Rosetta Stone-Decoding the Demotic Text

Originally posted by Petro Invictus Hey Flipper, I was taught to be sceptical to a point and always take a standpoint of my own. I respect everyone's opinion, but I prefer the facts. Still, facts sometimes are interpreted in different ways. Depending on the need for it, these ways can sometimes reach irrational leves of either opposition or conflict that would just exhaust both sides equally. To the contrary I like you and what you say is just taken out of a blue moon..., however :P Knowledge is now available not just in written record but in the collective memory too. The 100-monkey-concept works on many levels, and you never know when it's gonna reach its top on a certain concept that has been emitted in the colloective grid. All we have to do is be honest and search for the truth, from a human perspective, and define events in the light of human altruism, for the sake of diversity and individual freedoms. You know we had 2 eskimos listed on a cencus some time ago, and it was a real joke in the media. The liberty of democracy is to represent the values you find most appealing. To some it is tradition, to others the 'techno' culture, to me it is Macedonia, in all its multi-dimensional holodecks, through which a stream of consciousness nurishes the womb of Mother Earth. I represent the people of that land, where Mother Earth is celebrated and worshipped. Makedonija! And to me it is a cultural heritage, not a political one. I have always belonged to it, even though I was given the freedom to choose my own beliefs, I chose to believe in Macedonia. Is there something wrong with that? What's wrong with you then?

I like what you say here but unfortunately I don't see you following your words to 100%.

You're sceptical but you don't apply the same scepticism in the things that you want to be true.

Now can you tell me when you cellebrate mother earth? Do you have any Pagan movements related to the religion of the ancient Macedonians? It would be really interresting to hear. You know that in my side, in Drama, they keep Dionyssian traditions during xmas days. If you want we can start a "Pagan" thread.

Remember that I live in a country that might not be officially Hellenic in religion anymore, but there's still a respectfull number of people believing in the ancient gods and keeping the ancient rituals.




Edited by Flipper - 08-Dec-2007 at 09:28

I have been an observer in these forums for some months now and I am impressed with the level of knowledge and in particular the degree of detail that is often discussed in reference to so many obscure aspect of history. I don�t mean to make a personal attack here � but � reading this thread � how do I put it politely? I feel like I have entered some part of the twilight zone.

Flipper has done quite an effective job in demolishing Petro�s contentions � and the views of Tentov and Bosheski that Petro triumphantly wishes to show-case. However, I have met many �Petros� in my travels and I�m afraid that no amount of proof will make any difference. Obvious inroads into a particular argument will have no effect on a zealot defending his case. Clear and valid points scored against his team � and there have been very many here � will never be acknowledged. A zealot simply won�t know when he has been defeated � especially when his views are far too intricately linked to the very core of his identity. And Petro is a teacher? God help the Balkans!

I realise that the point of these forums is to debate ideas relating to history but I don�t see the point of this particular debate continuing further � what is being gained? The so-called �translations� are entirely crude and inelegant, not to mention absurd even in their fundamental premise that the ruling Macedonians must have issued the decree also in their own language in addition to Greek and �Egyptian� and invented a script to carry that language. There is of-course no doubt in the two scientists� mind - and in Petro�s - that the Macedonians had their own language and of-course no discussion as to why the Greek script or a variant was not up to the task of functioning as a vehicle for it despite it being more than adequate in doing so for other languages further a-field. Presumably Greek script would have been too offensive to the sensibilities of the Macedonians as Petro and his people imagine them to have been � imagined, that is, in their own (modern � nationalist � and Slavic) image. At any rate Petro and his people are often forced to defend any obvious sign of �Greekness� within the Macedonians dismissing it as only superficial hellenization and as a natural by-product to the pervasiveness of Greek as a �lingua franca�. The point that seems to escape Petro and his scientists then is that the Greek part of the Rosetta edict would quite comfortably cater to the Macedonian rulers � albeit grudgingly. That the huge bulk of the Egyptian population, for whom hieroglyphics were quite inaccessible, needed also to be reached evidently did not cross their mind. That the translation of Demotic via Coptic two centuries ago has since enabled the successful translation of hieroglyphic texts is likewise irrelevant to these luminaries.

