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Post by Temüjin on Mar 15, 2010 23:12:15 GMT 3
lately, i've found out by coincidence some interesting things.
firstly, until now, the accepted translation of Markomanni was from germanic "bordermen". however i found out that in celtic, Markomanni can be translated as "horsemen". of course there's no reason to accept either one, and the former is more readily accepted because they're considdered a Germanic people. however in the Markomanni Wars, they were actually allies of Sarmatian tribes, which is intriguing. secondly, the commonly accepted notion is that Alemani are to be translated as "all men" in German, meaning either a confederacy or people of various backgrounds. in Celtic again, however, Alemani can be translated as "wild men", a name that makes more sense (in my opinion) than the suppsedly self-designation of "all men". because both the Alemani and Markomani were inhabiting previously Celtic lands, and earliest cartographers and historians would have gotten names for "new" people first from their neighbours with whom they already have had contact. both tribes are grouped under the bigger Suevi tribe, but many tribes did call themselves like that without any certainty if they ever really belonged to them. for example the famous 'swabian knot' hairdress was also worn by other germanic tribes that did not identify themselves as Suevi, neither by ALL Suevi either. therefore there is some room for speculation, because both the Markomanni and Alemanni also belong to the earliest Germanic tribes encoutnered by the Romans. indeed even the Cimbri and Teutones themselves, have been put under question if they were even Germanic at all. certainly the transition in central europe from Celtic to Germanic people was quite fluent and nothing is really definite (similar to the replacement of Iranic by Turkic Steppe peoples in Central Asia).
then, i discovered by coincidence a book by a German journalist, claiming that Chlodwig/Clovis, first king of the Franks, as well as the Saxon leader Widukind were actually Sarmatians. i haven't read the book and i would usually dismiss this thing (Cyrus already brought up claims that Saxons are in fact Scythians/Sakas), but maybe there's actually more to it. from what i understood by reading the index, he doesn't exactly claim that Saxons were Scythians/Saka, but that they had a Sarmatian ruling elite. as examples he brings up that Polish nobles claim Sarmat ancestry and the probable Iranian origin of Serbo-croats. if we look at the Bulgarian example, its is very well possible that the name of a Steppe people can be carried on, even though the original people have been assimilated into their subjects. so maybe the Saxons, even though beign Germanic people, had a Sarmatian nobility. the commonly accepted explanation that their self-designation relates to their knives, is in my opinion unconvincing as well. the name of the Franks is sometimes erroneously related to their throwing axes, but in fact Franks means "the Free", which makes perfect sense. however why would the Saxons call themselves after a kind of knife? or maybe it was vice versa? the knife being names after the people? also, two more or less famous Saxon leaders, at least to England, were named Hengest and Horsa, both names have strong connections to horses (Hengest means male horse in german). horses didn't really played a major role in the germanic society, so is it another hint of a supposed Steppe connection?
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Post by sarmat on Mar 16, 2010 1:13:34 GMT 3
I believe all of this makes perfect sense. In fact, there are a lot of materials regarding Sarmatian heritage in Europe, particularly, among Germanic tribes that just needs to be studied thoroughly. I, actually, believe that many early scholars also could have come to similar conclusions. Regarding the importance of horse in culture of Germanic people. It really depends. We know that horses played enormous role in Gothic and Gepid cultures and that was inherited from Sarmatians.
I, actually, once read a crazy article by one Kazakh "scholar" who tried to prove that European culture is a product of "Hunno-Germanic" elite and that there are a lot of Germans who actually are of Hun descent etc. I already forgot all his arguments, but it was a very entertaining reading. ;D
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Post by H. İhsan Erkoç on Mar 16, 2010 11:57:20 GMT 3
Interesting, Björn Why not? Similar theories and claims exist in Turkey as well
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Post by Temüjin on Mar 16, 2010 18:23:27 GMT 3
i've ordered the book because i was curious, i hope it'll be anything scientific and not too much speculation. from what i gather so far the main premise is that the Merowingians were a dynasty of Sarmatian origin, because ven after the establishemnt of the Kingdom of Franks, they were refered to as Sugambri, which in the opinion of the author were Sarmatians. he also claims, and this is almost revolutionary, that the Turcilingi were in fact Turkic people and lived in the middel fo Germany, on fact that Trier was one of their cities (which really isn't so though). but those Turcilingi are interesting anyways. odocaer's title included King of Turcilings. they were also said to have been part of the Huns at Châlons. and then the name Hunulf (brother of odaker), leader of the Skiri, Hunulf = germanic for Hun wolf? German wiki says he was supposedly of a "Turcilingi royal dynasty". also Edekon, father of odoacer and Hunulf, doesn't sound so German at all. in summary, it is supposedly the same situation as with early medieval Rus and their varangian rulers, just that the germanic tribes were ruled by Sarmatian rulers. this would also explain why many germanic tribes readily joined the Huns when they appeared. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turcilingien.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sciriithere's good evidence to suggest that the Scirii were not Germanic at all.
