From: Rex H. McTyeire
Message: 3182
Date: 2000-08-16
From: Steve WoodsonSometime back, 6 months or so, I was scanning web sites on Indo-Iranian. One of the articles I read was about a people that the Greeks were in contact with, living in the South Caucasus along the Black Sea. Their names are clearly Indic and not Iranian. I believe they were in writings by Herodotus. Unfortunately I lost where I read this and haven't been able to relocate it. Do you have any information on these people? It seemed to be a well established state.
Thanks,
SteveMark Odegard Contributes:
So far as I know, the Greeks don't come into contact with a specifically Iranian-speaking state until rather late, specifically Persians and Scythians.The Mitanni were Hurrian-speaking (Hurrian is definitely non-IE). Their kingdom was in the South Caucusus/Kurdistan. Documentary evidence (treaties, contracts and the such) demonstrate a clear Indic superstratum. The picture seems to be of a previous, war-chariot driving elite which imposed itself. The evidence is personal names and the names of gods.There is the famous horse training manual. This is in Hurrian, but certain of the technical terms for training the horses are Indic.It is not improbable that some chariot-riding Indic-speakers made it all the way to the Mediterranean during the time of the Sea People, but these would not have left any real evidence.My best guess is that Steve Woodson is referring to the Taurians, whose behavior toward traveling Greeks contributed to the designation of the Black Sea as 'The Inhospitable Sea" by early Greeks. Herodotus offers some reports on the sacrifices and methods in the Temple of Iphigenea (Artemis). They were a settled people controlling at least the Crimean Coast, in contrast to the nomadic Scythians. Some scholars lump them with Scythians, and certainly it appears they managed to cohabit with them for at least a period. For my money, they clearly predate the Scythic incursion to that western point. I would then have to charge them linguistically to Thracian or closely related IE rather than Iranian.