From: e.karloukovski@uea.ac.uk (Vassil Karloukovski) Subject: Re: Caucasoid Turks/Bulgars Date: 28 Jan 1999 00:00:00 GMT Message-ID: <78pov2$84o@cpca3.uea.ac.uk> References: <369E3BE1.5C45@sbu.ac.uk> <77li2j$qi0$1@whisper.globalserve.net> <369F52FE.2B6@sbu.ac.uk> <77rc86$auj$1@brokaw.wa.com> <36A444B3.F3B70F1C@alum.mit.edu.-> <7827sb$269$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <36A52D70.9E372DD2@alum.mit.edu.-> <36A556AB.9927BD29@montclair.edu> <36a63533.58309714@news.yale.edu> <7866ud$i9m$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <36cdb21e.883120019@news.wxs.nl> <36A7FCC8.79790A6B@earthlink.net> <36d77e23.1000882888@news.wxs.nl> <36a8d455.81661202@news.yale.edu> <36AC3460.856801F6@earthlink.net> <36ae814d.4306061@news.yale.edu> Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset=US-ASCII Organization: University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK Mime-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: sci.archaeology,sci.anthropology,sci.lang In article <36ae814d.4306061@news.yale.edu>, cluster.user@yale.edu says... >On Mon, 25 Jan 1999 01:07:44 -0800, Robert >inscriptions? There have, however, also been other Arab sources who >>claimed that the Bulgars spoke a language all their own unrelated to >>that of their neighbors. I'd go through the trouble of looking it up and >>citing it, but I'm guessing you're probably more knowledgable of this >>than myself (I don't know what your backround is, but I'm just a >>hobbyist). Ibn-Fadlan(sp.?) himself mentions and describes a variety of >>Turkic tribes by name on his way to Volga Bulgaria, but when he arrives >>there, he only speaks of the saqaliba. Why the dichotomy? How sure are > >saqa:liba means the slavs, but it was used for other people amongst >them as well. The terms 'saqaliba' and 'bulgar' are used interchangably by Ibn-Fadlan when (and only when) referring to Volga Bulgaria - the king is called either 'king of the bulgars' or 'king of the saqaliba' . ibn fadlan's rendition is not that surprising, as it >was a multi-ethnic region. fadlan simply wasn't a philologist of >turkic languages, as bolgaric is divergent. Ibn-Fadlan was well aware of the Turkicness of the tribes he met on his route, his frequent usage of words such as 'Turk' and 'Turkic' when describing the Oghus, the Pechenegs and the Bashkirs is even annoying - ... we entered the lands of the tribe of the Turks, known under the name Al-Ghuzia [i.e. the Oghuses]' ' ...these [the Bashkirs'] are the worst/most fierce among the Turks and the most dirty/dishonest ones.' In the Eniclopedia of Nadzhib Hamadani which draws heavily from Ibn Fadlan, the Pechenegs are described as: ' This is a Turkic people. They are pagans and posses many sheep. The show is permanent in their lands. It is said, that the messenger of al-Multafir-bi- llaha [i.e. Ibn Fadlan] saw there sheep, who cleared the snow with their legs and searched for fry leaves and ate the show,...' On leaving Bashkiria and entering Volga Bulgaria Ibn Fadlan stops mentioning any Turks. He speaks only about 'bulgars' and 'saqaliba', and to him these terms indeed seem to be interchangable, equivalent (?). >>we that the inscriptions don't belong to the ancestors of the turkic >>chuvash as a tribe apart from the Bulgars? When the Bulgars arrived on >>the Volga, there were finnic and turkic people already there, weren't > >certainly finnic, but most turkic settlement was along the kuban >(which you dispute!). for the kuban region we know that the tribes >that migrated along with the magyars were turkic, Indeed, Bulgars and Turks are mentioned as living in the north-western Caucasus in Armenian sources but, again, as in the case of Ibn-Fadlan, they are clearly differentiated. Here is the account in the late VII-th. c. Armenian geography 'Ashhracuic', attributed to Ananij Shirakaci: "In Sarmatia are situated the Keraunian and the Hipian mountains, from which 5 rivers, flowing into the Sea of Meothida (the Sea of Azov) have their sources. Two rivers flow out from the Caucasus - Valdanis, from the mountain of Kraks; it starts from Caucasus and lay in north-west between the Meothida and the Pontus. The other river - Psevhros - separates the Bosporus from the lands where is the small town of Nikops. Northward from this place live the tribes of the turks and of the bulgars, which have their names after the names of the rivers: Kupi-bulgar, Kuchi-bulgar, Onoghontor-blkar (immigrants), Chdar-bolkar. These are present names which had no been known to Ptolomeus. The son of Hudbbad (Asparuh - the son of Kubrat) run away from the Horse Mountains (Dziakan) . Between the bulgars and the Pontus are situated the tribes of gash and kurt, also the suans......". The 'Onoghontor-blkar (immigrants)' here are most probably the Unogundurs/Unogurs, the 'Kupi-bulgar' are these along the Kuban (Kuphis) river, the 'Kuchi-bulkar' are those along the Dniepr (Kocho) river, etc. ... >>Physical type (brachiocephalic Europoids with rarely expressed weak >>mongoloid characteristics) as well as cultural elements point to a >>genesis in the Pamirs around southern Tajikistan and northern >>Afghanistan. There is some evidence in the archaeological record that a >>people left this region bearing stong Bulgar cultural elements (burial >>practices as evidenced by necropolises) in the 2nd century for the sea >>of Azov area. This, incidentally, fits in perfectly with Dobrev's > >on the other hand the name is recorded late 5th century, after >the assumed turkic migration with the huns. Leaving aside the disputable account about the Bulgars ("Ziezi ex quo Vulgares") in the Anonymous Latin chronograph of 354 AD, the earliest account would refer to the battle between Bulgars and Langobards that took place somewhere on the northern slopes of the Carpathians and was recorded by Paulus Diaconus and Fredegarius. The battle took place in the early V-th c. - most probably 422 AD. But all this would refer to their appearence in the West. The Bulgars seem to have been recorded much earlier in the Armenian historiography, long before the coming of the Huns. Regards, Vassil Karloukovski