Archaeologica.org

... In The Period of PIE Unity?" is the title of a charming little book I received last week. By Frederick W. Ballantine & James L. Oswald, pub privately by the latter.

and I do mean *privately*. Done in 1988, it uses the latest computer equipment, a dot matrix printer to print it out. Nevertheless, Froogle found it. But to the issue at hand, the answer is yes.

On Pg 42 he lists sanctions against priests:
"1 Thou shalt not bear arms.
2 Thou shall not swear an Oath
3. Thou shall cease prayers when the sound of arrows is heard or in the midst of battle.
4. Thou shall not ride a horse.
5. Thou shall not touch yeast, meal, or leavened bread.
6. Thou shall not drink alcohol (maintained only by Brahmins)
7 Thou shall resign thy offic if your wife dies, and not have any lust for anyone else's.
8.Thou shall not be naked outside.
9. Thou shall not touch a dead body, nor smell the smoke of a pyre, but cease prayers when a funeral passes by.
10. Thous shall carry a distaff and wear a cap with a spindle wrapped with a thread about it and as a symbol of castration, thou shall wear women's clothing.
11. Thou shall not touch raw meat, eat beans, or the food eaten by lower classes.
12. Thou shall never wear a girdle in keeping with symbolic castration.
13. Some of you shall be castrated or mutiliated.
14. Thous shall not recite the Vedas (prayers) while the sky is preternaturally red. "

They say that most of these sanctions can be found among the clerics of the Greeks, Romans, Celts, Germans, Persians, & Indians, that is everywhere the descendants of the PIE went. No one group has the full set, but the appearance of so many of these sanctions in all the Indo-European languages suggest that there was a full PIE set.

But- they think the priestly class defied the King, "Regos" and his warriors. But JP Mallory for one, says that before the late bronze age, there is damn little evidence for warfare. Whch means no warrior class.

Then too, we have Douglas Adams, "Tocharian Historical Phonology & Morphology" on p138-139 say that "*wleAntos. If not a scribal error, the same PIE *-os is represented by... *dhugAtros " Greek *thugatros* = "daughter's". Which is to say, bluntly, that "-os" is a *female* possessive suffix.

Which may be one reason JP Mallory, "In Search of the Indo-Europeans" p125
says that the only early PIE word we have for authority is "raj". [as in Raja, Regina, Arrange. skt, Lat. Eng.] but that "raj" is a *female* tribal leader of great wisdom and mana." We tend to dismiss the power of magic these days apparently unware of the terror it held for warriors of ancient times. There's clear psychological reasons for this, but that's another thread. Suffice to say, that magic could send an entire army home.

Or two as it did the Phrigians and Persians when a solar eclipse happened during a battle. This fear of magic is a point that none of the critics of ancient matriarchy have picked up on.

ITs relevent to the issue these guys raise, which they seem to be aware of, because they list, on pp4-5, the total solar eclipses of the mid 6th mil that were visible from 25 to 95 East longitude. There were 20 total eclipses from 5558 to 5525 BCE, I surfed NASA trying to verify this, but their charts only go back to the beginning of the 4th mil. However I did see that the precession of the equinoxes has the 'Soras" variation, which I dunno if these dudes knew about.

Posting on astrolgy and geology lists leaves the question of whether the tidal forces that result would have triggered earthquakes. Some dismissed it out of hand, but another pointed out the dramatic drop in air pressure as the air under a solar eclipse cooled. So. in a region like Anatolia, which is prone to quakes already,... and then in the era when the level of the Agean rose by 400 feet, you have a different kind of tidal pressure, which added up could have opened up the aquifers to the pressure of sea water, and undermined the isthmus, ending up by blowing the Bophorus open.

And setting off the Great Flood Ryan & Pitman talk about in this very same era. Ballantine & Oswald, writing in 1988, dunno anything about the Great Flood of the Euxine basin. But they *do* know that something big happened in the mid 6th mil.

