INSTITUT ROMÃN DE THRACOLOGIE
THE THRACIAN WORLD
AT THE CROSSROADS
OF
CIVILIZATIONS
I
THE THRACIAN WORLD AT THE
CROSSROADS OF CIVILIZATIONS
I
Proceedings of the Seventh International
Congress of Thracology
Constanţa-Mangalia-Tulcea
20-26 May 1996
INSTITUT
ROMÃN
DE THRACOLOGIE
MINISTRY OF NATIONAL EDUCATION
The Romanian Institute of Thracology
Editors in chief:
Petre Roman
Saviana Diamandi
Marius Alexianu
Editorial Board:
Marius Alexianu,
Elmar Christmann,
Saviana Diamandi,
Adrian Poruciuc,
Valeriu Sîrbu
Secretary of the Edition:
Lili-Aurelia Ursoiu
Proof-reading:
German Elmar Christmann, Saviana Diamandi
French Livia Sîrbu, Marius Alexianu
English Adrian Poruciuc
Desing Cătălina Toma
Translation:
French Livia Sîrbu
English Adrian Poruciuc
Published by: VAVILA EDINF SRL
Printed by: SEMNE '94 SRL
THE THRACIAN WORLD
AT THE CROSSROADS
OF CIVILIZATIONS
I
Edited by Petre Roman
in collaboration with Saviana Diamandi and Marius
Alexianu
The Organizing Committee of the Seventh International
Congress of Thracology
Chairman: Acad. Mircea Petrescu-Dîmboviţa
Members: Prof. Adrian
Rădulescu
Drd. Valeriu Cheluţă-Georgescu
Dr. Gavrilă Simion
Secretary General: Dr. Petre Roman
It is the authors who are responsible for the
quality and precision of their language.
The Editorial Board only tried to ensure a
minimum of coherence, wherever necessary.
ISBN: 973-98334-0-3
© Copyright 1997 by the Romanian Institute of Thracology and the Publishing House Vavila Edinf SRL
All rights reserved
CONTENTS
The 7th International Congress ofThracology - 1996 ................. 9
Alexandre
FOL - La thracologie à l'état actuel des recherches ............ 11
Petre ROMAN
- Thrakologie in Rumänien in der Zeit zwischen dem 2. (1976) und dem 7. (1996)
Internationalen Kongreß ............. 16
Kiril
JORDANOV - La thracologie en Bulgarie ....................... 21
SECTION ONE:
THE THRACIAN WORLD IN A NORTH-PONTIC CONTEXT
Victor COJOCARU - Porteurs de noms thraces
mentionnés dans les inscriptions des villes
grecques du nord de la mer Noire ....... 31
Gerda v.
BÜLOW - Beziehungen zwischen der Tiermotivik in der thrakischen und der
skythischen
Kunst ....................... 59
Kiril JORDANOV - Zopyrion en Thrace et en
Scythie .................. 70
Valentina V. KRAPIVINA - About the Cult of Tauroctonous
Mithra in Olbia .......... 80
SECTION TWO:
THRACIAN
MEDIATIONS TO CENTRAL EUROPE AND WEST
BALKAN
REGIONS
Milutin
GARAŠANIN - Die alten Völker im nördlichen Teil des mittleren Balkans in
historischer
und archäologischer Sicht ........ 93
Milorad
STOJIĆ - Les caractéristiques principales de la culture triballe .... .119
Gisela
BURGER - Die Ostkelten und ihre Helme ......................134
Aurel
RUSTOIU - Influences celtiques dans l'orfèvrerie dacique du Ier siècle av.
J.-C....152
SECTION
THREE:
THRACIANS IN
THE CONTEXT OF THE AEGEO-ANATOLIAN CIVILIZATION
Joseph MARAN
- Neue Ansätze für die Beurteilung der Balkanisch-Ägäischen Beziehungen
im 3.
