f
'
SGI
A
Approved For Release 2000/08/07
: CIA-RDP96-00787R00050005000|
FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
ON ETHNIC IMMORTALITY
OB ETNICHESKOM BESSMERTII
in Russian pp 1-23
[Typescript
of scholarly paper by Candidate of Physics and Mathematical
Sciences Yu.
K.
Khudenskiy:
"On Ethnic Immortality"]
[Text]
Dedicated to the Poet
Ivan Drach
"Because if the mark
Remained unerased,
The result would be
That there would be no death for us.
And therefore the wind
At
the appointed hour
Sweeps from the face of
the earth
Our tracks."
"Song of
the Wind," African folk poem
of
the Bushmen,
Republic of South Africa
ON ETHNIC IMMORTALITY
(On Deciphering
the Sarmatian
Tamga Symbols)
by Candidate of Physics and Mathematical Sciences
Yu.
K.
Khudenskiy
As
always,
the beginning was
the most difficult,
but
it
is hard
to
say
when this began:
"Aeneas was
a clever lad
A real Cossack,
A most adroit fellow.
The most fearless of all the vagabonds.
But when the Greeks burned Troy,
Approved For Release 2000/08/07 ?^A^BP^0¥§9f8^00050001 -3
Approved For Release 2000/08/07
: CIA-RDP96-00787R000500050001-3
FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
Making a pile of manure out of
it,
He picked up his earthly goods and took to his heels;
Gathering up
a few Trojans,
A singed,
tattered
lot,
He made tracks
from Troy...."
(1)
It began when
I heard the lines
the first
time,
and
I heard them as
soon as
I began to hear,
since my father was familiar with everything
I.
P.
Kotlyarevskiy and A.
V.
Rudanskiy had written,
K.
V.
Khudenskiy read them
to me long before his translations of
I.
P, Kotlyarevskiy
1 s
"Aeneid" began
to be published,
Reading of these verses,
and
in particular the first
stanza, which became etched in my memory,
evoked an interest in the Cossacks
and Troy and
a great "enmity" toward the Greeks,
It was
so powerful
that,
when
I began
to read,
I greatly enjoyed reading descriptions
of Schliemann
f s
excavations at Troy,
but
I had absolutely no interest in Mycenae and Crete.
The result of this was that
I read John Chedwick’s "Deciphering Linear
B"
(2) ?
on the life
of the ingenious decipherer Michael Ventris, after
I had drawn
.
conclusions on the significance of the Tamga symbols of
the northern coast of
the Black Sea,
If
things had been reversed,
having learned from Chedwick that "the method
employed by Gordon is popular with
dilettantes.
Initially one tries
to
guess
some kind of object behind each symbol,
no matter how vague their similarity;
then names are attached
to
the objects,
from the language selected by the
decipherer,
and
the assumption is made that the symbols have been read
" —
I would have been ashamed of my dilettantism
and would have continued study-
ing electrochemoluminescence, with resulting great benefit.
Let us return,
however,
to Kotlyarevskiy
1 s stanza and to
the word "Cossack."
It has lured and enticed me my entire life —
this magical word which reads
the same forwards and backwards — of which there are few in those many
languages with which
I am acquainted.
More frequently one encounters reduplica-
tion-type magical words,
such as aku-aku.
But
the word "kazak"
is symmetrical
not as
a simple translation,
a geometric pattern such as we
find on a
Neolithic pot but,
if one can express
it
in the term "absolute," as a magical
mathematical square and examples such as
the following,
contrived and
con-
ceived
in our
time:
"A roza upala na lapu Azora"
[And
a rose fell onto Azor’s
paw],
etc.
The word "kazak" breathed of deep antiquity.
Its persistence in
the boundless expanses
of the stepped
;*of ’Eurasia was
incomprehensible.
The
ease with which this structural formula passed from people to people,
including
those speaking different languages, with minor variations over thousands of
years and kilometers,
from the Atlantic
to
the Pacific,
from the Arctic
to
the Indian Ocean.
"And here," as eminent connoisseur of ethnology L.
I.
Gumilev put
it
(3),
"we approached
the objective of our investigation — a genuine principle of
classification of the anthropogenic factors
in terrain forming.
As
it
turns
out,
it lies not at
the surface of the phenomenon,
among a boundless ethno-
graphic diversity,
but rather deep within,
sharing the condition of the ethnos:
Approved For Release 2000/08/07 ^A^Sf^bo^^FSJSffeoOOSOO0 1-3
Approved For Release 2000/08/07
: CIA-RDP96-00787R000500050001-3
FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
creative,
that
is,
dynamic,
inert,
or historical,
and stable,
that
is, per-
sistent, whereby the ethnos enters biocenosis.
These conditions differ from
one another only in capability of ultrastress, whereby in the third variant
it is close
to
zero.
And now we shall translate our synthesis into the
language of the related scientific disciplines taking part in the problem
being examined....
At
the level of history' cultures are the genesis and loss
of
tradition;
a recorded but not explained phenomenon...."
Within the above extensive quotation we are particularly interested by the
idea of ultrastress and of loss of cultural tradition as a sign of destruc-
tion of the ethnos.
In connection with it we can formulate the goal and
task of our investigation:
does
the preservation of
’.^magical" words attest
to the preservation of cultural tradition,
and
is
the ethnonym "kazak" an
indication of specific ethnic affiliation?
However, we shall not attempt
to
pose
the question:
"What
is an ethnos?"
Because in the key word "kazak" we
have chosen it
is clear that ethnos does not possess specific demographic,
territorial,
temporal,
linguistic,
ideological
(religious)
and many other
boundaries, being at the level of dialectical materialism a variable quanti-
ty in all specified "coordinates," a quantity with a specific "critical
mass," which corresponds to its "disappearance" on one axis and "genesis" on
the other, within differing boundaries.
This was
the initial thesis for the scholarship of K.
