Talk:Pedra da Gávea

Untitled
I don't understand -- is the inscription in letters of the Phoenician alphabet, or in letters of the Latin alphabet? If in the Phoenician alphabet, then what have professional paleographers said about the purported ancient inscription? If in the Latin alphabet, in exactly the letters given in the article, then there are a lot of linguistic problems... AnonMoos 09:17, 15 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The inscription is illustrated here. Feel free to add Phoenician character display to the article. As the article says, this is in no means a verified inscription: it's most likely a crude forgery from the 19th century. There don't appear to be any proper archaeological investigations into the site, it makes absolutely no sense for a Phoenician ruler to have been immortalised in this way without clear examples of Phoenician influence in the locality... you may well find the entire inscription in a book collecting (and translating) Phoenician inscriptions known in the early 18th century, if you have time to track down and read such a thing. You might try Wilhelm Gesenius as a starting point. 172.215.44.40 15:47, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Well then, "FOENISIAN" is totally and utterly bogus -- the Phoenicians called themselves Kana`nim ("Canaanites"). It was the ancient Greeks who called them Phoinikes ("people of the Palm tree"), and in ancient Greek and Latin "ph" was NOT pronounced as "f", and a "k" sound did not ordinarily become an "s". I'm not sure what language "FOENISIAN" is, but it's not anything that Phonicians would have called themselves, and it's definitely not even ancient at all... AnonMoos 02:57, 17 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Taken into account - thankyou. If there's anything else wrong with the translation please do add it to the article, because I don't have a clue about that whole language group. :) 172.215.44.40 07:06, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

It's silly what you guys are talking about, trying to overanalyze it. Why can't you admit the obvious? Stop trying to fit in data with your preconceived notions of what the Phoenicians could or couldn't do. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.95.21.176 (talk) 22:31, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

See also pt:Teoria da presença de fenícios no Brasil. --Pdms (talk) 09:27, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * As AnonMoos said, this "inscription theory" is completely and utterly bogus. I mean, Phoenicians were speaking with Portuguese accent or what? Calling themselves "Foenisian", my God... Replacing tsade in the name of Tyre (Tzor or Tzur) by tet and zayin as if they were "transliterating a transliteration"? Writing two alephs where one ayin should be? This is beyond ridiculous and should be mentioned only as a curiosity. It's a pity that such preposterous theories are attributed to an actual archeologist... There is no need to invent a bogus history instead of the actual one. 12.11.149.5 (talk) 11:00, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Use this commentary somewhere?
"Nowadays the most famous place in the Phoenician cartography in Brazil is the Pedra da Gavea, in Rio de Janeiro, where there is a supposed Phoenician inscription. Most probably fake or false, the writing is mysterious enough to bring many curious people, especially tourists, to the place, a very scenic spot. The myth of Phoenician origins is a living force in Brazil, and there is little space for scientific contradiction. A whole literature on the topic grows at its own pace, and it does not matter if the supposed Phoenician inscriptions have been demonstrated to be the remains of Masonic dramatizations or just natural rock formations. The same happens in the cases in Piaui and Paraiba (north-north-eastern states of Brazil), where the signature of the Austrian ancient historian Ludwig Schwennhagen provided the necessary support to confirm that there were ruins of Phoenician cities, in a place later called Sete Cidades, a National Park in Piaui which is much visited." Rethinking the Mediterranean' Wendell V. Harris, Oxford University Press. Dougweller (talk) 15:35, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Geology changes
Here's a "log" of the changes I made to make this more accurate and fix the issues that were present back in the day: Boom.-- Gen. Quon   (Talk)   19:57, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Completely rewritten. Any mention of a morro has been removed,
 * I left the mention of "igneous granite" v. "metamorphic gneiss" so as to differentiate between the two types of stone. Wikipedia is written for laypeople.
 * The whole intruded v. intruding snafu has been fixed. That was entirely my bad.
 * The bit about weathering and erosion has been tweaked. I left the 'northern side' bit, since the source shows a picture and clearly labels it as "facing south". Thus, it's safe to assume the 'face' is the northern side.
 * I conceded in regards to the bit about weathering v. erosion, although that is a stylistic choice, I feel.

New page
I made a new page, Archaeological interest of Pedra da Gávea, so that undue weight is not being given on this page to the (pseudo)archaeology.-- Gen. Quon   (Talk)   03:40, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Great idea. I've added copied to the talk page for attribution. —  Scott  •  talk  17:41, 18 August 2014 (UTC)