Ancient models of thought
in Africa, the Ancient Near East, and prehistory

by Wim van Binsbergen

 

Ancient models of thought in Africa, the Ancient Near East, and prehistory, examined by an Africanist anthropologist turned intercultural philosopher. Topics include extensive long-range comparative / historical analyses of myths especially African creation myths; the anthropological and philosophical theory of myth; the comparative historical analysis of geomantic divination and mankala board-games; a theoretical model of magic in Ancient Mesopotamia; an archaeoastronomical analysis of cupmarks as star maps and as a possible origin of mankala board-games -- stating the case for the view that Neandertals made stellar maps; and a detailed analysis of animal symbolism (especially leopard-related symbolism) across three continents and five millennia

proceed to the Shikanda portal in order to access all other websites by Wim van Binsbergen: general (intercultural philosophy, African Studies); ethnicity-identity-politics; Afrocentricity and the Black Athena debate; Ancient Models of Thought in Africa, the Ancient Near East, and prehistory; sangoma consultation; literary work
proceed to Topicalities: an up-to-date weblog of Wim van Binsbergen's current and imminent research and publications since 2002

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NOTE TO SITE VISITOR: in view of Wim van Binsbergen's considerable productivity and the large investments he has to make into PhD research under his direction, it has become impractical to record all relevant publications and project in the present page onm 'Ancient Models of Thought'. More and more, the reporting on current and imminent publications and research has been relegated to Wim van Binsbergen's Topicalities weblog, which has offered a month-by-month overview since 2002. For post-2007 topics related to the present webpage, see: Topicalities, in the Shikanda.net portal
van Binsbergen, Wim M.J., 2011, Shimmerings of the Rainbow Serpent: Towards the interpretation of crosshatching motifs in Palaeolithic art: Comparative mythological and archaeoastronomical explorations inspired by the incised Blombos red ochre block, South Africa, 70 ka BP, and Nkoya female puberty rites, 20th c. CE., PDF, 70 pp., 4 tables, over 50 illustrations (originally written March 2006; greatly revised and expanded January 2011; draft version)

or if you have enough time, click here for a fast-loading PowerPoint emulation of the same argument

AS AN AFRICANIST, WIM VAN BINSBERGEN'S INCREASING INVOLVEMENT IN COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY BROUGHT HOME TO HIM THE FACT THAT THE MARGINALISATION OF AFRICA WAS ALSO MANIFEST IN THAT APPARENTLY NEUTRAL AND COSMOPOLITAN SUB-DISCIPLINE; MANY OF HIS PAPERS IN THIS FIELD HAVE TRIED TO REMEDY THIS REGRETTABLE SITUATION. In this connection he compiled the following table, which systematically applies the conceptual apparatus of his Aggregative Diachronic Model for Global Mythology both to Africa and to the mythologies of the other continents, bringing out a most remarkable, and largely ignored, continuity

van Binsbergen, Wim M.J., (2007), Extensive table of Old World mythological continuities, classified on the basis of 20 Narrative Complexes (NCs) as found in a corpus of sub-Saharan African cosmogonic myths collected in historic times: including mythologies from Ancient Egypt, Graeco-Roman Antiquity, the Bible, and selected other literate civilisations of the Old World, outside sub-Saharan Africa.

(Note: this table is not in portrait but in landscape format; your PDF reader has a button to rotate the page 90 degrees clockwise, in order to allow you to read the table without difficulty)

this table has been compiled in order to substantiate Wim van Binsbergen's claim (see the mythological papers listed and linked below on this webpage) to the effect that there are extensive continuities between the mythologies of sub-Saharan Africa and those of the rest of the Old World (Asia, Europe and North Africa), and that these continuities may be explained by reference to the accumulated effect of three fundamental processes of cultural history:

1.      the continued percolation, inside Africa, of the Out-of Africa package of a handful of NCs taken to other continents and transformed there,

2.      the Back-into-Africa movement, bringing Asian mythological innovations (new NCs) back into Africa

3.      the amorphous northbound diffusion via path B from Africa into West Asia and Europe, outside the path of genetic ramification of Anatomically Modern Humans (path A), and with a time lag of several dozens of ka needed to allow Anatomically Modern Humans to arrive in West Asia and Europe in the first place

