Pokotia Monolith

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Ishtar
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Post by Ishtar »

Forum Monk wrote:Sorry, Ishtar - I'm not really finding anything corroborating the East India/Bangladesh connection you suggest. Can you link your Munda speaking people to Mesopotamian or African ancestry or have you any examples of the kinds of scripts or pictograms they used for writing?
Honey - they're not my Munda speaking people - they existed in their own right and until this day, are completely ignorant of my existence!

I also wouldn't expect you find any corroboration - this is a new idea that's no-one explored yet and I'm just chucking it out there. I don't have any particular attachment to it.

Why would I have to link them to African ancestry - except in that we all descend from the African "Daughters of Eve"?
Ishtar
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Post by Ishtar »

Minimalist wrote:
the Munda were 'ignorant savages' who were 'civilised by the more sophisticated invading Aryans'.


I thought that whole "Aryan Invasion" thing had been pretty well dismissed?
That's why I said 'Aryan invasion (so called)'. I took it as read that most people on this forum would have realised what a load of hokey that old theory is.
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Post by Ishtar »

Beagle wrote:
Regarding the Aryan Invasion theory, Ishtar, please check out the "Indus Valley Civilization" thread. While it may be true that the language is connected to some "mother tongue", it seems equally likely that the diffusion travelled from India.
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Post by Forum Monk »

Ishtar wrote:Honey - they're not my Munda speaking people - they existed in their own right and until this day, are completely ignorant of my existence!

I also wouldn't expect you find any corroboration - this is a new idea that's no-one explored yet and I'm just chucking it out there. I don't have any particular attachment to it.

Why would I have to link them to African ancestry - except in that we all descend from the African "Daughters of Eve"?
Well of course, their not your Munda. Forgive me for the use of a personal pronoun. Yes your proposal is new but without corroborating evidence one could just as easily propose the creators of the Pokotia monolith could have been aliens...oh wait...someone did propose that...never mind.

The reason I suggested an African connection is because, Clyde Winters made that connection to the monolith. My thinking was, if there is truly an African source which migrated to east india and eventually across the sea to Bolivia; that could lend some weight to your proposed connection. It has nothing to do with mitochondrial 'eve' which is also falling into disfavor amoung certain genetists.
Ishtar
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Post by Ishtar »

Yeah, I heard that 'Eve' theory was falling apart.

The thing is, I'm not really trying to make the Munda theory stand up. I was merely throwing a piece of info into the ring. I have no particular axe to grind on this.

However, I would say that if there was any kind of movement of Munda peoples to South America, they would not have been likely to go via Africa. The Munda live(d) in the east of India, so they would be more likely to go east by sea - and I also understand that the currents are more favourable going in that direction.

The problem with most things Indian (which is my special interest area I can admit, now that I"m no longer trying to obfuscate about my identity) is that there's very little evidence of anything, art or writing, because of the climate.

But I agree with Marduk on this. He did point out that the writing looked more Indian than anything else. To me, it's not too unlike that on some of the Harrapan Indus Seals. It's of a similar style anyway - certainly the stars ...

But there are other indicators that prove that this culture is at least as old as the Sumerians, and also evidence that they traded with one another.

There's also quite a lot of evidence for the Indians of the Vedic era being in South America, which Stephen Knapp (who Beagle mentions on the Indus Seals thread) has put together from various sources.

(By the way, you have to treat anything from Knapp with caution. He tends to interpret a lot of stuff from the Vedas as literal history, when it isn't. But he's good for some things, and his South American stuff is fairly plausible..)

With Indian researchers, it's a little difficult picking your way through the minefield of those indigenous researchers who are affected by Hindu nationalism and other Western Indologists who take an almost rascist stance against any possibility of Vedic culture diffusing 'Out of India' rather than coming in via the mythical, fictional Aryans.
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Post by Forum Monk »

