Certainly, ichnography itself is not an exact scientific method. Like its subject matter, it belongs to the realm of literature rather than to natural science. Words may change look and meaning in space and time as people use different alphabets and their cultures evolve – compare, for example, the words sophos and sense (section Wisdom). For this reason, we need dictionaries, which, most of the time, need to give several lines of explanation to transfer the meaning of a word from language to language in a comprehensive manner. For the same reason, scientists need to fix their terms by convention. The word cholesterol, for example, varies very little from Japan to Hawaii, through Europe, and from Siberia to Chile. Homo sapiens also refers to the same species and varies not at all. Mathematical and chemical formulas are also universal by convention. We are not allowed to touch their ichnography.
The interpretation of words by ichnography is, to a certain extent, arbitrary. Due
to its intrinsic plasticity, ichnography may create the same word for more than
one independent meaning and different words for the same meaning, hence the
homonyms and the synonyms. A legitimate criticism may, therefore, arise. For
example, the ichnogram MHSTΩR was interpreted as horse harness when Mestor was the twin brother of Elasippus (the driven horse). Still, it could well
have been interpreted as a Ω-lidded water pipe in another context. One of the
mythological MHSTΩRs (there are 4 of them) was the son of Perseus and Andromeda.
Perseus being interpreted, for example, as a hydraulic device like a tap and
Andromeda, the bad habit of drinking water directly from the tap, their sons are
unlikely to be related to horse dressing. Perseus and Andromeda’s MHSTΩR
should instead be interpreted as a water-related object.
I had to revise my interpretations in several rounds during this research as I encountered more cases. I am sure many of them can still be improved. How can
we say that ATLAS is pipe-bifurcation-bend-pipe and not ox-trimmed-tail-ox?
Well, out of context, ATLAS may curry either of those two meanings or
innumerable other meanings. Taking ATLAS as a symbol of work, one could see
some coherence with GADEIRA, the pond converted into a harbor. But
this was as far as I could have gone with the interpretation of the rest of
Atlas’ family. A coherent interpretation of the entire family could only be
achieved when considering the ichnography of the entire phrase: EYHNΩR-LEYCIPPE-CLEITΩ-POSEIDΩN-ATLAS-GADEIROS-AMPHERHS-EYAEMΩN-MNESEYS-AYTOChThΩN-ELASIPPOS-MESTΩR-AZAHS-DIAPREPHS and in the precise
order given by Solon and Plato.
This
is not surprising. Take again the analogy of the amino acids that constitute
the proteins. Each of the 20 amino acids will be found in every protein;
combinations of two amino acids, perhaps. From a certain length onwards,
however, amino-acid sequences become specific. A given combination of 5-6 amino
acids will be found only in a few proteins and begins to acquire some specific
structural and/or functional meaning. Longer sequences are unlikely to occur by
chance in any given species. Or, if they do, we consider them as sequences
conserved during the evolutionary process, hence, having a vital function. A
sequence of 10 amino acids will only occur in a single protein or in a family
of similar proteins sharing a structural/functional domain. A sequence of 100 amino
acids is improbable to occur in more than one protein unless the proteins
are highly similar, i.e., coded by the same gene or by homologous genes. The
longer the sequence of letters we examine, the more specific becomes our
interpretation. Within the sequence of 10 kings plus 3 progenitors, ATLAS could
not have been interpreted as ox-trimmed-tail-ox, or it would be incongruous,
abortive. Likewise, when we want to identify some conserved meaning of small
combinations of letters, like for a digraph, we need to examine their presence
in a sufficiently large number of contexts, i.e., in independent words. Once
established, the meaning of digraphs, diphthongs, and longer combinations of
letters, is more specific and stable than that of single letters and should
assist the interpretation of longer words. Some examples have been examined here, like EU, AI, KI, FL,
MY, NY, HL, DN, or FT. Perhaps, the semantics of Greek,
English, and kin languages are essentially syllabic, but the current syllable
theory needs to be thoroughly revised in the light of ichnography.
As
written language continued to develop, some small, stable combinations attained
their own meaning and became diphthongs, articles, particles, morphemes, etc. As
the complexity increases, even entire words are uninterpretable on their own.
Take ‘written.’ Written what? Written
language, love letter, political speech, contract, archeological record,
‘written’ destiny? The concept of ‘written’ is as abstract as the concept of a
letter in a primordial word. But each contemporary word, like each ancient
letter, narrows the possibilities of interpretation until we reach a
perfectly sensible and precise message.