Tanjung Tanah Code of Law

The Tanjung Tanah manuscript is a code of law issued by the King of Dharmasraya to his vassals in Kerinci.

When the Dutch scholar Petrus Voorhoeve visited the Sumatran regency of Kerinci in April, and again in July 1941, he encountered a manuscript in the village of Tanjung Tanah that was exceptional in that it was not, as most of the manuscripts found in Kerinci, written on buffalo horn or paper, but on a kind of paper manufactured from the bark of the paper mulberry tree (Broussonetia papyrifera Vent.), which under the name dluwang was a common writing media in Java.

Being the oldest Malay manuscript currently known ( ca.fourteenth or early fifteenth century),this codex is to be regarded as a tremendously important document of pre-Islamic Malay literary culture. It was issued by the royal court of Dharmasraya, also known as the Malayu kingdom, to provide the land of Kerinci with a legal code.

It begins with a number of opening sentences in Sanskrit, in which the manuscript is dated to the Waisyak months of an unfortunately illegible Saka year. The manuscript also concludes with a few sentences in Sanskrit where the ruler, Paduka Ari Maharaja Dharmasaraya, is mentioned alongside with the fact that the code of law is intended for the entire land of Kerinci.

With the discovery of Tanjung Tanah manuscript, for the frost it is the definite evidence that the Malay already possessed a manuscript tradition that goes back to at least the 14th century. It is an important, milestone in the reconstruction of literacy in the Malay World.
Tanjung Tanah Code of Law

Cotton in ancient time

Around 200 BC, official documents recorded the existence of cotton cloth in what is now Yunnan. Recent archaeological research on mummies found in the Tarim Basin has also uncovered cotton textiles, dating from the first millennium BCE, whose origin may be traced to India.

Excavations at Mohanjo-Daro (about 3000 BC ) have unearthed bits of cotton cloth and twine. From those ancient days India has been a manufacturing nation and exporter of fine cotton fabrics to all nations of civilized world.

In the 1st century AD, the Arabs and Greeks are reported to have transported raw cotton and cotton goods from Patiala, Ariaka, Barygaza (probably Bharuch in Gujarat), and Masalia (Masulipatnam in Andhra Pradesh) as well as Gangitiki muslin from Bengal.

Cotton trees of India excited the admiration of Greek historians. Herodotus writes, "There are trees which grow wild, the fruit of which is a wool exceeding in beauty and goodness that of sheep.The Indians make their clothes of this tree wool.”

The greatest demand for cotton cloth came from the Mongol armies stationed in the northern regions; they needed uniforms made of some kind of warm, light-weight and resilient material. In the course of their conquests and movements through Central, West, and South Asia, the Mongols must have perceived the value of cotton textiles: cotton cloth's strength, durability, and effectiveness as a padded fabric against winter chill, or as a light, absorbent textile againstsummer heat.
Cotton in ancient time

Ancient people of Yuezhi

Chinese sources of the second century BC mention another group of early Xinjiang people, the Yuezhi, who inhabited the region around Dunhuang and the Gansu Corridor for millennia. The Yuezhi people were considered to be part of the nomadic tribes of Indo— European decent who provided jade stones to the Chinese Sang dynasty.

They defeated the Wusun in the west and killed their King Nandoumi. It is thought that the Yuezhi extended their rule to the northwest part of Gansu and the southwest part of Mongolia.

In 176 BC Yuezhi was driven out from western Gansu by Xiongnu under Chanyu Modu. Chanyu Jizhu attacked them again in 162 BC.

The attacks by the Xiongnu prompted the majority of the Yuezhi to migrate westward to the vicinity of Ili River and a smaller group to move south to settle among the highland Qiang peoples in Nan-Shan.

The Yuezhi reached Bactria (present-day northwest Afghanistan and Tajikistan) about 135 B.C. There their disparate tribes were united by Kujula Kadphises in the first century BC. Gradually wresting control of the area from Scytho-Parthian, the Yuezhi move south into the northwest Indian region traditionally known as Gandhara and established a capital near Kabul.
Ancient people of Yuezhi

What is astroarchaeology?

Astroarchaeology is a confusing term has sometimes been used as alternative to archaeoastronomy and sometimes to means study of astronomical alignments at ancient monuments - in other worlds, to represents only as a segment of the wider endeavor of archaeoastronomy.

Astroarchaeology is the study of ancient astronomical observances. The movements of the sun and Moon and other heavenly bodies played an important role in many ancient societies, among them the Egyptian, Maya, and many Andean cultures.

It is an important source of information about ancient religious beliefs and cosmologies. Astroarchaeology holds that human beings have always been interested in the cosmos and that this interest has influenced humanity’s development.

