<HTML>John:
Marco Polo could have passed through a gateway in the Great Wall a hundred times without knowing it was the Great Wall. Although
he may have been a foreign favourite, as he reports, it's not certain, or
even likely, that he was privy to military information, such as the extent
of the wall. Remember, it wasn't until recently that a large fragment of it
was found in the Gobi desert, by satelite. Relatively, the Great Wall is a
nearly invisible string across the breadth of Asia.
The pyramids, on the other hand, were public knowledge, visible "from
all quarters to those navigating the river." And unless the land of PUNT
has been relegated to Biblical mythology, it seems certain that the Ancient Jews ventured far beyond the northeast corner of the Delta.
As for Mike, I'm aware that the Odyssey began as an oral tradition. Really, can you think of anything in history that didn't? You say the Greeks were
only concerned with their own monuments. In the Odyssey, or the Iliad,
what were they? "Homer, however, does mention Thebes...." Why
would he give such a nice description of Thebes and Leave out the obvious at the end of the river? Also, are you saying everything in the Odyssey was a myth? What of Troy 1,2,3 etc. ,the Pillars of Hercules, and so on?
Were they not descriptions taken from the real world?
Bent</HTML>
