From: gknysh@...
Message: 64407
Date: 2009-07-24
--- On Fri, 7/24/09, tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
The Sarmatian connection is at the heart of what the Polish state once built its existence on
http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ Wincenty_ Kad%C5%82ubek
and for a good part of that time seeming to be furthering Polish nationalism was not a good career move.
****GK: Kadlubek's inventions about the Sarmatians are about as "scientific" as Snorri Sturluson's about the men of the east. As the Poles might say this is a "droga" to "nikond" (a road to nowhere).****
> BTW why not look at the references concerning the Przeworsk
> inhumations mentioned by Lichardus in his footnotes 8 ss.?
I'll check with the library.
It seems [Lichardus] divides the early inhumation graves into two groups of different 'habitus' (I find it difficult to relate to that German approach to the world in which facts are secondary 'manifestations' of primary inner developments) :
1) The Przeworsk graves, plus the Central German graves which 'belong to the middle section of the later pre-Roman Iron Age, corresponding approx to the stage Latène D1 in the area of Southern Germany' (Ariovistus)
2) The southern Elbe Germani graves (Marbod), influencing the Lubiesowo graves.
Eggers' conclusions are on the Lubiesowo graves alone.
> It seems Lichardus, who was Czech, was concerned most of all with
> what happened v C^echách, in the Czech lands. Hence the choice of
> subject, Southern Elbe Germani, and hence his cavalier attitude
> towards the evidence of other Przeworsk inhumation funerals than
> those he defines away as imitations of a half-forgotten Celtic
> custom.
>
> GK: I don't get your point. What is "cavalier" about his
> attitude?
He says the appearance of inhumation graves is a mystery to be solved, then provides a proposal only for his group of interest, group 2). That leaves the supposedly important question unsolved for group 1).
****GK: OK. That's why I suggested you look up these other references.****
>
> And here Lichardus just multiplies the problem: why suddenly
> several styles of inhumation in an otherwise cremating culture?
> Several varieties of a afterlife-promising new religion?
>
> GK: Well Przeworsk was a distinct culture, different from
> Oksywie, Wielbark etc. etc. Note that there were also many
> different "styles" of cremation in a given culture.
Not good enough. Why do two geographically distinct types of inhumation suddenly appear?
****GK: What's not "good enough"? Good enough for what? Facts are facts. Przeworsk is different from Wielbark. The coalescing components are not quite the same, though close.****
The one conclusion I can reach is that the Przeworsk graves with suite are related to some 'Ariovisus revolution' having to do with Ariovistus (substitute some other warlord if you have to) organizing a campaign to take Celtic, ultimately abortive as we know, and that the southern Elbe Germanic ones were a fresh start, and that the culture they represent is, and I change position here, the origin of all later things Germanic, including language (except for the runes, invented by Ariovistus/Harjagas t).
****GK: When you look up the Przeworsk references see what they say about the continuation time of these new inhumations graves beyond the mid-1rst c. BCE. They should also have a notion of their origin. From my perspective I don't see any "revolution" in the graves themselves, if they simply continue the inhumation traditions of various East European Celtic groups slowly integrating with the more numerous Germanics, for which there is plenty of archaeological evidence.****
> > GK: The Wikipedia Polish-language article on Przeworsk states
> > that this type of burial [flexed ****GK]covers an area "identical
> > to that of earlier Celtic settlements" .
>
> But at that time the Celts practised cremation, as mentioned.
>
> GK:Inhumations had never entirely gone out of style it
> seems.
The examples Lichardus cites are those of the Przeworsk suite which now (and not just by me) are connected with Ariovistus, which Lichardus wouldn't know. So this evidential support falls away and with that goes L.'s claim of an unbroken inhumation tradition from the Celts.
****GK: We don't need Lichardus here. The unbroken inhumation tradition is established by independent evidence (the Transcarpathian culture; the Silesian culture cf. my reference to the Wozniak article: both solidly 1rst c. BCE, and prior to Ariovistus (and to some extent also posterior).****
> > So the idea is that northeastern Celtic groups assimilating into
> > Przeworsk kept up aspects of their earlier funeral rites.
>
> Much earlier.
>
> GK: There was a general shift to cremations in the 3rd c. BCE
****GK: I should add "general but not universal".****
> there. One interesting thing we have no information about: what
> "position" was the body cremated in? "Flexed and on the side"? This
> tradition is very ancient for inhumations (bronze age and earlier).
Inhumation has to do with a theory/religion of an afterlife in the flesh, which is why the orientation of the body matters. The cremators have given that up,
****GK: ??? Nothing but spirits in Valhalla? (:=)))****
so orientation or position of the body during cremation doesn't matter.
****GK: How do you know that? ****
And the crouched position was to accomodate a short grave,
****GK: Not always. We know of crouched positions in spacious graves over the millenia.****
there are no such restrictions in open air.
> In any case a return to inhumations could have several
> explanations, none involving foreign ethnic presence from the east,
> where the fl/side position was not practised.
Suppose this is just a question of doing the inhumation on the cheap in harder soil than that in the east?
> > Note however that this 'sidelying/flexed/ ' position differs from
> > the inhumation rite of the earlier Wielbark culture
> > (straightforward 'on the back' position).
>
> I didn't get that? The early Wielbark or the Wielbark appearing
> earlier (1st cent. CE) than the Przeworsk inhumation graves (I
> thought they were earlier than that) or the Wielbark overlaid by
> Przeworsk (that doesn't make sense)?
>
> ****GK: The Wielbark culture of the mid-1rst c AD-> which later
> developed into the Chenyakhiv culture. It is clearly later than the
> Przeworsk inhumation graves.****
That's what I said. So what did you mean by 'earlier'?
****GK: Sorry for the ambiguity. I was discussing the transition from Wielbark to Chernyakhiv and by "earlier Wielbark" I meant the period ca. 50-> 200.****
> > Where did the impulse for
> > that come? The Marcomanni? [Note that that Gutones were subjects
> > of Marbod and participated in the assault of 19 AD which
> > eliminated his rulership].
>
> No matter what line of reasoning might explain them as derived from
> the Marcomanni, there remain the very early inhumation graves of
> Central Germany, which must have to do with Ariovistus' campaign
> down the Wetterau valley.
>
> GK: Those are the ones the Polish Wikipedia associates with a
> "return" to earlier Celtic customs, though otherwise the inventory
> is as "Przeworsk" as the cremation burials of that culture. No
> archaeologist has ever found "eastern" elements therein (constant
> reminder "in passing"...
Yes, true.
> > On the other hand, as Wielbark spread into Ukraine
> > and transmogrified into Chernyakhiv (beg. in the 4th decade of
> > the 3rd c. D) it recorded a very significant number of burials of
> > the Przeworsk inhumation type as described above
> > ('flexed/sidelying' ) [acc. to Boris Mahomedov's magisterial 2001
> > study of the Chernyakhiv culture some 10% (!!) of the Chernyakhiv
> > inhumation burials were of this type. He distinguishes them from
> > the rare Wielbark/Germanic Chernyakhiv borrowings of "Sarmatian
> > poses" (legs crossed; hands on hips).
> >
Any geographical connection with soil type?
****GK: I've read literature which made such a connection in the case of house types, but no direct statement about this affecting the burial rite.****
> Does the flexed/sidelying pose type of inhumation have any
> relatives elsewhere?
>
> GK: AFAIK not at that time. I could check way back to the
> bronze age (in the context of my earlier notion of the position in
> which bodies were cremated).
>
Torsten