05-03-2006, 09:37 AM
a kudakallu - or a megalithic (urn) burial, akin to stonehenges, dolmens and menhirs (asterix comics?) and megalithic burials found in megalithic europe - in kerala (vestiges of this practice still survive in some tribes in kerala):
<img src='http://img68.imageshack.us/img68/3364/kudakallu26fo.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
here is an interesting essay by giorgio samorini linking the european megalithic culture with the indian one based on an assumption that these mushroom shapes connoted to a practice of revering psychoactive mushrooms among both people.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Some dolmen built in Great Britain and in northern France recall the kuda-kallu, and all the European megalithic production would deserve a careful ethnomicological study. In confirmation of this, it is sufficient to observe some rock-engravings on two of the gigantic monoliths forming the famous megalithic ceremonial site of Stonhenge, in Great Britain. These engravings depict images going back to the same figurative motif, interpreted by archeologists as the symbol of the sacrificial axe, an implement really found among the objects which furnished the megalithic burials. Nevertheless, the outlines of the axes engraved on the Stonhenge monoliths look anomalous in comparison with those of the axe usually represented on the other types of monuments of the same megalithic culture. The dissimilarity of the shape of the Stonehenge "axes" would seem peculiar to this archeological site, and it is such as to lead to ethnomicological interpretations and hypotheses.
As discussed by Gilberto Camilla and myself in a recent article on Greek art, «in the interpretation of known and repeated symbols depicted on archeological "documents", too often do scholars base themselves on generally accepted interpretations, perhaps not to hurt the feelings of who, sometimes more than one hundred years before, set a first reading, or maybe because of intepretation slothfulness and routine» (Samorini & Camilla, 1995). This could have happened, in addition to the study of Greek Art, also in the interpretation of Stonehenge rock-engravings and of the Kerala kuda-kallu, in the same way in which it happened in the interpretation of the Maya "mushroom-stones" in Guatemala, obstinately interpreted as phallic symbols or potterâs molds for decades (Lowy, 1975 and 1981).
<b>Without discussing the merit of the question concerning the origin or not of the southern Indian megalithic culture from the European one, the fact remains that the hypothesis of a knowledge and of a cult of psychoactive mushrooms among the Euro-Asiatic megalithic cultures should not discarded a priori. The kuda-kallu would advise against doing so</b>.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<img src='http://img68.imageshack.us/img68/3364/kudakallu26fo.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
here is an interesting essay by giorgio samorini linking the european megalithic culture with the indian one based on an assumption that these mushroom shapes connoted to a practice of revering psychoactive mushrooms among both people.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Some dolmen built in Great Britain and in northern France recall the kuda-kallu, and all the European megalithic production would deserve a careful ethnomicological study. In confirmation of this, it is sufficient to observe some rock-engravings on two of the gigantic monoliths forming the famous megalithic ceremonial site of Stonhenge, in Great Britain. These engravings depict images going back to the same figurative motif, interpreted by archeologists as the symbol of the sacrificial axe, an implement really found among the objects which furnished the megalithic burials. Nevertheless, the outlines of the axes engraved on the Stonhenge monoliths look anomalous in comparison with those of the axe usually represented on the other types of monuments of the same megalithic culture. The dissimilarity of the shape of the Stonehenge "axes" would seem peculiar to this archeological site, and it is such as to lead to ethnomicological interpretations and hypotheses.
As discussed by Gilberto Camilla and myself in a recent article on Greek art, «in the interpretation of known and repeated symbols depicted on archeological "documents", too often do scholars base themselves on generally accepted interpretations, perhaps not to hurt the feelings of who, sometimes more than one hundred years before, set a first reading, or maybe because of intepretation slothfulness and routine» (Samorini & Camilla, 1995). This could have happened, in addition to the study of Greek Art, also in the interpretation of Stonehenge rock-engravings and of the Kerala kuda-kallu, in the same way in which it happened in the interpretation of the Maya "mushroom-stones" in Guatemala, obstinately interpreted as phallic symbols or potterâs molds for decades (Lowy, 1975 and 1981).
<b>Without discussing the merit of the question concerning the origin or not of the southern Indian megalithic culture from the European one, the fact remains that the hypothesis of a knowledge and of a cult of psychoactive mushrooms among the Euro-Asiatic megalithic cultures should not discarded a priori. The kuda-kallu would advise against doing so</b>.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->