There is only speculation that there is an error. There is no evidence from which we can actually build that case, though, since there are no surviving portions of the inscription itself.

As such, building further theories or speculations on top of this speculation is methodologically unsound. It is as valid, as I said, to ask "how many faeries can dance on the head of a pin". First, we know there is such a thing as a pin. That is a fact. It is widely accepted that faeries like to dance. However, there's no proof that faeries actually exist.

Same thing here. There is a pyramid, and pyramids appear to have had inscriptions on them. These are facts. There was a man named Herodotus who had somebody read an inscription from a pyramid to him (accurately or not). That is also a reported fact. However, the translation does not make sense to us now, so we speculate that it was mistranslated. We don't have anything on which to base that... except two possibly un-contextual things: Radishes and talents of silver. It does not meant that what was there wasn't being "translated into" radishes and talents for the benefit of Herodotus' understanding. That's what a translation is, after all.

Suffice it to say, though, there is no evidence whatsoever that the inscription that WAS there is different (other than "lost in translationally") from what Herodotus reports. Without that evidence, we can't go on to theorize scenarios about why the difference existed. We don't know for sure there WAS a difference. See my point?

As you can tell from my response time, I'm incredibly busy these last few weeks. I'll have to leave it there.

Anthony

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him think.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/13/2007 09:25AM by Hermione.