left a message to all Egyptians, indicating that he was not the man who committed the crime. He declared in writing that he was loyal to his king and carried out all his orders faithfully. He also warned any Egyptian who may read the text, against 'normalizing' relations with foreigners and told them never to trust them: "Egyptian brothers, don't ever forget what foreigners did to our King Tutankhamen", Horemhab wrote."

Why the mainstream scholars continue to ignore other evidence and seek to force a speculative interpretation upon the public is something that we can not understand. But it is typical for Egyptology.

To recall our own article, 5 years ago at 33 LexiLine Newsletter 2005 Who was Tutankhamun - Jonathon Aton - The Me'il:

"I recently received a letter asking me for an illustration of the robe or Me'il of the Cohen Gadol, the Hebrew High Priest, and also asking me who in my opinion Tutankhamun was. The two questions are inter-related.

See the following website for one interpretative drawing of the Cohen Gadol's priestly garments http://messianic-torat-chayim-sg.org/Torah/kohengadol.html. That is pretty much a fantasy drawing, but a good attempt.

Actually, the robe of the Cohen Gadol will not have been substantially different than that worn by the Pharaohs of Egypt, based on the following example ramsesIII.jpg of the garment of Ramses III which I have [also] uploaded to our LexiLine files at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LexiLine/files/Egypt/


You can see there both the top and bottom robe, the ephod, the belt in layers, as well as the tassels on the robe, some of which, also on Ramses III, appear to be small bells - as allegedly also on the robe of the Cohen Gadol in descriptions of the me'il. This picture is a scan from a superb book by Peter A. Clayton, Chronicle of the Pharaohs, Thames and Hudson Ltd., London, 1994, available at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0500050740/. The book is a must buy for anyone in this field as the best book of this kind in Egyptology (i.e. it is an understandable overview of all the pharaohs and their reigns according to the mainstream views). No other book comes even close. I use it all the time, even though it of course carries forward many mainstream errors in Egyptology.

Remnants of the Hebrew High Priest's robe were in my opinion found in the Tomb of Tutankhamun. Such a robe would have been far more Egyptian in nature than the drawing above and the Cohen Gadol would not have had a beard - quite the contrary, priests were bald: (quoted from http://snipurl.com/fetq viz.
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/egypt/dailylife/hairstyles.html.

"Priests were required to keep their entire bodies cleanly shaved.
They shaved every third day because they needed to avoid the danger
of lice or any other uncleanness to conduct rituals. This is the
reason why priests are illustrated bald-headed with no eyebrows or
lashes."

In addition, both the bearded Asiatics (Assyrians, etc.) and the black peoples were arch enemies of the clean-shaven Pharaohs, as shown at the Tomb of Tutankhamun on the prow of a miniature ship. In discussing the origin of the Pharaohs, it is rather remarkable that such important pieces of evidence are ignored by Egyptology.

For an extensive review of the items found in the Tomb of Tutankhamun, see generally

http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi80.htm and more specifically
http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi25.htm and also
http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi600.htm

The identity of Tutankhamun can be explained as follows:

In my opinion, the evidence is incontrovertible that King Saul =Echnaton (Akhenaten), King David = Sethos and King Solomon = Ramses II with Shishak = Ramses III.

Accordingly, Tutankhamun can only be ATON, i.e. JON-ATHON ("young Aton, young Adonis, "Jaun-(IE)donis"), one of the sons of Saul in the Bible. Saul was Echn-ATON viz. Akhen-ATEN ("old Aton", old Adonis, "Vec-(IE)Donis"). The other brother was Semenchkare, Biblical Ish-Boshet, who served a short time as Pharaoh before being executed. The hieroglyphs which the Egyptologists read as SE-Mench are actually ISH-Boshet. SE = ISH. The other error occurs because there are two alternative readings for the small chisel - one is MNCH (Indo-European e.g. latvian MI(N)CHA), MIEC- "to knead, strike" but the other is B[.....] which is Indo-European viz. Latvian PASIT (=BOSHET) "to strike at". The Egyptologists have chosen the wrong alternative of the two for Semenchkare.

Young ATON (Jon-ATHON) saved David's life and was his best friend, but was killed at an early age - according to the Bible - battling the Philistines, in a battle in which Saul ("old Aton") also lost his life. According to the Bible, the latter's body was mutilated by the Philistines and has thus never been found by the Egyptologists, probably having been buried somewhere in Canaan.

