The Criminals who destroyed Easter Island

In an insightful post on why he travels to Mexico, Peru and Bolivia, Hari Jagannathan Balasubramanian writes about the intentional assault on local civilizations by Europeans.

While the predominantly tribal societies of North America had been conquered by European Protestants, the massive empires of the Central and South had been downed by a band of daring conquistadors from Catholic Spain. The Caribbean natives faded in the decades after Columbus’ arrival; Argentina’s natives were exterminated in the eighteenth century. But in Mexico and the Andean nations (Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia) the descendants of the Aztecs, the Mayans, the Incas (and many other indigenous groups) are still there. The conquests were no less devastating, but a forcibly imposed Catholicism had brought Indians into its fold, even as it erased earlier beliefs.
The arrival of the Europeans to America was a Black Swan – an unprecedented event that had a massive impact. No one could have predicted the consequences. Millions of American Indians died, either due to disease or conquest, and the Americas (especially North America) lost their voice and culture. Europe and Asia benefited immensely from the crops and foods domesticated in the Americas (corn, tomatoes, potatoes, chilies to name a few). Europeans found a new place to emigrate to – for them it was a positive Black Swan that unleashed new energies. [The motivation behind the travel]

In the case of Easter Island, locals and rats were blamed for the decline and Western missionaries and invaders were absolved. Now it turns out that Western missionaries and invaders indeed are to be blamed for eradicating a culture.

Archaeological evidence supporting a theory of pre-European internal-collapse is thin on the ground. “Rather than a story of self-inflicted deprivation, I agree with the view that substantial blame has to rest with Western contact,” said Dr Croucher. “Visitors brought disease, pests and slavery, resulting in the tragic demise of the local population and culture.” [Easter Island Was Devastated by Western Invaders and Not Internal Conflict]

The missionaries converted the remaining population to Christianity, encouraging them to abandon their traditional beliefs. Even then, several hundred inhabitants were driven off the island to work on sugar plantations in Tahiti. By 1877, a population of just 110 people was recorded. [Outsiders blamed for Easter Island’s historic demise]

2000 Year Old Shiva Temple

Last year at a place called Sanchakot in Uttar Pradesh, archaeologists found evidence of a temple complex consisting of five temples. Four temples were dated between 1st – 3rd century CE, but one temple built for worshipping Lord Shiva dated to an older period: either late Maurya or early Sunga period. Till now it was believed that temples were constructed in India during the Gupta period, but this evidence changed that.
Now just five kilometers away we have discovery of another temple from the same period.

Interestingly, the site is called ‘twin temple’ because an octagonal temple structure was found to be superimposing an older apsidal temple. “It may be assumed that there was an older temple which was renovated by the rulers who succeeded the Sunga rulers,” said Prof Tewari. 
What makes the discovery of this temple more interesting is the fact that it housed a mysterious deity. “We are sure that the site was a Hindu temple… there is a proper entrance, portico, ardha mandap, mandap, transepts and a garbha griha…but we cannot claim which deity the temple housed,” said Sandeep, a team member. In fact the team prefers to stay silent on the issue till they get a concrete evidence.[Temples are older than you think (via IndiaArchaeology)]

