Free Republic

Early reports that two heavily armed Islamist extremists had broken into a mottled apartment block in south Mumbai almost escaped notice. Within hours, however, it had dawned on India’s Jews, a community that traces its roots to the court of King Solomon, that for the first time in their history they had been targeted because of their religion. SNIP “We are a tolerant society, we’ve never had any antiSemitism in India. We can’t fathom the reasons for this attack,” Elijah Jacob, a local Jewish leader, said. “We can no longer remain complacent.” Numbering only about 5,000 in a city of...

Andhras flourished during the time of Chandragupta Maurya much before the advent of the Satavahanas, and were said to be as powerful as Mauryans. They had 30 fortified walled cities way back in 300 BC, wrote the Greek traveller Megasthenes in his Indika. In what could be an exciting discovery, the State Department of Archaeology and Museums has identified five of those 30 walled cities. The Department has found physical evidence proving Megasthenes right and by the same token –– throwing light on the existence of Andhras and Telugu language before the Satavahana period. The study is part of a...

Large ancient-DNA study uncovers population that moved westwards 4,500 years ago. A mysterious group of humans from the east stormed western Europe 4,500 years ago -- bringing with them technologies such as the wheel, as well as a language that is the forebear of many modern tongues, suggests one of the largest studies of ancient DNA yet conducted. Vestiges of these eastern emigres exist in the genomes of nearly all contemporary Europeans, according to the authors, who analysed genome data from nearly 100 ancient Europeans. ...last year, a study of the genomes of ancient and contemporary Europeans found echoes not...

Wari-Bateshwar one of earliest kingdomsSuggests find of pre-Mauryan silver coins in the area Emran Hossain, back from Narsingdi The coin hoard, unearthed by excavators from Wari-Bateshwar, containing silver punch-marked coin of Pre-Mauryan (right) and Mauryan (left) periods reveals that Wari-Batehswar was one of the Mahajanapadas in the Indian sub-continent. The discovery of silver punch-marked coins of the pre-Mauryan period dating back to 600 BC to 400 BC in Wari-Bateshwar reveals that the place was a Mahajanapada, one of the earliest kingdoms or states in the Indian subcontinent. The silver coins and artefacts unearthed and collected so far and geographical positioning...

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Thousands of Buddhists gathered in India's western city of Mumbai on Sunday to lay to rest part of the ashes and bones of Lord Buddha in a ceremony resurrected after almost 2000 years. Monks in flowing orange robes chanted hymns from scriptures as the remains were lowered into a shallow pit on top of a 90-ft (27 metres) high stone dome, as part of celebrations to mark the 2250th anniversary of the spiritual leader's enlightenment. Organisers of the ceremony said this was the first time in around 2,000 years that Buddha's mortal remains were being enshrined. "The...

For archaeologists and historians interested in the ancient politics, religion and language of the Indian subcontinent, two UCLA professors and their student researchers have creatively pinpointed sites that are likely to yield valuable transcriptions of the proclamations of Ashoka, the Buddhist king of northern India's Mauryan Dynasty who ruled from 304 B.C. to 232 B.C. In a study published this week in Current Science, archaeologist Monica Smith and geographer Thomas Gillespie identified 121 possible locations of what are known as Ashoka's "edicts." First they isolated shared features of 29 known locations of Ashokan edicts, which were found carved into natural...

The Old Testament answers some of the greatest questions of all time—where did we come from? Why do we desire the good yet do evil? Why do our souls yearn for eternity while our bodies yield to death and decay?Yet, the Hebrew Scriptures leave so many other tantalizing questions unanswered. These mysteries have nagged at the Christian imagination for centuries, inspired epic quests, and stumped some of the greatest minds of the Church.Here are six of the greatest mysteries of the Old Testament. (Note to readers: the focus is on historical questions, not scientific issues, such as the six days...

They have adopted mehendi and haldi ceremonies from Indian weddings, they speak fluent Marathi and many of them have enrolled their children in Marathi medium schools. As fond as they are of their adoptive home, the 250-odd members of the Bene Israel community in the city were pleasantly surprised to open the Sunday Times of India on July 21. An STOI exclusive report highlighted the results of four-year-long DNA tests in London which confirms their genetical link to the "original children of Israel" (literal translation of Bene Israel), who are said to have migrated to this country 2,000 years ago....

