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Re: orion Possible Chinese - Jewish contact in 105BCE (some say 115BCE)
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> Now behave yourselves, for I am including the following quote from Pliny
> just in the spirit of fun. He describes the Chinese as follows: "as
> surpassing the ordinary stature of mankind, as having red hair, blue eyes,
> hoarse voices, and no common language to communicate by." I don’t know who
> Pliny’s source was for that, but it does not strike me as a first, second
> or even third hand observation.
>
> David West
> Tulsa Oklahoma
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Just to defend Pliny a little bit. One of the first battles in China of
the Hun invasion of 160 BC, near the end of the Great Wall, involved a
people of white skin called the Yueh-chi{Indo-Scythians}.
But Pliny´s description is more kin to that of the Wu-sun. These
battles with these "European" peoples marked the end of the European
migrations into Asia that had been going on since prehistoric times and
the begining of the Asian migrations west. This is where the babarians
came from that destroyed Rome. (A History of Christianity in Asia by S. H.
Moffit p. 19) There were also groups called the Saka.
Remember that not everyone back then who came from China looked like the
Chinese of today. These peoples may have been believed to represent what
the Chinese looked like since they did come from the China region and were
on the move back West around Pliny´s day. We too often assume that the
geo-political realities of today reflect those of then. I see many of
these types mistakes in many of the dicussions in this forum. But we
cannot help but make these mistakes, So why must our standards be so high
for poor Pliny?
Harrison