Dear Museum Friends Issue 3 of 2011 - Western Cape...GBR MUSEUM NEWS LETTER MARCH 2011 Page No. 1 March 2011 Phone 044-620-3338 Fax 044-620-3176 Email: [email protected] 3BEditor

GBR MUSEUM NEWS LETTER MARCH 2011 Page No. 1

March 2011 Phone 044-620-3338 Fax 044-620-3176

Email: [email protected] www.greatbrakriver.co.za 3BEditor Rene’ de Kock

Dear Museum Friends Issue 3 of 2011 How pleasant it is to walk down the streets of Great Brak and to see the greenery of the undeveloped stands rather than numerous sign boards advertising plots for sale. It is not yet perfect but the Mossel Bay municipality has achieved much with its prohibition of unnecessary and inappropriately placed signs. One enterprising sign writer has produced and correctly placed the advertisement below in Long Street which has lots of merit.

1) The photograph of the flooding at Herolds Bay reported on last month comes from a past event and not from this year. Even the Beeld newspaper believed in its authenticity.

2) Due to the high demand a further WESSA SELF DRIVE TOUR highlighting our fascinating coastal geological formations starting from Mossel Bay at 8.30 am to Hoekwil has been organised for the 9th April. As the tour was most interesting, we will report back in full in our May news letter. On the 12th March WESSA is also organising a similar trip but to Meirings Poort, Prince Albert and the Swartberg Pass.

3) This month our research moves to language and writing. Did you know that the oldest word in the English language is "TOWN”. It is believed that Shakespeare was 46 years old around the time that the King James Version of the Bible was written. Although the transcript source may be somewhat earlier, our written language is much younger than you think.

4) The owner of the eye glasses found in the museum has been found.

5) Our local heritage web site the G B R MUSEUM and MOSSEL BAY HERITAGE is up and running and has been welcomed by all. The latest news, development standards and copies of past newsletters from both organisations are available for downloading and all outing details will be on hand. Please visit www.ourheritage.org.za. Without being prepared for Google visitors, we have already had a large number of hits. Whilst the language translator is operating very successfully, some translation returns are rather hilarious. In particular it does not like English idioms or phrases. I have tested both the French and Afrikaans translations and they are fully understandable if not fully

The Museum is open Monday,

Tuesday, Thursday and Friday

between 9 am and 4 pm and on

Wednesdays from 9.00 to 12.30 pm.

Hopes next fund raising “Hands

On” crafts workshop will be in March and will

be held at the Great Brak River

Museum on Tuesday 22nd

March.

Please call Hope de Kock on

044 6205124 or 083 378 1232 for full details.

Short of a book to read

Pre-owned books on sale in the

Museum Shop….Every

week day morning and afternoons

when the museum is open.

Proceeds go to museum funds

The museum shop has a new range

of cards depicting various scenes in and around the

village


language compliant.

6) The beleaguered Pinnacle Point Group is staring at liquidation as it is unable to meet its financial obligations The listed property company is largely involved in developing golf estates. Although already well populated this and other developments have been heavily hit by the economic downturn after sales of stands dried up practically overnight. Pinnacle Point’s acting chief executive Steven Kruger said the application for liquidation affected only Pinnacle Point Estates, a subsidiary of the company and that bordering on the Pinnacle Point Cave site.

7) After the prolonged Karoo drought, Jacques Kriel reports that the Gamka dam at Beaufort West has some water in it. This photo was taken on the 16th February, the day preceding the rise to 18.8% full.

8) Mossel Bay Tourism has published a sparkling 16 page brochure on the main MUSEUMS of Mossel Bay. Collect your copy from the GBR museum or download from our website.

9) GREAT BRAK RIVER CONSERVANCY

The Conservancy Annual General Meeting was held on 23 February 2011 at De Dekke. The new Elected Committee Members are: Werner Pienaar (Chairman) – 072-798-3275 Louwrens Vosloo (Vice Chairman) – 082-774-8884 Kenneth Tyler (Treasurer) – 079-640-1768 Leigh Foyster (Secretary) – 079-926-0064 Please join the Great Brak Conservancy and help protect our environment! Please contact Leigh on 079-926-0064, (yearly R30 membership fee). We would like to take this opportunity to thank Aussie Eybers, Monique van Wyk and Jeff Haggett for all their hard work over the years and all those that have been involved including sponsors, businesses and everyone that has worked towards making our Conservancy a better one.