Jahrtausend v. Chr. .........171
Stefan
HILLER - Ägäis und Thrakien in der Späten Bronzezeit und den 'Dunklen
Jahrhunderten'
...............................193
Adrian
PORUCIUC - Aegeo-Balkan onomastics and Fertile-Crescent roots....218
Kalin
POROŽANOV - Les Pélasgo-Thraces dans le contexte de la communauté paléobalkano- ouest-micrasiatique (milieu du IIe - milieu du Ier
mill. av. J.-C.) ................236
Wolfgang
DAVID - Altbronzezeitliche Beinobjekte des Karpatenbeckens mit Spiralwirbel-
oder
Wellenbandornament und ihre Parallelen auf der Peloponnes und in Anatolien in
frühmykenischer
Zeit ......... .247
Alexandre
FOL - Thrace et Grece ................................. .306
Jerzy
HATŁAS - Der ägäisch-anatolische Kontext der thrakischen sepulkralen
Bauwerke (5.-3. Jh.
v.Chr.) ...........................310
Tsvete LAZOVA - Ancient southeastern
transformations of cultural phenomena (The
Thracian Horseman)................321
Askold IVANČIK - Les Thraces et les
Mariandynes dans la tradition locale d'Héraclée du Pont 329
Anelia BOZKOVA - La Thrace du Sud-Ouest aux
VIIe-IIIe siècles av. J.-C........338
Giorgi Leon KAVTARADZE - The interrelationship
between the Transcaucasian and Anatolian
populations by the data of the greek and latin
literary sources .............................352
Vera BITRAKOVA-GROZDANOVA - Notes sur les
relations entre la Péonie et la Thrace.....362
Ion NICULIŢĂ, Valeriu BANARU - Les
importations grecques de la forteresse gétique de Butuceni, République de
Moldavie .........373
Vanya LOZANOVA - Aristophanes Comedy Bird:
ΟΡΦΙΚΑ and
ΠΟΛΙΤΙΚΑ ............384
Silvia TEODOR - Objets de parure de Piroboridava
(Poiana, dép. de Galaţi)............... .391
Zlatozara GOČEVA - La religion thrace et
1'Asie Mineure - Le culte de la Grande Déesse-Mére
.........401
Radu FLORESCU - Eléments iconographiques et
symboliques à caractère dyonisiaque sur les
objets de 1'inventaire des tombeaux princiers
gétiques ..................................407
Maria COMŞA - Quelques considérations sur
le culte pratiqué dans les sanctuaires daces et gètes avec des colonnes rangées
des Ve-IIIe ss. a.C.-IIIe s. p.C.........................411
SECTION FOUR:
THE PRE-THRACIAN AND THRACO-GETO-DACIAN
CIVILIZATION
Draga GARAŠANIN - Die spätkupferzeitliche
Siedlung Likodra in Westserbien ..............435
Nicolae URSULESCU - Les commencements de
l'utilisation du rite de l'incinération dans le
monde proto-thrace du nord de la Moldavie
..................447
Ruxandra ALAIBA - New Archaeological Researches
on the Transition Period to the Bronze Age in the Siret and Nistru Area - the
Horodiştea-Gordineşti Culture .............465
Mircea PETRESCU-DÎMBOVIŢA - Certains
problčmes concemant la metallurgie du bronze
chez les Thraces nordiques dans l'oeuvre de
Vasile Pârvan ..................................479
Maria CRISTESCU - Caractéristiques
demographiques des populations de l'aire thrace sur le
territoire de la Roumanie ........487
Marilena FLORESCU - Quelques données concernant
l'organisation territoriale-tribale et la
structure economique et sociale spécifique au
bronze moyen des zones orientales de la
Roumanie ...............493
Valentin VASILIEV - Quelques problèmes
concernant le premier âge du fer en Transylvanie
intracarpatique ................504
Valeriu SÎRBU, George TROHANI - Cités et
établissements fortifiés entre les Carpates
Méridionales, le Danube et la mer Noire (Ve -
IIIe siècles av. J.-C.)................512
Rumyana GEORGIEVA - Everyday Life in Ancient
Thrace .............540
Margarita TATSCHEVA - Die thrakischen Glossen
δεβα (deva) und δαβα
(δαυα, dava). Eine
historisch - geographische
Erkundigung.................547
Konstantin RABADJIEV - The Thracian King's Tomb
(an attempt at a new Interpretation)..558
Dimitar POPOV - ZALMOXIS (le dieu aux différents noms) ............571
Miléna TONKOVA - Un champ de fosses rituelles des Ve-IVe s. av. J.-C.
