Category Archives: Origins

Bear With Me

PublishedMay 28, 2018 Post authortorino

Those strange bear references are all over the place in Slavic languages.

Thus, we have:

barć – a forest beehive – and who likes forest beehive honey?

bartnik – a beekeeper.

barłóg – a sleeping den – especially of a bear (in fact, the Hungarians have a Slavic borrowing medve barlaga where medve refers to medved, that is, a bear). What is interesting is that the name can be easily divided into a “bear’s sleeping den” if one is willing to accept that “bar” refers to a “bear”. Thus, the łóg is simply a reference to łóże that is bed, that is the modern łóżko either of which comes from “lying down” – compare the German liegen with the Polish leżeć. One of the most well known and obvious Slavic transformations is the g > ż.

What connects all these words is the “bear”. The odd thing is that these words are not borrowings from Germanic languages – they appear to be extremely old and are present, in one way or another, in most Slavic languages.

And, as I wrote before, although the East Slavic medved may seem to be the original form from which the Polish niedźwiedź is derived, even this is not clear. Thus, we have the Gothic nidva meaning “rust”.

Rusty the Bear

A Play on Words

PublishedMay 24, 2018 Post authortorino

Here is an interesting excerpt from the generally good work of Saskia Pronk-Tiethoff.

and here is something that might require a reconsideration of the above conclusions:

Suevi in Asia

PublishedMay 8, 2018 Post authortorino

Although the Stevenson translation of Ptolemy is quite horrible, it does manage to preserve an interesting question raised by the Geography. In chanter 14 of Book 6, Ptolemy says regarding Scythia:

“After this bend of the Imaus mountains toward the north. Those who inhabit Scythia toward the north along the Terra Incognita are called Alani-Scythae, Suobeni [actually, Souobenoi/Sovobenoi] and Alanorsi. The part which is below these is held by the Satiani, the Massaei, and the Syebi… below the [Mologeni], up to the Rhymmicos mountains are the Samnitae; below the Massaei and the Alani mountains are the Zaratae and the Sasones…”

Earlier we read the following description of the mountains of Scythia:

“Next to these [Tapuri] mountains are those which are in the Imaus region, also the Syebi mountains…”

Putting aside the putative Saxons (interesting in and of itself), we have the Syebi with Syebi mountains. This can’t help but remind of Pliny’s mount Sevo (Book 4).

“In their country is an immense mountain called Sevo, not less than those of the Riphæan range, and which forms an immense gulf along the shore as far as the Promontory of the Cimbri. This gulf, which has the name of the ‘Codanian,’ is filled with islands; the most famous among which is Scandinavia, of a magnitude as yet unascertained.”

Malta’s Slavs

PublishedMay 6, 2018 Post authortorino

I don’t usually do reprints but here is an interesting 2014 article from the Times of Malta about potential Suavic presence on the island. Given that Evagrius’ Life of Saint Pancratius of Taormina was written between 695 and 710 and refers to Slavic villages on Sicily, the presence of Slavs on Malta in the 11th century – over 300 years later should not be that surprising. Still, it is an interesting report/conjecture so here you go:

“The Maltese may also have a drop or two of Slavic blood coursing through our veins, according to an eminent American medievalist from the University of California.

The presence of Slav or other white slaves was documented in the name Ta’ Skorba, which is derived from saqaliba/slaves.

Delivering a lecture in fluent Maltese, Michael Cooperson, a professor of Arabic and a translator of Arabic literature, argued that the much-debated identity of the slaves in 11th century Malta – from whom the present Maltese population is supposedly descended from – was Slavic.

The longest discussion of Malta in those times is in a 15th century book by the North African geographer al-Himyari. In 1995, the book was translated by Manwel Mifsud and written about by Joseph Brincat.

Prof. Cooperson explained that al-Himyari wrote that Malta was attacked by Arabs in the ninth century and then left deserted.

‘This means that the Christian continuity back to St Paul was broken. Then, says al-Himyari, the Arabs came back in the mid-11th century and resettled the island.’

Malta was then attacked by the Byzantines. Reportedly, the Muslims and their slaves (referred to as għabid) fought them off.

Modern scholars have been pounding away at the slaves: were they Christians who survived the first attack?

