Ancient Vishnu idol found in Russian town

PTI ^ | 4 Jan, 2007 1109hrs IST | PTI

[CarrotAndStick]

MOSCOW: An ancient Vishnu idol has been found during excavation in an old village in Russia's Volga region, raising questions about the prevalent view on the origin of ancient Russia.

The idol found in Staraya (old) Maina village dates back to VII-X century AD. Staraya Maina village in Ulyanovsk region was a highly populated city 1700 years ago, much older than Kiev, so far believed to be the mother of all Russian cities.

"We may consider it incredible, but we have ground to assert that Middle-Volga region was the original land of Ancient Rus. This is a hypothesis, but a hypothesis, which requires thorough research," Reader of Ulyanovsk State University's archaeology department Dr Alexander Kozhevin told state-run television Vesti .

Dr Kozhevin, who has been conducting excavation in Staraya Maina for last seven years, said that every single square metre of the surroundings of the ancient town situated on the banks of Samara, a tributary of Volga, is studded with antiques.

Prior to unearthing of the Vishnu idol, Dr Kozhevin has already found ancient coins, pendants, rings and fragments of weapons.

He believes that today's Staraya Maina, a town of eight thousand, was ten times more populated in the ancient times. It is from here that people started moving to the Don and Dneiper rivers around the time ancient Russy built the city of Kiev, now the capital of Ukraine.

An international conference is being organised later this year to study the legacy of the ancient village, which can radically change the history of ancient Russia.

[CarrotAndStick]

Oops, I realise now! The "Huns" who invaded India were of Indo-Greek extraction, and not Chinese.

[blam]

Siberian Graveyard's Secret

"The discovery adds to the evidence that Siberia was not an isolated wasteland but a crossroads of international trade and cultural diversity, Natalia Fedorova of the Ural branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences said in an interview in her office in this central Russian city. Among the artifacts discovered at the site were bronze bowls from Persia, dated by style from the 10th or 11th century.

[SunkenCiv]

related:

Buddha statue from 6th c found in Viking hoard in Helgo, Sweden
Biblical Archaeology Review | March/April 2005 | "Worldwide" editor
Posted on 04/27/2005 2:26:07 AM EDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1391864/posts

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks CarrotAndStick.

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[indcons]

MEGA Ping

[Knitting A Conundrum]

I am always surprised at how surprised people are by how far the trade networks went...I think they see everybody as staying in their own neck of the woods and never moving past it...but even with conquest, and even in spite of it, trade went on....the secret story of history...Wealth, and the desire for cool things talk.

[indcons]

The Huns certainly reached India. Ever heard of Mrihakula, the Hun emperor who invaded India incl. present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan? He subsequently converted to Shaivaism and settled deown in present-day Jammu and Kashmir.

Indian history is replete with references to the Hunas, the Sanskrit word for Huns.

[indcons]

I saw that you had also replied to that incorrect assumption about the Huns. You're right, Gengis. The Hunas in Sanskrit literature are the same as the Huns.

[Veto!]

Agree, traders who traveled long distances brought their idols and artifacts with them. I.e., in Palmyra, a caravan town in Syria, temples to ancient gods from farflung places were built so caravaneers could worship when they arrived at this transshipment and rest stop. Wealthy Palmyrenes had villas in Rome and at least one temple dedicated to Palmyrene Baal has been unearthed in Roman ruins.

I don't know what it would take to prove that Hindu culture originated in or dominated this Russian area. Its always fun to see archeologists changing history with every find.

[little jeremiah]

Thanks for the ping! Fascinating. Later I will comment more information about the ancient spread of the Vedic culture. And the so-called "Aryan invasion" theory is now getting the discredit it so richly deserves.

It was an invention of 18th and 19th century British indologists who wanted to make the great antiquity of the Vedas and Vedic culture appear of recent origin and having developed elsewhere. It's a myth created to demean the history of India and Indian culture, civilization, and religion.

In the Bhagavad Gita Shree Krishna asks Arjuna why he is acting like a non-aryan when he refuses to fight the righteous fight. He meant non-aryan in the sense of values, which is what the word "aryan" means. It never meant any particular race or tribe; it meant (and still means) a cultured person who knows the spiritual values and purpose of life and acts thusly.

[SunkenCiv]

Exactly. See that linked topic for info on Roman-era trade with India.

[little jeremiah]

I will be posting more information later when I have a little time. Extremely interesting.

[chimera2]

Scythians of Ukraine were a Persian tribe from the Brahmin Afghanistan region. The Brahmin river-goddess Danu has been linked to "Dnieper Dneister Don" rivers of Scythians, and "Danube" of Celts, and Danaan of Ireland._John Koch. Advanced Welsh Studies. Uni.Wales.
(quote)"Analysis of ancient Sanskrit texts[11] and inscriptions[12] place the Kambojas, Gandharas, Yavanas (Greeks), Madras, and the Sakas in the Uttarapatha - the northern division of Jambudvipa (the innermost concentric island continent in Hindu scripture). Geographically, this area sat along, and was named for, the main trade route from the mouth the Ganges to Balkh, now a small town in Northern Afghanistan. Some writers hold that Uttarapatha included the whole of Northern India and comprised very area of Central Asia, as far as the Urals and the Caspian Sea to the Yenisei and from Turkistan and Tien Shan ranges to as far as the Arctic"_ (Dr S. M. Ali).(end quote).
Scythians spoke Saka language. IE Tocharians of NW China had
Hallstatt-pattern tartan-cloth, and Toch. "bramn.kte" meant
"Brahma god". Brahmin Shiva-Vishnu culture evidently reached the Urals with Sarmatian-Persians. That faith also apparently diffused to Celtic Ireland.
chimera2

[rmlew]

Amazing how the entire article fails to mention who lived there.

Staraya Maina was within what was called Volga Bulgaria or Great Bulgarian Khanate (as opposed to the Danube Bulgaria.)
The Bulgars, the ancestors of the modern Chuvash Tatars, had a large empire with 3 cities in the area: Bolgar (their capital), Bilyar, and Balymer.
The Bulghar Khanate was part of the Silk Road. They had extensive trade relationships with the Byzantines, Khazars, Muslims, and Varangians.
Whether Indian merchants or travelers came up the Volga by way or Muslim Persia, Kurdistan, Byzantium, or Khazaran-Atil this suggests a large trade route. The likely source was the Radanites, a network of Jewish merchants who had trade routes from Andalusia (Spain) to Sind (India) and Xin (China). Were I to further guess, I would assume that the traders came through Khazaria, which had a large Jewish population (some portion of its nobility, including some of my ancestors, converted sometime between 740 and 850CE). Trade would have gone through the Khazar capital of Khazaran-Atil, which was at the Volga estuary to the Caspian Sea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volga_Bulgaria

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazars

The Radhanite Trade Routes.

[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

(file from David Derrick files)

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from 01/04/2007 . Re-ping. Thanks CarrotAndStick.

[SunkenCiv]

This topic was posted 1/4/2007, thanks again CarrotAndStick.

[Grimmy]

Finding an artifact in a location doesn’t mean the ancient people living in that area adhered to the culture the artifact belonged to.

*******************

It does if the current head of the cult of personality in the department of archeology or anthropology specializing in that particular area decides the favored narrative needs it to.

[BenLurkin]

Used to have a sign hanging from it (in Russian of course) saying “Vishnu were here.”