Mycenean Greece, the home of Homer’s Agamemnon, flourished after the decline of the Harappan civilization.This culture showed great affinity with that of the Minoan culture which predated it and displayed  warlike character similar to the Spartans (the folks in 300). The Mycenean palaces were fortified and  warfare paintings dominated their wall paintings.^[11]

This civilization collapsed around 1100 B.C.E and the collapse was attributed to the Dorian Invasion. According to this theory, a group of Greek speaking men from the North invaded the Peloponnese peninsula and destroyed the Mycenean civilization. As per the  Greek tradition, this movement was the return of the sons of Heracles, who were the founders of three Dorian (from the city of Doris in central Greece) tribes.

The early descriptions of the Dorians came from Herodotus, who himself was from a Dorian colony and wrote that the Dorian women wore a particular kind of dress which was fastened with pins. Thucydides dated the Dorian invasion to 80 years after the Trojan war and wrote that the Dorians held the Peloponnese implying military activity.

Archaeologists after reading Herodotus and Thucydides looked for the dress pins and found a few. It seems there was an ideological movement in the 19th century to emphasize the war like nature of the Dorians and distinguish them from the Peloponnese . While classical historians put the origins of Dorians near Thessaloniki, 20th century historians moved them far north and gave them blue eyes and blonde hair.

The similarity to the Aryan invasion/migration theory which states that war like Aryans from Central Asia invaded ancient India around 1500 – 1200 B.C.E is remarkable. The Aryan invasion theory was put to rest when genetic studies found that there was no massive movement of Central Asians in that time frame and  no external origins to Indian castes and tribal population. Genetic studies of Indian populations also told us that Indo-European speakers  reached India much before the fictional date and were not foreigners by the time the vedas were composed.

In the Peloponnese case, decipherment of Linear B, the script used for writing Mycenaean, revealed that it was Dorian in style and thus the invaders suddenly turned into a linguistic sub group. The question then was if the Dorians were newcomers or the old population adapting to new conditions of the Iron age. History Professor Isabelle Pafford calls it the invasion by safety pins since the earlier invasion theory has now been discredited.

Technorati Tags: Dorian Invasion, Aryan Invasion, Mycenean,

Recently a 2500 year old Babylonian Seal which depicted worshippers offering incense to the Sumerian god Sin was discovered in Jerusalem. Dr. Eilat Mazar who led the dig read the inscription on the seal as “Temech” and connected it to the Temech family mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. In her interview with the Jerusalem Post, she noted that, “The seal of the Temech family gives us a direct connection between archeology and the biblical sources and serves as actual evidence of a family mentioned in the Bible.”

This reading was questioned by other scholars who suggested that the words on the seal actually read “Shelomith.” Even if the words read “Temech”, there is nothing to suggest that this was the Temech of the Hebrew Bible. Also, without knowing how common this name was during the time of the destruction of the First Temple, there is no way to find the probability that this person was indeed the biblical one.

Now imagine finding a tomb in Jerusalem in which there is an ossuary which holds the remains of Jesus, son of Joseph. Going by the same logic which was used in the Temech case, one could argue that there is no evidence to say that the ossuary was of Jesus of Bible fame. What if you find that next to the Jesus ossuary, others which read, Joseph, Mary,  Mariamne (possibly Mary Magdalene) and Judah, son of Jesus.

These were all common names, but the probability of all of them appearing together in  a family tomb is rare. Film makers Simcha Jacobovici (of the Exodus Decoded fame) and producer James Cameron made this case in their documentary, The Tomb of Jesus. The documentary upset clerics and the some faithful because it challenged the cornerstone of Christian faith, that Jesus rose bodily into heaven after his crucifixion.

A conference on this topic was held recently in Jerusalem in which archeologists, statisticians and experts in DNA and ancient
languages came together to analyze the evidence. Three days of debates and the conclusion is that there are many camps ranging from,  “no way” to
“very possible”. First there is group which believes this tomb does not belong to Jesus.

Myers, who specializes in archaeology and the history of Second Temple, said there are two main reasons why he rejected the claims put forth by Cameron and Jacobovici. The first dealt with the
statistical analysis presented by Andrey Feuerverger, professor of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Toronto. Feuerverger had calculated that there was a 1 in 600 chance that the particular cluster of names found on the Talpoit ossuaries would occur in one of the roughly 1,000 tombs discovered so far.

