Re: Pekkanen on Bastarnae

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:
>
> I'll just remove the linchpin of this construction.
>
>  
> (Pekkanen):The Scythians bordering on the Thracian Crobyzi on the
> western coast of the Euxine Sea are also known from other sources.
> An important argument in support of the above assumption of their
> identity with the Bastarnae is that the elder Pliny in nat. 4, 80
> describes them as Scythae degeneres et a servis orti aut Trogodytae,
> although, as Müller points out,14 he has transferred them together
> with the Crobyzi,18 mentioned in nat. 4, 82, too far north. The
> identity of the Scythae degeneres . . . aut Trogodytae with the
> northern neighbours of the Crobyzi in Nic. 756 is based on the
> comparison of the following sources, quoted by Müller:
> Nic. 756 κροβύζων κα`ι σκυθων . . . ;
> Str. 7, 5, 12 κρόβυζοι κα`ι ο´ι τρωγλοδύται . . . ;
> Ptol. Geog. 3, 10, 4 τρωγλοδύται . . . κρόβυζοι.
> Since the neighbours of the Crobyzi are called alternately σκύθαι
> and τρωγλοδύται in these sources, their identity with the group
> called by Pliny Scythae . . . aut Trogodytae is in my opinion quite
> indisputable.
>
> GK: But the "Troglodytae" were not the only Scythians in Scythia
> Minor (on which see Strabo 7,4,5). More important were those
> mentioned by Pliny at 4,44: "namque Thracia altero latere a Pontico
> litore incipiens, ubi Hister amnis inmergitur, vel pulcherrimas in
> ea parte urbes habet, Histropolin Milesiorum, Tomos, Callatim, quae
> antea Cerbatis vocabatur, Heracleam. habuit et Bizonen terrae hiatu
> raptam; nunc habet Dionysopolim, Crunon antea dictam; adluit Zyras
> amnis. totum eum tractum Scythae Aroteres cognominati tenuere."
> These were a branch of the "agricultural Scythians" (Herodotus) also
> known as Aukhata, who held Scythia Minor for the Great Scythian
> Kings of Central Asia, and also for King Skilur who reigned at the
> time of Pseudo-Skumnos' composition ca. 133-116 BCE, and whose
> empire stretched from the Maeoti to the Crobyzi, and included the
> Bastarnians (cf.
http://www.pontos.dk/publications/papers-presented-orally/oral-files/Zay_neapolisscythia.htm.
> The "Troglodytae" were the underlings in this system. The "Scythae
> degeneres" of 4,80 were their kin, and I have discussed them in my
> posts on Farzoi. They were one of the transplanted populations which
> controlled the northern shores of the Danube for Farzoi in the 1rst
> c. CE, and had nothing to do with the Bastarnians. I wonder why P.
> did not mention that Dio Cassius (38.10.3) also mentions the
> "Bastarnian Scythians"?  In those days, Pliny's explanation applied:
> "Scytharum nomen usquequaque transiit in Sarmatas atque Germanos"
> (4,81).
(TP)What linchpin is it you think you removed? I don't get it.

****GK: It's very simple. Reread my post. Pliny's "Scythe degeneres et a servis orti" are not the Bastarnae. Pekkanen has misread the documerntary evidence he adduces, and has omitted the documentary evidence which goes against his theory.****

 

 

Are you trying to say that the Scythians and Bastarnae in that part of Scythia Minor, ie. Dobrogea, didn't mix, that they stayed separate?

*****GK: There is no evidence that Bastarnae were part of Scythia Minor. Reread Strabo 7,4,5. As I've mentioned, we have no archaeological remains on the Peuca Bastarnians, and no Poen/L has been found in Scythia Minor. The peoples who "mixed" in Scythia Minor were: the Scythian aristocrats (Pliny's "Aroteres"), the Scythian underclass (which descended from local Thrakoids of the Central Ukraine and went south with their masters in the first half of the 3rd c. BCE), the local Getans who remained. And of course you had the Greek-speakers of the coastal cities.*****

 

 

> I disagree with the identification of Sithones with
> Sidones/Bastarnians. Too far fetched.

With no reasoning why this is just a restatement of your belief that there was no mid-1st cent. BCE Bastarnian penetration of Przeworsk.

*****GK: There is not much "reasoning" required to reject an arbitrary assumption such as Sithones in Finland or thereabout=Bastarnian Sidones. As for the "Bastarnian penetration of Przeworsk" we are still waiting for evidence from you. You have provided absolutely nothing except restatement after restatement of your conviction. That is not proof. ******

> And Tacitus' misogynist prejudices concerning the Sithones and
> Peucini are pretty transparent.

So?

BTW, if Bastarnae and Scythians mixed, as per Tacitus,

*****GK: Tacitus does not say that Bastarnians and Scythians mixed. He's talking about upper class marriages between Sarmatians and Peuca Bastarnians in the latter part of the 1rst c. CE. We have no archaeology for the Bastarnians of that time and area unfortunately.*****

 

 

 and Scythians used inhumation, how can Bastarnae in the Poieneşti-Lukaševka have used cremation exclusively? What is your source on that?

****GK: Every source on the Poeneshti-Lukashovka culture's inhumation practices with no known exception, confirms that cremation was that culture's exclusive burial rite. There is no archaeological material available for Peuca in the 1rst c. CE.****

Torsten