près de Glédacevo, Bulgarie du Sud
.........................592
Aurel ZANOCI - La topographie des forteresses géto-daces de 1'est des Carpates
pendant les VIe-IIIe siècles av. J.-C. .............611
Felicia MONAH, Dan MONAH - Archaeobotanical
materials from
Georgeta EL SUSI - The evolution of animal
husbandry during Iron Age in
Carmen HRIŞCU, Sergiu HAIMOVICI - Animal
husbandry and hunting in the transitional period from Copper Age to the Bronze
Age in the Eastern area of Romania ........642
SECTION FIVE:
HERITAGE
Cantemir RIŞCUŢIA, Irina
RIŞCUŢIA, Angela PETRESCU, Lia IVAN -Persistance des modèles
anthropologiques paléoeuropides chez la plupart des populations montagnardes de
1'Europe, y compris les Carpates Occidentales, témoin de continuité
anthropologique et ethnologique .............655
Anovska KLEANTI - The snake in the folk
productions of Aromanians .......659
Dilyana BOTEVA - L'oracle de Dionysos des Besses
..................667
Valeria FOL - Sainte Marina: une vision sur
1'heritage spirituel antique ......679
Marcela BRATILOVEANU-POPILIAN - Le serment des
"soeurs" (cousines) et des "frêres"
(cousins) - une coutume de printemps d'Olténie
.........691
Cornelia GANGOLEA - Les piliers funéraires de la
Transylvanie du Sud .....697
Gabriela FUCAREV - Aspects d'unité dans la
broderie roumaine .........707 [p. 9]
The 7th International Congress of Thracology - 1996
Under the patronage of the President of Romania
and with the President of the Academy,
the Ministers of Culture, Education, Science and Technology, and the prefects
of the Constanţa and Tulcea counties as members of the Honorary Committee,
the proceedings of the 7th International Congress of Thracology took place in a
plenary Session at Constanţa (May 20), then in various
sessions at Mangalia/ Olimp (May 21-24), being closed at Tulcea (May 25-26).
For the organization of the Congress and the
establishment of topics, the National Committee had several meetings with the
Secretary General of the International Couneil for Indo-European and Thracian
Studies, Prof. Alexandre Fol, with delegates from the Institutes of Thracology,
Archaeology, and Palaeobalkan Studies of Sofia, with representatives of the
Institute of Archaeology and the Faculty of History in Chişinău, and
of the Institute of Balkan Studies in Beigrade, as well as with the President
of the Balkanologic Commission of the Academy of Sciences in Heidelberg, Prof.
Harald Hauptmann. Among other things, over the period 1992-1996, aspects
regarding the preparation and proceedings of the Congress were discussed in six
meetings of the International Commission for the Promotion of Indo-European and
Thracian Studies, with participation of representatives from
Applications for the participation in the
Congress were received from 348 specialists of 26 countries; 222 of them also
sent summaries and reports. Of those, 250 actually participated and only 50
sent their papers before the deadline. The diffcrence between the number of
applicants and that of actual participants can be explained, especially in the
case of specialists from former Communist countries, by shortage of travel
money, especially since certain hopes which had been given by the Soros
Foundation in this respect did not materialize.
Not all papers received by the Editorial Board
were in keeping with the announced general theme, The Thracian World at the
Crossroads of Civilizations, so the distribution for various thematic
sessions was difficult. For all their extreme lenience, the Committee had to
reject some of the papers as unfit. Some papers were not sent in due time,
while others were inappropriate from an editorial standpoint; some of them were
sent back to the authors, who were invited to submit not only translations, but
also the original texts, for comparison. Articies are published in keeping with
the sessions of the Congress.
