--- In cybalist@..., george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:
>
> *****GK: I'ts been some years since I did research on
> this. I'll see if there's anything else on the
> Theodosians, e.g. burial evidence. At any rate,
> Abaev's comment does not on its own invalidate the
> Zoroastrianism of these Crimean Alans.
That's true, it doesn't. His view is the only one that I've
read about it and I just wanted to find out on what evidence
the opposing view was based.
> Did the Caucasian Ossetians name any major urban center
> "Artabda", as F. was RENAMED?
No, but the name of the Ard Dzhvary "seven gods" shrine is
compelling.
> Was the "seven god" notion comparatively as important to
> them as that of the Amerta Spenta to the Zoroastrians?
No, I don't believe that it was.
> Would there not be some relation between the city of
> "Sugdeia" and Sogdiana? What is certainly clear is that a
> new group of Alans arrived in the Crimea from somewhere in
> the first years of the 3rd c. AD.******
I myself don't know the etymologies of 'Sugdeia?' and 'Sogdia'.
I always assumed that they had something to do with the Iranian
sugd- 'burned', but lately I've read that there may have been
some connection with the words Saka, Scyth and Skudra. If the
names pertain to fire, then it's easy to see the connection with
Zoroastrianism and the veneration of fire, or the location of a
fire temple. Although if a variant of the Scythian name, or even
if pertaining to fire, it wouldn't necessarily prove the presence
of Zoroastrians since Pre- and Non-Zoroastrian Iranians also
venerated fire. That is not to say that I don't agree with you
that the Zoroastrians emphasized and elaborated fire-worship and
the idea of a heptad of gods to a greater degree than other
Iranians.
> *****GK: The interpretation from reporting
> archaeologists is that bodies were exposed for a
> considerable period, and then bones were gathered and
> placed in catacombs.
When I read this it brought to mind the ancient clan mausoleums
in Ossetia which were well ventilated above-ground structures
in which the dead were placed without coffins on wooden shelves
along the walls. As the shelves became crowded, the drier
mummies were placed on the floor to make room for new arrivals.
Apparently the bones of older 'burials' were left to pile up on
the floor. I don't know how far back this practice goes, and
until today the similarity of this practice to Zoroastrian
exposure never occured to me. This, along with the unexpected
occurrence in Ossetic of the words 'iron' and 'farn' which are
found in other Iranian dialects, instead of the expected 'ælon'
and 'xvarn', the second being an important religious concept in
Zoroastrianism, has made me wonder.
It seems to me that there are three main probabilities. One is
that some Alanic tribes did in fact become Zoroastrian or at
least were in some way influenced by Zoroastrianism, but not the
ancestors of the Caucasian Ossetians, and that the similarity of
old Ossetian burial custom to Zoroastrian exposure, and the 'avd'
in 'Avd Dzwary', are just coincidental. The second is that the
ancestors of the Caucasian Ossetians were subject to at least
some Zoroastrian influence by way of a *xv > f & *ari- > ir-type
of Iranian dialect, and that the sole surviving reflections of
this are the burial custom, and the words 'iron' and 'farn'.
The third is that this burial rite which we associate specifically
with Zoroastrianism in fact originated in an otherwise unattested
strain of East Iranian beliefs and cultural practices, that
Zoroaster built his new religion at least in part upon it, and
that some later arriving westward moving waves of Alans also
reflected it in their burial practices.
> *****GK: I'm not sure. My source was a 1964 article in
> the Sovetskaia Arkheologiia by G.F. Turchaninov "O
> iazike nadpisei na kamnyakh Maiatskago gorodishcha i
> fliagakh Novocherkasskogo muzeia", pp. 72-86.*****
>
> *****GK: I don't have the article on hand. If you
> don't have easy access, or someone else, I'll look it
> up when I next visit Toronto.*****
Thank you! I'll add that to my list. It seems as if I might
have annoyed you a little. I hope not. My only intention was
to elicit some information, and I'm glad that I did, because
most of what you've told is new to me and very interesting.
David