A number of scholars have concluded that the slaves were not Christian.

Godfrey Wettinger had observed that għabid were normally understood to be black mercenaries. However this interpretation would involve having to account for the eventual complete disappearance of a sizeable black population.

Prof. Wettinger also proposed that the Maltese slaves could have been .the Saqaliba or Slav or other white slaves..

Ggeographer al-Bakri who also gave a shorter but older description of Malta than that of al-Himyari used the word għabid to refer to Slavs.

‘If we assume that the Maltese slaves were Slavs as well, we would be solving the problem raised by Prof. Wettinger, i.e. ‘to account for the eventual complete disappearance of a sizeable Negro population’.

More details in Times of Malta and the e-paper on timesofmalta.com Premium.

Here is the professor’s comment:

Slavic origins

I am grateful for the attention Times of Malta gave to my recent talk but the shortened, non-subscription version of the article available online has created some misunderstandings.

My talk was about the medieval Arab geographer al-Himyari, who reports that 11th-century Malta was inhabited by Muslims and their slaves (għabid). Some scholars think these slaves are the ancestors of the present-day Maltese people. I doubt this is entirely true but the question does not interest me.

My purpose in the paper was to find out what al-Himyari meant by the word għabid. I was trying to solve a textual problem, not a genetic one.

What I found was that another Arabic geographer describes a similar group of slaves as saqalibah. In the Middle Ages, this term was linked to Slavs but also to northern and eastern Europeans in general.

Regarding Malta, this discovery means that 11th century slaves may have been saqalibah too. This possibility seems consistent with the results of genetic analysis. The Muslim societies of the medieval Mediterranean, including those of Sicily and Southern Italy, also included slaves of European origin.

Some commentators tried to approach the problem linguistically. But similarities between Maltese and Arabic (for example) do not necessarily tell us anything about where their speakers come from. Historical linguistics actually works the other way around.

If we find a Catalan word in Maltese, we can assume that at some point speakers of Maltese came into contact with speakers of Catalan. But we cannot assume anything about the ancestry of either group.

In the case of Malta, 11th century slaves may have come from different places. If their only common language was the Arabic of their masters, their own languages would have disappeared very quickly. Possibly for this reason, the only trace of the saqalibah in modern Maltese is the name Ta’ Skorba or Sqalba. If saqaliba did exist in Malta, they doubtless contributed something to the gene pool. But this does not mean “the Maltese may have descended from Slavs”.

I too noticed the parallel with the Eurovision song contest and the Polish entry ‘We are Slavic’. Although that performance deserves further study, I can assure everyone that it did not influence my conclusions.”

Here is a follow up article

Academics at odds over Slav slaves theory

The presence of “Saqaliba or Slav or other white slaves” was documented in the nameTa’Skorba, which is derived from sqalba (slaves).

Defining the identity of 11th century slaves in Malta as Slavic may solve the problem of accounting for the eventual complete disappearance of a sizeable black population but raises another issue, according to historian Godfrey Wettinger.

‘I am now faced with the problem of explaining the innumerable blacks that were wiped out by Count Roger II in 1127.’

Prof. Wettinger was reacting to the conclusions drawn by eminent American medievalist Michael Cooperson who argued that the much-debated identity of the slaves in 11th century Malta – from whom the present Maltese population is supposedly descended from – was Slavic.

A 15th century book by the North African geographer al-Himyari recounts that Malta was attacked by Arabs in the ninth century and then left deserted. The Arabs returned in the mid-11th century and resettled on the island, together with their slaves.

‘I now have the problem of explaining the innumerable blacks wiped out in 1127. ‘

Malta was then attacked by the Byzantines. Reportedly, the Muslims made a pact with their slaves that they would repay them with freedom and riches if they joined them in repelling the Byzantines.

Al-Himyari refers to the slaves as għabid, a word that was normally understood to be black mercenaries. However, Prof. Cooperson pointed out that the geographer al-Bakri, writing before al-Himyari, described a certain group of għabid as saqaliba (Slavs). Therefore, he concluded, the għabid of 11th century Malta might have been saqaliba too, as opposed to Africans.

