Scythians from Aran To Altai
Гахраман Гумбатов
Posting Introduction
It can be supposed that the name Oguz, used by the author, stands for the community of T;rkic people that occupied area south of the Greater Caucasus range, and thus stands for the names of the horse nomads Guties, Turuks, Subars, and others mentioned in the ancient documents. As a group, they belonged to the Kurgan Culture that originated in the Southeastern Europe in the 6th mill. BC, or 8000 ybp (Middle Volga, Samara, Khvalynsk, Pit Grave, Sredni Stog Cultures). According to the dating of the Y-DNA marker, Kurgan Culture people reached Caucasus by 4000 BC (6000 ybp), but the oldest written references to the tribal names appear only in the 23rd-20th cc. BC (4300-4000 ybp). Probably, the author follows example of "Oguz-name" and "Genealogy of Tatars" Abulgazi, where common ethnonym largely replaces tribal names.
Each people is linked to its landscape, and its whole economic activity depends on the environment. L.N. Gumilev says in his article "Climate change and nomadic migrations": "humanity's dependence on the surrounding nature, i.e. the geographical environment is undeniable. The extent of this dependence is appraised differently, but in any case economic activity of the people that ever inhabited the Earth is closely connected with the landscape and climate of inhabited areas... People had to be fed by what the nature can provide in the territory inhabited or controlled by ethnos (people) to obtain the gifts of nature ... For the nomads, everything is much more complicated. They have provisions in living form. Sheep and bovines are moving slowly and must have a permanent and habitual diet. Even a simple change of grazing food can cause murrain. And without cattle, nomad immediately begins to starve. In addition, people get used to the environment, and do not seek a change of home to a foreign land without sufficient grounds. And forced to relocate, they choose a terrain similar to the one they had left." (187)
For ancient T;rks perfect were warm windless lands with abundant water and rich pastures. Such ideal area was their historic homeland.
A short pause:
Historic homeland is a stopover in the history of any people, any ethnicity has moved, the only difference is that for some people we do not know where and when they had their migrations. In that respect, T;rks can claim South Caucasus as one of their many stopovers.
We are talking about the South Caucasus, where the interfluvial between rivers Kura-Arax was at all times very convenient for the transhumance pastoralism. In winter, they lived in the plains (Alang yazy at the Mahmud Kashgari, Aran at the Azeris, Arran at the Arabs, Rani at the Georgians) near large rivers, and in the spring with their flocks they ascended high mountains. The ancient T;rks moved in the spring to the summer quarters in the mountains, where the lush vegetation of alpine meadows beckoned man and beast, and in the fall they descended to the flat non-snowy steppes, where cattle was pasturing throughout the winter. The summering and wintering places among the ancient T;rks were strictly allocated and were the property of a clan or a family. For them, the most valuable animals were horses and sheep. As is known, horses could get their food year round, even in the winter from under the snow, if it was shallow. Equally important was that a newborn foal could migrate following a herd. Horse was used as a riding and pack animal, it provided meat, milk, skin, and hair. The most unpretentious domesticated animal, sheep, more easily than other animals could tolerate spring starvation and could find its food, where other animals were unable to feed. Most of the winter sheep could graze, the sparse and low vegetation at the winter quarters, gishlags (kishlaks), sheep ate better than cattle. To feed the sheep, Azerbaijan has enough wild plants in the steppes: yazgan, karagan, yagtikan, yovshan, etc. Scientists have determined that of more than 600 plant species in the Caucasus, sheep eat up to 570, while the cattle eat only 55 grass species.
Over time, as the ancient T;rks began running out of pastures, some of the ancient T;rkic tribes began seeking new pastures for their numerous herds.
Later, their descendants created there the Khazar kingdom. Later, as the number of the ancient T;rks grew, in search of new pastures from time to time some of them also were leaving the original homeland. Following T;rkic migrants in search of new pastures further expand the territory of T;rkic homeland. And then, having domesticated a wild horse and mastered smelting of iron, the ancient T;rks called the whole steppe their ancestral territory. It is a steppe plain east of the Danube river and reaching the banks of the Enisei. The last of the ancient T;rks in the 7th c. BC were forced to leave their ancestral home a part of the Oguzes. That happened after the king Cyaxares of Media invited their leaders to his feast, and there treacherously killed them. The Oguzes who then left the ancestral home and went to the North Pontic, later were known as the Royal Scythians. The known Soviet archaeologist S. Chernikov wrote in 1965 in his book "Mystery of Golden Kurgan" that a "part of the Scythian (Ancient T;rkic - G.G.) tribes, having lost their leaders and spooked by bloody hospitality of Cyaxares, went to the North Pontic steppes, while some of them remained behind". (188)
Approximately at the same time a part of Oguzes migrated to the east. Those Oguzes who left to the East are known from the Chinese chronicles as Yuezhi (Yueji). The Oguz Yuezhi appeared on the western border of the ancient Chinese state in the 7th c. BC. The first Chinese mention of the Yuezhi people is dated by 645 BC. Chinese author Guan Zhong's treatise Guanzi (;; "Master Guan" of Qi statelet), describes Yuezhi tribe, the people who emerged from the northwest. There is a hypothesis that the first character in the word Yuezhi meant meat (zhou ;, pyn. rou), and the name "zhouzhi" of the people meant "tribe that eats meat."