In September 2009 the Wolwedans dam water level stood at 44.50% full and water restrictions were introduced.

The Department of Water Affairs and

Forestry reports that during the last week in February 2011, our Wolwedans dam water level is

75.1% full. Water restrictions have been partially

removed.

Quote of the Month.

“It is still an unending source of surprise for me how a few scribbles on a blackboard or on a piece of paper can change the course of human affairs.”

Stanislaw Ulam (American

mathematician of Polish-Jewish origin,

who participated in the Manhattan Project and originated the Teller–

Ulam design of thermonuclear

weapons, 1909-1984)


Development of a Written Language Contribution by your editor

Whilst language probably originated some 400,000 years ago, it was not until a little more than 30,000 years ago that artistic expression really began to blossom. Engraved pieces of ochre found in the Blombos and other caves in South Africa indicate that what we might call art came into being some 80,000 years back. Other than these abstracts no representative or symbolic script has been found in Southern Africa.

Can you imagine a world without language? Why do we have so many languages today? One very important reason for the latter was so that it was individual and could not be readily understood by ones enemies or servants. A language is simply a system of signs for encoding and decoding information. The language of humans is unique in comparison to other forms of animal communication because it allows us to produce an infinite set of utterances from a finite set of elements and because the symbols and grammatical rules of any particular language are largely arbitrary the system can only be acquired through social interaction. Phonetics complicate the translation, thus there will always be a difficulty in the translation of a dead language with relatively few expressions such as the Egyptian hieroglyphs. Today there are between 3000 and 6000 languages and modern computer languages and that of DNA figure at the top. Languages evolve almost exponentially and diversify over time, and the history of their evolution can be reconstructed by comparing modern languages to determine which traits their ancestral languages must have had for the later stages to have occurred. It is this diversity over time which leads to both its relevance and to the difficulty of identifying the precise meaning of early writing.

The first known examples of writing may have been unearthed at an archaeological dig in Pakistan. The so-called 'plant-like' and 'trident-shaped' markings have been found on fragments of pottery dating back 5500 years. They were found at a site called Harappa in the region where the great Harappan or Indus civilisation flourished four and a half thousand years ago. True writing or phonetic writing did not appear suddenly and developed slowly over the years starting in four or five different civilizations in the world, namely Sumer,

Egypt, India, China, and Mesoamerica.

First known example of writing.

A hieroglyph is a character used in a pictorial writing system. Hieroglyphs were a significant development in human history and the beginnings of written language. The Sumerian archaic cuneiform script and the Egyptian hieroglyphs are generally considered the earliest writing systems, both emerging out of their ancestral symbol systems from 5400–5200 years ago with earliest coherent texts from about 4600 years ago. These earliest texts were not

literature but were merely information graphics indicating items such as water, a cow or a tree but not what type of cow or tree it was.

Writing was very important in maintaining the Egyptian empire, and literacy was concentrated among the elite educated scribes. Only people from certain backgrounds were allowed to train to become scribes, in the service of temple, pharisaic, and military authorities. The hieroglyph system was always difficult to learn and was believed to have come into existence a little after the Sumerian script.

The overlapping but distinct hieroglyph writings on Crete and Knosses in Greece were done between 3600 and 3200 years ago. There is no connection between Cretan hieroglyphs and other hieroglyphic scripts; they all evolved independently of one another. Even when a possible connection between the cultures occurred, suggesting that the concept of writing might have been borrowed by one from the other, the use of signs in these different hieroglyphic systems shows no evidence of a connection other than the use of certain symbols


such as a circle for the sun which is universally understood.

Many other forms of early writing exist and it would take several books to elaborate. This attempt to put some perspective to the development of early language and writing requires much simplification and it is not intended to throw doubt on any interpretation or translation.

Early Greek alphabet on pottery in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens.