NB: A 'Narrative Complex' NCs, is an aggregation subsuming a number of similar, possibly kindred, more elementary mythemes (= basic unit of mythological narrative). In his 2005 Kyoto conference paper, Wim van Binsbergen took as point of departure a corpus of cosmogonic myths collected in Africa in historic times, proposed to reduce the c. 200 mythes found there to 20 NCs. Taking his cue from state-of-the-art molecular genetics, he went on to argue that some of these NCs had been among the original cultural contents spread outside Africa as a result of the Out of Africa migration of Anatomically Modern Humans (ca. 80,000 Before Present), whilst other NCs had been subsequent innovations and transformations from Asian soil, subsequently brought back to Africa in the course of the Back-into-Africa movement which started c. 15,000 Before Present. Cf.

van Binsbergen, W.M.J., 2006, 'Mythological archaeology: Situating sub-Saharan cosmogonic myths within a long-range intercontinential comparative perspective', in: Osada, Toshiki, with the assistance of Hase, Noriko, eds., Proceedings of the Pre-symposium of RIHN and 7th ESCA Harvard-Kyoto Roundtable, Kyoto: Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN), pp. 319-349

APPLYING COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY TO AFRICAN PRE- AND PROTOHISTORY: THE SUNDA THESIS AND SOUTH EAST ASIAN INFLUENCE ON SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

As one of the results of Wim van Binsbergen's intensive work on comparative mythology, the following conference paper was proposed for the 1st Annual Meeting of the International Association for Comparative Mythology, of which Wim van Binsbergen had become (Beijing 2006) one of the founders and directors:

van Binsbergen, Wim M.J., 2007, 'A new Paradise myth? An assessment of Stephen Oppenheimer’s thesis of the South East Asian origin of West Asian core myths, including most of the mythological contents of Genesis 1-11’, proposed paper for: THE DEEP HISTORY OF STORIES: Annual Conference, International Association for Comparative Mythology, Edinburgh 28-30 August, 2007

meanwhile this proposal has been worked out into a fully-fledged conference presentation (PowerPoint):

van Binsbergen, Wim M.J., 2007, 'Out of Sundaland? A constructive assessment of Oppenheimer’s thesis claiming decisive Indonesian prehistoric cultural influence on West Asia, Africa and Europe, specifically on the core mythologies of the Ancient Near East and the Bible', paper read at the conference: THE DEEP HISTORY OF STORIES: 1st Annual Meeting, International Association for Comparative Mythology, Edinburgh 28-30 August, 2007

and has been published in the journal Cosmos (Edinburgh):

van Binsbergen, Wim M.J., with the collaboration of Mark Isaak, 2008, ‘Transcontinental mythological patterns in prehistory: A multivariate contents analysis of flood myths worldwide challenges Oppenheimer’s claim that the core mythologies of the Ancient Near East and the Bible originate from early Holocene South East Asia’, Cosmos: The Journal of the Traditional Cosmology Society), 23 (2007): 29-80, fulltext at: http://shikanda.net/ancient_models/Binsbergen_Edinburgh_2007_%20for_Cosmos.pdf .

ABSTRACT. The paper is devoted to the Sunda thesis as launched by the leading British geneticist Stephen Oppenheimer in 1998. Largely concurring with Oppenheimer, but against the background of an explicitly theoretical position and critical of Oppenheimer's archaeology and Frazerianism, the paper extensively states the positive case in favour of the generalised Sunda thesis, on the basis of additional African and European material (from comparative mythology, comparative ethnography, ancient history and comparative linguistics) not yet adduced by Oppenheimer. However, the argument is critical of the specific application of the Sunda thesis in the field of comparative mythology. Although there are several indications that mythical themes already circulating in the Old World for tens of thousands of years where transformed / innovated and subsequently spread in the Sunda context, multivariate analysis (upon a contents analysis of a representative corpus of flood myths from all over the world, graciously made available by Marc Isaak) brings out that this is not the case for the Nuahic (Noah-related) type of flood myth, centring on 'The flood hero in his ark as an ally of the Supreme God' -- as exemplary for the core mythologies of the Ancient Near East and of the Bible. Far from being the source of Western civilisation, as Oppenheimer claims, Sunda turns out to be a relatively recent recycling context (7 ka BP, on a total time scale of 200 ka for Anatomically Modern Humans), which however in recent millennia has been a major source of non-demic cultural diffusion all over Oceania; South, East and Southwest Asia; Africa; and probably even parts of Europe. Whilst thus assessing and to a considerable extent vindicating Oppenheimer's seminal thesis, the paper also entails the specific presentation and of a more comprehensive theory as an attractive alternative to Oppenheimer's: Wim van Binsbergen's own 'Aggregative diachronic approach to world mythology, starting from the African continent'. The latter theory was the subject of Wim van Binsbergen's contributions to the Harvard Round Table on Comparative Mythology during its 2005 and 2006 sessions at Kyoto (Japan) and Beijing (People's Republic of China; see elsewhere on the present page.
AN AFRICANIST'S ITINERARY OF LONG-RANGE RESEARCH, 1968-2007. While rewriting my paper: 'Further steps towards an aggregative diachronic approach to world mythology, starting from the African continent', read at the International Conference on Comparative Mythology, organized by Peking University (Research Institute of Sanskrit Manuscripts & Buddhist Literature) and the Mythology Project, Asia Center, Harvard University (Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies), May 10-14, 2006, at Peking University, Beijing, China (convenors Professors Duan Qing and Michael Witzel) -- I feel the need (as a form of theoretical, methodological and empirical justification) to spell out the research itinerary that has led me, from my first anthropological and historical fieldwork in 1968, to my present concentration on long-range studies, involving connections across many thousands of years, and across and between entire continents. Hence this special web paper, that is ultimately intended as draft for a book in which I collect some of the intermediate results over the years which so far have not yet been published except on the Internet:

