Top to bottom but right to left:
- q (qoph) / r (resh) / a (aleph) / v (vav) / v (vav) / t (teth) / y (yod) > qravvty
- s (samekh) (or m?) / l (lamed) / q (qoph) / y (yod) / y (yod) > slqyy
- l (lamed) / y (yod) / ts (samekh) / p (pe) / y (yod) / > lytspy
- l (lamed) / v (vav) / v (vav) / m (mem) / y (yod) > lvvmy
- k (kaph) / r (resh) / k (kaph) / a (aleph) / r (resh) > krkar
- k (kaph) / z (zayin) / r (resh) / m (mem) / y (yod) / n (nun) > kzrmyn
- b (beth) (or k?) / z (zayin) / m (mem) / y (yod) / n (nun) > bzmyn
- s (samekh) / k [or q] (qoph) / l (lamed) / b (beth) / y (yod) > sklby
Josippon
Josippon was a medieval interpretation/reworking of Flavius Josephus’ “Antiquities of the Jews”. It has been dated first to the 9th century, then to the mid-10th and now it is thought to have been written about 980 AD (somewhere in Italy). It is of little interest to Slavic antiquities except in its first book where, much as the other histories of the time, it provides a list of peoples (albeit primarily of Europe) with their Biblical (in a version of Genesis) pedigree. Interestingly, it lists among other peoples, the Slavs.
The author distinguishes, what we would today call the Slavs, assigning them to their Biblical progenitors as follows:
- Thogharma – Bulgars (and also Hungarians, Pechenegs, possibly with Turks and Khazars?);
- Thogarma refers to Togarmah, a descendant of Japheth whose people are associated with Anatolia.
- Thiras (Tiras, son of Japheth) – Rus, Bosni (Bosnians? Poznanians?) (along with the Angles);
- Thiras refers to Tiras who is the last son Japheth and whose people were associated with the Thracians (as per Biblical interpretations).
- Dodanim – These cover the countries of the Danes (Dena), towns of Mechba (of the Veleti?) and Bardena (Bardvik?); here we have Croats, Cracovians (?), Bohemians (?) (and Danes, Letts? (or Lithuanians?), Livonians (?) and Khazars? All these are called Slavs.
- Dodanim (or Rodanim) is a son Javan (who was the fourth son of Japheth) whose people are associated with the island of Rhodes or, alternatively, just with Greeks.
Here is the text regarding the Dodanim:
“Dodanim, are a people called Daniski, who dwell in cities at the very end the Peninsula of the Ocean in the country [called] Dana; [the cities] called Mechba and Bardena, in the middle of the great sea. And they bound themselves with oaths never to serve the Romans and hid in the middle of the waves of the Ocean; but they could not deny [the yoke] that reached them and the Roman domination even to the furthest islands and could not rely on the waves [to stop the Romans]; the Croats [?] and Lachs [?], Letts [?], Livonians [?], Cracovians [?], Khazars [?] & Bohemians [?] are thought to be the children of the Dodanim too. And these who are called Sklabi set up their towns/burgs from the ends of the Bulgar lands to the Venetian Sea [Venice on the Adriatic?]; and from there they extended up until the great sea; some think they are Canaanites [presumably because of the Slav > slave connotation present at the time; note the same remark made by Benjamin of Tudela] but they count themselves among the Dodanim.”
Incidentally, we weren’t able to see Moravians or Serbs in this list.
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