http://www.silk-road.com/newsletter/vol ... _bloom.php
lotsa good reading and images. Mentioned is something I had proposed, but had already, albeit inadvertantly been done.
they found a lost mail packet in the Kara Kum from 331 AD. Some of the mail is written on paper. It makes you wonder how much more is out there. It was said that the road to Kucha thru the desert was clearly marked with the skeletons of the dead. And thats just the guys who at least werent lost.
The website mentions a project the Brits & Chinese have to put it all online. Which is literally *tons* of ancient documents found in the deserts. One photo is of a whole fuckin library discovered by Taoist monks cleaning a temple.
I mean, like the Dead Sea Scolls, the Nag Hammadi, and all the rest ever found in what passes for western civilization would fit in a broom closet, and these guys looking at the Silk Road have enuf to fill an 18 wheeler.
On find mentioned at the above website included 7th century documents in 20 different languages. I knew the "Wise Men" came from "The East", but I had no fuckin idea of how much more they had to draw on. Not only in all the languages, but Buddhist, Vedas, Zoroastrian, Manichean, Confucian, Taoist... Only nobody came and burned an Alexandrian library. Its all still there if you know how to read it.
They show *Byzantine* coins found in China all the way to Shanghai. Mention some Chinese traveler who made it to the Caspian in 979 *BC*.
http://idp.bl.uk/ mentions *100,000* documents and images of artifacts they are going to post online. Much of it perfectly preserved by the deserts. Making so much available is going to move Biblical archeology to a back burner.
Silk or Paper Road?
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Silk or Paper Road?
Any god watching me hasta be bored, and needs to get a life.
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Sam Salmon
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Minimalist
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Rokcet Scientist
Thanx for the encouragement. This is a comer. It usta be such a bitch to get there to look around, and China was so closed for so long. But now the Chinese see *money* in the ancient $ilk Road, at the same time that tourists to Egypt, the Holy Land, Iraq (!), run the risk of not only being ripped off, but killed. Or held for ransom in the traditional Islamic tradition.
Just compare the mummies. Dude wrapped up in linen strips. Yawn. Now look at the bodies they are pulling out of the Tocharian grave yards. Not only are they "White people", but they are middle class not kings. Dressed in what look like their normal go to town shopping clothes.
And, whereas in the usual archeological sites the documents have to do with what some king said, or what his clerics say god said, here its Buddhists, Taoists, Conficians, etc with a lot more to say about the nature of man than of god. And, a lot of it is ordinary letters from ordinary folks left in their houses when they split because the river moved over and the whole town hadda be abandoned.
We love 150 year old ghost towns out west. Out East, they have 1500 year old ghost towns. Ten times as spooky.
I can see the mini-series coming as well. The 7th century journey of Xuan Zang, dubbed in both English and Chinese with the same video footage. Lotsa spectacular landscape like the American West, but several times as much of it. Aryans & Chinese, dressed in each other's clothes, doing business with each other, having parties, weddings, getting rich...
while contending with the non-white, non-Chinese- bandits, barbarians, warlords & jackasses that still make trouble in the various "-stans", the racists on both side of the Jade Gate will eat it up.
Dig up a body, copy the clothes; bring the people, both Chinese & Aryan, back to life, From nuns & monks, on up to emperors & empresses; it'd be the same power brokers, only dressed in silk. With an artistic sensibility that'd make the usual Hollywood shit look like the boondox.
Just compare the mummies. Dude wrapped up in linen strips. Yawn. Now look at the bodies they are pulling out of the Tocharian grave yards. Not only are they "White people", but they are middle class not kings. Dressed in what look like their normal go to town shopping clothes.
And, whereas in the usual archeological sites the documents have to do with what some king said, or what his clerics say god said, here its Buddhists, Taoists, Conficians, etc with a lot more to say about the nature of man than of god. And, a lot of it is ordinary letters from ordinary folks left in their houses when they split because the river moved over and the whole town hadda be abandoned.
We love 150 year old ghost towns out west. Out East, they have 1500 year old ghost towns. Ten times as spooky.
I can see the mini-series coming as well. The 7th century journey of Xuan Zang, dubbed in both English and Chinese with the same video footage. Lotsa spectacular landscape like the American West, but several times as much of it. Aryans & Chinese, dressed in each other's clothes, doing business with each other, having parties, weddings, getting rich...
while contending with the non-white, non-Chinese- bandits, barbarians, warlords & jackasses that still make trouble in the various "-stans", the racists on both side of the Jade Gate will eat it up.