Wim van Binsbergen, 2007, 'An Africanist's itinerary of long-range research, 1968-2007' (web article)

AFTER THE 2005 KYOTO PAPER, A FURTHER REFINEMENT AND RETHINKING OF THE AGGREGATIVE DIACHRONIC MODEL OF GLOBAL MYTHOLOGY:

van Binsbergen, Wim M.J., 2006, 'Further steps towards an aggregative diachronic approach to world mythology starting from the African continent', summary paper for the International Conference on Comparative Mythology, organized by Peking University and the Mythology Project, Asia Center, Harvard University/Sanskrit Department, to be held May 10-13, 2006, at Peking University, Beijing, China (convenors Professors Duan Qing and Michael Witzel)

the above link only leads to the pre-conference paper proposal; meanwhile also the actual conference paper has become available:

van Binsbergen, Wim M.J., 2006, 'Further steps towards an aggregative diachronic approach to world mythology starting from the African continent', paper read at the International Conference on Comparative Mythology, organized by Peking University and the Mythology Project, Asia Center, Harvard University/Sanskrit Department, to be held May 10-13, 2006, at Peking University, Beijing, China (convenors Professors Duan Qing and Michael Witzel)

the paper has also been written out for publication, now lon delayed, by the convenors; see:

van Binsbergen, Wim M.J., 2006, ‘Further steps towards an aggregative diachronic approach to world mythology, starting from the African continent’, paper read at the International Conference on Comparative Mythology, organized by Peking University (Research Institute of Sanskrit Manuscripts & Buddhist Literature) and the Mythology Project, Asia Center, Harvard University (Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies), May 10-14, 2006, at Peking University, Beijing, China; in press in: Duan Qing & Gu Zhenkun, eds., Proceedings of the International Conference on Comparative Mythology [ provisional title ] , Beijing

