Ox-hide ingots of tin and one-third a mina of tin paid to translators, say, of Meluhha, based on Marzena Chrobak findings, 'For a tin ingot: the archaeology of oral interpretation'
Mirror: https://www.academia.edu/11959885/Ox-hide_ingots_of_tin_and_one-third_a_mina_of_tin_paid_to_translators_say_of_Meluhha_based_on_Marzena_Chrobak_findings_For_a_tin_ingot_the_archaeology_of_oral_interpretation
Many vivid pictorial motifs found on hundreds of cylinder seals of Bronze Age in Ancient Near East and cylinder seal impressions on hundreds of letters of Kultepe can be explained as hieroglyphs of Meluhha orally interpreted to denote metalwork, as veritable metalwork catalogs using rebus-metonymy Indus writing cypher.
See:
Mlecchas in early India -- Aloka Parasher (1991) -- A book review. Varnam blogposts. I suggest mleccha were Meluhha of 5th millennium BCE.
http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.com/2015/04/mlecchas-in-early-india-aloka-parasher.htmlhttps://www.scribd.com/doc/261952569/Chrobak-Marzena-2013-For-a-tin-ingot-the-archaeology-of-oral-interpretation-in-Przekladaniec-A-journal-of-literary-translation
Chrobak, Marzena, 2013, For a tin ingot: the archaeology of oral interpretation in: Przekladaniec. A journal of literary translation, Special Issue (2013): 87-101
Abstract: This paper, based on research conducted by the pioneers of the history of oral interpreting (A. Hermann, I. Kurz) in the 1950s and on modern archaeological evidence, presents the earliest references to interpreters in the Bronze Age, in the Near East and the Mediterranean area (Mesopotamia, Egypt, Crete, Carthage). It discusses a Sumerian Early Dynastic List, a Sumerian-Eblaic glossary from Ebla, the Shu-ilishu’s Cylinder Seal, the inscriptions and reliefs from the Tombs of the Princes of Elephantine and of Horemheb, the mention of one-third of a mina of tin dispensed at Ugarit to the interpreter of Minoan merchants and the Hanno’s stele, as well as terms used by these early civilisations to denote an interpreter: eme-bal, targumannu, jmy-r(A) aw, and mls.
Shu-ilishu cylinder seal of eme-bal, interpreter. Akkadian. Cylinder seal Impression. Inscription records that it belongs to ‘S’u-ilis’u, Meluhha interpreter’, i.e., translator of the Meluhhan language (EME.BAL.ME.LUH.HA.KI) The Meluhhan being introduced carries an goat on his arm. Musee du Louvre. Ao 22 310, Collection De Clercq 3rd millennium BCE. The Meluhhan is accompanied by a lady carrying a kamaṇḍalu. The goat on the trader's hand is a phonetic determinant -- that he is Meluhha. This is decrypted based on the word for the goat: mlekh'goat' (Brahui); mr..eka'goat' (Telugu) Rebus: mleccha'copper' (Samskritam); milakkhu'copper' (Pali) Thus the sea-faring merchant carrying the goat is a copper (and tin) trader from Meluhha. The jar carried by the accompanying person is a liquid measure: ranku'liquid measure' Rebus: ranku'tin'. A hieroglyph used to denote ranku may be seen on the two pure tin ingots found in a shipwreck in Haifa.
That Pali uses the term ‘milakkhu’ is significant (cf. Uttarādhyayana Sūtra 10.16) and reinforces the concordance between ‘mleccha’ and ‘milakkhu’ (a pronunciation variant) and links the language with ‘meluhha’ as a reference to a language in Mesopotamian texts and in the cylinder seal of Shu-ilishu. [Possehl, Gregory, 2006, Shu-ilishu’s cylinder seal, Expedition, Vol. 48, No. 1http://www.penn.museum/documents/publications/expedition/PDFs/48-1/What%20in%20the%20World.pdf] This seal shows a sea-faring Meluhha merchant who needed a translator to translate meluhha speech into Akkadian. The translator’s name was Shu-ilishu as recorded in cuneiform script on the seal. This evidence rules out Akkadian as the Indus or Meluhha language and justifies the search for the proto-Indian speech from the region of the Sarasvati river basin which accounts for 80% (about 2000) archaeological sites of the civilization, including sites which have yielded inscribed objects such as Lothal, Dwaraka, Kanmer, Dholavira, Surkotada, Kalibangan, Farmana, Bhirrana, Kunal, Banawali, Chandigarh, Rupar, Rakhigarhi. The language-speakers in this basin are likely to have retained cultural memories of Indus language which can be gleaned from the semantic clusters of glosses of the ancient versions of their current lingua francaavailable in comparative lexicons and nighanṭu-s.