V. Khudenskiy,
a
translator,
colonel and engineer, who was a supporter of
a Slavic-Turkic
historical unity which: in many situations served as the basis for the
stability of an ethnos in Eastern Europe and Northern Asia.
He was of the
view that evaluation of the facts of
the cultural past
caii b e
conducted
o>n the basis of the stability of a popular philosophy of life-affirmation
and optimism which crystallized in the historical perspective, which arose in
the environment of
the eschatology
(belief in the end of the world)
of the
Near East and the negation of
life of
the Brahmans.
He saw as the primary embodiment of
this life-affirming ethnic the Gaths of
the Euragan
steppes.
He sought the source of the optimism of
I.
P.
Kotlyarevskiy's ingenious "Aeneid" in the folklore and epic tales of the
peoples of our
coufihry.
He discussed
these ideas with Academician Aleksandr
Ivanovich Beletskiy.
Also of interest
to us
in this case is
L.
N.
Gumilev's idea of overstress,
for the impression
is created that
in the multidimensional ethnic space
described by us
the formula "kazak" appears where this stress or tension
reaches
a maximum.
It appears
to us
to be the initiator of ethnic overstress
at certain points on the Eurasian continent, which in the historical per-
spective is attended by,
according to Gumilev,
the element of creative
dynamics
of the ethnos and corresponds
to a jump or transition from quantity
to quality.
Once again emphasizing our combinatorial interest in reduplica-
tion symbols
of the "kazak" type, we can assume that
they could have had
meaning as early as the Neolithic,
a ritual significance,
and could have come
into
the Iranian,
Slavic and Turkic languages from a
Nostratic
linguistic
stratum,
as was demonstrated by V.
M.
Illich—Svitych
(4)
.
The meaning of
Approved For Release 2000/08/07 ^A°SB£3^d^F$t^00050001 -3
Approved For Release 2000/08/07
: CIA-RDP96-00787R000500050001-3
FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
nostratic "kazak" was revealed by him as an ethnonym of
the inhabitant of
a frontier or boundary region,
that
is,
a geographic area where ethnic
processes
of transition from quantity
to quality and various abrupt changes
took place rather effectively.
"Hittite documents of the XIV-XIIX centuries B.C.
from the Bogazkoy archives
contain mention,
11 writes
Sh.
D.
Ihal-apa
(5)
"of the Kaski people — kas-kas —
living on the southern shore of
the Black Sea."
We see
in this ethnonym a
translational symmetry, while the above-cited author considers
this ethnonym
to be
a prototype
of the toponym "Kavkaz"
[Caucasus],
and states
that
the
country "Gaga," mentioned in the latter half of the 15th century B.C.
in a
letter
written by the Pharaoh Amenhotep III,
is an abbreviated form of
the Hittite
"kaS-kas"
(Egyptian ks-ks).
The northern part of Asia Minor
is
fairly close
to the actual Troy and
the Kazak mentioned
in the first stanza of
the "Aeneid."
But
if we cross over
to the northern shore of
the Black Sea,
2000 years later
we shall discover there
in Sacae-Sarmatian time the personal name "Kazaka,"
which derives from "kaz," like the Ossetian "keseg," which means
"to look,"
"he who looks."
We shall not cite additional factual materials.
This was
done by V.
M.
Illich-Svitych in his excellent monograph and by
G.
F.
Blagova in an article entitled "Historical Relationship Between the Words
Kazak and Kazakh"
in
a volume entitled "Etnonimy"
[Ethnonyms]
(6), which
is
dedicated to Viktor Vladimirovich Vinogradov.
We shall state only that
Olzhas Suleymenov was correct in stating in
the book "Az
i ya"
[Az and Ya]
,M Kazak*
is interpreted
too easily,
and
this
is startling.
But we are in-
terested at present not in the original form of
the ethnonym but
at what time
it began
to mean'Vhite Goose"
(Turkic "swan" — Yu.
Kh.).
We can reply that
It has had this meaning allong time from Turkic languages
as well,
since tie
country of the "Kazaki," Turkic Proto-Bulgaria and Ugro-Finnish Proto-
Hungary on the shores of
the present
Sea of Azov, bore the name Al'takuzy,
which meant Land of
the Swan People,
and it was not until
the time of the
Golden Horde that
this toponym traveled
together with the descendants
of
the
Kipchaki —
the Kazakhs —
to
the shores of
the Caspian and the Sea of Aral.
However,
the word
"kazak" lives on in the languages
of many peoples
of our
country,
as an ethnosocionym,
and simply as
a lexical item.
We Slavs
recall
this
in the depths of our soul when we hear the voice of
Sofiya Rotaru
singing about flying geese,
or
the Don Cossack chorus.
Truly the epithet
which Kazakhs apply
to their loved one
"kaz dausty" — "swan-throated" —
belongs
to
them.
We shall now return
to the question of
the persistence of
the formula "kazak."
One can assume
that in the original situation this word performed ritual
functions.
"In the ritual function,"
aS
M.
B.
Popovich states
(7),
"language
is close to other symbol systems — painting,
systems of arm and hand
gestures,
etc.
We can add
that,
refracted
in various
forms of applied art,
ceroplastics,
for example,
it helps form various
trends in the appearance of
written language.
In connection with this and in the search for these
"aspects," we directed our attention
to
the persistent
systems of "figures"
according to
V.
V. Martynov
(8), which passed unchanged through centuries and
geographic distances on the Eurasian continent.
Approved For Release 2000/08/07 ^&M&Mk(^fM(h0005000'l -3
Approved For Release 2000/08/07
: CIA-RDP96-00787R000500050001-3
FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
M.
Ye,
Foss
(9) writes:
"Considerable importance
is attached
to
the study of
ornamentation in archeology*
Primitive patterns and designs are the object
of thorough investigation:
scholars study the technique of their reproduction,
style,
symbolism,
etc.
