Re: [tied] Re: Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of ClassicalCivi

On 2006-06-06 21:32, Daniel J. Milton wrote:

> Careful with your certainties!
> Sphynxes were asking riddles and otherwise harassing Greek
> travelers probably before they saw the statues in Egypt.
> "Pyramis" may have had an Egyptian origin -- AHD says probably from
> 'pimar' (but doesn't favor us with translation thereof), whereas L&S
> say "the derivation from Egypt. pr-m-wś 'the height of a pyramid' is
> doubtful".
> However, Greek 'pyramis" is also a kind of cake (of unknown shape).
> The Greeks resolutely pretended not to be impressed by what they saw
> in Egypt. 'Struthio' (= and > Eng. "ostrich") is literally "sparrow",
> and "obelisk" is the diminutive of 'obelos' "skewer", so they might
> well have called the pyramids "Little cakes".
> Dan

See the linked article with plenty of interesting stuff. There's
apparently a fairly good chance that "sphinx" is Ancient Egyptian after
all, though it would be an overstatement to talk about a massive influx
of Egyptian loans into Greek. It was just a trickle.

http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Alley/4482/AEloans.html

Piotr