Phoenicia was an ancient civilization centered in the north of ancient Canaan, with its heartland along the coastal regions of modern day Lebanon, Syria, and northern Israel. The Phoenician civilization was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean during the period 3550 years ago to2300 years ago. The land of Canaan, the historical name of the Levant, roughly corresponding to the region encompassing modern-day Israel, the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, and the western parts of Syria. This is important in that around 3050 years ago, the first Phoenician or non pictorial language was developed

The Greeks then borrowed the Phoenician alphabet and adapted it to their own language. The letters of the Greek alphabet are the same as those of the Phoenician alphabet and both alphabets are arranged in the same order. In adapting the Phoenician system they also added three letters to the end of the series, called the ‘supplementals’ such as Φ and Ω and several varieties of the Greek alphabet were developed.

The original Hebrew or Jewish script alphabet had 22 letters and these are very different to English. Five of which have different forms when they are used at the end of a word. There are also several styles of Hebrew

writing. Hebrew is written from right to left and was first used some 3000 years ago.

After the fall of the Persian Empire in 330 BC, the Jews still used both early scripts before settling on the Aramaic form. For a limited time thereafter, the use of the paleo-Hebrew script among Jews was retained only to write the Tetragrammaton (refers to the proper name of the God of Israel), but soon that custom was also abandoned.

The Rosetta Stone.

The Rosetta Stone is an Ancient Egyptian stone inscribed with a decree issued at Memphis, Egypt in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy V. The decree appears in three scripts: the upper one is in Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the middle one in Egyptian demotic script (from about 2660 years ago), and the lower text in Ancient

Greek. Because it presents essentially the same text in all three scripts (with some differences between them), it provided the key to the modern understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphs.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of 972 texts from the Hebrew Bible found on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea. The texts are of great mystical and historical significance, as they include the oldest known


surviving copies and extra-biblical documents and preserve evidence of great diversity in late Second Temple Judaism (refers to the religion of Judaism during the period between the construction of the second Jewish temple in Jerusalem in 2500 years before Christ and its destruction by the Romans in 70 AD).

They are written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, mostly on parchment, but with some written on papyrus. These manuscripts generally date between 2150 years ago and 70 AD.

From the 9th century to the 15th century, Jewish scholars compared the text of all known biblical manuscripts in an effort to create a unified, standardized text. The Tanakh or Hebrew Bible was mainly written in Biblical Hebrew, with some portions (notably in Daniel and Ezra) in Biblical Aramaic and some in Greek. Scholars added vowel points to the text, since the original text only contained consonant letters. This sometimes required the selection of an interpretation, since some words differ only in their vowels—their meaning can vary in accordance with the vowels chosen. The new testament is written in Koine or common Greek which is the ancestor to modern Greek.

An example of a Dead Sea scroll with the translation underneath.

Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages. It is written in the Hebrew alphabet. Modern Hebrew is written from right to left using the 22 letter Hebrew alphabet , however, the earliest speakers of Modern Hebrew had Yiddish as their native tongue and often brought into Hebrew idioms and literal translations from Yiddish.

PROTO-CANAANITE

PHOENICIAN GREEK WESTERN

Before 3060 years ago

From 3060 to 2300 years ago

From 2750 years ago

From about 600 AD

Ά A

β B

Γ G

∆ D

Ε E

Ϝ F


After first writing right to left, the Greeks eventually chose to write from left to right, unlike the Phoenicians who wrote from right to left. Greek is in turn the source for all the modern scripts of Europe.

A tribe, who became known as the Romans, also lived in the Italian peninsula and like the western Greeks these Romans adopted writing in about the 5th century. The Anglo-Saxons began using Roman letters to write Old English as they converted to Christianity, following Augustine of Canterbury's mission to Britain in the 6th century.

With the breakup of the Western Roman Empire and many urban centers in decline, literacy decreased in the West. Education became the preserve of monasteries and cathedrals. A Renaissance of classical education appeared in the Carolingian Empire in the 8th century. In the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium), the learning of literature was maintained at a high level, higher than in the West. Further to the east, Islam conquered many of the Eastern Patriarchates, and it outstripped Christian lands in science, philosophy, and other intellectual endeavors in what is known as a ‘golden age’.

