"Mermaid's purses (also known as Devil's Purses) are the egg cases of skates, sharks and rays. They are among the common objects which are washed up by the sea. Because they are lightweight, they are often found at the furthest point of the high tide. The eggcases that wash up on beaches are usually empty, the young fish having already hatched out." (Wikipedia)
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TRANSLATIONS
From here to where? Let me first write down clearly that I have abandoned my earlier confident point of view that 168 is a definite quantity which measures length in some calendars. We have seen in one example from the E text how the length only by stretching out can reach 168:
And now we have another example in K where 167 is the length and 168 functions rather like 12 o'clock - the old cycle is no more:
When counting glyphs the vacant position at Kb5-1 does not count. Kb4-14 resembles in structure the π glyph Ka3-14 (meaning the cycle is ending here). But, there are twice 12 hours in a day. Glyph number 1 will then tell us that 1 'hour' has gone, not that time starts with glyph number 1. In K we have up to now counted from Ka1-1 (as number 1). What I just wrote seems to mean that 1 unit of time already has passed when we reach Ka1-1. But, if so, then 168 will be the length of the 'season' ending at Kb4-14. No wonder we should count from Gb8-30 in the G calendar. We leave this paradox hoping things will be more clear later on. Next idea relates to the 'tail fish' (ika hiku) - e.g. in Kb4-16 - the picture of which I once imagined illustrated the curious egg of a shark. Now this idea has grown and must be presented here. We have recently equated the vacant position Kb5-1 with the strait of sea between Te Pu Hahore and Nga Kope Ririva. The parallel glyph in Ga7-16 is a shark with bent tail (mago):
This fact made me remember my old idea about ika hiku being a picture of the egg of a shark. Alpha and omega are close together. What a great joke it would be to use the shark egg to illustrate the end! Fusing the tails of two fishes into a new entity would result in something looking like a shark's egg.
(Wikipedia: Mermaid's Purse - the egg case of a Raja species.)
(Wikipedia: Mermaid's Purse - the egg case of a dogfish.) |
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