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Does the Sumerian King List Align with Paleoclimate Events?

vectorian.be

61–70 of 97 posts

Re: Does the Sumerian King List Align with Paleoclimate Events?

#61

The idea that a list of kings from 4000 years ago would encodé global climate events for over 240.000 years is completely ludicrous. Astrology has a better grounding on reality than this idea. And the fact that all lengths are multiple of 600, is even more telling knowing that they counted in base 60

> And the fact that all lengths are multiple of 600 I know this must somehow explain the giant numbers but I'm still not sure how precisely. Counting in base 60 would make for much smaller numbers, no ? For example, the number 16 in base 2 is 1111. but in base 10 it is 16. Ergo smaller base, larger number, and vice versa. So did you mean to say they counted in units that are made of 1/600 of our solar years? I think…

The reasoning is that 600 is 60x10 which is conflating base 60 and base 10 numbering systems. You would expect something like 3600 (60x60), or even (given things like our units of time) 720 (60x12). The latter is because 12 is a factor of 60 and is easier to work with in that number system/base.

Re: Does the Sumerian King List Align with Paleoclimate Events?

#62

> No hype. No theory far away from practice. Just what works in production and what doesn't. (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

Related how? I don't see this in the article

> https://www.vectorian.be/about/

Together with the out-of-the-box no effort AI slop design it's an immediate turn off.

Re: Does the Sumerian King List Align with Paleoclimate Events?

#63

The idea that a list of kings from 4000 years ago would encodé global climate events for over 240.000 years is completely ludicrous. Astrology has a better grounding on reality than this idea. And the fact that all lengths are multiple of 600, is even more telling knowing that they counted in base 60

I don't think the auhor belived the hypothesis, but this was just a fun experiment with data.

Re: Does the Sumerian King List Align with Paleoclimate Events?

#64
post #63

The idea that a list of kings from 4000 years ago would encodé global climate events for over 240.000 years is completely ludicrous. Astrology has a better grounding on reality than this idea. And the fact that all lengths are multiple of 600, is even more telling knowing that they counted in base 60

I don't think the auhor belived the hypothesis, but this was just a fun experiment with data.

[dead]

Re: Does the Sumerian King List Align with Paleoclimate Events?

#65

The idea that a list of kings from 4000 years ago would encodé global climate events for over 240.000 years is completely ludicrous. Astrology has a better grounding on reality than this idea. And the fact that all lengths are multiple of 600, is even more telling knowing that they counted in base 60

Most likely explanation is we're misreading some antique number system. Our interpretation of Sumerian numbering is tentative at best. The major indicator for accuracy was that early on a few different scholars converged on the same translation for the same tablets so we trust we got it right. The mathematical and astronomical tablet texts we have of Mesopotamia, where we understand the numbering very well, are much…

[dead]

Re: Does the Sumerian King List Align with Paleoclimate Events?

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Sumerians used a sexagesimal notation system; the two lengths would be 5.10.0 and 5.50.0 (which together add up to 11.0.0, FWIW), while all of the other king lengths are 8.0.0, 10.0.0, or 12.0.0.

Yeah. I had Fable run through every version of it I could think of and it explained the numbering system was the root of everything being divisible by 60. I did find a pattern though. If you look at ALL the kings, rather than just those 8 it becomes obvious. The recent numbers are realistic and drift further apart, becoming less and less accurate, the further back you go. Interestingly it also compared some other cla…

Thinking that it was just a one off claim in a single text was my initial suspicion here, as someone who knows nothing about the subject. If it’s repeated across other “texts” (didn’t they use clay tablets?) then so much for that.

Re: Does the Sumerian King List Align with Paleoclimate Events?

#67

The idea that a list of kings from 4000 years ago would encodé global climate events for over 240.000 years is completely ludicrous. Astrology has a better grounding on reality than this idea. And the fact that all lengths are multiple of 600, is even more telling knowing that they counted in base 60

Who cares if it’s ludicrous? It’s a fun idea!

That it's ludicrous makes the effort more interesting!

Re: Does the Sumerian King List Align with Paleoclimate Events?

#68

The idea that a list of kings from 4000 years ago would encodé global climate events for over 240.000 years is completely ludicrous. Astrology has a better grounding on reality than this idea. And the fact that all lengths are multiple of 600, is even more telling knowing that they counted in base 60

Most likely explanation is we're misreading some antique number system. Our interpretation of Sumerian numbering is tentative at best. The major indicator for accuracy was that early on a few different scholars converged on the same translation for the same tablets so we trust we got it right. The mathematical and astronomical tablet texts we have of Mesopotamia, where we understand the numbering very well, are much…

The most likely explanation is that we are treating the list too literally. This list is at least 4000 years old and we do not have the cultural context to understand what it's intent was

Re: Does the Sumerian King List Align with Paleoclimate Events?

#69

The idea that a list of kings from 4000 years ago would encodé global climate events for over 240.000 years is completely ludicrous. Astrology has a better grounding on reality than this idea. And the fact that all lengths are multiple of 600, is even more telling knowing that they counted in base 60

> And the fact that all lengths are multiple of 600 I know this must somehow explain the giant numbers but I'm still not sure how precisely. Counting in base 60 would make for much smaller numbers, no ? For example, the number 16 in base 2 is 1111. but in base 10 it is 16. Ergo smaller base, larger number, and vice versa. So did you mean to say they counted in units that are made of 1/600 of our solar years? I think…

If this was the case why do the kings that come after this on the list have normal human reigns?

Re: Does the Sumerian King List Align with Paleoclimate Events?

#70
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be more specific, I think most of us would like to have a "not the current tech thing" page. So a front page that isn't 50-90% LLM content in 2026. In 2020 that would be crypto. Etc

https://www.unslop.news/ has been a breeze of fresh air to avoid all the LLM news. I don't care so much about them but there's so much LLM-adjacent content that it requires actual effort to find the non-LLM stuff.

this is great, thank you
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