THE GREEKS IN CHINA DURING THE 2nd AND 3rd MILLENNIUM
FOUND OVER 2,000 MYCENEAN TOMBS AND TOMBS OF HELLENIC TIME BY THE FRENCH AND CHINESE ARCH
The mummies prove it: Once upon a time China was inhabited by White People!
Did the Achaeans reach ancient China? Why do the Chinese refer to Greece as "Sella"? What people were the tall, red-haired, light-eyed mummies found in the Taklamakan Desert?
The archeological dig finally brings to light amazing findings. Last year undoubtedly belonged to China. It was the year of its Olympic Games, the year that supplied us with locals, the year that Tibet woke up in its peak, the year that Egelados remembered her with anger… The year of culmination for the first in population and fourth largest country on Earth, for better or for worse. A few days ago I looked carefully at its location on the map again. I remembered like yesterday the relief of the country, as I saw it in a park "of China in miniature", during my visit there a decade ago. Walking between the Great Wall and the Lhasa of Tibet, I had asked our guide how they say Greece in their language. He replied: "Sella" (Larissa accent). Surprised, I asked him if this word had any other meaning in Chinese.
The question of coincidences accompanied me all the following years. Especially the similarity of Sella with the primitive name Sellas (Land of Light) of our country, made me imagine descendants of the Argonauts in the role of Marco Polo. Of course, Aristeas Prokonnisios, the poet of the 7th century BC. and author of the Arimaspeian Epics, he had toured much of Asia - but had he reached the other end? Alexander's certainty that after India the world was ending left no room for such a thing. Even so, owning one is still beyond the reach of the average person. And, indeed, the shimmer of the torch in the Himalayas illuminated something I had overlooked.
When Europe met China
Typically, Alexander conquered and held Darius's empire for just nine years (334-323 BC), but the shock he brought to the history of this world was to last for centuries. Thanks to the glory of his name, the descendants managed after his death to keep for two centuries the manors that were divided, despite the constant wars between them. It is noteworthy that Peithon, who had taken over the Indian possessions in the Indus Valley, and Eudemus, who had taken over the administration of Punjab, remained in their possessions until 316 BC, to be replaced by the Indian dynasty of Chandragupta Mauria. Until the first century BC - History tells us - the possessions of the West were occupied by the Romans and those of the East by the successors of the Persians, the Parthians. In spite of history, however,
As for the Chinese με we only knew that the soldiers of Euthydemus (with Antioch as capital Margiani and base Alexandria as the last) had explored the deserts in present-day Chinese Turkestan.
Strabo typically wrote that the Greek-Bactrians "extended their empire as far as China and the Phrygians (see https://ift.tt/BjW84Rz xt? Lookup = Strab. +11.11.1 on the Internet). But he did not provide details about trade relations. The Chinese were indirectly known to the Romans because they sold silk to the Parthians and the Parthians to the Romans. Their contact took place immediately after 14 AD, when the Greek captain Efpalos showed Admiral Augustus how to exploit the monsoons to shorten the voyage to India. According to Chinese records, by the 2nd century Greek sailors had arrived in Vietnam and in 166 AD. visited the imperial court of Juan Ti, as envoys of Emperor Marcus Aurelius. From then until Marco Polo (1266 AD)
Paradoxes, coincidences and upheavals
1. At a time when China was… smaller than Greece, Alexander's descendants had opened an "Egnatia" which ended in Beijing! 2. Remnant of the Greek era on the Silk Road: temple in the Garni gorge of Armenia 3. Greek letters engraved on a Chinese metal coin, fresco of a Greek soldier, woven with Centaur, a two-meter white mummy with a funeral mask, Buddhist monk and blue eyes, Buddha with Greek wings of Victory… They are all finds in China, pieces of the pioneer epic in the opening of the road to it 4. The Taklamakan desert continues to threaten the outskirts of Alexandria Eschati. But under the dunes he kept well hidden the secrets of a lost link of History 5.
This well-established image of China's isolation has been overturned in recent years by the crossroads of both historical and archaeological finds.
