Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Zhang Zhung, Revisited


This is a source of endless fascination to me -- I think it may well be that Tibetan Buddhist archaeology and the pre-Buddhist archaeology of the Zhang Zhung kingdom is really archaeology's last frontier. You can get a brief introduction via John Bellezza's site: he is one of the very few working in this area, and deserves to be better known.

For some reason, I am endlessly drawn to the Scythian and Sogdian influences on early Tibet. I should have been an archaeologist (o.k., "cultural resource manager") -- even though my career might be in ruins, I could still dig my work (!) And you know what they say: archaeologists will date anything (!) Archaeology rocks (!) Is that enough archaeology jokes?

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