...picking up further into the study of the Seqoi. Here we pick up with Tekawa's work alongside linguist Dr. Jaxon Nikolai.
Abridged audio notes of Tekawa and Nikolai on Panel 10 Wall 2 through Panel 3 of Wall 4 of the Queen's Temple.
[GT:] The Vizier, Maliq, had started his Narratio Tabulum within the Queen's Temple several years before Seqoi's Fall. It's primary purpose was simple: to adore the Queen in all aspects and worship her for ages to come. The peoples of the valley were induced to comply to the wants of the Vizier and had to be the only employ of the Temple and the Cave constructs. There would not have been much labor in the region, particularly at this time, and we don't have indications from my colleagues that slaves were kept. At least not in apparent bondage, nor do we have indications that there was spoils of war during much of the Queen's reign (not yet in this narrative, at least). [At this point, they were about 60% of the way through the Tabulum.]
[JN:] And, as we see variants in the construction of the language, I have a growing opinion that the Vizier is piecing the language as one who had any formal desire to standardize the Seqoi language. My guess at this point is even the Queen may not have understood the designs that Maliq had started, outside of building a functional structure, perhaps by his use in court.
Key symbols remain fairly consistent, but transitional and conceptional symbols do shift, though Maliq does make repeated attempts to keep the story intact. At this point in the Tabulum, I feel he has at least one person helping him (dubbed 'Btopon', Russian for 'second'). The language surrounding the Queen are refined from the original block at times, apparently where the Vizier is correcting what Btopon may have originally cut into the stone. It does settle over time, so they are learning together.
We find this in many early cultures, where the psychology of those struggling with a language, 'feel' their way through it. Language is organic, no more proof than this.
[GT:] As there was a lack of paper, we assume they used clay, which is plentiful enough in the cave lakes of the region. The Tabulum would have connected a commonality in language for several years, and more had the Seqoi survived the attacks that ultimately destroyed them.
[JN:] Ironic that Maliq foreshadows this destruction in a similar city that we have yet to find:
"Not unlike the fallen temples of Amarifa, and their limbless statues that no longer reach
They scattered with the stones, as if they were the mountain's bones
Felled by the enemies' triumph
Their eyes turn inward, and the brightness of the stars are lost to them
The frozen winds of the night give them no comfort
The rocks become lesser rocks
And I am alike with out my Queen
I am the empty desert by lack of her embracing arms
The bare stones of the mountain's head
The extinguished fires of the brazier
In the still of the night the animal's rest
But no comfort for I from you"
- P13 W2 to P5 W3
[JN:] Working with an ancient musician team a year later, we pieced parts together in a temporal piece, attributed mostly to Janice Collins:
"The statues laid bare upon the ground, the promise and illusion dead
And so am I
My tears are cold as the nightly wind on the desert sands
No comfort now
I lack you and the stones provide little in your wake
Shattered me
When all is lost and all is gone, memory serves little
And I cry once more"
...
Saturday, December 21, 2013
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Professor Tekawa and the Lost Civilization of Seqoi
FORWARD
What I relate here is nothing of my own opinion, or is it embellished in any way. As a historian in the purest sense, we must always look for fact. Unadulterated fact - not swayed by the opinions of the person, or worst, by the fashions of the contemporary - which are filled with dangers. Historic half-truths, which are what fashions unabashedly reveal, luckily do not stand the test of time. As long as there are historians who prove the purpose of their calling and only duly purport a mirror of an age.
Professor of Sociology, Dr. Gale Tekawa, Ph.D. UW Madison, of California State University at Fullerton, outlined a series of lectures as part of her curriculum, "The Curious Pre-Romanticism of the Ancient Seqoi"*, which included several artifacts she acquired in her discoveries of the site in the very early 1980s in the region of south-east (present day) Algeria, about two hundred miles SEE of the city of Tamanrasset. Dr. Tekawa worked along side Drs. Blake and Willowby, Professors of Archaeology, at the site in its infancy.
