Re: Dragon society
Posted: Fri Sep 01, 2017 3:35 pm
I found an interesting, but overlong Wikipedia page on the Scythians. My main problem is that it’s filled with contradictions.
On the one hand Wikipedia claims that the Scythians were a large group of nomads that were blue- (or green-) eyed, fair-skinned and light-haired, originally from Iran.
On the other hand Wikipedia writes that the term Scythian, like Cimmerian, referred to a variety of groups from the Black Sea to southern Siberia and central Asia - a variety of peoples. In this version, Scythians were nomads that lived in the steppes of which the west was near the Black Sea and in the east went all the way to Mongolia, the north of China (2,500 miles from east to west and between 200 and 600 miles from north to south). This would explain why dragons are so important in Chinese culture.
This version might explain why De Vere would use a whole bunch of names to describe the “dragons”, which could refer to different types of people within the Scythians (dragons).
This would indicate that the area that I found as “Scythia” was only the west part of the area where the dragons (Scythians) lived.
The Scythians first appeared in the historical record in the 8th century BC; Heroditus reported 3 versions of the origins of the Scythians. Ancient Greek historians wrote about Scythians who lived north of the Black Sea and the Caucasus Mountains.
In the 7th century BC the Scythians with the Cimmerians frequently raided the Middle East.
Wikipedia dates the Scythians from about the 9th century until the 1st century BC, but doesn’t make clear what happened after that.
The classical Scythians may have disappeared by the 1st century BC, but Eastern Romans continued to speak of "Scythians" for Germanic tribes or mounted Eurasian nomadic barbarians.
There are results of aDNA calculators that confirm a link between the Iranic speaking people of South-Central Asia, the people of the northern regions of West Asia and Eastern Europeans.
The western Scythians were ruled by a wealthy class known as the Royal Scyths. The Scythians controlled a vast trade network connecting Greece, Persia, India and China.
Iron Age Scythians were a mix of Yamnaya people from the Russian Steppe and East Asian populations, similar to the Han and the Nganasan (from northern Siberia).
The Scythians used cannabis to induce trance and divination.
From large burial mounds (up to 20 metres high) we have learned about Scythian life and art. Scythian tombs reveal traces of Greek, Chinese, and Indian craftsmanship. These burial mounds were named kurhán or kurgán, from the Turkic word for "castle” (which indicates a Turkish origin…).
In 1968, the Tillia Tepe was uncovered in northern Afghanistan. This included the following gold head wear, with dragons (dated around the 1st century BC).
The greater part of the west Scythians are called Daae, but those who are situated more to the east are named Massagetae and Sacae.
The Scythians were warriors (instead of farmers). They "fought to live and lived to fight, and drank the blood of their enemies and used the scalps as napkins”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scythians
See the knive sheath with swastikas…
Here’s a PDF on the study of ancient nomadic cultures in Eurasia (2002):
The Wikipedia page on the Scythians also references an article that seems to confirm that Ashkenazi “Jews” originate from Turkey, and are descendants from the Scythians.
According to geneticist Eran Elhaik, the word Ashkenaz comes from the ancient Assyrian and Babylonian name for the Scythians - Ashguza. He places the original homeland of the Ashkenazi Jews in north-east Turkey and a region to the north of the Black sea.
Three still-surviving Turkish villages – Iskenaz, Eskenaz and Ashanaz – were part of the original Ashkenazic homeland.
Over 90% of the ancestors of Ashkenazi Jews are Greeks, Iranians and others who colonised what is now northern Turkey more than 2000 years ago and were converted to Judaism. Around the first few centuries AD, the Persian Empire was home to the world’s largest Jewish communities.
From the 690s AD onwards, because of anti-Jewish persecution by the Christian Byzantine Empire, large numbers of Jews fled across the Black Sea to a more friendly state – the Turkic-ruled Khazar Empire with its large Slav and other populations.
When the Khazar Empire declined in or around the 11th century, some of the Jewish population migrated west into Central Europe.
The genetic modelling was based on DNA from 367 Jews of northern and eastern European origin and over 600 non-Jewish people mainly from Europe and western Asia: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/scien ... 92076.html
In the Tenach (Old Testament) and the New Testament, Scythians are mentioned 3 times.
2 Maccabees 4:47
3 Maccabees 7:5
Colossians 3:11
On the one hand Wikipedia claims that the Scythians were a large group of nomads that were blue- (or green-) eyed, fair-skinned and light-haired, originally from Iran.
On the other hand Wikipedia writes that the term Scythian, like Cimmerian, referred to a variety of groups from the Black Sea to southern Siberia and central Asia - a variety of peoples. In this version, Scythians were nomads that lived in the steppes of which the west was near the Black Sea and in the east went all the way to Mongolia, the north of China (2,500 miles from east to west and between 200 and 600 miles from north to south). This would explain why dragons are so important in Chinese culture.
This version might explain why De Vere would use a whole bunch of names to describe the “dragons”, which could refer to different types of people within the Scythians (dragons).
