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Mythological archaeology: reconstructing humankind’s oldest discourse |
| A preliminary attempt to situate
sub-Saharan African cosmogonic myths within a long-range
intercontinental comparative perspective by Wim van Binsbergen 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. |
homepage Ancient model of thought | Shikanda portal | current topicalities page
| Please note: The above
conference paper has now been published as:
Meanwhile the original argument has grown into a book-length draft manuscript, which may be inspected through the links below -- meanly because the argument has grown so complex, the bibliography so long, and the data set so massive, that I had to be able to refer to this draft when composing the article for the Conference proceedings |
Mythological archaeology:
reconstructing humankind’s oldest
discourse
Situating
sub-Saharan African cosmogonic myths within a long-range
intercontinental comparative perspective[1]
2005
Wim van Binsbergen
African Studies Centre, Leiden, the Netherlands / Chair of
Intercultural Philosophy, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
binsbergen@ascleiden.nl
'CHIPS FROM A DUTCH WORKSHOP' (cf. Max Muller 1880)
This webpage presents very much work in progress, full of typos, omissions, and reminders of the author to himself. From a one-page abstract in April 2005, in a few months the draft has grown into a full-size but still very incomplete book manuscript. The convenors and participants of the Kyoto conference at which this paper was first presented, are waiting for a text, and I wish to tear myself loose from this endeavour and take a vacation. So here it is, with apologies for the imperfect form.
Contents (all constituent documents are in PDF form; some are several Mbs long, and are best opened by first loading them down onto the visitor's computer, using the 'Save Target As...' facility under the righthand mouse button)
especially the Appendices are in rough form and need a lot of further work. Much of the substantive analyses that are now still tugged away in passing observations, and in footnotes, within the Appendices, need to be transferred to the main text and integrated there. Also, many other long footnotes still need to be transferred to the main text. Some of the figures do not come out so nicely in the present PDFs and also need further editing. But the book is essentially there, and is unlikely to change much in substance.
Extensive reference is made, in the book's argument (e.g., see main text, section 1.2), to my earlier long-range analyses. These are largely to be found in the other pages of this website Ancient models of thought, and may be accessed from the home page link as below. Ancient models of thought is part of the Shikanda portal, which brings together all of Wim van Binsbergen's websites, containing many additional texts relevant in the present context.
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