The Organizing Committee
President: Mircea Petrescu-Dîmboviţa
Members: Adrian Rădulescu,
Valeriu Cheluţă-Georgescu,
Gavrilă Simion
Secretary General: Petre Roman [p. 352]
THE INTERRELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE TRANSCAUCASIAN AND
ANATOLIAN POPULATIONS BY THE DATA OF THE GREEK AND LATIN LITERARY SOURCES
Giorgi Leon KAVTARADZE (
In the "Geography" of Strabo there is
a story about the migration of peoples from Asia Minor to the Caucasus,
according to which mythical Amazons, together with Gargareans, went away from
the Temiscyra and resettled in the eastern part of the Caucasus, in the
Keraunian mountains, above Albania, where they met Eobeoans and Thracians who
migrated also to the Caucasus from the west (XI, V, 1-49).
If Strabo's indication about the penetration of the above-mentioned tribes to
the Caucasus would be an isolated one, it could be considered as totally
legendary, but also other authors of the Classical times frequently mention the
migration of peoples to the Caucasus from south-west, mainly tribes of
Pelasgian provenance.
We cannot say anything about the Thracians mentioned by Strabo in connection
with the Caucasus, but for the archaeologists, ethnographers, linguists and
anthropologists firm and multilateral ties between the ancient populations of
Anatolia and the
Many characteristics of the various aspects of life of the Ancient Near East
still exist among the population of the Caucasus, who at the same time was
genetically connected with the earliest inhabitants of the Near East and the
The territorial proximity of Anatolia and
It is mentioned by scholars as a fact that in the Byzantine historiography,
Cappadocians - inhabitants of
Much earlier, in the 6th century BC, Hecataeus of Miletus wrote that the Moschs
are a Colchian tribe who lived near Matienians (fr. 188). The definition of the
Moschs as a Colchian tribe is a remarkable fact because at that time, as we [p. 353] know by Herodotus, they were
included together with other Pontic tribes in the same Achaemenian satrapy,
while the Colchians were in reality independent from Iranians (cf. Hdt, III,
94, 97). On the other hand, the information by Hecataeus on the conjunction
with another fragment of the same author about the location of the Matienians
town Hiope in the neighbourhood of Gordies and about the Paphlagonian type of
the clothes of the population of this town (fr. 189), makes obvious that in the
above-mentioned Matienians western Matienians were implied who lived near the
Phrygians of the city of Gordion and near the Paphlagonians. Because of it, it
is possible to localize the Moschs in
As to the information of Georgian chronicles, the name of the father of Haos
and Kartlos, the ancestors of Armenians and Georgians, was Targamos. This name
is derived from the biblical "Togarma", and it is thought to be
connected with the designation of the Cappadocian town Til-Garimu, known from
Assyrian inscriptions, which, on its hand, has its origin in the name of the
former Hittite region - Tegarama. According to Georgian chronicles, the main
protector of Georgians, St. George, and the person who brought them
Christianity, St. Nino, were of Cappadocian origin.
By the Georgian tradition, the name of the Mosch-Meschs is connected with the
name of the Iberian capital - Mtskheta, In any case,
there can be little doubt that the population who settled in Mtskhela were the
bearers of the Hittite-Analolian cultural traditions. According to the
scholars, the old Georgian gods of Mtskheta like Armazi, Zadeni, Gatsi and Ga
correspond to the Anatolian deities: Arma, Santa, Atis and Kibela [3].
As to some Georgian archaeologists, the active settlement of a new population,
probably the Meschs, the bearers of the Hittite-Asia Minor traditions in the
north, in Mtskheta, had already begun in the second part of the fourth century
BC, and this fact caused the spread of a new type of culture in Eastern Georgia
which was quite different from the local Late Bronze - Early Iron age
traditions [4].
It is remarkable that Josephus Flavius, the Jewish-Roman historian of the first
century AD, considered the Moschs, as well as the Iberians, as being of
Anatolian origin. In his commentary to the biblical "Meshech" he
wrote that the Mosocheans were derived from Meshech and that they afterwards
received the name of "Cappadocians", though from the designation of
their capital "Mazaca", it is obvious that the name of all their
tribes was the same. In the text of Eustates, Erzbishop of Antiochia, of the
first half of the fourth century, as well as in the "Chronography" of
the Byzantine writer Leon the Grammatikus, the name of this tribe is identical
with the name of the ancient Georgian tribe of Meshs - Μεσχινοι.
