Venice Beach [Was: First iron swords on mass scale]

----- Original Message -----

From: Michal Milewski

To: cybalist@egroups.com

Sent: Sunday, October 15, 2000 8:04 AM

Subject: Re: [tied] Re: First iron swords on mass scale

 

Do you think the Venedians mentioned by Pliny the Elder, Tacitus and Ptolemy
were Slavs. As far as I know, there is no data supporting this theory.

 

No, at the time in question there were no Slavs in those parts yet. Pliny's Venedi, Tacitus' Veneti, Ptolemy's Ouenedai /wenedai/, located on a norhern sea at a place called the Venetic Gulf (Ouenedikon kolpon = Gulf of Gdansk?) must have been the original Veneti. But for Jordanes, in the 6th century, the terms Venethae and Sclaveni are practically synonymous, and for mediaeval German authors Winidi/Wenden are always Slavs. And did you know that the Finnish word for 'Russian' is Venäläinen (from Venäjä < *Venätä)? It's like the case of the Gaulish Volcae, whose name was subsequently applied by the Germani (and the Slavs who picked up that usage) to all kinds of Celtic and even Romance "foreigners", from the Welsh to the Walachians and the Italians.

 

The hypothesis about their possible relations with Veneti from northern Italy
seems attractive. However, if they controlled the Amber Route, I would
expect the connections Veneti-Venedi being noticed by Roman and Greek
historians describing the people settled on the Baltic Sea. And what is your
opinion about the origin of another "Veneti" group (in northwestern Europe)
mentioned by Julius Caesar?

 

The Venetic communication routes between the Baltic and the Adriatic must have been severed as a result of Celtic and then Germanic expansions in Central Europe. I suppose they survived the longest (until ca. AD 100) east of the lower Vistula and on the Gulf of Venice before being absorbed by the Goths and the Romans, respectively. The Venetic question was discussed in great detail on this list some time ago. Just enter "Veneti" or the like in the search box on the Messages page, if you're interested. Our conclusion the was that Caesar's Veneti in Vendée were Gaulish, though their name may have been built of the same elements as that of the Italic Veneti. On that occasion Chris Gwinn also demonstrated, on phonological grounds, that Welsh Gwynedd cannot be equated with *Wen-eto- and must be regarded as an independent name.

Could you compare the burial customs in both cultures (i.e. Jastorf and
Poieneshti-Lukashevka)? Or maybe you know a good reference?

 

I've got some book references, but I'll try to find something for you in my quickly growing collection of archaeological URLs. The Jastorf culture folk cremated their dead, and the urns were placed in a small pit or walled about with stones to make a chamber that was filled with the ashes of the funeral pyre. Small bronze and iron items like fibulae, belt buckles, razors, earrings, pincers and safety pins are found as burial gifts. In the Poieneshti-Lukashevka culture (from the late 3rd century BC to ca. AD 50 in Moldova) the urn is typically covered with an upturned bowl, as in some earlier graves in Mazovia (Poland); the culture is essentially of the Jastorf type combined with Przeworsk (Lugian), La Tene (Celtic) and Dacian traits.

 

Piotr