Art in Italy

This is about art in Italy. It is from the book of Alois Riegl’s ”Historical Grammar of the Visual Arts.”

ALDUS MANUTIUS (1449-1515)

The famous “Dolphin and Anchor” device of Aldus appeared for only the second time in the second state of the 1502 Dante, and was used subsequently in all his editions. It is the symbol of the ancient proverb “Festina lente” (Hurry up slowly) which Aldus had taken as a motto as early as 1499, and seems to have regularly expounded to his friends.

A grammarian and humanist, Aldus’ fame is above all connected to his greatness as a typographer and editor. Aldus began his career as a humanist teacher and became known to the most important humanist circles of the time before coming to Venice around 1490. In 1493 Aldus established a printing house together with Andrea Torresani da Asolo. Aldus’ publishing activity, in contrast to the vast majority of printing during the incunable period, was inspired by clear cultural and intellectual goals in addition to economic ones. Founder of the Philhellenic Academy, he contributed in a decisive manner to the study and cultivation of Greek letters inItaly. He himself edited splendid Greek, Latin and vernacular editions,and had other editions prepared for him by the best scholars in these languages.

The revolutionary impact of Aldus’ editions is readily apparent when the elegant portable octavo of his 1502 Dante, printed in beautiful italic type without commentary, is compared to the ponderous incunabula of the previous decade which buried Dante’s text beneath exegetical commentary. Aldus’ editions invited the reader to encounter the classics directly, in an unfiltered state. In addition, the portable format and unencumbered presentation of the text appealed to the expanding public demand for Dante and the vernacular classics. In the cities among the middle classes, and in the courts, vernacular poetry was flourishing among both gentlemen and gentlewomen — giving rise, for the first time in the Italian tradition, to a distinguished group of women poets.

The italic type, which has come to be associated with Aldus’ name more than any other, was first used in an octavo edition of Virgil in 1501. Francesco Griffo, who designed the type for Aldus is said to have imitated the elegant cancelleresco script of the calligrapher Bartolomeo Sanvito. Sanvito reportedly wrote the final page of the Purgatorioin The Newberry library copy displayed in the photo [not yetavailable]. The lavishly illuminated Newberry copy illustrates how even the Aldine octavo might still be treated as a prestigious objet d’art by contemporary bibliophiles.

After studies in Rome and Ferrara, Manutius reached Venice in 1490 and gathered around him a group of Greek scholars and compositors. In March 1495 he issued his first dated book, the Erotemata of Constantine Lascaris. During 1495–98 he printed five volumes of Aristotle; in 1495, the Idylls of Theocritus and De Aetna of Pietro Bembo; and in 1498, works by Aristophanes and Politian. Francesco Griffo, who was his type cutter, was responsible in 1500 for the first italic typeface, first used in the Virgil of 1501. The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499) of Francesco Colonna, with its outstanding woodcuts by an unknown artist, was Manutius’s most famous book. In 1501 he printed Juvenal, Martial, and Petrarch’s Cose volgari; in 1502, works by Gaius Valerius Catullus, Lucan, Thucydides, Sophocles, and Herodotus; and in August 1502, La divina commedia of Dante, which first showed the famous colophon of the Aldine anchor and dolphin. In the Sophocles of 1502 occurred the first mention of the Aldine academy, an organization of scholars founded by Manutius to edit classical texts. Between 1503 and 1514 his production included works by Xenophon, Euripides, Homer, Aesop, Virgil, Desiderius Erasmus, Horace, Pindar, and Plato.

Britannica

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Incunabula

The Latin word incunabulum (plural incunabula, and often anglicized as incunable) literally means cradle, and more loosely refers to the infancy, birthplace or origin of something. It is most often used in reference to early printed books, and in this sense an incunabulum is further defined even more specifically as being a book printed using moveable type prior to the year 1501 AD.

Illuminated Manuscript (c. 1440)

Before the invention of printing using moveable type, books were copied by hand, word for word, letter by letter, by scribes, generally onto parchment or vellum. Obviously, this was an extremely laborious and time-consuming method, and the level of production was minimal — not to mention the potential for errors during transcription. Later, the method of block printing was devised (i.e. in Europe, as this method had been used for centuries in the Orient) wherein the entire text for a page was cut into wood and thus printed, although even this method was rather labour-intensive as well. However, great care was often undertaken in the reproduction of books in both of these ways, and the pages were often subsequently “illuminated” with wonderful illustrations and ornaments. Some of the most beautiful books ever made come from the time before the invention of printing with moveable type, and the first books which were printed using this latter method endeavoured to emulate that beauty and form.

Masterpieces of the Printer’s Art

The art of printing is virtually unique in the human experience in that it emerged fully formed. The works of the pioneering master printers are absolutely breathtaking in their technical and artistic perfection. They set standards for excellence that remained unrivaled until the rise of the modern “art” printing house a century ago; and yet these works are still unequaled, when it is taken into account the laborious, entirely manual processes of their manufacture. The power and the charm of Incunabula are quite as unique as their impact on human history was profound.

Printing was such an immense improvement over the hand copying of books that it caught on immediately and within two generations the art of the illuminated manuscript had become all but extinct. The earliest printers, however, continued many of the traditions of the scribes, making use of textual contractions and elisions to reduce the volume of matter to be printed. In addition many incunabula were designed to be rubricated by hand, that is, to be decorated with flourishing initial letters and other embellishments, done by the now underemployed and presumably discontented scribes. Book illustrations in the Incunabula period were prepared from woodcuts, that is, printed from blocks of wood hand engraved with their subjects by skilled artists and artisans. This form of illustration allows great artistic expression, and the results of this technology are eagerly collected today, and appreciated for what they are, the first commercial art to be available to all people.

