Religious and Cultural Exchanges Between Africa and India

The facial features of this Mohenjo-daro terracotta resemble the later Nok figurines of Nigeria.

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

Long before Judaism the early Hebrew dispersed out of the Nile Valley into Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and the Indus River Valley. This explains why there are similarities between religious beliefs of primitive Hinduism and the early Hebrew. One of those beliefs involves fire altars in the shape of a falcon, the totem of HR, (Horus in Greek), the son of God to whom the Horite Hebrew were devoted. This is why the Shulba Sutras state that "he who desires heaven is to construct a fire-altar in the form of a falcon."

The symbol of the High God and HR was the sun. The Dravidian east-facing temple was termed O-piru, meaning Sun House or House of the Sun. The word piru has a variant spelling - biru. The sun's rising was viewed as the rising power of God. The Arabic yakburu means “he is getting big” and with the intensive active prefix: yukabbiru means "he is enlarging." Likely this is a reference to the morning ritual of the early Hebrew priests at Nekhen who greeted the rising sun and watched as it expanded across the horizon. Nekhen on the Nile is the oldest known site of Hebrew worship. This practice is reflected in the sun blessings in Hinduism (the Agnihotra morning ritual) and in Judaism (the Birka Hacama, or “Sun Blessing” ritual performed every 28 years).

The Hebrew were a ruler-priest caste with a moiety system. The two ritual groups were the Horites and the Sethites. They maintained separate temples and shrine along the Nile River.

The Akkadian Hebrew

The early Hebrew in Mesopotamia spoke Akkadian, the language of the territory of Nimrod, a Kushite kingdom builder (Gen. 10). The Indian scholar Malati J. Shendge has concluded that the language of the Harappans of the Indus Valley was Akkadian. (Read more here.)

The Indian linguist Ajay Pratap Singh explains, "Comparisons of Akkadian and Sanskrit words yielded at least 400 words in both languages with comparable phonetic and semantic similarities. Thus Sanskrit has, in fact, descended from Akkadian."

The early Hebrew ruler-priest caste had a moiety social structure. The two ritual groups that comprised the caste were the Horites and the Sethites. The Horite Hebrew were also known as Hurrians. Tablets from c.1500 BC found in Syria were etched in a language called Hurrian. Some people claim these to be written in Sanskrit. The documents refer to a treaty signed by the kings of the ‘Mitanni’ Kingdom that lasted for just 200 years in Syria.

In Srimad Bhagavatam 10:16 we find a parallel to Genesis 3:15 where we are told that the serpent's head will be crushed under the feet of the Woman's Son/Seed. The Hindu text reads: "The Ancient Man danced on the serpent, who still spewed poison from his eyes and hissed loudly in his anger, and he trampled down with his feet whatever head the serpent raised, subduing him calmly..." (Cited in Andrew Wilson, Ed. World Scriptures, p. 449.)

The same Messianic idea is found in Psalm 91:12-13 - "They will bear you up in their hands, that you do not strike your foot against a stone. You will tread upon the lion and cobra, the young lion and the serpent you will trample down."

This expectation was expressed about 1000 years before Psalm 91 in the Pyramid Texts. "Horus has shattered (tbb, crushed) the mouth of the serpent with the sole of his foot (tbw)". (Utterance 388)

Scholars from India acknowledge the very early Nile-Indus connections. The Indian archaeologist B.B. Lal (1963) believed that the Dravidians of India belonged to the C-Group people who dispersed from Nubia into Arabia, Iran and India as evidenced by the presence of Black-and-Red Ware (BRW) in those regions. Lal believed that the Dravidians' ancestors came from the Upper Nile (Nubia/Kush). Lal wrote: "At Timos the Indian team dug up several megalithic sites of ancient Nubians which bear an uncanny resemblance to the cemeteries of early Dravidians which are found all over Western India from Kathiawar to Cape Comorin. The intriguing similarity extends from the subterranean structure found near them. Even the earthenware ring-stands used by the Dravidians and Nubians to hold pots were identical."

