Things ancient we might not know

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(note Ann’s poem, I remember your eyes, was so moving I didn’t want to put this item on the thread). This is about jibs and spinnakers used eons ago when they personified events in the names of their gods.

The Pyramid Texts (c2500 B.C.) are those 4000 lines of hieroglyphics found in the pyramids of Saqqara, Egypt whose form was deciphered by Jean Francois Champollion using the Rosetta Stone, c 1821-22. They were translated into English by the late Dr. R. O. Faulkner, former leading British authority on Egyptian hieroglyphic antiquities (for the British Museum) and published under the title, The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts
http://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Egyptian-Pyramid-Texts-Writings/dp/1589831829

Ann’s poem, I remember your eyes, caused me to recall a passage from the Pyramid Texts that reads this way ::

(§1256) :: Isis comes and Nephthys comes, one of them from the west and one of them from the east, one of them as a screecher one of them as a kite

Ancient mariners sailed west with the wind (using a spinnaker) - and they sailed east against the wind (using a jib, or kite). The screecher refers to a spinnaker which makes a strange screeching sound as it moves about.
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James
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I recently wrote a story about my ancestors crossing the Atlantic during the early 19th century. So much of their route was determined by prevailing winds and currents.

I love the way words were used by early sailors. There is a story about how the term schooner came into being (my great-great grandfather built the schooner his family sailed from Ireland to Florida). It seems, after the first Scots shipwright built one, somebody watching said, "See how she schoons," scoon being a word for something like skipping a stone over the top of the water. My first sailing experience came when my ex and I were dating. He had a Flying Scot - a daysailer that could plane on a reach. It was the same sort of effect, and greatly increased speed, as the boat would just skim across the surface of the water. Anyway, back to the story, the builder of that ship is supposed to have said, "Ah, then. A schooner shall she be."

Anyone know where the term "spinnaker" came from? I've posted this picture of that Flying Scot before, to show what it looks like:


The spinnaker is the red and white sail out front. the jib is the smaller triangular sail. I've seen sketches that show how a jib or mainsail could be positioned so that the force of a wind coming from in front of the boat , working with the forward momentum caused by the keel or centerboard, forces the boat to move against the wind direction. It can work, if I remember correctly, so long as there is at least a 45 degree angle:

http://www.docklandsailingschool.com.au/images/Tacking_000.jpg



James, thanks for the comments. I'm still not sure I see your connections, other than from a general sense that there isn't much that is new, and that what we call ancient cultures were, in many ways, not so different from our own. there are interconnections and synchronicities everywhere. Where we can get into trouble is in our interpretations of what the connections mean today.

Ann

Ann,

What a fascinating explanation! I love your knowledge, poetry and general all-around good sense.

Alice, what I think is more important is your ability to get right to the root of things, whatever the subject, and your intelligent questions.

It is sooo good to have you back and healthy again.

Ann

Ann,

Thank you so much. I am very grateful for all of the wonderful support and prayers from you folks here--they worked.


Thank God and you.

The Cerne Abbas Giant as I see it from years of research

Cerne Abbas is a small market-town in the valley of the River Cerne where it is nestled between steep chalk downland in the subdivision of Cerne, and hundred of Cerne, Totcombe and Modbury; in the county Dorset, 120 miles SW of London.

The town gets its name from the Benedictine Abbey of Cerne which was founded in 987 AD by St. Augustine of Canterbury. In 1539 the abbey was largely destroyed under the orders of an edict from King Henry VIII who had called for the dissolution of the monastic orders across England. Four hundred years prior - the Abbey housed an order that followed the ancient Egyptian religion. It was this order, and the Templars, who formed the Cerne Abbas Giant by the removal of the thin soil overlay to expose the chalk below.

The Giant is not a single figure. Rather it is like a puzzle that can be taken apart, or put together. Nor is it the first of its kind, as each part finds a defining paragraph in The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts. Why the Giant was formed, and why there, relates to the story of the monks who occupied the Abbey of Cerne. In first mentioning it, I followed tradition in calling them Benedictine. I don’t believe they were, as I believe them to be Cistercian and the Abby housed an order of the Templars.

The Giant in my opinion (being Egyptian) was used to initiate the elite into the Order
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James
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