ABSTRACT. This paper is one of a series of explorations that attempt to combine (1) the ‘Out-of-Africa’ scenario with (2) Witzel’s seminal idea (2001) of myth constituting an independent source on humankind’s remotest past. The project seeks to identify (in addition to other cultural, linguistic and religious elements: Anatomically Modern Human’s near-universals) some putative ‘Out of Africa’ original mythological package (designated ‘Pandora’s Box’), consisting of a few specific Narrative Complexes (NC). Moreover, it attempts to trace this package’s subsequent transformations and innovations in the course of global spread, identifying (in space and time) a handful of specific Contexts of Intensified Transformation and Innovation (CITI) in which that process made leaps, closely associated with historic advances in the field of modes of production and language families. Emphasis is on the development of an explicit methodology, without which the entire exercise would be pointless. The first paper in this series was presented at Kyoto, 2005 (van Binsbergen 2006a). The present paper seeks to develop that argument in a number of ways: making explicit its theoretical background (universals, the status and nature of myth); adducing ample prehistoric iconographic corroboration of the NCs identified; situating the model more firmly in molecular genetics (Forster 2004); suggesting several Neanderthal connections to the long-range development of Anatomically Modern Human’s mythologies; and proposing major alterations for the format, the dating, and the specific geographical path of the unfolding of world mythology as stipulated by the model. For four NCs their global history (200 ka to present) is tentatively reconstructed. This brings out the close association between the emergence and spread of specific NCs, and specific mitochondrial DNA types, and thus offers new opportunities for dating the NCs. The model stresses and explains the high rate of continuity between present-day sub-Saharan African mythologies, and those of the rest of the Old World: partly as a result of the initial universality of Pandora’s Box, partly as a result of the (genetically well established) ‘Back into Africa’ movement from Central Asia from c. 15 ka BP. This clearly steers away from essentialising Africa, and a penultimate section refutes the allegation that the present model would be Afrocentrist. The conclusion considers the many implications of this model for comparative mythology.
AN INITIAL PERSPECTIVE ON TRANSCONTINENTAL CULTURAL AND MYTHICAL CONTINUITY: at long last: Global bee flight, a 500-page book drafted in 1998-2001 and announced as a professionally Africanist contribution to the Black Athena debate, never made it into print, and contrary to the author's habits not even to the Internet, for a number of reasons now, in the second half of the 2000-2010 decade, gradually being overcome. Find here, as a first instalment, the 1998 version of chapter 5, lavishly ammended with 2006 Postscripts in the light of the author's intellectual progress since 1998: his increasing acquaintance with Ancient Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean in the Late Bronze Age, and (as a background throwing the particular Africanist and Egyptological argument into relief) his increasingly successful long-range comparative historical research into Old World symbolism, myth and cultural history, going further and further back in time and now reaching the pre-out of Africa phase of Anatomically Modern Humans (before 140,000 Before Present).

Wim M.J. van Binsbergen, 1998-2006, ‘Skulls and tears: Identifying and analysing an African fantasy space extending over 5000 kilometres and across 5000 years’: Paper read at the conference ‘Fantasy spaces: The power of images in a globalizing world’ (convenors Bonno Thoden van Velzen & Birgit Meyer), part of the WOTRO [Netherlands Foundation for Tropical Research] research programme ‘Globalization and the construction of communal identities’, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 26-29 August 1998, PDF, 52 pp.

THEORETICAL COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY AS A KEY TO PREHISTORIC AND PROTOHISTORIC IMAGERY AND ICONOGRAPHY. As Wim van Binsbergen's theoretical approach to the global history of mythology took initial shape in paper for the 2005 Kyoto conference (see publication below, 2006), he found that he had formulated a model that could be quite useful for the systematic interpretation of prehistoric and protohistoric iconography, where per definition the local historical actors' explanations and commentaries are lacking. This led to his contribution:

van Binsbergen, Wim M.J., 2005, 'Mythical archaeology and the visual arts', short presentation made at the Conference on Creation myths and the Visual arts, Leiden, 16 December 2005 (convenors Mineke Schipper and Daniela Merolla) (click for slide presentation)

THE COMPARATIVE STUDY OF DIVINATION SYSTEMS WORLD-WIDE. Becoming a sangoma (diviner / priest / spirit medium /healer) in the Southern African tradition constituted a break in Wim van Binsbergen 's professional identity as an empirical, historicising anthropologist, and forced him to redesign his research work so as to steer away from the objectifying Eurocentrism inherent in so much of mainstream anthropology. The study of leopard-skin symbolism and of comparative mythology was one strategy of dealing with this challenge. Another strategy was to explore, to the fullest possible geographical and historical extent, the divination system which he had learned during his training as a sangoma, and whose regular use in that capacity had convinced him of the fact that African modes of thought and of ritual practice constitute ways to valid knowledge in their own right, whatever the dismissive Western stereotype to which they are subjected. From the early 1990s, Wim van Binsbergen extensively applied himself to the comparative study of African divination systems, which led to some of the papers listed below. In recognition of the expertise thus gathered, in 2005 he was asked to present a keynote address at the major Leiden conference on African divination:

van Binsbergen, Wim M.J., 2005, 'Divination through space and time': keynote, Conference Realities re-viewed/ revealed: Divination in sub-Saharan Africa, Leiden 4-5 July 2005, National Museum of Ethnology (convenors: Philip Peek, Walter van Beek, Jan Jansen, Annette Schmidt) (click here for final programme)

now in press in Walter van Beek & Philip Peek, eds., Proceedings of the Leiden 22005 conference [ provisional title ]

