Colchians, circumcision and hypergamy (was Vanir)

Regarding Colchians

> > Another thing again: If the Vanir actually lived in Vani, they
> > would have been Colchians (no?). Colchians had immigrated from
> > Egypt, this proved by the fact that they practised circumcision
> > (I think I read this in Herodotus?). It appears that he puts it
> > like this:
> --
> > For it is plain to see that the Colchians are Egyptians; and
> > what I say, I myself noted before I heard it from others. When it
> > occurred to me, I inquired of both peoples; and the Colchians
> > remembered the Egyptians better than the Egyptians remembered
> > the Colchians; ...the Egyptians said that they considered the
> > Colchians part of Sesostris' army. I myself guessed it, partly
> > because they are dark-skinned and woolly-haired; though that
> > indeed counts for nothing, since other peoples are, too; but my
> > better proof was that the Colchians and Egyptians and Ethiopians
> > are the only nations that have from the first practised
> > circumcision
> -----
> I read somewhere that H. is mixing up the Sesostris part with
> something, but the c. and the dark skin and the wolly-hair seems to
> be his own observation So they could have come from Ethiopia also I
> guess.

Not at all. After all southern Dravidians also have brown skin and
they came from Africa no more recently than the others. The Colchian
association of Herodotus with Egyptians seems to be in error. The
story of Sesostris campaigns in Asia seem to be a vague memory of
Sese (Rameses II) at Kadesh, but there is no evidence of any
Ethiopian or Kushitic troops settling in North Eastern Anatolia!

Herodotus was right to see that the Anatolians circumcised their
dead. This is confirmed by Egyptian records who comment on the fact
that the Peoples of the Sea, like the Egyptians and unlike Libyans,
Kushitics and Asiatics at the time also practiced circumcision. But
given the number of times that the mythology of this area refers to
castration (eg, Uranus, Anu, Kumarbis etc) - a custom which explains
how non-circumcising people would have seen circumcision - then we
can probably propose an independent centre for circumcision in
ancient Anatolia.

From my reading of the matter, the Kholkhoi were related to NW
Caucasian people living in the area from the Kaska and Khatti (pre-
Hittite), to the Kaukasi, Kaspoi, Kurri (Hurrians), and Kassiti. I
even wonder whether Chechen preserves a part of the ethnonym of these
people.

> > Njord married his sister, because that was
> > permitted among the Vanir, but not among the Aesir. But Herodotus
> > assures us that the only people that permitted that, were
> > Egyptians?

The Egyptians were not the only people to practice brother-sister
marriages. In fact it appears wherever hypergamy is established in a
ruling house, in which wives and daughters have to marry someone of
higher status than themselves. Sisters of the ruling house therefore
have to marry their brothers or remain unmarried.

> If this is also correct it at least seems Herodotus was right about
> the Egyptians. I copied this John Croft- made family tree of the
> Rameside family tree for Dynasty 19:
> ---
> Rameses II Isnofret
> | |
> -----------------
> |
> -----------------------------
> | | |
> Khaemwaset Bint-Anath |
> |
> |
> Isnofret Merenptah Takhat
> | | | |
> --------------- ------------
> | |
> | --------------------
> | | |
> Tiaa Seti II Twosret Amenmese Bakwerel
> | | | | | |
> ------------- ------------ ----------
> | |
> | Seti Merenptah
> |
> Siptah
>
>
> Here Seti II and Twosret are half siblings.

There are many expamples of such relations in Egyptian history.

Regards

John