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Origin of the Alans - Printable Version

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RE: Origin of the Alans - sea78 - 03-29-2016

Thanks for starting this topic. It's been a great outline of the story of Alani origin. I've always been fascinated by them and other Sarmatian and Scythian cultures. Hope it keeps going forward.


RE: Origin of the Alans - Alanus - 03-29-2016

Thank you, sea78

This thread is combining all the "missing quotients" we don't receive in most doctorial PDFs, particularly by connecting an archaeological "culture" with actual historical tribes. This has never been done before-- it's simply linking archaeological finds with information found in Herodotus, and in the Shiji and Hanshu, the latter written in the first centuries AD. You simply use geographical positioning. We also have a wealth of info, often dismissed as "old hat," by pioneering writers within this study. The first was Rudenko, and the second was Sulimirski who wrote the first history in the English language on this subject (The Sarmatians, 1970). I have a copy of Sulimirski, and Michael has a translation of Rudenko. Through Martin, we started using DNA results. A typical example would be the significant imprint of Europoid haplo-group R1a1 within the Argippaeans/Tuvans.

For the first time, we're discovering the actual breadth of the Yuezhi confederation. Perhaps the most enlightening piece of info is this letter, written by the Shanyu Modu to Emperor Wen in 176 BC, "At present, because my officials have violated the agreement, I punished the Right Xian King and made him march west and seek the Yuezhi to attack them. With the aid of Heaven's blessing, superior officials and soldiers, [the King] exterminated the Yuezhi [Confederation], the whole lot having been wiped out, suppressed, and put down. Loulan, Wusun, Hujie, and their [the Yuezhi's] nearby 26 states have become the territory of the Xiongnu."

Modu first attacked the Yuezhi in the 7th year of his reign (203 BC), at that time weakening the Yuezhi state. This second military action drove the Yuezhi core westward, resulting in the death of both the Yuezhi King and the Wusun Kunmo. A number of historians believe the retreat was led by the Yuezhi King's widow.

Here again, we see high status accorded to women. Earlier, in the first years of the 3rd century BC, a Yuezhi "Queen" annexed territories at the headwaters of the Yellow River, south of Gansu. Later, after the Wusun were enveloped by and broke away from the Xiongnu, the Shiji mentioned that Wusun leaders "followed the advice of their women." Another example would be a Yuezhi queen buried with her husband 30 years after he died. Obviously, she did not remarry and may have been the confederation's leader. This was at Berel, and I'll get to it in the next post-- perhaps tentively titled Sleeping Forever with Mummy-Dearest.

   
Here's a reproduction of the hollowed larch sarcophagus in Berel. The queen lies next to her husband (the former king), but she was interred many years after he died.

   
One of the magnificent royal horses found at Berel. The horse represents the rich opulence of a Yuezhi king and queen, all of its harness-gear in pure gold. Notice the artificial "extension" of a 3-crenelation mane, presaging the a simpler style used by the Alans. (Please click on this photo and the one above to fully appreciate the incredible details.)



As for the above letter by Modu to Emperor Wen, we are looking at a huge confederation which included the Wusun. We also find the "Loulan," which we briefly covered with the burial findings of the State of Yan military commander, a member of the White Ram clan. We didn't connect the Loulan to the Yuezhi confederation, but this seems to be the case. The "Hujie" have not yet been identified. Professor Taishan Yu notes a clerical error, believing the Chinese character "26" should be "36." On Yu's basis, I went with a confederation of 37 states, including the Yuezhi themselves. However, I didn't include the Wusun, Loulan, and Hujie, which makes 40 states or 30 states depending on the accuracy of Professor Yu's observation.

No matter how we read it, this figure represents a major confederation within the ancient world, certainly equal to the combined Saka tribes east of Parthia, and perhaps approaching in size the contemporaneous Roman empire of c.200 BC. Evidently the Yuezhi loved crowds, and Professor Benjamin managed to cram these 30 to 40 states into the Gansu.  Cool


RE: Origin of the Alans - Michael Kerr - 04-03-2016

 Hi Alanus, I have Benjamin’s book and although I don’t agree with all of what he has to say, I think his book is not that bad although I agree it is expensive.  As I am finding out in this thread the Yuezhi are a hard and mysterious tribal group to follow. You have brought up some good points about their history and the possible regions that they might have controlled (probably not all at the same time), their burial grounds and especially their special relationship with the various Chinese dynasties through trade and helping the Chinese adopt steppe cavalry equipment, horses and tactics, long before the Hsiung-nu came into the picture and to top it off their possible link with the Alans movements west a bit later on. 

 Then we have examples of royal burial kurgans like Pazyryk in the Altai and others that you point out and who were buried there still seems a mystery. The usual answer we get in books is they are Scythian, which seems a little general  and lazy to me. There is a line in Mair and Mallory’s book “The Tarim Mummies” which just about sums up the dilemma about their so called occupation of the Gansu Corridor. “That the Yuezhi are ghosts summoned up by historians to torment archaeologists”. Mair said the Yuezhi of the Gansu Corridor have an historical existence, not an archaeological presence as it seems that there is no evidence of camps or burial grounds of 400,000 Yuezhi recorded in Chinese texts anywhere that historians positioned them, but back to the book. This book mainly covers their origin and the migration of the Yuezhi from the time they were expelled from the Gansu Corridor and up to their conquest of Northern Bactria. Victor Mair whom I respect did a review of Benjamin’s book a few years ago and although he criticized aspects of the book he did offer some praise as well. So this is what he thought of the book.

