pMOSCOW: An ancient Vishnu idol has been found during excavation in an old village in Russia’s Volga region, raising questions about the prevalent view on the origin of ancient Russia./p pThe idol found in Staraya (old) Maina village dates back to VII-X century AD. Staraya Maina village in Ulyanovsk region was a highly populated city 1700 years ago, much older than Kiev, so far believed to be the mother of all Russian cities. br/!–more–/p p”We may consider it incredible, but we have ground to assert that Middle-Volga region was the original land of Ancient Rus. This is a hypothesis, but a hypothesis, which requires thorough research,” Reader of Ulyanovsk State University’s archaeology department Dr Alexander Kozhevin told state-run television Vesti ./p pDr Kozhevin, who has been conducting excavation in Staraya Maina for last seven years, said that every single square metre of the surroundings of the ancient town situated on the banks of Samara, a tributary of Volga, is studded with antiques./p pPrior to unearthing of the Vishnu idol, Dr Kozhevin has already found ancient coins, pendants, rings and fragments of weapons./p pHe believes that today’s Staraya Maina, a town of eight thousand, was ten times more populated in the ancient times. It is from here that people started moving to the Don and Dneiper rivers around the time ancient Russy built the city of Kiev, now the capital of Ukraine./p pAn international conference is being organised later this year to study the legacy of the ancient village, which can radically change the history of ancient Russia/p pa href=”http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Ancient_Vishnu_idol_found_in_Russia/articleshow/1046928.cms” target=”_blank”http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Ancient_Vishnu_idol_found_in_Russia/articleshow/1046928.cms/a/p
Monthly Archives: May 2007
Harappa was like any other metro: US prof
A great trading city teeming with different communities that existed together and enjoyed civic infrastructure like a water supply and drains; a manufacturing center where textiles that were exported around the world were made. It’s not a description of 19th century Mumbai, but of cities like Harappa and Mohenjo Daro in the Indus valley as early as 4th millennium BC, said Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, associate professor in anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, at a lecture in the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vaastu Sangrahalaya on Tuesday.
Kenoyer has been working on excavations in the Indus Valley, particularly in Harappa, since 1974. Drawing on recent discoveries at Harappa, Kenoyer explained the inferences made by archaeologists and anthropologists about life in the Indus valley, which is now believed to have extended in the area surrounding not only the Indus, but also the now-dried up Saraswati river. Kenoyer said modern archaeological findings do not support the idea of an Aryan ‘invasion,’ but show that Vedic people were among those who lived in cities such as Mohenjo Daro in Sindh and Harappa in Punjab towards the end of the Indus civilisation, which stretched between 7,000 BC and 1,900 BC. “These were sophisticated cities with wide roads, gates designed to keep intruders out and where those coming in or going out of the city with goods could be taxed. There was a water supply and proper drains. It was only when the Saraswati dried up and Mohenjo Daro and Harappa became overpopulated because other cities lost their water supply that the cities declined,” said Kenoyer, comparing that period with the fate of cities such as Amritsar and Lahore at the time of Partition. As many as 50,000 people may have lived in Harappa at certain periods and the people of the Indus civilisation formed ethnic groups, said Kenoyer, citing figurines showing seals with symbols such as the buffalo or unicorn to represent different ethnic groups. The unicorn symbol was invented by the Indus people, and spread to Europe centuries later via Mesopotamia and Near East, he said. “There was no single ruler in these cities. We’ve found no palace. Instead, there seems to have been a republic in which a group of elders ruled,” said Kenoyer. What was earlier believed by archaeologists to be a grain store in Harappa now seems likely to have been a textile weaving centre, and fine cloth from the area was exported far away, he said.
Author: Anjali Joseph
Publication: The Times of India