Michael Petraglia and his team found stone tools at Jwalapuram in Andhra Pradesh in southern India. These were above and below a thick layer of ash from the Toba super eruption (74,000 years ago). Petraglia noted that the tools found in southern India are like those from the African Middle Stone Age about 100,000 years ago. He states, “Whoever was living in India was doing things identical to modern humans living in Africa.”

This bronze statuette dubbed the "Dancing Girl" is about 4,500 years old. It was found in 'HR area' of Mohenjo-daro in 1926. She resembles Nubian dancing girls.

Further evidence of the connection between the Nile and Indus Valley is demonstrated by comparing early Egyptian and Indus pottery inscriptions. Note that 17 figures under the headings "Indus Valley" and "Egyptian" are almost identical.

Out of Africa

Y-DNA haplogroup R has three branches: R1b, R1a, and R2. The sub-haplogroup of R2 is present in Mongolic-speaking Buryats and Kalmyks and has a predominant distribution in India and Pakistan. It is also found in China (Uygurs, Han, and Hui) and in Central Asia (Tajiks and Kyrgyz) and in some Siberian populations. 

Y-DNA R1b, R1a and R2 descended from the same common ancestor, but these made a "home" in different areas of the world since branching. The red areas on this map show the areas in Africa and Europe with the highest density of Y-DNA haplogroup R1b. About 70% of native British men have R1b ancestry.

Descendants of that original Haplogroup R ancestor migrated, and accrued additional mutations that formed the major sub-branches: R1a and R1b, around 20,000 years ago. The movement is out of Africa.

According to this report, the third-most abundant haplogroup found in India is R, accounting for an average frequency of 15.7%. The high incidence of this haplogroup appears to be restricted to the Indo-European and Dravidian-speaking groups. Within these populations, Indo-European-speakers exhibit an average frequency of 29.5% of R1a1, whereas Dravidian-speakers account for 22.6% of R2 sub-haplogroup.

Related reading: Deep history from the genomes of India - John Hawks; The Hebrew Were a Caste; Nimrod and the Nile-Indus Connection; ANCIENT EGYPTIAN DANCE | Facts and Details; False Correlations; Is It Possible to Speak of the Proto-Gospel?; Why Nekhen is Anthropologically Significant

An Anthropologist Looks at Genesis 10

 

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

The author of Genesis 10 connects the populations of his time period to the three sons of Noah. He proposes how Earth came to be repopulated after a worldwide flood (Gen. 10:32). Though a naïve conception of human history and diversity, this early ethnography is remarkable. E.A. Speiser described the Table of Nations “as a pioneering effort among the ethnographic attempts of the ancient world.” (The Anchor Bible Commentary on Genesis, p. 71.)

The names listed in Genesis 10 represent ethnicities, city-states, kingdoms, and regional populations. The populations may generally be classified as Nilotic, Arabian, Mesopotamian, Eurasian, and Levantine. The table artificially lists seventy populations. However, none of the populations are identified as castes and the ancient world had many castes: tanners, metalworkers, priests, etc.

It is assumed that Eber (Gen. 10:21-3) is the eponymous father of the Hebrew people. This represents an attempt to narrow the scope of the narrative, as is done later with Jacob who is identified as the eponymous father of the Israelites. It is clear, however, that there were many Hebrew clans other than Jacob's clan.

The English word “Hebrew” is derived from the ancient Akkadian word for priest abru, and the ruler-priest caste was called Abrutu. Variant spellings include Habiru, Hapiru, and ‘Apiru. There is no reason to dismiss Noah and his sons as Hebrew. Genesis 4-11 chronicles the Hebrew caste’s dispersion out of Africa in the service of kingdom builders and high kings. Hebrew were living in Africa, Arabia, Mesopotamia, and Southern Europe before the time of Abraham. There is evidence that some Hebrew settled in the Indus Valley, and that their influence extended as far east as present-day Cambodia. Horite symbolism has been found at Angkor Wat. "Anghor Wat" refers to the settlement or temple complex dedicated to Horus. Ankh-Hor means "May Horus Live!" or "Life to Horus!"

This Anghor Wat relief depicts Ra's solar boat with Horus perched as a falcon on the mast.

