The Axial Peoples

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#1

When, on the ‘forum faces’ thread, Chevan posted this:

Meanwhile the athletic perfomanse is very good for you. Truly aryan
Are you doing the athletic exercises?Bodybilding?Or something simular?

“Mmmm?” methinks “I’ve read something about this, somewhere!”

So, I’ve dug out the book and here is an extract from the first couple of pages of a fabulous book on a fascinating subject:

“The first people to attempt an Axial Age spirituality were pastorilists living on the Steppes of southern Russia, who called themselves the Aryans. The Aryans were not a distinct ethnic group, so this was not a racial term but an assertion of pride and meant something like “noble” or “honourable”. The Aryans were loose-knit network of tribes who shared a common culture. Because they spoke a language that would form the basis of several Asiatic and European tongues, they are also called Indo-Europeans. They had lived on the Caucasian steppes since about 4500 BCE, but by the middle of the third milleneum some tribes began to roam farther and farther afield, until they reached what is now Greece, Italy, Scandinavia, and Germany. At the same time, those Aryans who had remained behind on the steppes gradually drifted apart and became two seperate peoples, speaking different forms of the original Indo-European. One used the Avestan dialect, the other an early form of Sanskrit. They were able to maintain contact, however, because at this stage their languages were still very similar, and until about 1500 BCE (when someone like Agamemnon came on the scene. 32B) they continued to live peacefully together, sharing the same cultural and religeous traditions.”

Source: The Great Transformation - The World in the Time of Buddha, Socrates and Jeremiah - Karen Armstrong.

I was going to type a little more, but my specs are hopeless for close-up, which means I have to stand to read, and then my typing becomes a bit hit-or-miss (obviously, not a true Aryan).

#2

They had lived on the Caucasian steppes since about 4500 BCE

Well, the author of the book definitly writes science fiction. On top of all he has problems with geography. What Caucasian steppes? There are Caucasian mountains. Nearly all the local languages there do not belong to Indo-European group.

The first people to attempt an Axial Age spirituality were pastorilists living on the Steppes of southern Russia,

I won’t be surprised if “the Steppes of southern Russia” in his book turn out to be in Ukraine.

#3

Well, as one young lady in a bar in Cherry Hill, New Jersey once said to me: “You can jangle my bells, if I can jingle yours?” naturally, I could only oblige - or was that fantasy? So long ago it’s difficult to remember. :slight_smile:

[i]The Ipatovo kurgan on the North Caucasian Steppe (Russia).
Antiquity, December, 2000 by HARKE, HEINRICH
Content provided
in partnership with

In the course of rescue excavations ahead of pipeline construction, a large burial burial mound (kurgan, in the Russian terminology) with a long history of use has been excavated near the small town of Ipatovo, some 120 km northeast of Stavropol (North Caucasus, Russia). The work was carried out by the `Nasledie’ (Heritage) organization for monument protection and rescue excavation in the Stavropol region (a self-governing county twice the size of Belgium). [/i]

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3284/is_200012/ai_n7993141

#4

Ipatovo kurgan refers to kurgan 2 of the Ipatovo Barrow Cemetery 3, a cemetery of kurgan burial mounds, located near Ipatovo, some 120 km north-east of Stavropol, Stavropol Krai, Russia.

With a height of 7 metres, it was one of the largest kurgans in the area. It was completely investigated in 1998–1999, revealing thirteen phases of construction and use, from the 4th millennium BC to the 18th century AD.

The first grave may have been a burial of the Maikop culture, which was destroyed by later graves. The earliest extant grave contained two young people, buried in a sitting position, dating to the late 4th millennium.

On top of the kurgan was a Sarmatian grave of the 3rd century BC. A woman had been buried here in extended position on the back, together with an exceptionally rich treasure of grave-goods: six solid golden necklets, two golden spiral bracelets, two golden finger rings made from Hellenistic coins, a gilded wooden cup decorated with zoomorphic figures, a short sword with gold-decorated pommel (the presence of a weapon in a woman’s grave is not an unusual feature in Sarmatian contexts) and gold-covered scabbard, a sheet gold buckle, a gilded wooden cosmetics container, and clay vessels.

In the final phase, more than 100 simple graves were dug into the southern slope of the barrow, probably 18th century burials of the nomadic Turkic Nogai people.

#5

And, your point is…?

#6

What we have in Karen Armstrong is a woman and author who has produced a book. She puts her name to the book and, thus, puts her literary reputation on the line.

http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/karmstrong.html

Now, on the other hand, we have the Green Hornets side-kick coming along and bad mouthing her.

For all I know, when it comes to Russian antiquity, Kato could be the vicars knickers (panties for our American bretheren). However, there is no call to be so vitriolic about the lady and, also, his comments beg the question - “Who’re you?”

#7

And, your point is…?

The point is that kurgan burial mounds belong to the Maikop culture, Sarmatians, Turkic Nogais.

How does it relate to

“The first people to attempt an Axial Age spirituality were pastorilists living on the Steppes of southern Russia, who called themselves the Aryans”

There are several competing hypotheses about when and where Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) was spoken. The only thing known for certain is that the language must have been differentiated into unconnected daughter dialects by the late 3rd millennium BC. Mainstream estimates of the time between PIE and the earliest attested texts (ca. nineteenth century BC; see Kültepe texts) range around 1,500 to 2,500 years, with extreme proposals diverging up to another 100% on either side:

the 3rd millennium BC (excluding the Anatolian branch) in Armenia, according to the Armenian hypothesis (proposed in the context of Glottalic theory);
the 5th millennium BC (4th excluding the Anatolian branch) in the Pontic-Caspian steppe,

(The term Pontic-Caspian steppe summarizes the vast steppelands stretching from north of the Black Sea as far as the east of the Caspian Sea, from central Ukraine across the Southern and Volga Federal Districts of Russia to western Kazakhstan)

the 6th millennium BC in India, according to Koenraad Elst’s Out of India model;
the 7th millennium BC in Anatolia (the 5th, in the Balkans, excluding the Anatolian branch), according to Colin Renfrew’s Anatolian hypothesis;
the 7th millennium BC (6th excluding the Anatolian branch), according to a 2003 glottochronological study[1];
before the 10th millennium BC, in the Paleolithic Continuity Theory.

And let’s look what is her education http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/karmstrong.html

With an undergraduate degree in literature from Oxford University, she began teaching 19th and 20th century literature at the University of London and worked on a PhD. Three years later, her dissertation was rejected. Without it, she did not qualify to teach at the university level and took a job as head of the English department at a girls’ school in London.

So we have a failed PhD student in literature who dared to present herself as “specialist” in archeology and write books about one of contreversial issues in archeology.

#8

Well, we know her credentials - we still don’t know yours.

My point by linking the thread to the burial mounds was to illustrate that there is an area known as the Caucasian Steppes. Do you still refute this?

Much of the
pioneering in Soviet agricultural policies in recent years was
carried out on the Caucasian steppes. http://files.osa.ceu.hu/holdings/300/8/3/text/58-2-310.shtml

If you’ve published anything, I’m quite willing to read it. I have no more than a passing interest in archeology, and if you read the aforementioned book, you’ll understand that it goes beyond that which you are fancying yourslef expert.

Pointless trying to blind me, I’m familiar with that old saying.