Greek Culture in Afghanistan and India: Old Evidence and New Discoveries

Fergus Millar's publications over the years have permanently changed our perceptions not only of the history of Rome but, and this is worthy of emphasis, of the Graeco-Roman world as a whole — a world created by Greek civilization, ruled by Roman government and reshaped by Judaism, Christianity, and eventually Islam. The subject of this paper, the new insights gained by the discovery of a second (and then a third) copy of the so-called Heliodoros Stele, owes everything to the existence of a project designated Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palaestinae, 1 a 'brainchild' of Fergus Millar, as anyone familiar with his article on 'Epigraphy', written in 1983, can tell. 2 The editors of this project heeded the programmatic battle cry to abandon the absurd exclusion of the local languages from the major corpora of inscriptions, especially 'when we come to the even richer mixture of cultures in the Near East, where we find a number of major documents inscribed from the beginning in parallel texts in two or more languages ― and where the texts in different languages have tended to be published and discussed separately'. 3 They have certainly turned Fergus Millar̕ s call into their own credo: It is evident now […] that the richness of the epigraphic tradition can be appreciated only when conventional restrictions are removed, and epigraphic texts in different languages, the contemporaneous expressions of different but related cultures, are studied and presented together. 4

The Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek World, 2020

This volume provides a thorough conspectus of the feld of Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek studies, mixing theoretical and historical surveys with critical and thoughtprovoking case studies in archaeology, history, literature and art. The chapters from this international group of experts showcase innovative methodologies, such as archaeological GIS, as well as providing accessible explanations of specialist techniques such as die studies of coins, and important theoretical perspectives, including postcolonial approaches to the Greeks in India. Chapters cover the region's archaeology, written and numismatic sources, and a history of scholarship on the subject, as well as culture, identity and interactions with neighbouring empires, including India and China. The Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek World is the go-to reference work on the feld, and fulfls a serious need for an accessible, but also thorough and critically informed, volume on the Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek kingdoms. It provides an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the Hellenistic East.

The paper critically explores the ways in which archaeologists produce maps of phenomena they investigate and draw inferences from these visual representations, especially concerning contact situations and influences exchanged between cultures. The contacts between Archaic Greek culture and its northern hinterland are analysed as a case study and some specific ways of thinking about and experiencing space in these two cultures are investigated in order to introduce other possible lines of inquiry. The proposition is put forward that archaeologists need not abandon their practice of drawing maps according to our own concepts of space, but that these should be supplemented by an effort to approach the experiences of space of the people we study.

2023

Reconstructing ancient Indian history on sound lines requires a careful review of it from many perspectives. Understanding the past involves the crucial task of examining available sources of information, searching for fresh evidence, and devising new ways of interpreting historical data. The older lines of study in this regard mainly gave importance to either political history alone or thereafter social and economic history but of late the need has been felt for “an integrated study of the different aspects” 1 or a total, holistic history. In this respect the fundamental role is played by the materials which provide us with historical information i.e sources. There are several pieces of evidence which give us information about the past history of the Indian subcontinent and these sources can broadly be divided into literary and archaeological sources. Literary sources include all of the written materials, ancient texts, as also the oral traditions while archaeological sources refer to all material, tangible remains which help us to understand human past. The materials that have been left behind range from minor, abandoned artifacts from ordinary human activities, such shattered ceramics, to remnants of enormous palaces and temples. They consist of a variety of items, including buildings, artifacts, bones, seeds, pollen, coins, seals, sculptures, and inscriptions.

Archaeological review from Cambridge, 1984

A brief guide and compendium of useful information for all those who intend to travel around the Greek-speaking world of the Archaic and Classical periods. The journey begins from Anatolia, occupied by the Hittites during the Mycenaean age, and then by an assortment of Indo-European peoples under the hegemony of the wealthy Lydians. Proceeding to the south, we pass through Syria and Canaan, using Aramaic (the lingua franca of the area) for all purposes of communication. Among the peoples of the area, Israel was still unknown to the Greeks before the time of Aristotle; but the Phoenicians granted to Hellas the single most important tool for the development of civilisation, the alphabetic script. Moving to the East, one arrives at Mesopotamia, the primary and original land of literary creation. A number of literary genres (epic, fable, even historiography) originated there and subsequently infiltrated into the Greek tradition. Further to the East lies the Iranian plateau, the home of the Persians, the core of the grandest world empire before Alexander and the Romans. Persia became notorious as the great enemy of classical Hellenism, but many Greeks (yauna) worked at the major Persian centres as labourers, artisans, or even higher administrative functionaries. The remotest land known to the ancients, at the very edges of their world, was India, where no Greek set foot before Megasthenes, the first ambassador of Seleucus I at the beginning of the Hellenistic age. For the Greeks of earlier times, India was a land of wonders and supernatural miracles. Very few genuine elements of Indian culture found their way to Hellas before Alexander; perhaps the strange idea of the transmigration of souls was one of them. Turning back and traversing again the bulk of the Achaemenid Empire, the traveller finally turns to the South, to visit Egypt. This was the foreign country most admired and revered by the Greeks, although in reality the influence of Egyptian culture on Classical Greece was small. Further to the South, beyond the first cataract of the Nile, the land of Ethiopia (Nubia, Kush) formed another extreme border of the earth for the ancients' perspective. Like all the other territories of the margins, Ethiopia was imagined as a fabulous place of wonders. As Brecht once said, the great steal, they do not copy. The ancient Greeks also stole, unhesitatingly and remorselessly, from all the cultures with which they came into contact. But they put to good use the rich booty of their thefts: they melted down all the precious stuff and recast it in the shape of their own mind, and thus produced goldware and jewels of unique form and immense value.