 Although its production is unprepossessing (looking like nothing more than a word processing printout) this is an intrinsically important work of scholarship. The book is written from the vantage of a world historian, which means that the author approaches his subject in a rather different way than would, say, a Sinologist or a classicist. He does not focus on merely one phase or one aspect of the Yuezhi but aims to view them as part of a "big picture," much in the manner of his mentor, David Christian.

 The book is logically divided into five chapters made up of four or five sections, each of which has several straightforwardly entiitled subsections, as well as an introduction and conclusion for each chapter. The chapters cover the following main topics: "The Origin of the Yuezhi," "The Yuezhi in the Gansu: 220-162 BCE," "Migration of the Yuezhi Stage One: From the Gansu to the Hi Basin," "Migration of the Yuezhi Stage Two: From the Hi to the Amu Darya," and "The Conquest of Northern Bactria." The data for these chapters are drawn from a wide variety of sources, including historical texts (primarily in Greek and Chinese), but also make extensive use of archaeological and numismatic evidence, as well as studies in physical anthropology, textile research, and other fields. It is evident that the author has consulted secondary scholarship in English, Russian, French, German, Italian, and Japanese but not in Mandarin Chinese. He appears to have closely and critically consulted primary Chinese sources in their many Western-language translations, but Greek and Latin sources directly.

 Benjamin begins his investigations with a serious examination of the Bronze Age nomadic migrations that took place in Central Eurasia. For the historical period, he pays close attention to chronology, giving-as much as possible-a nearly year-by-year account beginning around 220 BCE, when the Yuezhi entered the realm of written history, following them through their unsuccessful battles with the Xiongnu on the northwestern border of China and with the Wusun in the area of the Hi Valley, and ending about 125 BCE, when the Yuezhi securely settled in a semisedentary existence as conquerors of northern Bactria. A major theme running through the latter two chapters of the book is Zhang Qian's mission to the Yuezhi, which is divided into five stages that are intricately interwoven with the tracking of the migrations of the Yuezhi. A perennial problem in dealing with the Yuezhi is the extent to which they are identical with the Tocharians and the Kushans. The author adopts a basic policy of conflation, whereas what might be called for is a model of overlapping entities.

  The bibliography is ample, including many valuable references that were previously unknown to me. It is, however, somewhat behind the times, containing few items (other than the author's own) that appeared after 2000. There are also some conspicuous absences, such as the detailed works of Taishan Yu, several of which are available in English in Sino-Platonic Papers.

 Now, having pointed out some small mistakes and relatively insignificant inadequacies in the volume under review, I wish to close with a ringing endorsement of Benjamin's work as a major contribution to our understanding of the history of ancient Central Asia. This is a fairly large work (more than 100,000 words) that draws on materials from many different languages and diverse fields. Consequently, it is inevitable that there will be some minor missteps. What is essential to note is that, in matters of substance and argumentation, Craig Benjamin has done an outstanding job of piecing together a coherent picture of a people who previously had been known in only a fragmentary fashion.

 Another criticism seems to be a lack of maps and an index. I haven’t read the chapters on the podboy type tombs yet but will get back to you later on them. I know this doesn’t answer all your concerns but overall it seems a good book. I note that Mair acknowledges that Benjamin did not cite the work of Taishan Yu whom you have mentioned a few times in this thread. As to the chapter about the Yuezhi remaining in Gansu from 220-162 BCE Benjamin points out that it took the Hsiung-nu three attempts to drive out the Yuezhi from Gansu. The first two which you mentioned although the letter Modu sent may have contained a bit of bravado as the Yuezhi although weakened did not surrender like all the others and he wrote that he had destroyed them but it was not Modu who killed the Yuezhi king and made his skull into a cup but his son Jizhu (the old Shan-yu) and he came to the throne around 174 BCE on the death of his father and Benjamin thinks that he could have attacked the Yuehzi from somewhere between 172 and 162 BCE, he favours a later date for when the leaderless Yuezhi started on their trek to the Ili Valley, which was when he signed a treaty with the Han, So overall I didn't mind the book with a large amount of sources especially Russian and a few Indian sources of which I was unaware of. Benjamin seems to have been a late bloomer as a historian as from what I read he is Australian although currently living in USA and before he did his thesis was a professional musician for 25 years.   Smile
Regards
Michael Kerr



RE: Origin of the Alans - Alanus - 04-04-2016

Hi, Michael

Thanks for Mair's review of Benjamin's book. I'll probably end up buying it, even though it's terribly overpriced for what it contains. Maps, and especially photos, always aid a reader; and evidently Dr. Benjamin's volume is bare-bones. I believe illustrations, especially of a culture's art, are indispensable. Many of the correct conclusions found in Jettmar and Sulimirski are based on the affinities of art. Illustrations of costume, such as those by Yatsenko, are priceless; and they build a direct cultural connection between the Pazyrk people (Yuezhi), the Bactrian Kushans, and the Crimean Aorsi-- the same moustache, physical appearance, short kaftan and pannela.

