PckMan t1_j0q0f8n wrote on December 18, 2022 at 3:52 PM

A great example is the japanese god of wind Fujin. Fujin is always depicted holding a bag which holds the winds slung across his back. This is very similar to how the Greek god of wind, Boreas, was depicted, and it is not a coincidence.

As per the wikipedia article

>The iconography of Fūjin seems to have its origin in the cultural exchanges along the Silk Road. Starting with the Hellenistic period when Greece occupied parts of Central Asia and India, the Greek wind god Boreas became the god Wardo/Oado in Bactrian Greco-Buddhist art, then a wind deity in China (as seen frescoes of the Tarim Basin; usually named Feng Bo/Feng Po - "Uncle Wind" - among various other names), and finally the Japanese Wind God Fūjin. The wind god kept its symbol, the windbag, and its disheveled appearance throughout this evolution.

Basically this god travelled through all of Asia and was adopted by multiple civilisations reaching as far east as Japan. Looking up the iconography from any one of those civilisations and the similarities are obvious.

Another fun little tidbit I like, but which is not exactly related with religion but does pertain to cultural exchange due to Ancient Greek conquests of Asia, the Nepalese Kukri knives which are very well known symbols of Nepal and hold much cultural significance are most likely descended by the ancient greek Kopis sword which probably made its way there through Alexander the Great.

TheNotSoGrim t1_j0rrg2u wrote on December 18, 2022 at 10:42 PM

Further proof that if you make something really cool people will adopt it anywhere. True for even thousands of years ago I guess.

PckMan t1_j0un1c9 wrote on December 19, 2022 at 3:32 PM

The ancient world really did rely heavily on exchange of knowledge. Very few people travelled and fewer still had the ability to effectively pass on knowledge. You can actually very easily correlate the technological and general knowledge level of populations to their proximity to major trade routes. It also shows when populations which were isolated how much their growth and development differed, but it also makes their own discoveries that much more impressive. For example the Polynesian peoples who travelled the pacific may seem primitive even compared to their contemporary civilisations, and especially as time moved on that they didn't progress at the same rate. However when you think about the fact that they lived on small islands with limited resources, and all they developed they did so in isolation, their feats are remarkable, especially in navigation and shipbuilding. They sailed the open ocean, and the Pacific at that which is a very challenging ocean to sail, and managed to find tiny islands in its vast expanse to colonise, something that would have been a challenge to many other great maritime civilisations for centuries to come. To this day most sailing vessels use construction techniques those people originally came up with.