The Georgian tribe of the Meschs lived in the Classical and Medieval times in
the Moschian mountains - between
By the information of Leo Allazius in the commentary to Josephus Flavius'
above-mentioned fragment, the Meschians were a people known by the old authors
as Moschikoi or Mosynoeci. At first they lived in the Pontic littoral and
afterwards they had become Cappadocians, but finally they once again were
forced to move to the north. It is known that Leo Allazius was acquainted with
many books which are now lost.
In connection with Allazius' information it is perhaps worthwhile to recollect
the Middle Assyrian inscription of Tiglath-Pilesar I. By this inscription in
ca. 1164 BC, the land of Alzi, alias Enzi/Enzite, as same as Sophene, on the
lower stream of the Murat (Eastern Euphrates), and the land of Kadmuhi, in the
valley of the upper Tigris, were occupied by Mushki [5].
This circumstance makes it possible to establish cultural attribution of
Mushki; the territory where Alzi was located, 20-25 years ago was thoroughly
studied by Keban dam expedition. In the opinion of archaeologists the Early
Iron age pottery discovered there, in the Elâzığ region, and which
must be attributed to Mushki, has no connection at all with the western
Anatolian homeland of the Phrygians and reveals traits typical of the
Transcaucasian (East Georgian, Armenian), North-Eastern Anatolian and
North-Western Iranian materials [6].
It is interesting that the East Georgian mountaindwellers are known to their
Daghestanian neighbours as Mosok/Masek/Mosoch [7].
We must take into account that the ethnonym "Moschi" of the Greek
sources from the phonetical point of view corresponds to the Assyrian-Urartian
"Mushki" [8]. At the same time, as to the linguists,
the form "Mosx/Musx" represents a West Georgian (Colchian or
Megrel-Lazian) equivalent of the East Georgian ethnonym "Meschi" [9].
In the opinion of some authors, Moschs also lived in the
It can be easily noticed that instead of the Moschs of Strabo in the
Pseudo-Scylaxes "Periplus", several tribes are mentioned - Toretes,
Achaeans, Heniocheans, Coraxes, Melanchlaenies and Gelonies. In one of these
tribes it is possible to detect Strabo's Moschs. By the same fragment of Strabo
we are also informed that above the Cercetae, Moschs and Colchians, the
Pteriophagi (i.e. the lice-eaters) and Soanes lived. On the other hand, Flavius
Arrian informs us in his [p. 355]
"Periplus" that the Scythian tribe of "lice-eaters" at
earlier times lived west of Pitius and that this tribe was mentioned by
Herodotus in the description of the "
In the light of Herodotus and Flavius Arrians data, it is obvious that the
Gelonies, mentioned by Pseudo-Scylax as neighbours of the Melanchlaenies and
Colchians, correspond to Strabo's Pteriophages (or "lice-eaters") who
lived above the Cercetae, Moschs and Colchians (i.e. in the mountains). This
coincidence makes possible to identify also their neighbours, the
Melanchlaenies with the Moschs.
By the data of Hecataeus (fr. 154), Herodotus (IV, 107) and after them other
Classical writers, the Melanchlaenies got this name because they had
"black coats". In Greek μελας,
μαλλαινα,
μελαν means "black", "of the black
colour". The same meaning in the Svanian language of the Kartvelian linguistic
family has the word "meshkhe". The hissing consonant (sh) in Greek is
transmitted as the sibilant (s).
Consequently, we have no reason to speak about the residence of the
Moschs/Meschs as being in the
A similar phenomenon - a wrong use of an ethnonym - we have presumably also in
Xenophons "Anabasis". There in the final part only such countries and
tribes were enumerated which, in accordance with the basic text, were on the
route of Greeks. Among others there is mentioned an ethnonym
"Hesperitae" (VII, VIII, 25).
The problem of settlement of Hesperitae is a crucial one, because on the base
of their location, by some scholars, in Speri (İspir), on the upper flow
of Chorokhi (Choruh), the Achaemenian empire is thought to be spread there at
the beginning of 4th century BC [11].