According to the archive of the Chinese historian Sima Qian, Emperor Wu ruled in 138 BC. to send Zhang Qian's ambassador to the peoples of the West, looking for allies against the Huns. He, after his unfortunate capture and ten years of captivity at the hands of the Huns, escaped and crossed the Taklamakan desert to meet the "Daiwans" (Danaoi?). They were white without slanted eyes and had beards. They were breeders of wonderful horses, they had very beautiful buildings and statues, they treated women with respect and… listened to them. The area had 60,000 families and 30,000 soldiers. Based on the geographical coordinates given by Zhang Qian in his report, the city he encountered was Alexandria the Last, on the borders of Fergana and Sogdiana, at the crossing of the Pamirs. The strange thing is that in this city coins were already minted with a technique known only to the Chinese. Specifically, the kings Agathocles and Pantaleon of Bactria were released - around 170 BC. - the first western coin of 'white copper', made of copper-nickel alloy in a ratio of 75/25. Apparently, some had managed to make imports…
Zhang proceeded to Bactria and reached as far as India. He returned - after another captivity in the hands of the Huns - and informed the emperor of the wonders he had seen. The emperor was mainly interested in the purchase of horses owned by the Greeks, but with this began the alisverisi which, in the 19th century, was christened by the German scholar von Richthofen "Silk Road". The Greeks were later replaced by the Scythians, who, under pressure from the Huns, invaded Bactria and India to establish the Kushan Empire, until the area was occupied by China (70 AD). The caravans left China with silk, ceramics and iron and returned with gold, ivory and glassware. However, attacks by robbers were frequent. To protect trade,
The signs and the great surprise
The passage of caravans through this desert over the centuries left many marks behind. The first Western scholars to arrive in the area in 1900 - the Swedish geographer Sven Hedin and the Hungarian Aurel Stein - found many of them, as well as 2,000 manuscripts that chronicle the Silk Road in previous centuries. Following the road to the regions of China, they found influences from the art of the Greeks everywhere: Geometric patterns on textiles and ceramics, statues of winged horses, depictions of Buddha with angel wings… but also paintings with Greek soldiers and Centaurs. Many modern archaeologists insist that the clay army, which accompanied in 210 BC. the emperor Kin in the tomb, had the source of inspiration the statues of the Greeks!
But the big surprise came when the "purgatory" of the Cultural Revolution passed and China began to scientifically dig into its past: The Taklamakan Desert was not alone. Buried cities were found under its sand dunes and tombs with mummies began to surface. Dozens of millennia mummies, perfectly preserved from drought. However, the dead were not Chinese! They were tall, red-haired, with light eyes. The oldest date back to 1800 BC. and the most recent in 300 BC. Among them was a one-year-old baby, who had blue stones in place of his eyes, and some women, of the 4th and 3rd BC. century, who wore pointed hats like the Amazons. What was happening; Who were these people and how did they live in a completely arid area?
The answer to the latter question is rather geological: The Taklamakan Desert is much lower than sea level and - in ancient times, with a different climate - was probably a fertile lake plain.
Elsewhere, these unexpected findings - of the 1990s - created a major minority problem in China. The Turkic-speaking Uighurs of the area began to say that the mummies were proving that they were descended from non-Chinese, the Tocharians, so the surrounding country had to become autonomous. Everyone remembered the ancient Chinese myths of a white people in the west, tall, with green and blue eyes, and hairless beards. After much tug-of-war, the Chinese government agreed to a DNA test by a joint team of researchers from universities in China, Sweden and the United States.
The findings from the DNA clarified one thing: The mummies had nothing to do with the Uighur Turks, who had occupied the area only in the 9th century AD. But no agreement was reached on any of the rest. Anthropologists have found genomes that sometimes refer to the Cimmerian Celts of Crimea, sometimes to Scythians in Kyrgyzstan, and sometimes to inhabitants of the Eastern Mediterranean.
What do archaeologists say? Quite simply, that the designs of the clothes of the dead have Greek style motifs. In fact, one of the engraved burial offerings bears the symbol of the famous swastika. Even more impressive, a mummy found far south of the Jingpan Desert in southwest China - dating back to 1000 BC, has a height of around 1.90 (!) And has a golden funerary mask, according to Mycenaean custom.
But is there a historical crossroads? Have we ever heard of such a people? Searching in the texts of Pliny the Elder (XXIV, Taprobane) we find an unexpected description of the Chinese, from an ambassador of Ceylon, to the emperor Claudius: "My father has often visited their country. "These people are taller than ordinary people, they have auburn hair and blue eyes." It should be noted that a visitor from Ceylon would obviously go to China by ship and catch a port on its southwest side, near Yinggan.
