Images of Adam and Eve discovered in Paradise.

a reply to: Kantzveldt

I really have no clue how you can say the Balkans in any way contributed to anything in this, other than producing the first raiding people that plagued the Minoans.

All these cultures had similar approaches to civilization. They were trading with each other. It doesn't mean that India is where these ideas came from. India, like every civilization of the time, had a few centuries of glory, and then burned out like the rest. It was followed by many others. Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Greece, Minoa, Persia, Phoneica, Rome. Etc etc. Each created their own ideas, their own myths, their own thoughts. Each stole from each other. India probably stole from Anatolian ruins like Gobekli Tepe. All of them have the same thing in common. They died out. Their gods abandoned them, proving their nonexistence, and the forces of nature proved to be untamable, uncaring, and unsympathetic to their pathetic attempts to appease them.

After 3000 years of this, you get what we have today. People like the English, who use an alphabet that originates from Egypt, a numerical system that originates from India, and a language that originates from Rome and Denmark. Mixtures of the ruins of dead people.

originally posted by: Kantzveldt
a reply to: Anaana

Perhaps that relates to earlier migration models, but with the Toda the closest Genetic comparison is with Greek Cypriots who would be a relatively isolated group that were part of the earliest Neolithic expansion into the Eastern Meditteranean so with the Toda it is not simply the case there is similarity between early Anatolian religious motifs and patterns but a close Genetic relationship.

According to Insertions/Deletions Polymorphism in Tribal Populations of Southern India and their possible Evolutionary Implications, Human Biology. Vol 75. No. 6 December 2003 by Vishwanathan, H., et al., the Toda & Kota have shared genes which separate them from the other Nilgiri Hill Tribes and share their closest affinity to the Greek Cypriots.

That would be amazing, sadly having gone through that paper a couple of times that doesn't seem to be the case at all. What I presume to have happened is that whoever made that claim misunderstood Figure 4 on page 11. You need to zoom in on the PDF in order to see the different branches. The person who thought the branch linked the Toga to the Greek Cypriots can't have done that and instead of seeing two seperate branches, thought it was just one. So while I am sure it is an honest mistake, the Nilgiri Hill's people do not share their closest affinity to the Greek Cypriots.

This is what the paper has to say...

In/Del Polymorphisms in Indian Tribal Populations / 885 clear clustering of these populations into groups of two in such close geographi¬cal proximity attest to the sensitivity of the demographic and genetic approaches in unraveling human history. The genetic relationships between the present study populations and the other Indian tribal populations show that the study groups stand apart genetically, while the Irulas and Kurumbas have a remote genetic relationship with the tribes in other parts of India (Figure 3). This observation could indicate a common an¬estry of Irulas and Kurumbas with other Indian tribal populations, an observa¬
tion that is in good agreement with Labie et al. (1989), who postulated a unicentric origin of the tribal populations of India on the basis of their p-globin haplotypes. In the NJ tree, the other three groups were characterized with long branches, consistent with genetic drift occurring in these populations. Further, the relationship with the global populations using Alu insertion markers, which is shown in the NJ tree in Figure 4, is consistent with that reported by Majumder et al. (1999), which states that the Indian populations are genetically in between the Caucasoids and Mongoloids. The centroid analysis (Figure 5) also shows that there has been a considerable amount of gene flow between the set of populations under consideration. In spite of considerable gene flow as inferred from the centroid analysis, the extent of gene differentiation among south Indian populations continues to be very high. Since this analysis does not permit timing of the period during which gene flow might have occurred between these south Indian populations, it is difficult to offer a clear interpretation of this finding. A probable explanation is that gene flow oc¬curred prior to the subdivision of these south Indian populations into distinct endogamous units. Further, it was found that all the populations except Todas showed considerably higher levels of heterozygosity than that predicted by the Harpending-Ward (Harpending and Ward 1982) gene flow model. If this pattern of high het¬erozygosities were simply due to higher levels of gene flow, then one would have expected that south Indian populations would be genetically less differentiated. However, it was found that the coefficient of gene differentiation among south In¬dian populations is higher than that among populations inhabiting all other re¬gions of the world, except Africa (Stoneking et al. 1997; Majumder et al. 1999; Watkins et al. 2001). Therefore, it is reasonable to speculate that population bot¬tlenecks and genetic drift have been important factors in generating high genetic differentiation in these populations. Since the joint observation of higher-than-predicted heterozygosities and a high level of genetic differentiation have earlier been accepted as hallmarks of population expansion (Stoneking et al. 1997; Batzer et al. 1996; Majumder et al. 1999), the possibility of an early demographic expansion of modem humans within south India cannot be ruled out.

library.isical.ac.in...

originally posted by: Gorman91
I really see no basis to create letters to communicate visions or some other mystic crap. Letters seem to have been created to communicate seasons and farmer's life.

