Monday, August 12, 2013

SCYTHIANS-GEORGI

The answer to the question, who is the author of the Kartvelian names of Ukrainians rivers, has been in Herodotus' 'Persian Wars' for 2500 years.

According to his classification, the right bank of the Dnipro was inhabited by Scythians-Arotires, which has always been correctly translated into various languages as 'land tillers'. Indeed, in the same sentence Herodotus tells about those 'Arotires' selling bread. But in the next paragraph he tells about other Scythians living on another bank of the Dnipro, calling them 'Scythians-Georgi'. This also has been always translated as 'farmers', although we have no reason for that. Herodotus tells nothing about 'Georgi' cultivating the land. If both 'Arotires' and 'Georgi' were agriculturists, what's the reason to call them with different words within three sentences? Wouldn't it be more logical to say 'on both banks of the Dnipro there were Scythians-Arotires'?



A very grounded assumption would be to Herodotus mishearing the true name of the Scythians of the left bank and adapting it to sound Greekishly. Most likely, the tribe was called not 'Georgi', but 'Gorgi', being an Iranian word to denote ´wolf'. Even today Georgia is called Gorjestan by the Iranians - 'the land of wolves'. Also this hypothesis gives us a new interpretation of Georgia as the name of the country. And all these comes from the fact that Ukrainian rivers bear Katrvelian names, never paid attention to before.

The assumption that Herodotus was not talking of 'Georgi' as of 'agriculturists' is not new. In USSR's 'Ancient History Bulettin' of 1946 P. Ushakov in his article 'On Urartians' Campaigns in Transcaucasia in IX and VIII centuries' said:

"The Scythians-Georgi were named so in consonance with their tribe's name".

And he did have a clue, unlike the rest of historians.

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