Continuing Mis-Identification of the Altai Culture

[Alanus]

Thanks for the reply, Sean

I don't suppose things will change; and for the sake of simplicity, the Altai people will be called Scythian ad infinitum.  Actually, there are a lot of theories concerning the location of the Issedones and many "guesstimates" place them further south in the Seven Rivers area. However, if you read Herodotus explicitly, you wind up in the Altai. Some historians take "mountains that nobody passes over" as the Altai, when he's referring to the Urals. The Northern Trade Road actually passed below the higher mountains of the Urals, then continued to the Altai and down into China. shown here:

   
The tan-colored line follows the Northern Trade Route. Notice where it "peaks" in Mongolia, the exact spot where "gryphon skulls" are found. This route is far older than the southern one, the so-called Silk Road. It goes back to the amazing exchanges between the Karasuk Culture (in Minuminsk, just west of the Altai) and the Shang Dynasty during the 2nd millennium BC.

Besides the Issedones, my hypothesis also considers Herodotus'  "Arimaspoi" (Arimaspi) perhaps a confusing name to him. This was his eastern-most tribe, which I believe would be on the Mongolian reaches of the Altai, where we now find the Ukok artifacts. This location fits the Yuezhi and Wusun recorded in the Han Shu which contained old info going back to the Qin Dynasty and earlier. The key is "asp"-- "horse" in Northeastern Indo-Iranian. The Arimaspi fit an expression such as "the horse-breeding people." We don't have written records beyond Herodotus, but the Issedones and Arimaspi coincide (exactly) with the Yuezhi and Wusun of the Han Shu, being the singular two tribes famous for breeding horses and supplying them to the Chinese. This is documented right back to the Spring and Autumn Period, contemporaneous with the Altai cultures' peak. 

At any rate, my interest in the Altai came from a search for roots of the Alans. Graphing the Pazyryk-Ukok cultures (using their distinctive art forms and clothing), we follow a "U"-shaped migration pattern. We swing down to the southeast, then west to the Ili River Valley and BMC, then northeast to the Aral delta, and finally to a recorded entry of the Alans north of the Caspian. (the catalyst arrived with the Xiongnu, the Huns)

The novel, The Gryphon Skull, sounds interesting. I believe Homer once wrote something similar where his character was blown all over the Med.