The site, first thought to be a derivative culture of the Berber, was discovered by Tamanrasset militia in 1976. Funding proved a chore for UW at the time, but it was finally meted out by interest by Pan African groups seeking more solidity to studies of Africa as the 'birthplace' of civilization. [I use quotes very sparingly. In this case, I seek to use the language of the grant, but flatly point out the disingenuous proposition of the term.]
The site found the three doctors working four weeks out of the year, for several years, as scouting expeditions. Opportunity was with them each trip, successive discoveries abounded. [As this is the story of Tekawa's journey, and my interest in her hypothesis, I will merely outline those that are the focus of this paper.] As monies consolidated for the team, the University felt enough was collected that a full expedition and study could be made for at least the first year. The doctor's were so excited they left for Africa before formal arrangements were made.
The first year was slow work. The indigenous peoples of the area proved unreliable so men from Cairo and Baghdad were brought in at three times the amount - but five times the amount of work was had. The first year was primarily for the archaeologists - they discovered an ancient kingdom that flourished only for a brief period of time thousands of miles west from Mesopotamia. There were underground lakes and rain-collecting cisterns. There was some cultivation of barley. There is evidence of crude metallurgy, but nothing approaching the bronze masterworks that would frame much of the time.
...
It was the discovery of a temple, built intentionally underground, as part of a center of worship where the site took a turn of its own. Tekawa found there a series of works written in the stone of the chamber that appeared to be an extant story, untouched by time and most elements. It was crude and it was fragile. If it was what it could be, it would predate the work of Beowulf by some 1200 years.
As Tekawa turned the next two decades to this work, she sought to turn them into a meaningful whole. From it she found, not a fictional tale or a religious sect's search for meaning: it was a story of the Queen of the Seqoi, and the Minister that loved her until the temples were toppled by a wandering army sometime in 2435 BC.
It was a tale that possibly alluded to by Dionysius Periegetes in his De situ habitabilis orbis:
That began Tekawa's proposition that this kingdom, so infant to other civilizations, masterful of little but the crudest instruments, found purpose in extolling the stories of a man we know little about. We know that he was in love with the Queen and outlived her. The man (dubbed Seqoi Alpha, or the Vizier, or Maliq) who saw his own civilization crumble, and a fragment of time that no one could recall but through his story.
...
Upon once of her travels to and from the States, Tekawa had stopped in Spain, to the University of Barcelona, studying the manuscripts and of the symbol the Seqoi Alpha had made. It was a symbol of a woman, in the crude valuation of a dress, characteristic bosoms, and a disk behind her head. The waiter of the Spanish tapas bar remarked, Reina? Queen? So began the tale of the man who loved Reina, the Queen of the Seqoi, the Single Civilization, the Invenimus Mortuum of Dionysius.
..
* The Seqoi Culture: A Study of Pre-Bronze Time in Their Words, Dr. Gale Tekawa, Azalee Press, 1992
What I relate here is nothing of my own opinion, or is it embellished in any way. As a historian in the purest sense, we must always look for fact. Unadulterated fact - not swayed by the opinions of the person, or worst, by the fashions of the contemporary - which are filled with dangers. Historic half-truths, which are what fashions unabashedly reveal, luckily do not stand the test of time. As long as there are historians who prove the purpose of their calling and only duly purport a mirror of an age.
Professor of Sociology, Dr. Gale Tekawa, Ph.D. UW Madison, of California State University at Fullerton, outlined a series of lectures as part of her curriculum, "The Curious Pre-Romanticism of the Ancient Seqoi"*, which included several artifacts she acquired in her discoveries of the site in the very early 1980s in the region of south-east (present day) Algeria, about two hundred miles SEE of the city of Tamanrasset. Dr. Tekawa worked along side Drs. Blake and Willowby, Professors of Archaeology, at the site in its infancy.
The site, first thought to be a derivative culture of the Berber, was discovered by Tamanrasset militia in 1976. Funding proved a chore for UW at the time, but it was finally meted out by interest by Pan African groups seeking more solidity to studies of Africa as the 'birthplace' of civilization. [I use quotes very sparingly. In this case, I seek to use the language of the grant, but flatly point out the disingenuous proposition of the term.]
