Picts = Agathyrsi?
KHF...@aol.com
I found an interesting question on the ANSAX forum which I do not believe the
forum members will be able to answer. Does anyone here have an idea on this?
-Ken
_____________
Servius on Virgil says that the Picts were descendants
of some the Agathyrsi who crossed the sea to Scotland.
The Agathyrsi are identical with the Acatzyri precursors
to the Khazars who gained control of southern Russia for a period, converted
to Judaism and beat back the Arab attempt to take over Europe.
Prior to their conversion the Khazars had a tradition that they were
descended from Israelites and there was a strong Jewish element amongst them.
Is there anything about the Picts linking them with the Agathyrsi or with
Israel?
norenxaq
KHF...@aol.com wrote:
> I found an interesting question on the ANSAX forum which I do not believe the
> forum members will be able to answer. Does anyone here have an idea on this?
> -Ken
> _____________
>
> Servius on Virgil says that the Picts were descendants
> of some the Agathyrsi who crossed the sea to Scotland.
>
> The Agathyrsi are identical with the Acatzyri precursors
> to the Khazars who gained control of southern Russia for a period, converted
> to Judaism and beat back the Arab attempt to take over Europe.
The Acatzyri were not related to the Khazars
>
> Prior to their conversion the Khazars had a tradition that they were
> descended from Israelites and there was a strong Jewish element amongst them.
This tradition is post-conversion I believe, unless you have found something
suggesting otherwise. In which case, i would be interested in the source(s)
>
>
> Is there anything about the Picts linking them with the Agathyrsi or with
> Israel?
I do not believe so, but would like to see what sources you have found that
suggest such a conection might exist.
Stewart Baldwin
>I found an interesting question on the ANSAX forum which I do not believe the
>forum members will be able to answer. Does anyone here have an idea on this?
> -Ken
>_____________
>
>Servius on Virgil says that the Picts were descendants
>of some the Agathyrsi who crossed the sea to Scotland.
>
>The Agathyrsi are identical with the Acatzyri precursors
>to the Khazars who gained control of southern Russia for a period, converted
>to Judaism and beat back the Arab attempt to take over Europe.
>Prior to their conversion the Khazars had a tradition that they were
>descended from Israelites and there was a strong Jewish element amongst them.
>
>Is there anything about the Picts linking them with the Agathyrsi or with
>Israel?
>
The idea of a Pictish link with the Agathyrsi appears to have little
support. Marjorie O. Anderson, "Kings and Kingship in Early
Scotland", 83, dismisses the idea in a brief footnote, citing William
J. Watson, "The History of the Celtic Place-Names of Scotland", 60f.
I checked that source, and it appears that the story is based on
Virgil's mention of "picti Agathryrsi" ("picti" being the Latin word,
and not the people known as the "Picti"), added to the confusion of
some early Irish scholars. See Watson, pp. 59-61.
The links to the Khazars, Israel, etc. would depend (at the very
least) on the Pictish-Agathyrsi link being valid, and I think that the
connection can be set aside.
Stewart Baldwin
ba...@my-deja.com
"Dr. Edward D. Rockstein" <ed4l...@earthlink.net> wrote:<snip>
> In early Chinese documents there was an East Turkic tribe/clan called
Khazars
> among the Uygurs in what is now Mongolia.
Well, a similar name, and some tribes apparently connected to the
Uigurs moved to the area north and northwest of the Caucasus, with the
Khazars apparently being one of them or partly formed from one or more
of them. See Arthur Dunlop's book, which is the most reliable
reference on the subject (you sound like you've read it though). Some
other comments below your next remarks.
The Uygurs, by the
> way about a hunder years or so before the conversion of the
Khazars
> to Judaism, converted to Manichaeism. I view both tribal
conversions
> as political rather than religious in nature--the Uygurs to select a
religion
> neutral to that of the major powers east and west of them and the
Khazars
> between Islamic and Christian powers. I know of no tradition
among
> the Khazars that they are descended from the Israelites or that there
was
> a strong Jewish influence in their past. Moreover, their
conversion
> was principally among the ruling caste and note widespread throughout
the
> entire tribe. Unfortunately, some possible answers to questions
about
> these people may never be answered since the Russian chose to flood
their
> home lands in a major dam project<snip>
I don't know of a tradition of Israelite descent among them either but
they had to be converted by Jews from elsewhere, and some of the
sources refer to Jews from Armenia or the Byzantine lands settling
among them and converting them, and the letter from their King Joseph
refers to Israelites among them, apparently referring to such migrants
or their descendants. Whether conversion affected only the ruling caste
or was more widespread is unclear due to the scanty nature of their
remains and the contradiction between the sources; the name could have
referred both to a relatively small group ruling other peoples and to
the whole collection of nations in their domain, which would explain
the confusion. What was flooded was one small garrison town on the Don
called Sarkel but the site of their chief town, Atil, has never been
located and may have been covered long ago by the Volga or the
Caspian. A possibly semi-nomadic people would leave few remains, and
it has never been clear to me how their artifacts could easily be
distinguished from those of related subject peoples.
