Checking in on the White Dog

h/t Saraceni and the NYT, here is a nonpaywalled Indian-Express reprint of White Dog City, Sak Tz’i’ in Choltal. This has been mentioned a few times over the past two years or more; so, we're just getting an update here.

Although we can read the glyphs as Choltal the people there may have spoken then-mutually-intelligible Tzeltal. This because of the nearest village, apparently a ranching hamlet founded as "Lacanjá Tzeltal" by the Gomez and/or Sanchez family/ies. The ruin was found at Jacinto Gomez Sanchez' ranch - or, at least, some loot was traced back there. Sanchez then called in the archaeologists and has been doing his utmost to save the site (which was open to the elements). He considers himself a Maya and has much pride in his heritage, which pride he absolutely deserves.

Chiapas has long been considered a difficult part of the Mesoamerican isthmus, with jungle and badland. Other Classic-Maya cities recorded that the Maya even then considered the White Dog to be annoying. Several accounts record warfare over there. Apparently those cities nabbed a king in AD 628, almost a century after that civilisational "Hiatus".

Chrysalis

A family-member directs me to Saturn's Rings. Probably formed from the breakup of a Saturnine moon: maybe 200-100 Mya, during our late Triassic or Jurassic. The question is, why did this moon break up so [geologically] recently, and not during the Grand Tack it shared with Jupiter.

For some years we've seen the inner-from-Titan moons as young and in fact dynamically impossible.

h/t to WSJ since I have no access to Maryame El Moutamid's "editorial" DOI: 10.1126/science.abq318. To the editors, I recommend not claiming Saturn (9.5 AU semimajor) and Neptune (30 AU) to be "nearby" - to us, nor to each other.

Jack Wisdom et al. claim that resonances between Saturn and, er, Neptune account for the jostulation of Saturn's moons at the time, running "Chrysalis" into the subMimas orbit so dooming it to fragmentation.

It is however true that these two outer icy planets are close to resonance, 5:28 at a 1.9° mismatch per 5 Saturnine years. This compares well with Earth:Venus 8:13 claimed 1.5° per 13 Earth years.

MIT (and not WSJ) argue, assert anyway, how a Iapetus-class moon could disrupt that resonance. Elliptical interference between Titan and Iapetus - they claim. Possibly driving Iapetus to the distance it's now at. Possibly devouring more ice moons.

I'd look more to Uranus, which is almost Neptune's mass and flies almost exactly between Saturn and Neptune at 20 AU.

Diamonds-plus

I've been aware of (or at least assumed-possible-of) carbon structures harder than 10 on the Mohs scale. I just didn't think it practical to make such in the lab, as artificial diamond is made, cheaper than digging it out of a mine. Now, meet lonsdaleite - which Nyrath Chung has (figuratively) dug out of a mine 4500 million years ago.

That is: the "ureilite" rocks in which such are found once belonged to a dwarf planet that got shattered by a Pallaslike, way back in Hadean times perhaps even before Theia met Gaia. It wasn't Vesta or Mars, most of which survives; it was something else, now a disintegrate. Presumably 'twas carbon-rich - so maybe formed in the 4 AU region, before Jupiter started its grand tack, which tack started all those pinballs down here like the aforementioned Theia.

The implications of finding these slivers of lonsdal[e]ite isn't that those slivers are, themselves, fit to be forged into a Tutankhamun Blade Of Heaven. It's more that they hint at some chemical means of creating these slivers as we hadn't thought of using down here on Earth today. Which means we can make artificial lonsdaleite, which would be good for drilling deeper than we have been drilling and through more-difficult rock. This would be great for fracking of course - also, more importantly, for geothermal, which (at the end) trends more to the igneous.

Be interesting if gemstones could be made, also. I was never keen on diamonds for engagement-rings.

The Dormition

Still on Shoemaker's Dormition. In Greek that's Coemesis. The term is deliberate - this is a superset of Assumption (to Heaven). Some Dormitions exist wherein Mary is not Assumed. Even where Assumed - as we Catholics now believe - we're still unsure if Mary were assumed alive or dead.

Although Dormition does not intersect Christology, the Assumption might. If Christ had a human nature, as Nestorius posited, and if Christ truly died on the Cross, then he had a perishable body. Why should his mortal mother not, also? Here the issue which the Vatican has not addressed - if Mary died on Earth such that her dead body was Assumed to Heaven.