I was shocked when reading Benjamin's outline, discovering he restricted the Yuezhi homelands to the Gansu only. This isn't what we read in other evaluations. Here are a couple of examples beyond those of Taishan Yu... which I've previously given-- "from Gansu to Hetao and northwest to the Altai."

"What is clear is that between the sixth and fourth centuries B.C. there was a powerful confederacy of nomadic tribes under the name of Yueh-chih living on the steppes to the south of the Altai mountains." (Ma Yang and Wang Binghua, The Culture of the Xinjiang Province, p. 218) Yet even this statement is incorrect; the Yuezhi were not nomads ("wanderers") but pastoralists. There's a big difference. Recently, in 2012, Jennifer Chi (curator of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University) amended this notion, "The popular perception of these people as mere wanderers has not caught up with the new scholarship."

For geographic locations, we can also turn to Harmatta who describes the Yuezhi "in Gansu and the lands between Dzungaria and Ordos." The Dzungar Basin runs from north-western Xinjiang to Kazakhstan, not exactly Gansu. Harmatta adds, "It may be proposed that they built up a large empire which included a greater part of the Mongolian Plain, regions north of the Tien Shan range, the Tarim Basin, and upper waters of the Yellow River. They were known to the Chinese as the Yueh-chih, i.e. Scythians... They were not only called Scythians but were Scythians themselves." (Janos Harmatta, History of Civilizations in Central Asia, Vol. II, pp. 148-172)

There are many other quotes I could use, but these are enough to refute Benjamin's claim. We also have Benjamin's Gansu podboi burial "theory" to contend with. This has been a hard one to track down. Back in 1999, Zadneprovsky wrote an article in CIAA Newletter, Issue 9, "Of utmost significance is the study of the Haladun cemetery in the central part of Gansu Province, in the territory of the presumed original homeland of Yueh-chih (Kaogu Xuebao, 1992.2). In 12 out of 18 graves, burials in podboys have been discovered." He then likens these podboy burials directly to the Yuezhi, finishing with, "Overall, only 18 podboy burials have been discovered in north China, an insufficient number for drawing conclusions." I might add he had difficulty counting, since only 12 graves were theoretically assigned to the Yuezhi, not 18 burials. This is a typical example of "odd thinking." It defies common sense, the ability to count from one to twelve, and the general process of logical deduction. (Never trust a man who can't count.)

As opposed to this line of reasoning, I prefer the work of Harmatta, Yang and Binghua, and especially Prof. Yu and our old friend Sulimirski... who positioned the Arimaspi precisely in the location of the Pazyryk culture. The connection to the Yuezhi is so strong it can't be dismissed. The Arimaspi are linguistically defined as Arima (lovers) Aspa (horse)-- the "horse lovers"-- and as such, they were the only culture within the borders of China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan, to bury their deceased with sacrificed horses. Even the lowest warrior was interred with a horse, a very important cultural tradition, enabling the person to safely ride to the otherworld.

There are no royal burials in the Gansu because the elite Yuezhi were buried in the Altai and both sides of it. Even lesser personages were buried there. In 2003, in the Chuya steppe of the Altai Republic, 751 mounds have been located in 136 sites. In the valley of Dzanzator, we find 1687 structures spread over 192 sites, all located and described in 2005. That's a lot of dead people for a tribe of "ghosts." In Habahe County, on the Chinese periphery of the Altai we find hundreds more. Here they are, mapped through GPS positioning:

   
All recently surveyed, the graves pepper the landscapes of Habahe, Fuyan, and Qinghe Counties, all in the Altay Prefecture.

   
A line of warrior graves in Habahe County, China. Only a few of hundreds can be found. Over the millennia, warrior graves disappear, the steppe grass creating loam that, finally exceeding 20 to 30 centimeters, obliterates the smaller burials.

   
On the left side of the photo, we see a partial view of royal kurgan complete with a trench to delineate the living from the dead, a "Scythian" custom... except it's found in Habahe, exactly were Harmatta and Sulimirski placed the Arimaspi and Yuezhi.

We're not going to find any "ghosts," only the real graves of real people. Most scholars believe the Pazyryk people lived in log cabins during the summer when they went back down to the steppe areas, such as Habahe County. There are no traces of log cabins anywhere on the Chinese-Mongolian steppes, and for good reason. Here in Maine, the first settlers arriving to the northern counties built log cabins. They were constructed in precisely the same fashion as Pazyryk ones-- debarked logs built-up in mortise and tenon fashion.

   
The original settler's cabins were built in the 1790's to early 1800s. They have rotted away... and all traces of them have disappeared, yet we know they existed. Here is a fishing camp built in the 1920s, constructed from mortised logs. In another 100 years, it will vanish. Compare the longevity of a Maine log cabin to the 2,200 year-old structures of the Altai, and it's easy to see why no traces are left.