Ornamentation in the tribal society,
according to
ethnographic
studies,
does not constitute simple embellishment of clothing
or utensils.
Ornamentation
is
symbolic:
a specific meaning
is contained in
each pattern,
and each design has
its own name.
Rigorous tradition
is ob-
served
in patterns and designs."
It
is: true
that we,
j.ust as
V.
V. Martynov,^
must
take into consideration
the fact
that the fictitiousness of
the
figures
at
the level of content according
to Hjelmslev does not attest to the absence
of a "level of content"
in a symbol,
and
that the dual nature of
the symbol
signifies that
it contains
an "expression level" and "content level.’
We again
quote M.
Ye.
Foss
(9):
"If ornamentation in the tribal society had
the sig-
nificance of household embellishment,
it would not have been preserved through
many centuries, would not have been transmitted over a long period of
time,
from generation
to generation,
in unaltered
form.
This traditionality once
again emphasizes
the particular Significance of patterns and designs at
the
time of
their origination."
Our particular interest was aroasddbby the
persistent symbol systems of the northern Black Sea coast and adjacent areas
of
the Eurasian continent,
and
in particular
the mysterious Tamga on the
monuments
of ancient and medieval Crimea -- symbols,
drawings,
and inscrip-
tions.
We became acquainted with these in the Crimea as well as in the Caucasus dur-
ing our own travels as well as,
and principally,
from the outstanding books
of V.
S. Draehuk,
and primarily from his book "Symbol Systems of
the North
Coast of the Black Sea"
(10).
As V.
S. Draehuk wrote:
"Today one can state with confidence that
there
is no
area in our country and perhaps
in
the entire world which
is
so saturated
with monuments of all times and of
so many peoples."
Perhaps this
is
true,
but Asia Minor,
the Balkans,
the Caucasus,
the southern areas of Central Asia,
and the Iberian Peninsula are no less rich in this regard.
The first four
of
the above-listed geographic regions are contiguous
: to the area adjoining
the northern coast of
the Black Sea,
but
the closest geographic area where
we could search for corresponding ethno-cultural analogies was
the Eurasian
steppes.
A thorough study of
the books by
B.
S.
Draehuk,
as well V.
I.
Abayev,
I.
M.
D'yakonov,
E.
A.
Granatovskiy ,
V.
M.
Illich-Svitych,
T.
M.
Minayeva,
V.
M. Masson and Olzhas Suleymenov provided us with a foundation
for elaborating an approach
to interpretation of
the Tamga symbols of
the
area around the Black Sea,
the Caucasus and Central Asia, which existed
not only in the distant past but also are evidenced in contemporary peoples
of our country:
Kazakhs,
Kirgiz,
Bashkir,
etc.
It seemed
to us
that
the
formula "kazak" could not be reflected in the "enigmatic"
symbols left by our
distant
forebears::on
the territory of our homeland.
The persistence of such
"figures"
indicated that ethnic tradition in this region had continued un-
interrupted during the course of many millennia,
and the eidea was born that
the homeland of
a number of writing systems
of peoples
of
the USSR could be
discovered within its borders
.
Approved For Release 2000/08/07 ?^A^l#$£fco¥§fF$8tfe00050001-3
Approved For Release 2000/08/07
: CIA-RDP96-00787R000500050001-3
FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
The following conclusions by A.
Ya. Gurevich
(11)
served as a point of
departure:
"We shall note another important circumstance.
The
T concept of
the world
of the barbarians and
that
of
the feudal I$iddle Ages are quite
different.
The former took shape
in a relatively homogeneous
society with
a tribal system which was still very much alive.
Therefore the culture of
the barbarian world as well possessed considerable homogeneity,
and
its
values had universal application within the framework of society.
This
does not signify that in a preclass society culture was
f simple
and
primitive
1 — it means only that
its language was generally significant
and comprised a symbol system which to an adequate degree was identically
interpreted by all groups and members
of society."
This last comment seems
to us
to be particularly important,
since we assume that
the sign expressions
of
the culture of the 1st century B.
C.
to
the 1st century A.D. were
interpreted identically over a vast area of Eurasia by tribes speaking dif-
ferent
tongues and subsequently promoted
the formation of similar elements
which have greatly diverged
in the national cultures of
the peoples
of our
country.
The culture of
the Iranian-speaking Scythians,
Sacae,
Sarmatians, Alans,
and the linguistically-close Slavs,
as well as
the
linguistically fairly-distant Turks, Ugric and Ibero-Caucasian peoples was
determining over vast areas of
the steppes of Eurasia.
As
is noted by V.
G.
Lukonin
(12),
Scythian toreutics essentially con-
stitutes development of that same "quotations
style" which on the whole
is
characteristic^of Near Eastern art —— as
a mosaic formed of compositions
and images.
It
is possible that
in the "enigmatic" Sarmatian symbols we
are also dealing with one sphere of art which
is interpreted on the basis
of religious
texts.
Lukonin notes:
"Religious iconography
is created here
by means
of selection and reinterpretation of images and
compositions which
have been long known in the given territory:
this path
is characteristic
of all Iranian iconography: monuments of toreutics,
glyptic
(coroplastics —
Yu.
Kh.)
are distinguished by diversity of subject matter,
composition and
images.
We know from preserved parts
of
the AveSta and other writings
that
the figures of animals
are incarnations
of specific deities:
the horse
is a
symbol of Trishtri,
the flying boar is a symbol of Bretragna,
the rooster
is
a symbol of
Sraosha, &hd the ram is a symbol of Khvarena....
The in-
fluence of the ancient Iranian
(here Lukonin
is wrong — Yu.
Kh.) monuments
began
to be felt
(t<Dk the
3 d/,century’ AyD. )
over a vast area — from the
Atlantic
to
the Pacific, just as
in works
of art created in Iran one can dis-
tinguish certain features
of
the art
of
the Caucasus,
Central Asia and China."
