Biblical chronology

The other day when I was working in ancient history, specifically the 2nd Millennium BC, trying to identify some key events, was a bit unhappy with all the approximate dates I was finding in the reference I was using, and went hunting online for a few others. I ran across the Wikipedia article on ancient chronology, and found that it claims ancient history is pretty solid and well known back to about 750 BC, but before that, the fuzziness gets worse and worse, due to multiple uncertainties in the primary sources that are used for dating. This led down a side track of biblical history. I'm already aware that archaeologists have had difficulty identifying the time and place of key events in biblical history, even those that ought to have left some traces. The Bible itself isn't much help, because there are too many uncertainties in the various time periods such as reigns of kings that it gives, and there are few clear synchronizations to non-Israelite history, especially in the pre-exile period. I'm not a strict biblical literalist...although I do believe that God spoke to prophets, I don't believe that makes the record free of error, and as something of an amateur scholar, I like to have as much independent verification as possible before I trust in something as a fact.
I see that many non-believing and atheistic scholars seem to want to seize on any apparent contradiction between the biblical account and archaeological finds as positive proof that the whole Bible is a piece of fiction, while Christian apologetics is full of amateurs who grasp at straws and spin elaborate theories to supplement missing facts and cannot agree among themselves. This has been a minor irritant for some time, but when I saw again how thin the evidence is for some of the "accepted wisdom", and how it leads otherwise competent people to draw absurd conclusions (for instance that Joshua arrived several hundred years after the destruction of Jericho), or on the other hand, that that 300 years of Egyptian history is missing, it fired up my determination to do something to clarify the situation.
First, with my scientific education, I'm reasonably content with radio-carbon dating as a valid method of getting the approximate date of remains, although I believe that this should be combined with other evidence.
So, I went hunting late last night for more information. I'd encountered a couple of sources before that broadened my mind to other hypotheses for the dating of the Israelite Exodus than the one given. I'm not sure what reasons people give for the dating of it between the 12th and 14th Century BC, or the association of Ramses II with the Pharaoh of the Exodus, (besides the names of the treasure cities the Israelites were supposed to have built) but I was generally aware that evidence for the exodus hadn't been located, at least in that period.
Recently I read a comment that the line in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" "They're digging in the wrong place!" drew chuckles among a group of archaeologists, because it's something of an occupational hazard. Likewise, looking at the wrong time has to be similarly hazardous, when one is dealing with uncertainties of chronology as great as 300 years. But that's a side note. What drew my attention were the various web pages constructed by those who have added up the dates in the Bible and concluded that the Exodus took place around 1400 BC. That's about 200 years back from a traditional date equating the Pharaoh of the Exodus with Ramses. Also, I was having a problem with the conclusions drawn from the excavation of Jericho by Kathleen Kenyon. Some were citing her research claiming that there was no evidence for Joshua's conquest of Canaan, others were saying it dovetailed nicely with other evidence. What I finally decided was that her date for the destruction of a strongly-fortified Canaanite City had been verified at in 1995 at about 1562 BC +/- 38 years, and to take that as evidence that best fits the biblical account. That's a a century and a half earlier or so than traditionally described, but I don't think the Israelites wandering in the wilderness or living in tents were all that meticulous about chronology, and some attempts to reconstruct biblical chronology push the exodus back to about this far.
Next I decided to look for an appropriate Pharaoh for the Exodus. I'd seen a work that claims the "Pharaoh's daughter" who rescued Moses was Hatshepsut, and in various places I'd seen suggestions that the "Pharaoh who knew not Joseph" came from one of the dynasties that succeeded the Hyksos. I didn't find one that seemed to satisfy what I remember, so I decided to review Egyptian chronology, and look up some of the unsolved problems in Egyptology, and found a clue. One of the various speculations on the nature of the Exodus and the plagues associates it with with the major eruption of Thera, at some date that I hadn't been able to find exactly. Apparently this has been pinned at 1613 BC +/- 13 years. Reconciling this date with traditional chronology for Egypt has produced about a 100 year discrepancy, but this is within the approximate range of error for Egyptian chronology at this period. What grabbed my attention, though, was that this is about 50 years before the date given for the destruction of Jericho, which fits reasonably well with an approximate 40 year wandering in the wilderness described in the Pentateuch.
I had long ago set the possible correlation of Thera and the biblical plagues as an interesting possibility to be re-examined if and when other evidence came along, and this fits the category of additional evidence I was looking for. So now I have this as a working hypothesis for the correlation of events in ancient history. Since I'm hardly even an amateur in the field, there could be a lot wrong with this theory. But it seems there are worse ones in print. The debate about Biblical chronology lies somewhere near the heart of the conflict between scientific atheist and devout believer, between Christian or Jew and Muslim, and at the intersection of the Greek World, Assyriology, Egyptology, and other specialized disciplines. I would like to see a better resolution than anything I have seen yet.
PS. The reason I have added this was because it ocurred to me, before I put myself down for the night, I did a Wiki search on "Independent Scholar", which led me quickly to an on-line copy of the Independent Scholar's handbook, a work which helped put me on the path to Independent Learning, and was rereading it. This blog is probably the closest I'm going to come to an intellectual journal, and so I decided to start recording intellectual diversions as well as the work I'm doing on my web site. This counts as a diversion...not something that's part of my main effort, but something to set aside for now and come back to some day.

