Brit-Am Historical Reports (30 September, 2014, 6 Tishrei, 5775)
Contents:
1. How Names Change Meaning: A Modern Example by Yair Davidiy
2. Who Were the Druids? by Owen Jarus
3. Study traces ecological collapse over 6,000 years of Egyptian history by Tim Stephens
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1. How Names Change Meaning: A Modern Example by Yair Davidiy
Har Adar in Israel has a name meaning the Mighty (Adar) Mountain (Har). It is high up and part of a mountainous range.
John Hulley (Richardson) pointed out to us was originally named Radar Hill.
Wikipedia tells us that:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Har_Adar
Extracts:
Har Adar (Hebrew: ) is an Israeli settlement and local council in the Seam Zone and the Maccabim sub-region of the West Bank. Har Adar was founded in 1982 and has a population of approximately 4,000.[2] It is located near Abu Ghosh and the Green Line on Road 425, approximately 15 kilometers west of Jerusalem. Har Adar is ranked high on the Israeli socio-economic scales, at 9/10.[3]
The location of Har Adar was named Radar Hill (Hebrew:Â Giv'at HaRadar), for the World War II British military installation there which had an anti-air radar for the protection of Jerusalem. ...
The current settlement was founded in 1982 by the Radar Hill Organization. Har Adar (lit. Mount Adar) was a similar-sounding Hebrew name given to the hill and the settlement.[1]
We thus have an example of how names change.
It was called Radar Hill in English because of the Radar station that used to be there. The Hebrew translation of Radar Hill commonly accepted was Har Radar even though Har strictly speaking mean mountain rather than hill.
Then since the name Radar no longer held any significance it was slightly changed to Adar connoting mighty, magnificent, etc..
The morale of this story: Names change but often retain something either in sound, or meaning of the previous appellation.
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2. Who Were the Druids? by Owen Jarus
http://www.livescience.com/45727-druids.html>http://www.livescience.com/45727-druids.html
Extracts:
Druids were people in ancient Britain and France who served a wide variety of roles: "-philosophers, teachers, judges, the repository of communal wisdoms about the natural world and the traditions of the people, and the mediators between humans and the gods," writes Barry Cunliffe in his book "Druids: A Very Short Introduction" (Oxford University Press, 2010). He notes that, curiously, the ancient texts don't call them 'priests' directly.
Almost everything we know about druids is second-hand knowledge. Surviving texts that mention them were written by non-druids, something that poses a problem to modern-day historians trying to understand who they were and how their role changed over time. Indeed, Julius Caesar, who conquered Gaul, is among the principal sources of information about druids. He wrote that druids preferred oral teaching to writing.
Regardless of who exactly the druids were, it is clear that they were often revered. Druids could be found in Britain and Gaul (modern-day France), as well as other parts of Europe and perhaps even in the Middle East. The writer Dio Chrysostom, who lived about 1,900 years ago, compared druids to the Magi and the Brahmans of India. The 'Celts appointed those whom they call druids, these also being devoted to the prophetic art and to wisdom in general,' he wrote.
When did druidism begin?
When druidism began is unknown. Cunliffe, an emeritus professor of European archaeology at the University of Oxford, notes that the earliest written reference to them dates back about 2,400 years ago. While druidism surely goes back much earlier than this, how far back is unknown.
Ancient druidism continued up until around 1,200 years ago, gradually being supplanted by Christianity. There is a revival movement of modern-day druids; however, Cunliffe, among other scholars, is careful to point out that there is a gap of almost a millennium between the demise of the ancient druids and the appearance of this revival group.
Ancient sources provide some tantalizing hints to the things that the druids held in great importance.
In one passage, Pliny the Elder (who lived almost 2,000 years ago) talks about the importance of mistletoe and of the fifth day of the moon.
He said that mistletoe 'is gathered with rites replete with religious awe. This is done more particularly on the fifth day of the moon, the day which is the beginning of their months and years, as also of their ages'.
He also talks about the importance of animal sacrifice and fertility to the druids. They "bring thither two white bulls, the horns of which are bound then for the first time. Clad in a white robe the priest ascends the tree, and cuts the mistletoe with a golden sickle, which is received by others in a white cloak. They then immolate the victims" while offering prayers, wrote Pliny the Elder. "It is the belief with them that the mistletoe, taken in drink, will impart [fertility] to all animals that are barren, and that it is an antidote for all poisons."
How widespread druidism was in the ancient world is also a mystery. It certainly flourished in the British Isles and Gaul. Julius Caesar claimed that druidism originally came from Britain, and those who wished to study it in depth traveled there.
