Fresh Batch #107: Egyptians, Etrusco-Phoenicians, Syrians, Indians, Persians, Arabians
Origin & Progress of Writing By Thomas Astle Part 2
We continue our exploration of The Origin & Progress of Writing by Thomas Astle, and I share my thoughts and notes on the subject.
Chapter 3
Of the Antiquity of Writing
“There is the utmost uncertainty in the chronology of ancient kingdoms, arising from the vanity of each in claiming the greatest antiquity, while those pretensions were favoured by their having no exact accounts of time.” - Sir Isaac Newton
Egyptians
Regarding the four kinds of Egyptian writing, Astle wrote (Ib. p. 27), “The first, hieroglyphic; the second, symbolic; the third, epistolic; and, the fourth and last, hierogrammatic.”
A hierogram is a sacred incription or symbol. It is epistolic in its nature but confined to the use of the priests and thus not well-known.
Clemens Alexandrinus wrote, “Now those who were instructed in the Egyptian wisdom, learn, first of all, the method of their several sorts of letters; the first of which is called epistolic; the second, sacerdotal, as being used by the sacred scribes; the last, with which they conclude their instructions, hieroglyphical. Of these different methods, the one is in the plain and common way of writing by the first elements of words, or letters of an alphabet; the other, by symbols. Of the symbolic way of writing, which is of three kinds; the first is, that plain and common one, of imitating the figure of the thing represented; the second is, by tropical marks; and the third, in a contrary way, of allegorizing by enigmas.
“Of the first sort, namely, by a plain and direct imitation of the figure, let this stand for an instance:—to signify the sun, they made a circle; the moon, a half circle. The second, or tropical way of writing, is by changing and transferring the object with justness and propriety: this they do, sometimes by a simple change, sometimes by a complex multifarious transformation; thus they have engraven on stones and pillars, the praises of their kings, under the cover of theologic fables. Of the third sort, by enigmas, take this example; the oblique course of the stars, occasioned their representing them by the bodies of serpents; but the sun they likened to a scarabæus, because this insect makes a round ball of beasts dung, and rolls it circularly, with its face opposed to that luminary.”
In the most early ages, the original writing of Egypt was allegedly by pictures, similar to the Mexicans. They improved upon this by putting the principal part for the whole, known as the curiologic hieroglyphic, or and then improved upon this by putting one thing of resembling qualities for another, known as the tropical hieroglyphic.
Astle wrote (Ib. p. 29), “These alterations in the manner of delineating hieroglyphic figures, produced and perfected another character, which hath been called the running hand of hieroglyphics, resembling the Chinese writing, which having been first formed by the out-lines of each figure (the inquisitive Reader, by comparing Kircher’s Account of Egyptian Hieroglyphics with those published by Purchas, will find that the former exactly resemble the Mexican, not only in their use, but, as Purchas (p. 69) and Diodorus (p. 124) say, in their forms and figures), became at length a kind of marks; the natural effects of which were, that the constant use of them, would take off the attention from the symbol, and fix it on the thing signified; by which means the study of symbolic writing would be much abbreviated, because the writer, or decipherer, would have then little to do, but to remember the power of the symbolic mark: whereas before, the properties of the thing or animal delineated were to be learnt. This, together with their other marks by institution, to design mental conceptions, would reduce the characters to the present state of the Chinese (arbitrary marks, or marks by institution; Short-hand); and these were properly what the ancients call hieroglyphical. Doctor Robert Huntington, in his account of the Porphyry Pillars, tells us, that there are yet some ancient monuments of this kind of writing remaining in Egypt.”
I suspect the observable diffusion (if it isn’t archaeological forgery) between the Mexicans and Egyptians occurred in the fourth millennium BC, before the invention of the letters. To refresh yourself or if you’re new, refer to Fresh Batch #47: The Greatest Evidence of Ancient Cultural Diffusion.