Letters, yes, but what are letters, Gorman91? I'm impatient so excuse me if I jump right in and answer my own question, they are symbols with implied meanings. Spoken language developed thousands and thousands of years before we felt any need to communicate in writing but prior to that, about 30 or so thousand years ago, we seem to have developed a need to communicate pictorially, and in doing so, or in tangent with this, we seem to have created social constructs that enabled joined up working. One of those social constructs was based around that 'mystic crap' and shamanic practices. As you will see, if you want to appreciate the situation, if you look at the broad swathe of ehtnographical and anthropological study into the subject, that hunter-gatherer groups, and those practicing a combination of H/G and horticulture, that there exists within those groups a unifying grand narrative (creation myth/cosmology) around which the shamanic figure, using a symbolic language, frames the reality of his or her people. The first farmers, evidence would suggest, used the seasons and the natural world, as the central framework of their grand narrative, communicating this symbolically. Those symbols had sounds attached to them, that were evolved and adapted to form a phonic system of written communication.

originally posted by: Gorman91
These charactes have nothing really mystic about them. They are the product of a hunter-gathering society on the very beginnings of farming. Tools to communicate to people how to plant, how to hunt, how to build, and how to live.

Yes they are tools, a social technology, but for what purpose, and how?

Are you aware of the principle of Form Constants?

A form constant is one of several geometric patterns which are recurringly observed during hallucinations and altered states of consciousness.

en.wikipedia.org...

Many of the earliest cultures exhibit some predisposition towards the recognition of form constants, and these forms can be recognised in socio-religious structures around the globe. One possible indicator of the use of psycho-active substances in ritual practices is the presence of a belief that these form constants provide objective information or a purity. This in turn forms the cultural basis of divination. Hunter gatherer groups, still extant today, read the augurs from the innards of their first kill of Spring chicken. Although, you are perhaps unable to appreciate it, it is from such observational practices, looking for and identifying patterns, that scientific thought developed, and though mystical in nature, the symbols that were developed for this purpose, that enabled we humans to record patterns and adapt our practices (and associated tools) to new environments, form the basis of written language. It may seem mystical to you,that is entirely though down to your perspective.

a reply to: Anaana


I must admit i hadn't read the paper to check for myself, Genetic studies not really being my thing, so as you have i'll take your word regarding seeming confusion and thanks for clearing that up.

As they do appear to be what was always more likely, an example of an isolated early Dravidian type population speaking a language relating to Proto-Dravidian i still think of course that they offer very good insight into what is seen on the Dilmun seals in terms of the buffalo-bull cult in conjunction with a first breeding couple.

originally posted by: Kantzveldt
a reply to: Anaana


I must admit i hadn't read the paper to check for myself, Genetic studies not really being my thing, so as you have i'll take your word regarding seeming confusion and thanks for clearing that up.

As they do appear to be what was always more likely, an example of an isolated early Dravidian type population speaking a language relating to Proto-Dravidian i still think of course that they offer very good insight into what is seen on the Dilmun seals in terms of the buffalo-bull cult in conjunction with a first breeding couple.

The interesting thing, in terms of the twins, you only find them as male and female in the Hindu tradition, everywhere else they are both male, including as depicted in the Gilgamesh epic.

