Re: The Early Germans


"Alan Crozier" <name1.name2@xxxxxxxxx> skrev i meddelandet
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"Inger E.Johansson" <inger e.johansson@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in
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"Uwe Müller" <uwemueller@xxxxxxxxxx> skrev i meddelandet
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On Fri, 03 Feb 2006 21:59:21 GMT, "Alan Crozier"
<name1.name2@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:


Thanks for that link, Peter.

Interesting that Todd on page 20 conveys an opinion on
the
origin of the Gundestrup cauldron:
"a work of an eastern Celtic master based on the lower
Danube in
the later secondor earlier first century BC".

AFAIK this is the standard interpretation, I have heard
it a couple
times before.
Yes, it is. But, as Uwe has pointed out, there are
arguments against
that interpretation.
Me ? I believe in the Danube - theory.

After all, somehow these elephants must have ended up on
the cauldron, and they weren't rampaging through
northern Jutland at
200BCE. - Neither, of course, through Dacia. But it is
far easier to
imagine that a Dacian silver smith knew about them than
a Germanic
artisan at the end of the world.

Germanic tribes don't come into the play here.
Just as a reminder so as to not muddy the waters further.
It's Thracian against Celt.

I would not be so sure about that. Put the Gundestrup piece
in a 2nd c. AD
context (as suggested by the Planetary Vases) and look for
silver
cauldrons.

And the contemporary documents doesn't name Thracians as the
old group
Thracians but as Alemanic alternatively Gothic from 166 AD.
Have name on
some of them due to their queer behavior.

Which contemporary documents? I would need to know this for my
current research on the Goths.

Alan,
that's why I asked you if you wanted chapters from the Gothic Mosaic.
Anyhow here are some of the Historians and works up to written before 700 AD
which definitely present more essential information than what most thought
them to do.
One need to compare the different sources with each other.

Small details here and there maybe but together they give much better
picture than expected.
There are earlier sources than Plinus the Older, but details either re.
Scandinavia or northern Germania resp the people, animals and flora
mentioned in his works can be used as a 'basic' ground for other more
detailed information.
Plinus the older., Historia Naturalis 2,167; 4,94 resp. 4.96-100; 8,143;
17,2; 36,2

other not to be forgotten:
Amminanus Marcellinus
Dexippos Fragment 5J
Dio Cassius
Dio Chrysostomus
Eunapius (especially fragments)
Olympidorus
Orosius
Priscus (Text 9)
Procopius
Ptolomy
Sharaf Al Zamân
Sozomen
Tacitus (Annaler as well as Germania)
Zosimus

There are of course many more but these are those that's relatively easy to
get hold of in origin texts either edited in transcribed form or in
pholiats. I take it that you can read Greek and Latin. Can you read Arabic
as well? I can't so in those cases where I had to read or check Arabic texts
I have had to have help from an archaeologist who migrated to Sweden from
Iraq.

Inger E






If you look at Orosius and Zosimus
mentioning of the fightings you will find that they also say
that there were
many groups that at that time lived in earlier Scythic land
who was called
Scyths but weren't of the Ancient Scyths. Both historians
happened :-) to
manage to write about this in their 7th chapther.

The Roman and Greek historians weren't always interested in
accuracy when identifying barbarians. The Goths had settled in
what used to be known as Scythia, so it was easy for authors in
the Empire to go on calling the people there Scythians.

Alan

--
Alan Crozier
Lund
Sweden




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