We can understand this,
since
at
that
time there evidently dominated an
ethnic community throughout this entire territory.
Indeed,
among the Tamga published by V.
S. Drachuk and some of which we have
seen,
several variants can be distinguished.
Here are some of
them:
(see following page)
Approved For Release 2000/08/07^95l^-¥ffl^i^0d^l$(M500050001-3
Approved For Release 2000/08/07
: CIA-RDP96-00787R000500050001-3
FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
f f e-
f
!
Vc- urr <
c
t
^ J Of
(One feature of the author's work consists in the fact that serious
illness
prevents himjfrom utilizing literature available in libraries.
During his
deciphering efforts he did not have at his disposal the writings of
N.
G.
Turchaninov, which V.
I, Abayev kindly pointed out
to him,
as well as the
writings of M.
I. Privalova and N.
A. Konstantinov.
Fortunately for him,
since
if he had known about such strong predecessors he would have continued
his
study of physics).
We shall continue,
however,
discussion of
the stages of deciphering these
Tamga.
The method employed was,
as stated above, amateurish
(my goodness,
what was Michael Ventris
if not
a gifted amateur?
Oh,
these learned
Chedwicks who write books about the Ventrises!)
The author had no experience
other than work with group theory,
combinational analysis,
topology,
theory
of graphs and knowledge of the principal Slavic,
Germanic,
Iranian and
Turkic languages.
Speaking of
the paths of development of written languages,
M.
V.
Popovich
(.7)
specifies
three:
"One of them is movement toward an increasing cor-
respondence between symbol ’(writing)
and
sound,
the second is
a path based
namely on the equivalence of symbol and concept,
not symbol and sound,
that
is,
the
'embryo'
of mathematics"
(which in barbarian times,
according
to
Gurevich
(11), was of a sacral character — Yu.
Kh.).
The third path is
the principle of iconic similarity between symbol and that which
is being
denoted — the language of drawings and graphs.
This path seemed
to us
to be
the closest.
Following a number of deliberations we isolated in symbol
1,
for example,
three elements.
It is
true that Soviet scholar Academician B.
A. Rybakov
(10)
Approved For Release 2000/08/07FP&l^6£W$8?S7&^500050001-3
Approved For Release 2000/08/07
: CIA-RDP96-00787R000500050001-3
FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
postulated that
the kwer part of "figures"
1 and
2 clearly portrays horses,
while the upper part depicts
a man with upraised arms.
V.
S. Drachuk him-
self writes
the following:
"Since each symbol was in fact a specific picto-
graph,
the symbols were employed
(as
is confirmed by ethnographic parallels)
for primitive "recording" and transmission of information.
There is no
basis for going further than this,"
And he does not interpret
them as
writing.
Examination of "figure"
1 at the level noted by Chedwick
(2)
corresponds,
according to
B.
A.
Rybakov, to a "Man on Horseback."
The top part,
however,
of Figure
1 has little resemblance to "arms extended
upward."
The comparison of many Tamga performed by V.
S. Drachuk enabled
us
to describe the Tamga as
follows:
"The God Sraosha on the
Sun,
(riding)
in
a
charidbt."
The image on the whole
is acceptable for the Avesta and the
Veda.
We followed the route of studying the elements of individual symbols and
their combinational analysis,
that
is,
as V.
V. Martynov stated:
"To
describe
the system of symbols of a given language means
to describe not
only the modes of their differentiation and identification but also the
modes of their combination."
We must bear
in mind that
V.
V. Martynov uses
the term symbol
to designate an iconographic portrayal, while the term
ffgqre prefers to the corresponding grapheme™graph,
to which we shall cor-
relate an actual graphemoid.
The main task at
the present time consists in
elucidating the possible correspondence between grapheme and corresponding
phoneme ,
graphemoid with phonemoid.
Thus
the God Sraosha arose in our inter-
pretation,
since we considered the Tamga to be sacral drawings and the top
part of figures
1,
2,
and
3 to be a representation of incarnation,
the
symbolic symbol of Sraosha — a "rooster."
Interpretation was subsequently halted due
to
the presence of different
nuclei — the bases
"o" and "A" with identical terminal elements
in
1 and
2.
The graphemes examined by us could have originated earlier than the cor-
responding phonetic interpretations which the Kimmerians,
Scythians,
Slavs,
Turks and Ugric peoples could have given them.
We shall assume that since
the Tamga are ascribed
to the Sarmatians,
the Sarmatians and Alans
them-
selves named them or pronounced them— there is
a distinction.
. in one of the
Iranian languages.
The "rooster" symbol and its figure in
the Tamga could
correspond both to the name
Straosha and
to the word rooster
in the cor-
responding language.
A frequency analysis indicated that this figure with
the greatest degree of probability stands
for an inflection.
The dis-
crepancy between the number a£ graphemes and number of possible sounds on
the basis of frequency analysis in Tamga and,
for example,
Sarmatian names,
enabled us
to surmise
that
the writing is syllabic in character.
The question
of designation of vowels in these syllable—graphemes was important,
All
these considerations suggested that the grapheme "%?" is an inflection cor-
responding
to
the first syllable of the word "khoroz" — rooster, with a
Approved For Release 2000l08l0f9h\^-bW^-(M%7^S6ii500050001-3
Approved For Release 2000/08/07
: CIA-RDP96-00787R000500050001-3
FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
broad phonetic spectrum of meanings:
"Kho"="ko"="ka"=kkha".
The nominal
character of the Tamga inscriptions would seem to follow from the cor-
reppondence between the Tamga symbols and the names
of
the owners of the
objects designated by them,
for example,
the reigning monarchs of
the
Vospor
[Bosporus?],
But
the name of
the queen Dinamiya by no means
followed
from Figure
16.
The sun symbol — the element "o" — could be most likely
to be pronounced as "ru" or
,,ro M="ra".