Prof. Cooperson also stressed that Arabic speakers used the term saqaliba to refer to many different European peoples and not necessarily those whom we today call Slavs. Prof. Wettinger had observed that if one assumed that there were a substantial number of African slaves, ‘that interpretation would involve having to account for the eventual complete disappearance of a sizeable Negro population’.

‘I do not agree with the idea that the għabid in al-Himyari must be Slavs,’ he told Times of Malta.

This interpretation, he continued, did not account for the “innumerable black slaves” that were wiped out by Count Roger II in 1127, as per the poem in 12th century Greek, which was recently translated into English by three Maltese academics.

‘In later times, Slav people undoubtedly reached Malta, Gozo and Sicily in smallish numbers through commercial contact in the port of Ragusa or Dubrovnik or elsewhere on the Dalmatian coastline.’

Prof. Cooperson used Ta’ Skorba, derived from sqalba, as an example that the Slavic presence was documented in Malta. Prof. Wettinger adds more names to the list.

‘There are also the surnames Schiavone and Zarb, which are derived from slaves and Serbs. But, then again, there is also Nigret and Ngieret, which mean ‘black’. However, he fully agreed with Prof. Cooperson that the slaves were Muslims.’

Historian Charles Dalli remarked that a new reading of a known source, though less exciting than the discovery of a new one, was always interesting to consider. It has long been known, he noted, that the term saqaliba referred to slaves of eastern European origin.

The only thing we knew concretely, however, was that the slaves in Malta were għabid and that, in a central Mediterranean context, this seemed to refer to slave soldiers, possibly of African origin in view of the usage of the term għabid in similar contexts.

‘Is it possible that there were a number of people of eastern European origin among them?’

‘Yes, of course, it is always a possibility that there were saqaliba among the għabid of Malta but there is no independent evidence to support this. That all the għabid on Malta were really saqaliba seems even less likely.’

‘In his entry on Malta, al-Himyari uses għabid and not saqaliba; the theory as reported claims that al-Himyari was writing għabid while really referring to saqaliba.’

‘This reading does not seem to consider the fact that al-Himyari does employ the word saqaliba to mean saqaliba elsewhere in the same work.’

Positivism

Published Post authortorino

The fathers of Polish independence pre-their hipster mustaches

The biggest problem with history teaching in any state is that it is tied to the history of a state. This should not be surprising as each state bureaucracy, particularly ones with little or no ethnic legitimacy, tries to justify its existence. However, in a nation-state such an approach is completely unnecessary. Thus, for example, if you look at the “History of Poland” the very topic is ridiculous. What is Poland? It is either an administrative governance unit – currently part of a so-called European Union (itself an administrative unit tied only to a specific geography) – or it is a nation-state.

In the former case, it is unnecessary – certainly few people would have created a governance unit along the border lines picked for current Polish boundaries (the product of Yalta and the Soviets). That area can certainly be (and has been) sliced up in many different ways – some of them making infinitely more sense than the current set up (for example, why not a country that runs all along the Norther European plain from Holland to Belarus but leaves out the mountains of southern Germany and the Polish Carpathians?).

But in the latter case the history of Poland is only relevant as a history of Poles. Poland existed in many different shapes and forms and sometimes did not exist at all. The Poland of the Commonwealth time was both a powerhouse and a disease in political form that effectively enslaved the vast majority of its population and that, unsurprisingly, found its doom, falling a victim to democracy understood by its elites (such understanding coming with the generous intellectual underpinning delivered by its neighbors) as a sordid anarchy.

Instead, what matters to the consciousness of its people are the family ties among them – and the history of that family – not the existence, misexistence or nonexistence of a political bureaucracy. The history of the state Poland should, therefore, be a secondary topic in history teaching in Polish schools – an appendage of the teaching about the Polish nation.

One might even argue that the existence of a state makes for a competitor (and a jealously monopolistic one at that) in the area of history writing to the local sages and teachers. For example, in the Soviet Union, history was just Marxist nonsense spewed forth to justify the existence of an oppressive and misshapen political unit whereas the teaching of, say, Lithuanian, history was forbidden.