Printing Changes the World

There was a flood tide of demand for the new printed books. In the forty five years of the incunabula period tens of thousands of titles were printed, amounting to millions of copies of books on all topics. Now knowledge, the key to power, became available at a tiny fraction of the cost of a handwritten book. This development proved an enormous impetus to literacy, and banished forever the dark days when only a few Church officials and noblemen held the key to deciphering the magic letters of the old parchments. The printed book arrived just as an emerging middle class of tradesman and artisans was rising in social, political, and economic power, further challenging the institutions that had held Europeans in their absolute control for a thousand years. This explosion of knowledge, coupled with the new humanist world view of the Renaissance, swept away the lingering intellectual darkness of Medievalism, and ushered in the centuries of social and technological progress that have made possible the unprecedented prosperity of the modern world.

Where It All Began

Printing began in Mainz, Germany, with Gutenberg, in the 1450’s. After the city was sacked in 1459, many of Gutenberg’s followers removed to Cologne. From there printing spread across Europe with remarkable speed. In 1470 there were fourteen printing houses on the continent; in 1480 there were more than a hundred. From the German states printing moved almost immediately into France and the Italian Kingdoms, then arrived in Holland in 1472, Belgium in 1473, Spain in 1474, finally reaching England in 1477.

How Books Were Originally Sold

A visit to an early printer to buy books was nothing like a modern trip to a book shop. The earliest books lack titlepages and were presented for sale undecorated and unbound. The browser would be greeted by the sight of a display of sample books whose signatures (groups of pages) were loose, just tied together with string, with the author and title of the work on a small attached slip of paper. When the book pages were purchased, the new owner would have them embellished and bound according to his means. Many printers kept an in-house staff of rubricators (also called “rubrishers” in old books) and binders, as well as printers, type-cutters and sometimes paper-makers. Because of this tradition copies of the same work may be found today in the simplest of vellum (sheepskin) bindings with no decoration, or lavishly rubricated in color and even gold leaf, and bound in the most sumptuous tooled and gilt leather, perhaps even fitted with clasps of chased silver.

Incunabula as Collector’s Items

The study and collecting of Incunabula has been actively pursued for centuries. The great majority of these early works have perished over time, victims of hard use and the incessant warfare that scourged Europe. The collecting of individual leaves from defective or incomplete works has been an accepted part of the bibliophile’s world for an equally long period. Leaves from the Gutenberg Bible are of course the ultimate collectible Incunabula leaves and are avidly collected. A bookseller broke a defective copy of this great classic in 1923, marketing the leaves as “A Noble Fragment”, at $300. Today the market value of a Gutenberg Bible leaf is between twenty thousand and thirty five thousand dollars depending on the quality of the rubrication. Fortunately most Incunabula are far less costly, with specimens available for as little as $10. The factors determining an Incunabulum’s collectibility are its appearance, printer, and rarity. The more artistic the piece the greater is the collector demand, and hence its value. Leaves with illustrations and fine decoration are currently collectors’ favorites. Among the more noted printers, works of the great Venetian printer Aldus Manutius are very popular for the superb quality of their style and execution. The prolific Nuremberg printer Anton Koberger produced many works that are highly esteemed today, including the sumptuous Nuremberg Chronicle of 1493, the world’s first fully illustrated printed book. Works by William Caxton, the first to print books in English, are not only superbly executed but are also so rare as to be virtually non-existent in today’s collector market.

Today these leaves are extremely popular for decorating. Housed in suitable mats and frames they remain lovely works of art and the most affordable artifacts from the Renaissance era. The mats in which they may be housed for display should always be made of archival quality materials, to ensure that their contents will remain undamaged.

Preservation

Briefly, the enemies of all old documents are heat, humidity, and sunlight. To maintain their fine condition, they should be kept in a stable storage environment free of excess fluctuation in temperature and humidity. There should limited contact with air and strong light. To accomplish these goals, select a dry, cool place in your home to store your collection. Any room suitable for habitation will generally be satisfactory for the preservation of this material.. Never leave it in the basement or attic, where change of temperature and humidity occur regularly and can cause deterioration.
If you frame your collection, include an ultraviolet filtering screen between them and bright light. Secondly, select only archival quality acid free containers for permanent storage. These can be fairly costly if purchased already made up, but with a little ingenuity, some Mylar, and double-sided adhesive tape, you can make your own custom holders at a considerable savings. Documents maybe treated with acid-neutralizing chemical agents, though it is suggested that amateurs do not attempt this process as the solvents can be harmful and the results erratic.

The World Wide Web is a gold mine of helpful information of all kinds for the collector, archivist, and historical hobbyist. Here are a few suggested links for further information on the care and preservation of collectibles of all kinds.