Events that took place in heaven impinged directly upon the minds of ancient people, who attempted to classify the universe and find temporal order in celestial events.

Astroarchaeology has been applied to among other places, Stonehenge, England’s famous Bronze Age megalithic monument. Astronomer Gerald Hawkins speculates that Stonehenge was an ancient ‘computer capable of calendar calculation and eclipse prediction.
What is astroarchaeology?

Aztec music

The Aztecs are noted for the architecture, jewellery, sculpture and textiles, the styles of which have continued to be of influence until the present day.

Aztec music was used for ballads, war songs, and dance rituals. The Aztecs used many musical instruments, because music played a large part in their religious festivals and services.

Aztec clay trumpet

The main instruments played were the flute, drums and rattles. Wind instruments were known to the Aztecs by the bird calls; they also possessed flutes, whistles made of seashells and flageolet of baked clay or terra-cotta.
Aztec music

Symbolisms of colors in ancient Egypt

The symbolism and use of color in ancient Egypt provided a template for later connotations concerning nature and design. Color itself bestowed individuality to symbol and image.

Artisans began to observe the natural occurrence of colors in their surroundings and pulverized various oxides and other materials to develop the hues they desired.

Egyptians were clothed in white, contrasting starkly with the colorful garments of foreigners. White is also the color of joy and celebration.

The crown of Upper Egypt was white. Red was the symbol of chaos, called "typhonic" after the Greek god Typhoon, whom Greek identified with Seth.

Black used to represented ebony, emmer wheat, cattle, hair, eyes, Nubians. In tombs black color was used to represent mascara. The color also symbolized the underworld, the dead, Osiris, fertility, the heart, Anubis and the Ibis.

The coloring always related to characteristics of the persons represented. In classical Egyptian art male bodies were painted in strong brown colors, while women received a lighter, yellowish shade of color.

Men received an orange color only when age and frailty were to be represented.
Symbolisms of colors in ancient Egypt

Color symbolism in ancient culture and society

Color is an informative yet frequently overlooked subject of anthropological inquiry. Cultures frequently attach particular importance to specific colors and this selection may be due to a multiplicity of factors such as subsistence processes, the natural world, biological processes, the rarity of a dye used to produce a color, or the raw material of which the object is made.

The most powerfully effective color symbols in art have always been those taken directly from nature and especially from natural phenomena already standing for universal ideas.

Blood and bile, vegetable, fore and the sky, for example have an obvious elemental symbolisms associated with fire and passion, sensation, fertility and spiritually.

In primitive art the most important source of color symbolisms was that of the phases of the moon: white, blood red, and black or blue.

The ancient Hebrews experienced color primarily through nature; color suggested to them elements of the physical world. Blue was the color of the sky, green the color of grass and plants, red the color do blood, white the color of wool and snow.

In ancient Egypt, the use of color on the sarcophagi and papyri doubtless also had a symbolic significance, though no consistent meaning seems to have been attached to a particular color, Th headless goddesses perched on mounds in the concluding scene of the papyrus of Djehutymesyu are black.

In ancient culture the blue, purple and scarlet suggested wealth and royalty. Colored textiles were produced from natural dyes that were rare and expensive.
Color symbolism in ancient culture and society

Barter trade in ancient Egypt

In early Egypt, as in other early societies people were every self-sufficient. Each family provided its own food, shelter and clothing. Then, as Egyptian civilization developed, people started to specialize. Money did not exist in ancient Egypt. Instead of making purchases the Egyptians traded their goods and services. This is called bartering.

Most of of the trading between Egyptians simply involved swapping one object for another.

Wages in ancient Egypt were paid in food and clothing. Farm workers received wheat and barley in payment for their work. They could exchange a bag of grain to get pottery from a craftsman or clothing from a weaver.

Coins were not used in ancient Egypt until about 500 BC.  Before that time, there existed a system in which metals such as gold were given values based on their weight.

This unit of weight was called a ‘deben’. Deben was not used to buy things, Instead, it was used to set the value of goods and services for bartering.
Barter trade in ancient Egypt

Coffins in Romans time

The word ‘coffins’ appears to owe its origin to the ancient custom of burying the dead in caves, a practice which prevailed not only among many civilized nations of antiquity but also with the barbarian tribes. Wooden coffins were common, but there were also lead coffins and stone coffins (sarcophagi).

Some sarcophagi were extremely ornate, and some were only carved on three sides, as they were intended to b placed against a wall in a tomb.

The resting place of emperors and their relatives were often large, tomb-like sarcophagi, or coffins, decorated with reliefs glorifying the dead person.