Institutions

I mentioned that I wanted to strengthen my ties between nations and communities and the subject of institutions of society, and I got as much of that done as I had planned. Then I realize that wasn't nearly going deep enough, and I started making connections specifically with religion. I got through linking the two dozen nations I had planned, and half of the two dozen cities, and ran out of steam for the day. There's more I want to do with religion before I move on to the next subject, but I need to get more specific.

National connections

I skimmed past studies of the future and started digging into the areas I call sociology. Just adding a few nations to the list inspired a cascade of other events. For one, it;s painfully clear that I need to take quite a few of these nations and look into their history before modern times in order to give substance to earlier periods of history. I've been listing nations in order of population size, which has very little direct correlation with international significance. Some of the connections I was making illustrate this. After all, a nation such s Tanzania doesn't greatly affect the United States, but the United Kingdom and India have had a great deal to do with one another. I did a little more sorting these into major groups. I still don't have enough nations to quite divide up Western Civilization into its subdivisions, but Asiatic peoples are well represented even if incomplete. I added more cities, and made preliminary connections to rather more areas of peoples and social structure and change. I need to do a little more digging into the history of various cities, especially earlier history if they have it. With better connections to nations, I can also manage links of cities to each other, which may be useful when I go to do things like trade routes. I've never been too pleased with how my sections on social structure and change are coming, but that may be because I need to get down to brass tacks of particular examples. Then, too, the whole area of Institutions, which I will be looking at next, is not as well connected to the areas of sociology as I would like, so I will be looking at those connections. In the meantime, though, I'm reasonably pleased with today's progress.

Here again

I've never actually quit working on the Sapience Knowledge Base, but it has been a while since I've reported on on it here. I hope to have a new round of updates posted online in a day or two.
I've added substantially to the section on prehistory and a fair amount of new content to antiquity. I note that there are still considerable discrepancies in various ancient chronologies, so there is even now not a single chronology of the ancient world that is accepted as having a sound basis by scholars. Since biblical archaeology falls within this period, there are still major problems reconciling the Biblical account with accounts from other nations. I find this frustrating.
More recently, I'm starting to work backward through the classical and medieval periods for some of the currently most populous nations, and into the 19th century for those same ones. I;ve beenun using a mental analogy of the aids to a subject as tools for investigating it, and I keep finding that my tools aren't quite sharp enough. The list of nations is, for now, about the sharpest and most useful of them.

Current events

I've expanded my notes on events of the past three years, and improving the connections to the particular peoples I've been considering. I've created a couple of new pages to break up events of the last year into quarters.
Rather than work extensively with whole groups of peoples as I've been doing before, I decided to go back to an earlier approach and add one nation at a time. The three most populous nations of the world are China, India, and the United States, so I've been working on getting current events connected. These were most of the way there already, so it wasn't too hard, but getting the new quarter year pages all the way down to these specific nations will take a few more rounds of development.
The USA page is getting big enough that it's going to have to be broken up. I want to start including individual state pages, as well as regional pages, covering more than one state. I will eventually be doing the same with China and India, but this isn't an immediate goal.
I've also made some progress on the social structure and change pages, and on connecting these to history and peoples of the world. There will be a couple of new and expanded connections in the next set of updates.
I had planned to do more work with institutions and culture, but I'm going to have to put these off until tomorrow, at least.