Source:.Psymon

Historicpages

Book of Kells

The Book of Kells is a stunningly beautiful manuscript containing the Four Gospels. It is Ireland’s most precious medieval artifact, and is generally considered the finest surviving illuminated manuscript to have been produced in medieval Europe. Origins and History: The Book of Kells was probably produced in a monastery on the Isle of Iona, Scotland, to honor Saint Columba in the early 8th century. After a Viking raid the book was moved to Kells, Ireland, sometime in the 9th century. It was stolen in the 11th century, at which time its cover was torn off and it was thrown into a ditch. The cover, which most likely included gold and gems, has never been found, and the book suffered some water damage; but otherwise it is extraordinarily well-preserved. In 1541, at the height of the English Reformation, the book was taken by the Roman Catholic Church for safekeeping. It was returned to Ireland in the 17th century, and Archbishop James Ussher gave it to Trinity College, Dublin, where it resides today. Construction: The Book of Kells was written on vellum (calfskin), which was time-consuming to prepare properly but made for an excellent, smooth writing surface. 680 individual pages (340 folios) have survived, and of them only two lack any form of artistic ornamentation. In addition to incidental character illuminations, there are entire pages that are primarily decoration, including portrait pages, “carpet” pages and partially decorated pages with only a line or so of text. As many as ten different colors were used in the illuminations, some of them rare and expensive dyes that had to be imported from the continent. The workmanship is so fine that some of the details can only be clearly seen with a magnifying glass. Modern Reproduction: In the 1980s a facsimile of the Book of Kells was begun in a project between the Fine Art Facsimile Publisher of Switzerland and Trinity College, Dublin. Faksimile-Verlag Luzern produced more than 1400 copies of the first color reproduction of the manuscript in its entirety. This facsimile, which is so accurate that it reproduces tiny holes in the vellum, allows people to see the extraordinary work which has been so carefully protected at Trinity College.

Source: About.com

Source:Newadvent

Source for Photos

The Secrets of Tomb 10A

The Tomb

In 1915, MFA archaeologists spent a hot summer deep in the Egyptian countryside. They were emptying a tomb.

Strewn about the dark, airless room—sometimes smashed and broken,

sometimes miraculously intact—were hundreds of objects that captured one

man’s hopes about death and the afterlife. Four thousand years before, he had been governor of the province. His name was Djehutynakht.

As he prepared for death, Djehutynakht stocked his tomb with everything the Egyptians believed the dead needed for the next life. The tiny chamber contained a vast collection of tomb goods—arrayed around the extraordinary painted coffins that held the mummified bodies of the governor and his wife.

In 2009, a Belgian team retraced the original excavators’ footsteps in search of further clues. Layer by layer, the site is revealing its secrets.

The Mummy

Click on the picture to see it in motion

<!–Massachusetts General Hospital’s Dr. Rajiv Gupta explains the procedures performed on the mummy.

–>Among the human remains found scattered in the burial chamber was the mummified head of one of Tomb 10A’s occupants, detached from its body by the rough treatment of tomb robbers. We still do not know whether it is Governor or Lady Djehutynakht. DNA analysis of one of the mummy’s teeth is now underway to help answer this question.

Scientists from Massachusetts General Hospital examined the head using medical imaging techniques. This revealed dramatic new information about Egyptian mummification practices; for example, this mummy is one of the earliest to show evidence that embalmers removed the brain through the nose, a process that later became common.

Most intriguing is the skilled removal of several bones around the cheeks. This “surgery” did not help with brain removal, so it may instead relate to the funeral ritual known as the Opening of the Mouth Ceremony. This allowed the deceased to eat, drink, and breathe in the afterlife.

Coffin of Djehutyenakth

Click on the image to see closer the written Hieroglyiphics

The coffin was more than just a container for the body; it was a vessel that guaranteed the spirit passage to the afterlife. The texts and decoration are laid out from the point of view of the mummy. The mummy was placed in the coffin lying on its left side, facing east, the false door, and sacred eyes. All the inscriptions read from head to foot, with the hieroglyphic signs facing in the direction of the mummy’s head in order to make them easier for him or her to read. In this way, the coffin was complete only with the mummy inside it.

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The Story of the Rosetta Stone

The Story of the Rosetta Stone, “Finding a Lost Language”

The following is a chapter from “Ancient Peoples: A Hypertext View” (1997)

Egyptian hieroglyphics had been used by the Egyptians for thousands of years. However, a particularly bleak period of Egyptian history is the conquest of Egypt by Persia. The Egyptians were dominated by Persian intruders. The events that changed the nature of Egypt were not the Persian conquest but rather the war between Persia (the rulers of Egypt) and the united Greek city-states. Greece had originally been united by Philip of Macedon and then ruled effectively by Alexander the Great. Alexander defeated the Persian forces and then took his army to Egypt. There he was welcomed as a conquering hero by the Egyptians because he brought an end to Persian rule. He was made a god by the Egyptians as well as a pharaoh. He, however, had other campaigns to wage and took his army off to the Middle East and the Indus River Valley leaving a regent in charge of Egypt.

After the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, his empire was divided among his three most trusted and powerful generals. The throne of Egypt fell to Ptolemy I, the son of Lagus. Ptolemy took Alexander’s preserved body in a jar filled with honey back to Alexandria. Ptolemy ran Egypt like a business, strictly for profit. . He was welcomed by the Egyptians as part of Alexander the Great’s family. Ptolemy then became the pharaoh, Ptolemy I. By so doing, he set the name standard for the 32nd Dynasty which turned out to be the last of Egypt’s great dynasties. All of his male successors were called Ptolemy and all of his female successors were called Cleopatra.

As we move to the end of this Greek Dynasty, there was increasing involvement with the Roman Empire. The Roman civil war between Caesar and Pompeii indirectly involved Egypt. Pompeii lost this war and turned to Egypt for shelter and young Ptolemy (several generations below Ptolemy I) had him executed and delivered to Caesar. The young Ptolemy, thinking this would ingratiate him with Caesar was totally incorrect. His sister, Cleopatra, who was vying for the throne had other ways of ingratiating herself with Caesar – they had children together. Caesar was unfortunately assassinated while visiting Rome and his empire was divided up between General Marcus Antonious and his adopted son, Octavian. Marcus Antonious was better known as Marc Antony. Marc Antony took rulership of that part of the Empire that contained Egypt and that resulted in his inheriting Cleopatra. They, too, had children. His relationship with Octavian broke down and resulted in a war which Marc Antony lost. Antony was killed and Cleopatra committed suicide. Their male children were executed and their female children were probably married off to local princes. The Egyptian dynastic system was ended and a Roman Governorship was established.