In Pragati: Book Review – The Lost River by Michel Danino

The Lost RiverIn 2003, the Union Minister for Tourism and Culture, Jagmohan sanctioned Rs. 8 crore to the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to search for the river Sarasvati. Though it was an inter-disciplinary archaeological program involving the Indian Institute of Technology and the Birbal Sahni Institution, designed to settle different schools of thought regarding the existence of the river, the venture was seen as “an attempt by RSS inspired historians to liken the Harappan civilisation with the Vedic era.” The project was shelved by the UPA Government.
In February 2009, the “International Conference on the Sindhu-Sarasvati Valley Civilization: A Reappraisal” was held in Los Angeles, CA, “to discuss, reconsider and reconstruct a shared identity of the Sindhu (Indus) and Sarasvati cultures, using archaeological and other scientific evidence as well as Vedic literature.” The title of the conference, specifically the use of the word Sarasvati, caused consternation among few Western scholars prompting Prof Ashok Aklujkar, Professor Emeritus at University of British Columbia to write a scathing rebuttal.
To understand why Sarasvati is a controversial topic in the 21st century we need to look at evidence from a number of sources: from tradition, archaeology, literature, geology, and climatology. We need to understand the path of Sarasvati, its life span, and traditions that arose within its banks that survive to this day. Finally, we also need to look at how Sarasvati challenges the Aryan invasion/migration theory.
In this 368 page book, Michel Danino narrates Sarasvati’s tale, assembling it from the reports of Western explorers, Indian scholars, Archaeological Survey publications, and Vedic texts. Danino who was born in France and has been living in India since the age of 21, has published papers like The Horse and the Aryan Debate (2006), Genetics and the Aryan Debate (2005), A Dravido-Harappan Connection? The Issue of Methodology (2007) and also the book The Invasion that Never Was (2000) on the Aryan Invasion Theory.
Continue reading “In Pragati: Book Review – The Lost River by Michel Danino” →

Who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?

Ever since they were discovered in the caves of Qumran, the unanswered question has been: who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls. There have been many theories though. It was widely believed to have been written by a messianic Jewish sect called the Essenes who moved to Qumran to escape Roman persecution. Then last year one scholar suggested that there were no Essenes; the Essenes were a fabrication by the 1st century historian Flavius Josephus. According to the new theory the scrolls were written by Sadducees, a sect descending from the high priest Zadok.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are important because they are the oldest known copies biblical manuscripts we have. They are important because they demonstrate the length Jews were willing to go to protect what they considered Scripture. The scrolls are important because while they have nothing whatsoever to do with Christianity (i.e., nothing to do with John the Baptist, James the brother of Jesus, Jesus, or the early Christian community), they demonstrate that the Christians were not the only Jewish sect reinterpreting Hebrew scripture and applying it toward their leader (the “Teacher of Righteousness” as opposed to Jesus), awaiting a Messiah (actually, two Messiahs were expected at Qumran as opposed to only one (Jesus) in Christianity), engaging in ritual purification (cf. baptism in Christianity), holding property in common (cf. Acts 2:44-45), and awaiting a final, apocalyptic battle (cf. the War Scroll at Qumran and the New Testament book of Revelation).[Writing the Dead Sea Scrolls Airs on National Geographic Channel: Some Reflections]

Yesterday National Geographic had a special (video) on this topic which brings new answers.

But new research suggests many of the Dead Sea Scrolls originated elsewhere and were written by multiple Jewish groups, some fleeing the circa-A.D. 70 Roman siege that destroyed the legendary Temple in Jerusalem.
According to an emerging theory, the Essenes may have actually been Jerusalem Temple priests who went into self-imposed exile in the second century B.C., after kings unlawfully assumed the role of high priest.
This group of rebel priests may have escaped to Qumran to worship God in their own way. While there, they may have written some of the texts that would come to be known as the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Many modern archaeologists such as Cargill believe the Essenes authored some, but not all, of the Dead Sea Scrolls.[Dead Sea Scrolls Mystery Solved?]

Excavating Poompuhar

Following the 2004 tsunami, marine archaeology was done at Poompuhar and it was found to be a big port dating back to 3rd century BCE. Due to lack of funds, the excavation was stopped. The good news is that excavations are going to start again.

Before a full-fledged excavation is undertaken, a geophysical survey of the areas to be excavated would be conducted using echo-sounders (to detect objects on the sea bed), side-scan sonars (to scan the sea bed) and sub-bottom profilers (that function like an echo-cardiogram and detects objects beneath the sea bed). 
“After a geophysical survey, we send down divers,” said Kamalesh Vora, scientist-in-charge, marine archaeology centre, NIO. Equipped with diving gear, underwater cameras, excavation tools, special plastic sheets and pencils, and measuring tape, 
NIO divers will scour the ocean bed, at 20 metres depth, to explore and document sunken towns and their treasures. [Post-tsunami, raising the lost treasures of Poompuhar challenge divers]