I think the fact must be taken into consideration that at the time of the
identification of the Hesperitae and the definition of their location, Tiribas,
mentioned in the final part of the "Anabasis" as a governor of the
Phasianoi and Hesperitae, in accordance with the basic text, was the satrap of
Consequently, the question is inevitable: Was the population of
The validity of such an assumption can be reinforced by the fact that the Greek
word εσπερα means "west" and
εσπεριος/εσπερος
- "western". It is important to notice that Strabo used the term "Hesperitae
of Lybia" to designate
Consequently, we must exclude any possibility to consider the West Armenian
"Hesperitae" of Xenophons "Anabasis" as a Kartvelian tribe
or as a population of Speri, of the upper flow of Chorokhi.
Another example of a wrong use of the ethnonyms we can find in Flavius Arrians
"Campaign of Alexander".
According to Flavius Arrian, in 329-328 BC, the king of the Central Asian
Chorasmeans, Pharasmanes, escorted by 1500 horsemens, appeared before Alexander
the Great who stayed at that time on the bank of the Central Asian river Oxus
(modern Amu-Daria); he told Alexander that he lived in neighbourhood of the
Colchians and Amazons and offered to accompany him and to get the supply for
his campaign if Alexander wished to conquer the tribes who lived in the region
extended to the Pontus Euxinus (i.e. Black Sea). Alexander replied to the king
of the Chorasmeans that he had no time now to begin a campaign to Pontus, but
after the conquest of Asia and his return through the Hellespontus and
Propontidis to Greece, he would break profoundly into Pontus with the help of
all his forces, both marine and military ones and only then he would accept
Pharasmanes' help (XV, IV, 14,15).
The historiographical literature contains quite a competent remark, namely that
it is incredible that the author of "Peripluses of the Black Sea",
Flavius Arrian, thought the residence of Colchians to be in Central Asia, in
the neighbourhood of Chorasmeans and not in the environment of Trapezunt on the
Black Sea. This error appeared obviously in the Greek manuscripts: it is
difficult to imagine the king of Central Asian Chorasmeans to be mentioned in
the original text together with the Colchians [12]. [p. 357]
That the text by Arrian concerns the Pontic region and not Central Asia, beside
the fact that it refers to Colchians, Amazons and Pontus Euxinus, can to
some degree be stated by Alexander the Great's words, that he would go
towards the Pontus after his return to Greece through the Hellespontus and
Propontidis (i.e. after his return from Central Asia) using land - as well as
marine forces. This last remark makes clear that he was not about to return to
If, on the one hand, the king of Chorasmeans, Pharasmanes, mentioned by Arrian,
expected Alexander's help against his neighbours - the Colchians and Amazons -
on the other hand, by the information of Georgian and Armenian chronicles,
Alexander the Great installed his follower as a ruler after his arrival in
Kartli (Iberia). According to the Georgian chronicle of the 9th century,
"The Christening of Kartli", Alexanders
follower, Azo, was the son of the king of Arian-Kartli and he took his
compatriots and idols Gatsi and Ga to Kartli.
Arseni Beri, the author of metaphrastical reduction of "The life of St.
Nino" and tutor of the Georgian king David, the Restorer, explained this
information in the following way: "We, Georgians, are descendants of the
newcomers from Arian-Kartli, we speak their language and all the kings of
Kartli are descendents of their kings".
By the generally accepted opinion Arian-KartIi must be searched south-west of
modem
Georgian annals are not the only ones to connect the emergence of the statehood
in
There is no doubt that in fact above-mentioned Mihrdates represents a member of
the Pontic dynasty of the Mithridatians. The information concerning the
resettlement of the population from Africa (Lybia) and the Iberian peninsula
(Western Iberia) by the Babylonian king Nebukhadnezzar II, of the early 6th century
BC, was ascribed to the historian Megastenes already at the Classical times. It
is worthwhile to remark that Megastenes lived in the late 4th - early 3rd
centuries BC; thus the information about the migration of Georgians to the
Although Plinius (IV, 39) and Solinus (IX, 19) mentioned the supremacy of the
Macedonians in
I think exactly in the north-eastern parts of
In connection with the problem concerned, we must pay attention to Strabo's
information that by Artaxias (the Armenian king Artashes I) and Zariadr (the
Armenian military leader Zareh) Armenian lands were enlarged by cutting off
from Iberians beside the Gogarene, the slopes of Pariadres mountains and
Chorzene (XI, XIV, 5). This event can be dated to the 2nd century BC.