Tutankhamun never served as Pharaoh but was heir to the throne. This explains his having a royal cartouche but being excluded from the ancient lists of the kings of Egypt. He never manned the throne. His untimely death brought his best friend David onto the throne, and so Jonathon was buried in regal style by David, who had become King David = Sethos (Setoy).

Note in this regard that the alleged pharaoh Haremhab viz. Horemhab at this time was actually Hiram (also written Huram), King of Tyre, one of King David's best friends. Horemhab never served as sovereign Pharaoh of Egypt, contrary to the erred opinion of Egyptology, but was only a vice-regent (see http://www.varchive.org/tac/harcrown.htm) later given a royal status - whence the cartouche - by King David. Haremhab built many buildings for David (so the Bible) upon which he also placed his name as the builder of them - but pharaoh himself he was not, but only King of Tyre. The kingly reign attributed to him actually belonged to King David (Sethos viz. Setoy) and this is why in spite of two tombs being attributed to Haremhab by the Egyptologists, his mummy is not found among the mummies of the kings which have been recovered in the mummy depots. The Egyptologists incorrectly read "Tyre" on the hieroglyphs as DJOSER whereas Haremhab's cartouched hieroglyph showing the hand holding an object
is clearly to be read as TUR ("hold") i.e. TYRE and not DJOSER.

Nearly all of the furniture and treasures in the tomb of Tutankhamun are from a later period. The tomb was reopened and the holy vessels of the Mishnayot were hidden there, including the Ark of the Covenant (also called the Ark of the Law, Ark of the Testimony, Ark of God) with the tomb being resealed by the priests and the entrance being covered by tons of rubble - such tomb only having been found in our modern era by Howard Carter as the Tomb of Tutankhamun.

See in this regard
http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi80.htm and
http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi000.htm
for the hiding of the Ark of the Covenant and the holy vessels."

______________

M.S. Reddy wrote:

Dear Andis,

Congratulations for your excellent prediction Who was Tutankhamunn and the latest DNA analysis. The DNA analysis and the latest developments in this study of Egyptian mummies is revealing the wonders of our ancient civilization. Dedicated souls like you are doing great service to humanity at large and we are grateful for your keen insight and dedication.
______________

Andis Kaulins wrote:

EVIDENCE?
Tut Revisited:
But is the Evidence so Clear that KV55 is Akhenaten and not Tut's brother Smenkhkare?
http://ow.ly/16BqhR
______________

Andis Kaulins wrote:

Evidentiary Archaeology: Akhenaten Identified by CT and DNA

Tutankhamun and "Where the Great Akhenaten Lies" : Asharq Alawsat Newspaper (English)

Zahi Hawass reports on the great discovery made regarding the identification of Akhenaten among the mummies of Egypt, where it appears quite clearly from the Hawass statements that Akhenaten has been convincingly identified, writing inter alia:

"At a press conference for international media figures held by the Supreme Council of Antiquities last Wednesday at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, I announced that important [archaeological] discoveries had been made that shed more light on the dynasty of the golden pharaoh Tutankhamen. These discoveries marked the beginning of a new chapter in using modern techniques and advanced technology in the field of archeological discoveries."

Read the rest here.

As regards those remarks, Mark Rose, the executive editor at Archaeology Magazine in Tut: Disease and DNA News had previously - and typically for Egyptology - raised the question of whether the DNA and CT Akhenaten identification was accurate, since mainstream Egyptology had previously alleged that the mummy KV55 in question was only ca. 25 years of age, which would be much too young for Akhenaten [who I equate with King Saul]. The CT, however showed the age to be 45 to 55 years. How mainstream archaeologists could be that far off on the age of KV55 up to now is remarkable, but to be expected from Egyptology, where unproven hypotheses based on little evidence are rampant. It is equally puzzling, by the way, that the report which contains the most necessary information on the CT and DNA studies that we have been able to find online up to know comes from distant China, where a Xinhua article - Egypt reveals Tutankhamun's lineage, cause of death - writes (editor yan):

"According to the CT scan, Tutankhamun's [who I equate with Saul's son, Jonathan, "Young ATON"] father Akhenaten died at the age between 45 and 55, not at the age between 20 and 25 as previously thought."

To see the sometimes appalling historical handling of the "evidence" relating to KV55 prior to now by the Egyptological community - "evidence" is something the Egyptologists are not trained for in their studies, and their work shows it - read KV55 in the Valley of the Kings on the West Bank at Luxor by Mark Andrews at TourEgypt.net.

Thankfully, as Hawass correctly observes, Egyptology will now be much corrected over time through modern means, i.e. via genetics and more modern means of assessing artefacts.

I wrote about this new "evidentiary archaeology" some time ago.