Briefly Noted: The Last Station

In 1908, Leo Tolstoy wrote a letter titled  A Letter to a Hinduin Free Hindustan and a young Mohandas Gandhi reprinted this letter in his South African paper. Russia’s most prominent Christian pacifist had a profound influence on Gandhiji’s non-violent philosophy. In Russia, young men and women lived in Tolstoyan farms practicing celibacy and vegetarianism. He was considered a saint.
The final days of Tolstoy’s life was not peaceful; he was at war with his wife of 48 years. These final days are the subject of the 2009 biopic The Last Station. The Tolstoyans, led by Vladimir Chertkov, wanted to put all his writings in the public domain, a move opposed by Sofiya Tolstoy  concerned about what will happen to her.

In despair, Tolstoy left their country home, Yasnaya Polyana, on Oct. 28, 1910, taking to the road in the middle of the night, putting 48 years of marriage behind him. He died soon thereafter in a remote railway station, with his wife outside begging to be let in. She was turned away by Vladimir Chertkov, Tolstoy’s disciple and close friend, who suggested that any glimpse of her would hasten her husband’s end. Chertkov relented only when Tolstoy was in a coma, at the point of death.[The Tolstoys’ War]

Helen Mirren (Sofiya), Christopher Plummer (Tolstoy) and Paul Giamatti (Chertkov) have put such soul into the characters which makes this a recommended movie.

Mythologically Rooted Histories

When ancient historians wrote their works, were they concerned about telling the truth or telling a story? What methodologies did they follow? Why did the ancient historians omit certain information or lie? The Bryn Mawr Classical Review has a review of Luke Pitcher’s, Writing Ancient History: An Introduction to Classical Historiography which looks into these questions. One point the review mentions is a different form of writing history.

One theme to which the book continually returns, and which Pitcher treats more fully here, is that the limits of historical writings cannot easily be pinned down, and can take multiple forms, and that there are many ways to engage with the historical past. Sometimes the lines between history and fiction, for example, were blurred, and that the ‘action of the swan’ means that it is not always possible for us as modern readers to understand the nature of the texts we are dealing with.
…
He brushes over the poetical and mythologically rooted ‘histories’ which continued to exist beside other prose and ‘factual’ ways of thinking historically; but it is significant for our understanding of historical writing (in Greece at least) that it emerged from different kinds of historically minded traditions.[Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2010.07.12]

A good example of a myth turning into reality was the Trojan war. Interested in the location of Homer’s Troy, Heinrich Schliemann started digging for it in Turkey. Though British archaeologist Frank Calvert had identified Hissarlik as the site of Troy, his work was over shadowed by Schliemann who published Ithaka, der Peloponnesus und Troja in which he claimed Hissarlik as the site of Troy. This is now accepted by historians.

Dr. Allchin and Sarasvati Research

In the 31st Indian History Carnival, we featured a post by Nicole Bovin on Dr. Raymond Allchin, the South Asian archaeologist who passed away on June 4th. The European Association for South Asian Archaeology and Art too had a brief note about his work.

Raymond Allchin was born in Harrow in 1923 and educated at Westminster, but his lifetime commitment to South Asia came when he was posted there during the War in 1944. Quickly switching interests from architecture to archaeology, Raymond was appointed a Lecturer at the School of Oriental and African Studies in 1954 before moving to Cambridge in 1959. Following a career of fieldwork and research across India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, he retired from Cambridge University with the title of Emeritus Reader in South Asian Archaeology in 1989. Now freed from University burdens, Raymond committed the next twenty years to developing the research profile of The Ancient India and Iran Trust.[In memoriam Raymond Allchin]