Old English was the West Germanic language spoken in the area now known as England between the 5th and 11th centuries. Speakers of Old English called their language Englisc. Old English began to appear in writing during the early 8th century. Most texts were written in West Saxon, one of the four main dialects. The other dialects were Mercian, Northumbrian and Kentish.

Sample text in Old English (Prologue from Beowulf) Modern English version

praise of the prowess of people-kingsof spear-armed Danes, in days long

sped,we have heard, and what honor the

athelings won!Oft Scyld the Scefing from squadroned

foes,from many a tribe, the mead-bench

tore,awing the earls. Since erst he lay

friendless, a foundling, fate repaid him:for he waxed under welkin, in wealth he

throve,till before him the folk, both far and near,

who house by the whale-path, heard his mandate,gave him gifts:

Writing has been constantly evolving in particular due to the development of new technologies over the centuries. The pen, the printing press, the computer and to day the mobile phone are all technological developments which have altered the written text and the medium through which this written word is produced. Today computer characters can be formed by pressing a button or key.

The nature of the written word had evolved over time to make way for an informal, colloquial written style, where an everyday conversation can occur through writing rather than speaking and be delivered with a minimal time delay (an email or SMS).

Modern English came about in approximately 1450 to 1750 in the south of England with the ‘Great Vowel Shift’ which was a major change in the pronunciation of the English language. The effects of the shift were not entirely uniform, and differences in degree of vowel shifting can sometimes be detected in regional dialects both in written and in spoken English. It's impossible to count the number of words in a language. The Second Edition of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary contains full entries for 171,476 words in current use as well as 47,156 obsolete words. Information gathered and verified from various sources including Wikipedia.


OUR NATURE CORNER PHOTO’S AND TEXT;

SALLY ADAM

ONE day in December my neighbour asked me to pop in to identify a small bird that she'd

found lying on her lawn. It appeared uninjured but sat

quietly in one's hand - extremely unusual behaviour for a Hottentot Buttonquail! This was an exciting find - I didn't know we had them on the farm and in fact I'd never

seen one before. Sadly, this young male died a few days later. I decided to take the long route home one evening in December and came across a large leopard tortoise digging a nest-hole in the middle of the path. I snapped a shot with my Nokia, and by the time I'd returned

with the camera she had laid her eggs and filled in the hole. The earth was amazingly firmly tamped, and I used a stick to loosen the soil enough to winkle out an egg. I'd expected a leathery shell, but it was exactly the size and feel of a ping-pong ball. So far no-one's disturbed the nest, and tiny torties will be hatching around August.


Summer is a good time for dragonflies and damselflies but they aren't the easiest of photographic subjects - this Red-veined dropwing (Trithemis arteriosa) was unusually accommodating.

Some of the beauties shown at the veteran car show on

the weekend of 12 February 2011.


What’s on, in and around the museum in Great Brak River this and in the coming months?

Month & provisional date

Description Supported by

Contact person

Mid February Launch of the new museum and heritage web site. ourheritage.org.za

To date, we have already had more than 1000 site hits.

Museum & Heritage

GENERAL ENQUIRIES

Rene’ de Kock: 083-448-1966

March

Pre-owned books on sale in the Museum Shop….Every week day.

Both English and Afrikaans books available from R4.oo each

The Museum for museum funds

The museum 044-620-3338

7th March The Outeniqualand Trust AGM4.00 pm @ 8 Fourie Street, Great Brak River

The trust Linda Widlake (Secretary)

044 620 3549:

26th March Great Brak River

Village Walk

Meet at the

museum at

9.30 am. We cross Charles Street Bridge to Le Art

(original Helm family home), past Searle/Bolton’s

buildings to the memorial garden, Mossienes and its

trees, back across the bridge to the historic Searle

family graveyard, the water furrow, Fairholm house,

Searle Memorial Church and Wolwedans house.

Return to the museum for tea.

Museum & Mossel Bay Heritage

R25.oo for tea.

