--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "S.Kalyanaraman" <kalyan97@...> wrote:
> The point I wanted to make was that non-lexical language trees
> should not exclude writing systems
How can a language tree include or exclude a writing system, and what for?
> (such as those on Gundestrup
> cauldron).
There's absolutely nothing on the Gunderstrup cauldron that could be
interpreted as a writing system. There are some ritual scenes there,
and their meaning is rather clear if you know anything about Celtic
culture and religion. There are also some animal motifs betraying
Mediterranean influence: a dolphin, a bull, lions,
[
http://jblstatue.com/gundstrup/gunstrup3.jpg ]
leopards (or something no unlike leopards),
[
http://jblstatue.com/gundstrup/gunstrup4.jpg ]
several gryphons, and a pair of beasts clearly intended to be
elephants (or shall I say "oliphaunts" = elephants as fabulous
monsters). All that is consistent with the hypothesis that the
cauldron, despite its basically La Tene-style Celtic ornamentation,
was made by Thracian artisans.
> It is a cop out to wish away the glyphs on the cauldron
> as lizards, elephants. The question is: what did the artisan who
> made the cauldron call them (parole): lizards, elephants and so on
> depicted with astonishing fidelity
What astonishing fidelity?? The Gundstrup oliphaunts have slender legs
with hoofs like horses, and are spotted all over. They don't look like
elephants drawn by somebody who's ever seen one. It's only their
trunks and tusks (the latter, to be sure, rather like a wild boar's),
that make them identifiable as oliphaunts. And let me repeat that
there's no writing to be seen anywhere, unless you take a risky dose
of ephedra juice before you look at the cauldron.
[
http://jblstatue.com/gundstrup/gundstrup2.jpg ]
> all over the silver (electrum?)
> artifact.
It's gilt silver plate, not electron. And the cauldron was in all
likelihood made somewhere near the Danube ca. 175-150 BC, at least
some 1600 years after the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilisation.
Piotr