This would indicate that the area that I found as “Scythia” was only the west part of the area where the dragons (Scythians) lived.
The Scythians first appeared in the historical record in the 8th century BC; Heroditus reported 3 versions of the origins of the Scythians. Ancient Greek historians wrote about Scythians who lived north of the Black Sea and the Caucasus Mountains.
In the 7th century BC the Scythians with the Cimmerians frequently raided the Middle East.
Wikipedia dates the Scythians from about the 9th century until the 1st century BC, but doesn’t make clear what happened after that.
The classical Scythians may have disappeared by the 1st century BC, but Eastern Romans continued to speak of "Scythians" for Germanic tribes or mounted Eurasian nomadic barbarians.
There are results of aDNA calculators that confirm a link between the Iranic speaking people of South-Central Asia, the people of the northern regions of West Asia and Eastern Europeans.
The western Scythians were ruled by a wealthy class known as the Royal Scyths. The Scythians controlled a vast trade network connecting Greece, Persia, India and China.
Iron Age Scythians were a mix of Yamnaya people from the Russian Steppe and East Asian populations, similar to the Han and the Nganasan (from northern Siberia).
The Scythians used cannabis to induce trance and divination.
From large burial mounds (up to 20 metres high) we have learned about Scythian life and art. Scythian tombs reveal traces of Greek, Chinese, and Indian craftsmanship. These burial mounds were named kurhán or kurgán, from the Turkic word for "castle” (which indicates a Turkish origin…).
In 1968, the Tillia Tepe was uncovered in northern Afghanistan. This included the following gold head wear, with dragons (dated around the 1st century BC).
The greater part of the west Scythians are called Daae, but those who are situated more to the east are named Massagetae and Sacae.
The Scythians were warriors (instead of farmers). They "fought to live and lived to fight, and drank the blood of their enemies and used the scalps as napkins”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scythians
See the knive sheath with swastikas…
Here’s a PDF on the study of ancient nomadic cultures in Eurasia (2002):
http://www.geochronometria.pl/pdf/geo_21/geo21_17.pdfThis research is focused on the chronological investigations of ancient nomads belonging to the Scythian cultures which occupied the steppe and forest-steppe zones of Eurasia during the 9th-3rd centuries BC.
(…)
The tribes are traditionally connected with the Scythian cultures which have different names in different regions of Eurasia: the Scythians in Europe, the Suoromathian in the Lower Volga River Basin and Southern Ural regions, the Tasmola in the Transural regions and the different mosaic cultures in Altai, Southern Ural and Central Asia.
(…)
The Lower Volga nomads have close relations with European Scythians to the West. They also have many similarities with the nomads of the Aral Sea region, Kazakhstan and Southern Siberia to the East. Now we present the first 14C dates for the monuments in these regions (Table 1).
(…)
Since the 9th-8th centuries BC the Scythian cultures began to appear on the wide territory of the steppe and forest-steppe zones of Eurasia. Now there are some monuments, which, according to the radiocarbon dates, can be demonstrated to be synchronous to the Arzhan royal barrow. The ages of monuments located in the Lower Volga River basin, the Urals and Transurals regions are more synchronous to the Pazyryk group barrows.
The Wikipedia page on the Scythians also references an article that seems to confirm that Ashkenazi “Jews” originate from Turkey, and are descendants from the Scythians.
According to geneticist Eran Elhaik, the word Ashkenaz comes from the ancient Assyrian and Babylonian name for the Scythians - Ashguza. He places the original homeland of the Ashkenazi Jews in north-east Turkey and a region to the north of the Black sea.
Three still-surviving Turkish villages – Iskenaz, Eskenaz and Ashanaz – were part of the original Ashkenazic homeland.
Over 90% of the ancestors of Ashkenazi Jews are Greeks, Iranians and others who colonised what is now northern Turkey more than 2000 years ago and were converted to Judaism. Around the first few centuries AD, the Persian Empire was home to the world’s largest Jewish communities.
From the 690s AD onwards, because of anti-Jewish persecution by the Christian Byzantine Empire, large numbers of Jews fled across the Black Sea to a more friendly state – the Turkic-ruled Khazar Empire with its large Slav and other populations.
When the Khazar Empire declined in or around the 11th century, some of the Jewish population migrated west into Central Europe.
The genetic modelling was based on DNA from 367 Jews of northern and eastern European origin and over 600 non-Jewish people mainly from Europe and western Asia: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/scien ... 92076.html
In the Tenach (Old Testament) and the New Testament, Scythians are mentioned 3 times.
2 Maccabees 4:47
.Insomuch that he discharged Menelaus from the accusations, who notwithstanding was cause of all the mischief: and those poor men, who, if they had told their cause, yea, before the Scythians, should have been judged innocent, them he condemned to death.
3 Maccabees 7:5
.These friends also drove them along in chains, treating them harshly as slaves, or rather, as traitors. Without any investigation or trial they attempted to destroy them, displaying a cruelty more savage than the barbarians from Scythia.
Colossians 3:11
Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.