Continuing Mis-Identification of the Altai Culture

[Alanus]

A lot "established" of Greco-Roman geographical interpretations are now being questioned. There was a paper recently published that identifies the "Seres" and "Serica" not as China, but as Cherala in India.

Hi, Evan
Greco-Roman geographical "interpretations" are being revised, but these revisions may not be accurate and will, in turn, be revised again. There are problems. Many modern historians are not geographers yet they play at the game. On the other hand, the geography of Herodotus is surprisingly accurate considering his time, as was the poem of Aristeas almost 200 years before him.

Both wrote for sensationalism, reciting their work before a live audience. However, the average well-versed Greek knew reality from fable. Supposedly, Amazons cut off their right breast so they could be better archers. Supposedly. I have examined Greek and Roman Amazonian statues in 3 different Italian museums, and every Amazon was chiseled with 2 breasts. The same thing is true of Greek depictions of the Arimaspoi, the so-called One-Eyed Men. Here's a vase showing 3 Arimaspians fighting gryphons. Neither person has a singular eye, and both are female and dressed in typical steppe costume.

[attachment=12921]M16_5Grypes.jpg[/attachment]

The important thing about the accounts of Aristeas and Herodotus is their accurate geographical locations of each tribe starting with the Scythians along the Black Sea, then traversing the Northern Trade Route, across the Altai, and through Mongolia-- home of the gold-stealing Gryphons. You cannot, as either a revisionist geographer or shocking-thesis historian, change the reality of the Northern Route. It was the original trans-Asian conduit, in place 2,000 years before the Han-generated Silk Road. The location of the Issedones falls exactly in the Altai, nowhere else.

I'm not seeing any posts in this thread that contradict it. Martin talks about Columbus and Amerindians, and you project a differing interpretation for the Seres. Neither of these arguments are a rebuttal. They're excuses for continuing sloppy scholarship, basically claiming, "All steppe tribes were Scythians... or a Scythian is a Scythian."

The Altai tribes were Issedones, not Scythians... and the Arimaspians were proto Turkic. Herodotus wrote it well, some 2,400 years ago.