The Indian archaeologist B. B. Lal contends that several megalithic sites of ancient Nubians resemble the cemeteries of early Dravidians found all over Western India. The similarities extend from the subterranean structures found near them to the identical earthenware ring-stands used by the Dravidians and Nubians to hold pots.

The connection between the riverine civilizations of the Nile Valley and the Indus Valley is indicated by comparing the Nilotic and Indus pottery inscriptions in which 17 figures are virtually identical.

The Hebrew Movement Out of Africa  

Genesis chapter 10 continues the theme of an eastward movement out of Africa. Adam and Eve went east. Cain went east, and now we read about the dispersion of Noah’s descendants into areas outside of Africa. This aligns with genetic studies of peoples coming out of Africa through the Middle East, a staging area for the Neolithic Agricultural Revolution, and the region where the earliest known kingdoms were established. This is especially evident in the case of the Kushite kingdom builder Nimrod (Gen. 10: 8-12).

Nimrod is also spelled Nimrudj or Nimrwd. In 2010, the 4400-year tomb of a purification priest named Rudj-ka or Rwd-Ka was found at Giza. It dates to between 2465 and 2323 B.C. His high status is evident in the quality of his stone tomb. He served Pharaoh Khafre who ruled from 2520 to 2494 B.C., before the time of Abraham. The ancient Egyptian word rwd/rudj means ball, sphere, or the Earth.

Likewise, the name “Lot” is found among the Libyan rulers of the Nile: Takelot I (885–872 B.C.) and Takelot II (860-835 B.C.), and at least two were called Nimlot. An inscription on the statue of Nimlot B describes him as “Nimlot true of voice,” meaning justified. The ancient Egyptian is Maa Kheru (mꜣꜥ ḫrw), a typical epithet applied to the righteous deceased who Horus presents to the Heavenly Father.

Nimrod, a son of Kush, built a kingdom in Mesopotamia. He is the connection between the Proto-Saharan ruler Noah and Abraham. We first meet Abraham in Mesopotamia because he is a descendant of Nimrod.

A Genetic Mosaic

After the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) population movements created a striking genetic mosaic with distinct sex-based genetic differentiation. Y-DNA traces genetic inheritance through the paternal line and mitochondrial (mt) DNA traces genetic inheritance through the maternal line. Were it possible to study DNA from the different peoples listed in Genesis 10, we would find that the majority could be classified in Y-DNA Haplogroups R1a, R1b, and J, and mtDNA Ls, M, N, H, and R.

Genetic studies have established a connection between some populations of Genesis 10 and some populations of Noah’s homeland in the region of Lake Chad. This map shows the range of Y-DNA R1b peoples in red. However, the dispersion of the R1b populations took place long before the time of Noah and was complete by 40,000 years ago.

Towers Were Used for Astronomical Observations

Although the Tower of Babel story does not specifically mention astronomy, commentators on Genesis 10 often introduce speculation about astrology, an occult practice. This is based on a false belief that the science of sidereal astronomy had not yet developed. However, astronomy was familiar to the Nilotic Hebrew, as noted by Plato who studied under a Nilotic priest for 13 years. Plato claimed that the Africans had been tracking the heavens for 10,000 years. He knew about Earth's Great Year, also called the "Platonic Year." This is the duration of time that it takes for Earth to complete the cycle of axial precession (approximately 25,000 years). This precession was known to Plato who defined the "perfect year" as the return of the celestial bodies (planets) and the diurnal rotation of the fixed stars to their original positions.

In 241 B.C., the priest Manetho reported that Nilotes had been “star-gazing” as early as 40,000 years ago. By 4245 BC, the priests of the Upper Nile had established a calendar based on the appearance of the star Sirius and had been tracking this star for thousands of years, connecting it to seasonal changes affecting the Nile Valley. Doubtless, the Hebrew priests living in Mesopotamia were recognized for their astronomical observations from fortified high places and towers.

Related reading: An Anthropologist Looks at Genesis 9; Noah's Sons and Their Descendants; Nimrod and the Nile-Indus Connection; Haplogroups of Interest to Biblical Anthropologists; Was Akkadian the Language of the Indus Valley Civilization?; Our African Ancestors