And certainly, of the hundreds of villages around at the time, there would have been clerics looking at the eclipse and ranting about the end of the world. But if R&P are corect, all hell broke loose instead. Lotsa folks noted the aquifer pressure had dramatically risen, and somebody wouldda seen the Bophorus blow and live to tell about it.

Folks wouldda come by to look at the new river from the Agean, roaring like Naigra down twards the lake. And within a day or so, somebody would've noticed the lake level rising, and... put two and two together. And the word to get the hell out of Dodge, and look for high ground.

And be promoted as some kind of genuis, which would have threatened all the reputations of all the rulers who didnt see it coming. Who, as Mallory notes, were women. And at the end of the day, matriarchy prevailed, but imposed, just as they say was done to Japan & Germany after WW II, sanctions against the loosers ever being in a position to be a military threat again.

So, they try to seize power from the "Regos", but B&O dont know that the masculine word for king originally meant that which belonged to the queen.
ie, "Raj" with the feminine possessive "os". Likewise, "deity" is simply "dee", to which the same female suffix is attached to produce "deos". And "Nysos" comes from "nee" meaning born as... the son of the Goddess, with the same suffix, "os" or sometimes written "us". But we all know the sound is the same.

Of course, most folks fled up the Danube, Bug, & Dneipr river valleys. Mostly the Danube cause of the salt that could float down river from Hallstaat & Salzburg to the fisheries in the delta. But still, the water flooded folks out in all directions, making them split in all directions.

Along with their new farming & metallurgy technologies. And just like the Cherokee, who had some of their own agricultural traditions, they add the new resources, and lots of hunters & herders give up the old way to take up and enjoy the new technologies. Which all have PIE nomenclature. Not military, but economic conquest just as the Western cultures, the most technologically advanced, now suck energetic innovative people out of the boonies all over the world.

The 60 odd Y chromosome lines found in Europe came from a melting pot just like this. The original Aryans, or PIE, were *not* all the descendants of any Abraham, but a motley crew of the descendants who took the risk on a new way of life. And won.

And I can see how a patriarchic concept of the divine would have had instinctive appeal to the dudes who fancied themselves as spiritual leaders. Course, eventually, they won, but back then, got their asses kicked.

One of the reasons nobody talks about- the witches of Transylvania were still using when the Romans showed up. They sent women into the camps to provide sexual services, and somehow the witches always knew when the Romans were coming. There are letters in medieval times to the Bishop explaining that brother Studd Miuffin had been gone all these [summer] months because he'd been "bewitched".

And given the number of ancient dildos sitting in museums labeled "phallic wands", I can understand what the witches did while he spent the winter at the abby.. eating off the Bishop.

The witches never wouldda lost control were it not for the STDs that came in with Roman roads. But now that they know how to practice 'safe sex', [and I have seen them willing to do it], I expect they'll be using more sexual services again- since Smith & Wesson guarantee equal right for women, and it dont matter how stong the arm of the warrior is any more, or how brave he is.

And that fact rides under the current in all the debate about patriarchy vs matriarchy. History will be rewritten as Herstory just as the winners always have.

3. Thou shall cease prayers when the sound of arrows is heard or in the midst of battle.

THAT is really a very sensible idea. Far better to pick up your shield than to pray for the arrows to miss!

As someone once said: "Two hands working accomplish much more than 10,000 clasped in prayer."

Deja Vou
The latter paragraphs concerning matriarchy were posted before by Day Brown , I beleive.

[quote="Anonymous]But JP Mallory for one, says that before the late bronze age, there is damn little evidence for warfare. Whch means no warrior class. [/quote]

That notion is flatly contradicted by the (massive) book called The Collins Encyclopedia of Military History 3500 BC-Present by Dupuy & Dupuy (London. Book Club Association.1993). The Late Bronze Age covered 1600-1050BC.
What evidence did Mallory base that bold statement on?

What evidence did Mallory base that bold statement on?

