[tied] Re: Germanic Scythians?

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:

>
> --- tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
> > Those that comment Snorri and Saxo (who also places
> > the "Odin the
> > man" in Byzantium) when trying to explain how these
> > sources are using
> > each other's material assume (just one theory) that
> > when the authors
> > place "Odin" there, their source may have contained
> > a reference
> > to "Bosporus" in the sense of "Cimmerian Bosporus",
> > which the authors
> > have then misunderstood as referring to the "real"
> > Bosporus.
>
> *****GK: The problem here is that the Cimmerian
> Bosporus points to the Bosporan Kingdom, and not to
> "Asaland" or "Vanaland". We can dismiss any adaptation
> of the Troy Legend to Nordic history as imaginative,
> of course, but we certainly have no evidence about the
> possibility of using Panticapaeum as an alternate
> "Troy".

I think this means there's no room in Bospoan Kindom history for such
an event. Care to elucidate? Emigrations, unlike immigrations, are
hard to document archaeologically.

>There is in any case a major contradiction in
> the accounts of the Snorra Edda and of the
> Heimskringla [Odin from a "misunderstood" Bosporus vs.
> Odin from "Asaland"] which is reminiscent, in a way,
> of other contradictions in Snorri's genealogies.

True, but Ynglingatal claims he had possessions both places.

>These
> contradictions don't really matter in the context of
> real history. And you can't legitimately combine
> elements of the two, esp. as to directions.

Yes, but I was wondering about Trittenheim's sources.

>The story
> of "Odin" simply makes no sense whatever the source.
> There are too many discoordinated variables. Including
> the existence of yet a third Bosporus (or
> "Ellipaltar") in classic Norse times: the connection
> between the Baltic Sea and Lake Ladoga via the Neva to
> the important Norse colonies of Old Ladoga and
> Holmgardr.*******

Please enlighten me on "Ellipaltar", that discoordinated variable.

> >
> > > >
> > > >(T) But as regards the "north, then west"
> direction,
> > cf
> > > > this abstract
> > > > from "Hunibald":/etc../
> > > GK: What do these incredible stupidities
> > have to
> > > do with historical science?
> > >
> >(T) The issue was where the "north, then west" came
> from
> > in Snorri. He
> > and Trittenheim might have used similar sources.
>
> *****GK: The numbers of "Hunibald" are very
> reminiscent of the approach of Exodus.

True, which are ascribed to later redactors, thus logically secondary.

>That would
> certainly have been a plausible source to imitate.
> Tritheim didn't need to consult ancient sources to
> know that the Danube was south of Germany.

Erh ,OK.

>As to
> Snorri's "north then west" the source would have been
> the trek from the Caspian to the Baltic, well known
> for centuries before him.******

The question is, what route would earlier Germanic-speakers take,
before the arrival of the Slavs? Why did the Sciri and Bastarneans
settle on the continental divide between two river systems if they
weren't involved in trade (and note the "pack saddle" etc
connotatations of 'bast-')?

Torsten