It wasn’t the statistical process he used that flagged the analysis for Myers, but it was the Feuerverger information used to calculate those odds.  Most of that information centered around the reading of the inscriptions on the ossuaries which bore the names used in the analysis. One was interpreted toread “Mariemene e Mara” and in some early Christian texts was believed to refer to Mary Magdalene. But epigraphers at the conference, however, contested the reading as “Mariemene e Mara” – a crucial part of the calculation.[Jesus Tomb Case Closed for Most Scholars ]

Film maker Simcha Jacobovici had an entirely different view

Reached in Jerusalem, director/author Simcha Jacobovici said, “we feel totally vindicated. My work with James Cameron was the catalyst for an international symposium that has finally considered the evidence and is opening the door for further research. It’s time that the world seriously considered that the Jesus family tomb may very well have been located.”[Princeton Conference Vindicates Associated Producers James Cameron and Simcha Jacobovici on “Lost Tomb of Jesus” ]

And there is the “may be group”

I am with the “possible to likely” group, and it is not always easy totake positions that are in the minority, but my conclusions are based
on my own sense of “best evidence,” and I have published them in Near Eastern Archaeology.I also think there is more to be said about the DNA testing as well as
the statistical studies, some of which was misunderstood, in my view at
least, at the Symposium. I will be writing more on this in coming days.[Results of the Princeton Symposium Regarding the Talpiot “Jesus” Tomb]

The final word is not out. Prof. James Charlesworth of Princeton  has been authorized to re-investigate the Talpiot Tomb site and analysis from various participants are yet to come out. This debate may be closed for some, but is opening for others.

A 2500 year old stone seal discovered outside the Old City walls has caused excitement in Jerusalem since it connects archaeology and the Hebrew Bible. The seal depicts worshippers offering incense to the Sumerian god Sin, symbolized by a crescent moon, and has the words “Temech” engraved on it. According to the Book of Nehemiah, a book of the Hebrew Bible which contains an account of the rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem, the Temech family were servants of the First Temple sent into exile following the destruction of the temple in 586 B.C.E.

According to Dr. Eilat Mazar who led the dig

“The seal of the Temech family gives us a direct connection between archeology and the biblical sources and serves as actual evidence of a family mentioned in the Bible,” she said. “One cannot help being astonished by the credibility of the biblical source as seen by the archaeological find.”[First Temple seal found in Jerusalem]

The seal which has been dated 538-445 B.C.E is called the First Temple seal by Jerusalem Post which is odd because the First Temple was already destroyed by then. Technically it is a Persian seal since it was made in Babylon and depicts a Sumerian God.

There is scepticism about the way the characters on the seal have been read.

Writing on the ANE-2 e-mail list, Peter van der Veen disagrees with Mazar’s reading. If you examine the figures below, you can easily see why. Engravers normally put the letters on a seal backwards, so that the seal impression in clay would show the letters in their correct orientation. A reversed tav might not immediately grab your attention, but a reversed mem practically shouts, “Hey, read me in the mirror!”[But can it balance a beach ball on its nose?]

If you read it in reverse, those characters read, “Shelomith” and not “Temech.” Even if you assume that the words read “Temech”, what about the biblical connection? How can you assume that this one name exactly refers to the person n the Bible?

The name תמח does indeed appear in a list of the Bible—precisely twice, with reference to the same individual, in a list of “temple servants” (Ezra 2:53 // Nehemiah 7:55). Mazar hasn’t adduced a shred of evidence to connect that תמח with the biblical תמח—nor could anyone expect her to do so, since all we know about the biblical תמח is his name and (possibly) occupation. Without knowing how common the name תמח was among Judeans of the relevant period, we have no way even to put a probability figure on the seal’s תמח being the biblical תמח.[But can it balance a beach ball on its nose?]

Also if he is the Biblical Temech, what is this monotheist doing in front of a Sumerian God?

Technorati Tags: Jerusalem, Hebrew Bible, First Temple, Babylon

The Indian History Carnival is an attempt to collect posts related to Indian history and archaeology from the blogosphere.

1. Hari ponders:  Why did the highly original Pre-Columbian empires of Mexico, Central and South America – the Aztecs and the Incas
   – perish so abruptly and spectacularly under European conquests, while
   the ancient traditions, beliefs, books and languages of the Indian
   subcontinent, even while suffering destructive invasions through the
   ages, manage to adapt and survive so successfully to the present day?

2. Writing about Wootz steel, Andrew Leonard notes how ancient globalization worked: “So Diocletian, an Illyrian commoner native to what is now Croatia,
   rises to absolute power over the Roman Empire and builds armament
   factories in Syria that employ steel from Hyderabad as the raw material
   for state-of-the-art weapons of individual destruction. That’s
   globalization, old school.” More information on Wootz steel can be found here, here and here.

3. Arun Gandhi recently made the comment that, “We have created a culture of violence (Israel and the Jews are the
   biggest players) and that Culture of Violence is eventually going to
   destroy humanity.” Rebecca notes that Mahatma Gandhi too had similar views. David T writes that Gandhiji’s principles do not work against everyone.

4. Kedar discovers that India was an economic super power from the 1st century till the 17th century.

5. Vinod writes about how a less known Atlantic Conference played a key role in Indian history because it was there that FDR made Indian Independence a pre-requisite to American involvement in WWII.

6. Aryaputra writes about Zamorins , the rulers of Calicut from the 14th to the 18th century.

7. Chandrahas has an interview with historian Ramachandra Guha.

8. The Indian Backpacker has images from Mahabalipuram: Tiger Cave,  Five Rathas, and Shore Temple

There are many history carnivals
in the blogosphere like the Military History Carnival and the Asian
History Carnival, but none which focuses on India. If you find any posts related to Indian history please send it to jk AT varnam DOT org or use this form