The museum 044-620-3338

Nisde McRobert @ 044-620-3783

11th May Great Brak River Museum Association AGM

Museum The museum 044-620-3338

12th May Mossel Bay Heritage AGM Heritage ENQUIRIES Jack van der Lecq:

044-620-4220

May 16th to 21st Art and Craft Festival

Museum GENERAL ENQUIRIES

Hope de Kock: 083-378-1232

18th May

International Museum Day

Museum GENERAL ENQUIRIES

Nisde McRobert @ 044-620-3783

For more details on what’s on in our area email Hennie & Rene with a request for their news letter:[email protected]


SA Tourism and Other Snippets Tourism Information

by Ina Stofberg

TOURISM SNIPPETS Knysna bins encourage recycling A number of recycling bins, part of the ‘Naturally Knysna – can now be seen around the town, particularly on the Main Road. It encourages residents and visitors to place recyclable materials in bins allocated for paper, glass, cans and plastic. Knysna Mayor, Eleanore Bouw-Spies, says although the municipality’s recycling drive has run since 1989, the participant rate needs to be increased. “At the moment we recycle 20% on average but we can only regard our recycling programme as successful once we reach the 70% or more mark.” Construction of the bins was also done ‘green consciously’ as they are locally produced from reclaimed wood and have been varnished with a special plant-based, enviro-friendly varnish. Upgrade at Maropeng A number of upgrades are under way at Maropeng in the Cradle of Humankind, with the first phase of the project already complete. “The upgrading process has been guided by customer feedback generated from an electronic guest survey,” says Erica Jago, GM of Maropeng a’ Africa. “We thus determined that our guests wanted to gain a better understanding of the entire Cradle of Humankind area and, in doing so, get a greater sense of how Maropeng fits in with its surroundings.” So Maropeng has now erected new signage to better orientate visitors as they make their way through the grounds which includes the a set of plinths at the exit of the exhibition area, providing visitors with information such as facts about the local fauna, flora and geology as well as details on the surrounding battlefields and what they can look out for as they take in the spectacular views outside the building. There is also signage next to an active excavation site where ancient stone tools have been discovered by the University of the Witwatersrand. Another aspect of the project will see Maropeng’s ‘tour guide’ – Harry the Hominid – becoming more of a feature throughout the exhibition area. “Harry gets a message across in layman’s terms, making difficult concepts much easier to understand,” The boat ride into the exhibition has also been changed, with a new entrance into the Vortex – a swirling simulation of a black hole. Report back

Tourism Careers Expo cancelled The 2010 National Tourism Careers Expo (NTCE), which was due to have taken place from January 27-29 in Durban, was cancelled.

It will however go ahead in September. In a statement, the National Department of Tourism (NDT) said: “The expo has been cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances that hampered the final preparations of the event.

Thanks & Acknowledgment to: Tourism Update

DID YOU KNOW?

The wingspan of a Boeing 747 jet is longer than the Wright Brothers first flight Wrigley’s chewing gum was the first product to ever to have a bar code The United States has never lost a war in which mules were used Most toilets flush in E flat Pretoria has the second largest number of embassies in the world, after Washington, D.C, in the USA.

The Lady that protects the Planet Lorraine Jenks is called the ‘Little Green Queen’ because she is determined to get SA’s hotels and guesthouses as ‘environmentally friendly’ as they are ‘visitor friendly’. She has two websites called Hotelstuff and Greenstuff where she includes only eco products and services that minimize negative impacts on the environment and human health. Visit : www. greenstuff.co.za or www.hotelstuff.co.za or call 0860 272 272


NATIONWIDE FESTIVALS IN SA - MARCH 2011

Randfonteinskou – Randfontein 5 Maart Woordfees – Stellenbosch 4 -13 Maart ATKV Christusfees – Randfontein 5 Maart ATKVBuffelspoort Gholfdag, Buffelspoort 10 Maart Buffelspoort Omgeeweek, Randfontein 15 – 18 Maart Karoofees De Aar – 17 -1 9 Maart Riemland Kuierfees, Lindley 18-19 Maart Longtomjol, Lydenburg – 25 – 26 Maart Rapport Mykonos Fees – Langebaan – 25 – 27 Maart Oesfees – Franschoek – 26 Maart Cederberg Kunstefees 27 Maart - 1 Mei

