Spelunking in the Neanderthal

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Spelunking in the Neandertal cave

Got you there, didn’t I? Now reach for your dictionaries and find out the meaning of ‘spelunking’. I have killed two birds with one stone. I have used the word ‘Spelunking’, which very few people would know the meaning of and so created an impression of myself as an erudite person, and I also have given the impression that we are great explorers and indulge in extreme sports like white-water-rafting, or scuba diving or mountaineering.

And, I could do so with impunity without compromising the Truth. That is because the Feldhof cave a.k.a. Neanderthal cave does not exist anymore. Limestone quarrying has totally demolished the cave and now, there is only open ground in its place.

The classical literature is full of such half-truths. When Homer describes Helen’s as a “face that launched a thousand ships” he does not specify the size of these ‘ships’. They were probably just skiffs or dugout canoes (pressed into service from reluctant fishermen by Agamemnon, no doubt). This conjecture of mine gets further corroborated when he tells us that the Greek army hid in the wooden horse, which was taken inside the besieged city of Troy. After all, how many men CAN hide in a wooden horse?

This means that my blogs are, potentially, the Classical Literature of the future.

Our ‘spelunking’ started when a friend of ours phoned to inform us that he will be in Cologne on official business and would visit us in Dusseldorf over the weekend.

“Shridhar uncle is visiting us this Saturday. Where shall we take him?” Bunny asked.

“We can go shopping for fresh vegetables in Netherlands or we can go to Neandertal and see the Neanderthal museum.” Ingo suggested.

“‘Yabba Dabba Doo’!! Neanderthal it is.” We chorused in unison.

The vegetables could wait.

The drive to Neanderthal was very pleasant, and so we did not at all mind the delay because Ingo missed a turn and we had to drive around a bit and ask for directions.
The river Dussel flows through a very picturesque valley, but is so small, that when I wanted to see the “confluence” of Dussel and Rhine, Ingo laughed.

I am giving below some links, which will give full information about the Neanderthal man, Neanderthal valley and Neanderthal museum.

http://www.neanderthal.de/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal

I have seen huge museums like Louvre, British Museum, the Smithsonian, the Metropolitan and Chicago’s museums, what I call ‘general purpose’ museums. However, the ‘specialty museums’ are more to my liking, even though they are huge like the Cairo museum. The Neanderthal museum or the Viking museum in Oslo, or the Kon-Tiki museum are devoted to a single theme and thus can give you more in-depth information on that particular theme.

Shridhar, who has a technical bent of mind, was highly intrigued by the audio tape system. We walked about the museum with our audio tapes in our hands and plugged them in any hole in the railing demarcating the exhibit. The commentary would start from the beginning for that particular exhibit and was in two languages, and he just could not figure out how it was done.

Have you ever wondered just WHY we do not find bones or sculls of Paleolithic or Neolithic men in India? Have we always cremated our dead?

The models of the Neanderthal men and women were fair in coloring, but the physiognomy did not go with it. I suppose they were shown as ‘white’ men just because Neanderthal is situated in Europe. However, their broad noses argued for Negroid origin while their short, stocky build suggested Mongoloid race.

I suppose, from a skeleton, you can have a general idea of the person or animal, but it is really not possible to tell their skin-color. The same holds good for Egyptian mummies and dinosaurs. Nobody can authoritatively state what their color was.

There is a movement in Germany to simplify their spellings (orthography) and this group of experts was instrumental in deciding that the spelling ‘Neandertal’ is acceptable. I wish this group more power. May I also humbly suggest the three letters ‘sch’ should be replaced by a single letter? All the German books will be reduced to half their sizes if this is implemented, thus leading to a lot of savings in paper, ink, trees, oxygen etc.

Just imagine how much simpler it would be to write “Deus bank” instead of “Deutsche bank”. By the way, the word “deutsche” directly translates into Sanskrit as ‘Deuscha’ meaning God’s. I fact, this word has as many avatars as the God himself - Deo, Diu, Deuce, Zeus, Dev, Dewa, Theba, Teo,Yehweh, Daewoo, Jehova --- you name it.

Thus, then did we celebrate our visit to Neandertal.

OK, OK, don’t scream. I know this is quite an abrupt ending to a great piece of writing, but I am emulating Homer. His ‘Illiad’ ends abruptly in this sentence:

“Thus, then did they celebrate the funeral of Hector tamer of horses.”

You feel like shaking Homer and asking him ‘Hey! What about the ‘Death of Achilles? What about the Trojan Horse? Don’t you know anything about what happened after the Death of Hector?’
Gentle Reader, did you know that, that story is part of Aeneid by Virgil, not of Illiad by Homer?

Homer was a master story-teller, a master of lyric poetry, a master of epic-writing, a master of many things.

He was also a master of abrupt endings.

Now, if you feel like shaking me and asking ‘Hey! What happened to the Neanderthal? Where did he go?’ Gentle readers, please follow the links I have provided. Homer did not have this facility, but I do.

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