Apuleius allegedly wrote about his initiation into the mysteries of Isis (Metamorphosis, Lib. II., also known as The Golden Ass), “He (the hierophant) drew out certain books from the secret repositories of the sanctuary, written in unknown characters, which contained the words of the sacred formula compendiously expressed, partly by figures of animals, and partly by certain marks or notes intricately knotted, revolving in the manner of a wheel, and crowded together, and curled inward like the tendrils of a vine, so as to hide the meaning from the curiosity of the profane.”
Etrusco-Phoenicians
While I don’t accept Moses or Cadmus are historical figures, Astle cited an author named Mr. Wise (see his Enquiries concerning the first inhabitants, language, &c. of Europe, p. 104-109) on page 30 (Ib.), “Mr. Wise insists, that Moses and Cadmus could not learn the alphabet in Egypt; and, that the Egyptians had no alphabet in their time. He adduces several reasons to prove that they had no alphabet till they received what is called the Coptic, which was introduced either in the time of the Ptolemys, or earlier, under Psammitichus or Amasis; and these letters, which are the oldest alphabetic characters of the Egyptians that can now be produced, are plainly derived from the Greek. It seems to us, that if the Egyptians used letters before the time mentioned by Mr. Wise, they were probably the characters of their neighbours the Phœnicians.”
This, I suspect, is the Etruscans. Mr. Astle was still under the presumption that the Phoenicians were descended from Noah’s son Ham, which I would suggest therein lies the problem. For I do not think the Phoenicians are from Lebanon as the status quo claims. I suspect the culture referred to as Phoenician was actually Etruscan and the remnants of the Etrusco-Phoenician empire existing in eastern Mediterranean is a result of their growth from Italy, not their origins in the Orient. The reason for this is the fact that indigenous Italian language, such as Etruscan, has great affinity to Phoenician and Celtic (demonstrated by William Betham), not of Indo-European. Pair that with the acknowledgment that Phoenicians were not Semitic (even by the status quo standards of that fictitious construct), by learned men such as Archbishop Richard Trench (On the Study of Words), and the outcome indicates the Phoenicians being Etruscan, who are essentially the central European phenotype.
The Phoenicians were not Semitic nor has any Hebraist demonstrated the affinity of Phoenician with Hebrew, despite Hebrew and its older version (Chaldean/Aramaic) taking its alphabet from Phoenician. Therefore, the contents of Sanchuniathon ought to be admitted as forgeries, along with the claim that it relates the Jewish affairs with great veracity, since all scholars concede there are no remains of an authentic version, and the version that has come down to us has passed through the hands of Eusebius, a demonstrable liar and forger for the Church.
Phoenicians were distinguished by the epithet of Tyrian or Sidonian, but also Pelasgian, which Dionysius of Halicarnassus wrote was also the name by which Tyrrhenians (Etruscans) were called. There is no evidence of mass migration in Italy from the north or east in the first millennium BC, which is why I suspect the Italians are the originators of the Phoenician empire. Though Sidon and Tyre were principal cities in Phoenicia, they made Egyptian Thebes their capital (Luxor) during the time they possessed the empire of Asia according to the Greek General Conon. History of Egypt, which was never named Egypt and is a term that comes from the Chaldean allegories pertaining to the horizon, or the stars beneath it, is taught from a common era Abrahamic perspective. The whole Jewish history is mythology. The first mention of Moses by a Greek writer isn’t until c. 273 AD. However, the majority of status quo historians accepted the accounts of Josephus, that the Egyptians were ignorant of arithmetic and astronomy before being instructed by Abraham, which no serious researcher can accept. According to Abrahamics, all mankind lived together in Chaldea till the days of Peleg. (Univ. Hist. Vol. IV. p. 332, 375; Sir Isaac Newton’s Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, London, 1728, 4to.) This observably debunked by language, phenotypes, and archaeology.
If you’re interested in the real universal empire that’s being covered up, dive into The Holy Sailors (click the image).
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