From: e.karloukovski@uea.ac.uk (Vassil Karloukovski) Subject: Re: Caucasoid Turks/Bulgars Date: 17 Mar 1999 00:00:00 GMT Message-ID: <7cpddg$39q@cpca3.uea.ac.uk> References: <369E3BE1.5C45@sbu.ac.uk> <77li2j$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> <78pl3c$84o@cpca3.uea.ac.uk> <36b0dc2f.3434839@news.yale.edu> <78v30o$vl6@cpca3.uea.ac.uk> <36b34d7c.60430113@news.yale.edu> <794e84$4iq@cpca3.uea.ac.uk> <3744d12a.1873763068@news.wxs.nl> <796m95$eq2@cpca3.uea.ac.uk> <375c0ea6.1954957123@news.wxs.nl> <79fo99$qkl@cpca3.uea.ac.uk> <36effb24.440413110@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 <36effb24.440413110@news.yale.edu>, cluster.user@yale.edu says... >Vassil Karloukovski wrote: ... >>A side-issue here is the Dobrev detects a 28-years cyclic calendar and the >>same practice of attaching the name of the cyclic year to the crown name >>for some assyrian kings. Sorry, it was a 12-years cyclic calendar for the elamites, assyrians, and a 28-years one - for the saka. See below. And this is how he explains the incorporation of >>the nominalia into the book of the kings and the (self)calling there of >>the bulgar khans as "assyrian kings". Supposedly that was how the bulgars >>viewed themselves, as followers of some older tradition (?). > >I find this extremely unlikely. the association in the nominalia >might be to give some biblical pedigree to the bulghars. > >the calender seems to be of chinese origin. There is the saka calendar from India which was based on the position Jupiter had in the sky at sunrise, in a system of 28 constellations. Every year had a ruling constellation called Sal-Ba*j*ai in the saka manuscripts from western China - from "sal" (year), and "ba*j*ai" (ruler, commander) (from which was the bulgar title of "bagain" BTW). The formula for determining the year in the saka era is given by Al-Biruni. The saka names of the constellations are not preserved but there is a chinese analogy that reached China in the first century AD. The names there are: 1. bat (a part of Aquarius); 2. MOUSE (the other part of Aquarius); 3. BULL (Capricorn); 4. gryphon (Sagittarius); 5. leopard (another part of Sagittarius); 6. TIGER (a part of Scorpio); 7. fox (another part of Scorpio); 8. HARE (a third part of Scorpio); 9. badger (Libra); 10. (water) DRAGON (a part of Virgo); 11. earth dragon (dragon with scales) (another part of Virgo); 12. worm (Raven?); 13. SNAKE (Crater); 14. deer (a part of Hydra); 15. HORSE (another part of Hydra); 16. doe (a third part of Hydra); 17. SHEEP (Cancer); 18. tapir (Gemini); 19. MONKEY (primate) (Orion); 20. small monkey (another part of Orion); 21. raven (a part of Taurus); 22. HEN (another part of Taurus); 23. pheasant (a part of Aries); 24. DOG (another part of Aries); 25. wolf (Pisces); 26. piglet (Andromede); 27. PIG (a part of Pegasus); 28. swallow (another part of Pegasus). Capitalised are the twelve zodiacal constellations which appear in the 12-years cyclic calendars. The point Dobrev makes is that until the I c. AD the chinese didn't name the cyclic years after animals, but after names of objects - ladle, cup. etc. The animal names were adopted in the I c., although the old chinese system was also preserved. And the saka calendar was not lunar but solar - the year had twelve months of 30 days and 5 festive days at the new year (Al-Biruni). [The bulgar cyclic calendar was also solar, although it differed from the saka - it had four seasons of 91 days (31 days in the first month, and 30 days in the next two) + 1 festive day (the new year).] So, saka's was an example of a solar cyclic calendar different from the chinese lunar and the turkic calendars. Next, Dobrev analyses some composite names of elamite kings (the transcription probably will differ from the english one): - TANRU-huratir - 1960 BC (1) - SAMUTVAR-tash - 1790 BC (2) - ATTARKIT-tah - 1310 BC (3) ... - Nallutish-INSHUSHINAK - 1205 BC (4) - Shutruk-NAHUNTA - 1185 BC (5) - Kutir-NAHUNTA - 1155 BC (6) King (3) reigned 480 years after (2), and both had the common addition to their names - "tash", "tah". 480 is exactly 40 cycles of 12 years. King (5) has the name of "shutruk" which resembles "shupuruk" - a word for the bat used in northern india and the pamirs, and "kutir" in (6) resembles the dravidian "kuthirai" (horse). And 1185 BC was exactly the year of the mouse, and 1155 - the year of the horse in any modern cyclic calendar (chinese, turkic, tibetan). King (4) also has "nallutish" in his name, and "hannam, nallam" is a dravidian word for dragon, and 1205 BC was the year of the dragon. The same pattern in some assyrian royal names - Tukulti-Ninurta (ascension in 1250 BC), and Tukulti-Ninurta II (890 BC). Both ascended to the throne in the year of the horse, and in some eastern-caucasian l-s the horse is "tukku, teku" (from which probably comes the bulgar word). Another assyrian king - Sinnuishkun, came to the throne in 620 BC - the year of the bull. This king had two names - Sinnuishkun and Sarak. But "shinna" in chechen is 'ox', "sar" in buduh (east. cauc.) is also 'ox'. So the king's name was Shinnu-Ishkun. The names of Nabuchodonosor (Nevu-Hadresar) and Semiramide (Samar-Amat) also show the same traces. "Nevu" resembles the old-iranian, pamirian words "nehu, nek" (dragon), and "samar" - the afghan "zmaraj" (lion). And Nevu-hadresar ascended the throne in 604 BC, the year of the dragon, and Semiramide - in 810 BC, the year of the tiger/lion. Dobrev goes further to compare the elamite examples with the case of Mohendjo-Daro - twelve constellations with names of gods-animals: god hare, god goat, crocodile, lion, horse, scorpion, etc. The conclusion is that cyclic calendars (solar, not only lunar as chinese) are quite old, with origins in the middle-east, and that the bulgar calendar shouldn't automatically qualified as an offspring of the chinese/turkic calendars. It would be nice if some specialists on assyria, elam comment on these interpretations and whether they make any sense. =============== The analogies with the bulgar cyclic years are: the assyrian "tukulti" for 'horse' vs. the bulgar "teky"; the assyrian "shinnu" (ox) and the bulgar "shegor" (bull, ox). Also the assyrian "lit" (a calendar term, a period of time) and the bulgar word LET (year of ascension) in the nominalia. The latter was incorrectly interpreted as being the slavic LETO (year), but then there was the problem that in the nominalia *LETO wasn't conjugated as slavic requires. For example: "Isperih - 61 leto. A _LET_ emu verenialem@" ("Isperih - 61 years. And his _YEAR_ verenialem@" This _LET_ didn't make sense in slavic but, nevertheless, the researchers read it from slavic and pronounced the authors of the nominalia illiterate. (As they did during the "turkic" reading of a half of the entries.) Regards, Vassil K.