Well-to-do families went in for mausoleums in which the various members were laid to rest often in sarcophagi, expensive stone coffins often decorated with inscription and sculpture.

The classicizing sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, city prefect of Rome, baptized just before his death in 359 includes a colonnaded front divided into ten niches of richly carved biblical stories.

In the 4th and 5th centuries AD, they became common for ordinary people as well because Christianity chose to bury the dead instead of cremating the bodies. Marble or red porphyry were favored, as both types of stone sculpted well.
Coffins in Romans time 

Coffin in ancient Egypt

In the Old Kingdom (2575-2134 BC), mortuary regalia that appeared designed to protect the remains of the deceased. The coffins were painted on their sides to make them resemble the walls of the royal places and doors, windows and even patterns of hanging reed mats were fashioned as designs for these receptacles.

Cartonnage masks were developed in the First Intermediate Period (2134-2040 BC) but were extended in later dynasties to cover the entire mummified remains. Cartonnage masks were placed over the head and face of the mummy both protect it and act as a substitute of the mummy was destroyed.

Egyptian wooden coffin dated 2500 BC

During the Middle Kingdom the anthropoid coffin was packed inside the rectangular coffin. Later in New Kingdom times (between 16th century BC and 11th century BC), very wealthy people had three coffins which fitted inside each other.

Each of these was mummy-shaped, with a portrait of the person painted on it.

The coffin of ordinary people were painted inside and out with prayers and pictures of the gods of death and rebirth. There were inscriptions placed inside the coffins of Egyptians containing spells and incantations intended to help the deceased on their journeys to the hereafter.

On the coffins of pharaoh the decorations were not painted but finely carved and were covered entirely with gold.
Coffin in ancient Egypt

Ancient Weight and Measures

Measurement, fundamental in science, had had its origin in trade and construction. The values of weights and measures in the Ancient East are known either from the actual instruments or from other sources, units of the same name differing considerably in value from place to place.

The oldest known stone weights are from a Sumerian temple at Lagash (about 3000 BC), each inscribed, “1 mana, Dudu High priests,” – in our scale about one ounce.

A later Assyria scale included the shekel, the mana = 60 shekels (about 1.1 lb.), and the talent = 60 mana.

The early Sumerian carpenters used a scale of digits equaling 0.65 inch.

The Babylonian cubit (form-arm) was 20.6 inches in our measure, and was divided into 30 digits.

The higher units were sexagesimal, ending in a parasang, or league, of about 3.5 English miles.

The Egyptian used decimal systems of weights and measures. The largest unit of weight, for measuring wheat, was about two pounds.

The cubit of the Pyramid Age, nearly the same length as the Babylonian cubit, was divided into hundredths.

But apparently for the convenience of workmen, the scale was usually marked also approximately into 7 palms, a palm being 4 digits.

The two systems were incommensurate, like our yard and meter.
Ancient Weight and Measures

Cremation for the death

The need to properly dispose of a dead body has been a feature of human society for millennia. The most common forms of disposal are burial and cremation.

Cremation is the process of burning the human corpse until only some bone fragments and ashes remain, material often described in American English by the neologism cremains.

It is typically associated with a belief in the liberation of the spirit, while burial is often tied to beliefs about the afterlife.

Ancient origin of cremation is reflected in archeological findings from the New Stone Age of some 8000 years ago in China and 6000 years ago in Britain as well as in ancient Greece where they pass into Bronze Age and Iron Age practice only to be replaced by burial by about the 5th century BC.

Cremation uses heat to dispose of the corpse of the dead. In some cultures and religious traditions, this is achieved by placing the body on a pyre and setting fire on it.

In contemporary western society, cremation uses technology to burn the body in a furnace powered by gas or electricity and takes place in a building designed for the purpose – a crematorium.
Cremation for the death

Early Humans Hunting and Gathering

Early Humans Hunting and Gathering
Scientists believe that humans evolved for millions of years before they learned to use fire about 500,000 to one million years ago.

The oldest fossils so far excavated mainly in Africa put the beginning of human like creatures – hominids - at between six and seven million years ago.

From the jaws and teeth of these hominids, scientist deduce that they were primarily plant eaters or herbivores.

Our back teeth the molars, are flat like stones for grinding grain and plants and that is what we still use them for when we chew.

Scientist think that over millions of years, early humans developed two survival advantages:

• Between 4 million and 2 million BC human brain size tripled, growing to what it is today, approximately 1,400 cubic centimeters
• They stood upright in two feet - became bipedal - which allowed them to see farther and left their hands free to use weapons for protection and to kill animals for food.