Chorzene, apparently included the old Georgian provinces Tao-Klarjeti and
Kola-Artaani and was located in the area, the central part of which is the
mountaneous ridge of Arsiani (modem Yalnizçam Dağlari), mentioned as the
mountain of Chorziani in the "Life of St. Grigoli of Khantza" by
Giorgi Merchule of the 10th century.
So we can assume that in Flavius Arrian's "Campaign of Alexander"
under the name of the Chorasmeans king Pharasmanes the ruler of the Iberian
province of Chorzene should be detected, and that the information by the
Georgian chronicles about the son of the king of Arian-Kartli, Azo, who became
king in Mtzkheta (Kartli) because of the help of Alexander the Great, with the
information by Flavius Arrian in a certain way is connected.
It is worthwhile to say that the name "Azo" reveals a similarity with
the name of the king of Dayaeni (i.e. Urartian Diaukhi), Asia, mentioned in the
inscription of the Assyrian king, Shalmanasar III, which was dated to 844 BC. [14]
The land of Dayaene/Diaukhi was located to the north of the source of Kara-su (
An additional data may be provided by the name of the royal city of Diaukhi -
Šašilu [15]
which possibly was situated on the place of the Medieval Georgian village of
Sasire (immediately west from the castles of Tortumi and Okale), on the upper
flow of Tortumis-tskali (Tortum-çai), ca. 15 km north-west of the source of
Euphrates (Dumlu-su). It must be taken into account that by the Assyrian
cuneiform inscription which was taken over in Urartian, it is impossible to
distinguish from each other the sounds š and s, l and r,
u
and o
[16].
Such a location of Šašilu seems quite reasonable if we will correlate the fact
mentioned in the above inscription of Shalmanasar III that he erected his
statue in the anonymous city of Asia when the latter came to him to the source
of Euphrates and "fell before his [p.
359] feet" with the
information of the Urartian king Menua that nearly after half a century of this
fact he destroyed the royal city of Diaukhi, mentioned by the name
"Šašilu".
It was assumed that the anthroponym "Azo" of the Georgian chronicles
had the meaning of a personification of the country of Azzi, of the Hittite
times [17],
situated by the opinion of some scholars in the territory of later Diaukhi.
Anyway, by the correlation of the data of the Greek and Roman authors with
earlier Hittite and Assyrian epigraphical sources, it is possible to deduce
that some Transcaucasian tribes of the Classical times were evidently
descendents of the population who lived formerly in the regions situated more
to the south-west - in the inner parts of Eastern and Central Anatolia.
Apparently "rising tides" and "ebb tides" of the
populations of the Transcaucasia and the southern Black Sea littoral, in
connection with the inner regions of
Giorgi Leon Kavtaradze
NOTES
[1]
Hauptmann 1993, 66, Fig. 26.
[2] Cf.
Haussig l986, 44.
[3]Tsereteli l935, 45-50.
[4] Lordkipanidze
1989, 312.
[5] Cf.
Budge/King 1902, 35.
[6]
Burney/Lang 1971, 98, 161; Sevin 1991, 96f.
[7]
Uslar l889, 22.
[8]
Cf. Diakonov 1981, 15; Tsereteli
1954, 111-118.
[9]
Topuria 1970, 118-122.
[10] E.g. Melikishvili 1959, 87f.
[11]
Melikishvili 1959, 117f., 232f., 267f.; Adontz 1908, 83; Lehmann-Haupt 1931,
790.
[12]
Kaukhchishvili 1976.
[13]
E.g. Lasserre l975, 175.
[14]
Diakonov 1951, 299.
[15]
Melikishvili 1960, 157-160, 234f., 247.
[16]
Melikishvili 1960, 46.
[17]
Kapantsyan l975, 342f. [p. 360]
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