From: hubey@pilot.njin.net (Hubey)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish,soc.culture.greek,soc.culture.europe
Subject: Hair and No Hair  (Re: Turko-Sumerians was Re: Europeans Stunk
Date: 3 Aug 92 19:16:12 GMT
Followup-To: soc.culture.turkish
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.




The reason for historians/archeologists casting their eyes on
the Turks was probably due to reasons other than language. I'm not
sure when Sumerian was deciphered; it was probably in this century.

In all the various ancient human form representations that I've
seen in photos in books or videos on TV, the adult males of the
'hairy' peoples have full beards. This is as true of the
Semitic Akkadians and Assyrians as of the Indo_European (IE) 
Hittites and Persians.

The Egyptian pharoahs seem to be smooth shaven except for a small
wisp of hair under their chins. This should have been enough to
convince people that they were probably at least partially black.
But I think even today historians mostly classify them as white.
No self-respecting European historian/archeologist of the last
century could have given any credit for civilization to blacks.

In any case, similar comments seem to apply to others when there's
lack of firm linguistic evidence. Scythians are presumed to have
been Mongoloid, despite their chiefs seeming to possess Iranian
names. Some think that they were a mixed group. The evidence seems
to rest on some of the ornaments/art that's found. There is a
picture (I think Vernadsky mentions this) in which a mounted
warrior (clean-shaven and presumed Scythian) is fighting an
infantryman (bearded and presumed Sarmatian ?).

The figures left over from the Sumerians reveal clean shaven
and round faced figures not unlike some found in South America.
This was probably the reason for assuming Sumerians to be
Central Asian.  

Ibn Fadlan's travelogue mentions that the Turks were smooth
skinned like women, and marvels that they could fight, since
apparently the facial-hair was associated with manliness
among the Arabs. He says that the Turks plucked out their
beards, which is not too difficult if the facial hair is
sparse but would be a torture for hairy peoples. The custom of
plucking the hair is attested to among the American Indians too.

So since the Sumerians were before the age of iron ( I think)
and could not have really shaved, and since the civilizations
that came after them (Babylonians,Akkadians,) were still
fully bearded, historians  must have assumed that the Sumerians 
were mongoloid, and came from Central Asia.

Dravidians (south India) are similarly thought to have come
from Central Asia, maybe because of their agglutinative
language. However, since many linguists seem to think that only 
the IE language spread around and if any other language did, it
would have had to have happened a  long time ago, it's not
going to be able to find linguistic 'proof'  for it, especially if
linguists continue to behave the same way that some of them do
now. New metrics would have to be developed.  



It's difficult to  believe that the same language could be the parent of 
the language of the blond Finns, brown Tamils and the mongoloid Turkic peoples.

But language is not race, and it would have happened long before
the IE's swept the world, which I think people believe happened
about 6,000 years ago ? 

So, there it stands.






PS. This applies to before the iron age--before razors.
-- 

	mark	


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