Latest

Enough already. My approaches to building the knowledge base have a tendency to become overly rote, structured, and mechanical. There is enough of a base now, that I can start with a more lively approach. I got a number of pages started in history, but had a hard time getting out of that subject into other areas. So, I tried something new. I was told by one reviewer that my knowledge base had more outline than content, and that's still the case. So, it's time to start adding live content.
A listing of historical events in the US for the year 2006 is almost an insignificant fragment, but it's enough to prompt attention to a whole array of connected subjects. Going back a year to 2005 may give a little perspective to these events. I might also separate out those events that deal specifically with the United States from the general mass of events of the year. I might consider local regions within the US. I might work on another nation...China is next on my list of targets. I might work on government, which has been sadly neglected. I might also do more work on culture, and connect it to the year 2006, or the United States. In any case, I have some live information to work with, and a variety of possible directions to go. More later.

History and peoples.

Besides connecting to the present, I was looking at updating the connections of historical periods to other areas, which led right back into the whole subject of history.
The main history page is about as well developed as I can get until other areas are themselves better developed.
I probably won't be doing much work with Prehistory until I've finished the Antiquity section. I have a new page for Antiquity, the 4th Millennium BC, which is not much more than a stub at present. For the most part, Classical and Medieval history is being set aside, except that in the Late Medieval period, I have added a page for the 13th century. The main Modern history page is also about as well developed as I can get it for now. In the 18th century, I have added a mid-18th century page. The 19th century has been mostly set aside for now, and the main 20th century page is mostly abaout as well developed as I can get it for now. In the late-mid 20th century, I have added a late 1970s page. The Late 20th century is also about as well developed as is prudent for now. I did some work in the early 2000s, mostly by going through with basic events for 2006. I have done little work in the Future this round.
For the most part, before I can make real progress in history, I need to do work in Sociology, and in order to do this, it involves first connecting it back to history.
I haven't yet added pages in this area, so far, I've just been adding a few cross-links. Peoples of the world are first and easiest to work with, and the main page is alread linked to history as far as is prudent for now. The primary focus has been in Western Civilization, and mostly I've been reviewing where I am. I see that a a few important areas are rather undeveloped and I could expand the discussion of their history some, in future development rounds. I've also been reviewing Asiatic peoples and in this area, there are a lot of unused developments in the Middle East. However, I already know from previous attempts that other areas of Asiatic peoples will need to be come before this.

History

In the past couple of days, I've been working on history. In accordance with my development program, I got as far as adding a new page on antiquity, the 3rd millennium BC, then decided that I was really not that much interested in antiquity, or late medieval times, or the 18th century. I switched to another approach I have been using, one of starting from the present and working backward.

Wikipedia is doing well at keeping an ongoing, up-to-date chronicle of events, which is something I have difficulty with. This allows me to keep almost up-to-date, something I have difficulty with when the only source of current events is daily news. The last 20 years is now split into 5-year pages, and I have a page for the current year and each of the last two.

I would like to narrow the gap between when events occur and interpretation of them, by being able to fit major current events into historical context as soon as possible. These new pages bring me a step closer to that goal.

Resume notes

It's been three months since I last posted to this blog. Development of the Sapience Knowledge Base has continued, but I haven't been commenting on it. I've recently switched back to a top=down approach to development of the knowledge base, since work at higher levels tends to promote the development of lower level details more than the other way around.

The site map has been updated, with most active non-science pages now linked. The "About" page has been rearranged. There is also a page describing 3VL I mentioned earlier this year. In the past couple of months, there has been a burst of activity, with new pages in almost every section, and the past several month's worth of revisions and updated have now been published to the web. I expect to do more updates as I go along.

European geography

This subject has been recently added to the knowledge base.