J P Mallory was a follower of Marija Gimbutas. Just read anything from Daybrown and you will learn all about her. I think she was a leader in the femminist movement back in the 60's with her teachings about the Mother
Goddess and women's role in early society.

The Sumerians seem to have had little hesitation about making war on anyone in reach according to this web site.

http://www.crystalinks.com/sumerhistory.html


Odd that civilization brings about a structure in society in which priests and warriors ascend to the top of the pyramid over the backs of the poor. The priests suck the peasantry dry and the warriors eventually have to be kept busy otherwise they cause trouble at home.

Some things never change.

Thanks Leona,
No further explanation necessary!

The Sumerians were a two bit bunch in a backwater who happened to build in brick which left something for early archaeologists [interested in proving scripture] to look at.

The Satellite radar scans are revealing a vast trade network further north where people built timber frame cities like Tripolye which were entirely missed until discovered by magnetometers.

The need for irrigation in the fertile crescent concentrated people making it far easier for warlords to control them. Further north, the grasslands had nomads and widely separated citiy states where the sheer distances involved made warfare far less profitable. Note that even Alexander couldnt conquer Parthia.

The problem with the warrior is that while he's great for conquering an empire, he's inept at running one. The sustainable economic system depends on trade that in turn depends on peace. The radar scans show several routes crossing central asia such that if there was violence at any one point, trade simply took another route. which was bad for business.

Another problem the warlords had, was that whenver there was any economic or environmental stress, the whole system collapsed. People who dont have an investment in a system dont try to maintain it, and the goon squads of the kings were never adequate. EW Barber, "The Mummies of Urumchi points out, that (like we see later with Atilla and the Mongols) when a drought hit the Steppe, people would head south looking for greener pastures, and into the agrarian regions.

There, the peasants didnt care, they didnt own the land, and the goon squads were not nearly enough men to maintain the system. So what looks like "Aryan conquest" is actually just steep pyramidal power structures falling over. Ghenghis Khan took China the same way.

In general, archaeology is finally getting around to looking at obscure villages and farmhouses to find out how people actually lived. Just as now, the reports of the doings of the royal houses got the media hype, but most people, most of the time, were minding their own business leading lives that were too boring to make it into written history.

Lastly, something Gimbutas, Mallory, and their critics miss, is how the witches used sexual and health services to maintain control rather than the sword. Get dudes laid often enough, and they aint intrested in going off to war.

daybrown wrote:The Sumerians were a two bit bunch in a backwater

Who practically invented writing.....

daybrown wrote:The sustainable economic system depends on trade that in turn depends on peace.

Says who? Securing trade routes frequently led to war.

daybrown wrote:Another problem the warlords had, was that whenver there was any economic or environmental stress, the whole system collapsed. People who dont have an investment in a system dont try to maintain it, and the goon squads of the kings were never adequate.

Again, that isn't true. When the Angles, Saxons and Jutes arrived in Britain in the Dark Ages, the first thing they did was take over old Roman estates and villages because these had defined boundaries still marked out, and because the buildings only required minimum maintenance to make them habitable again. Most of the European towns seen today started life as Roman settlements rejuvenated after c.450.

daybrown wrote:There, the peasants didnt care, they didnt own the land

So how did they intend to grow food to support themselves? You don't have to care who owns a piece of land as long as you can use it to grow food for your children, so your argument is self-defeating.

[quote-"daybrown"]In general, archaeology is finally getting around to looking at obscure villages and farmhouses to find out how people actually lived

European archaeology has been doing this for at least 30 years; see the excavations of the deserted mediaeval village at Wharram percy in England. There is a group called the Deserted Settlement Research Group which does nothing else BUT what the name suggests.

daybrown wrote:Lastly, something Gimbutas, Mallory, and their critics miss, is how the witches used sexual and health services to maintain control rather than the sword. Get dudes laid often enough, and they aint intrested in going off to war.

That's a fanciful notion which assumes 'witches' actually created tangible social groups with a hierarchical structure. It's also highly unlikely.

