| An Interesting Fact... |
| Thor Heyerdahl in Azerbaijan |
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| Everything began from the visit of the famous Norvegian historian Thor Heyerdahl to Azerbaijan. Before he proposed his idea about historical link between azeri people and the vikings, the ancestors of the Norvegians, I even could hardly imagine that such a connection exists. But exactly his great discovery made me to think different and to begin my own research. |
| * Photos and information are taken from the "Azerbaijan International" magazine #8.2, Summer 2000 |
| Archeologist and historian Thor Heyerdahl, 85, has visited Azerbaijan on several occasions during the past two decades. Each time, he garners more evidence to prove his tantalizing theory - that Scandinavian ancestry can be traced to the region now known as Azerbaijan. Heyerdahl first began forming this hypothesis after visiting Gobustan, an ancient cave dwelling found 30 miles west of Baku, which is famous for its rock carvings. The sketches of sickle-shaped boats carved into these rocks closely resemble rock carvings found in his own native Norway. Years later, the explorer stumbled upon another correlation between Norway and Azerbaijan. Norwegian mythology tells that the Scandinavian god Odin moved with his people to Norway from a land called Aser, in order to avoid Roman occupation. A 13th-century historian's description of Aser's origination matches that of Azerbaijan: east of the Caucasus mountains and the Black Sea..* |
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| But that was not all... |
| Roman inscription at Gobustan indicating that Roman troops were in the region around 97 AD |
| In the ancient caves of Gobustan which date back at least 5,000 years, cave drawings depict two different kinds of boats that were used for early navigation. Heyerdahl is convinced that people living in the area now known as Azerbaijan settled in Scandinavia around 100 AD. |
| In the same issue of the "Azerbaijan Internation" magazine, where I read the stated above information, I found one more interesting artcle... |
| Blond-Haired Mummies In the meantime we have contacts with the Academies of Sciences in 11 nations. We do not want to leave anything out. The most surprising discovery was when we contacted Communist China. They had discovered blond-haired mummies in the Karim Desert deep inside China, so perfectly preserved in the cold climate and salty earth that you could see the color of the skin and hair. The Chinese archeologists were surprised because these mummies were not Mongoloids at all; they suspected instead that they were Vikings. But it didn't make sense to me that Vikings should be deep inside the deserts of China. When the Chinese archeologists conducted radio-carbon dating, they determined that the mummies were of Nordic type dating from 1,800 to 1,500 years BC. But the Viking period started around 800 AD. It then became obvious that these mummies were not Vikings who had come to China. Here was a missing link. And again the Caucasus enters into the picture as a mutual migratory center. But this is not the end of the story. These mummies were dressed in cloth that had been woven, and the colors and the woven pattern were of a very specific type. The Chinese themselves studied the mummies and then invited American experts to study the clothing who determined that the weave and coloring were typical of the Celts of Ireland. But this made no sense at all. Then we contacted Ireland to get their sagas, and their written saga says that their ancestors were Scythians. So, again, their roots come back here to the Caucasus..* |
| So it were the Celts! It were the Celts, whose mummies were found in China and whose trace were found at the Caucasus through the Scythians, their ancestors. It was a reallly great discovery that made me to think about historical link between the azeri people and the Celts. This idea seems very strange from the first glance. Yes, it's really strange, but as you will have a chance to see at the next page, it's not so fabulous at all... |
| Thor Heyerdahl in 1994 at the Gobustan caves in Azerbaijan. |