However,
a "A" in the same position
was incomprehensible,
and this
halted the deciphering.
Analysis of this
grapheme proved possible, proceeding from graffiti on Central Asian Bronze
Age terra-cotta,
described by V.
M. Masson and V.
I.
Sarmenidi
(13).
These
authors did not determine the linguistic identity of the system of figures
they described.
They isolated the most typical symbols placed on female
sculptural representations,
such as "triangle with eyelashes," which they
assumedly considered a portrayal of a female bosom, noting its diversified
top portions.
In addition they isolated symbols reminiscent of archaic
writing
("star," "cross," "zigzag,"
"fir tree"), which they describe as fol-
lows:
"Certain analogies for the Southern Turkmen can be noted in the
Sumer and Elam writing systems.
For example,
the principal symbol — an
8-pointed star,
in ancient Sumeria had the meaning an — "sky," dingir —
"deity."
The symbols "water" and "canal" were conveyed by a double broken
line, while
"jj^" —
se — "grain"....
Unfortunately the Proto-Elamic
writing
(up
to the
23.d .centnty B.C.) has not been deciphered."
In our combinational analysis there is no sense in proceeding from the
•
Proto-Elamic language or Cretan syllabary,
as A.
N. Konstantinov does
(14).
Although an
8-polnted star can be obtained by doubling a swastika or
cross and can be the reflection of an 8-legged horse, which is a dynamic in-
carnation of the God Trishtri
or the star Sirius,
"water" can be conveyed
by a double horizontal line, while "grain" can be portrayed by a single
vertical straight line.
Let us return,
however,
to the "triangle with lashes."
In our case this
grapheme — "yr " can be correlated at the phonetic level with the Avestan
word "razura" — "to grow," and "cross" —
the
top of the symbol,
to
in-
dicate the inflection "ka"-"kkha"-"ko"-"kkha".
Then the entire figure
"triangle with lashes," in the assumption of a syllabic writing system,
can
be read "rakkha"/"light,"
that
is,
the title of the queen Dinamiya — see
Tamga
figure 16.
Thus
the Tamga possibly designate titles,
social status,
occupation or proper names.
Those parts of Tamga 1 end
2 which are now
known
to us,
can be read as
"fcuko" and "raka," with different variants of
inflection.
The difference between "ru" and "ra" reflected in the grapheme
attests
to the fact that identical words are recorded in two closely-related
languages,
perhaps Scythian and Sarmatian.
The base of the graphemes Tamga
1 and
is identical;
according to
B.
A. Rybakov it corresponds
to "horse"=
"asp";
then the Tamga are read "aspruko," and "asprako," which up
to
the
inversion "ra"
is close to the name of
the Bosporian king Aspurga.
But
if
we assume that
the base
of
1 and
is not
the representation of
a horse,
then in Tamga
3 there is
the inversion "ra" at
the graphic level, while the
base
"<?"
is close
to a
stirrup,
that
is,
"to control a horse," which is also
Approved For Release 2000/08/07F:9Sl/9IS^S^06^^M500050001-3
Approved For Release 2000/08/07
: CIA-RDP96-00787R000500050001-3
FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
"asp."
The name of king Aspurga or the Bulgarian Asparukh is designated by
the third Tamga.
In this
instance we must return
to interpretation
1 and
2.
The base of these Tamga
is more similar
to
the pictures of nomad
carts
on the
rocks
at Kamennaya Mogila, near Melitopol
.
Then this element; of these
graphemes must be read as "varz"="cart" and
1 — "vozruko" and
2 — "vozraka,"
which evidently in both cases
is close
to the Iranian "leader," although if
one reads
the vertical line as "sha,"
the Tamga can be read "varshaka,"
which can be interpreted as either a proper name or "varzaka," which means
"leader."
The established relationship between
inversion of
the grapheme
and phoneme opens up
for us
the possibility of employing geometric combina-
tional analysis in analyzing the Tamga and shows
the high level of develop-
ment of
the elements of mathematical logic
in Sarmatian times.
In
this
case the inflection of Tamga
14,
depicted by a mirror-symmetrical
"rooster," should read "ak."
At
this point we should like
to make a lyrical digression and determine the
possible significance of
the existence in Sarmatian Crimea of large
quantities of nominal Tamga with an inflection of
the type CV and a few —
VC.
If we link this with the antisymmetry of inflected figures,
one can
conceive
that already in the first century A.D.
there was reflected in the
Crimea
the future CV-VC antisymmetry by the inflection of Eastern European
family name endings which we observe with the Russians:
"ov'^vo",
etc,
the
inhabitants of
the Transcarpathians — "ni"-"in,"
etc,
the Belorussians
and
Ukrainians:
"ka," "ko"-"ak," "ok,"
etc.
One can put
together a combinational
table of surname inflections with a large number of transpositions:
"ko,"
the variant "kov"="kou"=CW — "ok," "okh,"
"yek";
"ga",
"kkha",
tt kha",
"ka"
-
"ak",
"akh",
"yakh",
"ag";
"kyu
,r
,
"khu",
Rku"-"uk",
"ukh",
"yukh";
"khi",
"ki",
"kiy"-CW-"ik",
"ikh",
"nkh",
,,ra"-"ar",
"nya"-"yan",
"na"-"an"
etc.
It
seems
to us that even in pre-Sarmatian times
it was reflected
in Tamga symbols
as conscious right and left settlement
of tribes of closely-related languages
relative to
the natural axis
of symmetry of their habitation area.
Thus the
Dnieper was
the axis
of symmetry of
the Native Land —
the area along the
Black Sea coast — the Kimmerians,
Scythians,
Sarmatians,
the Eastern Slavs,
the Turkic and Ugric peoples
in Al
f takuz,
the Danube was
the axis
of sym-
metry
for
the Thracians and Dacians,
the Vistula for
the Goths and later Poles,
etc.
