2 posts tagged “archaeological”

Freud’s theory expressed in XX century is not dead even now and still have its supporters and adversaries. It even prompted serious researches that were trying to prove or disprove his theory. At least the timing of it seems to be right because Akhenaten appears in history two centuries before the first archaeological and written evidence for Judaism and Israelite culture is found in the Levant.

Pottery found throughout Judea dated to the end of the 8th century BC have seals resembling a winged sun disk of the god Athen burned on their handles. Some historians even claimed that Akhenaten’s maternal grandfather Yuya was the same person as the Biblical Joseph. Another striking coincidence is that there are strong similarities between Akhenaten’s Great Hymn to the Aten and the Biblical Psalm 104.

There are even more mysteries that surround the origin of the Silk Road network. Nobody could clearly explain one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of the twentieth century - so called Tarim mummies. The number of mummies were found deep in China, they date from 1800 BC to AD 200. And all found corpses exhibit Caucasoid physical type. Many of discovered mummies were found in amazingly great condition. They have their hair physically intact, ranging in color from blond to red to deep brown, and generally long, curly and braided. And what is even more amazing - their costumes indicate a common origin with Indo-European neolithic clothing techniques.

Another mystery that supports the theories of early human contacts between East and West were several discoveries of Chinese silk remnants. These remnants have been found in Ancient Egypt from 1070 BC and later.

I mentioned in the previous entry ancient Scythians. It seems that they brought from the West and introduced in China the most valuable metal of all - gold. This probably happened around eight century BC. It seems that the impact was deep because Chinese jade carvers began to use gold to make imitation Scythian designs of the steppes. They easily adopted the Scythian style animal art like descriptions of animals locked in combat. Scientists also found in China imitations of Scythian rectangular belt plaques made of gold and bronze with alternate versions in jade and steatite.