So just imagine this: Academia has for a couple of centuries been served well by the �traditional� decipherment of the demotic script and through it of the hieroglyphics � the whole field of Egyptology greatly hinging on it � but two scientists from Skopje feel compelled to re-visit what they see as a lingering �problem� and present their �discovery� to the world. Whatever might have been their motive one wonders (LOL)?! It is actually quite an insulting and arrogant attitude. In the opinion of the UKIM professors they have succeeded in cracking the code where previous academia had hitherto proved misguided and ineffectual; the whole community had been wrong and had been kidding itself for all this time! The fact is their work, lauded as some sort of �perfect translation� by Petro, is an embarrassing collection of ludicrous musings based on base-less assumptions. It is a pathetic, self-serving construct - a framework geared to yielding the desired results. The puerile and arbitrary reworking of Ptolemy�s name [PTOL E MAIO], presented with no apparent sense of shame, is a barely believable case in point.

Having said the above, I quite hope that Tentov and Boshevski, Petro and all their ilk continue to promote their discovery and to do it loudly and often (although hopefully not in these forums). This will only reveal their true colour before the world and it will constitute yet another item that can be pointed to in order to evidence the way these people think as well as their propensity and capacity to happily distort the truth.

I know there is considerable division within Petro�s homeland with respect to the nature of the Slavic invasion and the ethnogenesis of that state�s people. What never ceases to amaze me is the moronic theory that has apparently taken hold there concerning the arrival of the Slavs in the Balkans � a phenomenon which in keeping with the theory � is considered never to have actually occurred. According to this view, the Slavs were always there, known to you and I as �Macedonians� in ancient texts. The expanse of the Slav-speaking world today is largely a consequence of the Macedonian expansion of old (never mind that there was no such expansion into central and eastern Europe)!

Yet before the sixth century AD there is no sign of the Slavic language in the Balkans � but after that time there is plenty of it. Before that time there are no references to Slavs in the region, and then the sources lament the arrival of the Slavic invaders whether alone or in the company of other marauders. We are told that they have campaigned on such or such an occasion � initially from over the Danube� We are told that they have laid waste and devastated �Roman� lands, that they have laid siege to famed cities swollen with refugees from the provinces (most importantly Salonika � where Petro ludicrously imagines he sees his Slav-�Macedonians� in the Miracula Sancti Demetrii - LOL), that they have slain or displaced the native peoples from here or there that they have taken what was not theirs. We see their relatively crude material remains buried in the graves of their chieftains; and often so within the precincts of ancient temples the significance of which would have escaped them entirely. Where there were no Slavic place names before that point the Balkans fill with them after it. The timing and nature of the Slavs� appearance in the Balkans is as plain as day that even blind Freddy can see it and the evidence so clear and compelling that there is unambiguous unanimity on this point amongst relevant world scholars. With the exception of-course, of the ever-growing lunatic fringe within the FYROM which is becoming ever more mainstream not least through the efforts of such �scholars� as Tentov and Boshevski who have delved into an area they clearly understand only very imperfectly.

The fact is the wider region conventionally talked of as Macedonia, that is, the area incorporating Greek and Bulgarian Macedonia and the FYROM, was always (in historical times) shared and fought over by Greek populations in the south and non-Greek populations further north. This was as much the case in ancient times as it is today. Accordingly, remarks from non-entities such as Shea about the right of (Slav) �Macedonians� to the name by virtue of inhabiting the region for 1400 years is entirely presumptuous at best. It implies that the Slavs of the region were sole inhabitants of the place after their invasion of it in the sixth century AD. This was quite definitely not the case; not least in areas such as Pieria � the northern foothills of Olympus and surrounds � which remained Greek-speaking from the time it formed the core of the ancient Macedonian homeland (from where the Makedones of old burst into history), to this very day. Slavic toponyms there are minimal - although this is less the case for the valley of the Haliakmon - another area central to the ancient Macedonian kingdom � that retained a native Greek-speaking population into modern times. This last area formed the major part of the cantons known as Upper Macedonia inhabited by speakers of North-West Greek who were originally counted as Epirotes before their later political incorporation into the Macedonian kingdom (ie Greek-speakers who readily became constituent members of a Greek-speaking kingdom). It is to such areas that the remnants of the Macedonians receded in the face of the Slavic invasions. Greeks of-course have also inhabited the coastal regions of Macedonia and the Chalcidike peninsula.