We have sufficient proof the Yuezhi were the Arimaspi-- the Horse Lovers. In the Qin Court, we find Minister Wushi Luo, a Yuezhi chieftain in charge of horse procurement. In the Han era, we have Emperor Wu giving a fortune for "Heavenly Horses" bred by the Yuezhi, whereas the Wuson breed was inferior. We have the same horses in Pazyryk graves, and this ritual is exclusive and not found in Wusun or Xiongnu burials. Today, the Chinese are acutely aware of their own history, and the official State Stables have Akhal-tekes as prime stock. As did the early Chinese, the Pazyryks/Yuezhi loved their horses. Additionally, we find the Pazyryk culture disappearing precisely at the time of the Yuezhi migration. Was Dr. Benjamin aware of any of this information?

I offer this post to refute any notion or "theory" that the Yuezhi-- the largest and richest culture on the eastern steppes-- lived exclusively in the Gansu and buried their elite in humble podboi graves.


RE: Origin of the Alans - Michael Kerr - 04-04-2016

Hi Alanus, what you said about the Gansu still holds true. How do you cram a few hundred thousand people and their livestock into this region with scattered oases and limited fodder.To me Benjamin has not satisfactorily answered this dilemna. It seems that the Chinese historians said they lived in Gansu so to Benjamin they must have. I think that their tribal confederation covered a much larger area but the Gansu corridor would have been a very strategic region covering the Yellow River bend and the Ordos back to the Tarim Basin and they would have been very keen to protect their trade routes and the oasis centres of the Tarim Basin. Naturally enough later on after they wore down the Hsiung-nu the Chinese themselves filled the vacuum created by the withdrawal of the Yuezhi and built a military presence to protect these same routes. Smile
Regards

Michael Kerr



RE: Origin of the Alans - Alanus - 04-04-2016

Michael,

Yes, I agree. The Shiji and Hanshu record the Yuezhi in the Gansu, and this is evidently what Dr. Benjamin used as his sources. Both texts define the area within current (contemporaneous) Chinese geography, not defined back to the period when the Yuezhi were actually present. That's where Prof. Yu becomes important, and he redefines the geography to an earlier time. Yu's paper, A Study of Saka History (Sino-Platonic Papers, No. 80, July 1998), was written prior to Benjamin's thesis (presented in 2003, published 2007). It's the most valuable document we currently have, since Taishan Yu knows ancient Chinese characters used in old manuscripts. The language changes, as does the geographical point of reference, particularly considering a number of Chinese states had yet to be formed during the Yuezhi period.

I might add that Chinese archaeologists have not studied, plotted, or excavated anything in the Altay Prefecture, principally the thousands of graves in Habahe, Fuyan, and Qinghe, the most northern counties. They have done some work in the Tarim, probably due to the "high recognition factor" presented by documentaries on Nova, etc. One kurgan in Huahaizi, Qinghe, is 73 meters wide, encircled by a ring of stones, with a square polished granite stela 300 meters to the north. It's carved with running deer on both sides. A second stela, 10 meters to the east, has a carved lamb and akinakes. More deer stones are located at Lake Huahaizi, also in Qinghe County. Another deer stone, originally in Fuyan County, has been moved to a museum to keep it from being vandalized.

   
Here is the deer stone as it originally stood. I believe it's probably Bronze Age, as is the large kurgan described above. These structures place a pre-Scythian/Saka presence in northern China at a very early date.

Adding info on the original Yuezhi territory, we should note the major Wusun burial sites are located around Lake Zaysan, along the westward course of the Irtysh river. The largest necropolis is in Shilikty/Chiliktin Valley. All Wusun graves are in Kazkhstan, not China. We know the Wusun were immediate western neighbors of the Yuezhi, no tribes between them. Therefore, logic tells us the Yuezhi lived across the entire expanse of western China, from the Gansu to the very northwestern point of Xinjiang Province, including the foothills of Altay Prefecture. Here's a map of Wusun country:

   
Lake Zaysan in an enlargement of the Irtysh River. All of this country is within Kazak borders.

   
The Irtysh River flows from China, actually near Mongolia, then turns west into Kazakhstan. Eventually, the Irtysh meets the River Ob, which flows northward as one of the ten largest rivers in the world. Both the Irtysh and Ob have their headwaters in the Altai, where we find "Pazyryk culture" monuments nearby. Again, we have a direct geographical link to the Yuezhi by defining their western border and placing them in Pazyryk territoryBig Grin


RE: Origin of the Alans - Alanus - 04-09-2016

Berel Kurgan 11-- Another Yuezhi-Chinese Link: Part I 


   
The Yuezhi burial grounds at Berel contain about 70 kurgans. Most are medium-sized, and aligned in rows extending from the southeast toward the northwest. Possibly, these alignments represent clans or families. The kurgans are located on both sides of the Bukhtarma River in what is now Kazakhstan's Katon-Karagay National Park.

   
Berel is about 40 kilometers west of the "Ice Maiden's" Kurgan on the Ukok Plateau. All of these sites, including Pazyryk, are located in the southern Altai and contain barrows of the Yuezhi elite. Each country-- Russia, Mongolia, China, and Kazakhstan-- wanted a "piece" of the Altai, and we see national borders intersecting directly on this mountain chain. Why was the Altai important to the Yuezhi?-- and why is it so important today?

