From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Fri Jan 11 2002 - 07:16:38 MST
6D@datamann.com> <3C3EA23C.3030000@objectent.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Samantha Atkins wrote:
>
> Mike Lorrey wrote:
>
> >
> > It is a popular New Age myth that Indian and Chinese civilizations are
> > older than western civilizations like that of Egypt and Sumer, but this
> > is not so. The fact is that, if you go by the development of written
> > language, the evidence is that Chinese writing developed only around
> > 1250 BC, that of Sumer dates back to 3500 BC, and Egypt around 3000 BC.
> > While Indus Valley writing is almost as old as that of the west, it died
> > out long before the development of ancient Sanskrit, and Sanskrit is
> > derived from those developed in the west, not the east.
>
> Proof please.
Early Brahmi scripts first appeared around 500-250 BC and were derived
from the Phoenecian alphabets developed in the Syria/Palestine area, as
well as having some Iranian influence. Indus script died out 1750 years
prior, around 2000 BC.
See:
D. Diringer, "Writing", London, 1962
D. Diringer, "The Alphabet: a key to the history of mankind" London,
1963
IJ Gelb: "A Study of Writing" Chicago 1963
J Oates (ed.):"Early Writing Systems" in 'World Archaeology' Vol. 17 no
3, 1986
DSchmandt-Besserat: "The Earliest Precursor of Writing" in Scientific
American Vol238, pp 38-47, 1978
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 13:37:33 MST