Re: The progressive emergence of "Germanic"

--- tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

> Surely
> > you're not serious about "Harigast" being
> Ariovistus?
>
> As far as I'm concerned, it's a hypothesis like any
> other hypothesis.

****GK: In the current state of our knowledge, it's
much more than extremely far-fetched. One of your
favoured 0.00001% possibilities. But since you're
incorrigible (:=)), I can only let you bask in it even
as I disagree.*****

>
>
> > In any case there are other things which need to
> be settled about
> > these helmets, such as the dates of the
> inscriptions above all.
>
> The alphabet (north Etruscan) is a preform in one
> proposed development
> succession of the Runic alphabet. My scenario won't
> have a problem there.

****GK: I'm sure it wouldn't. But that isn't really
the point. None of us AFAIK are experts at script
decipherment. I've not read all the Negau literature
in extenso (just some of it). But I think I am
familiar with all expert dating hypotheses. None is as
"recent" as yours. The youngest date proposed so far
is "ca. two centuries before Tacitus". The one I
prefer as of right now (until I see it refuted) is
Hubert's: ca.4th c. BCE ("during the great
invasions"). If your linguistic reconstruction of
Harigast as Ariovistus is correct (and I'm not saying
it is),then this was a much earlier "Ariovistus", not
the Suebian warlord and king of Caesar's time.****

>
>
> > As to the burial, your time frame has been deemed
> possible by some
> > (though perhaps they associated this with the
> Dacian invasion).
>
> In that scenario, why would a helmet with a Germanic
> inscription be
> buried in the border lands between Noricum and
> Pannonia?

****GK: For the same reason anything valuable would
be. To avoid robbery by the incoming military. You're
worried about the spot? We know too little about
events there to say anything one way or the other.
Note that some helmets had Celtic inscriptions. Hubert
points out, rather convincingly, that all the
inventory of the Negau burial(except the inscriptions
on the helmets)is Pannonian or Illyrian. He supposes
that when the Celts conquered these regions (Taurisci
or Scordisci or others) they adoptedmuch of the
material culture of the locals. He also supposes, very
plausibly, that they were accompanied by Germanic
auxiliaries, whence the Harigast inscription on a
Pannonian helmet.****

>
>
> > The Cimbric invasion is also a possible burial
> time.And we know so
> > little about the area's history that we can't even
> speculate about
> > other alternatives.
>
> We know that that Ariviostus grieving father-in-law
> after 58 BCE had
> reason to fear Roman retribution, a fear that turned
> that turned out
> to be well-founded. That must have been king
> Voccio's chief foreign
> policy worry at that time.
>
>
> > BTW Negau was not in Noricum but in Pannonia.
>
> http://www.jstor.org/pss/410026
> 'Helmet B of Negau was found buried with twenty-five
> other bronze
> helmets in the year 1811 in Zenjak, Styria, not far
> from Negau, in the
> ancient border zone of Noricum and Pannonia
> Superior.

****GK: It was on the Pannonian side of the
border.****

The

> circumstances of finding, with all related
> questions, have been
> thoroughly investigated by Reinecke in his article
> Der Negauer
> Helmfund. Twenty-one or possibly twenty-three of the
> helmets still
> exist. Seven show marks which appear to be more then
> mere scratches,
> and two carry full-fledged inscriptions in a North
> Etruscan alphabet
> (Reinecke 132-9).'
>
>
>
> Torsten
>
>
>
>
>

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