shaberon
16th November 2023, 10:05
Smithsonian, May 1, 2023 (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/buddha-statue-found-berenike-egypt-180982075/)
https://th-thumbnailer.cdn-si-edu.com/IoyrK0fJNGSDvHNRxgC81WkfJ34=/1000x750/filters:no_upscale():focal(850x664:851x665)/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/3b/e5/3be5952e-e14d-4cec-a775-2fd6fdda7dc3/buddha-statue.jpg
Researchers have discovered a two-foot-tall Buddha statue in Berenike, an ancient Egyptian port city.
The artifact is the first Buddha ever found west of Afghanistan, according to the New York Review of Books’ William Dalrymple. Made from Mediterranean marble, it provides new evidence of trade between ancient Rome and India.
Based on stylistic details, the researchers think it was made in Alexandria around the second century C.E.
Founded in the third century B.C.E., Berenike eventually became one of the largest ports in Roman-controlled Egypt, according to the antiquities ministry. Goods such as ivory, textiles and semi-precious metals passed through the city for many years, until it was eventually abandoned around the sixth century C.E.
Recent excavations at Berenike have revealed other items that suggest a similar cultural blending. Among them is an inscription in Sanskrit dating to the reign of the emperor Marcus Julius Philippus, known as Phillip the Arab. Born in what is now Syria, he ruled the Roman Empire from 244 to 249 C.E.
Such finds are part of a growing body of evidence that shows just how interconnected the Roman Empire was to its ancient Indian counterpart. They also help shed light on the unique role played by Egypt, which was “centrally located on the trade route that connected the Roman Empire to many parts of the ancient world,” says the antiquities ministry.
That is unique.
But this may be a bit of an understatement.
What we want to notice is that this is a product of a route which also involved Eilat to Gaza. The circuit ceased to thrive around the sixth century, and is obviously now quite broken.
So if we look into how big this was, and how far gone it is.
This has been spun in various ways, but it turns out that the first written Sanskrit is not in India, it was near Aleppo in the Mittani (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitanni) kingdom. Simultaneously this may also be the first known treaty in the 1300s B. C. E.:
Maitanni thus meant the "united kingdom.
The deities Mitra, Varuna, Indra, and Nasatya (Ashvins) are listed and invoked in two treaties found in Hattusa, between the kings Sattiwaza of Mitanni and Suppiluliuma the Hittite: (treaty KBo I 3) and (treaty KBo I 1 and its duplicates).
Alexander Lubotsky considers "[t]he military elite of the Mitanni kingdom (of Aryan descent) was present in Syria and northern Iraq in the fourteenth century BCE and probably arrived there a few generations earlier, in the sixteenth to fifteenth century BCE."
In other words, the Rg Veda mythology was already intact, and for some reason, Indic kings became a dynasty. This does not mean Sanskrit "originated" there, it probably was no more than a "court language" that left no continuous legacy. Exactly why is a question that has no parallels, this is not a military expansion, and can only leave us guessing why India and Aleppo were important enough to each other for this to be possible.
At the same time, near Latakia was Ugarit (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugarit), "discovered" in 1928 but:
The polity was at its height from c. 1450 BC until its destruction in c. 1185 BC.
And its mythology is constantly related to the Bible. But the Bible is much later, and, as much as the Rg Veda must have been known, there is a strong resemblance of Indra to Baal Hadad (https://lost-history.com/baal_hadad.php):
Ba'al Hadad climbs Mount Zaphon and erects his temple there in seven days, mirroring the week of creation in Genesis.
https://lost-history.com/images/lotan.png
Ba'al Hadad is the son of a fish god Dagon who created humans very much like Dumuzi's father Enki, but Hadad also calls the king of the gods, El the Bull, father as well. He can probably be equated with Ba'al-Zebul, or Beelzebub, the god of Ekron mentioned in 2 Kings. In the Hurrian and Hittite creation myth, Kingship in Heaven, the storm/war god Teshub takes the heavenly throne of his father Kumarbi just as Kumarbi took the throne from his own father, the heaven god Anu. The story was then repeated in the Greek creation myth, Hesiod's Theogony, where Zeus (Jupiter) took the throne from his father, the time and air god Chronos (Saturn), just as Chronos took the throne from the god of heaven, Uranus. The Hurrians identified Kumarbi with the Sumerian god of air Enlil, and in fact the description is a good symbolic description of how the Akkadian Enlil surpassed the popularity of the Sumerian Anu and then was himself surpassed by the Amorite/Babylonian storm god Bel Marduk.
Indra-esque (https://godsofcanaan.wordpress.com/baal-hadad/):
However, he is not able to defeat Motu, or concedes defeat to ensure the seasonal cycles, and is eaten by Motu.
