Posted on 11/30/2009 8:48:53 PM PST by Borges
Before the glory that was Greece and Rome, even before the first cities of Mesopotamia or temples along the Nile, there lived in the Lower Danube Valley and the Balkan foothills people who were ahead of their time in art, technology and long-distance trade.
For 1,500 years, starting earlier than 5000 B.C., they farmed and built sizable towns, a few with as many as 2,000 dwellings. They mastered large-scale copper smelting, the new technology of the age. Their graves held an impressive array of exquisite headdresses and necklaces and, in one cemetery, the earliest major assemblage of gold artifacts to be found anywhere in the world.
The striking designs of their pottery speak of the refinement of the culture’s visual language. Until recent discoveries, the most intriguing artifacts were the ubiquitous terracotta “goddess” figurines, originally interpreted as evidence of the spiritual and political power of women in society.
New research, archaeologists and historians say, has broadened understanding of this long overlooked culture, which seemed to have approached the threshold of “civilization” status. Writing had yet to be invented, and so no one knows what the people called themselves. To some scholars, the people and the region are simply Old Europe.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Balkans ping.
The Philistines and Abimelech, one of their kings, is mentioned a number of times in Genesis (21:29, 21:32, 21:34, 26:1, 26:8, 26:14, 26:15, 26:18, KJV) in connection with Abraham and Isaac.
Very succinct and true. However, Sharpton, "Rev" Wright, "Minister" Farrakhan, and all that ilk take it to the point that Egyptians were black, PERIOD; even Cleopatra!
It is an unarguable tenant of their black nationalist ideology.
Only Elizabeth Taylor.
bookmark
Thanks, Civ. Fascinating story, glorious objects. Article today in NYT shows they are good for something ;+}
Well, you know how it goes... one drop of 'Black Blood' makes you Black. / sarcasm
My pleasure. :’)
Thanks for ping :) Vincha (vin�a) culture is one of the most famous archaeological discoveries in Serbia. They even had their alphabet http://www.rastko.rs/arheologija/vinca/vinca_eng.html http://www.omniglot.com/writing/vinca.htm
Pick a skin color, any skin color, and you will find it native in Egypt.
I've been there twice and was rather amazed at what was "an Egyptian".
Geography -- East of Libya and North of Sudan-- and history, are what have most affected their genetic make up.
In the North in places like Alexandria, you'll find a lot of people who could pass for Europeans. In the Central part, they look like Arabs and in the South, Nubian Black.
The historical issue was that when Alexander the Great conquered Egypt, the descendants of his right-hand man, Ptolemy, sat of the throne of Egypt. And in Pharoaic tradition, brother married sister, so theoretically their bloodlines should have been pure Macedonian Greek. (Cleopatra was the last of the Ptolemies.) But there have been some recent finds that could indicate that there might have been more to the dynastic genetic make-up than that.
In any case, these recent Eastern European finds are fascinating. Thanks for the heads up, rabs.
“But excavations have yet to turn up definitive evidence of palaces, temples or large civic buildings. Archaeologists concluded that rituals of belief seemed to be practiced in the homes, where cultic artifacts have been found.”
Limited government, how ‘bout that.
Anyhoo, my vote is that these here folks was the Firbolg.
interesting — i wonder if these were migrants from Sumeria or Hurrian type peoples
yes, the Kushans/Nubians were Negroid (As opposed to the EGyptians who were afro-asiatics, related to the Semites and the BErbers), but no, not all AFrican nations were so civilized, neither were all Europeans etc.
These people were probably FROM the Middle East — Sumerians or Hurrians.
It's interesting, but at the time of Sumeria's greatness (3000 BC), all Indo-Europeans (whether ancestors of Indians, Persians, Germans, Italians, Greeks) may have been a group of people living between the black and caspian seas.
Their pictures of themselves from the Old and Middle Kingdoms show themselves as brown skinned, with the barbarian white skins to the north, lighter brown to the east and dark skins to the south.
But look at Copts who are the closest to "undiluted" Egyptians
The Old and Middle Kingdom Egyptians were Afro-Asiatic peoples - see the picture above -- related to Semites and Berbers, so brown skinned.
Post the Middle Kingdom when they were conquered by the Semitic Hyksos, some mixing to lighter brown may have occured in the north and among elites
Then there were the conquests of Egypt by Libyans, by Assyrians, by Nubians, so some more admixture among the ruling classes
the Greek conquest and Roman seems to have been nearly exclusively among the ruling classes, leaving your street fellaheen the same genetically.
Don’t forget the Hittites in Asia Minor.
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