Re: Pearls before Swine: Medieval wonders come to Los Angeles

On Dec 7, 2:24 pm, "Michael Kuettner" <mik...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
Jack Linthicum schrieb :



On Dec 6, 12:18 pm, "Michael Kuettner" wrote:
Jack Linthicum schrieb :> On Dec 6, 6:35 am, bernardZ wrote:

<snip>

There are other periods of history that have for awhile been given the
name dark ages too eg in China and Ancient Greece but these don't seem
to have stuck.

Greece had Homer and Hesiod to contradict the idea.

Not really.
The Greek "Dark Age" means the time from the fall of Mykene until
Homer and Hesiod.
IOW, the time between Linear-B and Homerian Greek script.

Cheers,

Michael Kuettner

Several works on the invention of the Greek alphabet state it was to
record the works of Homer, therefore the Dark Ages end with Homer but
he is the reason they end. And he records what probably would have
been written, not only in the DAges but before.

Oiweh, the above is wrong on so many accounts that I don't know where to
start.
A few quick notes :
(a) Whether there was a Homer is still disputed
(b) Homer didn't record; he took the frame of a well-known saga to
write his stories
(c) While Hesiod brought us the first theogony, he wasn't a historian.
(d) Let's just say that the "Dark Ages" ended with Hesiod and Herodot
(e) Re invention of the alphabet : Wouldn't you think that a society
needs an alphabet when it reaches a certain level (trade, taxation.etc) ?

I'll gladly discuss this at length, if you're interested.

Cheers,

Michael Kuettner

I think you misunderstood. The alphabet was created to record the
works of Homer, not so he could write his work down. If any part of
the Linear B had lasted into the 8th C BC it was so obviously a bad
medium for recording poetry that the new system was needed. The
Phoenicians had an alphabet, some other people had even bothered to
add vowels to complete the efficacy of using it to write real
literature.

As the second review says "the case as presented here still rests
ultimately more on possibilities and a willingness to believe than on
demonstrable probabilities."


Homer and the Origin of the Greek Alphabet (Paperback)
by Barry B. Powell (Author) $43 for a 306 page book.

Book Description
The purpose of this challenging book is to inquire systematically into
the historical causes that underlay the radical shift from earlier and
less efficient writing systems to the use of alphabetic writing. In
brief: What caused the invention of the Greek alphabet? Who did it,
and why? The author declares his conclusion to be a possibly
surprising one--that a single man, perhaps from the island of Euboea,
invented the Greek alphabet specifically in order to record the Iliad
and the Odyssey of Homer. The predominant view among scholars is that
the Greek alphabet was invented for mundane purposes, such as the
keeping of business accounts, and was only subsequently applied to the
recording of literary documents. Others have advocated that the
alphabet was invented to record literature, but this book is the first
to connect the invention of the alphabet with the recording of Homer.

another review
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/1991/02.05.15.html

Barry B. Powell, Homer and the Origin of the Greek Alphabet.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. xxv, 280. ISBN
0521371570.

Reviewed by Mabel L. Lang, Bryn Mawr College.

Some may question whether making the case for Wade-Gery's 1949
suggestion that the Greek alphabet may have been fashioned explicitly
in order to record hexametric verse is worth doing at all; Powell has
shown in this book that it is worth doing well. Replete with maps,
chronological charts, and a careful review of all possibly relevant
evidence, alphabetical, epigraphical and Homeric, the case as
presented here still rests ultimately more on possibilities and a
willingness to believe than on demonstrable probabilities.

First, in Chapter 1, a survey of what can be known about the creation
of the Greek alphabet from the West Semitic syllabary is seen to
suggest a single Euboian adapter working with a Phoenician informant
about 800 B.C., first learning in their proper order the names and
shapes of the signs and then experimenting with the usefulness of
their phonetic values for the writing of Greek words: converting to
use as vowels those four Semitic signs the names of which, at least,
represent sounds rather than consonants (alf, he, yod, ain) and
splitting off from the consonant wau its vocalic counterpart; and
attempting, with some confusion, to find uses for all four Semitic
sibilants. <more>
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Pearls before Swine: Medieval wonders come to Los Angeles
    ... I've studied Homers' Greek for 4 years. ... Homer and Hesiod. ... Re invention of the alphabet: Wouldn't you think that a society ... to connect the invention of the alphabet with the recording of Homer. ...
    (soc.history.medieval)
  • Re: Pearls before Swine: Medieval wonders come to Los Angeles
    ... I've studied Homers' Greek for 4 years. ... Homer and Hesiod. ... Re invention of the alphabet: Wouldn't you think that a society ... to connect the invention of the alphabet with the recording of Homer. ...
    (soc.history.medieval)
  • Re: How old is the Greek alphabet?
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