   
The Katon-Karagay is one of the most beautiful and fertile regions in the Altai, just as it was in the first millennium BC when the Yuezhi consecrated their dead. The Altai also contains roughly 70 minerals, including gold, tin, copper, and iron. Ancient iron-smelting locations dot the landscape. 

   
The larger monuments were robbed shortly after they were constructed; but although robbed, Berel Kurgan 11 surprised archaeologists by a wealth of artifacts still intact. The burial included a Europoid male about 40 years of age and an Asiatic female described as "an old woman." Both were mummified, Pazyryk-style. Due to her advanced age (about 70 years old), initial newspaper reports claimed the woman was the "prince's mother"  (sort of like sleeping forever with Mummy-Dearest). The excavation team knew better, and believed she was his wife... interred about 30 years after the man died. Obviously, she never remarried. Shown in the (above) photo, the larch coffin lies on the left. To the right of the sarcophagus, we see what looks like a large pile of "something" hidden beneath shreds of burlap.

   
The real treasure of Berel Kurgan 11 turned out to be 13 fully caparisoned horses, stacked in two tiers under the burlap. Each horse was fully harnessed and saddled. The harness medallions and cheek pieces were executed in gold. Kurgan 11 has been dated between 225 and 200 BC, only a couple of decades prior to the Yuezhi migration. The horse gear becomes important, not because it's gold, but through its direct connection to contemporaneous Chinese horse-gear of the Qin Dynasty.

Please stay tuned for Part two. Thank you. Shy


RE: Origin of the Alans - sea78 - 04-10-2016

An interesting read about the Pazyryk culture's kurgans and burial process...

http://scfh.ru/en/papers/twenty-years-after/


RE: Origin of the Alans - Alanus - 04-11-2016

(04-10-2016, 08:48 PM)sea78 Wrote: An interesting read about the Pazyryk culture's kurgans and burial process...

http://scfh.ru/en/papers/twenty-years-after/

Thank you, sea78. The Al-Alaka burial at Ukok is perhaps the most important find since those of King Tutankhamun and Fu Hao. The grave of the "Ice Maiden" and her helpers is a window into Pazyryk/Yuezhi compassion and morality. I'll discuss this unique case, but I need to finish the second part of the Berel Kurgan 11 post.


RE: Origin of the Alans - Alanus - 04-11-2016

"King" of the Zhu Qilin-- Another Yuezhi-Chinese Link: Part II

The man in Berel Kurgan 11 was entombed with 13 horses, including saddles and tack. These furnishings were made by a singular craftsman who worked in gold and white gold. Each piece of tack represents "animal-style" at its apex. With a mere glance, we realize this particular "king" was far more affluent than other Pazyryk individuals.

   
A forehead piece from a Kurgan 11 horse. We find a deer head in the jaws of a gryphon, a seamless flowage of gold and white gold into a singular work of art.

   
A psalia (cheek-piece) fashioned into a distinctive "S"-shape. Again we see the combination of gold flowing into white gold. "S"-shaped psaliae are only found in two locations-- the Pazyryk Altai and Qin China. This piece is fancier than other Pazyryk and Qin pieces, because it's embellished with a "Zhu Qilin" head.

   
The Qilin was a Chinese god, not Saka/Scythian. However, it represented fire; and fire was worshiped by the Yuezhi and Alans. This representation (above photo) was tattooed on the left shoulder of the man found in Pazyryk Kurgan 5. It's the same fantastic creature depicted on the cheek-piece in the first photo.

   
Another piece of horse tack from Berel Kurgan 11, embellished with mirrored and fully-rendered Qilins. We can only ask, "Why did the "king" buried in Kurgan 11 choose a Chinese god of fire as his personal totem?"

   
The answer may lie within the cavalry of Shihuangdi, the first Qin emperor. Here we see a Qin cavalry mount led by a "terracotta warrior." The horse wears an "S"-shaped psalia, as do all of Shihuangdi's mounts. This distinctive cheek-piece is a "plain" version of those owned by the "king" interred in Kurgan 11.

   
The horses owned by the "king" in Kurgan 11 wear the most expensive and artful tack yet found anywhere-- from China to Egypt. I believe this individual was a exceedingly high-ranking horse dealer and breeder. His burial corresponds precisely with the lifetime of Wushi Luo, confidant and minister of the Court of Shihuangdi. This man's wife was Asiatic, and so I ask, "Was she a Chinese noblewoman?" Of course, this link is conjecture. But harness fittings owned by this individual positively connect the Pazyryk culture to the earliest period of Imperial China... and to the Yuezhi.

   
A bronze Qilin by a Chinese craftsman. It was said that Emperor Wudi captured a live Qilin, but Sima Qian (the Grand Historian) believed the story to be fantasy. Wink


RE: Origin of the Alans - Michael Kerr - 04-13-2016

 Interesting about the Berel kurgans as I recently read a paper discussing the DNA analysis of the horse bones from the 13 horses entombed in Kurgan 11. The authors of the paper did some DNA matching between the 13 ancient horse breeds found in the tomb and compared them to about 363 DNA samples of modern breeds from Europe, Anatolia, Egypt, Central Asia, East Asia and both North and South America.


