Michaela Fleming -- The Experiment of Psammetichos

  General comment to everyone:  Be sure you articulate why you are calling some things 
  *borders* or *boundaries* (i.e. things that divide some place from another place, or 
  some people from others, or ... , while at the same time forming a connection between them).  
  Some of you seem to be using those words almost as synonyms for "differences," but there is 
  more to it than that because you aren't always working in the idea of simultaneous 
  *separation* and *connection*. 

  Careful, the correct title for Herodotus's work is "The Histories."  This is the Landmark 
  edition of "The Histories" of Herodotus, NOT "The Landmark of Herodotus."

  Did you think why Herodotus says specifically that Psammetichos was not able to find an answer
  to his question by "making inquiries?"  That is Herodotus's own method, so he's setting
  up a contrast between what he did in writing his book and what Psammetichos did(!)

  I still don't like the phrase "isolation border" very much (in the last sentence of your opening 
  paragraph).  Try to find a better way to say this -- something like "border between the children 
  and the rest of human society created by their isolation" might be the best you can do there.  
  That certainly works in the idea of separation.  Can you see how it also involves a sort
  of connection?  Think about it.

  "lingual border" is not correct -- I think you mean "linguistic border"

  I agree that Herodotus says essentially that "After discovering that “bekos” translates to “bread” 
  in the Phrygian language, Psammetichos was able to see for himself that the Phrygians existed before 
  the Egyptians."  However, to us today, doesn't it seem more reasonable to say "Psammetichos convinced
  himself that ... " than "Psammetichos was able to see for himself that ... "?  Your way of saying
  it seems to be implying that you think his conclusion was correct.  Is that true?  Later on you
  basically say the priests Herodotus talked to were known to be wise, so what they said is true. And
  your last sentence in the final paragraph also says something along these lines.  I agree that 
  all this probably contributed to Herodotus recounting the story, but that doesn't mean we have
  to believe it's true.  And in fact it doesn't even necessarily mean that Herodotus thought the 
  story was true either.  Several times (at other points in the Histories) he says things like, 
  "this is what my sources tell me, but I don't believe it." 

  You say "Herodotus says that the Egyptians really wanted to be able to define themselves by saying they 
  were either the oldest civilization ... ."  Not exactly.  I do think it's reasonable to say that
  the Egyptians wanted to do that, but that's *your* interpretation, not something Herodotus 
  says.  If you look carefully, he never says anything quite like that -- just that the Egyptians
  used to think they were the oldest, then decided they were the second oldest after the
  Phrygians when Psammetichos performed his experiment.  Be more careful about attributing ideas.      

  Think a bit more about how one group claiming a unique characteristic fits the general 
  idea of a border or boundary spelled out in my general comment above.  Where does the 
  "connection" idea come in?

  In terms of the attached writing rubric, I think this is pretty consistently at the "Proficient"
  level.

  Content:  B+

  Mechanics: B+