This will depend rather heavily on physical and natural science, once I catch up in this development plan to where I reached in the previous one.
Most of Personal studies, as already mentioned, is too undeveloped to be useful, and I don't have many European geographers to mention. I have been using geographical information from biographies to help guide development in this section, and expect to continue this approach.
So far it is not well subdivided, but I have connected it somewhat to Asian geogrpahy, which it neighbors.
Culture, including conceptual culture, such as maps, is also not yet developed enough to be useful, nor are the social institutions well connected. Most of socology is not yet very useful, although I have been using locations of cities in connection with biographies to help guide development of geography. So far, there isn't quite enough material to prompt division of the subject. This is closely connected with Western Civilization, and most of my information comes from and through the efforts of anglic peoples. The contributions of Asiatic civilization to European geography would appear to be rather minimal.
European geography has a long history, but so far I am only considering modern contributions, including those of the 20th century. Specific divisions of the late middle and late 20th centuries are so far and unfortunately mostly empty of content.

Human Geography

In previous versions of this knowledge base, I have more or less neglected this subject, which has seriously weakened the entire program. Human geography deals with such things as the population, natural resources, and land use of a particular area. I have chosen to divide this up by area or region.
One of the various difficulties of geographers is the problem of boundaries. There are few natural dividing lines on the surface of the earth; political boundaries are quite arbitrary. In general, I have chosen to follow traditional lines, except where there seems good reason to ignore them.

This subject naturally depends heavily on nature and natural science, particularly earth science and biology. Until these are better developed themselves, I have difficulty making this connection more explicit.
It is difficult to say geography is influenced by the human body and psychology, except to note that some regions are difficult to explore and travel through due to the hardships involved. Since everyone lives somewhere, and many people live or travel in more than one place, analysis of multiple biographies is one indicator of the relative importance of various places, although it is only one such indicator. Another way biography is of use is in making note of prominent explorers and geographers.
The connections to other areas of anthropology will be highly important here, although just how much so will not be clearly evident until these areas are better developed. The areas I am currently working with are European geography, Asian geography, North American geography, and African geography.
Human geography will make use of a variety of culture-related tools. Conceptual culture will include the highly important, even essential area of maps, once it is better developed.
The institutions of family, education, economics, government, and religion will also be important, although these are not sufficiently well developed.
Sociology is useful for various reasons. The location of particular cities is a useful aid to human geography, for instance in helping to estimate population density. This overlaps somewhat with the description of peoples; although many peoples occupy only part of an area, and others occupy many areas. Much geographic knowledge has come from and through Western Civilization, with Anglic geographers especially prominent, although, especially in earlier times, Asiatic and specifically Middle Eastern geographers were also noteworthy. I don't yet have specific detail on which of these came from North Africa.
The history of human geography is also interesting. Much of it was developed in classical and medieval times, and in later medieval times, the modern exploration of the world began. It developed greatly in modern times, and by the 19th century, most of the world and its peoples had been at least roughly mapped and identified. In the 20th century, the various tools available for study of human geography have become more powerful and sophisticated, including for instance the use of airplanes and color printing in the middle part of the century, spacecraft in the late-mid 20th century, and the widespread use of computers in the late 20th century. I am unfortunately not quite up to date on developments in the last few years or current events.

Anthropology

I've been doing a daily series on various subjects, describing what I have accomplished in my current development program and what I hope to accomplish in the near future. This lags a little bit behind the actual state of development, but various areas need to be brought up to date in an organized fashion.

As I have discussed elsewhere, what I call Anthropology differs from what is usually meant by the term. This subject deals more with what is fundamental and universal, and includes parts of both Anthropology as it is more commonly understood and sociology as well. I have recently rewritten this page to better reflect a more detailed understanding of the subject, as well as to make connections to the Middle east and the 20th century.