As Hadad is related to rain and storms (see his daughters and his domain over lightning), the land suffers during his death. Hadad is not necessarily a fertility deity, but without his proper kingship, mankind suffers. The Ba’al Cycle is therefore an allegory for how kings should behave, more than it tells anything about Ugarit’s agricultural cycle.
Indra's chief enemy is Drought. One may notice that Yahweh attacks Baal Hadad with Drought. The Veda however most likely has the living memory of drought events that triggered the Meghalayan Age (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meghalayan). That's the new thing--"Bronze Age" is done. Too imprecise. Meghalayan uses datable physical evidence for droughts in the fairly specific range 2,200-1,900 B. C. E., believed to have lent a hand to the collapse of all major civilizations.
Concerning Roman trade to India, there is a 140-page catalog of articles at Arikamedu (https://asi.nic.in/Ancient_India/Ancient_India_Volume_2/article_3.pdf) alone. There is evidence of trade on the level of the industrial revolution, and there are hardly any coins.
The name recorded on the Greek maps is Poduke (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arikamedu):
Subsequent investigation by Vimala Begley from 1989 to 1992 modified this assessment, and now place the period of settlement from the 2nd century BCE to the 8th century CE.
So, again, it looks like something viable perished.
That would have been a relatively late site, however, because we are probably looking at the source of Solomon and Hiram's wealth from the Ships of Tarshish (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarshish)::
According to the Jewish Encyclopedia Da'at [he], the biblical phrase "ships of Tarshish" refers not to ships from a particular location, but to a class of ships: large vessels for long-distance trade.
It may debated it is a person's name or a place, but the critical point is its cargo:
"Once every three years the fleet of ships of Tarshish used to come bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks."
Smith, William, Sir (1863). A Dictionary of the Bible. the author notes how the Hebrew word for peacock is Thukki, derived from the Classical Tamil for peacock Thogkai.
They had to get peacocks from India.
So that is saying there was a huge amount of trade easily as far back as 1,000 B. C. E., and, some kind of connection that would convey Indian lore to the Mittanis before this. This is at a minimum.
Then in the Christian era somewhere around the 300-700s it stops, vanishes, and is completely forgotten. The French are "discovering" Roman relics in India in 1765. Clueless.
"Yahweh" appears in 870 B. C. E., and is perhaps the first or the main one to launch a career by attacking the neighbor's deity because it is inferior, or not right, or is the real reason for conquest. A similar pattern occurs with the New Testament. And then it's not like India ran out of pearls or cotton, let alone Wootz (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wootz_steel) or Damascus Steel, but the traders quit coming.
A thousand years later, they show back up as missionaries and colonists.
https://th-thumbnailer.cdn-si-edu.com/IoyrK0fJNGSDvHNRxgC81WkfJ34=/1000x750/filters:no_upscale():focal(850x664:851x665)/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/3b/e5/3be5952e-e14d-4cec-a775-2fd6fdda7dc3/buddha-statue.jpg
Researchers have discovered a two-foot-tall Buddha statue in Berenike, an ancient Egyptian port city.
The artifact is the first Buddha ever found west of Afghanistan, according to the New York Review of Books’ William Dalrymple. Made from Mediterranean marble, it provides new evidence of trade between ancient Rome and India.
Based on stylistic details, the researchers think it was made in Alexandria around the second century C.E.
Founded in the third century B.C.E., Berenike eventually became one of the largest ports in Roman-controlled Egypt, according to the antiquities ministry. Goods such as ivory, textiles and semi-precious metals passed through the city for many years, until it was eventually abandoned around the sixth century C.E.
Recent excavations at Berenike have revealed other items that suggest a similar cultural blending. Among them is an inscription in Sanskrit dating to the reign of the emperor Marcus Julius Philippus, known as Phillip the Arab. Born in what is now Syria, he ruled the Roman Empire from 244 to 249 C.E.
Such finds are part of a growing body of evidence that shows just how interconnected the Roman Empire was to its ancient Indian counterpart. They also help shed light on the unique role played by Egypt, which was “centrally located on the trade route that connected the Roman Empire to many parts of the ancient world,” says the antiquities ministry.
That is unique.
But this may be a bit of an understatement.
What we want to notice is that this is a product of a route which also involved Eilat to Gaza. The circuit ceased to thrive around the sixth century, and is obviously now quite broken.
So if we look into how big this was, and how far gone it is.
This has been spun in various ways, but it turns out that the first written Sanskrit is not in India, it was near Aleppo in the Mittani (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitanni) kingdom. Simultaneously this may also be the first known treaty in the 1300s B. C. E.:
Maitanni thus meant the "united kingdom.
The deities Mitra, Varuna, Indra, and Nasatya (Ashvins) are listed and invoked in two treaties found in Hattusa, between the kings Sattiwaza of Mitanni and Suppiluliuma the Hittite: (treaty KBo I 3) and (treaty KBo I 1 and its duplicates).
