(no subject)

--- In cybalist@..., "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

>
> I found an interesting book The Crystal Sun by Robert Temple on

finds

> of ancient lenses and of glass and rock crystal spheres used as
> magnifying glasses and for illuminating text and other minute work.
>
> It seems the ancient view of the sun was that it was a body fixed

on

> the outmost sphere (or heaven), not producing, but concentrating

the

> light of the universal fire beyond that sphere, in other words a

type

> of crystal sphere.
>
> Herodotus uses 'hyalos' for "rock crystal" (III, 24). According to
> Temple, Paul Jablonsky (Opuscula, 1804) believed the word to be of
> Egyptian origin. But I thought I recognized *sH2w-l/n- "sun" (>

*swal-

> o-?) ?
>

Temple doesn't mention it. but I thought the idea of the sun as
transparent refractory body would occur to anybody who'd dissected an
eye (vitreous body), as any sacerdos might have.

Therefore: "eye of the sun", an idea which occurs also in, well never
mind. But if 'hyalos' is indeed IE, that would point some IA, not
Iranian, l-dialect, so there the trail points east.

>
> Torsten