abstract: African divination, the central topic of this timely international conference, does not exist in isolation – just as little as Africa itself does. All literate civilisations of both the Old and the New World possessed elaborate, multiple divination systems – and usually these systems came under the spell of astral divination (astrology) as history proceeded. Two millennia ago, Aristotle, Cicero and Plutarch, and many of their philosophical colleagues, reflected on the rationality and credibility of divination, establishing a philosophical tradition of reflection and debate on divination that has extended to Augustine, Ibn Ezra, Aquinas, Popper, Feyerabend, etc. I am not aware of any non-literate society in historical times that lacks all forms of divination – but there are severe limitations to my cross-cultural overview, and I may be mistaken; we shall come back extensively to the point of divination as a possible cultural universal. Divination, in Africa and elsewhere, tends to pose a strange Janus face to the North Atlantic epistemologist: apparently irrational in its choice of sources of knowledge, it subsequently pursues the acquisition of knowledge in a rational fashion: systematically, intersubjectively, with insistent recourse to causal reasoning and usually with at least the appearances of logic (underneath which often communicative tautologies may be detected). Today the study of divination is the, somewhat disreputable, privilege of anthropology, African Studies, the classics, Sinology, and the history of ideas. Their contention is that divination as a form of knowledge production is nonsensical pseudo-science, but that it is interesting as a cultural phenomenon, especially as a form of local wisdom helping people to sort out their small-scale social and psychological crises. Since 1990 I have been both a practicing African diviner, and a professor of intercultural philosophy/ cultural anthropology. In that period, globalisation and long-range comparative research have been major themes in my work. All this brings me to address, in this key note, the epistemological puzzle of divination, as well as its ramifications in space and time at the descriptive and comparative level.

Wim van Binsbergen's path-breaking Afrocentric synthesis of the history of world mythology:

Mythological archaeology: reconstructing humankind’s oldest discourse: A preliminary attempt to situate sub-Saharan African cosmogonic myths within a long-range intercontinental comparative perspective, paper for the comparative myth section of the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN) Pre-Symposium / 7th ESCA Harvard-Kyoto Roundtable on ‘Ethnogenesis of South and Central Asia’, organised by RIHN, NIHU / Harvard University, the Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Kyoto, Japan, 6-8 June, 2005.

now published as:

van Binsbergen, Wim M.J., 2006, 'Mythological archaeology: Situating sub-Saharan cosmogonic myths within a long-range intercontinential comparative perspective', in: Osada, Toshiki, with the assistance of Hase, Noriko, eds., Proceedings of the Pre-symposium of RIHN and 7th ESCA Harvard-Kyoto Roundtable, Kyoto: Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN), pp. 319-349

van Binsbergen, Wim M.J., 2004, 'The Leopard in the Garden of Eating: From food for thought to thought for food –
towards a world history of difference',
paper read at, ‘The Garden of Eating: Experiencing the thought of Gilles Deleuze in cultural practices’, 29 May 2004, Rotterdam: Faculties of Philosophy / History and Art; convenor: Rick Dolphijn
; (click here for html slide show, fast loading)

ABSTRACT: Most philosophers and cultural analysts who let themselves be inspired by Deleuze (and Guattari’s) work concentrate on present-day North Atlantic urban society. Yet the scope of Deleuze and Guattari’s work was far more extended in space and especially in time, and particularly Milles Plateaux (1980) offers perspective on other cultures than the North Atlantic one, and on Palaeolithic and Neolithic cultures in the remote past. The title of this symposium, and the apple as its central emblem (although difficult to spot on the poster), clearly refer to the Garden of Eden, humankind’s mythical original paradise. I will take you to that remotest moment in history: the genesis of humans on the East African savanna over three millions years ago. Our aim will be to explore whether we can discern general, perhaps universal, patterns in human thought; trace the unfolding of these patterns over time; interpret and explain these patterns philosophically in a manner inspired by Deleuze (and Guattari); and in the process link the ‘food for thought’ theme to that of ‘thought for food’; particularly in a philosophical reflection on the emergence of agriculture as systematic production of food; using leopard symbolism and speckledness as our index fossil

van Binsbergen, Wim M.J., 2004, 'The contemporary manifestation of Deep Structure in Africa'
paper read at: The Concept of Agency in African History:
A workshop on structure and agency in African history
27 – 28 May 2004
Leiden, African Studies Centre, Leiden; convenor: Jan-Bart Gewald