Chinese archaeologists have discovered an unidentified cluster of tombs on the Pamirs Plateau, unveiling a new mystery on the crossroads of the ancient Silk Road. Eights tombs, each two meters in diameter, were arranged on a 100-meter-long and 50-meter-wide terrace, with lines of black stones and lines of white stones stretching alongside like rays, according to the archaeology team with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences that found the tombs in Xinjiang's Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County, a border region neighboring Afghanistan and Pakistan, in October. "The tombs are peculiar. No similar ones had been detected before on the Pamirs Plateau,...

Several archaeological materials excavated from various sites in Thailand have been found to be "stunningly" similar to ones found in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh throwing light on trade with south east Asian countries centuries ago, a senior Archaeologist said. Many materials including seals used by Kings, beads, and pottery with brahmi inscriptions were of Indian origin and these could be assigned to second-third century AD, D.Dayalan, superintending archaeologist, Temple Research Project, New Delhi, told PTI. "Quite interesting among the findings is a gold plaque with brahmi letters.The letter found on the plaque like "ti" (in looped form) is found...

Every Friday night observant Jews bless their sons by saying, "may you be like Manasseh and Ephraim," the two sons of the biblical Joseph, who were the first Jews, born outside of the Holy Land. The blessing expresses the hope that, just like Joseph's sons, today's Jewish sons will hold fast to their religion despite the fact they live in the diaspora. Manasseh and Ephraim are two of the famous lost ten tribes, who were carted away into exile more than 2,500 years ago. Descendants of the tribe of Manasseh have been found living in India, and many of them...

The mixing of two distinct lineages led to most modern-day Indians. The population of India was founded on two ancient groups that are as genetically distinct from each other as they are from other Asians, according to the largest DNA survey of Indian heritage to date. Nowadays, however, most Indians are a genetic hotchpotch of both ancestries, despite the populous nation's highly stratified social structure. "All Indians are pretty similar," says Chris Tyler-Smith, a genome researcher at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute near Cambridge, UK, who was not involved in the study. "The population subdivision has not had a dominating...

A 2500 year old Persian treasure dubbed the world's 'first bill of human rights' has been branded a piece of shameless 'propaganda' by German historians. The Cyrus cylinder, which is held by the British Museum, is a legacy of Cyrus the Great - the Persian emperor famed for freeing the Jews of ancient Babylon after conquering the city in 539 BC. A copy of the cylinder, which is covered in cuneiform script supposed to detail the ancient charter of rights, also hangs next to the Security Council Chamber in the United Nations headquarters in New York, where it is held...

Asoka's edicts are to be found scattered in more than thirty places throughout India, Nepal, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Most of them are written in Brahmi script from which all Indian scripts and many of those used in Southeast Asia later developed. The language used in the edicts found in the eastern part of the sub-continent is a type of Magadhi, probably the official language of Asoka's court. The language used in the edicts found in the western part of India is closer to Sanskrit although one bilingual edict in Afghanistan is written in Aramaic and Greek. Asoka's edicts, which...

Christian Designs Found in Tomb Stones of Eastern Han Dynasty [2002-08-02] Studies show that as early as 86 A.D., or the third year under the reign of "Yuanhe" of Eastern Han, Dynasty Christianity entered into China, 550 years earlier than the world accepted time. When studying a batch of stone carvings of Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220 A.D.) stored and exhibited in the Museum of Xuzhou Han Stone Carvings, Christian theology professor Wang Weifan was greatly surprised by some stone engravings demonstrating the Bible stories and designs of early Christian times. Further studies showed that some of these engravings were made...

Did Israel's Lost Tribes end up in Afghanistan? By Tom Heneghan KABUL, Feb 3 (Reuters) - Considering all they shunned and shattered in their quest for pure Islam, Afghanistan's now vanquished Taliban seem to have overlooked the awkward legend that they were descended from the Lost Tribes of Israel. The Pashtun tribes that produced the Taliban, one of the most zealous sects the Muslim world has ever seen, have traditionally traced their roots to the Jews who disappeared after the Babylonian Captivity in the sixth century B.C. The legend, which seems bizarre in light of Jewish-Muslim tensions since the creation ...