After that, the imagination rages. Did we find, where did the Mycenaeans end up, when they migrated due to climate change after the Trojan War? The Hittite texts speak of the Achiyavas (Achaeans) who went to war through Syria. But the Cimmerians also swept those places, to end up becoming Parthians. Did we just find those who chased them to the ends of the earth and exterminated them, even stealing their burial customs? One day, the truth will come to light.
ΒΟΥΔΑΣ… ΑΡΣΑΚΕΙΟΣ
The opening of the Silk Road gave eastern horizons not only to the merchants but also to the apostles of new ideas. Chinese chronicles report that one of the first preachers of Hindu Buddhism in China was An Xingao. He was of noble origin, from the royal house of Anxi, of his country. The name Anxi is the Chinese translation of the name Arsakis, of the famous dynasty that reigned in Parthia between 240 BC. and 224 AD, with Antioch Margiani (or Merv) as its capital. Shortly after Ann Shigao, in the second half of the 2nd century AD, another Buddhist missionary in China had an "Arsaki name", An Xuan. Also at the same time, a group of Buddhists from India appeared in Daron, Armenia, for whom the scholar E. Seldeslachts claims that at least two of their leaders were Greeks of the former Greco-Indian kingdom. Were these apostles creations of the then globalized crisis, a mixture of Greek philosophy with the peaceful way of life taught by the Hindu "enlightened prince"?
Whatever the exact origin of the Buddhist apostles in China, the fact is that the Silk Road eventually acted as a deterrent to the conversion of this great country to Islam. Instead, history is playing a strange political-religious game lately: As we read on the official website of the Chinese embassy in Australia, its government has been promoting the… marriage of communism with Buddhism since 2006. "The unequal distribution of wealth and consumerism have not only raised stress and tension in modern China," he writes, "but also an ideological vacuum. Many feel lost, spiritually and morally. "The Buddhist priests believe that their worldview offers them the necessary spiritual peace to fill this void." This new orientation, party officials who inspired him call it the "harmonious society of China." We are struck by the idea that this is the last contribution of the Hellenistic era to the formation of our world.
Did the Achaeans reach ancient China? Why do the Chinese refer to Greece as "Sella"? What people were the tall, red-haired, light-eyed mummies found in the Taklamakan Desert?
The archeological dig finally brings to light amazing findings. Last year undoubtedly belonged to China. It was the year of its Olympic Games, the year that supplied us with locals, the year that Tibet woke up in its peak, the year that Egelados remembered her with anger… The year of culmination for the first in population and fourth largest country on Earth, for better or for worse. A few days ago I looked carefully at its location on the map again. I remembered like yesterday the relief of the country, as I saw it in a park "of China in miniature", during my visit there a decade ago. Walking between the Great Wall and the Lhasa of Tibet, I had asked our guide how they say Greece in their language. He replied: "Sella" (Larissa accent). Surprised, I asked him if this word had any other meaning in Chinese.
The question of coincidences accompanied me all the following years. Especially the similarity of Sella with the primitive name Sellas (Land of Light) of our country, made me imagine descendants of the Argonauts in the role of Marco Polo. Of course, Aristeas Prokonnisios, the poet of the 7th century BC. and author of the Arimaspeian Epics, he had toured much of Asia - but had he reached the other end? Alexander's certainty that after India the world was ending left no room for such a thing. Even so, owning one is still beyond the reach of the average person. And, indeed, the shimmer of the torch in the Himalayas illuminated something I had overlooked.
When Europe met China
Typically, Alexander conquered and held Darius's empire for just nine years (334-323 BC), but the shock he brought to the history of this world was to last for centuries. Thanks to the glory of his name, the descendants managed after his death to keep for two centuries the manors that were divided, despite the constant wars between them. It is noteworthy that Peithon, who had taken over the Indian possessions in the Indus Valley, and Eudemus, who had taken over the administration of Punjab, remained in their possessions until 316 BC, to be replaced by the Indian dynasty of Chandragupta Mauria. Until the first century BC - History tells us - the possessions of the West were occupied by the Romans and those of the East by the successors of the Persians, the Parthians. In spite of history, however,
As for the Chinese με we only knew that the soldiers of Euthydemus (with Antioch as capital Margiani and base Alexandria as the last) had explored the deserts in present-day Chinese Turkestan.
