Talk:Meluhha

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Afro-Uralic[edit]

Google for "Afro-Uralic" and "Bernard Sergant" reveals approx. 4 sources, all of which are copies of this text. "Bernard Sergent" and "Afro-Dravidian" have better (but still scarce) results, so I am changing them accordingly, although I'm not precisely sure what the term means. --April Arcus 23:45, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I wrote this article about a year ago, so I don't actually remember what my references were. I'm going to go back and check. I *think* I may know where I got them. AreJay 00:17, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I don't want to censor the Afro stuff, but surely this is fringe science? Bernard Sergent seems to be notable for his books about historical homosexuality, but that hardly makes him a "renowned" expert on Dravidian linguistics and early migrations. Some toning-down and putting-in-perspective may be needed here. dab (ᛏ) 08:32, 14 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
it is quite fringy. I've cut it down and present it as Sergent's idiosyncratic view. I think it can stand like this, and I have removed the "disputed" tag. dab (ᛏ) 08:44, 14 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I am currently writing my dissertation on the Kushites in New Kingdom Egypt and came across the term Meluhha in the Amarna Letters. In Moran (1992) p139, it is suggested that Meluhha could probably be identified as Kush. Also in Amarna Letter EA 133, it says "[Sen]d me 10 [men from Meluh]ha: Ka[si that I may gua]rd" (as translated by Moran (1992) p215). As Kasi is the term for Kush, it would appear that Meluhha and Kush are the same. - Pim Aelbers, 12 March 2006
Wow, if that is substantiated, some parts of this article will definitely have to be revised, like the statement in there that no documents refer to Meluhha between 1700 and 668 BC... The main question I have is, do those parts you have in [brackets] represent lacunae that someone has hypothetically reconstructed, or what? Cheers, ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 03:09, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
interesting indeed, we need to make note of this. But, as Codex points out, [Meluh]ha does hardly equal Meluhha in terms of incontrovertibility :) dab (ᛏ) 09:12, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I did not check this page for some time. I am currently away from home so can't check the book by Moran for another week at least. I'll try to remember as soon as I get back. If my memory serves me right, in the specific letter I quoted, the [brackets] represent lacunae, but I think there are also letters where there are no or much smaller lacunae. These cases, however, do not also mention Kasi/Kush, but they still negate the comment that there is no mnetion of Meluhha between 1700 and 668 BC. Anyway, I'll check and report back as soon as I can get my hands on the book. - Pim Aelbers 5 April 2006
I just spotted this: "[...] suggesting that Meluhha first referred to Ethiopia, and later to the Indus Valley. It is important to note that from the third millennium BC onwards, Ethiopia itself was never referred to as Meluhha, but as Kush." The link between Ethiopia and Kush is often disputed. It was a translation of Kush that was used until the 1950s, but since it has become accepted that Kush refers to an area in southern Egypt and the Sudan. I think this needs amending - PK 17 Feb 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.240.220.164 (talk) 23:05, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Meluhha-Malaku question[edit]

Question: Could "the Moluccas", that is, "Maluku", be derived from Meluhha? Maybe because Meluhhan settlers to Maluku named it that just as English settlers gave North American places English names. Or because Meluhha means port. These two possible reasons blend together, I know. Could Meluhhans also have settled Kush and Kush then was sometimes called Meluhha? Richard L. Peterson 4/17/06