Šafarik

The state also makes its people lethargic in that they might be inclined to feel that they can outsource history writing to the state’s bureaucracy. But a lack of a state can have a powerful motivational effect. It should be of little surprise that some of the greatest Slavists – Šafarik, Kętrzyński, the Bogusławskis wrote during times when neither Czechia nor Slovakia nor Poland existed and when their existence was nowhere in sight. Look also at the Sorbs who haven’t had freedom since the middle of the 10th century and yet, to this day, they persist. Don’t get me wrong the nation-state is an important product of the existence of each underlying nation – but it should never be forgotten that the state is a product of that specific nation and should not be an end of itself – otherwise the bureaucrats take over the story.

Kętrzyński

In the Polish case, Suavs existed long before the name Poland appeared on any maps and such Suavic Poles persisted despite the appearance, disappearance and reappearance of a Polish state. Poland, therefore, is, in reality, not a state but a people. The same can be said of Czechia, Slovenia, Lithuania and, of course, many others. And if all such people are to find a good and prosperous future, the teaching of history in each such state should be a teaching of a story about a people and their ties – whether that is done by the state or by others.

Jason and the Scythians

PublishedApril 19, 2018 Post authortorino

An interesting mention of Jason and the Scythians comes from the 10th century Pictish Chronicle (Chronica de Origine Antiquorum Pictorum) (4126 in Paris). Although this has seemingly little to do with Slavs, given the Jason connection I feel that we ought to mention this text. Below is the beginning of the text all the way to the relevant portion. Note that much of this comes from Isidore (Book 9) as, for example, the mention of the Suevi in Germany.

Jason and the Scythians

“The Picts take their name in their own tongue from their painted bodies; this is because, using sharp iron tools and ink, they are marked by tattoos of various shapes. The Scots, who now are incorrectly called Irish, are {as it were} Sciti, because they came from the Scythian region, and had their origin there; or else they take their name from Scotta the daughter of Pharaoh the king of Egypt, who as the story goes was the queen of the Scots. It is known for a fact that the Britons arrived in Britain in the third age of the world. However the Sciti, that is, the Scots took possession of Scocia, or Ireland, in the fourth age.”

Picti propria lingua nomen habent a picto corpore; eo quod, aculeis ferreis cum atramento, variarum figurarum sti(n)gmate annotantur. Scotti qui nunc corrupte vocantur Hiberniensis quasi Sciti, quia a Scithia regione venerunt, et inde originem duxerunt; siue a Scotta filia Pharaonis regis Egypti, quae fuit ut fertur regina Scottorum. Sciendum vero est quod Britones in tertia mundi aetate ad Britanniam venerunt. Scitae autem, id est, Scotti, in quarta aetate Scociam, siue Hiberniam obtinuerunt.

“The Scythian people are born with white hair due to the continuous snow; and the colour of that same hair gives a name to the people, and hence they are called Albani: from them the Scots and Picts trace their origin. In their eyes, there is a bright, that is coloured, pupil, to such an extent that they can see better at night than by day. Moreover the Albani were neighbours to the Amazons. The Goths are thought to be named after Magog the son of Japheth, from the similarity of the final syllable; they whom the ancient Greeks called Getae, rather than Goths. They were a courageous and most powerful race, lofty, with massive bodies and striking terror with their kind of armour. About them Lucan wrote: Let the Dacian press from this side, let the Gethi attack the Spanish on that side.”

Gentes Scitiae albo crine nascuntur ab assiduis nivibus; et ipsius capilli color genti nomen dedit, et inde dicuntur Albani: de quibus originem duxerunt Scoti et Picti. Horum glauca oculis, id est, picta inest pupilla, adeo ut nocte plusquam die cernant. Albani autem vicini Amazonibus fuerunt. Gothi a Magog filio Japheth nominati putantur, de similitudine ultimae sillabae; quos veteres Graeci magis Gethas, quam Gothos, vocaverunt. Gens fortis et potentissima, corporum mole ardua, armorum genere terribilis. De quibus Lucanus, Hinc Dacus premat, inde Gethi (in)occurrant Hiberis.

“The Dacians however were offspring of the Goths: and it is thought they are called Dacians or perhaps Dagians, because they were created from the stock of the Goths: he wrote about them: You will go north all the way to the Dacians.”