During the Ptolemic dynasty, Egyptian and Greek languages were used simultaneously. During the Roman Governorship only Latin was used and occasionally Greek. Within a hundred years the Egyptian hieroglyphics were no longer used or understood by anyone and even the Roman authors of the time suggested that hieroglyphics was not even a language. In the truest sense this is now a dead language.

Ultimately the Roman Empire fell and the Middle Ages “came about”. Nevertheless, there existed a constant contact between Europe and Egypt such that hieroglyphics were consistently known by the European elite. The reason for this is that medical practices of the Middle Ages resulted in the prescription of bitumen, ground up mummies as a cure for various kinds of diseases. Thus, there was a trade in whole mummies which resulted in examples of hieroglyphics coming into Europe throughout the Dark Ages.

As a result, there were some early attempts at translation of hieroglyphics. In 1633, a Jesuit priest named Anthanasius Kircher, whose specialities were the humanities, science, language and religion translated the word ‘autocrat’ or in Greek ‘autocratur’ into German and did so by substituting ideas for the images. His translation read “the originator of all moisture and all vegetation whose creative forces is brought into this kingdom by the holy mukta” (is this a ‘bureaucrat’?)

The history of the deciphering of the Egyptian hieroglyphics during the 16th and 17th centuries took small steps toward final interpretation. Some scholars thought that the hieroglyphics were the origin of other languages. Some believed that hieroglyphics spelled nothing at all. Yet others believed that the hieroglyphics were an indication of social stratification or social significance.

This speculation would have continued had not a political event interceded. The almost constant warfare between Britain and France resulted in a major change in the understanding of hieroglyphics. The French under Napoleon Bonaparte decided that they could defeat the British by attacking Egypt and subsequently controlling the rich food supply from along the Nile.

In August of 1798, 13 French ships landed near Alexandria at Aboukir Bay in Egypt and marched inland to fight the British near Cairo. The night before the battle, Napoleon exhorted his troops on by saying something like “Soldiers, from the tops of these pyramids, forty centuries are looking down at you.” The French ground forces won the conflict but the British navy, under the command of Lord Horratio Nelson, defeated the French navy. Napoleon believed that he would be in Egypt for only a few months, but he and his men were stranded there for three years with no way to return home. Napoleon had brought with him between nearly 1000 civilians including 167 of whom were scientists, technicians, mathematicians and artists who studied the art, architecture, and culture of Egypt during their “extended vacation.” From 1809-1828, they published a 19-volume work called Description of Egypt. Their observations, drawings and illustrations were circulated throughout Europe and created a tremendous interest in antiquities of Egypt.

The soldiers continued to “dig in” and they reconstructed forts as most soldiers had done during previous centuries by using building stones previously used by earlier peoples. In 1799, while extending a fortress near Rosetta, a small city near Alexandria, a young French officer named Pierre-Francois Bouchard found a block of black basalt stone. It measured three feet nine inches long, two feet four and half inches wide, and eleven inches thick and it contained three distinct bands of writing. The most incomplete was the top band containing hieroglyphics, the middle band was an Egyptian script called Demotic script (he did not know that), and the bottom was ancient Greek (he did recognize the bottom band). This stone was called the Rosetta Stone. He took the stone to the scholars and they realized that it was a royal decree that basically stated that it was to be written in the languages used in Egypt at the time. Scholars began to focus on the Demotic script, the middle band, because it was more complete and it looked more like letters than the pictures in the upper band that were hieroglyphics. It was essentially a shorthand hieroglyphics that had evolved from an earlier shorthand version of Egyptian called Heiratic script.

Material from Egypt was continuously coming into Europe. In order to display their status, the European gentry and nobility normally had some Egyptian relics in their possession, perhaps an art object on a table or if one were quite rich, they might have an obelisk in the front yard of the estate. Material containing hieroglyphics continued to enter Europe at a reasonably accelerated rate.

The first to make any sense of the Demotic script on the Rosetta Stone was a French scholar named Silvestre deSacy. deSacy was an important and skilled French linguist. He identified the symbols which comprised the word ‘Ptolemy’ and ‘Alexander’ thus, establishing a relationship between the symbols and sounds. Johann Akerblad who history records as a Swedish diplomat, looked at the Rosetta Stone with an additional knowledge of Coptic. Coptic was the language used by the Coptic church of Egypt, an early Christian group who preserved the language which was used as early as the 4^th century. Coptic was written with the Greek alphabet but utilizes seven additional symbols from the Demotic script. Akerblad’s knowledge of Coptic allowed him to identify the words for ‘love,’ ‘temple’ and ‘Greek’ thus, making it clear that the Demotic script was not only a phonetic script but it was also translatable.

The earliest translation of the Greek text on the Rosetta Stone into English was done by Reverend Stephen Weston in London in April 1802 before the Society of Antiquaries . About this time, both deSacy and Thomas Young, attempted to decipher the hieroglyphics on the Rosetta Stone. Young was successful in determining that foreign names could not be represented by symbols because symbols are based upon the words used in a given language. Thus, foreign names had to be spelled phonetically. In hieroglyphics there are groups of symbols that are separated from other symbols. These encircled inscriptions are called cartouches. Thomas Young determined that the cartouches were proper names of people who were not Egyptian like the names of Ptolemy and Alexander which in Greek were Ptolemaios and Alexandrus. He successfully deciphered 5 cartouches. His publication on this matter was far reaching.

