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From: Carsten Dominik <dominik@science.uva.nl>
To: "Ross A. Laird" <ross@rosslaird.info>
Cc: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Re: OT  Re: unicorn
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 20:35:29 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <74C5F3DA-6395-4555-9862-96CA12F699F0@uva.nl> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <87bpsmxv9p.fsf@rosslaird.info>


On Feb 28, 2009, at 7:37 PM, Ross A. Laird wrote:

> Carsten Dominik <dominik@science.uva.nl> writes:
>
>> Hi Ross,
>>
>> great post, thank you very much!
>>
>> You have made me curious:  What argumentation is used to estimate
>> the age of Myth at 70000 years.  I can't be the fossile record,
>> I guess :-)  So I am wondering how something like this is figured  
>> out.
>>
>> If you feel like putting background stuff about unicorns into the
>> FAQ, be my guest.
>>
>> - Carsten
>>
>
> Hi Carsten;
>
> Thanks for the feedback -- and actually, I was wondering if someone
> might ask about the 70,000 years. Until recently, the accepted date  
> for
> the appearance of human culture -- as evidenced by complex tools and
> apparent symbolic thinking -- was somewhere around thirty or forty
> thousand years ago (the so-called Willendorf Venus figures, for
> example). But this threshold has now doubled back -- to at least  
> seventy
> thousand before the present. Archaeologists working at the Blombos  
> cave
> in South Africa have found, among other surprises, finely worked  
> weapons
> decorated with symbolic engravings -- within a strata older than  
> seventy
> thousand years.
>
> So, it seems that humans were thinking in terms of symbols at least
> 70,000 years ago. And symbols always derive from myths (this is the  
> most
> basic rule of myth: symbols indicate myths). So, myths are at least
> 70,000 years old. By the way, this is not the same as the emergence of
> individuality, which is a related but not identical development.
> Individuality seems to have taken quite a bit longer: it seems to  
> first
> appear with the ancient Egyptians around 3000 BCE. A statue of the
> pharaoh Khafre (the owner of the second-largest pyramid at Giza) is  
> the
> world's oldest surviving individualized work of art. This statue is  
> now
> in room 42 of the Cairo Museum. So indeed, the answer to life, the
> universe, and everything is 42! (I devoted quite a bit of time to  
> Khafre
> in my book on myth; he was a very interesting character who may be the
> face on the sphinx; and the sphinx, of course, is of the same
> mythological family as the unicorn).

Hi Ross,

I can see how symbols can be related to Myth.  But I am wondering
if the definition of individualism is not very restrictive.

I believe I have read somewhere that decoration or jewelry, personal
ornaments, are a way to detect individuality, and I surely would have
thought that this must pre-date work of art that depicts an
individual - which I think is what you are referring to with Kafre,
I have seen pictures of his face fragment - beautiful (is that in
room 42 as well?)

Cheers

- Carsten

  reply	other threads:[~2009-02-28 19:35 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 20+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2009-02-25 21:58 unicorn Raimund Kohl-Füchsle
2009-02-26 20:19 ` unicorn Carsten Dominik
2009-02-27 11:12   ` unicorn Bastien
2009-02-27 11:21     ` unicorn Carsten Dominik
2009-02-27 18:33       ` unicorn Ross A. Laird
2009-02-28 12:18         ` [OT] unicorn Detlef Steuer
2009-02-28 19:17           ` Carsten Dominik
2009-02-28 16:17         ` OT " Carsten Dominik
2009-02-28 18:37           ` Ross A. Laird
2009-02-28 19:35             ` Carsten Dominik [this message]
2009-02-28 20:56               ` Ross A. Laird
2009-03-01 13:26                 ` Jason F. McBrayer
2009-02-27 18:47       ` unicorn Russell Adams
2009-02-27 19:34         ` unicorn Christopher Suckling
2009-03-01 23:22           ` unicorn Tim Burt
2011-04-07 20:38           ` unicorn Nick Dokos
2011-04-08 16:13             ` unicorn Bastien
2009-02-27 19:56       ` unicorn J Aaron Farr
2009-02-27 18:35     ` unicorn Jason F. McBrayer
     [not found]   ` <874oyfh01a.fsf@gmx.ch>
2009-03-18 12:53     ` unicorn Carsten Dominik

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