A book we needed in 1950

Yesterday at a pub (watching the Texans and Colts take the day off too apparently) I took time to read the bulk of Stephen Shoemaker's first work, The Ancient Traditions Of The Virgin Mary's Dormition And Assumption. This cost $140 back in 2002 but is now on archive.org.

This book's thesis is (or isn't) "should the Virgin Mary have an Assumption Day". Her feast has always been popular among the Balkan Orthodox on account of the Leo/Virgo season - perhaps seeping over to the Hrvatska. Over the 1940s the (still-)Latin Church had inherited several strains of tradition that the Virgin was bodily assumed into Heaven upon her death. This in 1950 became the Assumption dogma which, as a result, Catholics must believe. Shoemaker is here to figure out how it all got started. These collect all the records of the end of Mary's Earthly life, together Coemesis, which is Dormitio in Latin.

A lot of Christians - we learn - approved Coemesis if only as a unifying point of Christendom: theotokos for obvious reasons, but also anti-theotokos because then they could venerate Mary without even asking about the divine-or-human nature of Christ.

So: how does the book do? Well, I learnt a lot.

If you don't want to read the whole thing, several reviews exist. Most of them are paywalled, but Bryn Mawr's is free and usually best anyway. Author Adam Becker admits not to read (in order) Ethiopic, Coptic, Armenian, or Georgian but I might suggest he give at least Coptic a crack (he's probably learnt it since penning that review).

Shoemaker made the... interesting choice, in the book's own introduction, to complain that he didn't want to write it. I have to admit - his reluctance doesn't show. This really is a fine book. It's just that it is an exercise in marshalling data rather than in arguing a thesis.

One of the book's undigested publons concerns the Virgin Mary's most important role which was birthing our Lord... at the Kathisma in Judaea. This will become a classic article - but it's not there yet, in this 2002 book. Better that this material had been sequestered.

More shuttle shenanigans

The exrocketman has redesigned the Space Shuttle as "No Shortage Of Dreams" would do it. It occurred to me that the Shuttle is... already being redesigned. So let us check in on Sierra Space and their Dream Chaser.

'Tis still a thing. In fact Sierra are projecting 2023, to dock with the existent International Space Station; rather than with StarLab or Orbital Reef or those other theoretic stations.

As to how the Dream Chaser is not a shuttle: it's launching on a non-reusable booster... so far. Sierra are shifting to a more-reusable model. Still not quite there yet.

The truncated version of the Epistle of the Romans

Among Peter Kirby's later posts concerns Marcion's New Testament. Which NT is, like Martin Luther's NT, an exercise in preference. But not always of revision. We're tonight Beyond Zebra, Zebra being Romans 14:23 per Marcion apud Origen.

As I read the full Romans (English translation), I don't see much that Marcion would efface. That the Church should support "the poor in Jerusalem" is something that John Crossan might flag, as specific to Paul's time with no relevance to Marcion's. On the other hand - as noted even by his opponent Tertullian - Marcion allowed copious Pauline material as didn't help the mature Marcionite theology.

As, indeed, perhaps-Marcion-contemporary Luke was not allowing. Crossan is clear that Luke refused the early Christian definition of "the Poor" as James defined them. (Or as Matthew might define them...) We are all, I hope, aware of Luke's propensity to pound Peter into a Pauline mould.

As to Romans' ending looking toward a visit to Spain - does Luke's own text reach that far? I don't see it. 1 Clement assumes Paul went that far pace this guy.

Kirby further points out that Tertullian didn't quibble Marcion on the last two chapters of Romans. Tertullian's own (Latin) copy perhaps lacked them. Again: my blog does not question the present text of Romans as a first-century production. But we might at least ask about the texts in the middle second-century.

Was "Marcion's New Testament" actually Marcion's? - or did Marcion inherit Luke's edition of the Epistles, simply developing his thought from that?

For stopping Paul's letter short, Luke has a motive which Marcion does not have: the Advent / Parousia of the Holy Spirit, from the Temple Mount to the Seven Hills. Paul's hope was for Spain. This hope was not Luke's hope; wasn't Marcion's either, obviously, but Marcion didn't care. Just like Tertullian didn't care. But Luke cared.