Posted on 03/08/2014 5:40:14 PM PST by Renfield
A collection of rare 9,000-year old masks, which are considered among the most ancient human portraits, are to go on show in Jerusalem.
The masks all originated from Israel and have the same striking features, perhaps to resemble the spirits of dead ancestors.
It is thought they were used by in religious and social ceremonies and in rites of healing and magic.
The exhibition at The Israel Museum is the result of a decade of investigative work into where the masks came from and it is the first time that the group of 12 Neolithic masks will be displayed together in their birthplace.
The masks were made in the Judean Hills and nearby Judean Desert and share the same features of large eye holes and gaping mouths, which make them resemble a human skull....
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
the last photo is clear evidence that either the stone masks are fairly recent “construction” or that pelosi and heinz kerry are VERY VERY old!
None of the above; the Sumerians (by their own account) arrived from the sea, as immigrants from somewhere (perhaps the Indus Valley or elsewhere in India), and the placenames they used for rivers and cities were borrowed from the previous dominant population; the only trace of that lost language consists of those placenames preserved by the Sumerians. While not the earliest writing system, their cuneiform is the earliest writing system that can be read. These masks go back to those unknown people, or (as seems likely) their unknown neighbors.
The Semites appear to have come from Africa, based on the distribution of that language family (nearly 400 million speakers of Afroasiatic languages, most of them Arabic speakers; as you noted, Akkadian is an extinct Semitic tongue, as is its descendant Assyrian tongue, ancient Egyptian, ancient Aramaic, etc). It is not unlikely that the people who made these masks have living descendants, but the culture (and probably the language) is long gone and forgotten, as well as unrecorded.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afroasiatic_languages
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2857949/replies?c=4
They are properly scary looking-but they’d be awfully heavy to wear to a Halloween party...
The guy with the Muskrat on his head hasn’t insisted on that TV series that they were modeled after aliens?
NICE ONE!
Neat stuff from the temple of Artemis-thanks. The masks from Israel look a bit like some of the clay ones from parts of S. America.
So the Sumerians would be related to the indus valley people -- probably Tamils --> can you give some examples of the placenames you refer to?
Thanks for the info. Very interesting.
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