Abdel-Qader al-Housan, director of the Rihab Center for Archaeological Studies in Jordan, announced that they had found the world’s first church. It was not a building, but a cave located under Saint Georgeous Church near Amman. In the cave they found a circular worship area with stone seats and a tunnel leading to a source of water.

The reason why they believe it to be a church was an inscription found on the floor, which read, “the 70 beloved by God and the divine.” The theory was that this 70 referred to the seventy disciples who fled Jerusalem fearing Roman persecution.

Many have found this argument quite a stretch since organized churches did not exist till the time of the Gupta empire in India. There were small communities till then, like the ones which wrote the gospels, who mostly worshipped in homes, domestic buildings and by the riverside.

“If they are talking about a cave, it could have been a hiding place. In time—if there were martyrs there or something significant that took place there or a well-known individual who was among the disciples of Jesus—then you would have had reason to commemorate the site, which could later be used by the church’s monks.”

“But the cave that’s there is one that doesn’t necessarily commemorate anything … I don’t know how you can take an underground cave and say it could present itself as a first-century church.”[“Oldest Church” Discovery “Ridiculous,” Critics Say]

Mr. Ramaswami, a proponent of Aryan Invasion Theory and subsequent corollaries like Rāmāyaṇa and Mahābhārata happened in Russia, recently left a comment on my blog post with some questions. This was related to his article on Mint claiming that there was an Aryan Invasion and my subsequent response citing two papers which show that there was none.

He wrote

In attempting to refute my theory, Nair has waxed eloquent about DNA, linguistic history etc but does not have the courage, for obvious reasons, to state with conviction the central question raised in my article – what is the
date?

The only reason I don’t mention the date is because: I don’t know. This is mostly because I have not seen a consensus date among historians and archaeologists so far, not because I have any agenda.

Instead, everyone has their favourite date based on their favourite techniques and Dr.Subhash Kak has a good summary. The dates vary from 5th millennia (based on astronomical references) to 1000 B.C.E. One argument was that we don’t find any dates between 2500 – 1500 B.C.E, but Dr. Kak’s paper mentions 1924 B.C.E as a possible date.

The date of 1924 BC. Based on Puranic genealogies that see a gap of 1000 years or so between the War and the rule of the Nandas (424 BC) we get the date of 1424 BC. But Pargiter, while editing these accounts from the various Puranas,4 suggested that the original number was 1,500 which was wrongly copied in various texts as 1000, 1015, or 1050. I accept the arguments of Pargiter and, therefore, consider the Puranic tradition to support the date of 1924 BC. [The Mahabharata and the Sindhu-Sarasvati Tradition]

Mr. Ramaswami is quite right when he says that it is strange that there is a spread of millennia for an epic which tells the story of a few generations and we cannot accurately nail it to a specific date. It would be helpful if we could find some horse bones or evidence of Ashwamedha or of the palace at Indraprastha. It would indeed give closure if we could say for sure if Mahabharata was real history, or a minor history event embellished by Vyasa or just poetic imagination. Does this look absurd compared to the certainity of events in Egypt and Mesopotamia? It certainy does.

Ramaswami says

f you were the Indian government would you not dig up these places like the Mumbai Municipal Corporation right down to the centre of the earth if necessary? What we done and what have we found? Let me tell you the answers. If at all they have dug they have found nothing or found something to the contrary. After all if there was any evidence it would have made headlines all over the world. The correct answer is that no excavation has been done because everyone knows that nothing will be found because it did not happen.

How do we know this is the correct answer? No idea. But here is another answer.

“Those who are on the side of the Hindu fundamentalists have been misusing archaeology to push back the antiquity of Indian civilization”, was one of the complaints when Jagmohan of that “communal” NDA Govt started the Saraswati Heritage Project to conduct archaeology along the banks of the Ghaggar river. The project which involved IITs and Birbal Sahni Institution was canned by the present UPA Govt, not because of the fear that nothing will be found, but because of the fear that something will be found.

There is one more reason – people might decolonize their minds. This is what happened to the Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India, B.B. Lal. A disciple of Sir Mortimer Wheeler, he started out by believing in the Aryan Theory and then went on to dig some Mahabharata sites.

In my report on the excavations at Hastinapura and in a few subsequent papers I expressed the view that the Painted Grey Ware Culture represented the early Aryans in India. But the honeymoon was soon to be over. Excavations in the middle Ganga valley threw up in the pre-NBP strata a ceramic industry with the same shapes (viz. bowls and dishes) and painted designs as in the case of the PGW, the only difference being that in the former case the ware had a black or black-and-red surface-colour, which, however, was just the result of a particular method of firing. And even the associated cultural equipment was alike in the two cases. All this similarity opened my eyes and I could no longer sustain the theory of the PGW having been a representative of the early Aryans in India.[Let not the 19th century paradigms continue to haunt us! ]

If you go to any library or watch History channel, you will be bombarded with information on Egyptian or Mesopotamian civilization. Thus there is no surprise if there is certainty in their events, because much archaeology and research has been done, while nothing of that sort has been done in India, due lack of political will. Why go as far as Mahābhārata war? The dates for Adi Shankara has a spread of millennia.