One has
the impression that
this axis
of
symmetry ran along the Dnieper
from the sea,
and the tribes
of
the Left Bank were designated by the "right"
tops,
and those of
the Right Bank by the "left"
tops.
The Crimeria was
territorially closer
to the tribes with "right" Tamga.
The principle of construction of left and right Tamga could prove universal
for Eurasia.
One should look for
it in tribal symbols and surnames,
and in
general ethnonyms c£
the inhabitants and peoples populating the valleys, where
traces of nomad encampments were left,
even in Iceland,
to where the Germanic-
language Heruli
traveled from the shores
of the Sea of Azov, while with the
Goths it was evidently reflected in the "Ostrogoths" and "Visigoths," left-
and right-bank.
Approved For Release 2000/08/0/:°£l$-W6£Wt)^$7&^500050001-3
Approved For Release 2000/08/07
: CIA-RDP96-00787R000500050001-3
FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
It
is most interesting
to compare "vozruko" and Sosruko,
Sosrykva,
and Soslan —
different forms
of the name of
the hero of
the Caucasian Nartian epic
poem...
It
is entirely possible that
in the Neolithic
the magical formula "kazak"
did not designate the inhabitants of the outlying areas but was
a war cry or
"mantra," which they exchanged upon meeting:
"ka-za-ak" !
"ka-za-ak"
!
,
that
is,
"right and left," possibly a symbol of unity of kind:
"We are of one
blood,
you and
I!"
In a "colored" interpretation this could be understood
as "black and white," and in the military — the tribes of the "right and
left" flanks.
The
(E1
T
)
of
the Turkic peoples was
one,
but it contained
tribes;.of "black" and "white" bone;
the Turks could have perceived "ka-za-ka,"
"kazak," as "kara-ak."
Perhaps following the collapse
of military democracy
the "whites" became nobles and
the "blacks" became the lower classes, while
previously this had not been the case:
living on the same land were As, Yas
and Melankhlen,
Ak-Nogai and Kara-Nogai,
and
the Black Caps
in Kiev.
At
the geographic
level the cardinal points
of the compass entered into
the names
of
tribes,
but
this was
later.
It
is clear
that
in
the 1st century A. D.
our ancestors attached more sig-
nificance and importance
to symmetry and
its sacral significance than do some
modern mathematicians.
For this reason also
a possibility is
a mirror
analog
of
the formula "ka-za-ak" — "ak—za-ka" —— "ak—sa-ka."
The Sacae were
the Scythians
in
the Transcaspian and Transvolga,
and
there were also White
Huns — Efthalites,
and there were blhck-headed tribes under various historical
conditions
and in various
of
the world’s geographic regions.
Inasmuch as "kazak" long had the meaning of
"goose" in the Turkic milieu,
and the correspahdipg Tamga as "goose foot" — "kazayak," there
is possible
the correlation "ak-sa-ka"-
f,aksakal"-"white-bearded.
It
seems
to us
that the clean spatial forms
of
the animal style
of Scythian
gold could appear only in an ethnos with a substantial cult of combinational
analysis and symmetry.
Perhaps
it
is here one should look for
the sources
of beauty of
(Pokrov na Nerli)
and the uniqueness
of
the Great Ballet.
The Scythian world,
a world not only
of an exceptionally clear vision of
the
forms
of
the external world but also of sensing that one is an inseparable
element
of that world.
L.
I.
Gumilev
(3)
is correct
a thousand times over
when he states
that
the numerous wars which the American Indians fought under
conditions similar
to
the area adjacent
to
the Black Sea from the 1st cen-
tury B.C.
to
the 1st century A.D.,
but on another continent and in another
time,
had
the
"aim"
of maintaining an ecological balance,
but not enrichment.
Everything was consumed,
all prisoners were sold,
exchanged,
and killed prior
to
the era of collapse of
the military democracy.
The ecological balance
was disrupted by change in
the social forms
of life and
the economic system
and was strengthened by a change
in religion, which in its new forms took
shape within
the framework of an alien ethnic structure.
Together with the
past perished its sacral secrets:
knowledge of
the laws
of construction of
the Tamga,
their interpretation,
and
the animal style of
• toreutics.
Approved For Release 2OOO/O8/O7FP6l^-Wl5^i^O^7^0fe85OOO5OOO1-3
Approved For Release 2000/08/07
: CIA-RDP96-00787R000500050001-3
FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
The elements and combinational analysis
of reading these symbols are dis-
cussed above
in this article.
It will now present no difficulty
to read
many of
them:
1)
"vazruko"="var zuko"="sosruko V
;
2)
"vozrako," etc;
3)
"asparka"="asparza,"
etc;
4)
"dora"="dara", i.e.
f,he who gives,
the name
Darius;
5)
"dadaka"=4;
6)
contains an element identical
to
7, which consists of
two joined
/f
The right-hand element,
following analysis of many Tamga,
can be
read
as
"na" — nV,
Combined
"ffl
, " as "mana"="mV."
Then we have with
" 9 "-"mV";
6)
"ramana"="rama"-"raman,"
i,e.
,
rest,
peace;
7)
"mana" — again like
4,
5,
6,
7 — symmetrical symbols,
"Mana"
means
"fortune",
"thinking,"
" 0?" can also be read as
a reduplicated
"mama";
this
is possibly the origin of the famous
figure
in Ukrainian folklore,
"the Cossack Mamay:
"The Cossack sits by
the mowing,
and plays,
What comes
to his mind,
that he has,"
8)
"aspko",
"sog" — "he who
takes care of horses," whereby the
Iranian "ko" "sog"
is represented by two symmetrical arrows which in con-
sonance are called in the Turkic "ko,"
’’s-okV"
This Tamga can be viewed
as proof of
the genuine linguistic fraternity of
the ancient inhabitants
of
the area along the Black Sea,
"kosog"="kazak";
9)
"arman"="armana" — may be "man,"
as
the contemporary "alan" of
the Ossetians and the Karachai;
then one can assume that doubled asymmetrical
read "Va"-"Vo"-"Vi"-Vu"
;
10)
if we consider the
top
of
the Tamga
to be
the Turkic hieroglyph
"kir"="ir"="yerd, " then the Tanga reads "arsakir"="aryir"="arkir"“"arkir"=
"aryerd"="arshakir" and has perhaps survived up
to
the present
time in the
name Arshak,
just as
9) Armen or
in the word "Aryan";
11) we previously correlated
it with the sacral original symbol
for
"deity",
and in the various languages
it could have read
‘ M,baga" or
"kkhuda,"
that
is,
two — "ka" or "kkhu" —
twice.