 The 13 horse specimens excavated from the Berel tomb have been estimated to be about 2300 years old. Scientific analyses have concluded that all were males, ranging in age from 8 to 20 years.

  The first shock was that there was no DNA matches to the Akhal-Teke horse, which is surprising. While there were some similarities in some of the horses to the Chinese Guanzhong horse, a Korean breed, the Tuva horse, Anatolian and Caspian breeds it seems the main similarities were with the northern European horse and the Tuva horse and some of the Berel horses matched that of Viking Age Norwegian horse breeds including the Icelandic horse. This opens up some interesting possible theories about Central Asian migration into Northern Europe. With the successive waves of steppe migrations into Europe by Sarmatians, Alans, Huns, Magyars and various Turkish groups it is not surprising that these ancient Central Asian breeds were assimilated into European breeds but the dominant matches seem to be with Northern European breeds and the Tuva horse.

 Why is the Indo-Iranian name Aspar still a popular name for Icelandic boys according to Icelandic websites. When I look up the origin of the name it usually comes up as unknown origin or maybe the unsatisfactory answer that the origin may have something to do with the Aspen tree.

 This is the list of the 13 horses found at Berel and which modern horses closely match their DNA.

Berel horses 10-11-13 - perfectly matched 13 sequences present in the computed database: 11 from European or Northern European horses (among them a 1000–2000-year-old specimen), one from an  Eastern Asian horse breed and one from a Near Eastern horse.

Berel horse 02 - perfectly matched 12 sequences present in the computed database: 7 from European or Northern European horses, one from South American horse breed and 3 from a Near Eastern horse and 1 from an ancient Swedish 1000 to 2000 year old horse.

Berel horses 01-03 - had the same sequence that three European horses and one Egyptian horse.

Berel horses 05-09 - shared their sequence with that of a European horse.

Berel horse 07 - shared its sequence with three horses: a European one, an Anatolian one and a Tuva breed.

Berel horses 04-08 - matched with 14 sequences: 11 from European horses, two from Near Eastern horses, and one from a South American horse.

Berel horse 06 - had the same sequence that a Korean horse, a European horse and a Tuva breed.

Berel horse 12 - is the only Berel sequence that matched none of the sequences retained in the database and which, like the two Yakut sequences, determined a unique haplotype.

 The authors did caution though that there were some difficulties matching these ancient breeds to modern horses so consequently, no relationship between the ancient samples studied and some particular breed could be clearly established. Still these horses descendants certainly got around over the centuries.  Smile
 Unfortunately I can't give you a positive rating for your post Alanus.   Cool 

Regards
Michael Kerr



RE: Origin of the Alans - Alanus - 04-13-2016

Very interesting post, Michael

I can certainly understand how the Tuvan and Korean horses were related to the 13 Berel examples. I noticed one horse with close DNA was found in South America. This would be Spanish, probably introduced by Pizarro. I've always believed the Vandalusian might be traced back to the Alans. The Icelandic horse is certainly a surprise, but Snorri recorded the Asirs and their leader Odin as coming from Asia.

The age-range of the Berel horses falls into the norm, in their prime of life and beyond it. Most sacrificed horses in the Altai fall in the range of 7 to 20 years old, and historians tend to consider them property and loved mounts of the grave owner rather than gifts from tribal friends or relatives.

   
While a few Kurgan 11 horses have ultra-fancy "extended" manes, most of them have a standard 3-crenelation mane, just as we see on the Pazyryk rug. Again, this style of crenelated mane is linked to the Yuezhi, to Kanishka's Torkarian kingdom in Bactria, and then to the frescoes in the Crimea, and to Olbian examples.

   
The Qin horses in the tomb of Shihaungdi have a single crenelation, indicating they were "owned" by the Emperor.

     
The Han horses of Gauzu (Liu Bang) had two crenelations.


   
Then we have Chinese jade horses fashioned with crenelations. The important factor, naturally, is a contemporaneous-- and apparently direct-- stylistic connection to the Pazyryk culture. I think thoughtful pioneers in this study-- Otto Maenchen-Helfen and Wm. Trousdale-- might find Berel Kurgan 11 noteworthy.

Beyond the crenelated mane, the kurgan occupants of Pazyryk and Berel carry either Chinese "god" tattoos or possess multiple Chinese god objects in their tombs. According to Sergei Yatsenko, whom I respect, Pazyryk people used at least 3 more Chinese god tattoos beyond the "Qiling" I mentioned in my past post. These multiple cultural links would certainly interest Maenchen-Helfen and Trousdale, both researching the same connections 50 years ago.

The close Chinese-Pazyryk link illustrates what we can't see in documents. It could have only occurred if the "Pazyryk Culture" was an "upper strata" of the Yuezhi confederation. Wink


RE: Origin of the Alans - Michael Kerr - 04-14-2016

 I haven’t got much to add to the above posts of the horses found in Berel kurghan 11 as Alan has just about covered the lot, especially the aspect of crenellated manes but I am curious about the horses found in Kurgan 11 as well as the ones found at Pazyryk. 


 It seems that the people buried at Berel were people of authority and it must be assumed that the horses buried there like the Pazyryk horses would have been the favourite horses and not just riding hacks.