At this point there is involvement by a young French historian and linguist named Jean-Fracois Champollion. Champollion had mastered many Eastern languages. In 1807, Champollion went to study for two years with noted French linguist Francois Antoine-Isaac Silvestre deSacy. Later in his career, Champollion had compiled a Coptic dictionary and read Thomas Young in 1819. Looking at Young’s writing on the subject of hieroglyphics, he realized that what Young had actually proven was that all of hieroglyphics were phonetic, not just those hieroglyphics that were contained within the cartouches. Utilizing hieroglyphics from an estate at Kingston Lacey in Britain, Champollion correctly identified the names of Cleopatra and Alexandrus and verified Ptolemeus which had previously been identified by Young He published his results and continued his research. In 1822 new inscriptions from a temple at Abu Simbel on the Nile were introduced into Europe and Champollion had correctly identified the name of the pharaoh who had built the temple. That name was ‘Ramses.’ Utilizing his knowledge of Coptic he continued to successfully translate the hieroglyphics opening up an understanding of the Ancient Egyptians.

Ancient Egypt: The Ptolemaic Period

The Ptolemaic period is so-called because at this time Egypt was ruled by a series of kings all named Ptolemy. The period began with the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great. On Alexander’s death in 323 BC his empire was divided among his generals; Egypt fell to one named Ptolemy, who later declared himself king. Greek became the state language and the capital moved to the newly founded Alexandria. This city became one of the most important in the Hellenistic world.

The fusion of existing Egyptian culture and Hellenistic influences was designed to support the new administrative system imposed on the Egyptians and was completely intentional. The Ptolemies tried to stress their desire to support things ‘Egyptian’ and many temples were built during this period. The Egyptian gods, Osiris, Isis and Horus became symbolic of the ideal family but the cult of the goddess Isis was particularly popular, and spread outside Egypt.

Other aspects of art showed the new Hellenistic influence, both in clothing and the more realistic representation of facial features. This can be particularly seen in some of the coffins of the time, which were provided with mummy portraits. Literature flourished, focusing on the Library at Alexandria. It was at this time that Manetho composed his history of Egypt, and the tri-lingual decree was inscribed on the Rosetta Stone.

Source: TheBritishMuseum

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The British Museum: Rosetta Stone

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Türkiye ve Sami Dilleri

TÜRKİYE VE SÂMÎ DİLLERİ

Avram Galanti

Sadeleştirenler: Nurettin Ceviz, Musa Yıldız

Özet: Sâmî dilleri, Sâmî kavimlerin konuştukları dillerdir. Bunlara Doğu dilleri adı da verilir. Bu çalışmada Sâmî dil ailesinden olan Akadca, Kenanca, Aramca, Arapça, İbranice ve Habeşçe dillerinin birbirleriyle olan ilişkileri konu edilmektedir. Ayrıca içinde bulunduğumuz coğrafyada karşılaştırmalı Sâmî dilleri çalışmalarına gereken önemin verilmesini vurgulanmaktadır.

Anahtar Kelimeler: Sâmî Dilleri, Akadca, Kenanca, Aramca, Arapça, İbranice,  Habeşçe.

Turkey and Semitic Languages

Summary: Semitic languages are the languages spoken by Semitic people. They are also called Eastern languages. This study focuses on the relationship between the Semitic languages such as Acadian, Kananian, Aramaic, Arabic, Hebrew, Habachian and emphasizes the necessity of comparative studies on Semitic languages in our country.

Keywords: Semitic Languages, Acadian, Kananian, Aramaic, Arabic, Hebrew, Habashian.

İstanbul Dârü’l-Fünûn’u programına dahil edilmiş ve bugün de öğretilmekte olan “Sâmî Dilleri” Dersi ile adı geçen dillerin doğrudan doğruya Türkiye ile olan alakası hakkında bazı açıklamaların yapılmasının faydalı olacağını umuyorum.

Sâmî dilleri, vaktiyle bunları konuşmuş ve günümüzde de konuşmakta olan Sâmî kavimlerinin dilleridir. Eskiler bu dillerde görülen çeşitli benzerlikler dolayısıyla Doğu dilleri demişlerdir. Fakat Asya milletlerinin dilleri dilbilimsel bir araştırmadan geçirildikten sonra, Doğu dilleri ifadesi genel bir ifade şeklini aldığından sonraki bilginler, başta Tarihçi Schlözer olmak üzere, Doğu dilleri yerine Sâmî dilleri ifadesini kullanmışlardır.

Arapçaya ve ona benzer dillere niçin Sâmî dilleri denilmiştir? Sâmî dilleri deyimi Hz. Nûh’un çocuklarından olan “Sâm”a izafeten verilmiştir. Tevrat’ta Batı Asya’da yaşamış milletlerin isimlerinin bir listesi bulunmaktadır¹. Bu listenin dizilişi etnografik olmaktan çok, coğrafî ve siyasîdir. Çünkü siyasî olarak Âsuristan’a bağlı olan Alamitler ve Lodliler, bahsi geçen listenin “Sâm” şeceresi bölümüne ve benzer şekilde siyasî olarak Mısır ile ilişkileri olan Kenanlılar, “Hâm” şeceresi bölümüne dahil edilmişlerdir.

Hâlbuki Alamitler ile Lodlilerin ne birbirleriyle ne de Âsûrîler ile bir yakınlığı olmadığından hiçbir zaman Sâmî milletlerinden sayılmamışlardır. Bilakis İbrânîler ile yakınlıkları olan Kenanlılar hiçbir zaman Hâmî bir millet değildi².