The eight-pointed star
symbol can be correlated with an eight-legged horse —
the ideograph of
movement of the deity Grishtri,
that
is, with the star Sirius
(see Avesta)
.
The subsequent fate of
the previously-described sacral symbol "eight-pointed
Approved For Release 2000/08/07^/£|^§^(^£^500050001-3
Approved For Release 2000/08/07
: CIA-RDP96-00787R000500050001-3
FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
star-cross with crossing out
1,1
is of course fairly tragic.
We shall recall
that
V.
F. Miller
(15),
an eminent specialist in the Ossetian language, wrote
in his "Echoes
of Caucasian Religious Beliefs' on Tombstones":
"The Circassians
(Kahardians)
call
the North Star
’Temir Kazak,
that
is,
’iron pillar
1 "
and,
examining the Ibero-Caucasian language,
correlates
this term with Turkic,
totally failing
to sense the Iranian roots
of these words.
"Cross with
crossing out"
is
a modified "kazak";
see
(14).
In the Avesta the mountain Khara-Berezaiti
(one more possible reading of the
first
two Tamga of our table, but now top
to bottom)
and particularly its
peak Taira,
around which
the stars, moon and sun
turn,
is called the center
of
the world.
One can surmise that
this peak was marked for the contemporary
of
the Avesta by the North Star and "Look to the North Star" was meant, which
previously could have meant "Look toward Sirius":
"The stellar wagon will point
to him the road
With its shafts...."
E.
Bagritskiy
12)
"aspra"-"spra"=possibly="spraka"!="spaka"="ispaka" —
this Tamga
could have designated the word "leader,"
the name Ashoka
(Ispaka)
, which
became the Russian word "sobaka"
I dog],
"suka"
[bitch], which the alien
Christian
tradition incorporated into
the abusive expletive "sukin syn"
[son of
a bitch], while Kanishka was
the name of
the king of Bactria^
13) 'three-pointed rosette"
is definitely read as "kan"="khan";
14) here we
finally return
to the beginning of the article.
This
Tamga
is read in different variants as "kazaka"-"kazak,"
the mirror variant
"aksaka,"
in
the Ibero-Caucasian variant; but preserving the sense "balsag"?
15)
a complex Tamga as
"ramana"
is
read as "pagana" — *a Sarmatian
shepherd who became with the Christians,
together with "yezyk" and
"koshchshchey" — "nomad" —
a symbol of
the non-Christian of the steppes.
Let us make
a second lyrical digression.
The
last Tamga suggest
that
a good
deal is linked with them in our language and past.
The meanings of these
words,
reinterpreted, were preserved in brother Turkic languages,
but
the
words
themselves and their purport lie deeper in a Nostratic layer.
It
would be wrong
to employ Turkic folk etymology to explain names
of the type
Yermak and occupations of
the type "chumak"
[oxcart driver]
associated
with the Tamga kazak,
for the Turkic peoples forgot their Tengrian past
under strong pressure by
the ethnically alien Islam.
But some interesting ideas arise in examining the relationship between the
Tamga and
their incarnation in the images of animals.
For example,
the
Tamga
"ispaka" incarnates into
the dog,
sacred animal of
the
fire 'worshippers
and Scythians—
1Turks—Iberians .
We were long engaged in a search for the in-
carnation of "kazaka"; we were helped by the concept of transformation of
"za"-"ta" with transition from Nostratic to the Slavic languages.
The
"kazaka" of
the Scythian world strode across Europe in the form of Puss
in Boots
Approved For Release 2000/08/07
Approved For Release 2000/08/07
: CIA-RDP96-00787R000500050001-3
FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
"chat," "cat," "Katze," etc.
The Incarnation of "kazaka" was a sacred cat,
tricolor with four eyes,
two of which were designated by reddish singed
spots.
This incarnation of
"kazaka"' proved
to Be the most vital at the
hearths
of all European peoples;
16)
"raka"="rakan" — the title "light," pleasing not only
to the
Bosporic queen Dinamiya but also
to
the heroines
of folk songs of many
peoples and tribes.
We have discovered analogs of
the Tamga and Sarmatian elements
in the sym-
bols
of the Proto- Indie zodiac and,
strange as
it may seem,
in Saharan
Proto-Libyan writing.
The above can be considered proof of the persistence of the ethnos on the
above-described territory of the Eurasian continent during the course of
several millennia:
the change and succession of languages evidently was not
very important;
religion exerted much more influence on the processes of
degradation of the ethnos:
Tslam,
Judaism,
and Christianity,
introduced from
alien ethnic conditions
.
The table of meaning of Tamga and their elements discovered by us, with sym-
bols from the Glagolitic alphabet, became particularly conclusive for us.
Our findings are contained in the following table:
Designation of
Slavic Glagolitic
Glagolitic
Figure
Sarmatian
Word
Sarmatian
Grapheme
Sarmatian
Phoneme
Letter
ya "az"
[I]
rb
voz 9
vaz, varz
74-r
var,
etc
tsipa "tsi"
"khoroz"
V
ka,
etc
myslete
[you
think]
no
mana
(JYb
mana ,
ma
kako
[as]
b
koba
koba
,
F
F
It
is not as extensive and conclusive as that presented by N.