The site found the three doctors working four weeks out of the year, for several years, as scouting expeditions. Opportunity was with them each trip, successive discoveries abounded. [As this is the story of Tekawa's journey, and my interest in her hypothesis, I will merely outline those that are the focus of this paper.] As monies consolidated for the team, the University felt enough was collected that a full expedition and study could be made for at least the first year. The doctor's were so excited they left for Africa before formal arrangements were made.
The first year was slow work. The indigenous peoples of the area proved unreliable so men from Cairo and Baghdad were brought in at three times the amount - but five times the amount of work was had. The first year was primarily for the archaeologists - they discovered an ancient kingdom that flourished only for a brief period of time thousands of miles west from Mesopotamia. There were underground lakes and rain-collecting cisterns. There was some cultivation of barley. There is evidence of crude metallurgy, but nothing approaching the bronze masterworks that would frame much of the time.
...
It was the discovery of a temple, built intentionally underground, as part of a center of worship where the site took a turn of its own. Tekawa found there a series of works written in the stone of the chamber that appeared to be an extant story, untouched by time and most elements. It was crude and it was fragile. If it was what it could be, it would predate the work of Beowulf by some 1200 years.
As Tekawa turned the next two decades to this work, she sought to turn them into a meaningful whole. From it she found, not a fictional tale or a religious sect's search for meaning: it was a story of the Queen of the Seqoi, and the Minister that loved her until the temples were toppled by a wandering army sometime in 2435 BC.
It was a tale that possibly alluded to by Dionysius Periegetes in his De situ habitabilis orbis:
in hac regione est oppidum ab antiquis invenimus mortuum
sed melius est, et ex lapide sepulchra, quae superne rotundata sunt Caeli
multis nota picturae et fecit
sed qui apud nos est, non possint?
it was in this region from the ancients that we found a dead city
they preferred the rounded tones of stone and tombs
many a picture and symbol made
but who among us could decipher it?
That began Tekawa's proposition that this kingdom, so infant to other civilizations, masterful of little but the crudest instruments, found purpose in extolling the stories of a man we know little about. We know that he was in love with the Queen and outlived her. The man (dubbed Seqoi Alpha, or the Vizier, or Maliq) who saw his own civilization crumble, and a fragment of time that no one could recall but through his story.
...
Upon once of her travels to and from the States, Tekawa had stopped in Spain, to the University of Barcelona, studying the manuscripts and of the symbol the Seqoi Alpha had made. It was a symbol of a woman, in the crude valuation of a dress, characteristic bosoms, and a disk behind her head. The waiter of the Spanish tapas bar remarked, Reina? Queen? So began the tale of the man who loved Reina, the Queen of the Seqoi, the Single Civilization, the Invenimus Mortuum of Dionysius.
..
* The Seqoi Culture: A Study of Pre-Bronze Time in Their Words, Dr. Gale Tekawa, Azalee Press, 1992
Saturday, December 7, 2013
Communication Failures and Pearl Harbor (07DEC13)
In a 1969 interview with Commander Etta-Belle Kitchen, Captain Joseph J. Rochefort, USN, said accurately, "I have often said that an intelligence officer has one task....to tell his commander today what the enemies are doing tomorrow."
To what would attribute to the failure of Pearl Harbor? Offering little excuses, Rochefort explains the ones that are typically burdened upon Signal Units: lack of equipment, lack of effectiveness, lack of coordination and a lack of successful cryptoanalysis. These led to failure. The intelligence and communication effort on the island of Oahu suffered for it.
There was a lack of wired communication lines between forward signal sites. Messages were biked or jeeped to respective command buildings. This alone is a failure, especially in light of the attack: the Japanese flanked the island in two successive waves, each massive wave less than an hour apart. The attack itself is well known: the Japanese were to stun the American Navy in the Pacific and hopefully delay retaliation by the US for six months. Radio or telegram is key, in the least, for alerting defensive units.
