The Tauri are often believed to have been
descendants of the Cimmerians; I agree with Rex that they were possibly
linguistic relatives of the Thracians (though it's a mere conjecture, given how
little we really know of Thracian or "Cimmerian", or primitive Iranian for
that matter). As far as is known, the Greeks (Milesians) began to penetrate
Crimea in the 7th century BC, and Pantikapaion (modern Kerch) on the Cimmerian
Bosporus (Kerchensky Strait) was founded in the 6th. It would seem, therefore,
that the Homeric temple was run by the enigmatic Tauri themselves. The Scythians
were also making incursions into Crimea at roughly the same time as the Greeks,
and their Crimean settlements, such as Scythian Neapolis (Simferopol') survived
the decline of Scythian dominance in mainland Ukraine. Neapolis existed until
the early 4th c., which means that the last Pontic Scythians and the first
Pontic Goths lived together in the peninsula for several
generations!
Iphigenea, by the way, is etymologised as
*wi:bHi- + *-genes-ja: 'strong-born', but Homer does not mention this name in
Iliad; he has Iphianassa *wi:-bHi- + *-wanak-ja: 'ruling by strength' instead.
In later tradition Iphigenia and Iphianassa were sisters.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, August 17, 2000 3:22
AM
Subject: [tied] Tauride.
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.
La
Revedere;
Rex H. McTyeire
Bucharest, Romania
<rexbo@...>