A. Konstantinov
and M.
I. Privalova
(16), but we too can draw the conclusion that the Tamga
characters of the area adjacent
to the Black Sea were the source of the
Glagolitic alphabet symbols of the Slavs
of Eastern Europe.
The Cyrillic
alphabet, which
is based on
it, obviously came
to us from the West and South
Slavs.
It supplanted the Glagolitic which,
however,
has been preserved to
the present,
as
frequently occurs
in ethnology,
in the form of Proto-
Iberian writing-system characters beyond the ridge of the Caucasus.
The
Glagolitic,
the Georgian khutsuri and mkhedruli were formed by the autochthonous
peoples
of
a single region alongside the alphabet of the Armenians and the
Caucasian Agvans.
Perhaps we should once again return to the question of the
sources of the Sogdian writing system.
The patterns we have elucidated are
not only of ethnohistorical significance.
The principles of construction of the Tamga symbols are fairly interesting
from the standpoint of
the structure of graphic metalanguage.
They are
symmetrically unique and can help in elaboration of a USC — Universal
Approved For Release 2000/08/07 ?6M£Bi^£%)?#fe8i5bl00050001-3
Approved For Release 2000/08/07
: CIA-RDP96-00787R000500050001-3
FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
Semantic Code of the information language of science.
In addition they make
it possible more precisely' to formulate concepts on the term "ethnos."
We should like
to end this article,
as we began
it, with a stanza from the
poem "Gobustan Drawing" by Ivan Drach,
dedicated to Gobustan
-— a preserve of
rocks in Azerbaydzhan where cliff paintings dating from the 10th-12th
millennium B.C.
are preserved:
"This Gobustan dates from the nether world of deep antiquity,
And yet man has taken wing here as well.
For even here man's indomitable soul
Soars from the nether world in paintings!"
We feel that
this
stanza expresses poetically the content of this article.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1.
Ko tlyarevskyy ,
I.
N.,
"Eneida"
[Aeneid], Derzhavna Vydavnytstvo
Khudozhn'oi literatury,
Kiev,
1955
2.
"Tayny drevnikh pis'men"
[Secrets of Ancient Writing],
collected
volume*.
I.
M.
D'yakonov,
editor, Moscow,
Progress,
pp 105-254.
3.
"Doklady otdeleniy
i komissiy Geograficheskogo obshchestva SSSR"
[Papers
of the Departments and Commissions of the USSR Geographic
Society],
Issue
3,
Etnografiya,
Leningrad,
1967.
4.
pp
3-17,
Gumilev,
L.
N.,
"On the Term Ethnos";
pp
90-107,
Gumilev,
L.
N.,
"Ethnos as a Phenomenon."
4.
Illich-Svitych,
V.
M.
,
"Opyt sravneniya nostraticheskikh yazykov"
[Attempt at Comparison of
the Nostratic Languages], Moscow,
Nauka,
1971,
page
370.
5.
Inal-apa,
Sh.
D.,
"Abkhazy"
[The Abkhazians],
Sukhumi,
Alashara,
1965,
page
679.
6.
"Etnonimy"
[Ethnonyms],
collected volume,
V.
A. Nikonov,
editor, Moscow,
Nauka,
1970;
Blagova,
G.
F., "Historical Relationships Between the Word
'Kazak'
and
'Kazakh'," pp 143-159.
7.
Popovich,
M.
V.,
"Filosofskiye voprosy semantiki"
[Philosophical Prob-
lems of Semantics],
Kiev, Naukova Dumka,
1975, page
299.
8.
Martynov,
V.
V.
,
"Semiologicheskiye osnovy informatiki"
[Semiologic
Principles of Information Science], Minsk, Nauka
i Tekhnika,
1974,
page
191.
Approved For Release 2000/08/07
: W-^EP^b7^¥?61^b0050001-3
Approved For Release 2000/08/07
: CIA-RDP96-00787R000500050001-3
FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
9.
Foss,
M.
Ye.,
"Ancient History of
the Northern Part of the European
USSR," in the volume "Materialy
i issledovaniya po arkheologii SSSR"
[Materials and Studies on Archeology of the USSR], Vol
29, Moscow,
Izd. AN SSSR,
1952,
pp
60-90.
10.
Drachuk,
V.
S'.,
"Sisteray znakov Severnogo Prichernomor ’ya"
[Symbol
Systems of the Northern Black Sea Coast],
Kiev, Naukova Dumka,
1975,
page 176.
11.
Gurevich,
A.
Ya.
,
"Kategorii srednevekovoy kul'tury"
[Categories
of
Medieval Culture], Moscow,
Iskusstvo,
1972,
page 318.
12.
"Istoriya iranskogo gosudarstva
i kul’tury"
[History of
the Iranian
State and Culture]
,
collected volume in honor of the 2500th Anniversary
of
the Iranian State, Academician V.
G.
Gafurov,
Editor, Moscow,
Nauka,
1971,
page 332.
13.
Masson,
V.
M.
,
and Sarmanidi,
V.
N.
,
"Sredneaziatskaya terrakota
epokhi bronzy"
[Bronze Age Central Asian Terra-Cotta], Moscow,
1973,
page
209.
14.
Konstantinov,
N.
A., NEVA,
No
7,
1957..
15.
Miller,
V.
F.,
"Materialy po Arkheologii Kavkaza"
[Materials on
Archeology of the Caucasus],
Issue
3,
Countess Uvarova,
editor,
Moscow,
Tipografiya A.
I. Mamontov and Co.,
1893,
pp
119-136.
16.
Privalova,
M.
N.
,
"On Sources of the Glagolitic Alphabet," UCH.
ZAP.
LGU,
Leningrad,
1960,
Issue
52,
Approved For Release 2000/08/07 ?6^-WS^^!k)^^R88bl00050001-3