Sâmî milletleri Asya’nın Güneybatısında bulunan Akdeniz, Toros Dağ Silsilesi, Dicle Nehri ve Arabistan Yarımadasını kuşatan denizlerin arasında bulunan topraklarda yaşamış olan adı geçen milletlerin içinden üç büyük ekol, yani ehl-i kitâb denilen milletlerin en büyük peygamberleri çıkmıştır.

Sâmî milletlerinin birbirleriyle ve dil yönünden olan yakınlıkları miladî X. asırda ortaya çıkmaya başlamıştır. O zaman Yahudî alimlerinden Yehûda b. Kureyş, Arapça ve İbranicenin benzerliğini ispat etmiştir. İbranice ile Arapçanın benzerliği gayet açıktır. Zira eski Yahudî edebiyatının önemli bir kısmı Âramca ile yazılmıştır. XVII. asırda Habeşistan Kilisesinin diliyle uğraşıldığı zamanlar, bu dilin Arapça ile olan yakınlığı gözlenmiştir. XIX. asırda çivi yazısı okunup çözümlendikten sonra, Akadcanın (Âsûr ve Bâbil dili) Sâmî bir dil olduğu ortaya çıkmıştır.

Sâmî milletlerinin yurdu neresidir? Sâmî dilleri bilimi bu soruya kesin bir cevap veremez. Sâmîlerin yurdu ile yurtlarından göç etmelerine dair iki teori vardır:

Birinci teori gereğince, Sâmîler târihî bir zamanda Arabistan’dan çıkmışlarsa da asıl yurtları Mısır idi.

İkinci teoriye göre, Sâmîlerin anayurdu Arabistan idi. Fakat adı geçen bölgenin karşı karşıya kaldığı bölgesel değişiklik yüzünden, oradan göç etmeye mecbur olmuşlardır. Yemen’in karşı sahiline geçen Habeşlilerden başka diğer Sâmî milletleri de Kuzeye doğru gitmişlerdir³.

Bu iki teorinin doğruluğu hakkında uzun uzadıya tartışılmış ve şimdilik ikinci teori kabule değer bulunmuştur.

Sâmî dillerinin ana dili asıl Sâmicedir. Bugün bu dilden iz kalmamıştır. Sâmî dilleri aşağıdaki gruplara ayrılır:

1. grup: Akadca
2. grup: Kenanca
3. grup: Âramca
4. grup: Güney Arapçası ve Habeşçe
5. grup: Kuzey Arapçası.

Grupların bu oluşumu sonradan düzenlenmiş değildir; tarihî oluşumun yansımasıdır. Düzenleme, Sâmî dillerine dair elde edilmiş belgelerin eskiliği esas alınarak yapılmıştır. Meselâ Akadcada kazınmış veya yazılmış kitabelerin tarihleri, Kenancada kazınmış veya yazılmış kitabelerin tarihlerinden daha eski olduğundan, eskilik yönünden Akadca birinci grubu oluşturur. Diğer grupların oluşumu hakkında aynı görüşler vardır.

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Greek Creation Myths by Daphne Elliott

In the beginning, Chaos, an amorphous, gaping void encompassing the entire universe, and surrounded by an unending stream of water ruled by the god Oceanus, was the domain of a goddess named Eurynome, which means “far-ruling” or “wide-wandering”.

She was the Goddess of All Things, and desired to make order out of the Chaos. By coupling with a huge and powerful snake, Ophion, or as some legends say, coupling with the North Wind, she gave birth to Eros, god of Love, also known as Protagonus, the “firstborn”.

Eurynome separated the sky from the sea by dancing on the waves of Oceanus. In this manner, she created great lands upon which she might wander, a veritable universe, populating it with exotic creatures such as Nymphs, Furies, and Charites as well as with countless beasts and monsters.

Also born out of Chaos were Gaia, called Earth, or Mother Earth, and Uranus, the embodiment of the Sky and the Heavens, as well as Tartarus, god of the sunless and terrible region beneath Gaia, the Earth.

Gaia and Uranus married and gave birth to the Titans, a race of formidable giants, which included a particularly wily giant named Cronus.

In what has become one of the recurrent themes of Greek Mythology, Gaia and Uranus warned Cronus that a son of his would one day overpower him. Cronus therefore swallowed his numerous children by his wife Rhea, to keep that forecast from taking place.

This angered Gaia greatly, so when the youngest son, Zeus, was born, Gaia took a stone, wrapped it in swaddling clothes and offered it to Cronus to swallow. This satisfied Cronus, and Gaia was able to spirit the baby Zeus away to be raised in Crete, far from his grasping father.

In due course, Zeus grew up, came homeward, and got into immediate conflict with the tyrant Cronus, who did not know that this newcomer was his own son. Zeus needed his brothers and sisters help in slaying the tyrant, and Metis, Zeus’s first wife, found a way of administering an emetic to Cronus, who then threw up his five previous children, who were Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon. Together they went to battle against their father. The results were that all of his children, led by Zeus, vanquished Cronus forever into Tartarus’ domain, the Dark World under the Earth.

Thus, Zeus triumphed over not only his father, and his father’s family of Giants, he triumphed over his brothers and sisters as well, dividing up the universe as he fancied, in short, bringing order out of Chaos.

He made himself Supreme God over all, creating a great and beautiful place for his favored gods to live, on Mount Olympus, in Thessaly. All the others were left to fend for themselves in lands below Mount Olympus.