ABSTRACT: My complex argument will touch on zoology, genetics, archaeology and linguistics, and risks to drown in an attempt at empirical and comparative underpinning, yet it is essentially an an attempt to identify precisely what my title says: The contemporary manifestation of Deep Structure in Africa. I will gradually lay bare what I see as historical layers that inform the life worlds in which African actors situate themselves today, in which they make their perceptions and decide on their actions, in other words in which they constitute and effectuate their agency. Some of these layers are autochthonously African, and arguably over 150,000 years old. Many of them however can be specifically traced to have an incomparably more recent history, an history that is largely intercontinenta; as such a history in which the general pulse beat of human cultural history can be gauged. It would be foolish to aim at completeness. Using the case of leopard-skin symbolism is my index fossil, I will concentrate on one topic, that I loosely indicate in terms of the opposition between immanentalism (the paramount sway of the here and the now) and transcendentalism (when the life world is largely conceived, by the actors, as being composed or elements and forces that do not belong to the here and the now, but that constitute a distinct mode of existence, or realm, in themselves

van Binsbergen, Wim M.J., 2004, The leopard's unchanging spots:
Long-range comparative research as a key to enduring patterns of African agency
slide presentation, Theme Group on Agency in Africa, African Studies Centre, Leiden, November/December 2003 (version short core group);
now in a later version entitled:

van Binsbergen, Wim M.J., 2004, 'Long -range mythical continuities across Africa and Asia: Iconographic and linguistic evidence concerning leopard symbolism'
presented at the Round Table on Myth, Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Harvard University, Boston (USA), 8-10 May, 2004;
and the International Conference on Agency in African History, African Studies Centre, Leiden, the Netherlands, 25-27 May, 2004

LEOPARD-SKIN SYMBOLISM, SPECKLEDNESS, GRANULATION: Wim van Binsbergen's explorations into the world-wide ramifications of leopard-skin symbolism were prompted by his initiation, in 1990, as a sangoma spirit medium / healer / diviner in the Southern African tradition. On this occasion, the attendant high priest (despite his mentrix's insistence) refused him initiation at the High God shrine at Nata, Botswana, until such time (which in practice turned out to be no more than a few days) when he presented himself there 'with the traditional attire of his kind of people, a leopard skin'. Over the next decade, Wim van Binsbergen devoted part of his research time to finding out what the high priest's eminently puzzling pronouncement may have meant. Having made the grade as a sangoma, and having at long last solved the puzzle to his own satisfaction, he wrote a long account of his world-wide search (linguistic, iconographic, and textual) to be included in his book Intercultural encounters: African and Anthropological Lessons towards a Philosophy of Interculturality (Berlin / Boston 2003). However, he withdrew this chapter when he found that (being trained in general linguisitcs but not in the special branch of historical and comparative linguistics relevant in this case) he could not get his linguistic data in order at a professional level before the agreed publication date, while the book was already excessively voluminous even without another chapter. Research and rethinking on leopard-skin symbolism, speckledness, granulation, and the strikingly converging lexical expressions of these descriptions of surface texture throughout the linguistic macrophyla of the world, continued throughout 2004, when he presented his findings at a number of international conferences at Harvard University, Leiden University and the Erasmus University Rotterdam. These papers are included above as clickable, fast-loading powerpoint presentations. However, the projected book that would bring all this fascinating resarch together has not yet been finished -- mainly because the leopard-skin symbolism research initiated a new line of research which has absorbed much of Wim van Binsbergen's research time in the next half decade: comparative mythology, also extensively represented above.

An early instalment of the findings on leopard skin symbolism and its linguistic analysis has been:

van Binsbergen, Wim M.J., 2003, 'The leopard and the lion: An exploration of Nostratic and Bantu lexical continuity in the light of Kammerzell’s hypothesis', MS, 26 pp.

This argument was written before its author became conversant with long-range linguistic approaches such as those represented at Starostin & Starostin's Tower of Babel etymological database, under the aegis of some of the world's most prominent universities (Moscow, Leiden, Santa Fe). Therefore this argument is to be largely rewritten before it would be suitable for definitive publication. Meanwhile it contains enough food for thought to be allowed initial circulation here.

