Earliest Semitic Text Revealed In Egyptian Pyramid Inscription

Here is the link from sciencedaily.com: Earliest Semitic Text Revealed In Egyptian Pyramid Inscription.

The spell from the Egyptian pyramid text states in a Semitic language, but written in hieroglyphics: "Mother snake, mother snake says mucus-mucus." It dates from the third millenium BCE, say 3000-2500 BCE. It was "inscribed on the subterranean walls of the pyramid of King Unas at Saqqara in Egypt. The pyramid dates from the 24th century B.C.E." (This pyramid contains many old sacred texts.)

Very interesting, not only because this is the oldest inscription, but the content is facinating: "Egyptians viewed their culture as far superior to that of their neighbors, their morbid fear of snakes made them open to the borrowing of Semitic magic."

What I find facinating to think about is that the snake itself is a key player in the first chapter of Genesis. There the snake lets Adam and Eve fall into sin. You should know this, as the beginning of Genesis is one of the greatest stories ever written. So snakes are important in semetic magic/lore, and they stand for evil. In it's symbolic usage, the term Serpent (wikipedia link) is used.

I'm just speculating wildly here (while drinking beer, so you have been warned;), but when when a spell, at that time, was written in the divine hieroglyps, but the actual language was some inferior proto-semetic language, it says something. I don't know exactly what, it could simply be that proto-semetic at that time had not developed an alphabet.

I did not realise the importance of the snake in semitic magic, but it might well have been their most distinctive power animal in that age. That the serpent is female should also give some food for thought. The serpent is linked with herbal magic and wisdom, which in turn, is usually attributed to female magic (minoan snake-goddess, and witches in mideval times).

Going back much further, it's that same old male/female split that has been going on for as long as humans walk this earth. Male/Hunter magic can be described as aminal magic, and female/gatherer magic as plant magic. It's basically awareness magic vs. knowledge magic. Obviously the awareness/hunter aspect is the dominant power in groups, for example the natural importance of men in leadership of groups in times of crises. Combined with the unhealty aspect of bravery, it is easy to see why wisdom falls into the female hands.

Let's not forget that the hunter-gatherer ways where probably already lost for some 3000 years, in egypt at least, to agriculture. The hard labor on the field was for the physically strong men, but farming is very boring for a hunter spirit. Awareness lost its common base, and declined into the hands of centralized priests only. Their power increased dramatically.

Power, up-scaling civilizations, centralization, war and trade became much more important. It surprises me that polytheism lasted as long as it did.

More links on drag & drop

* Drag and Drop files from Windows Explorer to Windows Form - [link]

Nice tool: supermemo

This is a nice tool: SuperMemo. Lock-In Closed software, but nice. Also good link there: 'Forget about forgetting'

WebDiver 2.0.3 released

* Added XSL Transform. This allows you to output it is some way, like a html page.
* Changed $encoded_topic and $topic to $encoded_term and $term for clarity. (We're using `<term/>` trees and not `<topic/>` trees after all)

i18n search engines

* Genealogy Search in a Foreign Language decribes how to use the web to search in any language. The list of 'search engine' in various languages is fun also :-)

Trying drag&drop in C#

Stuff that worked:
* I figured out how to enable LabelEdit. (theTreeView_AfterLabelEdit())
* XML SYNTAX UPDATE: $topic renamed to $term. ($topic still works)

Right now I cant even get the basics right:
* binding/enabling F2 key to initiate the LabelEdit event.
* Allowing drag and drop in the first place.

Links:
* [ Microsoft Web Browser Automation using C# ] (* Using WebBrowser automation, you can automatically handle POST forms. *)
* [ Enhancing TreeView: Customizing LabelEdit ]
* [ A Simple Drag And Drop How To Example ] (* The basics *)
* [ Adding Drag and Drop to an Explorer Tree Control ]

Webdiver 2.0.2 Released

This new release adds:

* The ability to edit the XML with multiple external editors
* File|Recent files
* Help|About

Adding menu functionality

* C# Creating Dynamic Menus: [ http://www.codeproject.com/csharp/DynamicMenus.asp ]
* Dynamic Menu Creation: [ http://www.codeproject.com/cs/menu/csdynmenudemo.asp ]
* I made the `About` box, it points to the wikipage of WebDiver.

License stuff...

I still don't know what licence to use, but this explanation of gpl3 made me think about changing it from current bsd licence.

Webdiver 2.0.1 released

This release fixes one bug:

* When choosing 'Debug>Start GoLive' you now automatically get the file you're currently viewing in WebDiver into GoLive. Keep GoLive open and it allows you to edit multiple webdiver documents at the same time.

Freedom of speech

Today I confirmed a suspicion I already had for a long time. My 'official' blog, named "bsod's braindumps", which is part of the FifoNET blogroll does not really 'fit in'.

The problem is not so much the level of posting in FifoNet, but I want to write freely about anything I like, and there is more to my interests than hardcore computer stuff, personal life on-goings, and youtube movies.

Ofcourse, I am free to post whatever I want on any blog I like, but I have to consider the social context. When talking about self-awareness, for example, I can't share my thoughts with the Christian people around me that I love. Talking about global warming is simply off-topic for FifoNet. So is talking about economics and mathematics, up to a point.

You might comment that self-awareness and climate are also off-topic for this blog for iondrive. That is true, but what am I to do? Create a blog for every topic I want to discuss? Heck. Fuck it. I'll just 'off-topic' here.

Okay, with that out of the way, I post the link that I want to share: greenstate - El Nino effect. Another interesting blog I found was: The n-Category Café.

WebDiver 2.0.0 Released

Yay! This is the first public release of WebDiver. If you have not tried it yet, you should. I made this version 2.0.0 as it is created around the entirely new and generalized webdiver2 xml datafile format.

Note to new users: WebDiver does *NOT*, as of yet, have the ability to modify the data using GUI stuff. I use Adobe GoLive to edit the XML, and it does a pretty darn good job in doing so. However most people don't understand XML, and will only be able to see the effect of using WebDiver.

I will create the required edit capabilities sooner rather than later, as the power of WebDiver only becomes clear when you use it for your own interests and favorite sites.