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GemsOfINDOLOGY Profile picture
@GemsOfINDOLOGY
Apr 3, 2023 • 14 tweets • 8 min read • Read on X
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#Thread Indus Gadd 1932 Seals found in UR, a Sumerian city in ancient Mesopotamia, at the site of modern Tell el-Muqayyar in south Iraq's
Impressive Professional quality Pic by @britishmuseum. @NationalMissio1 & @ASIGoI should learn from British Museum.
#Archaeology

1/14
A palm-tree with humped bull (zebu), serpent, scorpion and recumbent human figure at the top in this Dilmun Period seal found in 1930 in UR
#Archaeology

2/14
Circular stamp-seal of glazed white steatite; engraved with design showing a bull standing over a manger; Indus inscription along the top; top of domed reverse broken.
2500 BC-2000 BC
Babylon (Iraq)
#Archaeology

3/14
Circular, dark green steatite stamp seal with pierced, centrally grooved lug at top, base engraved with inscription in Indus script above a humped bull facing right; one side badly chipped.
#Archaeology

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Greenish-grey steatite Dilmun-type stamp seal with creamy glaze; circular with convex top; double hole pierced through top; engraved with design on base divided into quadrants of four seated figures round periphery; section of base broken away.
#Archaeology

5/14
Black glazed steatite stamp seal; circular; Gulf type and/or Indus Valley style; domed handle at top with groove along centre; hole pierced through at base of handle; design deeply engraved on base of figures and animals; chipped.
#Archaeology

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Rectangular, green-grey mottled steatite stamp-seal with pierced lug at back; front surface deeply engraved with crude design of bull standing, facing left; single line inscribed line above; Indus style seal with Sumerian inscription.
#Archaeology

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Fragment of a circular greenish-grey steatite stamp seal; part of an inscription and incised design on base; button boss top.
#Archaeology

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Circular light grey glazed steatite seal; base engraved with design of a bull facing right, with single-line inscription in Indus script above; roughly conical grooved button boss on top; hole pierced through base of button bosson; broken one side with section missing

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Dark grey glazed steatite stamp seal; circular with domed top; Gulf-type; hole pierced through top; design engraved of scorpion and bull on face; complete.
#Archaeology

10/14
Fragment of a pale brown glazed steatite stamp seal; circular with domed handle at top; hole pierced through base of handle; inscription and illegible design on base; lower and left hand part broken away.
#Archaeology

11/14
Circular stamp-seal of black steatite, partially covered with a kind of glaze, Dilmun type; with face incised on top; hole pierced through top; geometric or animal design engraved on base.
#Archaeology

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Circular, light grey steatite stamp-seal; hole pierced through back; Dilmun type; face shows engraved design of two men, each dressed in a long skirt, walking left and clutching a jar between them; left figure grasps a leaping gazelle by the neck.
#Archaeology

13/14
Src of all information
britishmuseum.org/collection/ter…

14/14

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More from @GemsOfINDOLOGY

GemsOfINDOLOGY Profile picture
Mar 3
1️⃣ A 10,000 BCE cave painting just cracked open India's migration mystery

Bhimbetka artists drew a two-horned rhino. The species never lived in central India.

But before we decode ancestral memory, let's talk about colonial amnesia.

Before 1800, approximately 20,000 rhinos roamed Bengal and Assam.

By 1908? Barely 200. 🦏💰

#DecolonisationImage
2️⃣ British trophy hunting didn't just reduce numbers. It systematically erased a species from entire geographies.

Major-General Richard Carnac killed 30 rhinos in a single year near Purnea, Bihar, 1780s. Sport, they called it. Extinction engineering, more accurately.

Each horn fetched £100-150 in Victorian markets. Aphrodisiac myth met colonial greed.Image
3️⃣ The Bhimbetka paintings now make perfect sense.

Austroasiatic peoples migrated from Southeast Asia through Indonesia-Thailand-Myanmar around 10,000 years ago—the exact route Sumatran rhinos took. They carried ancestral memory of two-horned creatures, painted them centuries later at Bhimbetka.

January 2024: Tamil Nadu excavations at Molapalayam unearth 3,600-year-old rhino bones. First direct evidence of Indian one-horned rhinos in deep South.
Read 8 tweets
GemsOfINDOLOGY Profile picture
Feb 22
1/ Aryan Migration Theory has a math problem.

Not political. Not ideological. Mathematical.