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.

Even though the site was discovered there were sceptics who claimed that Troy was an insignificant town and such a large war as described by Homer could not have happened there. For the past 16 years more than 350 people have been collaborating on the excavations in the site and their discoveries have resulted in some new facts. Troy, it seems was a large and important city controlling access from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea. German archaeologist Manfred Korfmann who has been excavating in Troy wrote

According to the archaeological and historical findings of the past decade especially, it is now more likely than not that there were several armed conflicts in and around Troy at the end of the Late Bronze Age. At present we do not know whether all or some of these conflicts were distilled in later memory into the “Trojan War” or whether among them there was an especially memorable, single “Trojan War.” However, everything currently suggests that Homer should be taken seriously, that his story of a military conflict between Greeks and the inhabitants of Troy is based on a memory of historical events–whatever these may have been [Was There a Trojan War?]

Let there be more archaeology and Mumbai Municipal Corporation like digging around the country. Let there be an Archaeological Survey of India freed from political masters. Let us allow researchers into the field. Let us first have some data before jumping to conclusions.

Ramaswami says, “the gap in the MB dates coincided with the Aryan invasion and they are both the same events.” I don’t believe in an Aryan Invasion, due to lack of genetic evidence, and so the date of Mahābhārata is not tied to it and that’s our disagreement in this debate.

Carbon nanotube

Sir Walter Scott in his book Talisman mentions, through a recreation of the scene of October 1192 AD when Richard Lionheart of England met Saladin the Saracen to end the Third Crusade, that Richard wielded a good English broadsword while Saladin had a scimitar of Damascus steel, ‘a curved and narrow blade, which glittered not like the swords… but was, on the contrary, of a dull blue colour, marked with ten millions of meandering lines…'[Nanotechnology was used by ancient Indians’ ]

The Damascus steel is actually Indian steel. Wootz steel as it is known is formed by adding large quantities of carbon to iron and this steel industry was based in the southern peninsula. The name Wootz is the westernized version of Kannada ukku and Sangam Tamil ekku, meaning crucible steel.

According to Robert Floyd Curl, Jr., Nobel Prize Winner in Chemistry in 1996, Indian craftsmen used nanotechnology in Wootz steel as well as in paintings. More specifically carbon nanotubes, first announced by Russian scientists in 1952, was found in the sword of Tipu Sultan as well as in Ajanta paintings. Carbon nanotubes which are cylidrical fullerenes have extraordinary strength in terms of tensile strength and elastic modulus

“Our ancestors have been unwittingly using the technology for over 2,000 years and carbon nano for about 500 years. Carbon nanotechnology is much older than carbon nanoscience,” Curl said at the ongoing 95th Indian Science Congress here.

Indian craftsmen used unique smelting techniques to manufacture the Damascus blades which led to nanotisation giving them a unique long-lasting edge. Wootz also had a high percentage of carbon, which was introduced by incorporating wood and other organic matter during fabrication. India, for ages, was a leading exporter of this steel which was used to make Persian daggers which were quite popular in Europe centuries ago. [Indian craftsmen, artisans used nanotech 2000 yrs ago]

See Also: The nanotechnological wonders of Damascene steel, The Wootz File, Wootz Figures, The Legendary Wootz Steel

Names, routes and locations of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea.

Classic Italian wine amphora, which came from Naples and belonged to the late first century B.C have been been found in a number of Roman sites in India, including Arikamedu and Alagankulam in Tamil Nadu. Bright red Samian ware from Arezzo near Tuscany have also reached Arikamedu near Pondicherry. A new study says that some of the artifacts thought to be Roman were actually from Mesopotamia.

More than 10,000 Roman coins are known from southern India alone, and although
there are growing numbers of amphorae reported, identification is more
problematic, Tomber says. Her survey has confirmed the presence of such wine
jars from 31 sites, but at about half these sites it was also discovered
that amphora sherds thought to be Roman were actually Mesopotamian in
origin.

In ten cases there were only Mesopotamian sherds present. These were in the
form of “torpedo jars”, tall cylindrical peg-footed amphorae, common in
Mesopotamia and the Gulf but not hitherto noted in India. Fragments of the
rims and bodies could be mistaken for Roman wares made in Syria and
Anatolia, as indeed they have been, and their dates span the Roman period
from around the time of Christ onwards, although they also continue into
early Islamic times in the seventh century.