Daci autem Gottorum soboles fuerunt: et dictos putant Dacos quasi Dagos, quia de Gottorum stirpe creati sunt: de quibus ille, Ibis arctos procul usque Dacos.

“The Scythians and Goths derive their origin from Magog. Scythia, and also Gothia, is said to be named from that same Magog son of Japheth: its land was once vast; for it stretched from India in the East, to the North, through the marshlands of Meotidas, between the Danube and the Ocean, as far as the borders of Germany. Afterwards it became smaller from the part of the East where the Siricus Ocean starts, as far as the Caspian Sea, which is to the West. From thence on the South there was removed a region right up to the Caucasian Range; which Hircania lies beneath in the West: it had at the same time many tribes, who, because of the infertility of the land, wandered far afield, of whom some cultivated the land; while others lived unnaturally and as savages, on the flesh and blood of humans.”

Scithae et Gothi a Magog originem traxerunt. Scithia, quoque et Gothia, ab eodem Magog filio Japhet fertur congnominata: cujus terra olim ingens fuit; nam ab oriente Indie, a septentrione, per paludes Meotidas, inter Danubium et oceanum, usque ad Germaniae fines porrigebatur. Postea minor effecta est a dextra orientis parte qua(i) oceanus Sericus (co)tenditur, usque ad mare Caspium, quod est ad occasum. De hinc a meridie usque ad Caucasi jugum deducta est; cui subjacet Hircania ab occasu: habens pariter gentes multas, propter terrarum infecunditatem, late vagantes, ex quibus quaedam agros incolunt; quaedam portent(u)osae ac truces, carnibus humanis, et eorum sanguine, vivunt.

“Many regions of Scythia are opulent, many are however uninhabitable. For while in most places gold and gems are abundant; but because of the frightfulness of the griffins people rarely go there. However this is source of the very best emeralds. Scythia also has Cyaneus stones, and the purest of crystals. There are also great rivers, the Oscorim, Phasis, and Araxes. Lower Scythia is the first region of Europe, which stretches from the marshes of Meotidis beginning between the Danube and the Northern Ocean, as far as Germany: this land is generally said to be barbaric, on account of the savage tribes inhabiting it. The first part of it is Alania, which extends to the Meotidas marshes. After that comes Dacia, where there is also Gothia. Then Germany, where the Suevi inhabit a very large region. In some regions of Asiatic Scythia there are people who believe they are descendants of Jason: they are born with white hair due to the continuous snow. This is enough about these things.”

Scithiae plures terrae sunt locupletes, inhabitabiles tamen(tum) plures. Nam(que) dum in plerisque locis auro et gemmis affluant; griphorum immanitate accessus hominum rarus est. Smaragdis autem optimis haec patria est. Cianeus quoque lapis, et cristallus purissimus Scithiae est. Habent et flumina magna, Oscorim, Phasiden, et Araxen. Prima Europae regio Scithia inferior(um), quae a(e) Meotidis paludibus incipiens inter Danubium et oceanum septentrionalem, usque ad Germaniam porrigitur: quae terra generaliter propter barbaras gentes quibus inhabitatur(a) barbarica dicitur. Hujus pars prima Alania est, quae ad Meotidas paludes pertingit. Post hanc Dacia, ubi et Gothia. Deinde Germania, ubi plurimam partem Suevi incoluerunt. In partes Asiaticae Scithiae (sunt) gentes quae posteros se Jasonis credunt: albo crine nascuntur ab assiduis nivibus. De his ista sufficiunt.

Bigley Mountain Men of Bigley Mountain

PublishedApril 16, 2018 Post authortorino

An interesting mention of the Slavs is found in Joseph ben Simeon Kara‘s (circa 1065 – circa 1135) writing. He says the following (excerpt from Kupfer/Lewicki*):

“and the mountain ranges which in the Canaanite language are called d u u r”.

Kupfer and Lewicki did not really know what to do with that.

* “Hebrew Sources for the History of Slavs and Certain Other Peoples of Central and Eastern Europe.”