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Post by H. İhsan Erkoç on Mar 17, 2010 13:40:25 GMT 3
Very interesting indeed The best known Gokturk creation myth tells us that the ancestors of the Gokturks came from the west. Denis Sinor has thought that perhaps some of the ancestors of Gokturks were living in the Pontic-Caspian Steppe before the 5th century.
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Post by ALTAR on Mar 18, 2010 2:37:26 GMT 3
I knew that Ostrogoths & Gepids had been heavily influenced by Huns as Germanic People. Is that true? Do we have some evidences for this statement too?
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Post by hjernespiser on Mar 18, 2010 7:16:06 GMT 3
Supposedly archaeologists have a hard time determining if objects from a grave are Gothic or Hun. The belief is that many objects determined to have been Gothic could actually have been Hun. I think I got this from the afterword in The Peoples of Europe: The Huns book.
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Post by hjernespiser on Mar 18, 2010 10:05:17 GMT 3
Very interesting indeed The best known Gokturk creation myth tells us that the ancestors of the Gokturks came from the west. Denis Sinor has thought that perhaps some of the ancestors of Gokturks were living in the Pontic-Caspian Steppe before the 5th century. What's this myth? Is it a myth of the royal house or of the common people?
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Post by H. İhsan Erkoç on Mar 18, 2010 12:31:04 GMT 3
It's actually the "official" myth recorded in Zhou-shu 周書 (50: 907-910), Bei-shi 北史 (99: 3285-3288), Sui-shu 隋書 (84: 1863), Tong-dian 通典 (197: 5402-5403) and Ce-fu Yuan-gui 冊府元龜 (956: 11251b-11252a; 961: 11310b-11311a). According to this myth, the ancestors of the Tu-jue 突厥 (Gokturks) lived near the "Western Sea" (which hasn't been clearly identified yet, but attempts have been made to identify it with the Caspian Sea, Aral Sea and Lake Etsin), but were attacked by a neighboring country and almost totally massacred until they left a baby, whom they cut his feet and arms and throw to a marsh. However, a she-wolf found the baby, took care of him and fed him. When the baby grew older, he had intercourse with the wolf; however, by this time, the neighboring ruler had learned that there was a survivor among the Gokturks, so he sent his soldiers to kill the boy. It's not recorded if the boy survived from this attack or not, but the wolf managed to escape eastwards to a huge cave near Gao-chang 高昌 (Turfan), where she gave birth to ten boys. These became the ancestors of the ten tribes of Gokturks, and the elder one's name was A-shi-na 阿史那. These boys got out of the cave, found ten girls to marry and returned back to the cave. After the Gokturks multiplied and became numerious, all of them got out of the cave and settled in the Altais as the subjects of the Rou-ran 柔染.
However, this is not the only myth of the Gokturks. There are some minor differences among the versions of the myth written above in the various Chinese sources, plus some other myths are recorded as well. The second myth relates the Gokturks with the Yenisei Qyrghyz and places their original land in the Yenisei Basin in southern Siberia. In this myth, there is again the motiff of several brothers becoming the ancestors of different Gokturk tribes, but only one of them (A-shi-na) is the descendent of a wolf, while others are not (some Chinese sources write that the Qyrghyz were different from the Gokturks because "they were not the descendents of wolves"). There is another Gokturk myth recorded in You-yang Za-zu 酉阳杂俎 but that myth belongs to only one of the Gokturk tribes and does not contain any wolf motiffs, but has different motiffs such as sea mermaid, deer and human sacrifice. Some Chinese chronicles, after describing the wolf-myths, place the ancestors of Gokturks at Gan-su 甘肅 and say that they were "Za Hu 雜胡" ("Mixed Foreigners"; Hu was used by the Chinese at that time for both the Soghdians and other western Iranians, and for various Turkic peoples living in Mongolia). Oh and, most of the Chinese sources say that the Gokturks "were a branch of the Xiong-nu 匈奴 (Asian Huns)".
