Cutting edge calligraphy
This is a truly impressive form of calligraphy, the likes of which I've never seen before:
What won't they think of next as means for writing sinographs?
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Archive for Language and art
Iranians in medieval Scotland
This post doesn't cite any Iranian language materials directly, but I dare say that Iranian speakers were involved in the transmission of this large hoard from western Central Asia more than a thousand miles distant and were present in the British Isles during the first millennium AD.
"Amazing’ Viking-age treasure travelled half the world to Scotland, analysis finds", by Dalya Alberge, The Guardian (Sun 1 Sep 2024)
Lidded vessel is star object in rich Galloway Hoard and came from silver mine in what is now Iran
Mesopotamian seals and the birth of writing
New article in Antiquity (05 November 2024): "Seals and signs: tracing the origins of writing in ancient South-west Asia", by Kathryn Kelley, Mattia Cartolano, and Silvia Ferrara
Abstract
Administrative innovations in South-west Asia during the fourth millennium BC, including the cylinder seals that were rolled on the earliest clay tablets, laid the foundations for proto-cuneiform script, one of the first writing systems. Seals were rich in iconography, but little research has focused on the potential influence of specific motifs on the development of the sign-based proto-cuneiform script. Here, the authors identify symbolic precursors to fundamental proto-cuneiform signs among late pre-literate seal motifs that describe the transportation of vessels and textiles, highlighting the synergy of early systems of clay-based communication.
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Sino-Persian chimera
We've been on the trail of the griffin for some time: "Griffins: the implications of art history for language spread" (8/9/24), "Idle thoughts upon the Ides of March: the feathered man" (3/11/23) — very important (not so idle) observations about griffins in the pre-Classical West by Adrienne Mayor, with illuminating illustrations. Following the leads in these and other posts, I think we're getting closer to the smoking gryphon (in some traditions, e.g., Egyptian sfr/srf, it is thought to be fiery).
One name from the Middle East rings a bell with a well-known fabulous monster from classical China. That is
…the Armenian term Paskuč (Armenian: պասկուչ) that had been used to translate Greek gryp 'griffin' in the Septuagint, which H. P. Schmidt characterized as the counterpart of the simurgh. However, the cognate term Baškuč (glossed as 'griffin') also occurs in Middle Persian, attested in the Zoroastrian cosmological text Bundahishn XXIV (supposedly distinguishable from Sēnmurw which also appears in the same text). Middle Persian Paškuč is also attested in Manichaean magical texts (Manichaean Middle Persian: pškwc), and this must have meant a "griffin or a monster like a griffin" according to W. B. Henning.
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Middle Vernacular Sinitic culture
Sino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-fifty-third issue: "Speaking and Writing: Studies in Vernacular Aspects of Middle Period Chinese Culture" (pdf), edited by Victor H. Mair (August, 2024).
Foreword
The three papers in this collection were written for my seminar on Middle Vernacular Sinitic (MVS). They cover a wide variety of topics, from epistolary style to social mores, to philosophy and religion. They reveal how a vernacular ethos informs the thought and life of men and women from different social classes and distinguishes them from those who adhere to a more strictly classical outlook. Although they are on quite dissimilar subjects, this trio of papers harmonize in their delineation of the implications of vernacularity for belief and perception. Taken together, they compel one to consider seriously what causes some people to tilt more to the vernacular side and others to cling to classicism. While the authors of these papers do not aim to arrive at a common conclusion on the meaning of the vernacular-classical divide, the readers who probe beneath the surface of all three papers will undoubtedly find facets that refract and reflect themes that bind them into a unified body of inquiry.
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Griffins: the implications of art history for language spread
A Language Log reader asked:
I’m curious, do griffin motifs (creatures with four legs but beak) appear in China at a known date? do you think the imagery dispersed from the East, i.e., from Scythia and Asia westward to the Mediterranean or vice versa, from the West to the East?
Since we have often discussed language spreads of the Scythians and other nomadic groups of Central, Inner, and Southwest Asia, I believe it is a worthy topic to pursue the transmission of art motifs associated with these groups across the Eurasian expanse. Consequently, I asked Petya Andreeva, who is a specialist on this type of nomadic art, what her response to this question would be. She replied (note especially the last two sentences):
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Text trumps art
On a visit to the British Museum last week, Zihan Guo spotted this captivating relief in the Assyrian collection. You may not be able to see it upon first glance, but she was especially transfixed by the inscription running midriff on the eagle-head figure:
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Respect the local pronunciation: runza and Henri
After I left Omaha and headed westward on Route 30 / Lincoln Highway, I began to notice that every little town along the way with a population of around three thousand or more had a restaurant called Runza. My instinct was to pronounce that "roon-zuh", but the people around here say "run-zuh".