Food historians speculate that early humans learned to like the taste of meat from small animals that could be caught and killed easily, like lizards and tortoise and from scavenging the leftover carcasses of large animals killed by other large animals.

These early humans were hunter-gatherers , nomads who followed the food wherever it wandered or grew.

Between 40,000 BC an 12,000 BC, Asian peoples went east and crossed into North and South America.

The Ice Age had dried up the seas, creating dry land between Asia and Alaska, making it possible to walk from one continent to the other. So the first people in the Americans were Asians.

Work related to food was divided by gender. Men left the home to hunt animals by following them to where they went for food, especially salt.

Women gathered fruits, nuts, berries and grasses because their lives revolved around a cycle of pregnancy, birth and child rearing.

Gathering was more reliable than hunting. Becoming carnivores – meat eaters – probably helped humans survive, too. In case of a shortage of plants , there was an alternate food source.

Scientists believe than invented tools about 1.9 million to 1.6 million years ago. Early humans butchered animal meat, even elephants, with blades made out of of stone, which is why it is called the Stone Age.

Archeologists call this people Homo habilis – “handy man.”

Then, approximately 1,5 million to 500,000 years ago, another group appeared called Homo erectus – “upright man.”

These people migrated north to Europe and east to India, China and Southeast Asia. They had better tools than any of the other groups. And for the first time, they had fire.
Early Humans Hunting and Gathering

The Ancient Chinese: Bronze and Silk

Chinese legend says that silk was discovered in about 3000 BC by the wife of the mythical emperor Huang-di. A silkworm cocoon accidentally fell into some boiling water and when emperors took it out, she found that it was made of an enormously long and very delicate thread.

Whatever the truth about its origin, by the time of the Han dynasty the Chinese were weaving silks of a high standard, with many colored abstract designs and patterns of birds, trees and flowers.

The same sort of care was applied to other arts. Craftsmen made multicolor lacquerware bowls covered with intricate floral patterns; they painted on silk, and carved friezes on tombs and ornaments from jade.

Their glazed pottery was a forerunner of the porcelain of later dynasty. As early as the 16th century BC the Chinese had mastered the art of bronze making, and they excelled in making vessels to hold food and wine.

They were made in a variety of forms – some stood in three legs and others were shaped like animals. All were highly decorated and some were inlaid with gold and silver. Later bronze craftsmen made mirrors by giving bronze discs a highly polished surface and plaques decorated with animal figures.

Around the 5th century BC, Chinese metalwork turned their attention to iron. In the Han years iron was so important that for a time its manufacture was a state monopoly, with 48 foundries staffed largely by forced labor.

The Chinese made cast iron 15 centuries before it was possible in the West and even produced steel by combining pieces of iron with different carbon levels. Their success with cast iron came from their knowledge of bronze working, and the invention of a bellows that gave very high furnace temperatures.
The Ancient Chinese: Bronze and Silk

Archeology: Limitation and Contributions to Understanding of Human Culture

One of the limitations on archeology is that what remains are only the durable materials of a past culture. These are not necessarily what the people might have left if they had wanted to show us what was important to them.

Prehistoric peoples did not have the future in mind when they dump their garbage or buried their dead; they did not provide us with a time capsule containing records of their way of life.

Thus not only must we interpret the material they left behind within the limited context in which we find them, such as a burial site or a refuse pit; we must also try to paint a picture of an entire way of life without the hope of ever finding physical evidence for much of that picture.

We can make an inventory of the kinds of tools or weapons of early humans used at a given sites, and we can note which ones are found most often, how they are made and so forth.

What, then, can archeology contribute to our understanding of human culture and social behavior? First, we can learn much about the technology of earlier peoples through their materials remains, as well as through analysis of such aspects of their life style as what they ate.

For example we can tell whether a particular group lived mainly by hunting or fishing or farming. A second aspect of the life of early peoples that is revealed to us through archeology is their economic practices.

For example, sometimes we find pottery or jewelry made from materials that are to have known available only in distant place. This usually means that these items were not made at the site but obtained through some other means – either by traveling to the place where they were available or by trading with other group.

Finally, archeology evidence can reveal a great deal about certain aspects of the religious and spiritual life of ancient societies. We can recognize sacred objects by their location in centers of religious activity or in burial sites.

When we are fortunate enough to find their temples or other religious structures, we can determine their importance and their influence on the society. But in other areas it is very hard to interpret the evidence.

Thus we know little about ancient people their feelings about spirit and so forth. Even when we find materials object that might suggest such beliefs; we cannot ask anyone to explain their meaning but must go on what we know about other aspects of that society and later societies that seem to be similar to it.