4. Counting could have been a necessary tool for creating and then understanding the texts and every glyph would have to count, even if only a fragment of the picture was visible. In Q there is also a 'singularity', viz. in the 2nd of the 3 inserted short glyph sequences with no counterpart in H and P:
33 * 3 = 99, so much we can securely count. But 177 (= 6 * 29½) glyphs between the 1st and 2nd case is uncertain - it depends on how we treat the glyphs in the intermediate 'damaged' lines. However, my attempt at restoring order to the Q text could be correct (at least in the region covered by these curious inserted sequences):
Clearly most of the 'missing' parts of the text was never intended to be there, because its creator was forced by the small tablet to exclude much. I have counted with the empty glyph space in my table below (following the method of counting in P but in contrast to that in E):
Counting on the front side of the text could be different from counting on the back side, and in E the 'black hole' is on the front side. 387 + 345 = 732 = 2 * 366 = 4 * 183 = 3 * 244 = 6 * 122 = 12 * 61. Number 61 occurred also in the P text and there we saw: ... 599 + 560 = 1159 = 19 * 61. With the last line (b11) carrying 61 we could furthermore find 599 + 499 = 18 * 61 (= 6 * 183). 599 (side a on the P tablet) + 560 (side b on the P tablet) = 1159 = 732 (Q) + 427 (= 7 * 61). 61 is also the distance beyond Qa8-31 to the end of the front side. 387 - 326 = 61. These measures constitute no proof that I have assigned the correct number of glyphs for each line of the Q text, but they constitute a positive argument for relying on my descriptions. We should, furthermore, notice how the next to last line (Qb8) has a position similar to that of line Pb10 (also next to the last line). If we count from the beginning of side b up to the beginning of line Qb9 the number of glyphs sum up to 333, which number also occurs in my label for the 'singularity' (Qb3-33). 333 - 183 = 150. |