"This institution is supposed to have been devised in Britain, and to have been brought over from it into Gaul; and now those who desire to gain a more accurate knowledge of that system generally proceed [to Britain] for the purpose of studying it."
Whether druidism truly originated in Britain is unknown. Additionally, it is possible that druids were found much farther afield. Druidism is often associated with a people known as the Celts, and their settlements have been found as far east as modern-day Turkey. Additionally, Celtic mercenaries served as far away as Egypt (during the reign of Cleopatra VII) and even Judaea.
A man named Diodorus Siculus, who lived more than 2,000 years ago, said that while the druids were always present during a human sacrifice, it was another group known as the 'vates' that carried out the sacrifice itself.
How widespread human sacrifice was among the cultures that the druids served is another mystery. It's important to note that much of the writing that survives comes from Roman writers who could be hostile toward the druids and the cultures they served.
For instance, in A.D. 60 the druids joined a rebellion against the Romans on the island of Mona (modern-day Anglesey) in Wales. Cornelius Tacitus reported that after the Romans crushed the rebels they found widespread evidence of human sacrifice, a claim that may have been exaggerated to cast the druids in a negative light.
"A force was next set over the conquered, and their groves, devoted to inhuman superstitions, were destroyed. They deemed it indeed a duty to cover their altars with the blood of captives and to consult their deities through human entrails," wrote Tacitus.
The end of druidism
AsChristianity spread throughout Europe, druidism gradually faded away. Cunliffe notes that druids were still present in Ireland in the eighth century A.D. but in a much reduced form.
"Druids are now seen to be the makers of love-potions and casters of spells but little else," Cunliffe writes. Â "The mood is captured by one 8th-century hymn that asks for God's protection from the spells of women, blacksmiths and druids!"
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3. Study traces ecological collapse over 6,000 years of Egyptian history by Tim Stephens
http://news.ucsc.edu/2014/09/egyptian-mammals.html?utm_medium=rss
Ancient Egyptian artworks help scientists reconstruct how animal communities changed as climate became drier and human populations grew
September 08, 2014
Extracts:
Depictions of animals in ancient Egyptian artifacts have helped scientists assemble a detailed record of the large mammals that lived in the Nile Valley over the past 6,000 years. A new analysis of this record shows that species extinctions, probably caused by a drying climate and growing human population in the region, have made the ecosystem progressively less stable.
The study, published September 8 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), found that local extinctions of mammal species led to a steady decline in the stability of the animal communities in the Nile Valley. When there were many species in the community, the loss of any one species had relatively little impact on the functioning of the ecosystem, whereas it is now much more sensitive to perturbations, according to first author Justin Yeakel, who worked on the study as a graduate student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and is now a postdoctoral fellow at the Santa Fe Institute.
Around six millennia ago, there were 37 species of large-bodied mammals in Egypt, but only eight species remain today. Among the species recorded in artwork from the late Predynastic Period (before 3100 BC) but no longer found in Egypt are lions, wild dogs, elephants, oryx, hartebeest, and giraffe.
"What was once a rich and diverse mammalian community is very different now," Yeakel said. "As the number of species declined, one of the primary things that was lost was the ecological redundancy of the system. There were multiple species of gazelles and other small herbivores, which are important because so many different predators prey on them. When there are fewer of those small herbivores, the loss of any one species has a much greater effect on the stability of the system and can lead to additional extinctions."
The new study is based on records compiled by zoologist Dale Osborne, whose 1998 book The Mammals of Ancient Egypt provides a detailed picture of the region's historical animal communities based on archaeological and paleontological evidence as well as historical records. "Dale Osborne compiled an incredible database of when species were represented in artwork and how that changed over time. His work allowed us to use ecological modeling techniques to look at the ramifications of those changes," Yeakel said.
The researchers identified five episodes over the past 6,000 years when dramatic changes occurred in Egypt's mammalian community, three of which coincided with extreme environmental changes as the climate shifted to more arid conditions. These drying periods also coincided with upheaval in human societies, such as the collapse of the Old Kingdom around 4,000 years ago and the fall of the New Kingdom about 3,000 years ago.
"There were three large pulses of aridification as Egypt went from a wetter to a drier climate, starting with the end of the African Humid Period 5,500 years ago when the monsoons shifted to the south," Yeakel said. "At the same time, human population densities were increasing, and competition for space along the Nile Valley would have had a large impact on animal populations."
The most recent major shift in mammalian communities occurred about 100 years ago. The analysis of predator-prey networks showed that species extinctions in the past 150 years had a disproportionately large impact on ecosystem stability. These findings have implications for understanding modern ecosystems, Yeakel said.
 