Since I have set aside most detail in science until I can properly catch up to it, I have little to add, except that earth science and biology will be necessary foundations.
This whole area depends heavily on the various areas of Personal studies, including the human body and psychology, but since these are undeveloped, the details of this connection will have to wait. Biographies will be useful in providing source material, since everyone is socially connected, but rather than duplicate the whole list, I will focus on those who have developed anthropology.
Most of Anthropology is still undeveloped. Social foundations, demography, physical anthropology, human ecology, and particular groups are being set aside for now. The best developed division is human geography.
This area will make some use of culture, especially conceptual culture such as language, literature, and mathematics, but on other areas also. The various institutions will also be significant and provide source material, but need their own development first.
Anthropology will also make use of sociology. Although social structure and change is undeveloped, there will be a considerable amount of raw material associated with various cities once these are better developed. This subject is closely connected to particular peoples. Much of Anthropology has come from western Civilization, especially the primarily English-speaking nations and peoples. Asiatic peoples have also made contributions. I lack detailed information on those of Middle eastern peoples, such as North Africans (to name one example); this is an area yet to be explored.
The development of Anthropology in classical and medieval times can only be sketched. In late medieval times, the works of Islamic geographers and Marco Polo contributed to this knowledge, and early European explorers also contributed. In Modern history, this also developed, although it was not recognized as a science and did not use methods comparable to those of the physical and natural sciences until the 19th century. Developments in the 20th century, including the middle (just after WW II), the late-mid 20th, (the Cold War period), and the late 20th century, including those of the last six or seven years, are only roughly sketched, though more detail should emerge later.

Biographies

Back when I first started this site, I was doing some work with biographies as sources of historical information and other information. I eventually moved away from that approach, although signs of it still remain on the site. However, biographical information in the latest version still drives a lot of the development.

With the current approach, science and nature are only mentioned for most individuals.
Areas of the human body and psychology are perhaps more applicable, but not sufficiently well developed themselves. I have about two dozen individuals I am working with, and the number will continue to increase. I'd like to work with contemporaries and associates of these individuals, but I need information from history and peoples in order to do this, as well as more than just a few individuals.
Anthropology is not very useful yet, but I have been working in human geography and have major areas of Europe, Asia including Southwest Asia, and North America connected to biography, so that I can at least place individuals in the right general area.
Culture will be very important, especially conceptual culture which will include literature and source material about people's lives. Other areas of culture can also be used once they are better developed.
Institutions are not yet developed enough to be very useful.
Social changes and movements aren't yet developed enough to be able to connect them to biography, and the direct connections between a list of individuals and a list of major cities are rather sparse. I can categorize individuals by the major peoples they belonged to, which is somewhat useful.
The easiest grouping is to identify individuals by when they lived. Many of the most significant ones lived in classical and medieval times, which is not where mt principal focus in history is. Instead, I have been looking at the 19th and 20th centuries. These will be more useful in examining biographies when I have more individuals from later times.

Personal studies

I published the latest batch of updates on my knowledge base to the web. Rather than summarize them here, I'm going to continue with a more extensive review of what I;m trying to accomplish.

Personal studies is a highly important area, but one I am not particularly expert on. In principle, it depends heavily on parts of science, but I have not yet made these connections very well.
There are three principal divisions: the Human Body, Psychology, and Biographies. In my latest development program, the first two are set aside for now, while I concentrate on biographies.
Anthropology also hase limited usefulness. I have been working extensively on linking this to human geography, principally European, Asian, and North American geography, with a deeper link to Southwest Asia, with some newer pages.
Culture will be applicable also, and conceptual culture will include language, literature, mathematics, and philosophy of personal studies, while other areas of culture will also be applicable once they are better developed.
Institutions of families, education, economics, government, and religion will also help once they are better developed.
Sociology is not quite as useful as I would like just yet. Analysis of cities isn't yet showing much that's useful to personal studies. Western Civilization remains prominent, and I have managed to extend Asiatic civilization to middle eastern peoples, with a connection to North African peoples that has been prompted by development within biography but doesn't seem to be the most useful just yet.
I have made connections to later periods within the 20th century, and to current events within the early 2000s, but so far only the barest hints of a historical sketch are beginning to emerge. This whole section is developing fairly slowly.

Replanning and science

In my last set of updates, I found myself in a trap very similar to one I have fallen into before; spending too much time in some sections and not enough in others. I decided to, once again, modify my approach. This time, it is working in a much better and more satisfying way.

