Dennis wrote
> Piotr has posted on your third proposal.
> But, doesn't this argue for an earlier dating for Zarathustra, even
if the
> texts are later. Didn't I read in one of the postings that the
language of
> the Gathas was more similar to Indic?
> I followed your link, BTW. So, the urheimat is the North Pole, eh?
The North Pole Urheimat theories were taken by Horbigger, a German
pseudoscientist much in favour during the Nazi period, who proposed
that the Earth was hollow at the north pole. And Aryan humans had
emerged there before the Ice Age, moving south to conquer the
untermensch.
In actual fact what happened is linked to early astronomy and the
fact
that the stars seem to rotate around the pole star. Each culture has
believed itself, at some time, to occupy the centre of the world
(Delhi, Benares, Jerusalem, Rome etc). The stars should rotate
around
the centre, and the fact that the celestial pole is (in the northern
hemisphere) to the north, suggests that if "our place" was the centre
in the past, then some very early migration, or some primeval
catastrophe, displaced it to the north. With the Indo-Iranian move
to
the south, they saw the shift of the pole star towards the northern
horizon, so they chose a migration explanation. The Chinese and
Mayans chose "primative catastrophes" to displace the centre from its
"rightful place" (i.e. immediately overhead).
The Gatha's seem to use a number of concepts (eg. "Truth") in a
fashion similar to the early Vedas. Their dialect also seems more
primative than later Avestan. They also are written in poetry which
has the same metre as the early Vedas.... Iranian Yima kaeshtra
(Jamshed) is also cognate with Indian Yama Raja, make of it what you
will.
Regards
John