Re: [tied] Tauride.

Piotr Gasiorowski wrote:

  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 -----

From: Mark Odegard

To: cybalist@egroups.com

Sent: Thursday, August 17, 2000 3:22 AM

Subject: [tied] Tauride.

  

From: Rex H. McTyeire

 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@...>

Thanks to all that responded.  The only problem with the Taurians is that the people being described in the web site seemed to be located in the area of Colchis, the far eastern shore of the Black Sea, not the Crimea.

                                                           Steve