Origin of the Alans

[Alanus]

Hello, Jan

The diadem from the Kangli grave could easily depict a winged woman, rather than a woman wearing a short cape. I recognized it as an Ordos piece, and it has many features created by Chinese craftsmen for a "barbarian" clientele.

A word on the Tocharian language. It's early, IE centum, and obviously dates back to the Afanasievo culture. Perhaps the first to speculate that it might be connected to certain Tarim states were Mallory and Mair. This premise was then used by Benjamin to project it's use by the entire Yuezhi and progressively by Kushana. But, if we go back to the Bronze age, we find an overlap-- both Andronovo and the Siema-Turbino Phenomenon lapping over Afanasievo-- in which we would see the major language of the Yuezhi confederation speaking Eastern Iranian. The Kushan coins were minted in Bactrian, a Eastern Iranian tongue, and we can extend it to the Aorsi/Arsi/Alan/Ossetic language. So I now believe Tocharian remained in the Tarim, localized.

Prior to the formation of this RAT thread, no-one had projected the origin of the Alans... who simply came from "the East." This whole thread has been a learning process, particularly aided by Michael Kerr and other members. Coming into it-- as we see from the initial post-- I had a rough idea of Alanic origins. The most enlightening piece was the Orlat battle plaque, which visually shows a Yuezhi, Pazyryk, Chinese, Alan connection. The distinctive style used by the artist reflects the hind-quarters and cow-hock legs of the horse depicted on the felt hanging found in Pazyryk K5, and this style cannot be found anywhere else.

Today, I received my copy of Jacobson-Tepfer's The Hunter, The Stag, and The Mother of Animals. Frankly, I don't see a difference between my "speculation" and her "interpretation." As a rule, we don't find scenarios within academic PDFs, simply because anyone submitting a master's or doctorial thesis can't afford black marks by the review board. On the other hand, we find speculation within published material, and Esther Jacobson-Tepfer is certainly a prime example. Her book is written entirely from a subjective viewpoint. Interpretation repeats itself, and on pages 2 and 3 we find Jacobson-Tepfer describing (and illustrating) the same felt hanging from Pazyryk K5. Within this RAT thread, Michael Kerr posited a similar illustration from the Bosphorus Kingdom when it was controlled by the Aorsi. These two nearly identical illustrations are not ambiguous, do not link to other Scytho-Sarmatian cultures, and graphically depict a cultural connection between Pazyryk, the Yuezhi, and the Alans.

   
Here we have the Pazyryk illustration.

   
And here is the Bosphorus funeral painting posted by Michael. According to Jacobson-Tepfer, the woman is the "guardian of the road" to the next realm, and the rider is the deceased. Both illustrations show horses with crenellated manes, also distinctive to the Pazyryks, Qin and Han Chinese, and the Aorsi.

It's all connective. I disdain the negative stance taken by Asbelev (mentioned in my last post) when he attempts to link the Pazyryks solely with a Turkish foundation, aka the Dingling. If we go back to the "beginning," we find a swath of linked cultures from the middle Ob, the Minuminsk Basin, the Sayan, straight east to Tuva and the Arzhan burial ground. All of these Scytho-Siberian cultures were interrelated, forming the iron age Sargatskya (who gave us the eared bow) and the Arzhan culture. The latter must have split into the Issedones/Wusun and the Arimaspi/Yuezhi, which steadily moved further to the south. Sometime after Arzhan 2, the Yuezhi came to the fore, taking the "high ground" (Altai) and driving the kindred Wusun westward.

For the interconnection between the BMC and Tarim peoples? It was a two-way trade route... which actually began at the dawn of the horse-riding Iron age. We find Arzhan-styled earrings and snaffle bits in the Tarim prior to the 8th century BC. We find a Sargat-styled bow at Niya. And we discover Bactrian turquoise and lapis lazuli in Tarim graves and also at Arzhan 2. I firmly believe this was the beginning of the Yuezhi trade route. It would appear the Tarim city states were part of the Yuezhi "Kingdom" (to quote Enoki).

We don't know the full story and we'll never truly figure it out. In 176 BC, the Xiongnu broke over 20 tribes from the Yuezhi federation. Some of these tribes we can identify, like the Loufan and Wusun. We know the Little Yuezhi remained behind, and we are aware that a significant population of this remainder became participants in founding the Turkic culture. This isn't in variance with the Pazyryk to Yuezhi connection but rather an extension of it.