Rambling musings

[Silverbirch]

(from the link posted earlier)

'The Sibyl, with frenzied mouth uttering things not to be laughed at, unadorned and unperfumed, yet reaches to a thousand years (or a millenium) with her voice by aid of the god.' (Heraclitus, fragment 12)

"The Hebrew Sibyl was identified as the author of Sibylline oracles."

"The pseudo-Sibylline texts are a valuable source for information about Classical mythology and early first millennium Gnostic, Jewish and Christian beliefs."

(quotes from the letter with my rambling thoughts)

"Heretics and others who would doubt them were collectively punished, suspended inverted, exposed outdoors for days or weeks and then ridiculed by audiences"  There are some historical references to this type of punishment, some of them in conjunction with crucifiction.  There is also "The Hanged Man" of the Tarot, and there is historical/religious reference of this in some pagan religions regarding hanging someone upside down.

The Minoans of Crete had a very technologically advanced society and disappeared.  It's now hypothesized that a massive Tsunami took them out.  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6568053.stm And then there's Atlantis... Part of the Atlantian myth is that they destroyed themselves with their own highly advanced technology.

"A common limning we now understand pictures a grid, filled in with digits in 9 square tiles who sum total is equivalent, judged across or downward" :
8 1 6
3 5 7
4 9 2
dunno what the meaning of it is in the context of the letter, maybe it's the red herring?  Although the Sibylline Oracles (and most ancient greek text/prose), was done in hexameter, the numbers all add to 15, which, from a numerology stance, adds up to six (hex)

I agree with the suggestion of Greek Fire being referenced in the letter.  The other supposition about WWII, with the "lighting the sky with radiant glows", could tie in with that since Napalm (sometimes referred to as the new 'greek fire') was used during the bombing of Berlin and a few other cities.  It's postulated that phospherous was used as an ingredient in the original recipe.  In Anne McCaffrey's books, The Dragon Riders of Pern, the dragons eat phospene bearing rock to make the flames. 

I think the last paragraph is nothing more than instructions/hints and well-wishes to those who are trying to solve this

Just a few very late night rambling thoughts 

[pyromaniac]

did u catch the Lost Worlds series on History Channel..the one about Atlantis? the hypothesis is that the Minoans were or a part of the Atlantean civilisation. Apparently, the palace of Knossos was sitting in the crater/peak of a super volcano that spanned many of the neighbouring greek islands. It was built by the Minoans but according to their studies (parts of the foundation were not of the same material) a much older civilisation had started building there millenia before it got destroyed by the super-eruption which sunk most of those islands and the civilisation with it.

not much help with the parchment but i enjoyed reading ur little analysis/rambling there 

[estelle]

More musings:

..."Although referred to as "fire", St. Elmo's fire is, in fact, plasma. The electric field around the object in question causes ionization of the air molecules, producing a faint glow easily visible in low-light conditions. Approximately 1,000 - 30,000 volts per centimetre is required to induce St. Elmo's fire; however, this number is greatly dependent on the geometry of the object in question. Sharp points tend to require lower voltage levels to produce the same result because electric fields are more concentrated in areas of high curvature, thus discharges are more intense at the end of pointed objects.
St. Elmo's fire and normal sparks both can appear when high electrical voltage affects a gas. St. Elmo's fire is seen during thunderstorms when the ground below the storm is electrically charged, and there is high voltage in the air between the cloud and the ground. The voltage tears apart the air molecules and the gas begins to glow.
The nitrogen and oxygen in the earth's atmosphere causes St. Elmo's fire to fluoresce with blue or violet light; this is similar to the mechanism that causes neon lights to glow.

Historical observations

In ancient Greece, the appearance of a single one was called Helena and two were called Castor and Pollux. Occasionally, it was associated with the Greek element of fire, as well as with one of Paracelsus's elementals, specifically the salamander, or, alternatively, with a similar creature referred to as an acthnici.
Welsh mariners knew it as canwyll yr ysbryd ("spirit-candles") or canwyll yr ysbryd glân ("candles of the Holy Ghost"), or the "candles of St. David"." (taken from Wikipedia)

[Enlarceavaice]

and for rambling,

my two accidents in the last year tripled my motorcycle insurance

[Galaxy]

my two accidents in the last year tripled my motorcycle insurance

Ouch!!  I hope you weren't hurt.  Although your wallet obviously was!