 Even though there was no Akhal-teke matchings it should not be forgotten that the Berel horses were 2300 years old and were ancient breeds while the Akal-teke is a relatively modern breed. The two prominent but by no means the only steppe breeds were the Tarpan a hardy forest horse now extinct and the Turkoman, an oriental horse built for speed and stamina and also extinct. A lot of those northern European horses were descended from the tough little Tarpan which could withstand harsh winter climates. The Akhal-teke breed descends from the Turkoman but they are not the only horse that has turkoman bloodlines. We have various breeds of different sizes and characteristics all descending from the Turkoman we have the Kabarda, Karabakh, Kirgiz, Marwari, Kathwari, Jaf, Iomud of Uzbekistan, Arabian, Kurdish horse and the famous Cossack cavalry horse, the Russian Don to name a few. Some of the descendant breeds out of the Tarpans were the Altai, Mongolian horse, the Icelandic, Yakut and Tuva, Exmoor ponies as well as some Swedish and Norwegian horses. You are correct Alan that a lot of the South American horses probably came from the Andalusian which has some Barb blood and would have came into contact with the Alans and their horses.

 A lot of people think the Akhal-teke was the breed revered by the Han, the Ferghana blood sweating horse but I myself have my doubts and think it is a modern myth although there is a good chance that the Akhal-teke has Ferghana bloodlines in their ancestry. The Ferghana horse didn't seem as streamlined as the Akhal-teke and probably resembled the Nisean breed, and I don't know if the Akhal-teke breed has a common trait of sweating blood but I could be wrong.

   

 But back to the Yuezhi other than trading in jade they were always renowned as horse breeders. Craig Benjamin does mention some very early Chinese sources going back to the middle of the 2nd millennium BC starting with the reign of King Tang of the Shang 1600 BC in the Yi Zhou Shu Yiyin chaoxian (Appendix to Chapter 59)

 The King Tang orders Yiyin to  come up with advice on the matter of paying tributes by the peoples of the four quarters. Yiyin thus says: As for those on the north including Kongtong, Daxia, Shaju, Guta Banlue, Baohu, Daidi, Xiongnu, Loufan, Yuezhi, Qianli, Qilong and Tong Hu, I request to let them bring in camels, white jades and wild horses (taotu, juen) and good bows for tributes. Although this was probably of doubtful authenticity, and probably written during the Zhou period, the fact that the Yuezhi were mentioned as being on the north western borders of China at the timeframe. We have 2 breeds of horses mentioned which the Chinese desired the taotu and the juen which was another wild horse renowned for its speed. We then have another source mentioning the Yuezhi/Yuzhi.

The reign of Cheng Zhou who reigned 1042-1021 BC in the Yi Zhou Shu Chapter 59, Wang Hui

 At the meeting of Cheng Zhou... the king stands on the platform facing towards the south...Tang Zhu, Xun Zhu and Duke Zhou stand by his left, and Taigong Wang by his right...To the north of the platform...among those envoys who line up in the west wing stand...the Yuzhi people with taotu (a wild horse).

  There are also some early Indian references (Mahabharata from around fifth century BC, Ramayana from around 800 BC and the Puranas which roughly covers 500 BC to 500 AD. The Yuezhi are called Tukhara, Tushkara or Tushara and are noted as living to the north/north-west. Again there is mention of a horse the Tukhara. So again they had a reputation as dealers in fine horse flesh. A later source mentions that the Kushan kings including Kanishka are called Turushka. Smile Smile
Regards
Michael Kerr



RE: Origin of the Alans - Alanus - 04-14-2016

Back to you, Michael

I concur; the Berel Kurgan 11 horses were owned by someone who represented the height of Yuezhi horse culture at that time-- early 3rd century BC, from 200 to 230 BC. He had a Asiatic wife (noble Chinese?) who did not remarry, and who herself must have retained a certain prestige. This couple and their horses have caused quite a stir in the archaeological/historical community for good reason. The amount of gold horse gear has not been exceeded by any other archaeological discovery, amazing because Kurgan 11 was robbed in antiquity!

The horses were duplicated by Krym Altynbekov, the world's top reconstructionist. We're not looking at horses similar to an Akhal-teke, nor should we expect to. The Akhal-teke has been breed for 2,000 years to produce a racehorse for dry climates. However, the Kurgan 11 horses were bred for vertical-pastoralism and to carry a cataphract, a stockier horse with stronger leg bones. Due to extreme physical conditions-- ascending into high altitudes, enduring bitter temperatures-- they probably sweated profusely during the summer. This matches descriptions of the Yuezhi Ferghana horse mentioned by Sima Qian; and we should note the sedentary Chinese aristocracy lived in reasonably warm low-altitude farmland.

Yesterday on Facebook, I posted a horse-archery video featuring my friend Ali Goorchian, Iran's most notable and outgoing archer. The video particularly emphasizes that a horse-archery mount needs to be wiped down and groomed to dissipate the sweat. This also fits the info we find in the Shiji.

   
Here's one of Altynbekov's reconstructions of a Berel horse. Its confirmation is unlike an Akhal-teke, showing a powerful build; and the bay or chestnut color is rendered from actual horsehair found in Kurgan 11. Click on the pic to see details, such as the "S"-shaped Yuezhi/Berel/Pazyryk/Qin Dynasty cheek-piece.

