The inn-keeper of Babylon
5th century Indian innkeeper in Kish, Babylon (from The shape of ancient thought: comparative studies in Greek and Indian ... By Thomas McEvilley; page 11). Click to go to books.google.com
This figurine is a small (18 cm tall) bronze rein-ring, constructed as a decoration for a four-wheeled chariot. Collected in 1928 on a joint Field Museum of Natural History/Oxford University expedition, it dates to the late Early Dynastic I period - c. 2800-2750 BC. (Data Source - Darren Naish; Picture courtesy - scienceblogs.com). Click for larger picture.
Indian confetti over the world
A 5th century cuneiform clay tablet, dating probably from the reign of Darius the Great) was found at Kish (near modern town of Al-Hillah, Babil province of modern Iraq). Kish, about 100km south of Baghdad, was one of the important cities in the Babylonian cluster – along with Babylon, Sippar, Seleucia and Borsippa.
Unlike the popular image, of ‘static’ Indians, we have some free-ranging Indians roaming the world. With elephants, expert horsemen – and a probable case of a Siwalik giraffid.
Siwalik giraffid
Kish was the site of another intriguing find. A bronze chariot rein ring, which probably seems related to the African giraffe or a species of deer from Iran. Called Sivathere of Kish, it has been object of many studies – an unknown hoofed mammal of the Middle East. Initially thought to be related to the Sivatherium – a large, short-necked giraffid, originally described for S. giganteus from the Siwalik Hills of India.
So, apart from the deep links in astronomy, there are other intriguing such confetti sprayed around Babylon – which the Americans have pounded with tons of explosions.
Related articles
- What happened with that Sumerian ‘sivathere’ figurine after Colbert’s paper of 1936? Well, a lot. [Tetrapod Zoology] (scienceblogs.com)
- The History of Bricks: Mesopotamia (janestreetclayworks.wordpress.com)
2ndlook 
The difficulty about Indian history is perhaps twofold: 1. There were hardly any easy means to write in those ancient times. May be that was a genuine reason that our olden scriptures were propagated initially as “Srutis and Smritis”. 2. The Indians till date do not believe in self aggrandisement and propagandas; in fact it is abhored to do so due to the spiritual reasons. These became deeply entrenched in the society. In contrast the western module of current education believes just the opposite in every respect including the human values so diametrically opposite. This had profound historical impacts on this society. It can be easily understood by the contrasting behaviors of Prithvi raj Chouhan and his predator – Mahmood of Gajni.
Even today the Indian ascetics even change their names to hide their identity. They will ignore you if you indulged in such discussions. One may get an idea from the biography of Swami Rama: Living with Himalaya Masters – worth a look at. How his Master avoided him to reveal his worldly identities?
One will not find a second book other than the “Autobiography of a Yogi” by Pamhans Yoganand, another masterpiece work by a celebrated Indian divine soul who left his body for eternal journey on & March 1952. His book is now freely vailable on net, try the link: http://www.manybooks.net/titles/paramhanetext05ayogi10.html
Even otherwise, it is subsidised by his divine organigation and this book is part of a course in philosophy in about >40 universities as a textbook. Interesting. Ancients never wrote accounts on their lives themselves, nor did they encouraged others to write on them.
Once again your master piece effort, well appreciated.
God bless you more divine energy to pursue your pious journey.
Dr. O. P. Sudrania
Many thanks for the book
I was perusing recently, “History of Endoscopy” to write an article for a medical journal after going through your this column. I had a faint idea that the entire region in those days was passing through a dark age and their life style was greatly influenced by the then Indian traditions including the ancient Ayurvedic system of medicine.
Though the western scholars put the age to Indians everything as recent as they can, to dilute its originality as well asantiquity. Like as we know that theexact age and his existence – Sushruta is clouded in mystery but I believe that he lived sometime lot earlier than 2000 yrs or so.
In a recent article, they first describe an Egyptian source, then Chinese and thirdly that too briefly Indian and lastly Greeko-Roman period. This Western attitude seemed to me either intentional or ill informed. Hence I thought to interact with you here too. You are an ardent researcher and well informed, if you can through some more light on this topic of antiquity.
Here is the link for your perusal: http://www.laparoscopy.blogs.com/endoscopyhistory/
It is its second chapter I am refering to.
God bless
Dr. O. P. Sudrania