Moving onward now to a consideration of the Babylonian epic and its description of Gilgamesh's journey through the zodiac, the first point to note is that Gilgamesh and Enkidu are meant to be an incarnation of the constellation which we now refer to as Gemini. Gilgamesh was explicitly identified in a late text with the god Meslamta-ea (note the "mes" prefix) which name is the oldest known of that of the god Nergal, whose temple at Kutha was called "Emeslam." Meslamta-ea, furthermore, was one of a pair of deities whose counterpart was known as Lugal-irra, both of whom were linked astronomically with Gemini. These two gods were twins, and they were specifically associated with guarding doorways, particularly the gateway to the underworld, where they stood with bronze axes waiting to dismember the dead. When we recall the strange scene at the beginning of the epic when Gilgamesh and Enkidu first meet each other in a doorway, and then proceed to fight while somehow remaining in or near that doorway, the scene no longer appears so strange when we realize that they are meant to be the Mesopotamian Gemini who guard doorways. Both Gilgamesh and Enkidu, furthermore, like Meslamta-ea and Lugal-irra, carry bronze axes, and the first thing Enkidu does after they have felled the sacred cedar is to cut up its wood and make a doorway out of it.

www.mythicjourneys.org...

The Toda are linguistically and genetically distanced from the Hindu majority of northern and central India, suggestive of an event about 3000 years ago that precipitated their cultural isolation and the development of a unique ethnicity. The Mesopotamians saw Gemini, the twins, as both male, with the female-male being attached to the Indo-European cultural invasion. I do think there is a possibility that this switch may account for the Indo-European way of ife's success, a political and ideological union of some sorts. Adoption of mixed farming? Arable and pastoral? The mother-cult of the horticulturalists married to the father-cult of the pastoralists?

a reply to: Anaana

It is seemingly quite natural to make the connection with the constellation Gemini as after all the figures are often seen above the Bull Taurus, but that's going to be quite a complex relationship as that point of the intersection of the ecliptic and galactic planes as best seen in the West (when the constellations are 'upright') was considered the entrance into the Underworld, often Inanna is seen emerging from it above the Bull with regards to her entering in and emerging from the Underworld.

The guardian Deities of Gemini became understood as Lugalirra and Meslamtaea and from here;

Underworld deities that often occur together, also called the 'Divine Twins'. They are associated with the underworld god Nergal.

Meslamtaea is already attested in the Early Dynastic IIIa period under the name Lugalmeslama "King of the Meslam(-temple)" . Lugalirra, though, is thus far not attested before the Old Babylonian period. Thus, the connection between these two deities can only be traced back to the Old Babylonian period, not earlier

The spelling and interpretation of Lugalirra's name is ambiguous and several normalised spellings are used. Lambert has translated the name as "Mighty lord". Meslamtaea's name is less ambiguous and probably means "he who comes forth from the Meslam

I don't think the couple seen on the Bahrain seals can be directly associated with those for all sorts of reasons but i do consider that the overcoming of death and achieving spiritual immortality would have been an aspect of their cult, that they are representative first breeding couple of a new religious movement, in association with the cult of the omni-present Fish.

The cult of Meslamtaea when earlier distinct from the greater cult of Nergal may have represented this in terms of the Male archetype involved

Lord Nergal was given the underworld, the E-meslam by Enlil and Ninlil. They made him the great lord of the netherworld

To prolong the life of the black-headed people of Sumer where the divine powers are utterly cleansed, to fill their life with happiness, to make them reach an old age, to see that after their death they gather to the place where one is called by his personal god, to the netherworld, and to see that the precious and lasting cultic ordinances are performed befitting the netherworld

The complementary character traits of the armed god are expressed by the names of his two dragons at the gate of the E-meslam, his temple in Kutha: War (Tabazum) and Peace (Tubbum)

The cult of the E-Meslam was that of the gathering place after death, the Underworld, as Lord of that place Meslamtaea would have controlled access into it and potential emergence from it.

"Lord of the big city, whose shadow spreads in the West, who has come out of the Meslam, Bull whose great strength cannot be repulsed,in heaven I am a wild bull , in the netherworld I am a lion , in the land I am king, among the gods I am the fierce one, on the war path I am the standard"

But like i said i am not so sure the human couple should be so closely related to the Deities involved, more interestingly is to conjecture their emergence as relating to the Age of Gemini 6500 B.C. - 3750 B.C. which then passed into Taurus and also can take into account the concern with the Fish constellation of Piscis Austrinis located beneath Aquarius.

a reply to: Kantzveldt

Whoa! Not sure how I missed this thread, but brilliant stuff as always.

Nice1 kantz.