Garden Route Events

Outeniqua Expo & Festival - George When: Dates to be confirmed (Saturday, 05 March 2011 to Monday, 07 March 2011) An exciting festival with a strong focus on the region's industries, business and agriculture. Previously known as the Garden Route Expo (at the George show grounds). This event has been running for more than 50 years. The festival caters for the whole family and includes various themed expo’s such as: Lifestyle, Agricultural, Gardening, Industrial, Food & Wine, Outdoor & Adventure, Hospitality, 2010 Soccer Showcase, Beauty & Wellness. Top entertainment including many of SA’s top Afrikaans artists. Venue: George Showgrounds Contact: Telephone: +27 (0)44 873-4165

GREAT BRAK OUTSPAN MARKET 2011 Cell: 082 931 7929 NEXT MARKET DATE: 5 March 2011


THE CURATOR’S CORNER Nisde McRobert

The Willow Tree

Nisde McRobert writes: A friend sent me an email after my last article on trees was published. He is very interested in the historical distribution of trees and wrote about the willow trees in South Africa. The weeping willows (Salix babylonica) along river banks and dams in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand are all said to be descended from twigs taken from Napoleon’s grave on St. Helena. Settlers moving to the colonies disembarked at St. Helena while water was taken aboard and visited the grave. There were two willow trees there and they picked twigs, kept them alive in jars and bottles until they were planted in the gardens of their new homes. The most famous willow trees in Cape Town were planted at Maynardville. In the United States the trees are known as Napoleon willows. During my research I found out that the willow tree is actually originally from China. The bark was used medicinally by the Native Americans to treat headaches. The bark contains salicylic acid; later it was used as an ingredient for making aspirin. There are no indigenous varieties in South Africa.

A 1903 photograph of Great Brak River looking down from the height. The Willow trees are on the right with the first water furrow on the left side of the road. Not many residents know we have a street called Willow Street. In the 1903 photograph you can clearly see the Willow trees on your right. The building in the middle was originally Salmon Ferreira’s house of Accommodation, later it was used as the first Chapel and school. Later the Mission Hall was built in 1894 and the house was used as a factory for wagon making. In 1922 Rene’s grandfather Henry von Buddenbrock joined Searle’s as the company secretary and the house was used as his residence. The house was subsequently demolished and the Voorburg Art School now stands on the premises. I wanted to take a photo of the Willow tree in Station Road on Friday morning but sadly it no longer is there. There is a specimen tree in the garden of the last house in Station Road. These tree species do not have a long life and in countries such as Australia are considered a weed.


The most commonly accepted concept of the Willow Tree is that which is known as the Weeping Willow (Salix babylonica), this is not the Willow utilized within the Celtic Ogham (an Early Medieval alphabet used primarily to write the Old Irish language, and occasionally the Brythonic language). The Weeping Willow is a hybrid of Peking Willow (Salix babylonica) from China and White Willow (Salix alba) from Europe, western and central Asia.

White Willow foliage; note the white undersides of the leaves.

There are over three-hundred species in the genera, Willow, which is a close cousin to the Poplar. In North America alone there are approximately thirty native, many naturalized willow tree species and sixty native shrubs. There is a tremendous range, some subtle and some obvious, within this genera. The bark contains salicylic acid but for medicinal properties the Willow that concerns us most is the White Willow, salix alba.

Left, Weeping Willows are a hybrid between the White Willow and the Peking Willow

The leaves and bark of the willow tree have been mentioned

in ancient texts from Assyria, Sumer and Egypt as a remedy for aches and fever and the Ancient Greek physician Hippocrates wrote about its medicinal properties in the 5th century BC.

A willow tree is depicted on Homeward Oxherds in Wind and Rain, by Chinese artist Li Di, 12th century, ink and colour on silk.

Information from the museum archives and Wikipedia.

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Documents

Dear Museum Friends Issue 3 of 2011 - Western Cape...GBR MUSEUM NEWS LETTER MARCH 2011 Page No. 1 March 2011 Phone 044-620-3338 Fax 044-620-3176 Email: [email protected] 3BEditor