2016
Note: This article has been published on Esamskriti.

In the Hindu legend of the Churning of the Milky Ocean, the gods and the demons churned the Milky Ocean in order to acquire the Nectar of Immortality. In this grand spectacle, Vishnu, the preserver of the cosmic order, had taken the form of a massive tortoise (Kurma Avatar) in the middle of the Milky Ocean. His humped shell acted as a pivot for Mount Mandara or Mount Meru, which served as the churning stick, while the serpent Vasuki was the cord for the churn.
The Olmec Heads 

A long-standing enigma surrounding the Olmec civilization is the significance of the colossal stone heads found at the Olmec sites. Till date, 17 monumental stone heads have been recovered; 16 from the Olmec ceremonial centers at San Lorenzo, La Venta, and Tres Zapotes, and a solitary one - the La Cobata head - which is also the largest, from a mountain pass in Sierra de los Tuxtlas. The La Cobata head weights nearly 40 tons while the smallest one is close to 6 tons.
Note: This article has been published on Graham Hancock's website.

The Olmec Yogis 

A few years back, in course of a long trip through Mexico, I had visited the La Venta Museum in Villahermosa. The open-air museum has an enticing collection of Olmec sculpture, including three colossal Olmec stone heads. The artifacts had been moved here from the Olmec settlement of La Venta in western Tabasco when petroleum exploration in La Venta threatened the safety of these rare archaeological specimens.
In the Mahabharata, Draupadi has been portrayed as a dutiful, benign, wife to the Pandava brothers. Although she plays an extremely important role in the epic – after all, it was her humiliating disrobing that had set the ball rolling for an eventual conflict in the battlefields of Kurukshetra – she was dependant on the Pandavas for protection, and looked upon Krishna as her confidant and guide.
Note: This article has been published on Esamskriti.

A cylinder seal discovered at the Indus Valley site of Kalibangan (K-65) has a complex narrative. It shows
a goddess figure wearing a horned headdress, having the hind part of a tiger. She is wearing a long head-scarf, and both her hands are covered with bangles. On either side of her, two men are trying to spear each other. They are holding the hands of a lady who is wearing a long head-scarf, bangles in one arm, and a long skirt.
The Pashupati Seal 
 
The famous Pashupati seal (Mohenjo-Daro Seal No.420) shows a figure with three faces, seated on a throne in a yogic posture. He is wearing a horned head-dress with a cluster of feathers or leafy branches in the center. His body is adorned with many necklaces, and his arms are covered with bangles. He is surrounded by four wild animals – elephant, rhinoceros, tiger and water buffalo. Below his throne are a pair of ibexes.
Note: This article has been published on heritageonline.in

The Gond tribes of Central India have been in the news lately because of their linguistic connections to the Indus Valley civilization.

According to Gondi scholar Dr.Motiravan Kangale, the letters of the Gondi script, which can be found inscribed in the interiors of the Gotuls (youth dormitories) in the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh, resemble the Indus script - in particular, the Late Harappan style of writing. He provided a number of decipherments of the Indus seal inscriptions using the root morphemes of the proto-Dravidian Gondi language.