All these different myths and stories show us that the Gokturks were originally not a homogenious people, but a union of tribes with different backgrounds and places of origins. Some of the ancestors of the Gokturks came from the west, some of them from the north (Siberia) while some of them were probably natives of Mongolia.
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Post by sarmat on Mar 18, 2010 15:33:39 GMT 3
I knew that Ostrogoths & Gepids had been heavily influenced by Huns as Germanic People. Is that true? Do we have some evidences for this statement too? There is evidence of course. Just consider what a huge role Attila and Huns play in Germanic and even Scandinavian mythology. Apparently Huns influenced the consciousness of Germanic people so much that the stories about Attila where retold in Iceland a millenium after his death. I, actually, don't know if there is any cultural memory about Huns in any other European peoples' tradition. Except only Hungarians, perhaps...
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Post by sarmat on Mar 18, 2010 15:36:31 GMT 3
It's actually the "official" myth recorded in Zhou-shu 周書 (50: 907-910), Bei-shi 北史 (99: 3285-3288), Sui-shu 隋書 (84: 1863), Tong-dian 通典 (197: 5402-5403) and Ce-fu Yuan-gui 冊府元龜 (956: 11251b-11252a; 961: 11310b-11311a). According to this myth, the ancestors of the Tu-jue 突厥 (Gokturks) lived near the "Western Sea" (which hasn't been clearly identified yet, but attempts have been made to identify it with the Caspian Sea, Aral Sea and Lake Etsin) Most likely it was indeed Lake Etsin, or may be Baikal or Balkhash. Aral Sea, is the less likely chance. But, the Black Sea just seems very unlikely too mee. Too remote...
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Post by Temüjin on Mar 18, 2010 19:38:15 GMT 3
the book also mentioned the Frankish exodus legend, saying the Franks originated from the Maeotian marches(!). the book also mentioned the already known supposed Iranic origin of Croats. this is interesting in a wider context, even though i found the coat-of-arms argument rather weak. anyways, about Hun-Goth relationship, it was perhaps mutual, seeign as Attila is a Gothic name. but still it get's even more complex. ruler names, ending with -mir/mer (as in Balamir for example) are actually not that uncommon, but look what kind of rulers had those names: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcomer (legendary?) Frankish ruler en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balamber Balamir, Hunnish ruler en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valamiren.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodemir & Videmir, all three Ostrogoth rulers en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rulers_of_Croatia a dozen or so of Croat rulers which leads to the question, what's the deal with the -mir ending? is it Germanic, Hunnic, Slavic, Iranic, else..... if we're to assume that Marcomir was real and the Franks really originated from Maeotia, (and the Croats were really a Sarmatian tribe) then all four people have one thing in common, they were at one time in the pontic steppe.
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Post by sarmat on Mar 18, 2010 20:23:16 GMT 3
I, actually, read that "mir" was a Germanic root. But, it's also very common for Slavic names as well like Vladimir, Stanimir, Ratmir, etc. It means "the world."
There is no doubt that Ostgoths had very close relation with Slavic tribes during the years of their empire in Ukraine. I even read about a proposed Slavic connection for Valamir and other Ostgothic rulers based on their names. As I mentioned in another thread Belorussians are still called "Goths" by Lithuanians.
But considering, "mir" ending; it's still very likely that it just was an East Germanic root, not really related to other languages.
But, generally speaking, there is a lot of confusion about that period of history. Seems that "Huns" was a designation for a group of people that didn't only included Turkic Huns, but also Slavic and Germanic people.
There is one Hunnish word cited in one of the Ancient sources, "strava" and it's clearly Slavic.
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Post by sarmat on Mar 18, 2010 20:37:14 GMT 3
There is also one alleged connection of Burgunds to Huns. Burgud/Byurkut means eagle in Altaic languages. There is even a Kalmyk tribe Burgud of Turkic origin...
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Post by Temüjin on Mar 18, 2010 21:01:42 GMT 3
that is most interesting, because Burgundy also appears in the Nibelungen Saga, alognside the Huns under Attila, who is called "Etzel" there. oh yeah, i've forgotten about Vladimir etc. so well, Russia is included as well it seems. even if the -mir ending is eastern germanic, what is it supposed to mean then?
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