Marzena Chrobak sites payment made to a translator: "From the Cretan thalassocracy in the second millennium BCE, I have come across only one mention of verbal communication: 'one-third a mina of tin to the translator, chief merchant among the Cretans, dispensed at Ugarit' (Sasson 1995: 1501-1521). This passage concerns Minoan merchants on the tin trade route, doing business or perhaps even permanently residing in the Hittite Ugarit, in the early Old Palace period, i.e. around the twentieth century BCE." (Chrobak, Marzena, 2013, For a tin ingot: the archaeology of oral interpretation in: Przekladaniec. A journal of literary translation, Special Issue, pp. 95-96).
Marzena Chrobak cites my reference to Meluhha as mleccha. (p.90 ibid.) I had mentioned this in my article published in 51CAANE, April 5, 2006: Kalyanaraman, S., 2006, Bronze age trade and writing system of Meluhha (Mleccha) evidenced by tin ingots from the near vicinity of Haifa (From Bronze Age Trade Workshop in 51CAANE, April 5, 206). www.ebookuniverse.net/bronze-age-trade-and-writing-system-meluhha-(mleccha)-pdf-d21820,30.05.2013
See the arguments mirrored in the following excerpts from
Archaeometallurgical affirmation of the Indus writing cipher
Given the archaeological evidence for oxhide copper and tin ingots, this key argument of rebus readings of Meluhha glosses related to the hieroglyphs is archaeometallurgical reaffirmation of the cipher: Meluhha (aka Santali-Indiansprachbund) and use of the writing system on the two pure tin ingots of a shipwreck at Haifa.
23 Tin ingots in the Museum of Ancient Art of the Municipality of Haifa, Israel (left #8251, right #8252). The ingots each bear two inscribed Cypro-Minoan markings. (Note: I have argued that the inscriptions were Meluhha hieroglyphs (Indus writing) denoting ranku 'tin' dhatu 'ore'. See: The Bronze Age Writing System of Sarasvati Hieroglyphics as Evidenced by Two “Rosetta Stones” By S. Kalyanaraman in: Journal of Indo-Judaic Studies Volume 1: Number 11 (2010), pp. 47-74.)
ranku 'liquid measure'; ranku 'antelope' Rebus: ranku 'tin' (Santali) dhatu 'cross' Rebus: dhatu 'mineral ore' (Santali).
ran:ku = tin (Santali)
• ran:ku = liquid measure (Santali)
• ran:ku a species of deer; ran:kuka (Skt.)(CDIAL 10559).
• dāṭu = cross (Te.); dhatu = mineral (Santali)
• Hindi. dhāṭnā ‘to send out, pour out, cast (metal)’ (CDIAL 6771).
These two hieroglyphs were inscribed on two tin ingots discovered in port of Dor south of Haifa from an ancient shipwreck. They are allographs. Both are read in Meluhha (Mleccha) of Indian sprachbund: ranku ‘liquid measure’; ranku ‘antelope’.Rebus: ranku ‘tin’. An allograph to denote tin is: tagara ‘ram’ Rebus: tagara ‘tin’. Rebus: damgar ‘merchant’ (Akkadian)
tagara ‘ram’ Rebus: tagaram ‘tin’.
tagaraka tabernae montana (Skt.) Rebus: tagara ‘tin’ (Ka.)
ranku ‘antelope’Rebus: ranku = tin (santali)
tagara ‘ram’ Rebus: tagaram ‘tin’.
ranku ‘liquid measure’. Rebus: ranku ‘tin’ (Cassiterite) (Santali)
Another tin ingot with comparable Indus writing was reported by Artzy:
Fig. 4 Inscribed tin ingot with a moulded head, from Haifa (Artzy, 1983: 53). (Michal Artzy, 1983, Arethusa of the Tin Ingot, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, BASOR 250, pp. 51-55) https://www.academia.edu/5476188/Artzy-1983-Tin-Ignot
The two hieroglyphs incised which compare with the two pure tin ingots discovered from a shipwreck in Haifa, the moulded head can be explained also as a Meluhha hieroglyph without assuming it to be the face of goddess Arethusa in Greek tradition: Hieroglyph: mũhe ‘face’ (Santali) Rebus: mũh ‘ingot’ (Santali). The three hieroglyphs are: ranku 'antelope' Rebus: ranku 'tin' (Santali) ranku 'liquid measure' Rebus: ranku 'tin' (Santali). dāṭu = cross (Te.); dhatu = mineral (Santali) Hindi. dhāṭnā ‘to send out, pour out, cast (metal)’ (CDIAL 6771). [The 'cross' or X hieroglyph is incised on both ingots.]
The entire Indus script copora stands validated as metalwork catalogs of Meluhha artisans/traders on the Tin Road from Hanoi to Haifa, underscoring the role played by the world’s largest Tin belt of the Far East in the revolution of the Bronze Age in Ancient Near East (also Eurasia).
S. Kalyanaraman
Sarasvati Research Center
April 15, 2015