The port of Qana, on the coast of Yemen and an important point in the
frankincense trade, may have been an entrepôt for both Roman and
Mesopotamian goods arriving from the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf
respectively. It has not yielded the full range of Late Roman amphorae found
in India, however, and other places may have played an equal role. The
overall distribution of Roman amphorae and torpedo jars suggests three
seaborne routes to India, Dr Tomber proposes. One ran direct from the Gulf,
one direct from ports such as Berenike on the Red Sea coast of Egypt, and
one via Qana.[Mesopotamia was a vital link on Roman-Indian trade routes]

It was a long speech, but he was very clear about the message. Delivering the inaugural address at the 19th International Conference on South Asian Archeology in Italy, Prof B.B.Lal told the European Association of South Asian Archaeologists that they have to abandon the 19th century biases. Then with the clinical precision of a surgeon administering electric shocks to revive Dick Cheney’s heart, Prof. B.B.Lal demolished the Aryan Invasion Theory and tore apart some of the eminent historians and their guru Harvard University, Professor Witzel.

Professor Witzel and I happened to participate in a seminar organized by UMASS, Dartmouth in June 2006. When I referred, during the course of my presentation, to this wrong translation by the learned Professor, he, instead of providing evidence in support of his own stand, shot at me by saying that I did not know the difference between Vedic and Classical Sanskrit. Should that be the level of an academic debate? (Anyway, he had to be told that I had the privilege of obtaining in 1943 my Master’s Degree in Sanskrit (with the Vedas included), with a First Class First, from a first class university of India, namely Allahabad.)

When the Aryan Invasion Theory was demolished, a migration theory was adopted by Prof. Romila Thapar and the lines and the homeland of the Aryans was shifted to the region of Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex. Prof Lal shows that the BMAC people were not nomads and the characteristic features of BMAC never reached the Indus region.

Both Thapar and Sharma are even now laboring under the 19th century belief that the Vedic Aryans were nomads. But have they even once cast a glance at the make-up of the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex. As would have been absolutely clear by now, the BMAC is a fully developed civilization with all the trappings of urbanism. How can then Thapar and Sharma devalue the Bactria-Margiana people and call them ‘pastoral cattle-breeders’? Just to fit into their preconceived notion that the Rigvedic Aryans were ‘nomads’?

But more strange is the argument that the occurrence of a single antennae-hilted sword in Bactria would entitle that region to be the ‘motherland’ of the Gangetic Copper Hoard people who produced these copper weapons and other associated objects in hundreds, if not thousands.

If, following the footsteps of Parpola, I were to say that the find of the well known seal of the ‘Persian Gulf’ style at Lothal in Gujarat establishes that the Persian Gulf Culture (which abounds in such seals) originated in Gujarat or, again, if I said that the occurrence of a cylinder seal at Kalibangan in Rajasthan entitles Rajasthan to be the ‘motherland’ of the Mesopotamian Culture (wherein cylinder seals are found in large numbers), I am sure my learned colleagues present here would at once get me admitted to the nearest lunatic asylum.

Migration theorists claim that the BMAC people were the ancestors of the Iranians and Indo-Aryans because they had fire-worship, homa rituals, evidence of asvamedha and some cult motifs. He takes the case of fire worship and proves that the direction of movement of that was from India to Central Asia and not the other way. He also shows that there was no soma/homa in BMAC, the skeleton of the horse was not one from an asvamedha, and that the motifs found on the cylindrical seal could be anything depending on your imagination.

He then brings in genetic studies

“As for the question of biological continuity within the Indus Valley, two discontinuities appear to exist. The first occurs between 6000 and 4500 BC … and the second occurs at some point after 800 BC.” In other words, there was no entry of a new set of people between 4500 and 800 BCE, much less of Aryan invaders / immigrants !

The Y-chromosomal data consistently suggest a largely South Asian origin for Indian caste communities and therefore argue against any major influx, from regions north and west of India, of people associated either with the development of agriculture or the spread of the Indo-Aryan language family.”

Will this right-on-the-face lecture change the European mindset.? It probably will not, but at least the lecture makes it crystal clear that some people don’t take the Eurocentric world view seriously any more.

You are looking at a biological weapon which was used in war about 3300 years ago. The story starts when the Hittites,people who lived in north-central Anatolia from the 18th century BCE, were weakened by plague around 1335 BCE. The Hittites were then attacked by the Arzawans from Western Anatolia triggering then Anatolian war which lasted between 1320 and 1318 BCE. Even though the Hittites were weak, they managed to defeat their enemy in two years and one theory is that their secret weapon was disease ridden rams and donkeys.

To support the bioweapon theory, tablets dating to the 14-13th century B.C., describe how a ram and a woman attending the animal were sent on the road, spreading the disease along the way. “The country that finds them shall take over this evil pestilence,” the tablet said. The practice was soon understood by the Arzawans who also reacted by sending their own infected rams on the road in the direction of the enemy troops.

“Even older evidence for ancient understanding of contagion comes from Sumer (modern Syria). Archaeologists have found several royal letters on cuneiform tablets from the archives of Mari, a town on the Euphrates River. The letters, dating to 1770 B.C., forbid people from plague-ridden towns to travel to healthy towns, and warn people not to touch or use the personal belongings of infected victims,” Mayor said.[Sick Rams Used as Ancient Bioweapons]