Because I was not familiar with them, at first I didn't pay much attention to the Runza restaurants, but then I saw a sign that said they made legendary burgers. Since I'm a burger freak, always in quest of a superior hamburger, by the time I reached Cozad — which somehow has captured my heart, for more than one reason — I decided to stop in and try one.
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A Kuchean shift in terminology from Indo-Iranian to Tocharian
Sino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-forty-eighth issue:
"A Historical Perspective on the Central Asian Kingdom of Kucha," by Angela F. Howard.
http://www.sino-platonic.org/complete/spp348_kucha.pdf
ABSTRACT
The article reexamines the dating of the earliest Buddhist cave paintings in the ancient Kingdom of Kucha, which was located in what is now Xinjiang, paying particular attention to the site of Kizil. Based on multiple Carbon-14 results spanning thirty years, historical and religious documents, and the author’s in situ research, the dating proposed is earlier than the traditional one, considered to be circa 500 AD. The latter was formulated, close to a century ago, by the scholar-explorer Ernst Waldschmidt on the basis of the “Indo-Iranian” style and is still used in art historical literature. Relying especially on Kucha’s comprehensive history, this paper suggests that the earliest cave paintings might have been coeval with the flourishing of Buddhism in Kucha during the fourth century. Given the centrality of the Tocharian language to the Sarvāstivādin Buddhist school associated with Kucha’s monasteries and the relative stylistic independence of Kucha from India, the author recommends adopting the term “Tocharian style” rather than “Indo-Iranian style” to describe artistic production in Kucha prior to the Tang.
Keywords: Tocharian, Central Asia, Caves
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To view our catalog, visit http://www.sino-platonic.org/
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Roman dodecahedra between Southeast Asia and England, part 5
Spotted on the counter for tea/coffee service at the Residence Inn in Omaha, Nebraska:
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Sinicization of language and culture (architecture in particular)
Before and after the recently completed sinicization of the Grand Mosque of Shadian, Yunnan, in southwest China:
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Planet power, plus dinosaurs and dragons: myth and reality of heaven and earth
Given that we've been discussing astronomy / astrology and their relationship to the alphabet so intensely in recent weeks, I'm pleased to announce this important conference that is about to be convened: “The Power of the Planets: The Social History of Astral Sciences Between East and West”, May 20–21, 2024, Dipartimento di Beni Culturali – Università di Bologna (Ravenna, Italy).
I warmly recommend that you take a close look at the header images of two objects in The Cleveland Museum of Art: Mirror with a Coiling Dragon, China, Tang Dynasty 618-907 (https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1995.367), Drachma – Sasanian, Iran, reign of Hormizd II, 4th century (https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1966.738).
The quality of the photographs is extraordinarily fine and detailed. Using the zoom and expand functions, you can see things not clearly visible to the naked eye. Especially noteworthy is the jagged dorsal fin / frill / spine that runs along the back of the dragon on the Tang mirror and is a conspicuous counterpart of many species of dinosaurs.
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Shoebox skull: an old neologism
"Bones from German cave rewrite early history of Homo sapiens in Europe", by Will Dunham, Reuters (1/31/24)
Bone fragments unearthed in a cave in central Germany show that our species ventured into Europe's cold higher latitudes more than 45,000 years ago – much earlier than previously known – in a finding that rewrites the early history of Homo sapiens on a continent still inhabited then by our cousins the Neanderthals.
Scientists said on Wednesday they identified through ancient DNA 13 Homo sapiens skeletal remains in Ilsenhöhle cave, situated below a medieval hilltop castle in the German town of Ranis. The bones were determined to be up to 47,500 years old. Until now, the oldest Homo sapiens remains from northern central and northwestern Europe were about 40,000 years old.
"These fragments are directly dated by radiocarbon and yielded well preserved DNA of Homo sapiens," said paleoanthropologist and research leader Jean-Jacques Hublin of Collège de France in Paris.
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