4 ms·

The Modern Lives of Ancient Symbols

21 points by new_guy 6y ago

IncRnd 6y ago
It was tens of thousands of years ago when drawings were made on cave walls. Did you know that "After examining dozens of Ice Age cave sites across Europe, paleoarchaeologist Genevieve von Petzinger discovered our ancestors repeatedly used 32 signs." [1] "That fits well with the discovery of a 70,000-year-old block of ochre etched with cross-hatching in Blombos cave in South Africa. And when von Petzinger looked through archaeology papers for mentions or illustrations of symbols in cave art outside Europe, she found that many of her 32 signs were used around the world (see “Consistent doodles”). There is even tantalising evidence that an earlier human, Homo erectus, deliberately etched a zigzag on a shell on Java some 500,000 years ago. “The ability of humans to produce a system of signs is clearly not something that starts 40,000 years ago. This capacity goes back at least 100,000 years,” says Francesco d’Errico from the University of Bordeaux, France." [2] [1] https://ideas.ted.com/what-the-mysterious-symbols-made-by-early-humans-can-teach-us-about-how-we-evolved/ https://ideas.ted.com/what-the-mysterious-symbols-made-by-ea... [2] https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23230990-700-in-search-of-the-very-first-coded-symbols/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23230990-700-in-searc...
- lostlogin 6y ago
  > That fits well with the discovery of a 70,000-year-old block of ochre etched with cross-hatching in Blombos cave in South Africa. I did a hopeful check to see if it was a hashtag. It was.
SarikayaKomzin 6y ago
I was standing in Magic Kingdom at Disney World in Orlando about a year ago and had a very similar thought: If alien archeologists ever came to a post-human Earth, they might discover the ruins of Disney World and mistake it for our temples. A tribute to a pantheon of gods. I guess it sort of _is that_ in a way, ha.
- clojurenoob 6y ago
  Even more so if they could see the worship games we play in front of our own personal, illuminated alters.
082349872349872 6y ago
Besides colour schemes for national flags https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24257599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24257599 another way to guess ages is when regional flags' symbolism rampantly incorporate flagrantly male charges. Contrast https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drapeau_de_la_Californie#/media/Fichier:Flag_of_California.svg https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drapeau_de_la_Californie#/medi... with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_Bern#/media/File:Berne-coat_of_arms.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_Bern#/media/Fi... or even https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drapeau_et_armoiries_du_canton_de_Schaffhouse#/media/Fichier:Wappen_Schaffhausen_matt.svg https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drapeau_et_armoiries_du_canton... etc.
sriku 6y ago
Is "wedjat" linked to "widget"?
- throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
  Literally 20 secs of googling would have answered that for you. No. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/widget https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/widget
  - sriku 6y ago
    Not sure if you're seeing something different on that page, but for my view, the "widget" page makes no mention of "wedjat" and vice versa. But it is spelled "wadjet" instead .. and that page makes no mention of widget either.
    - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
      Etymology 1 Coined by George S. Kaufman in his play Beggar on Horseback (1924). Edit: that wedjat/wadjet does not appear on the page does alone suggest there's no link.
      - sriku 6y ago
        Not necessary (rgd the edit). Comparative linguistics (however questionable) is a thing. For example, the page for October - https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/October https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/October - does not mention any connection to indo-germanic languages where "october, november and december" have roots that map to the sanskrit "ashta, nava, dasha" (eight, nine, ten) which correspond to the eighth, ninth and tenth months in the roman calendar.
        throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
        It was coined in 1924. It was made up. Invented. Which part of that was unclear?

21 points by new_guy 6y ago

It was tens of thousands of years ago when drawings were made on cave walls. Did you know that "After examining dozens of Ice Age cave sites across Europe, paleoarchaeologist Genevieve von Petzinger discovered our ancestors repeatedly used 32 signs." [1] "That fits well with the discovery of a 70,000-year-old block of ochre etched with cross-hatching in Blombos cave in South Africa. And when von Petzinger looked through archaeology papers for mentions or illustrations of symbols in cave art outside Europe, she found that many of her 32 signs were used around the world (see “Consistent doodles”). There is even tantalising evidence that an earlier human, Homo erectus, deliberately etched a zigzag on a shell on Java some 500,000 years ago. “The ability of humans to produce a system of signs is clearly not something that starts 40,000 years ago. This capacity goes back at least 100,000 years,” says Francesco d’Errico from the University of Bordeaux, France." [2] [1] https://ideas.ted.com/what-the-mysterious-symbols-made-by-early-humans-can-teach-us-about-how-we-evolved/ https://ideas.ted.com/what-the-mysterious-symbols-made-by-ea... [2] https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23230990-700-in-search-of-the-very-first-coded-symbols/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23230990-700-in-searc...

lostlogin 6y ago
> That fits well with the discovery of a 70,000-year-old block of ochre etched with cross-hatching in Blombos cave in South Africa. I did a hopeful check to see if it was a hashtag. It was.

SarikayaKomzin 6y ago

I was standing in Magic Kingdom at Disney World in Orlando about a year ago and had a very similar thought: If alien archeologists ever came to a post-human Earth, they might discover the ruins of Disney World and mistake it for our temples. A tribute to a pantheon of gods. I guess it sort of _is that_ in a way, ha.

clojurenoob 6y ago
Even more so if they could see the worship games we play in front of our own personal, illuminated alters.

082349872349872 6y ago

Besides colour schemes for national flags https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24257599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24257599 another way to guess ages is when regional flags' symbolism rampantly incorporate flagrantly male charges. Contrast https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drapeau_de_la_Californie#/media/Fichier:Flag_of_California.svg https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drapeau_de_la_Californie#/medi... with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_Bern#/media/File:Berne-coat_of_arms.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_Bern#/media/Fi... or even https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drapeau_et_armoiries_du_canton_de_Schaffhouse#/media/Fichier:Wappen_Schaffhausen_matt.svg https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drapeau_et_armoiries_du_canton... etc.

sriku 6y ago

Is "wedjat" linked to "widget"?

throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
Literally 20 secs of googling would have answered that for you. No. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/widget https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/widget
- sriku 6y ago
  Not sure if you're seeing something different on that page, but for my view, the "widget" page makes no mention of "wedjat" and vice versa. But it is spelled "wadjet" instead .. and that page makes no mention of widget either.
  - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
    Etymology 1 Coined by George S. Kaufman in his play Beggar on Horseback (1924). Edit: that wedjat/wadjet does not appear on the page does alone suggest there's no link.
    - sriku 6y ago
      Not necessary (rgd the edit). Comparative linguistics (however questionable) is a thing. For example, the page for October - https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/October https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/October - does not mention any connection to indo-germanic languages where "october, november and december" have roots that map to the sanskrit "ashta, nava, dasha" (eight, nine, ten) which correspond to the eighth, ninth and tenth months in the roman calendar.
      - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
        It was coined in 1924. It was made up. Invented. Which part of that was unclear?