HONOURS :
''' THE GOLDEN ROAD '''
RECENT ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES are leading to a radical revision by scholars of the intensity, scale and importance of maritime trade between the Subcontinent and the world.
For example : one estimate is that one third of the Roman Empire's entire revenue was generated by taxes on trade with ancient India.
IN MARCH 2022 - A TEAM OF ARCHAEOLOGISTS was excavating a newly discovered temple of the Egyptian goddess Isis at Berenike, on the shores of the Red Sea, when they unearthed a series of remarkable finds.
Berenike is today a bleak and desolate spot. Here, under pale blue skies, the flat, treeless, red-dust wadis of the desert give way to the windy shores of the Red Sea.
There is little to see and, though the site contains the foundations of some once impressive structures - a couple of temples, a Roman aromatics distillery and a fine bath house - the broken walls today rarely rise far above the level of the encroaching sand dunes.
Nevertheless, these unprepossessing ruins, easily missed as you drive up the Red Sea coast, were the landing point for generations of Indian merchants travelling to the Roman Empire and were once a place where unimaginable fortunes could be made.
The finds which emerged from the storeroom of the Isis temple included the head and torso of a magnificent Buddha, the first ever found to the west of Afghanistan.
It was sculpted from the finest Proconnesian marble, from the island of Marmara off the Turkish coast, in a part Indo-Gandharan, part Palmyran, part Romano-Egyptian style, with rays of the sun beaming out from it on all sides, as if the Buddha had transformed into a Roman solar deity like Sol or Mithras.
From the style of the carving, and what the archaeologists described as the '' tortellini-like '' curls drilled on to the Buddha's head, they believed that the sculpture must have been made in a workshop in 2nd century CE Alexandria.
It was probably commissioned by a wealthy Indian Buddhist, in gratitude for his safe arrival in the Roman Empire. Its location in a temple of Isis may not be an accident : one Egyptian of the period refers to Isis as the mother of the Buddha.
In the storeroom of the Isis temple were also found astone memorial dedicated to a trinity of early proto-Hindu gods, one of whom, Vasudeva, with his club and discus, would soon evolve into the more familiar form of Krishna; also propitiated was Balarama, with a plough; and the goddess Ekanamsha.
There was also a bilingual inscription in Greek and Sanskrit, put up in the 3rd century by a Buddhist devotee from Gujarat. '' In the sixth year of King Philip [ ie the Roman Emperor Philip the Arab, in 249 CE], the kshatriya [ warrior ] Vasula gave this image for the welfare and happiness of all beings.''
Out of the sands of Berenike has come the pottery from Spain, frankincense and resin from Southern Arabia, beads from Vietnam and Java, statues of the gods Palmyra and cedar from Lebanon.
There have also been letters, receipts and customs passes from Alexandria. But most of all there has been what the excavator described as '' just tons '' of Indian finds, including gems and pearls, woven mats and baskets, teak from Kerala and even the bones and skulls of elephants and monkeys -specifically, rhesus and bonnet macaques from India.
Indeed a steady stream of finds from the Indian trading community had been emerging from this stretch of Egyptian desert sand for some time.
The Honour and Serving of this Master Publishing from the masterpiece of research from writer William Dalrymple, continues. The World Students Society thanks EOS, The Dawn.
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