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A Lost European Culture, Pulled From Obscurity
NY Times ^ | 11/30/09 | JOHN NOBLE WILFORD

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 ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: bronzeage; celts; copperage; creation; cucuteni; evolution; godsgravesglyphs; history; indoeuropean; indoeuropeans; neolithic
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To: Bokababe; kronos77
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.

Balkans ping.

21 posted on 12/01/2009 7:29:12 PM PST by rabscuttle385 (Purge the RINOs! * http://restoretheconstitution.ning.com/)
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To: Judges Gone Wild

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.


22 posted on 12/01/2009 7:32:23 PM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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To: SunkenCiv

SLIDE SHOW. ARTIFACTS FROM OLD EUROPE 25 IMAGES

23 posted on 12/01/2009 7:46:13 PM PST by Fred Nerks
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To: Judges Gone Wild; Borges
The ancient Egyptians were a mixed race cosmopolitan society. ... There are ancient Egyptian busts that have Negroid features.

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.

24 posted on 12/01/2009 8:30:12 PM PST by ApplegateRanch (Islam: a Satanically Transmitted Disease, spread by unprotected intimate contact with the Koranus.)
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To: Borges
'Aren’t the ancient Egyptians considered white?"

Only Elizabeth Taylor.

25 posted on 12/01/2009 10:01:01 PM PST by norton (No tagline here, Just move along.)
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To: Borges

bookmark


26 posted on 12/01/2009 10:57:45 PM PST by Free Vulcan (No prisoners, no mercy. 2010 awaits...)
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To: SunkenCiv

Thanks, Civ. Fascinating story, glorious objects. Article today in NYT shows they are good for something ;+}


27 posted on 12/01/2009 11:53:34 PM PST by Cincinna (TIME TO REBUILD * PALIN * JINDAL * CANTOR 2012)
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To: ApplegateRanch
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!

Well, you know how it goes... one drop of 'Black Blood' makes you Black. / sarcasm

28 posted on 12/02/2009 4:11:44 AM PST by Tallguy ("The sh- t's chess, it ain't checkers!" -- Alonzo (Denzel Washington) in "Training Day")
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To: Cincinna

My pleasure. :’)


29 posted on 12/02/2009 8:42:34 AM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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To: rabscuttle385; Borges

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


30 posted on 12/02/2009 9:22:15 AM PST by kronos77 (Kosovo is Serbian Jerusalem. No Serbia without Kosovo.)
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To: Borges; rabscuttle385
"Aren’t the ancient Egyptians considered white?

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.

31 posted on 12/02/2009 10:45:44 AM PST by Bokababe (Save Christian Kosovo! http://www.savekosovo.org)
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To: maine-iac7

“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.


32 posted on 12/03/2009 11:19:11 AM PST by Grimmy (equivocation is but the first step along the road to capitulation)
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33 posted on 07/10/2016 9:05:48 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (I'll tell you what's wrong with society -- no one drinks from the skulls of their enemies anymore.)
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To: Borges

interesting — i wonder if these were migrants from Sumeria or Hurrian type peoples


34 posted on 12/09/2016 1:48:27 AM PST by Cronos (Obama's dislike of Assad is not based on his brutality but that he isn't a jihadi Moslem)
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To: Will88
The attempt by black historians to label all black ancient nations as supercivilized is as inaccurate as the KKK doing the opposite.

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.

35 posted on 12/09/2016 1:50:22 AM PST by Cronos (Obama's dislike of Assad is not based on his brutality but that he isn't a jihadi Moslem)
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To: sig226

These people were probably FROM the Middle East — Sumerians or Hurrians.


36 posted on 12/09/2016 1:50:48 AM PST by Cronos (Obama's dislike of Assad is not based on his brutality but that he isn't a jihadi Moslem)
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To: Unam Sanctam
I kind of doubt that -- Indo-Europeans seem to have originated in the Kuban and only really civilized around the 2nd millenium when they domesticated horses.

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.

37 posted on 12/09/2016 1:52:25 AM PST by Cronos (Obama's dislike of Assad is not based on his brutality but that he isn't a jihadi Moslem)
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To: Borges; Will88
The ancient Egyptians were pretty definitely NOT white and pretty definitely NOT black -- they painted pictures of themselves and we have the Copts of today as their direct descendents (not mixed with Nubians or Greeks)

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.


38 posted on 12/09/2016 1:54:45 AM PST by Cronos (Obama's dislike of Assad is not based on his brutality but that he isn't a jihadi Moslem)
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To: Bokababe
you're talking of today:

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.

39 posted on 12/09/2016 1:59:21 AM PST by Cronos (Obama's dislike of Assad is not based on his brutality but that he isn't a jihadi Moslem)
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To: Cronos

Don’t forget the Hittites in Asia Minor.


40 posted on 12/09/2016 2:49:41 AM PST by Unam Sanctam
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