Whoops! Must practice this quote button malarky.

Did The Proto-Indo-European Priesthood commit treason?

Which priesthood doesn't?

daybrown wrote:[...] Get dudes laid often enough, and they aint intrested in going off to war.

After all the tomes of sermons you posted and pasted, this is the first sentence that made sense.

Congrats!
There may be hope for you yet.

daybrown wrote: Get dudes laid often enough, and they aint intrested in going off to war.

Hmm....so 'Smiling Albert' Kesselring should have thrashed the Allies in Italy in WW2, if the number of brothels in Rome, Naples and Caserta were anything to go by!

Rokcet Scientist wrote:Did The Proto-Indo-European Priesthood commit treason?

Which priesthood doesn't?

Gibbon, in The Decline & Fall of The Roman Empire calcuated that it had 110 million. I've seen estimates that Roman Britain had 12 million. But- because of the malnutrition of the slave women, they werent breeding, and the total population was in continual and more or less steady decline.

For a long time the Legions were simply used as raiding parties to get slaves. And by the 5th century, shortly after Christianization, the Bishops began burning the witches because of their "family planning services". I dunno how much they were needed given the malnutrition of the slave class, but the birth rate among the upper class women was so low that they may have been using herbal birth control as well as poisoning themselves with lead.

But in any case, by the time the barbarians arrived in Britain, many estates had already been abandoned, and the total population was estimated at 4 million. That's the thing, nobody seems to bother calculating how many slaves were used up in the monumental stonework rather than being used to provide an adequate diet for the lower classes. China had the same problem in building the Great Wall, and the famine that followed its constuction is pretty well documented.

Its a chronic problem with alpha male warrior leaders. Had Hitler stopped to consolidate his rule and organize production after conquering Western Europe, he could have avoided war with the US and then cleaned the Commie's clock with a fully operational West European economy. But, he got suckered by the glory, like so many other victorious tyrants.

Empires have always needed warriors, but then foundered because they didnt have the beta males willing to sit down and do boring stuff like handle the logistics and get the crops planted on time. The American empire has done so much better because so much battle was done remotely, depending on the geeks navigating the bombers, who after the war came home and worked pushing paper for the transnationals.

Same deal with the Greek Phalanx; it was absolutely critical to stay in line. Alpha males aint good at that. Get them riled up, and they want to show off, get out front and butcher. But the CO had a bugle, and every 20 minutes, he'd blow his horn, and the dudes on the front line, if they kept their cool, stepped back and let the next dude take over... with fresh arm muscles. The Persians just didnt get it. They had brave warriors up the yinyang, and just kept throwing them at the line. But after a while, the Persian gets tired, and the fresh arm of the next Greek takes him out.

That's how Xonophon's "Ten Thousand" went thru the Persian ranks like a weed eater. But it only works with betas who can keep their cool. And had Alexander lived, the empire wouldda stayed in one piece. But I note, that even parcelled out, it had the veteran pen pushers to keep things organized for hundreds of years.

Another tidbit from the net a few years back was a report of a farm found in Southern Germany- complete with a set of Roman farming tools. Seems like, as the empire lost control, some peasants grabbed the tools and split for the boondox in Germany, starting out as free men pioneering in the Black Forest. Which would also have caused a population decline.

And sure, the warriors can come and take his women and everything he has, but if he knows what he's doing, he only needs a few acres, and there's millions to choose from. The warrior hasta *find* him first. Robin Hood was just one of a myriad of people who fled into the forest. "LIfe in a Medieval Village" taken from the court records of an out of the way obscure English Midlands village shows how, when the abbot landlord tried to raise taxes, the *whole* village got up and moved into the woods.

Only when the abbot caved did they come back, months later. The idea that they would have starved is challenged by the lab analysis of bog body stomachs which show nearly 100 wild berries, tubers, nuts, and seeds in the diet. The social predators dont study that stuff, its too boring.