Oguz-Yuezhi originally occupied pastures in the Tarim basin of the valley, now it is called Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Gansu, and possibly Qilian in China, then (2nd c. BC) some of them (Kushans, Ephthalites, etc.) migrated to Transoxiana and Bactria, and then to the northern India, where they established the Kushan Empire (30–375AD). Another part of the Oguzes in Altai created the Pazyryk Culture.
As is known, some researchers are still trying to identify Oguz-Yuezhi with mythical Iranian speaking "Tocharians". L.N. Gumilev objecting to such identification, wrote in his book "Millennium around Caspian Sea", "it is unclear why in the Central Asian sources the name "Yuezhi" not is only absent, but even does not have an Iranian counterpart. All attempts to identify Yuezhi with some people known in Central Asia or Iran, for example Tochars, have failed."
The known Russian archaeologist A. Tishkin in his doctoral dissertation "Archaeology of Altai" writes, that "The beginning of the Pazyryk culture is associated with the arrival of a new ethnic group, which in about a century has mastered the Altai territory, subduing the local tribes, and assimilating the rest of the population... That is connected with penetration of the Saka (T;rkic - G.G.) tribes, and also with the coming from the Asia Minor of a strong nomadic horde that subjugated indigenous peoples. The result was a new community that in archeology received the name "Pazyryk Culture". The distinct symbol of this development became the "royal" burial kurgans erected in the Central Altai (monuments Bashadar, Tuekta etc.). The change in culture is well marked not only by a very different funeral tradition, but also by an excellent object inventory."
S.I. Rudenko in his article "The Art of Altai and the Near East" "writes:" The works of art of the tribes that left the first and second Pazyryk kurgans (second half of 5th c. BC) (carbon dated 490-410 BC), especially in depictions of animals, most apparently comes the connection to the Asia Minor art." As is known, in 1949 academician Rudenko during archaeological excavations in the Altai Mountains found in the fifth Pazyryk kurgan a carpet of the 5th c. BC (carbon dated 440-360 BC).
S.I. Rudenko writes: "In 1949, during excavations at the Ulagan plateau of the Eastern Altai, one of the Pazyryk kurgans, dated by the turn of the 5th-4th cc. BC, have been found remarkable Asia Minor wool fabrics and wool nap carpet. The fabrics, despite their technical excellence and exceptional artistic value, have not attracted attention. But the carpet made a sensation, and caused animated debate among foreign experts on the Oriental rugs, because its technique was unexpected for such a distant time... The Asia Minor wool pile carpets of our interest have preserved in two kurgans, in the second Bashadar (carbon dated 620-540 BC) and the fifth Pazyryk... As demonstrated our study, the knotting technique of the fifth Pazyryk kurgan carpet, called German or T;rkic, and the knotting technique of the second Bashadar kurgan carpet, called Persian, were known in the Asia Minor, and in all probability in the Middle Asia, by the middle of the 1st millennium BC. It can be assume that the carpets woven in this technology were manufactured in the Asia Minor earlier."
The researchers studying material culture of the Pazyryk cite many arguments testifying to the Asia Minor roots of this culture. For example, N.Polosmak writes: "We were very surprised with the analysis of the textiles from the graves, the Pazyryks did not use any of the local dyes. Moreover, the clothing of the ancient Altaians, notably not only of the noble, but also of the ordinary people, was dyed by the most expensive and "fashionable" dyes, which were then used in the great states of the Eastern Mediterranean. Only from there could be obtained three sources of the red paint used by the Pazyrykians: the roots of the madder (dye alizarin) and two types of oak scale insects."
L.L.Barkov and E.A.Chehov in the article "Felt bonnet hat from the second Pazyryk kurgan" also wrote about the Pazyryks' use for dyeing of the Asia Minor natural dye: "According to the researcher (Rudenko - G.G.), on the felt was found kermes acid with the source of the oak scale insects Kermes vermilio, Planchon, called kermeses, living on oak Quercus coccifera".
It should be noted that the insect Kermes vermilio, referred to by the Russian researchers, has long been known to the Turks as Girmiz, or oak bug.
Тема: "тюркские народы" современности (Прочитано 89391 раз)
