From "decryption" to "translation"

[geoffreycaveney]

Thank you Linda! This is more very interesting material.

In case you and others are interested, my (quasi-Judaeo-)Greek letter correspondences produce the following readings of the TO map labels on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. 3:

Europe: [opcholdg]

my reading: "Apheonus"

interpretation: "Japhe-(g)onous"

meaning: "Japheth-born" or "the descendants of Japheth"


Africa: [otodol]

my reading: "AkhAbon"

Here I must extend the interpretation of [d] to include the other labial sound "m",
to allow the interpretation "Kham-(g)on",
an abbreviation of "the descendants of Ham"


Asia: on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. 3 this is a long text. 
The word [ykeol] does occur twice in the text,
and I can read it as "stheAm"

It is possible this may be a reference to "Shem", although I will need to make sense of the "th" in the word.

Geoffrey

I like it. It is even on the TO map example i posted, just different spellings. Can you make out the rest of the long text? Seems like there was something special going on to have put such a long description while the other sections get one word labels. Perhaps it is about Jerusalem, as it was often at the centre of maps, and qualifies as being in Asia.

I note there is a long o-word with p, seems like southeast then west, southwest west, maybe as in as far west a port there can be from southeast of europe. The next word says inland to the east. If we count the southeastern corner of the Mediterranean as being the farthest west you can go from the land side, since the shoreline moves northeast from there, you cant go west any further south because then it becomes africa, and by the time you can go across the top, you are level with Europe again. That works out perfectly for the last word to indicate the location of Jerusalem.

Linda, I will answer your question in a separate thread when I am able to, per the request of the forum administrator.

Geoffrey