"Maluku" does seem phonetically very similar, but I have a feeling that "Meluhha" has a higher likelihood of being related more closely to ethnonyms and toponyms such as Brahui and Baluchistan, which are both obvious candidates for relics of the defunct Indus Valley civilization. It is especially interesting to me that the */-lah-/ vs. */-luh-/ variation that has been noted by Sumerologists can be found in various modern renditions of the Brahui/Baloch/Baluch name. Of course, all these names are also similar to "Maluku," as you mentioned, as well as to Sanskrit mleccha (barbarian) and Germanic Walha (used to refer to foreign peoples, often those that were under control of the Roman Empire, such as the Welsh of Britain or the Vlachs of Eastern Europe, but it is supposed to be derived from the name of the Volcae).
As for the genetic side of things, it appears that most of the "older" (Paleolithic?) populations of the Malay Archipelago, New Guinea, and Melanesia belonged to Haplogroup K5, Haplogroup K1, Haplogroup M, or Haplogroup C2. The present-day inhabitants of Maluku (the Moluccas) appear to share a great deal of genetic heritage with the Papuan peoples directly to their east, as the Y-chromosomes of a great percentage of the males of populations of both Maluku and Papua New Guinea fall into the aforementioned haplogroups (excluding Haplogroup K1, which appears to be limited to Fiji and the Solomon Islands in eastern Melanesia). All these "Paleolithic Melanesian" haplogroups are peculiar to populations of East Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Melanesia, and Oceanic Austronesia (i.e., Micronesia and Polynesia), and they have apparently not been detected among any populations of continental Eurasia nor among any indigenous populations of Australia. This uniqueness of the Y-chromosomal complement of Papua-Melanesian-like populations seems to exclude any possibility of their being descended primarily from recent immigrants, and it seems more likely that most of the ancestors of these peoples have been resident in the region of the Malay Archipelago for tens of thousands of years, perhaps as many as 40,000 years. There is, however, a clearly intrusive, recently introduced element in the genetic heritage of many peoples of this region, and this is reflected also in the spread of languages belonging to the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family. The Y-chromosome haplogroups associated with these Malayo-Polynesian-speaking colonists include Haplogroup O1, Haplogroup O2a, Haplogroup O3, and Haplogroup C*. Haplogroup R1b, Haplogroup G, Haplogroup C3, Haplogroup N, and Haplogroup D1 have also been found among modern speakers of Malayo-Polynesian languages, but it is not clear whether the minor presence of these haplogroups in the region is due solely to recent and historical (i.e., post-Neolithic Asian and colonial European) admixture from continental Eurasia. The high frequency of Haplogroup O2a in some parts of Indonesia may represent an earlier Neolithic influence (proto-Nicobarese? proto-Mon-Khmer? proto-Vietnamese?) from India or Southeast Asia, as this haplogroup is rather typical of Austro-Asiatic populations of mainland South and Southeast Asia, and its distribution is somewhat different from the distributions of Haplogroup O1 and Haplogroup O3, which are much more typical of Austronesian people and East Asians in general.
So, in short, for "Maluku" to have any sort of connection with "Meluhha," it would be necessary for it to have been applied to the island group by one of the populations of Neolithic settlers, either the Malayo-Polynesians or a hypothetical seafaring Austro-Asiatic population. It seems to me that this would only be possible if "Maluku," like Sanskrit "mleccha," had become a synonym for "barbarians" in the language of one of these invading Neolithic populations, and was applied to a region that had a high density of indigenous Papuan-like peoples. Ebizur 06:07, 10 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Ebizur, thankyou so much for the thoughtful and fascinating reply!Rich 06:22, 10 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I go back on forth on whether the following is silly:Could "Malay" itself be derived from Meluhha?

Does anyone know, or have an opinion?130.86.14.90 05:59, 23 May 2007 (UTC)-Rich Peterson[reply]

Transferred from help desk:question about possible connections between Meluhha, Moluccas (and maybe other words

like Malay, latin mal, Moloch, etc?)130.86.14.9 (talk) 06:23, 3 November 2008 (UTC)Hi, I moved my question and Ebizur's response from the Meluhha talk page. It is interesting to me that Ebizur seems to be suggesting that the M in Meluhha might have changed to a B in words like Baluchistan. If M did change to B in some daughter words, could that have given rise to "Bel" words like Baal and Beelzebub? Or maybe the B pronuncuiation is the original (something like Beluhha) and it was pronounced M by Sumer but B by The Meluhhans themselves?(That may even be what Ebizur had in mind, for all I know) Thanks in advance for any responses and also for Ebizur's thoughtful response.--Rich Peterson130.86.14.9 (talk) 06:24, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

These are interesting speculations, but we would have to attribute them to published sources in order to mention them in an article. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 13:24, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
yes, perhaps i went against talk page guidelines by posting them here.--Rich Peterson130.86.14.35 (talk) 22:57, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Magan[edit]

The statement that Magan is usually identified with Egypt is contradicted by Magan, which prefers Oman. Orcoteuthis (talk) 10:25, 14 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't. It was one, then the other, as mentioned. -LlywelynII (talk) 16:07, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a "Make up your mind" template?[edit]

This is particularly awful:

Meluhha, however, is hotly debated. Currently (2010) the mainstream scholars of this period in history confidently identify Meluhha with the Harappan Civilization.

