Continuing Mis-Identification of the Altai Culture

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Sorry nothing to do with Issedones but on their neighbours the Seres but without reading the paper identifying Cherala as Serica I have doubts about India being the home of the Seres rather than China. Firstly the word Seres which seemed to have something to do with silk growing and “Seraculture” and even if the Chinese would not name themselves after an occupation maybe the Greeks would. Eventually silk production spread to India via Tibet but not until about 140AD. A lot of the Roman geographers mentioned the Seres long before that.

Pomponius Mela the Roman geographer mentioned the Seres in mid 1st century when he wrote “In the furthest east of Asia are the Indians, Seres, and Scythians. The Indians and Scythians occupy the two extremities, the Seres are in the middle''.


A lot of the problem with some identifying India as Serica lies with Pliny the Elder who mentioned the Cheras who seemed to be a ruling Tamil dynasty who carved out a kingdom which was located on the west coast of India who sent an embassy to Claudius and described the Seres as living beyond the Emodi Montes or Himalayas. They gave a physical description of the Seres to Claudius as they knew them from sight as they traded with them often. They described them as tall with blue eyes, red hair and harsh voices. ( Were these men Wusun or Yueh-chih both people were renowned traders although Pliny does mention Tocharians elsewhere so he would have mentioned them as Tocharians if these Seres were Yueh Chih? The Wusun seemed to be China most westerly allies.) So were these Seres who traded with the Cheras
Indo-Europeans who traded with or worked for or even lived under the rule of the Chinese emperor and traded via India which then shipped goods to the Romans by sea to Egypt as the Parthians and the Sassanids after them over many years blocked land trade with Rome. :-) :-)

Michael the Greeks and Romans imported their silk from India via trade and the Indians got it from China. They did it to bypass having to go through a second middleman (Persia) and called the Indians the Seres because they though the silk came from there.

The paper is on Academia somewhere, I'm trying to find it.