Although I would like to base everything else on physical and natural science, this doesn't work well because it depends too heavily on other areas. Physics, for example, depends too heavily on mathematics. Chemistry is not nearly as well organized as I would like. There is too little information in Astronomy, compared to the other sciences, and it is not generally as useful as I would like. The areas where significant progress is possible are Earth Science and Biology. I haven't quite caught up to where I was recently in putting these sections in place, so I've been considering the connections to the science aids.
Personal studies will be valuable to science, but so far, the human body and psychology aren't well enough developed to be useful. I've been making rather more progress in biography. Many of the individuals listed in Hart's list of the 100 most influential are scientists, and analysis of these biographies is bound to reveal something.
Anthropology has been badly under-considered in my previous attempts. Most areas of this subject are again too undeveloped to be useful, but I have been working with human geography, and placing individual scientists in a geographic context has some benefit. European geography is particularly useful.
Culture has also been under-considered. Areas of conceptual culture such as scientific language, literature, graphics, mathematics, and philosophy should have a fairly prominent place in studies of science. Material culture, or tools and artifacts, and behavioral culture, such as customs and occupations, aren't quite well enough developed in this version to be very useful in science.
Institutions have also been under-considered. Areas of families, education, economics, government, and religion will all be useful to science when they are better developed.
Sociology has been considered fairly prominently. I don't have enough detail on particular cities to consider their respective influences on science, but peoples are far more significant. By far the greatest majority of work has been performed in Western civilization.
I have little to add at present to the history of science, except a connection to the late 20th century, which includes the last 25 years or so. There isn't much real detail in this period yet, but it should develop in time.

And more

After not quite two weeks, I have just posted another round of updates to the Sapience Knowledge Base.

The main science page hasn't changed much, except that I have reorganized Biology and matched the comment to the reorganization, and I have direct links to several influential scientists. I also have a few more links to the pages where I am actively working in history, and the 19th century is a little clearer.

In Earth science, I have done some miscellaneous addition of links to other pages in the knowledge base. Physical geography also has about a dozen new links, and Terrestrial geography also has a number of new links. There is a new page, Eurasia, which is in the early stages of development with only very general links.

Biology has been reorganized somewhat: I have pushed the systematics (types of organization) down a level by incorporating it into organism biology, although on further thought, I may bring it back up. Biological classification of living things doesn't classify organisms so much as it does populations of closely related organisms.

Personal studies hasn't changed much, although I do have links to physical geography and Eurasia, and to areas within history. I have more links of biography to areas of earth science and history. All the individuals added at the last update have had more attention given to them, and I have added new pages for Euclid, Moses, Shih Huang-Ti, Caesar, Copernicus, Lavoisier, Constantine, Watt, and Faraday.

In Anthropology, I have begun to revise and rearrange the component disciplines, but there is still some rewriting to do. Human Geography has a narrower focus, as I am transferring demography and human ecology into separate sections. The list of particular groups remains empty, as I still have not found a satisfactory list of organizations.

In Culture, I have a few more links to other areas. I am beginning active work in Material culture, and the conceptual culture page and literature page have a few more links. The Literary Works page is not so recognizably new, and has a forest of connections. In the next set of updates, I intend to begin working on a list of major important works, similar to the biography list.

The Institutions page and the Religion page both have a few new links to earth science and to areas in history, but the Religious traditions page has the most new links.

There has been comparatively little work in Sociology, though the main page, Communities page, Peoples of the World page, and Western Civilization and Asiatic Civilization each have a few new links added to them.

There has also been comparatively little work done in History, although within Modern History, I have completed the division of the 19th century by adding a new early 19th century page and creating basic links to other general areas.

Also, in the next set of updates, since I have more individuals to work with, I will be linking areas of within institutions, sociology, and history more directly to the biography pages for prominent contributors to those areas.

More updates

I have new updates to the Sapience Knowledge Base. Science has better connections to biographical entries, including Einstein, Pasteur, and Galileo. It is also better connected in principle to literature and literary works. There is also a connection to religious traditions. I have also rewritten the presentation of science history a little, and added links to some specific periods of history.