Note that H e r m u n d u r i are well known from a number of sources. According to the Augustan History, they fought along with the Quadi, Sarmatians and Marcomanni against Marcus Aurelius. Their only known leader was Vibilius. It is also interesting that the word German can be translated by “mountain” “men” where Ger is the same as the Slavic “gora” (mountain) or Germanic Gera or cognate too with, for example, “germinate” (because of the upward motion of the plants as they burst throughout the ground. Curiously, durzy means “large” in Polish (and durny means stupid). Now, Herman comes perhaps from Heer-man meaning warrior, army man (indeed the word “army” would be sourced likewise). But, of course, an army is just a lot of people. So Heer and Ger might mean just that – “large”. In that case, Her-mun-duri begins to sound like a messed up compound where the word and suffix -duri functions as equivalent to the prefix Her- just in a different language. The middle “mun” is presumably referring to “man” which in Slavic would be mąż (pronounced similarly to Mensch).

Lachousos Potamos

Published Post authortorino

There is an interesting mention of Ptolemy’s that most translations forget about. In his description of Germania, Ptolemy lists a series of rivers. Eventually he gets to the Elbe, then discusses the Cimbrian peninsula – presumably Denmark and then moves onto the Chalusus, Suevus, Viadus and Vistula.

One interesting thing about the Chalusus river is that there is a Halys river in Paphlagonia, the home of the other Veneti (today it is the Turkish Kızılırmak).

The other interesting thing about the Chalusus (also called Chalousos in Greek) was alternatively spelled in some of Ptolemy’s manuscripts as Lachusus fluvius (Latin) or Lachousos potamos (Greek).

If you do not believe me, see here from Germania und die Insel Thule.

Holy Vinde-lici and Licika-viki.

Where Are We Now?

PublishedApril 1, 2018 Post authortorino

If you were to ask where we are at the moment on the question of Slavic presence in Europe, I’d have to say that there are more than enough clues that Slavs, or at least Slavic-like speaking populations, occupied places in a very broad area of Europe.

In particular, we have evidence of such a presence in (parts of) today’s Netherlands (see here and here), Belgium (here) and northeastern (see here) and southeastern France (see here). The Vindelici (see here and here) were also likely ancestral to some Slavs. In fact, while Samo may have been – in the political sense – of the nation of the Franks (and emphasizing this may have been obviously of great interest to Fredegar who was a loyal servant of the Merovingians) – he may have traded with and ultimately settled with the Wends on account of a shared heritage. Notice, for example, that each of (admittedly later) the Conversion of the Carantanians and the Deeds of Dagobert treat Samo as a Slav.

That line seems to have extended along the coast (Morini) and reached as far as the Veneti and the Ossismi (the last – compare, too, this name with that of the Ossi). Further, there are some suspicious names even in parts of Spain (here) and Portugal (here) – although whether these – particularly the Portuguese – came from pre-Roman era times or came in with the Suevi is probably difficult to tell. Much of northern Italy (see here and here but also remember that the Codex Aesinas was found in Jesi) also seems to bear such influence and occasional – typically coastal – place names raise a Slavic language possibility even in portions of southern Italy. There are some place names that appear similar in the north too – in Britain (here or here or for that matter, here) and even in southern Scandinavia.

Although the Serbs and Croats are often referred to as “possibly Iranian”, this suggestion is not really based on anything substantial. It is true that Pliny has something akin (depending on the manuscripts) to Serbs north of the Caucasus. But the Serb name appears also in Ptolemy right in the Balkan territory of the former Yugoslavia. Indeed, there are “Serb” names in Britain (Sorbiodoni in the Augustine Itinerary) and in Saxo’s Scandinavia (Sorbburg or something like that).

Are these all Slavic? Not clear. But their names certainly appear closer to Slavic than to the Germanic languages.

Not to mention, the important presence of various -iser or -oser names throughout Europe – preserved, for example, in the Slavic jezioro or ozero.

Were these “Slavs” the only people in Europe – very doubtful – there are vast tracts of lands that bear no recorded Slavic names. It rather appears that various types of people lived in proximity. But from the prospective of the conquerors these were all the same to the extent they answered to one governmental authority (opposing the conquerors). Much later, for example, the Goths and later Huns were Goths/Huns for Romans even though – early on – it was understood that the Goths/Huns sensu strict – were few and far between and most of these Goths/Huns were composed of the various conquered peoples – thus, for example, for the Huns it was Alans, Goths, all the people that had previously been taken over by the Goths.

