Maize In Ancient India
Conventional wisdom is clear on two accounts:
1. Maize originated in the New World.
2. There were no cultural, maizebearing contacts between the New and
Old Worlds in the lengthy period between the (hypothetical) dash across
the Bering Land Bridge circa the waning of the (hypothetical) Ice Ages
and the (hypothetical) Viking incursions into North American waters.
But C.L. Johannessen is certain that the ancient Indians (that is those
in India) were enjoying corn-on-the-cob at least as early as the Twelfth
Century BC. He writes:
"Goddesses and gods in sculpted soapstone friezes in Hoysala temples of
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries BC near Mysore, India, hold in
their hands representations of maize ears. There are more than 63 of
these large ears at Somnanthpur, and maize is represented at three other
temples I have visited.
"In the Hoysala tradition, worshippers must have used maize as a
golden-coloured and many-seeded fertility symbol in their religious
rites. That the ears are modelled on maize is shown by the ear
length-todiameter ratio, the ear sizes in relation to parts of the human
figures, and the wide variation of anatomical detail in the carvings
that all belong to maize: the ears have either parallel, highly tapered
or bulging sides, their tips are pointed, and their axes may be straight
or warped, depending on the moisture at the time of picking and the way
maize dries.
...No other plant or object has the extensive intricacy and variation of
highly segregated maize that could serve as a model for the sculptures.
No other fruits have the same number and shape of the closely packed
kernels that are arranged in parallel rows in the sculptures."
~ Johannessen, Carl L.; "Indian Maize in the Twelfth Century BC,"
Nature, 332:587, 1988. Ct. R. Noyes.
http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf058/sf058a01.htm