Alexander Lubotsky considers "[t]he military elite of the Mitanni kingdom (of Aryan descent) was present in Syria and northern Iraq in the fourteenth century BCE and probably arrived there a few generations earlier, in the sixteenth to fifteenth century BCE."
In other words, the Rg Veda mythology was already intact, and for some reason, Indic kings became a dynasty. This does not mean Sanskrit "originated" there, it probably was no more than a "court language" that left no continuous legacy. Exactly why is a question that has no parallels, this is not a military expansion, and can only leave us guessing why India and Aleppo were important enough to each other for this to be possible.
At the same time, near Latakia was Ugarit (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugarit), "discovered" in 1928 but:
The polity was at its height from c. 1450 BC until its destruction in c. 1185 BC.
And its mythology is constantly related to the Bible. But the Bible is much later, and, as much as the Rg Veda must have been known, there is a strong resemblance of Indra to Baal Hadad (https://lost-history.com/baal_hadad.php):
Ba'al Hadad climbs Mount Zaphon and erects his temple there in seven days, mirroring the week of creation in Genesis.
https://lost-history.com/images/lotan.png
Ba'al Hadad is the son of a fish god Dagon who created humans very much like Dumuzi's father Enki, but Hadad also calls the king of the gods, El the Bull, father as well. He can probably be equated with Ba'al-Zebul, or Beelzebub, the god of Ekron mentioned in 2 Kings. In the Hurrian and Hittite creation myth, Kingship in Heaven, the storm/war god Teshub takes the heavenly throne of his father Kumarbi just as Kumarbi took the throne from his own father, the heaven god Anu. The story was then repeated in the Greek creation myth, Hesiod's Theogony, where Zeus (Jupiter) took the throne from his father, the time and air god Chronos (Saturn), just as Chronos took the throne from the god of heaven, Uranus. The Hurrians identified Kumarbi with the Sumerian god of air Enlil, and in fact the description is a good symbolic description of how the Akkadian Enlil surpassed the popularity of the Sumerian Anu and then was himself surpassed by the Amorite/Babylonian storm god Bel Marduk.
Indra-esque (https://godsofcanaan.wordpress.com/baal-hadad/):
However, he is not able to defeat Motu, or concedes defeat to ensure the seasonal cycles, and is eaten by Motu.
As Hadad is related to rain and storms (see his daughters and his domain over lightning), the land suffers during his death. Hadad is not necessarily a fertility deity, but without his proper kingship, mankind suffers. The Ba’al Cycle is therefore an allegory for how kings should behave, more than it tells anything about Ugarit’s agricultural cycle.
Indra's chief enemy is Drought. One may notice that Yahweh attacks Baal Hadad with Drought. The Veda however most likely has the living memory of drought events that triggered the Meghalayan Age (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meghalayan). That's the new thing--"Bronze Age" is done. Too imprecise. Meghalayan uses datable physical evidence for droughts in the fairly specific range 2,200-1,900 B. C. E., believed to have lent a hand to the collapse of all major civilizations.
Concerning Roman trade to India, there is a 140-page catalog of articles at Arikamedu (https://asi.nic.in/Ancient_India/Ancient_India_Volume_2/article_3.pdf) alone. There is evidence of trade on the level of the industrial revolution, and there are hardly any coins.
The name recorded on the Greek maps is Poduke (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arikamedu):
Subsequent investigation by Vimala Begley from 1989 to 1992 modified this assessment, and now place the period of settlement from the 2nd century BCE to the 8th century CE.
So, again, it looks like something viable perished.
That would have been a relatively late site, however, because we are probably looking at the source of Solomon and Hiram's wealth from the Ships of Tarshish (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarshish)::
According to the Jewish Encyclopedia Da'at [he], the biblical phrase "ships of Tarshish" refers not to ships from a particular location, but to a class of ships: large vessels for long-distance trade.
It may debated it is a person's name or a place, but the critical point is its cargo:
"Once every three years the fleet of ships of Tarshish used to come bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks."
Smith, William, Sir (1863). A Dictionary of the Bible. the author notes how the Hebrew word for peacock is Thukki, derived from the Classical Tamil for peacock Thogkai.
They had to get peacocks from India.
So that is saying there was a huge amount of trade easily as far back as 1,000 B. C. E., and, some kind of connection that would convey Indian lore to the Mittanis before this. This is at a minimum.
Then in the Christian era somewhere around the 300-700s it stops, vanishes, and is completely forgotten. The French are "discovering" Roman relics in India in 1765. Clueless.
"Yahweh" appears in 870 B. C. E., and is perhaps the first or the main one to launch a career by attacking the neighbor's deity because it is inferior, or not right, or is the real reason for conquest. A similar pattern occurs with the New Testament. And then it's not like India ran out of pearls or cotton, let alone Wootz (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wootz_steel) or Damascus Steel, but the traders quit coming.
A thousand years later, they show back up as missionaries and colonists.