The only particular area of science I have done much work in is Earth Science. Here there are new connections to particular groups, literature and literary works, Religion and particular religions, Western Civilization and Asiatic peoples, and several periods of history. There is not yet much real new content.

Personal studies are also linked to literary works and religious traditions. I have also strengthened the connections to and within the 19th and 20th centuries.

Biography is connected to particular social groups, literary works, and religious traditions, and in general to a few periods of history. New pages for several major historical figures have been added, although these so far have fairly little actual content.

In Anthropology, I have added connections to literary works, religious tradition, and connections to classical and medieval history. I have rewritten part of the discussion of history also.

Particular groups are connected to science, to personal studies including biography, and to culture, institutions, sociology including cities and peoples, and history down to modern history and the 20th century. This would be more significant if I had pages corresponding to actual particular groups, but since I don't have a list of the few most important particular groups, this will have to be gleaned from review of those areas.

The culture page has had only had links to the late medieval period and the mid 19th century added to it. Conceptual culture is newly linked to late medieval history. Literature is linked to Earth science and to late medieval history. This page has been rewritten and much of its former content transferred to a literary works page.

Literary works has been connected to Science including Earth Science, Personal studies including biography, Anthropology, Institutions including religion, sociology including peoples and communities, and history, particularly modern history, with the 19th and 20th centuries. This would be more significant if I had pages corresponding to actual, specific literary works, but these will be added as the site develops.

On the main Institutions page, I have only added a connection to literary works. The religion page has been almost entirely rewritten, and most of its content transferred to the new Religious Traditions page. This is connected to literature, and to parts of the 19th and 20th century.
Religious traditions is so far connected to science, personal studies, Anthropology, culture, and sociology.

On the main sociology page, I have only added a link to the late-mid 19th century. The communities page is also not much expanded, with links to literature and to the late-mid 19th century and late 19th century. Peoples also only have new links to the lage-mid 19th century and the late 19th century. There has been no real change to western civilization, and Asiatic peoples only have new connections to Earth science and the late 19th century.

History has no new content or links on the main page, and neither classical and medieval nor the late medieval page have any new information. In modern history, I have slighly revised the descrption of the 19th century and added a biographical reference to Isaac Newton. There has been more development in the 19th century: I have created a new early-mid 19th century page, rewritten the appropriate section, and transferred content to that page. Several of the 19th century pages are now linked to biography. I have added nothing to the 20th century page but the early 20th century has connections to earth science and biography.

The developments I am most pleased with include the revision of scientific history and addition of links to particular individuals, the starting of several new biographical pages, the new literary works page, the revision of religion, and the new early-mid 19th century page.

Updated Site

The Sapience Knowledge Base has had its first update in over two years, so it is now officially active again. Most of these are fairly minor changes involving links to new areas.

The Science page has a link to Isaac Newton, and to more detail in the 19th and 20th century. Earth Science has links to areas within sociology.

Personal studies has a slightly revised version of the human body, as well as to details of the late 19th century. in Biography, I have introduced several new individuals, including Jesus, Newton, Buddha, and Mohammed, as well as introducing links into the 19th century.

The Anthropology page has a significant and substantial revision of the 19th and 20th century, and also connections into areas of the 19th century.

Within culture, I have substantially rewritten the Literature page, and transferred much of the content to a new Literary works page.

Back now

I've been doing a lot of traveling this summer and have been involved with other people and have had limited access to the Internet. However, I now have access from home, and the summer activity is coming to a close, which is giving me the time and opportunity to resume my independent studies. Anybody miss me? I'd be surprised.
With the renewed computer access, I now have an opportunity to resume work on the Sapience Knowledge Base which has been dormant for two years.

I keep switching back and forth between a "top down" approach, involving history and working from those details, and a "bottom up" approach, which involves starting with science and working up from those details. I think this time I'm boing to switch back to the "bottom up". The difficulty with either approach is that knowledge doesn't fit in a neat, linear order into any classification scheme, and the most important topics are as likely to be in the middle as anywhere else.

At present, I am working on a few biographical pages, more than any other one topic.

Another break

Again due to the press of personal affairs, I have been unable to update this particular blog. Updates are likely to be sparse until fall, depending on events.