Slavs talk of Macedonia as if it was an island with exact boundaries and a precise land area against which they could calculate all sorts of statistics. (Naturally the more northern areas are counted within 'Macedonia' the more Slavs will be counted). They are really just defining nothing more than their �dream frontiers�. In reality the bulk of the central and northern areas of the �conventional Macedonian� region was inhabited by Illyrian and especially Thracian peoples (I include the Paeonians in the latter) who had little to do with ancient Macedonians per se other than to have lost their political independence to them�

Chilbudios may have a point in reference to the Deipnosophists but as always in this debate I find the requirement that we deal only with what is known to be 100% a little too �precious�. Although what remains of the original play may not allow a situation where there is absolutely no doubt, there is still plenty of �circumstantial� evidence that points in the direction Flipper (and I) would have it go. In some ways this echoes the state-of-affairs with respect to the entire corpus of evidence for ancient Macedonian that has thus far been gathered. Taken as a whole, this corpus leads us strongly to anticipate that the Macedonians spoke a North-West variant of Doric tinged with minor Aeolic elements. Such a view would be in keeping (among other things) with the old tradition suggesting that the Makedones at some point left the main core of their Epirotic/NW-Greek-speaking brethren, travelled down the Haliakmon valley to land eventually in their historic home in the northern foothills of Olympus where they were exposed to other influences. The view is also supported by the evidence of extant toponymy and anthroponymy not to mention such concrete linguistic evidence as the Pella Katadesmos. The available evidence has steadily been pushing in that direction and may have finally arrived. Accordingly the dude from a play named after the Macedonians who is speaking in the brogue, must certainly be a Macedonian speaking in a manner that the evidence would lead us to believe he should � even if this is not explicitly stated.

On a side point, I have long held the theory that the Aeolic influence in the otherwise Doric/NW Greek speech of the ancient Makedones could just as easily be attributable to remnant Magnetes � those �siblings� of the Makedones �, as much as to the influence spilling over from Thessaly. Hammond cites the literary evidence and traditions (not readily available to me at the moment) that the Magnetes themselves were at one stage dwelling in Pieria (Greek for rich or �fat� land) before they were displaced southwards by an invading Thracian group to eventually end up in their historic home along the Thessalian coast. Those invading Thracians came to be known as the Pierians (after the land) and lived in the plain between the Pierian mountains and Olympus and the Aegean sea. This was until they were largely destroyed by the Makedones sometime probably in the 6th or 7th century BC. Surviving remnants of the Pierian Thracians were known to have existed in a small area on the Aegean coast at the foot of Mount Pangaion (near the east bank of the Strymon river where it empties into the sea). There is every likelihood that any Magnetes who survived the Thracian invasion of Pieria did so in the foothills of Olympus and the Pierian mountains (remember the Pierian Thracians lived only in the plains when overlooked later by the Makedones from the neighbouring mountains) and were eventually absorbed by the Makedones. As I said � this is just my theory � but I think a quite plausible one.

BigBlackBeast and Vorian, welcome to the forum. You both have an accurate understanding of the dynamics of this topic. Even though one small group tends to cling to weak arguements the rest of the members participating in this discussion have shown adequate knowledge on the subject to refute most all of the adventurous claims. Why isn't this thread closed? Mostly because you all have managed to keep it civil, and along with the fact that one of the regular posters in this thread already has earned a warning to his name.  

I realise that the point of these forums is to debate ideas relating to history but I don’t see the point of this particular debate continuing further … what is being gained? The so-called ‘translations’ are entirely crude and inelegant, not to mention absurd even in their fundamental premise that the ruling Macedonians must have issued the decree also in their own language in addition to Greek and ‘Egyptian’ and invented a script to carry that language.

