[etni] Interesting Geographic Information => anthropomorphic maps

From: Israel Cohen <cohen.izzy@xxxxxxxxx>
To: etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 2009 21:31:21 +0300
I believe the "Interesting Geographic Information" was posted by
Esther Revivo. I did indeed find the items to be interesting, but I
would contest one of them.

The derivation of Spain from the Semitic root SPN = rabbit, as in
Hebrew ShaFaN, is a well-known folk etymology. Its older name was
Hispania. I think it has a much more "geographic" derivation from a
Phoenician/Punic viewpoint.

The southern coast of Spain looks like a reflection / mirror image of
the African coast immediately to the south of it. I think the name
originated as a reflexive (HiS) of the face (PuN, as in Hebrew PaNiM)
of Aphrodite in north Africa. Other parts of Aphrodite are described
in the limerick below. The last verse may be too risque for your
students.

Anthropomorphic maps were generated by configuring the body of a god
or goddess over the area to be mapped. The name of each part of that
body became the name of the area under that part. This produced a
scale 1:1 map-without-paper on which each place name automatically
indicated its approximate location and direction with respect to every
other place on the same map whose name was produced in this way.

Aphrodite as an Anthropomorphic Map

The goddess we call Aphrodite
Is not just an old Grecian deity.
  The Phoenicians did make
  Her a map. It's not fake.
Her body is cartograffiti.

The Punic war destroyed her face, (1)
The Romans left nary a trace.
  But her hair is still there,
  In Sahara, that's where. (2)
And her chin's a Tunisian place. (3)

Mt. Atlas is her first verTebra. (4)
Her backbone is now Gulf of Sidra. (5)
  Her heart is in Libya, (6)
  Her left leg, Somalia. (7)
Her breast is in Chad wearing no bra. (8)

The Greeks called her liver Egypt, an' (9)
Her kidney was Biblical Goshen. (10)
  She's bent at her waist,
  Now Misr-ably placed. (11)
The Red Sea was her menstruation. (12)

As a kid I did think the Red Sea
Was an English map typo: lost E,
  From Reed Sea in Hebrew.
  But that could not be true,
Mare Rubrum 'twas Latin, B.C.

Aphrodite with Hermes did sin,
We know this is true 'cause within
  Her "snatch" we call Sinai (13)
  His "zaiyin" does still lie. (14)
It's known as the desert of Zin.

Footnotes:

(1) The Romans destroyed Carthage during the 3rd Punic War. In Hebrew,
"face" is PaNim.

(2) In Hebrew, "hair" is Sa3aR (using 3 for the letter aiyin).

(3) Tunis is a reversal of SaNTir, the Hebrew word for chin.

(4) The Atlas is the first cervical vertebra that supports the skull.

(5) In Hebrew, SHiDRa is spine, backbone.

(6) The Semitic term for "heart" is LeB.

(7) In Hebrew, "left" is S'MoL.

(8) In Hebrew, "breast" is SHaD.

(9) As in ancient Greek hepato- "liver".

(10) The ancient shin had a T-sound, e.g., SHoR = ox was ToR as in
Taurus. The gimel often has a K-sound in other languages, e.g., GaMaL
= camel. So, GoSHeN sounded like QTN, as in QiTNiot = beans. Goshen
was her bean-shaped kidney. Ashkenazi Jews do not eat beans on
Passover. Cotton was exported from QTN / Goshen. The Latin genus for
cotton is Gossypium. Compare English gossamer from Gossypium + mare =
sea (that is, sea-foam).

(11) Both Arabic Misr and Hebrew MiTZRaim are derived from the Semitic
term for narrow, TZaR. The waist is (or should be) the narrow part of
the body.

(12) In Latin, the Red Sea was called Mare Rubrum. In Hebrew, the Red Sea is
called "Yam SooF" = Sea of Reeds. There are no reeds in this sea.
Samekh-oo-feh SooF is a reversal of the sounds in peh-sof PoS, Hebrew
for the female pudenda.

The southern entrance to the Red Sea is Bab-el-Mandeb. Bab-el =
gateway to. Mandeb may be a meld of yaM = sea + NiDah = menstruant
woman.

(13) In Hebrew, Sinai is spelled SiNi without an aleph. But it is
pronounced as if had an aleph after the nun. It seems that the ancient
sound of aleph changed from CHS/GHT => T => a glottal stop. Treating
aleph as CHS, Sinai sounded like SNCHs, a reversal of K'NiSah =
entrance (to her body).

(14) Zaiyin means "weapon" in Hebrew. It is also a euphemism for the
male member.

ciao,
Israel "izzy" Cohen,
cohen.izzy@xxxxxxxxx
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/BPMaps/
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[etni] Interesting Geographic Information => anthropomorphic maps

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