Fw: Re: [tied] Re: Mid-first century BCE Yazigian prerequisites

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

>
> --- On Fri, 8/7/09, tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> Ah, where were we...
>
> ****GK: Waiting for more information about the Przeworsk inhumations you believe to be relevant to your thesis.****
>
> Pliny, Naturalis Historia, Book IV. XIII.:
> http://tinyurl. com/nmmg7j
> '
> 96 Incipit deinde clarior aperiri fama ab gente Inguaeonum, quae est prima in Germania. Mons Saevo ibi, inmensus nec Ripaeis iugis minor, inmanem ad Cimbrorum usque promunturium efficit sinum, qui Codanus vocatur, refertus insulis, quarum clarissima est Scatinavia, inconpertae magnitudinis, portionem tantum eius, quod notum sit, Hillevionum gente quingentis incolente pagis: quare alterum orbem terrarum eam appellant. nec minor est opinione Aeningia.
>
> 97 quidam haec habitari ad Vistlam usque fluvium a Sarmatis,
> Venedis, Sciris, Hirris tradunt, sinum Cylipenum vocari
>
> ****GK: Pliny is reporting some "quidam". These vague views are not > comparable to archaeological data and hardly constitute a problem.

?? It usually would to you elsewhere.

> But as long as we are talking about this footnote to a footnote,

?? Footnote to a footnote? How?

> there are some additional points which could be made. I don't think
> the Pliny text should read "Sarmatis, Venedis" but rather "Sarmatis
> Venedis".

So does Wikipedia, it seems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vistula_Veneti
They provide no reason. But let's assume it's true:
Why are they called Sarmatian Venedi?
Were they ruled by a Sarmatian upper class who suddenly established themselves in the country?

The top slice of Europe on the Tabula Peutingeriana
http://tinyurl.com/npwkts
between the topmost river and the sea seems to read
--- suevia -- alamannia -- armalausi -- marcomanni --
quadi/lutugi -- bur -- sarmate uagi -- nes. sarmatarum --
amaxobiisarmate -- lupiones sarmate -- venadisarmatae --
alpes bastarnice -- blastarni -- ??

That's a lot of different Sarmatae. Do these composites mean those peoples had been Sarmatized?

I found in Shchukin in his comments to chapter IX
'* It is noteworthy that from the mid-first century AD the burials started to appear in what is now a long chain of barrows along the Kuban' river, called "The Golden Cemetery". Male burials with weapons decidedly predominate here, and the number of Roman objects is so impressive that N.I. Veselovskiy supposed that these are burials of barbarised Romans28. However, one would have more reason to speak of Romanised barbarians. Possibly, what we have here is the cemetery of the detachment of catafracti warriors employed by the Romans to maintain order in the former Siracian lands. So far, it is hard to decide whether this auxiliary contingent of foederati consisted of the Aorsi, the Alans, or the Siraci enrolled to the Roman service. It could even consist of the representatives of different tribes.'

That means these Romanized Sarmatians left no particularly Sarmatian trace. In fact this could be a description of the suddenly appearing new upper layer in Przeworskia and later. Whatever Sarmatian relics was found among them might as well by archaeologists have been characterized as stray finds.

> In fact it's the Venedi which are being discussed.

If so, why call them Sarmatian Venedi' instead of just 'Venedi'?

> As late as Tacitus there was no set opinion about this population,
> i.e. were they "Sarmatae" or "Germani"? (Cf. Germania, cap. 46)

Yes, that description is compatible with a population mixed of the two.

> And cf. the tabula Peutingeriana at
>
> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/TabulaPeutingeriana.jpg
>
> which has both "Venedae" and "Sarmatae Venedae" on the North Danubian plains.. (this information could have gone back to the time of the Moesian governor Plautus Aelianus). Note the "Roxolani Sarmatae" still east of the Dnister. And the Lupiones Sarmatae west of the Venedae.
> So we're not really dealing with Sarmatians proper here in this
> almost certainly corrupted Pliny segment.

It that the supposedly misplaced comma you call corruption, or is there something else?

> I think I know who these Danubian Sarmatae Venedae were (Pliny had
> alternative information about this population) but since this
> doesn't really affect your thesis I won't mention this here.*****

Oh, please tell us, uncle George!

>
> Apparently archaeology is in conflict with the written sources here.
>
> ****GK: I agree.****
> 'The land opposite [to the Cimbrian peninsula / Jutland] was the
> Lithuanian-Latvian shore.' Highly unlikely interpretation.
>
> ****GK: Quite. For the Romans "Sarmatia" ended at the Vistula. I
> think that the corrupted Pliny passage may have omitted something
> between its "Sarmatis Venedis" and its "Scirris Hirris", like a
> "deinde" or something similar.

So it would have read ... ?

> I think the Scirri probably referred (in this source, whatever it
> was) to the Yastorf or Elbe G. population east of the Codanus on
> the Baltic, and west of the Vistula.****

So these Scirii were something else?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scirii

> http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ File:Baltic_ Sea_map.png
>
> And the expediency of moving Pliny's Aeningia there does not
> resolve the conflict between Pliny and archaeology wrt. the
> question of whether the Sarmatians were on the Baltic or not.
>
> ****GK: Well of course the "Sarmatians" were on the Baltic. The
> only question is: which "Sarmatians"? No Roman or Greek writer to
> my knowledge ever located the Sarmatians proper (i.e. Yazigi,
> Roxolani, Aorsi, Alani) on the Baltic.****

Okay, so they were improper Sarmatians. That was my impression too. I'm fine with that.


Torsten