Dr. Allchin was an expert on the Indus Valley civilization. “Cultural convergence” — that is the name he proposed for the process by which various regional cultures like Amri-Nal, Kot-Diji, and Sothi-Siswal converged for the Mature Harappan phase. Dr. Allchin also connected Harappan motifs with Vedic themes. For example, looking at a seal from Chanhu-daro he connected it with the Vedic theme of union of heaven and earth. When Dholavira was discovered in J.P.Joshi in 1966 he thought it was one of the most exciting discoveries of the past half a century. On the fire altars found at Kalibangan, he noted that fire rituals formed a part of the religious life at a civic, domestic and popular level.
One of the questions that still remain unanswered about the Indus civilization is this: How was it administered.? We don’t know who controlled the urban centers or how such a vast territory — bigger than ancient Mesopotamia or Egypt — was controlled. Even though he acknowledged that there was no trace of royalty like in other ancient societies, Raymond Allchin thought that there was a forgotten Indian leader who unified the Indus heartland and controlled trade with Mesopotamia.
He had accepted the Ghaggar-Hakra as Sarasvati. This was not unusual for Sarasvati was not such a controversial topic then. Ever since the French scholar Vivien de Saint-Martin identified the Ghaggar, Sarsuti, Markanda and other small tributaries as part of the Rig Vedic Sarasvati, scholars like Max Müller, Sir Monier Monier-Williams, A. A. Macdonnel, A.B. Keith, Louis Renou, Thomas Burrow A. L. Basham along with Indian scholars like M. L. Bhargawa, B.C.Law, H.C. Raychaudhuri, A.D. Pusalker and D.C. Sirkar had all agreed on this point.
In the entry he wrote for Encyclopaedia Britannica he mentioned that hundreds of Indus sites were found on the banks of the ancient Sarasvati river which flowed east of the Indus. He also wrote how moved he was standing on a mound in Kalibangan looking at the flood plain of Sarasvati. Dr. Allchin also believed that there was a reduction of sites between 2000 – 1700 BCE after a major part of the river’s water supply was lost.
But doesn’t this mean that the Vedic people, who composed the Rig Veda, while Sarasvati was a majestic river co-existed with the Harappans? Dr. Allchin was not ready to make that leap. In the same book where he mentioned that Sarasvati lost a major part of the water supply between 2000 – 1700 BCE, he contradicted himself and wrote that Sarasvati was a major river between 1500 and 1000 BCE. By this trick, Sarasvati remains a mighty river when the Aryans came in 1500 BCE.
This is not surprising too. Only few scholars like B.B.Lal, S.P. Gupta, V.N. Mishra and Dilip Chakrabarti have argued that the Vedic people lived along the banks of Sarasvati while it flowed from the mountain to the sea during the Mature Harappan period.
Reference:

  1. Michel Danino, Lost River: On The Trail of the Sarasvati (Penguin Books India, 2010)

Writing Historical Fiction (1)

David Mitchell’s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet,  a historical novel set in Japan at the turn into the 19th century is getting good reviews. See reviews here and here. GoodReads has an interview in which he talks about the craft of writing historical fiction

With historical fiction, the spectrum is right through to wrong, it’s historically correct to historically incorrect. If it’s too much in the incorrect direction, then it’s not going to work. The onboard proofreader in your reader’s mind will say, “Hang on! They didn’t have electric lights at this point! This is a book, this is fiction, it isn’t real!” And—puff!—the whole thing disappears in a cloud of smoke, and the reader quite rightly throws the book across the room, end of story.

To get it right, you need to research and research and research. And then you need to hide all your research, otherwise something else happens. You get sentences like, “Milord, would you like me to light the sperm whale oil lantern or would you prefer the cheaper but smokier pig tallow candle?” You burst into laughter and—puff!—the illusion is gone. So you have to get it right, then you have to hide it.

Historical fiction isn’t easy; it’s not just another genre. How are they going to speak? If you get that too right, it sounds like a pastiche comedy—people are saying “thou” and “prithee” and “gadzooks,” which they did say, but to an early 21st-century audience, it’s laughable, even though it’s accurate. So you have to design a kind of “bygone-ese”—it’s modern enough for readers not to stumble over it, but it’s not so modern that the reader kind of thinks this could be out of House or Friends or something made for TV—puff! Again, the illusion is gone. It’s very easy to be wrong; it’s very easy for the book to fail. [David Mitchell]