Human history / by G. Elliot Smith.

  • Grafton Elliot Smith
Date:
1934
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Human history / by G. Elliot Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    476/520 (page 470)
    above, with the legs splayed out at either side; their snouts are long and thin, their mouths gape widely, their chins a a bearded; large horns rise from their brows; they have long tails, and appear to be provided with rudimentary wings. In their twisted bodies and the form of their snouts they are reminiscent of Minoan animals, which suggests the interesting possibility of the deriva¬ tion of the Chinese art-type of dragon from Crete! Borovka suggests ‘the Iranian horned lion-griffin and the Scytho-Siberian “bear,” probably not without the collaboration of Greek in¬ fluences,’ as sources for this Siberian type. Of the Han Period Borovka writes: ‘As far as we can judge at present, such indebtedness to Siberia can be detected in nearly all Chinese bronzes of this age, and also on other artistic products, such as nephrite articles.’ Borovka suggests that elements of the Scythian culture persisted in mediaeval Russia, and were brought into Central and Western Europe by the Goths and Slavs, who came from or passed through the ancient ‘Scythian’ lands and ‘became a weighty element in the rise of West European civilization in the early Middle Ages/ Buddhism Attention has been directed to the widespread and intimate relationships between the Hellenic world and the heart of Asia to prepare us for the consideration of an event which was destined to influence the lives of innumerable millions of human beings and profoundly affect the course of Human History. Within fifteen years of the death of Thales in Ionia - exact figures are lacking: there may even have been an overlap - there was born to the ruler of the Sakyas at the town of Kapila-vastu, ioo miles north-east of Benares, in India, a boy to whom the name Gautama was given (Fig. 64). When he reached man’s estate and, like Thales, adopted a rationalistic attitude, he received the name Buddha, ‘The Enlightened One.’ To-day, twenty-four centuries after his death, nearly one-third of the population of the world enroll themselves as his followers. When we consider the manifold ways in which information