Unmasking AIT

[Husky]

Cont.



Still on the following by Anthony and it turning out as an archaeological mistake/fraud (first 2 quoteblocks contain repeats from the previous post):



silk-road.com/artl/horsemyth.shtml

Let Them Eat Horses

by Dr. David Anthony

(Original print at NEWSLETTER - Institute For Ancient Equestrian Studies, No. 4/Summer 1997



[...]

But the most fascinating discovery of this kind was a find that could have been the grave of Dadhyanc himself.



At Potapovka, near Samara on the Sok River, excavations conducted from 1985-1988 exposed four burial mounds, or kurgans, dated about 2200-2000 B.C. Beneath kurgan 3, the central grave pit contained the remains of a man buried with at least two horse heads and the head of a sheep, in addition to pottery vessels and weapons. After the grave pit was filled, a human male was decapitated, his head was replaced with the head of a horse, and he was laid down over the filled grave shaft. This unique ritual deposit provides a convincing antecedent for the Vedic myth.

tamilandvedas.com/2014/08/27/horse-headed-seer-rig-veda-mystery-no-1/

One of the mysteries of Rig Veda that puzzled the westerners is the Story of Dadhyanc Atharvan, a Rishi with a horse head. Until the year 2000, they wrote that they have discovered his grave in Potapovka near Samara in Russia. By 2010 they have changed their view!



Excavations of 1985-86 of a kurgan burial dated 2200 BCE at Potapovka revealed in grave shaft of kurgan no.3, a decapitated man with a horse skull replacing his head. In simple terms, the man’s head was removed and a horse head was fixed. They thought that it was the grave of Rig Vedic seer Dadhyanc. Later research showed that the skeleton of both the horse and the human being were not of male, but of female. They also found the horse head was fixed 1000 years after the human being’s death. This shows that we can’t jump to conclusion by listening to archaeologists! They only “interpret” it and confirm in what they have already believed. In this case they started talking Aryan migration from the Steppes.

Tried to look for more supporting data on how it was bad archaeology. Found some additional material discussing this, see further below.

Meanwhile most of the web including wikipedia still repeats the forged find - I mean archaeological mistake - of the Potapovka burial as "evidence" for the Indo-Aryan-ness or Indo-Iranian-ness or whatever of the steppe site:



en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potapovka_culture

One burial has the corpse's head replaced with that of a horse,

reminiscent of the Vedic account of how the Asvíns replace the head of the priest Dadhyañc Artharvana with that of a horse so that he could reveal the secret of the sacred drink. —EIEC "Potapovka Culture"

Anyway, here follow the few further references a simple web search threw up on the convenient IE-ist archaeological forgery (or maybe one should put it down to zeal for IE-ism leading to "innocent mistakes")?



1. Found at google books:

The Roots of Hinduism: The Early Aryans and the Indus Civilization

By Asko Parpola

Published: 9 June 2015



p.122-124



[...]

The Dadhya~nc legend also speaks of providing a human sage with a horse's head. ... It is tempting to see this Ashvin-related revival rite revealed in a human skeleton with the skull of a horse, which was excavated in a unique grave near Samara in the Mid-Volga region of Russia; it belongs to the Potapovka culture, dated to c.2100-1700 BCE, and was very probably the skeleton of a Proto-Indo-Aryan speaker (chapter 7) (Fig. 11.2).

(Q: how do they even know what he spoke? For instance, even assuming PIE for the moment, why not consider he spoke PIE?

A: because they need to herald an oryan invasion into India, duh.)

[...]

FIGURE 11.2 A human skeleton with a horse's skull. Potapovka kurgan burial, grave 1, near Samara on the mid-Volga in Russia, c.2100-1700 BCE. The arrow points to the north ©. After Vasil'ev et al. 1994:115, fig. 11. Courtesy Pavel V. Kuzetsov.



It must be noted, however, that the evidence of the Potapovka grave has been questioned, because of a suspected mixing of the archaeological layers. Moreover, some molded tablets from Harappa show anthropomorphic deities with animal heads: a dancer resembling later Shiva NaTarAja has the head of the water buffalo (CISI 1:207 H-175) and a long-armed deity within a fig tree has a ram's head (Fig.21.16a) like the later god NaigameSha (chapter 21).

2. manasataramgini.wordpress.com/2015/08/23/a-brief-note-on-animal-heads-celtic-human-sacrifice-and-indo-european-tradition/

Interestingly, Russian archaeologists claimed that such a chimeric form, a man with a horse’s head, was found in a kurgan of the Potapovka culture [A sister of the more famous Sintashta culture] near the Samara Bend on the Volga steppes – a place close the original homeland of the Aryans. However, subsequent dating showed that the human and horse skeletons belong to different ages and the superimposition of two separate burials human and horse at the same site separated by several hundreds of years had accidentally created the impression of a chimera.