Zeus made himself God of the Sky and all its phenomena, including the clouds as well as the thunderbolts. Hestia became goddess of the Hearth. To his brother Poseidon, he gave the rule of the Sea. Demeter became a goddess of Fertility, Hera (before she married Zeus and became a jealous wife), was goddess of Marriage and Childbirth, while Hades, one of his other brothers, was made god of the Underworld.

Zeus did indeed bring order out of Chaos, but one of his failings was that he did not look kindly upon the people, those creatures that populated the lands over which he reigned. Many were not beautiful, and Zeus had contempt for anyone who was not beautiful. And of course they were not immortal, as the Olympian gods were, and they complained about the lack of good food and the everlasting cold nights. Zeus ignored their complaints, while he and the other gods feasted endlessly on steaming hot game from the surrounding forests, and had great crackling fires in every room of their palaces where they lived in the cold winter.

Enter Prometheus, one of the Titans not vanquished in the war between Zeus and the giants. It is said in many myths that Prometheus had created d a race of people from clay, or that he had combined specks of every living creature, molded them together, and produced a new race, The Common Man. At the very least he was their champion before Zeus.

Fire for cooking and heating was reserved only for the gods to enjoy. Prometheus stole some of the sparks of a glowing fire from the Olympians, so that the people below Olympus could have fire for cooking and warmth in the winter, thus greatly improving their lot in life.

Zeus was furious at this insult to his absolute power, and had Prometheus bound and chained to a mountain, sending an eagle to attack him daily.

Adding insult to injury, Zeus had his fellow Olympian, Hephaestus, fashion a wicked but beautiful creature to torment Prometheus. It was a woman, whom they named Pandora, which means “all gifts”. She was given a precious and beautiful box, which she was told not to open, but curiosity got the better of her, and out flew “all the evils that plague men.” The only “gift” that stayed in the box was “Hope”.

So, from “far-ruling” Eurynome to the creation of the Common Man, Greek creation myths are inextricably filled with difficulties, though often ameliorated by the gift of Hope. A myriad of other myths tell of the joys and adventures of great heroes and heroines, other gods and goddesses, as well as fantastic creatures from all parts of ancient Greece.

Greek&Roman Gods

The Twelve Gods

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Another easier article of same subject

Chinese Ceramics History

Neolithic Era

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Neolithic Ceramics

6000 – 1000 B.C.

The first ceramics produced in China around ten or eleven thousand years ago were utilitarian wares and this early role for basic pottery has never diminished. However, long before the Bronze Age (ca. 1000 B.C.), fanciful thin-walled, painted, and burnished earthenwares, some of intricate shapes were being used as ritual vessels in various Neolithic cultures located along the Yellow and Yangtze river valleys. Some of these regional cultures include Ta-ti-wan (6000 B.C.), Pan-po (ca. 5000 B.C.), Miao-ti-kou (4000-3000 B.C.), Ma-jia-yao/Yang-shao (4000-2000 B.C.) Lung shan (3000-2000 B.C.) and Ta-wen-kou (4500-3500 B.C.).

Mostly hand built, these red, grey, and black wares often reveal a craftsmanship and beauty exceptional for their age. Once the crafting of bronze, lacquer and precious metals were mastered, the ritual status afforded ceramics declined and ceramic shapes began to imitate those

of metal almost as soon as the latter appeared.

3000 – 1500 B.C.

The earliest known Chinese Stone Age culture was the relatively sophisticated Yang-shao, whose people lived in rudimentary settlements and hunted for game with carved stone spears. The succeeding and more advanced Lung-shan culture identified the social status of the deceased by the type and number of precious jade objects and ceramics in their burial mounds. Chinese Neolithic pottery, both delicate and durable, was artfully decorated and served both practical and ritual purposes.

Bronze Age Ceramics
1766-221 B.C.

Storage Jar

Pottery making during the Bronze Age Shang (ca. 1766-1122 B.C.) and Chou (1122-221 B.C.) dynasties was a large-scale handicraft industry with a marked division of labor. During Shang, several types of ware, such as gray ware, were created, which continued the traditions from the Neolithic Period while the traditions of painted earthenware nearly disappeared entirely.

The earliest high-fired glazes were achieved during late Shang. Surviving examples display a glaze with a brownish ash tinge. These are the forerunners of Yueh ware, a large family of early green wares known as celadon. Also important was the relationship between the bronze industry and ceramics. Throughout the Shang and Chou dynasties, expensive ritual bronze vessels and bells were carefully imitated in less expensive clay. These replica vessels were apparently made for burial only and they reflect a wide variety of bronze shapes and decorative styles. By late Chou, the use of molds and stamped decoration suggests a clear division of labor quality control and assembly line processes necessary for the mass production of ceramics.

Yueh Ware
5th century B.C. – A.D. 10th century

The Han Empire was followed by four centuries of political disunity—generally termed the Six Dynasties (220 – 589). This was the era when Buddhism began its ascendancy and the economy of the Yangtze River Valley caught up with that of the Yellow River Valley to the north. Celadon glazed porcelaineous stoneware termed Yueh ware began to occupy an ever-increasing role in daily life, Buddhist rituals, and burials.

Yueh refers to all southern high-fired celadon wares dating from as early as the Warring States period (480 – 221 B.C.) to the early Sung dynasty (10th century). Celadon is a descriptive term used primarily in the West to describe green glaze porcelaineous wares. Produced with iron oxide as the coloring agent and fired in a reduction atmosphere over 1200oC, Yueh celadon in fact can range from yellow to grey-green, olive, blue, or blue-green, depending on its glaze compound and conditions of firing. Yueh undoubtedly dominated ceramic production during the Six Dynasties period and much of it was produced in the ancient Wu-Yueh district in Chekiang province.

