Subject: [cybalist] Re: Mitanni, Hurrians, etc.
Mitanni, Hurrians, Subareans
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Hi, Saw this a while ago, Just don't relish the assumptions and insistence
on a "method" much. It penetrates no further than thee written word, which
gets us only so far. Take one example. In an article on Stone age bone
carving Marshack, in the Nat Geo, discusses a carving of a duck sitting on
a clutch of eggs with nearby a snake crawling off with an egg in its mouth,
and added sprigs of grass one supposes. He confesses it cannot say what it
means and calls it a seasonal image.
I've no problem with what it means. In general it is the notion of the
sacrifice, ubiquitous to earth myths etc. No self respecting Mama Duck
would let a snake near her eggs. The sprigs tells us it's spring, if the
eggs did not already. This constitutes the ingredients of a story as one
would expect for a painting. We can abstract several ideas from this.
1: That art distorts and collapses a number of images, experiences, event,
call it what you like together into one.
2: It has the theme, you win sojme you lose some, in other words proverbial
wisdom we still apply today, a universal social constant of sorts out of
which such things as taxes, tithes grew.
3: That its referent is natural experience, as one would expect from a
"primitive" oops lifestyle.
4: There are lots of other such carvings, thus it evokes what we still do
with words and art, that certain ideas are worth repeating which implies a
shared and organised culture.
5: In general this kind of communication is called "magic". After a few
years of thinking it dawned on me that actually it relies on emotional
communication of life as experienced, not as intellectualised.
6: Le Courhan, statisticised about a 100 S.A. caves and found certain
features in common. This goes aganst the grain we falsely are obsessed with,
to focus on detail and focus on the isolate object. It is not a popular way
by which one can re-construct from certain generic features the form of a
culture.
7; We cannot deny that this communicates, even across millenia, such that we
mak ask: how come we focus ONLY on words. We have five senses and each of
those can be used to frame a message. We also have inner senses.
8: I tried to collect samples of stone age geometric or abstract art. Could
not find any, because not printed in Encyclopedics of art for not being art,
nor in language domain because it were not pickled in words. Thus
spcialisation kills off any attempt to understand, even if we only use
Husserlian intentinality, although I'm not much enamoured of phenomenalism
much.
9: it starts all higgledypiggedly but before too long it acquires a
kartouche, mandala, frame, surrounds to point up "this belongs together as
one" Besides the full stop was a circle for a vey long while. Thus what we
get here are the proto ingredients of just what we are looking for should we
be interested in how man shaped and organised communication. If one looks at
enough S.A art a grammar of communication emerges which is geometric, nor as
words have it, the later shift into an algebra for it.
I could carry on for longer, but hope you get the general point. In
short it is OUR preconceptions about what it MUST be to be acceptable proof
and evidence of "what are we after"?
I saw, in Carnac, France, in a dolmen a carved figured of the kind de
Santillana calls Umbaba, not pop in pop encyclopedias. It has a face covered
in a snaky pattern, but the cave drawing had it all over the body. This
presages what we do with pictures on the wall, keeping a sentimental record
of something we cherish or like. Something more is going on than just and
mere "magic". It's a prototype of what later becomes the gods, another one
we may not discuss, should we wish to be academics??
Umbaba
I've just constructed a method which is not used, widely or otherwise, yet
it produces evidence?
Adrian