Subject: Re: [HM] First kind of writing
From: Dinesh Maheshwari (dsm@cypress.com)
Date: Fri Jan 28 2000 - 19:17:24 EST
Dear Milo and other fellow HM listers,
The claim that the indus valley writing is the earliest has been made by
archaeologists Dr. Richard H. Meadow (Harvard University) and Dr. Jonathan M.
Kenoyer (University of Wisconsin) in 1999. Newsweek and BBC both have been
reported to have covered the discovery. I do not have enough erudition in the
area of archaeology as it relates to discovery of writing to make any claims.
As to the purpose of math in different ancient cultures - In ancient India,
it was for astronomy and the Vedic rituals that tried to recreate the universe
in their rituals; e.g. fire altars that depicted the relationship between
heavenly bodies and that changed in geometrical structure in a periodical
fashion to mimic the astronomical cycles. Being in the doab of the 7 rivers
(now 5 rivers) they did not need canals. The Indus/Saraswati valley
civilization (dating back to 6500BC eg. Mehragargh site), interestingly
depicts an egalitarian spread of the city - there are no palaces
or huge structures dedicated to gods or kings. There are, however, very well
designed large cities - geometrically planned, with wide roads and covered
sewers. There are large public swimming pools and large halls (50 meters, 165ft
approx, in length) which were either used as granaries or public gathering
places. The port city of Lothal has large docks and warehouses; the
structure's design shows a thorough study of tides, hydraulics and the effect
of sea water on bricks.
Please refer to the following web sites for more information on recent
discoveries at Indus/Saraswati valley civilization sites.
http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/nsindex.htm
http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/sitemap1.htm
http://www.harappa.com/har/har0.html
As to the under-reporting, I agree that Egyptian (and Indus/Vedic)
mathematics have been under reported.
As to the under-dating of the historical artifacts from Egypt, I have
to say that the Egyptian excavations have enjoyed the most attention of
the modern archaeologists with the most scholarly sincerity, unaffected by
political motivations because it is dead civilization without political
implications for the present day. Unfortunately, the Indus valley
civilization has far too many implications - from KKK ideology to Indo-
European Language and Indo-European people Ureheimat question. And it does
not seem to be in the interest of the dominant "economic" group today to
divest itself of the un-scholarly hypothesis (read concoctions) from 19th
century even in the face of recent discoveries - archaeological,
anthropological, geological, genetic (mtDNA test published in 1998-99) and
in the ancient texts. If they would only learn from the history of the Romans!
As to the history of writing - Indus, Elam, Egyptian, Babylonian and
"may be" even the undeciphered Etruscan script are all contenders and the
front runners will change roles from one discovery to another. But, given
that some cultures like the Vedic culture devised ways to pass huge volumes
of work like the Vedas etc. (with philosophical, astronomical, mathematical,
medical, musical, scientific and religious aspects) by oral tradition for a
long time, does the presence of writing really imply anything at all. BTW,
the Vedic work was expressedly "banned" from being written down by the early
Vedic people; they "may have" used writing for other purpose but not for the
Vedic literature.
One aspect is clearly emerging though - the presence of common religious ideas
(Hittites using Vedic gods [Mitra, Indra, Varuna] in 1400BC, Greek gods with
very close correspondence to Vedic gods [Dyaush - Zeus - lord of the heaven/sky
etc.], Celtic gods[Dagda etc.] and culture being very close to Vedic culture ),
the archaeological evidence of trade between the ancient river systems Indus,
Egypt and Babylonia/Mesopotamia indicate that ideas could have travelled long
distances.
Coming to the propagation of mathematics, let me quote American mathematician
A. Seindenberg from his work "The ritual origin of geometry", Archive for History
of Exact Sciences, 1962, p.488-527,
"Whatever the difficulty there may be [concerning chronology], it
is small in comparison with the difficulty of deriving the Vedic
ritual application of the theorem from Babylonia. (The reverse
derivation is easy)... the application involves geometric algebra,
and there is no evidence of geometric algebra from Babylonia.
And the geometry of Babylonia is already secondary whereas in
India it is primary."
"Hence we do not hesitate to place the Vedic (...) rituals, or
more exactly, rituals exactly like them, far back of 1700 BC.
(...) elements of geometry found in Egypt and Babylonia stem from
a ritual system of the kind described in the Sulvasutras".
Best Regards,
Dinesh
PS:
Please refer to the article by Koenraad Elst, Leuven (Belgium) on
"Astronomical data and the Aryan question" dealing with the dating of
the ancient Indian texts based on astronomical data.
The article is available on-line at
http://members.xoom.com/_XMCM/KoenraadElst/articles/astronomy.html
http://members.xoom.com/_XMCM/KoenraadElst/articles/astronomy2.html
http://members.xoom.com/_XMCM/KoenraadElst/articles/astronomy3.html
There are archaeological and geological proof for the desiccation of the Vedic
river Saraswati by 1900BC and it becoming only a "monsoon season river" by
2600 BC (as established by the French geological team); thus forcing the
RigVeda (which describes the mightiest river Saraswati (of the 7 rivers of
the time, only five exist today) which ends in the ocean) to be much prior
to 2600BC. The data is available from the WWW web and I can send it to the
interested people once I have compiled it; please let me know if you are
interested.
--
Dinesh Maheshwari
Advanced Design Methods
Cypress Semiconductor
San Jose, CA, USA
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