Re: [tied], Re:, Urartu.

Our differences remain the same on Cimmerians: Start point, route, and
Impact enroute (combining several of the last few posts on the subject).

On geography, you go to great lengths to explain the difficulty of the
Caucasus route, then close with:

" I don't know about you, but I would ride off into Rumania or Poland
before I went south."

My position is they did just that, with main elements moving to cross the
Dardanelles, and it isn't just H. who puts them precisely there..Callamachus
does too. (He has "mare milking Kimmerians numerous as sand" (even naming
the Cimmerian King) at Ephesus..but giving a bye because of the Artemis
temple, after threatening to burn it. (The Callamachus advantage: the
entire Alexandrian Library where he was chief librarian.) Otherwise taking
Mark's position as well on H.'s geography. H. remains a reference, and if
he was blind and couldn't see or describe a mountain..it doesn't put
Cimmerians further east. If you look at a topo map (and consider a Dniester
to Dnieper center) the route is not South or west..it is sharp terrain
supported SW to the Aegean, turning SE into Anatolia..with no Caucasus
obstacle in the way..through the lands of other Thracians; a natural
response to the opposing force moving due west...Jutland and Anatolia appear
as prime potential results of split movements.
Then it follows that Scythians pursuing the disrupted and baseless
Cimmerians would have retraced known routes and supply lines, allied forces,
known territory and avoided sorting through all those other Thracians to get
to Phrygia.

cas111jd: "I'm not aware of a single migration or military expedition around
the
west end, so I doubt the Cimmerians did it."

See points one up, and add: Hittites in, Moesi into Mysia, Many other
Thracians into NW Anatolia, Celts into central Anatolia, Alexander into
Persia, (And Persia going into Greece) Darius after Scythians,, Its a
revolving door of influence..both ways..wave after wave.

cas111jd: "Artemis and Artemis-like goddesses were common all over the IE
world.
The Greeks usually identified a given deity of another people with
their own and called them as such. Apollo and Artemis were, IMO,
borrowed from the Thracians. The Ephesian Artemis was originally the
Anatolian Great Goddess, as was the goddess of Aphrodisias whom the
Greeks identified with Aphrodite, etc."

Generally agree except as noted below, but the point was the resurgence in
Cappadochia pointing to new Northern intrusion supporting that site as
receiving Cimmerian settlers, but we agree on that point. I also believe
Artemis was introduced much earlier OVER the in place Neolithic Anatolian
mother godess(es) Hanahana and Ma..and combined sysncretically only in some
areas, replacing in others.

cas111jd: "After the Scythians withdrew from NW Iran, they settled in the
Ukraine to be found there later by Greeks and Persians. "

And I carry the point further, with classical writer support: that is where
the Cimmerians where..and the Ukraine was Cimmeria..(and probably not
reaching the Volga, at least at that time, being already significantly
Steppe trodden .)

cas111jd: "You seem to be a Thracophile."

Ha ha..not really: My original focus and interest was Western Anatolia and
the Aegean.; but being here about the Danube, after years in Western
Anatolia..the links and history are full of gaps in the current perspective
on the area pre-Roman..I kinda adopted it :-)

cas111jd: Our buddy Herodotus never suggested that the Thracians ever ranged
into Asia.

Beg to differ. To H. : Asia and Europe were primarily things happening
south of the Dardanelles, with the Aegean the dividing line. His description
of Thracian size and the region..leaves little room for any conclusion other
than: In his view; Thrace extended well east of the Dniester, and well
North of later mapping.

You and Torsten can argue over Homer's passage and whether he meant the N.
Black Sea coast, or the North Sea..But I have an advantage..I already know
Torsten favors the Ukraine as a source for his northward movement from the
area into Jutland. ( I am positionless on the point :-) You have yet to
justify an opinion on more easterly Cimmerians. You say a Volga/ Don
center, and I say they bordered the Dniester on the west but didn't reach
the Volga to the east (even if some Thracians did.).

Rex H. McTyeire
Bucharest, Romania