Origin of the Alans

[Alanus]

Iranian Magi in the Shang Court: The Final Connection.

In the above posts we have discussed multiple connections between the Minusinsk Karasuk and the findings in the Shang and Zhou polities. The list is impressive:

1) Shang chariots and chariot drivers also attested from petroglyphs in Mongolia.
2) The rendered chariot in the petroglyphs and on Oracle Bone Inscriptions (OBIs) are identical.
3) Chariot rein-holders ("bow-shaped objects") are found in Karasuk graves, on Deer Stones,  and in Yinxu (Anyang).
4) A bad-ass, martial-arts, proto-Iranian Queen emerges in the reign of King Wuding, c. 1250 BC.
5) Shang and Zhou bronze daggers and knives are identical to Karasuk versions.
6) Mongolian prostrate burials, c. 1300 BC, arrive in Shang and Zhou China in 1250 to 1000 BC.

But there are more "eye-openers" if we look at the Shang OBIs and a couple of Zhou bone carvings. 

       
Above at Left: on the lower central portion of the above oracle bone, we find a character shaped like a "+" sign. However, it's embellished by a "partial circle" to represent what is known as the "Cross Empowered." Above at Right: the same Empowered Cross as the sign of an Iranian Magus.

       
Where did this symbol come from? And was there anything like it in the Karasuk Culture? Here is a ring-pommel dagger of Karasuk origin, taken from a photo in Mikhail Gryaznov's The Ancient Civilization of Southern Sibera (1969, Nagel Pub., plate 17). In this earliest version, the cross is inside the circle; and has been identified as an astrological device, (Miller, The Golden Thread of Time, 2001). To me, astrological predictions would be the forte of a Magus.

What we have then, is a sign of the Magus incorporated into Shag OBIs and also a Karasuk dagger pommel. In at least two cases, the Shang examples relate to divination (usually only performed by the king) and transcribed as "the Myag says..." We turn to eminent sinologist Victor Mair, "The phonological and semantic similarity between Old Persian magus and Old Sinitic myag alone stands as convincing evidence for the identity of the preeminent Shang-Zhou religious specialists and the Magi. When we add to this evidence the discovery at Zhou-yuan [the Zhou capital] of the two Caucasoid/Europoid figurines, the equation between magus and myag becomes difficult to deny."

       
Mair illustrated his paper with both c. 1000 BC bone figurines found in the Western Zhou capital.  The Europoid individual (at left) wears a distinctive hat, not worn by the Chinese, and the Magus symbol is carved atop his hat; plus the second Myag (shown at right) wears the same non-Chinese hat. Mair continues, "Myag was borrowed into Sinitic from an old Iranian language and not from some other member of the Indo-European family [such as Tocharian]... What is more, the services the Magi performed overlap with the known activities of the Myag. They interpreted dreams, practiced divination, explained omens, chanted hymns and prayers, made astrological calculations, and sacrificed on sacred altars."

I will continue this early Iranian intrusion into Bronze age China in a subsequent post. What's important, I believe, is the presence of exceedingly high-ranking Magi within the Shang polity, and obviously living in the capital of Yinxu itself. The Magi continued advising the Shang and Zhou kings, and they were recorded well into the Warring States Period. When actual people, and people with power, are added to the chariots and bronze artifacts found in Anyang and Zhouyuan royal precincts, we need to reevaluate the role in Chinese society played by these Iranian-speaking intruders.

Here are a few final words by Mair, "The Ossetes, now living on the northern slopes of the Caucasus... are definitely descendants of the medieval Alans and perhaps of the ancient Scythians, the one group of Iranians most likely to have reached the borders of China by circa 1200 BC."
(Victor H. Mair, Old Sinitic Myag, Old Persian Magus, and English Magician, Early China, Vol. 15 (1990), pp. 27-47)