Your realization is obviously based on a previously constructed theory regarding the Mediterranean history.

The Rosetta stone Demtotic text is the key to gaining a different perspective on the developments in this area at least in the ancient period. You have not even taken a look at it and you dare clasify it as a fraud!

I DO TOO! IT IS A FRAUD! But for God's sake, how did they do it so perfectly to produce a translation, however "crude and inelegant", in SLAVIC sounding language!?!

On the other hand it gives a hint that there might be a whole other perspective on the Macedonian issue in general.

Considering the most recent, not the most distant, historical events regarding Macedonia, which we mentioned here as well, to me it is plausible that there is a huge mystification that needs to be exposed in order to get a clear perspective on the developments in Macedonia, and in the wider community of the time. Since, if ancient Macedonian was of the proto-Slavic group, then we need to examine the histories taught to us in the times of fascism and communism, and distinguish facts from propaganda, on both sides.

Macedonians did not invent the Demotic script. They just took it over from the previous rulers of Egypt, which was the Persians. They have also used the Dempotic script with their language.

We use Latin today with many languages so this context should not be a surprise to any of you.

"Slavs talk of Macedonia as if it was an island with exact boundaries and a precise land area against which they could calculate all sorts of statistics."

Not all the Slavs talk like this (the Polish and Russian and Belarus Slavs do not give a damn about this issue)!

The Greeks on the other hand, having in mind all the demographic changes that took place in Greece since the ancient times, are insanely romantic to claim their genetic link with any of the Hellenic tribes, the linguistic link being there due to the use of Koine as Lingua Franca both in Alexandria and Byzantium. However, Koine became the language of the newly created Greek nation in the 19th cetury so there you are! The ancient Greeks resurrected!!!

The modern Greek drops the T on ΠΤΟΛΕΜΟΣ, that's why you didn't find it. Maia is also a Pleiada Nymph godness, mother of Hermes. Aeschylos has used the term "maia" for addressing Gaia, so that is probably where they confused the meaning of the word. As you can see as a Macedonian I know our religion pretty well. Μαία is the closest you will get to and means midwife/nursing mother.

Polemics and Ptolemy is a totally different thing isn't it?

Maia has been associated with the great Mother Earth!

So what did the professors do wrong, if not poke into your little cofused minds?

Edited by akritas - 09-Dec-2007 at 12:57

Originally posted by Petro Invictus   Since, if ancient Macedonian was of the proto-Slavic group, then we need to examine the histories taught to us in the times of fascism and communism, and distinguish facts from propaganda, on both sides.

If I find a text from a known Greek crazy nationalist who claims that the Greeks originate from Sirius (yes!!) and descended to Earth to fight the Atlanteans bringing three pages of charts and texts would you bother?? And the 'historical' claims others made, (I didn't bother) are supported by the entire scientific community so I guess it's a worldwide conspiracy to destroy Macedonian hisotrical identity.

Oh YES, I would bother! Can I see the source? And I agree with that theory that the Greeks were fighting the Athlanteans. On the other hand Macedonians were defending them! That is what I heard! Opponents since eternity a?   

Wow! So the demotic script was used by the Persians and the Slav-Macedonian rulers of Egypt inherited it and used it to write down their Slavic (or Proto-Slavic as you try to present it so that not everyone will laugh at you) language. Now that is some scientific argument!

Check this out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demotic_(Egyptian)

Demotic is a SCRIPT not a LANGUAGE! But we have already discussed this! Check the first pages of this thread!

http://www.ancientscripts.com/egyptian.html

Originally posted by olvios It is a languageDemotic (from δημοτικά dimotika "popular") refers to either the ancient Egyptian script derived from northern forms of hieratic used in the Delta, or the stage of the Egyptian language following Late Egyptian and preceding Coptic.

No my dear it is a script and Egyptian language was using it for some time.

Language is English, script is Latin. Can you make the difference!