T’ang Ceramic Innovations
618-906

The T’ang dynasty is famous for its energetically modeled and brightly colored tomb figurines. Made from low-fired earthenware and intended exclusively for burial, these charming horses, camels, and civil officials have become immensely popular. In their own day, however, they were neither in the forefront of ceramic technology nor highly regarded by collectors or connoisseurs.

It was in the making of functional ceramics for daily use and export that T’ang potters achieved their greatest technical innovations and artistic refinements. They invented porcelain, underglaze painted décor, phosphatic glazes, perfected high-fired celadon, and experimented with cobalt blue glazes. Their interest in single color wares, especially white ware, brown ware, celadon, and cobalt blue laid the groundwork for Sung (960-1279) taste in monochrome glazes, refined ceramic shapes, and splashed brown and black wares.

Of the innovations shown here, the inventions of porcelain, underglaze painted décor, splashed black ware, and monochrome glazes had a tremendous effect on subsequent dynasties and influenced ceramic styles throughout the world.

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Cuneiform, Çivi Yazısı

Cuneiform was the system of writing used most extensively in the ancient Middle East. Cuneiform was employed for writing a number of languages from about the end of the 4th millennium BC until about the 1st century BC.

The most widely used and historically significant writing system of the ancient Middle East was called cuneiform. The term is from the Latin, meaning “wedge-shaped.” The writing system was in use at least by the end of the 4th millennium BC, and during the 3rd millennium the pictures that it used became fairly standardized linear drawings. Because they were pressed into soft clay tablets with the slanted edge of a stylus, they came to have a wedge-shaped appearance.

Cuneiform was not a language. It was, like Egyptian hieroglyphics and the Chinese system of ideographs, or ideograms, a picture-writing system that used symbols. As the symbols gained acceptance throughout the Middle East, they could be understood by all ethnic groups even though the groups spoke different languages and dialects.

The earliest known documents in cuneiform were written by the Sumerians of southern Mesopotamia, who assigned their own word-sounds to the symbols. Later, the Akkadians adopted the symbols but pronounced them as corresponding Akkadian words. Cuneiform thus passed successively from one people to another. The Akkadians were succeeded by the Babylonians, and they by the Assyrians.

The expansion of cuneiform writing outside Mesopotamia began during the 3rd millennium BC, when the country of Elam, in what is now southwestern Iran, adopted the system. The Hurrians of northern Mesopotamia adopted Akkadian cuneiform in about 2000 BC and passed it to the Hittites, who had invaded Asia Minor about that time. In the 2nd millennium cuneiform became the universal medium of written communication among the nations of the Middle East.

The Assyrian and Babylonian empires fell in the 7th and 6th centuries BC. By this time Aramaic was becoming the common language of the area, and Phoenician script came into general use. Cuneiform was used less and less, though many priests and scholars kept the writing form alive until the 1st century AD. Cuneiform owes its disappearance largely to the fact that it was a non-alphabetic way of writing. It could not compete successfully with the alphabetic systems being developed by the Phoenicians, Israelites, Greeks, and other peoples of the Mediterranean.

Downloadable cuneiform

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Çivi Yazısı Tabletler, Mezopotamya: Sümer, Babil, Hammurabi Kanunları ve En Eski Aşk Şiiri, İstanbul Arkeoloji Müzesi

Çiviyazısı MÖ 4.bin yılının sonlarında Mezopotamya’da yaşayan Sümerler tarafından bulunmuştur. Önceleri resim yazısı şeklinde somut kavramları anlatmaya yarayan bu yazı zamanla basitleştirilerek hece ve ideogramları yani kelimeleri kapsayan çiviyazısı halini almıştır. Bu yazıya, çivi şekline benzetildiğinden 19.yüzyıl dil bilginleri tarafından ‘çiviyazısı’ adı verilmiştir.

Çiviyazısı genellikle çeşitli şekiller verilmiş çamur halindeki kil üzerine kamış kalemlerle yazılıyordu. Kilden başka çeşitli taşlar, sayıları az da olsa gümüş, altın ve bronz üzerine yazılmış belgeler de bulunmaktadır.

Dünyanın en zengin koleksiyonlarından birine sahip olan müzemiz çiviyazılı belgeler arşivinden örnek olarak teşhirde bulunan tabletler arasında en eski yazıya örnek, lagaş kralı uru-ka-gi-na reformu, en küçük tablete örnek, hammurabi kanunu, atasözleri kitabı, zehirlenmeye karşı reçeteler ve en eski aşk şiiri verilebilir.

Hammurabi Kanunu Eski Babil sülalesinin 11 kralından altıncısı, 43 yıl saltanatta kalmış olan Hammurabi tarafından düzenlenmiştir. Kanunun orijinali 2.23 m boyunda diyorit bir stel üzerine yazılmış ve Susa kazılarından Louvre Müzesine götürülmüştür. Kanun 282 madde ve 3 bölümdür. Sergilenmekte olan bu metin Eski Babil döneminde okullarda okutulmak ve mahkemelerde kullanılmak için tabletler üzerinde kopya edilenlerdir ve Nippur’da bulunmuştur.

En eski aşk şiiri ise kutsal evliliği anlatan bir ilahidir. Bahar şenliklerinde bayram kutlama şarkısı olarak söylenen şiir Sümer inancına göre bereketi sağlamak amacıyla kralın, tanrıça Inanna’yı temsilen bir rahibe ile evlenmesi seremonisine eşlik etme için söyleniyordu.

(Kaynak: İstanbul Arkeoloji Müzesi)

Kaynak:Boltart