Dig up a body, copy the clothes; bring the people, both Chinese & Aryan, back to life, From nuns & monks, on up to emperors & empresses; it'd be the same power brokers, only dressed in silk. With an artistic sensibility that'd make the usual Hollywood shit look like the boondox.
Any god watching me hasta be bored, and needs to get a life.
I have to agree with you DB.
Like Eastern Europe, the fall of the USSR is opening up a whole lot of the world to inquiring eyes.
In the end, I think one of the things that is going to the hardest for everybody to accept is just how big the world economy was.
Trade goods literally went around the world on well established trade routes that were 1000's of years old.
Explores like Marco Polo didn’t explore anything. They just paid their fare as passengers on the donkey train or ship.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we find that the first HE that went “Out of Africa” was looking for a market for the Red Ocher he had in his pack.
Like Eastern Europe, the fall of the USSR is opening up a whole lot of the world to inquiring eyes.
In the end, I think one of the things that is going to the hardest for everybody to accept is just how big the world economy was.
Trade goods literally went around the world on well established trade routes that were 1000's of years old.
Explores like Marco Polo didn’t explore anything. They just paid their fare as passengers on the donkey train or ship.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we find that the first HE that went “Out of Africa” was looking for a market for the Red Ocher he had in his pack.
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Rokcet Scientist
Very interesting, DB. But I doubt it will eclipse the interest in Egypt, Sudan, and the middle east. 1500 year old mummies and ghost towns do not seem as interesting as 4,000 year old and older ones.
And to infer that the Central Asian region was a hub of human civilisational development 1,500 years ago because it already was that, say, 100,000 years BP is too great a leap of logic for my comfort.
Although both could be true, I don't see a causal connection.
And to infer that the Central Asian region was a hub of human civilisational development 1,500 years ago because it already was that, say, 100,000 years BP is too great a leap of logic for my comfort.
Although both could be true, I don't see a causal connection.
The (Aryan) "Beauty of Loulan" is 4000 years old. But whatever, as China becomes a greater part of the global market, including the market for media, then video on the Silk Road plays well when dubbed into the right languages on both sides of the Jade Gate.
I would not be surprised if China does not soon have more archaeologists publishing in English than are publishing on Biblical archeology. Follow the money. I happen to meet a young woman friend yesterday that told me she just ordered antique beads from Central Asia off the Internet. We'll see if she gets ripped off.
Course, HP pays her so much money for helping to maintain customer installations, that it hardly matters. Then today, I saw a National Geo piece on "The Celts". Well, the reason we call them the "Tocharians" is that "to" is the Greek version of "the", and the "ToCelts" and "ToCharians" were cousins, that the young people trying to reconstruct their Celtic roots are going to figure out.
This is some serious shit, and therefore serious money. The National Geo showed a "Celtic Beltane" photo at which all the young men & women wore body paint. [that's a period] I dunno if the guys put on condoms later or not, but I do know a Beltane event where that is SOP.
The "Burning Man" thing in Nevada is another example, as is another 'Celtic event' I know coming up on sept 24, which I believe will also be a 'safe sex' event. If I was 40, or even 30, years younger I'd go.
But the above young lady only mentioned the beads because she just came from a "Goth Fashion" store. All sorta kinky bondage crap. These young women are going to find out about the silk wardrobes of the Kuchi,
And when they do, they too will coo.
I would not be surprised if China does not soon have more archaeologists publishing in English than are publishing on Biblical archeology. Follow the money. I happen to meet a young woman friend yesterday that told me she just ordered antique beads from Central Asia off the Internet. We'll see if she gets ripped off.
Course, HP pays her so much money for helping to maintain customer installations, that it hardly matters. Then today, I saw a National Geo piece on "The Celts". Well, the reason we call them the "Tocharians" is that "to" is the Greek version of "the", and the "ToCelts" and "ToCharians" were cousins, that the young people trying to reconstruct their Celtic roots are going to figure out.
This is some serious shit, and therefore serious money. The National Geo showed a "Celtic Beltane" photo at which all the young men & women wore body paint. [that's a period] I dunno if the guys put on condoms later or not, but I do know a Beltane event where that is SOP.
The "Burning Man" thing in Nevada is another example, as is another 'Celtic event' I know coming up on sept 24, which I believe will also be a 'safe sex' event. If I was 40, or even 30, years younger I'd go.
But the above young lady only mentioned the beads because she just came from a "Goth Fashion" store. All sorta kinky bondage crap. These young women are going to find out about the silk wardrobes of the Kuchi,
And when they do, they too will coo.
Any god watching me hasta be bored, and needs to get a life.