I would offer that the shape and topology of Oahu should have accounted for this as well. Signal units with proper radio communication should have encircled the island with at least twenty minutes to rally and mount a defense at Ford Island. Having to physically move messages from a site to command, you lose the ability to rally. The wave will already be on top of you before you can respond. Considering that the average Japanese bomber airspeed was around 250mph, you would need sufficient time to signal ahead.
Considering the topology of the island, I would offer what wasn't being done, and fairly similar to what was being done on the Continental Pacific Coast. Close alignment with defensive units, a hub of radio networks, centralized signal command, and close alignment of scout balloons or planes.
Unfortunately, the centralized command at Wahiawa, near the middle of Oahu, was not to be completed until 1942. Most of the radio equipment that could have been deployed in the Pacific was being moved into Europe. Worst of all, the Japanese rightly changed their cryptography on 12/1/41. This proved highly to their advantage. The US would be months away from re-cracking their codes - much less be of any use before the 12/7 attack.
Mobility of stations, not brick and mortar, will always prove invaluable when creating a scheme of operability in a new theater. Camouflage of equipment and periodic cover changes across the face of the island, in coordinated cycles, would have seen a highly integrated and effective network. Extension of the network would have been in the form of scout towers, balloons or planes.
As to equipment, there should have been no excuse. If military equipment is unavailable, the beauty of radio communication is that you don't have to necessarily rely on perfect hardware. Civilian equipment, in the form of existing radio stations, HAM and other readily available types could have, in the least, prevented the situation that the USN saw themselves in prior to the attack.
A logistical issue that Rochefert encountered was relying on crypto-analysis from DC, with very little resources in the field. Of course, there is a reason to keep your best analysis away from a theater of operations, but stations in San Francisco and Los Angeles would have been ideal. If we take Rochefert's mantra to heart, as soon as the code of JN-39 was changed, all efforts should have been made to get some traction on the new codes. From a signal standpoint, a change in codes should have also put a higher alert status in all forward stations.
By the time the Japanese attacked with their first wave (49 bombers, 40 torpedo bombers, 51 dive-bombers and 36 fighters) it was too late. Signal traffic coming at the start of attack does little good when bombs are falling. [The second wave came with 54 bombers, 78 dive-bombers and 36 fighters.]
Strategy would have centralized at Ford Island until Wahiawa was up and running. Five mobile forward sites in Oahu would have called into repeater stations mid-island, pulling in traffic from scouting units. Routing of messages should have gone to both Wahiawa and Ford Island. Forward mobile commands would proven somewhat worthless, so emphasis on scouting units, with a comfortable range of 20 miles out to sea, forms a virtual line of intelligence away from the island (northern islands of the Hawaiian chain prove to hard to defend adequately). This would account for about three scouts to each forward site, or fifteen overall radio units, two repeater stations, and simultaneous command at Wahiawa and Ford Island.
Crypto-analysis should be done on a four hour cycle, with intelligence gatherers collecting data on such a shift, parsing through it and sending off in similar cycles to the mainland for analysis. Gathering would be done repeater stations and at command (adequately done, this would have you looking at twelve trained analysts and a field division office of no more than two captains and a commander).
In such a configuration not only would the attack have been weakened by defensive units on Ford, it could have been repelled. We would assume to that the counter attack by our own air units could have been guided to the correct location of the Japanese, instead of heading to the south as was done.
A view of post-war operations in USEUR (US Europe Command) shows the start of a highly integrated network of telegram communications as an example of how such a network should look.
To what would attribute to the failure of Pearl Harbor? Offering little excuses, Rochefort explains the ones that are typically burdened upon Signal Units: lack of equipment, lack of effectiveness, lack of coordination and a lack of successful cryptoanalysis. These led to failure. The intelligence and communication effort on the island of Oahu suffered for it.
Considering the topology of the island, I would offer what wasn't being done, and fairly similar to what was being done on the Continental Pacific Coast. Close alignment with defensive units, a hub of radio networks, centralized signal command, and close alignment of scout balloons or planes.