If sophisticated Indo-Europeans brought decimal systems to India around 1500 BCE, show me their source culture's mathematics. 🔢

I'll wait. Image
2/ Reconstructed Proto-Indo-European:

Counting to 100 ✓
Basic addition/multiplication ✓
Systematic large numbers ✗
Decimal place value ✗
Zero as concept ✗
Cosmological calculations ✗

Pontic-Caspian steppe, 4000-2500 BCE.
No mathematical texts. No astronomical observatories.Image
3/ Compare what supposedly migrated TO India:

Greek: imported Egyptian geometry, Babylonian astronomy
Latin: borrowed Greek mathematics wholesale
German: million (Latin), Milliarde (French)
Slavic: миллион (million) - borrowed

Every Indo-European branch borrowed large number terms.Image
Read 10 tweets
GemsOfINDOLOGY Profile picture
Feb 17
THREAD 4
WHEN LAW REPLACED CUSTOM
(surnames, forms, the myth of timeless patriarchy)

1️⃣
This is where the break happens.

Not in ancient India.
Not in temples.
Not in epics.

But in files, registers, and forms. Image
2️⃣
Pre-modern India ran on custom.

Identity was local.
Lineage could be maternal.
Marriage could be flexible.

The system worked because society did not need every child tied to a named father.
3️⃣
Colonial administration could not function like that.

The state needed:
Land titles.
Tax rolls.
Census categories.
Inheritance clarity.

Custom was messy.
Plurality was inefficient.

So lineage had to be fixed.
Read 8 tweets
GemsOfINDOLOGY Profile picture
Feb 15
ASI calls it a "graceful threshold of history."

October 1502: 400 pilgrims locked in a ship and burned alive at sea by the man this arch honors.

This is what government curation looks like when it erases inconvenient details.

Thread on what ASI forgot to mention. 🧵

#GemsofASI MNI500A stone relief features a figure dressed as a viceroy, holding a sword, near a coat of arms and inscriptions, symbolizing colonial history.
Vasco da Gama's second voyage, October 1502:

Intercepted the pilgrim ship Miri near Madayi. 400+ passengers. 50 women and children.

Looted it. Locked them inside. Set it ablaze.

Eyewitnesses Thomé Lopes and Gaspar Correia documented mothers holding babies through portholes.

*ps pic AI generated
2/Image
Francisco da Gama built this arch in 1600 during his viceroyalty (1597-1600).

Historical record by then:

• 300 temples demolished in Bardez (1567)
• Goa Inquisition active (1560-1812, 16,000+ documented trials)
• Dec 4, 1567 decree: Hindu marriages, sacred threads, cremations banned

3/Image
Read 6 tweets
GemsOfINDOLOGY Profile picture
Feb 10
Thread 3

WHEN WOMEN WERE LINEAGE, NOT DEPENDENTS
(Travancore, matriliny, 1920s)

1️⃣
Here is the part most people don’t expect.

These systems did not vanish in antiquity.
They survived into the 20th century.

This is not rock art.
This is documentation. Image
2️⃣
In parts of Kerala and Travancore, lineage followed the woman.

Property.
Household identity.
Social continuity.

Children belonged to the mother’s line.
Not the father’s surname.

This was not chaos.
It was a functioning social order.
3️⃣
Relationships were recognised through custom, not sacrament.

Sambandham-type unions existed.
Women could enter and exit relationships.
Sexual exclusivity was not the foundation of legitimacy.

A child did not need a certified father to be socially valid.

That detail matters.
Read 7 tweets
GemsOfINDOLOGY Profile picture
Feb 7
1️⃣ Every art history course starts in Greece.

But here's what they don't mention: almost every Greek painting from the Classical period is gone. Lost.

Meanwhile, in India, 700 years of continuous wall paintings still exist.

Let's talk about what survives vs what we worship. Image
2️⃣ Ajanta Caves.

Painting phases dated 2nd century BCE – 5th century CE.

That means: Ajanta begins before Alexander. And continues after Rome adopts Christianity.

This isn't parallel art. This is a continuous painting tradition spanning 700 years. Image
3️⃣ Where are Greek paintings from 480–323 BCE?

Answer from classical scholarship: almost entirely lost.

What survives:
• Roman wall paintings (1st c. BCE–1st c. CE)
• Literary praise by Pliny the Elder
• Copies, not originals

An origin remembered by texts vs one preserved in pigment.Image
Read 7 tweets

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