It seems that all these people may have been “run over” by the Celtic and then Scandinavian Nordic invasions (or were these the same?), the Roman expansion and then, after the fall of the Empire, faced the new state of the Franks. It is telling that the Slavic presence in Germany was almost exclusive to and for many miles westwards beyond the Elbe (see here or here for Cracow, Soest, Osnabrueck; see here for a German perspective). The only “German” presence there were the Allemanni, Bavarians, Thuringi and later the Saxons. We find zero German presence in the lands formerly referred to as East Germanic. The origin of the Frisians is I think unclear.

In fact, the point worth making is that there seems to be far more evidence of “Slavs” in places where they are not supposed to have been than “Teutons” in places where they were supposed to have been aplenty.

If you were to ask me who were the “ancestors” of the people who we call Slavs today, I’d say Suevi, Veneti and, most probably, the Iazyges. Perhaps the Esti and the Finni were somehow also involved in the process of Slavic ethnic creation. Out of that mix the nation of the Slavs came about. Whether the Suevi were Slavs or just the Slavs’ overlords (from who the Slavs got their name) is a matter of debate. My guess is all these people thoroughly mixed with one another and we’ll never know the answer to such questions.

As regards, the other “Slavs” in the West they probably became a part of the Franks, Spanish and others, along with those they lived next to and those that came to conquer them. Much in the same spirit, it is likely that the descendants of the Vandals are to be found in Africa, Romania and the Bohemian/Hungarian lands, rather than in Germany. Note too that the historical Slavic presence is impressive enough including obviously wide swaths of today’s Germany, portions of Italy but also places like Spain, Greece, maybe Sicily, maybe Malta, Morocco, Turkey/Syria or Iraq.

al-Muqaddasī’s Reference to the Town of al-Rayy

PublishedMarch 23, 2018 Post authortorino

An interesting reference to al-Rayy in the province of D̲j̲ibāl (or Jibal) is found in al-Muqaddasī. It does not discuss Slavs per se… but, well, see for yourself:

“The people of a-Rayy alter their names. They say for ‘Ali and Hasan and Ahmad: “‘Alka, and Haska and Hamka.“

Now, if these masculine names had instead ended in -o, I’d say that we were dealing with someone whose habits were very close to those of Slavs. The question really is whether the suffixes here are properly labeled as -a’s.

The fact that the Slavic word for “paradise” is “raj” or “rayy” is also curious given this town’s name.

al-Rayy smack in the middle on the trading route from Baghdad to Khorasan

Here is some more:

“In al-Rayy speakers use the ra’ [r]. saying ‘radah’, ‘rakin’… The fairest in complexion are the people of al-Rayy; the others are swarthy.”

Al-Rayy itself is about five miles SSE from Tehran (today just ruins). It lay in the Median province and was also known as Rag̲h̲ā. Here is a write up from the Encyclopedia Britannica:

“A settlement at the site dates from the 3rd millennium BCE. Rayy is featured in the Avesta (the original document of Zoroastrianism, an Iranian religion) as a sacred place, and it is also mentioned in the book of Tobit, of the biblical Apocrypha, and by classical authors. Rayy was one of the capital cities of the Parthian empire (3rd century BCE–3rd century CE). It was captured by the Muslim Arabs in 641 CE. During the reign of the Muslim caliph al-Mahdī in the 8th century, the city grew in importance until it was rivaled in western Asia only by Damascus and Baghdad. Islamic writers described it as a city of extraordinary beauty, built largely of fired brick and brilliantly ornamented with blue faience (glazed earthenware). It continued to be an important city and was briefly a capital under the rule of the Seljuks, but in the 12th century it was weakened by the fierce quarrels of rival religious sects. In 1220 the city was almost entirely destroyed by the Mongols, and its inhabitants were massacred. Most of the survivors of the massacre moved to nearby Tehrān, and the deserted remnants of Rayy soon fell into complete ruin. Rayy was famous for its decorated silks, of unsurpassed artistic perfection, and for ceramics. Only two architectural monuments survive: the tower of Toghrïl (1139) and a partially ruined tower.”