Ishtar wrote:But I agree with Marduk on this. He did point out that the writing looked more Indian than anything else. To me, it's not too unlike that on some of the Harrapan Indus Seals. It's of a similar style anyway - certainly the stars ...
Somehow I missed Marduk or anyone else claiming, the script looked Indian, Vedic, or Munda. I recall a good comparison to Olmec pictograms.
But there are other indicators that prove that this culture is at least as old as the Sumerians, and also evidence that they traded with one another.
Yup. Beagle has put a lot of info into the "Indus Valley.." thread that would support this idea. It seems they were every bit as advanced as Sumer or Egypt, as well.
There's also quite a lot of evidence for the Indians of the Vedic era being in South America, which Stephen Knapp (who Beagle mentions on the Indus Seals thread) has put together from various sources.
If you don't mind, provide some links. I wasn't aware of this.
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Post by Beagle »

I'm all ears Ishtar. If there is other evidence out there I haven't run across it. You say that the Indus civilization is a favorite of yours. Great. If you have some info on it that would be great.

Nice to see you again :)
Minimalist
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Post by Minimalist »

I took it as read that most people on this forum would have realised what a load of hokey that old theory is.


You'll be astounded at what people on this forum can argue about!
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.

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Post by Beagle »

Hi Min, I'm assuming that you're home and in one piece. Cool. 8)
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Post by Minimalist »

Correct on both.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.

-- George Carlin
Ishtar
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Post by Ishtar »

Hi Monk

I'm sorry for the length of this, but I can't think of a better way of doing it.

Here is where Marduk said the writing looked Indian:

Sumerian cuneiform is so called because Cunei is latin for wedge
so its writing done with a wedge shaped stylus
the pokotia inscription isn't wedge shaped and it does look very very indian

http://archaeologica.boardbot.com/viewt ... sc&start=0

Secondly, re your request: “if you don’t mind, provide some links”. Unfortunately, that may be difficult. I’ve been researching around all this stuff way before the internet was even invented. So I’m not one of those Googledotcom.Phds who goes chasing will ‘o wisps around the web. Imho, you can make a case for anything, even black really being white, that way.

A lot of my research is either in the hundreds of books that I’ve got piled up here, or in papers, or in my head. Granted, there are sometimes web pages these days, but by no means always and in this particular case, I’m not currently aware of any.

Anyway, I can give you some stuff that I’ve found on my computer from replies to similar questions that I’ve given on other forums.

But please understand that this is just one theory – and there’s not enough evidence to make a case for it, by any means. So it’s best just enjoy it under the category ‘food for thought’.

So, once upon a time ......(sorry!)

During Vedic times (3,000 ish BC) one of the great architects is said to be someone called Mayan Danava. He is said to be responsible for one of the four core Vedic books, the Yajur-veda.

Mayan Danava was said to be not only a great architect. He was also an astronomer and was the original author of the Surya Siddhanta, the Vedic star book which dates astronomical events as early as 8,000 BC. Also, he was a great navigator.

Danava just means “of the Danu tribe”. The Anus and the Danus were the first tribes we think left India and most possibly diffuse the culture outwards beyond Asia and into Scandinavia and northern Europe.

Some Vedic researchers have come up with a quite plausible theory that the Anus and Danus were pushed out of India as the Purus (and most notably the Bharata tribe) extended themselves west across India from the east. Some say the Purus – who are thought to be the authors of the other three Vedic books, the Rig, Sama and Atharva - were escaping the drying up Sarasvati river. Others that they were following the Soma, the psychotropic plant they used for their religious rites.

But there is also a school of thought that says that Mayan Danava “went bad” and fell from the “pure Vedic ways”, that the Yajur-veda is actually meant for ‘darker rites’ and that that is why he and his tribe of Danus had to leave India.

Some call him the ‘architect of demons. But it has to be said here that the Indians had a problem with their demons and what were originally, in the four core books of the Vedas, good spirits (the asuras), suddenly became demons in the later Puranic literature.

Anyway, Mayan Danava was an expert navigator - so it would have been no problem for him to lead his people east to what’s now known as South America and then these peoples named themselves after him, as the Maya.

Jwala Prasad Singha in “The Sphinx Speaks” says that when the Maya Danava and the Danus were banished from India, they most likely fled to South America by way of the land-bridges that were provided by the Lemurian continent.

Others have suggested by the way of the Aleutian Islands, or the islands of the South Pacific. Between the coasts of Peru to India are two westerly ocean currents, south of the equator. They go north of the Philippines and on through Indonesia. Another ocean current from Japan goes east toward Mexico.