The astrological origin of Islamic geomancy

van Binsbergen, Wim M.J., 1996, 'The astrological origin of Islamic geomancy', paper read at The SSIPS/ SAGP 1996, 15th Annual Conference: ‘Global and Multicultural Dimensions of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy and Social Thought: Africana, Christian, Greek, Islamic, Jewish, Indigenous and Asian Traditions’, Binghamton University, Department of Philosophy/ Center for Medieval and Renaissance studies (CEMERS), October 1996 (PDF)

van Binsbergen, Wim M.J., 2003-2009, Rupture and fusion in the approach to myth
Situating myth analysis between philosophy, poetics, and long-range historical reconstruction, with an application to the ancient and world-wide mythical complex of leopard-skin symbolism

paper read at the International Conference ‘Myth: Theory and the Disciplines’, 12 December 2003
University of Leiden: Research School CNWS (School of Asian, African, and Amerindian Studies), IIAS (The International Institute for Asian Studies); and NWO (Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research)

abstract | fullest version of paper | and for the published version:

van Binsbergen, Wim M.J., with the collaboration of Mark Isaak, 2008, ‘Transcontinental mythological patterns in prehistory: A multivariate contents analysis of flood myths worldwide challenges Oppenheimer’s claim that the core mythologies of the Ancient Near East and the Bible originate from early Holocene South East Asia’, Cosmos: The Journal of the Traditional Cosmology Society), 23 (2007): 29-80 .

van Binsbergen, Wim M.J., 2002, From an African bestiary to universal science?
Cluster analysis opens up a world-wide historical perspective on animal symbolism in divine attributes, divination sets, and in the naming of clans, constellations, zodiacs, and lunar mansions

ABSTRACT

a revised version of this paper is now (2010) in press with Papers on Intercultural Philosophy and Transcontinental Studies

Archaeoastronomy: Cupmark patterns,
palaeolithic star-maps, and mankala board-games
:
a detailed astronomical and archaeological argument to the effect that Neandertals made stellar maps

Diffusionism and ludology: geomantic divination and mankala board-games

much revised and expanded version of:
Van Binsbergen, Wim M.J., 1995, ‘Divination and board-games: Exploring the links between geomantic divination and mancala board-games in Africa and Asia’, paper read at the international colloquium 1995: Board-games in Academia’, Leiden, 9-13 April 1995; a somewhat shortened and adapted version was published as: Van Binsbergen, W.M.J., 1997c, ‘Rethinking Africa’s contribution to global cultural history: Lessons from a comparative historical analysis of mankala board-games and geomantic divination’, in: Van Binsbergen, W.M.J., 1997, ed, Black Athena: Ten Years After, special issue, Talanta: Proceedings of the Dutch Archaeological and Historical Society, volumes XXVIII-XXIX/ 1996-1997, pp. 221-254

Magic in history: The case of Ancient Mesopotamia

van Binsbergen, Wim M.J., 1999, van Binsbergen, W.M.J., & Wiggermann, F.A.M., 1999, ‘Magic in history: A theoretical perspective, and its application to Ancient Mesopotamia’, in: Abusch, T., & van der Toorn, K., eds., Mesopotamian magic: Textual, historical, and intepretative perspectives, Groningen: Styx, pp. 3-34.

African witchcraft, virtuality, and the kinship order

van Binsbergen, Wim M.J., 2001a, ‘Witchcraft in modern Africa as virtualised boundary conditions of the kinship order’, in : Bond, G.C., & Ciekawy, D.M., eds., Witchcraft dialogues: Anthropological and philosophical exchanges, Athens (Ohio): University of Ohio Press, pp. 212-263

Black Athena Ten Years After

Van Binsbergen, Wim M.J., 1997, ed, Black Athena: Ten Years After, special issue, Talanta: Proceedings of the Dutch Archaeological and Historical Society, volumes XXVIII-XXIX/ 1996-1997, ISBN 90-72067-07-X, 272 pp; currently being reprinted in a greatly augmented and updated version as: Black Athena Alive, Berlin/Muenster: LIT

meanwhile, Wim van Binsbergen has devoted an entire webpage to the Black Athena debate, while the reprint as above is due to go to the press by 1st July, 2010

 

proceed to the Shikanda portal in order to access all other websites by Wim van Binsbergen: general (intercultural philosophy, African Studies); ethnicity-identity-politics; Afrocentricity and the Black Athena debate; Ancient Models of Thought in Africa, the Ancient Near East, and prehistory; sangoma consultation; literary work
 

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