Mobility of stations, not brick and mortar, will always prove invaluable when creating a scheme of operability in a new theater. Camouflage of equipment and periodic cover changes across the face of the island, in coordinated cycles, would have seen a highly integrated and effective network. Extension of the network would have been in the form of scout towers, balloons or planes.
As to equipment, there should have been no excuse. If military equipment is unavailable, the beauty of radio communication is that you don't have to necessarily rely on perfect hardware. Civilian equipment, in the form of existing radio stations, HAM and other readily available types could have, in the least, prevented the situation that the USN saw themselves in prior to the attack.
A logistical issue that Rochefert encountered was relying on crypto-analysis from DC, with very little resources in the field. Of course, there is a reason to keep your best analysis away from a theater of operations, but stations in San Francisco and Los Angeles would have been ideal. If we take Rochefert's mantra to heart, as soon as the code of JN-39 was changed, all efforts should have been made to get some traction on the new codes. From a signal standpoint, a change in codes should have also put a higher alert status in all forward stations.
By the time the Japanese attacked with their first wave (49 bombers, 40 torpedo bombers, 51 dive-bombers and 36 fighters) it was too late. Signal traffic coming at the start of attack does little good when bombs are falling. [The second wave came with 54 bombers, 78 dive-bombers and 36 fighters.]
Strategy would have centralized at Ford Island until Wahiawa was up and running. Five mobile forward sites in Oahu would have called into repeater stations mid-island, pulling in traffic from scouting units. Routing of messages should have gone to both Wahiawa and Ford Island. Forward mobile commands would proven somewhat worthless, so emphasis on scouting units, with a comfortable range of 20 miles out to sea, forms a virtual line of intelligence away from the island (northern islands of the Hawaiian chain prove to hard to defend adequately). This would account for about three scouts to each forward site, or fifteen overall radio units, two repeater stations, and simultaneous command at Wahiawa and Ford Island.
Crypto-analysis should be done on a four hour cycle, with intelligence gatherers collecting data on such a shift, parsing through it and sending off in similar cycles to the mainland for analysis. Gathering would be done repeater stations and at command (adequately done, this would have you looking at twelve trained analysts and a field division office of no more than two captains and a commander).
In such a configuration not only would the attack have been weakened by defensive units on Ford, it could have been repelled. We would assume to that the counter attack by our own air units could have been guided to the correct location of the Japanese, instead of heading to the south as was done.
A view of post-war operations in USEUR (US Europe Command) shows the start of a highly integrated network of telegram communications as an example of how such a network should look.
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
do = c, re= d, mi = e, fa= f, sol = g, la = a, ti = b
The inventor of solmization was Guido of Arezzo (995-1050), who used the six syllables of ut re mi fa sol la located on three degrees of the diatonic (C major) scale (e.g. c d e f g a). Guido derived these from an 8th century hymn to St. John the Baptist, the melody of which has six lines starting successively on c, d, e, f, g, and a: Ut queant laxis, Re-sonare fibris, Mi-ra gestorum, fa-muli tuorum, so-lve polluti, la-bitt reatum ("So that your servents may sing at the top of their voices the wonders of Your acts, and absolve the fault from their stained lips"). In essence, Guido created a system of designating the degrees of the scale by syllables rather than by letters.Guido theory of the hexachord, where there a group of six consecutive tones with a half tone in the middle is based on the diatonic scale, the first, outlined before, of 'c', or the hexachordum naturale.
After his contributions, the Guidonian hand was developed where the topology of the hand could be used as an aid of memorizing the scale, from tones of G (at the thumb) to e" (at the tip of the middle finger). c d e f g a b would be derived by the bottom of the pointer, across the ridges at the top of the palm up through the pinkie.
So, when Dame Julie Andrews says she's 'making it easier', what she means to say is that is was manufactured over 800 years prior by a monk who grew tired of the monotony of Gregorian chant.
So, when Dame Julie Andrews says she's 'making it easier', what she means to say is that is was manufactured over 800 years prior by a monk who grew tired of the monotony of Gregorian chant.
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