Strabo typically wrote that the Greek-Bactrians "extended their empire as far as China and the Phrygians (see https://ift.tt/BjW84Rz xt? Lookup = Strab. +11.11.1 on the Internet). But he did not provide details about trade relations. The Chinese were indirectly known to the Romans because they sold silk to the Parthians and the Parthians to the Romans. Their contact took place immediately after 14 AD, when the Greek captain Efpalos showed Admiral Augustus how to exploit the monsoons to shorten the voyage to India. According to Chinese records, by the 2nd century Greek sailors had arrived in Vietnam and in 166 AD. visited the imperial court of Juan Ti, as envoys of Emperor Marcus Aurelius. From then until Marco Polo (1266 AD)
Paradoxes, coincidences and upheavals
1. At a time when China was… smaller than Greece, Alexander's descendants had opened an "Egnatia" which ended in Beijing! 2. Remnant of the Greek era on the Silk Road: temple in the Garni gorge of Armenia 3. Greek letters engraved on a Chinese metal coin, fresco of a Greek soldier, woven with Centaur, a two-meter white mummy with a funeral mask, Buddhist monk and blue eyes, Buddha with Greek wings of Victory… They are all finds in China, pieces of the pioneer epic in the opening of the road to it 4. The Taklamakan desert continues to threaten the outskirts of Alexandria Eschati. But under the dunes he kept well hidden the secrets of a lost link of History 5.
This well-established image of China's isolation has been overturned in recent years by the crossroads of both historical and archaeological finds.
According to the archive of the Chinese historian Sima Qian, Emperor Wu ruled in 138 BC. to send Zhang Qian's ambassador to the peoples of the West, looking for allies against the Huns. He, after his unfortunate capture and ten years of captivity at the hands of the Huns, escaped and crossed the Taklamakan desert to meet the "Daiwans" (Danaoi?). They were white without slanted eyes and had beards. They were breeders of wonderful horses, they had very beautiful buildings and statues, they treated women with respect and… listened to them. The area had 60,000 families and 30,000 soldiers. Based on the geographical coordinates given by Zhang Qian in his report, the city he encountered was Alexandria the Last, on the borders of Fergana and Sogdiana, at the crossing of the Pamirs. The strange thing is that in this city coins were already minted with a technique known only to the Chinese. Specifically, the kings Agathocles and Pantaleon of Bactria were released - around 170 BC. - the first western coin of 'white copper', made of copper-nickel alloy in a ratio of 75/25. Apparently, some had managed to make imports…
Zhang proceeded to Bactria and reached as far as India. He returned - after another captivity in the hands of the Huns - and informed the emperor of the wonders he had seen. The emperor was mainly interested in the purchase of horses owned by the Greeks, but with this began the alisverisi which, in the 19th century, was christened by the German scholar von Richthofen "Silk Road". The Greeks were later replaced by the Scythians, who, under pressure from the Huns, invaded Bactria and India to establish the Kushan Empire, until the area was occupied by China (70 AD). The caravans left China with silk, ceramics and iron and returned with gold, ivory and glassware. However, attacks by robbers were frequent. To protect trade,
The signs and the great surprise
The passage of caravans through this desert over the centuries left many marks behind. The first Western scholars to arrive in the area in 1900 - the Swedish geographer Sven Hedin and the Hungarian Aurel Stein - found many of them, as well as 2,000 manuscripts that chronicle the Silk Road in previous centuries. Following the road to the regions of China, they found influences from the art of the Greeks everywhere: Geometric patterns on textiles and ceramics, statues of winged horses, depictions of Buddha with angel wings… but also paintings with Greek soldiers and Centaurs. Many modern archaeologists insist that the clay army, which accompanied in 210 BC. the emperor Kin in the tomb, had the source of inspiration the statues of the Greeks!