There are, in fact, all sorts of theories as to how they got there.

Mr J Alden Mason, who spent most of his life from 1917 to 1957 in the study of research in archaeology, anthropology, ethnology and folklore of the American Indians, wrote in his “The Ancient Civilisations of Peru”, that:

“The American Indian physique type is fundamentally similar to the Asiatic and obviously a subgroup of the latter.

“Transoceanic migrations to America have always been a favourite creed of those with the will to believe, but until quite recently, anathema to all reputable American anthropologists. However, ignoring the mythical “Lost Continent of Mu”, evidence of Trans-Pacific contacts are strong enough to be almost convincing to many good anthropologists... there are many curious and close resemblances in cultural elements between several regions in mainland America and Polynesia, Melanesia and South-eastern Asia that are difficult to account for on other grounds than historical contact.”

Of course, he wrote that before we knew much about genes, or how to study them, so that might now be out of date....I haven’t been focussing much on this area lately to find out.

Among my papers on this, I also have notes on Mayan temple structures, and religious idols and practices that have more than a whiff of the Vedic about them, if anyone is still interested. But it will have to be for another day ....

I’ve also been studying modern-day Indian shamanism in South America and many of the rites, which they say have been handed down for millennia, could be compared to Vedic rites. But then, on the other hand, so could the shamanic rites of the North American Indians, the Australian Aborigines and the Siberian and Laplander shamans, so it doesn’t really prove anything.

Beagle, I'd love to talk to about Indus seals, but heavens know when I will find the time.
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Post by Forum Monk »

Hmmm
Maybe you'll have time while I figure out what needs responded to and what doesn't.
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Post by Beagle »

That's a lot to think about Ishtar. I'll tell you what, if any, thoughts I've got after a little study. Keep it coming girl. :)
Ishtar
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Post by Ishtar »

Beagle wrote:That's a lot to think about Ishtar. I'll tell you what, if any, thoughts I've got after a little study. Keep it coming girl. :)
Here's a few more snippets in no particular order, just as they occur to me:

One of the things that often surprises archaeologists in central America and Mexico is the number of elephant headed gods in early Mayan art, particularly Copan, that they excavate. This is because, as we alll know, there have never been elephants in that part of the world, and that they are confined to the African and Indian continent. But I'm sure you've heard of the Indian elephant headed god, Ganesh.

Apparently, hymn 121 of Book Ten of the Rig-veda is very similar to the description of creation found in the Popol Vuh, but I haven't checked this.

Another interesting point regards the calendars. The Indian, Olmec and Mayan calendars all begin around 3,000 BC. The Mayas' starts at August 13 3114 BC and the Olmecs' starts in 3113 BC.

According to some Indian researchers, this is roughly the date of the Mahabharata War, when the tribes of Bharatha (now India) fought and were all defeated by a branch of the Purus called the Padavas. The Bhagavad-gita, where Krishna instructs Arjuna on how to reach enlightenment, is set in the context of the Mahabharatha war. So those who take this literally believe that in this aftermath of this war, where so many tribes were defeated, there was a kind of worldwide diaspora to all points of the compass, and that's why the Maya and Olmec calendars start there.

Btw I don't think it's quite as simple as that. Imho, the Mahabharatha is just a "modern remake" of The Battle of the Ten Kings from the much much older Rig-veda. And I still haven't worked out whether I think this battle is mythological or really happened - but for anyone interested, there is very good e-book on the subject that I think makes a good case for it being a historical fact.

Hope this helps.
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Post by Minimalist »

Actually, Ishtar, there were elephant-like animals in South America but they became extinct around 9,000 BC.....which raises a whole lot of other questions, doesn't it?

http://www.amnh.org/science/biodiversit ... cidea.html
Gomphotheres are related to primitive elephantids, and share many features with them. Their grinding teeth, for example, had many more cusps and more complicated wear patterns than those of mastodons. Cuvieronius, the last genus of New World gomphotheres to become extinct, was widely distributed in North, Central, and South America. In feeding habits it was presumably a browser. In South America, this taxon survived until about 11,000 radiocarbon years before present; they apparently became extinct somewhat earlier in North America.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.

-- George Carlin
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