To all injured parties, particularly: a most favored
correspondent, Adriana; a most respected scholar, Piotr; and my ethnic
kin, Beinn Mac.
All due apologies are mine..and I offer them
now. I found Ryabchikov simply by running "sun + goddess + scythian"
on my web ferret..initially pulling only those references from a single page at
his site. As I am not a linguist, it was not until I went back to read the
whole site that I found reason for concern in the context of
"Phaistos disc = Pelasgian = Proto Slavonic". The ethnocentricity I am
used to in interpreting (most) historical work on the eastern Danube..and
Romanian history...from every possible direction. I then posted what I had
pulled, as support for an intended glimpse at confusion and contradiction within
disciplines and certainly across disciplinary lines, as illustrated in the
apparently contradictory Britannica quotes.
I am not an academic, and teach here only by
invitation and without fee: as an arch anth trained retired US
Army officer, I have developed enough financial freedom to support an option to
study, research and explore over accepting an underpaid post which would
deny me said freedom. I have taught English and History..but do not
consider myself a professional in related fields. I will even accept
graciously "lay" or "amateur" labels, beginning to bristle only with application
of "novice" or "dilettante" :-) (I am too old to graciously accept the
title "student"..even though I was born one and will die one.)
The application of the web site material without clearly questioning "is
this guy out in space?" was an amateurish error..and it is for that, that I
apologize.
Somehow, as a resident Americanized Nordic-Celt
(with subtle unclaimed Irish influence) political historical exile
from Easter-Ross, I find myself the exo-ethnic champion of the ethnic
identity, resilience, and history of the "Post-Thracian Latinized
Geto-Daci" on many lists associated with history, anthropology and related
fields; particularly in that dark void of local history between Roman withdrawal
and the emergence of Wallacia. (Most of those lists not achieving the high
standards of cybalist, however). I find it rewarding, as I learn on
site.
For Adriana: I don't think anyone would
deny Scythian as an element in the ethnogenesis of Southern Russia...but I am
used to seeing a graphic representation, in many sources here, of a state
like entity called Scythia..that in my view never existed to the geographic
extent illustrated. Many such go straight from shard culture names to
this illusion of cultural, ethnic, and political homogeneity without regard
for time, pre and post influences; and relegating historical Thrace to the
boundaries of the Roman province of the same name. Even if I accept an
expansion of Scythian to mean all nomadic Indo-Iranian intrusions
westward...most of what I have seen is overstated, and that without even getting
into Hungarian issues, which also mistreat the facts.
In any case, I am guilty of initiating this
distraction, and again my apologies for any disruption my errors may have
caused.
La Revedere;
Rex H. McTyeire
Bucharest,
Romania
<rexbo@...>