   
And here we have the Andalusian (corrected to original-- "Vandalusian"). These horses arrived with the Vandal/Alan group that entered France from Pannonia on the last day of 406. They then moved into Spain, a number of Alans remaining behind and not crossing over to Africa. The breed would not be related to Arabians or Barbs, which (I believe) entered Spain from the opposite direction. They must date back to the Aorsi migration, which can be traced to the Tukharian Yuezhi (mentioned in the above post by Michael). I have seen this color variation prevelant on two breeds-- the Akhal-teke and this one, the Andalusian. According to Wolfram, the "white-spotted horse" was most prized by the Tyrfingi Goths... who must have acquired the notion from their cavalry, the Taifali. The latter was an Alan tribe, who also introduced the worship of a naked sword-- Tyrfing-- planted into the ground. To me, the conformation of the Andalusian best matches the Berel/Pazyryk breed... which literally drove Emperor Wudi into ecstasy.

Recently, a terribly uninformative news article touts a "golden horse" (palomino) found in its owner's tomb in "Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region." Nothing like ambiguity! Xinjiang encompasses all of northwestern China, including the Tarim Basin and Altay Prefecture, and I would place the Yuezhi confederation throughout this entire region. The tomb was dated from 400-120 BC, which falls within our present discussion from its lower date.

http://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/dna-tests-reveal-rare-golden-horse-buried-2000-year-old-Chinese-tomb-004916

   
The "golden" horse shown in the article is an Akhal-teke.

I find the news-article incredibly maddening, the culture "believed to have belonged to a nomadic community." Once again, we find the Neanderthalic expression "nomadic." Additional photos in the article have nothing in common with the archaeological find. This kind of reporting is a disgrace... and we sit here wondering "What tribe?," and "Where in Xinjiang?." Even more maddening-- if you surf around the internet to find explicit details on this "golden horse," the same dumb article shows up time and again.


RE: Origin of the Alans - Alanus - 04-15-2016

Being Totally Dead in Gansu... not just Mostly Dead. Dodgy Wink

After Dr. Craig Benjamin's total location of the Yuezhi in Gansu-- nowhere else-- I thought a pursuit of other opinions might shed more light.

Back in 1980, Karl Jettmar likened Kushan facial characteristics to the warrior approaching the bald-headed woman on the felt hanging found in Pazyryk Kurgan 5. Jettmar's observation is circumstantial and based on physical likeness-- and of course, this connection is between Yuezhi Bactria and the Pazyryk culture. Nothing from Jettmar, Maenchen-Helfen, or Rudenko, about any people who "inhabited" the Gansu Corridor.

To find something worthwhile, we need to advance to the end of the 20th century and into this one. In 1992, Kaogu Xuebao's study of 18 Gansu burials found 12 podboi inhumations which he attributed to the Yuezhi... perhaps because the Grand Historian (Sima Qian) placed them there. In 1999, mathematical genius Prof. Zadneprovsky reiterated Xuebao's work but had trouble counting. Let's count to "1" (lowering the difficulty-factor) and take a look at Gansu.

   
The Gansu or Hexi Corridor began a few hundred miles inside the state of Qin, and crossed westward to Dunhaung. It was the first leg of the "Silk Road," co-founded by the Chinese and Yuezhi.

   
Looking at the Gansu Corridor, you can imagine why any Yuezhi would love to die here... because it's better than living here.

   
Around 220BC, General Meng finished the Great Wall for Shihuangdi. At that time, the Jade Gate was established at Dunhuang. This was the meeting point where non-Chinese traders made their final exchange. It would be here, somewhere outside the Jade Gate, that the Yuezhi had a sizable trading station. This trading depot somehow became the residence of the Yuezhi, according to statements of Sima Qian in the Shiji.

In 2003 (A Comprehinsive History of Western Regions, 2nd edition), Taishan Yu explicitly mentioned that no Caucasoid skulls had been found by archaeologists within the supposed "Yuezhi homeland," qualifying it with, "The site thought to be of Yuezhi and Huns found at Barkol County [in Gansu Province] showed similar to a culture in Inner Mongolia."

How disappointing. I was beginning to think Gansu looked like Heaven on Earth (if you lived in Hell). What we really need is a broad sample... because maybe a Yuezhi got lost in the Gansu, died of thirst or boredom, and left his Caucasoid skull for an ecstatic archaeologist to discover.

Here comes the really boring part. In 2010, the team of John Dodson, Fiona Bertuch, Liang Chen, and Xiaoqiang Li, conducted an extensive examination of over 500 skulls found in Gansu, the entire Province and not just the Hexi Corridor. Skulls from Yumen, Datong, Shansunjizhai, Xicum, and several other sites, were carefully measured. They ranged from the Bronze Age to the Zhou and Western Han periods. Examples were evaluated as either "South Asia" or "East Asia" type. Their conclusion, "All examples are of the Mongoloid race."

   
I'll close the post by translating this famous Yuezhi rock inscription: "Help! Water! Pant, pant... Am I dead yet?"      Big Grin