But the big surprise came when the "purgatory" of the Cultural Revolution passed and China began to scientifically dig into its past: The Taklamakan Desert was not alone. Buried cities were found under its sand dunes and tombs with mummies began to surface. Dozens of millennia mummies, perfectly preserved from drought. However, the dead were not Chinese! They were tall, red-haired, with light eyes. The oldest date back to 1800 BC. and the most recent in 300 BC. Among them was a one-year-old baby, who had blue stones in place of his eyes, and some women, of the 4th and 3rd BC. century, who wore pointed hats like the Amazons. What was happening; Who were these people and how did they live in a completely arid area?
The answer to the latter question is rather geological: The Taklamakan Desert is much lower than sea level and - in ancient times, with a different climate - was probably a fertile lake plain.
Elsewhere, these unexpected findings - of the 1990s - created a major minority problem in China. The Turkic-speaking Uighurs of the area began to say that the mummies were proving that they were descended from non-Chinese, the Tocharians, so the surrounding country had to become autonomous. Everyone remembered the ancient Chinese myths of a white people in the west, tall, with green and blue eyes, and hairless beards. After much tug-of-war, the Chinese government agreed to a DNA test by a joint team of researchers from universities in China, Sweden and the United States.
The findings from the DNA clarified one thing: The mummies had nothing to do with the Uighur Turks, who had occupied the area only in the 9th century AD. But no agreement was reached on any of the rest. Anthropologists have found genomes that sometimes refer to the Cimmerian Celts of Crimea, sometimes to Scythians in Kyrgyzstan, and sometimes to inhabitants of the Eastern Mediterranean.
What do archaeologists say? Quite simply, that the designs of the clothes of the dead have Greek style motifs. In fact, one of the engraved burial offerings bears the symbol of the famous swastika. Even more impressive, a mummy found far south of the Jingpan Desert in southwest China - dating back to 1000 BC, has a height of around 1.90 (!) And has a golden funerary mask, according to Mycenaean custom.
But is there a historical crossroads? Have we ever heard of such a people? Searching in the texts of Pliny the Elder (XXIV, Taprobane) we find an unexpected description of the Chinese, from an ambassador of Ceylon, to the emperor Claudius: "My father has often visited their country. "These people are taller than ordinary people, they have auburn hair and blue eyes." It should be noted that a visitor from Ceylon would obviously go to China by ship and catch a port on its southwest side, near Yinggan.
After that, the imagination rages. Did we find, where did the Mycenaeans end up, when they migrated due to climate change after the Trojan War? The Hittite texts speak of the Achiyavas (Achaeans) who went to war through Syria. But the Cimmerians also swept those places, to end up becoming Parthians. Did we just find those who chased them to the ends of the earth and exterminated them, even stealing their burial customs? One day, the truth will come to light.
ΒΟΥΔΑΣ… ΑΡΣΑΚΕΙΟΣ
The opening of the Silk Road gave eastern horizons not only to the merchants but also to the apostles of new ideas. Chinese chronicles report that one of the first preachers of Hindu Buddhism in China was An Xingao. He was of noble origin, from the royal house of Anxi, of his country. The name Anxi is the Chinese translation of the name Arsakis, of the famous dynasty that reigned in Parthia between 240 BC. and 224 AD, with Antioch Margiani (or Merv) as its capital. Shortly after Ann Shigao, in the second half of the 2nd century AD, another Buddhist missionary in China had an "Arsaki name", An Xuan. Also at the same time, a group of Buddhists from India appeared in Daron, Armenia, for whom the scholar E. Seldeslachts claims that at least two of their leaders were Greeks of the former Greco-Indian kingdom. Were these apostles creations of the then globalized crisis, a mixture of Greek philosophy with the peaceful way of life taught by the Hindu "enlightened prince"?
Whatever the exact origin of the Buddhist apostles in China, the fact is that the Silk Road eventually acted as a deterrent to the conversion of this great country to Islam. Instead, history is playing a strange political-religious game lately: As we read on the official website of the Chinese embassy in Australia, its government has been promoting the… marriage of communism with Buddhism since 2006. "The unequal distribution of wealth and consumerism have not only raised stress and tension in modern China," he writes, "but also an ideological vacuum. Many feel lost, spiritually and morally. "The Buddhist priests believe that their worldview offers them the necessary spiritual peace to fill this void." This new orientation, party officials who inspired him call it the "harmonious society of China." We are struck by the idea that this is the last contribution of the Hellenistic era to the formation of our world.
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