OT: Searching the above web page for more occurrences of "chimera" (which seems to be used in a more recent/general sense here) -

Archaeological chimeras have nevertheless re-emerged recently. An Iron Age site from Dorset, UK has provided extensive evidence for chimeric creations by Britonic Celts. These include chimeras between horses and cows as well as burial of multiple heads of sacrificed animals. It is uncertain if these were purely Celtic innovations or have earlier Indo-European precedents. The human sacrifice at the site seems to have placed the human remains on various animals remains with a correspondence of the parts.

[...]

Irrespective of whether the chimeras and sacrificed animal heads at the Celtic site had any earlier Indo-European connection, we find references to both such animal heads and the chimeras in the Vedic ritual.

Meanwhile, as seen in Parpola just above, at least imagery of what sound like "chimera" has been found in IVC - though no burials as yet (or the Indian climate is not able to preserve them?). Repeating the relevant extract from Parpola above again:

Moreover, some molded tablets from Harappa show anthropomorphic deities with animal heads: a dancer resembling later Shiva NaTarAja has the head of the water buffalo (CISI 1:207 H-175) and a long-armed deity within a fig tree has a ram's head (Fig.21.16a) like the later god NaigameSha (chapter 21).

[For versions of IVC "chimera" iconography that doesn't involve humanoid body parts, here's a famous IVC seal with individual-animal parts identified: harappa.com/content/harappan-chimaeras-%E2%80%98symbolic-hypertexts%E2%80%99-some-thoughts-plato-chimaera-and-indus-civilization

PDF: "Harappan Chimaeras as ‘Symbolic Hypertexts’. Some Thoughts on Plato, Chimaera and the Indus Civilization"]



And while Parpola, excerpted just above, does not make the IVC "chimera" iconography connection to Vedic texts directly for the instances he points out, but speaks of "later" deities, wackypedia unwittingly supplies the link to the Vedam for at least one instance he noted:



en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naigamesha

In Hinduism, Naigamesha is associated with Kartikeya, the god of war. Naigamesha is an epithet and a form of Kartikeya, where he is generally depicted goat-headed. In other instances, Naigamesha is described as the son or brother of the war god. Hindu texts like the Brahmanas, the Grihya sutras and medicinal texts mention a similar deity with a ram head.[1] As a fearsome follower of Kartikeya, Naigamesha was feared and worshipped to ward off evil. later, he evolved into the patron of childbirth.[3]



[1] Roshen Dalal. Hinduism: An Alphabetical Guide. Penguin Books Limited. p. 797. ISBN 978-81-8475-277-9.

Note that at least the Brahmanas portion of the vedam count as the Veda, being often (usually) considered as part of the karma kandam. Also alluded to in the following:



en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aranyaka

The Vedas have been divided into four styles of texts – the Samhitas (mantras and benedictions), the Aranyakas (text on rituals, ceremonies, sacrifices and symbolic-sacrifices), the Brahmanas (commentaries on rituals, ceremonies and sacrifices), and the Upanishads (text discussing meditation, philosophy and spiritual knowledge).[4][5][6] The Samhitas are sometimes identified as karma-kanda (कर्म खण्ड, action/ritual-related section), while the Upanishads are identified as jnana-kanda (ज्ञान खण्ड, knowledge/spirituality-related section).[7][8] The Aranyakas and Brahmanas are variously classified, sometimes as the ceremonial karma-kanda, other times (or parts of them) as the jnana-kanda.

May as well repeat the final remaining important points of the previous post:



1. Esteemed IE-ist David Anthony (champion of the Kurgan thesis, part of the genetics paper Haak et al 2015, etc), who draws so many IE-ist conclusions about the Rig Veda, has to rely on Wendy Doniger for translations from the Vedam. See silk-road.com/artl/horsemyth.shtml

That's how expert he is.



But inspired by his oryanist obsession with his alleged oryan ancestors, he will recommend (to fellow IE-ists really) that horsemeat should be brought back on the menu and claims it's tasty.



2. IE-ist claims to uniqueness concerning (presumably ritual) horse burials:



Bronze Age middle-Easterners (in Syria, "Israel-Palestine", Iraq etc) "throughout the entire 3rd and 2nd millennia BCE" were [url="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/175638010X12797246583852?journalCode=ylev20"]burying[/url] donkeys ritually - and at times with humans too. And the artificial orientation of the animal's head or other parts to face the East or another specific direction is remarked upon by archaeologists too, just as the orientation is often remarked upon in the cases so-called IE burials of man and/or horse etc. The main difference is that the ME case concerns donkeys. So, unless IE-ists choose to use some hittite or mittani or Persian connection to Syria and Egypt and Babylon to declare IE influence (backwards in time) - or claim IE influence/origins of Mesopotamia (also backwards in time) - IE-ists will no doubt dismiss the middle-eastern case as having no relation to IE rites because a donkey is not a true horse.



The links, explicitly listed:

- tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/175638010X12797246583852?journalCode=ylev20

also at: researchgate.net/publication/233541056_Assessing_Sacred_Asses_Bronze_Age_Donkey_Burials_in_the_Near_East

- anthropology.uw.edu.pl/06/bne-06-02.pdf Around p.37. p.37 further has a photo



Note: As explained in the above link, the ancient middle-easterners ritually sacrificed donkeys in instances like when making treaties.