It's one or the other and can't be both. Will remove obvious "currently (2010)" ... "of this period in history" silliness ("Today, scholars" works just fine), but I'll have to leave the main contradiction since I don't know which of the two opposing views is more accurate or whether one should be discarded or merely modified (Something like "Meluhha's identity was hotly debated" e.g.). -LlywelynII (talk) 16:07, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Another problem: article gives two different words, then says the Dravidian word is "the exact same." (And the claim seems specious anyway, as there are various Dravidian languages whose vocabulary presumably differs.) -LlywelynII (talk) 16:19, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And what's going on here? "Magan is usually identified with Oman. This identification, however, is Assyrian; the Sumerian localization of Magan was probably Oman." 130.195.124.56 (talk) 01:48, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Meluhha has been identified, in the textual record, by Ashurbanipal. His ID of Meluhha is the ONLY textual evidence giving it a reasonably precise location, in Egypt. Its quite astonishing that because it happens to drive a chariot through invented theories from academics of where they would like it to be, and they cant handle the truth. When the facts change, one should change their mind. There is no evidence it is in Indus valley. It was just a theory, and proven wrong. The academics continuing to reject the textual record are responsible for mythologizing, creating fake history, and bringing Assyriology in disrepute.

One can hardly criticise the Old testmanet for being very short of facts when we have modern academics creating myths of their own. How pathetic. Coldcall (talk) 13:27, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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Austro-Asiatic arrived in India before Dravidian?[edit]

McIntosh's claim is at best controversial, it shouldn't be stated as a claim. Helenuh (talk) 09:51, 27 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the claim because it has no bearing on the topic of this article. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 10:46, 27 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Captions[edit]

@पाटलिपुत्र: Why did you move the line Flat-bottomed river row-boats appear in two Indus seals, but their seaworthiness is debatable back to the other caption? I don't see anything about that line which is specific to only that image and not applicable to the other; moving it to the other makes the captions more even and keeps the context nearby. If anything, that line is more appropriate to the first image since it actually depicts rowers. – Scyrme (talk) 14:43, 3 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Scyrme! Actually, that line is totally specific to the second seal (which is an Indus seal). The first photograph, on the contrary, is a Mesopotamian bas-relief, so, obviously, the "Indus seal" caption is inadequate there... The price to pay is indeed a bigger caption on the right. Best पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 14:58, 3 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@पाटलिपुत्र: My mistake. The captions could be made more balanced by elaborating on the first by discussing its relevance, perhaps citing someone who makes a comparison between the boating technologies of these cultures. It would make things a bit clearer. – Scyrme (talk) 16:54, 3 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

indus civilization were not mlecchas[edit]

It is just a so-called theory that Meluha people belonged to the Indus civilization, there is no solid evidence for this, and anyway, Shunga dynasty has called Mlechha to Yavanas. and indus civilisation is considered to be a better well mannered civilization , it is nonsense to call it them Mlecha. And the word Dravid itself is derived from dravin, the son of King Prithu and from Prithu itself the Sanskrit word Prithvi(earth) has come, in Hinduism Rama Krishna is a dark skinned deity who has been called Arya. 103.206.177.49 (talk) 12:19, 9 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Indus Civilization was a civilized civilization, before Max Muller of yesterday the Europeans themselves did not know who they are who today call themselves Aryans.[edit]

There is no similarity between Mlech and Meluha, such words are slightly similar to each other, but it does not mean that they are similar! In some places some words of Europeans are abusive and in some places the same word is an indicator of respect! And the Sumerian people themselves were not of white race before, whereas even today the people there meet less than Europeans! indus civilization was a well developed civilization there jewelery factory to swastika everything found by archaelogist which related to so called aryan race ! 103.206.177.82 (talk) 09:50, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Horrible article[edit]

Will take a stab at improvement. Not-so-recent discourse. TrangaBellam (talk) 13:10, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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