---- bad24
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Kevin Brook
legends and even has the absurd idea that most West Europeans are
Israelites. As for his specific contentions concerning the Khazars,
His notion that Khazars are related to Pictic Agathyrsoi finds no
support in the Khazar studies field (it turns out now that Akatzirs
aren't even related to Khazars, and Akatzirs themselves aren't related
to Agathyrsoi). Also, his claim that Khazars aren't Turks is clearly
refuted by the statements of accurate medieval sources like Rabbi
Yehuda al-Barseloni, Rabbi Shem Tov ibn Shem Tov, Theophanes, and even
King Yosef himself, as well as some Arabic sources, who all say that
the Khazars are Turks and spring from Togarma! It's true that there
were some Israelites who merged with the Khazars, because Byzantine
Jews had migrated to Russia from the south, but denying the Turkicness
of the Khazars, as Yair Davidy attempts to do, is revisionist denial.
The claim that Khazars are descended from Simeon, Judah, and Manasseh
tribal elements is simply a legend, as is the claim that Western
Europeans descend from Israelite tribes. Some of the Khazars believed
this legend themselves, but that's just like how today's converts to
Judaism have to pretend to be descended from Abraham and Sarah and
renounce their non-Jewish origins when joining the people of Israel.
By the way there was no Jew named Abraham Prokownik in early Poland;
he's a legendary character also, despite what Mr. Davidy may claim to
the contrary.
As for the conversion of the Khazars, I disagree with Mr. Rockstein
that the conversion was limited to the elite of the Khazar tribe.
First I would like to quote from reporters who attended the 1st
international Khazar conference from Jerusalem:
"And in the 1960s, Mikhail Artamonov, of the then University of
Leningrad, maintained the thesis, today abandoned by the specialists,
according to which only the elite Khazars had converted to Judaism.
The 'good people' [the bulk of the country] did not." - Alicia Ortiz,
La Nacion (Buenos Aires), August 14, 1999
"...Artamonov maintained the thesis, now rejected by the majority of
specialists, according to which only the elite converted,
for 'economic' reasons, while the mass of the 'good people' remained
outside of this [Judaizing] movement..." - Le Monde (Paris), July 8,
1999
But maybe we should not care that most people now agree with me.
Rather, let's look at the facts. They speak for themselves.
1. Muqaddasi wrote in Descriptio Imperii Moslemici (10th century): "In
Khazaria, sheep, honey, and Jews exist in large quantities."
2. In the year 987 Ibn an-Nadim wrote in the Kitab al-Fihrist that the
Khazars (as a collective entity) wrote in Hebrew letters.
3. A vessel from the Don Valley in a Khazarian settlement has an
inscription reading "Israel" in Hebrew letters. Non-Jews would be
uninterested in such artifacts. In the past, artifacts like this were
hidden by anti-Jewish Soviet authorities. Look for more discoveries
like this one in the future.
4. Rabbi Abraham ibn Daud wrote in 1161: "You will find congregations
of Israel spread abroad... as far as Daylam and the river Itil where
live the Khazar peoples who became proselytes. Their king Joseph sent
a letter to R. Hasdai, the Prince bar Isaac ben-Shaprut and informed
him that he and all his people followed the Rabbanite faith. We have
seen in Toledo some of their descendants, pupils of the wise, and they
told us that the remnant of them followed the Rabbanite faith." Just
as with other sources, he refers to the majority of Khazars being Jews.
5. Four decades later, in 1206, another source (Tarikh-i Fakhr ad-Din
Mubarak Shah) spoke about Jews who wrote in Cyrillic letters and were
of Khazarian origin ("The Khazars have a script which is related to the
script of the Russians [Rus].... The greater part of these Khazars who
use this script are Jews." Look at the last sentence.
Other evidence in favor of the Jewishness of the Khazars is presented
in such sources as:
Are Russian Jews Descended from the Khazars?
http://www.khazaria.com/khazar-diaspora.html
The Jews of Khazaria, by Kevin Alan Brook
Published by Jason Aronson Publishers, Northvale, NJ, 1999
See chapters 2, 4, 6, and 9 for evidence that Khazars were Jews;
see chapter 1 for legends about Israelite origins for the Khazars.
Such sources include
Ibn al-Faqih
Christian Druthmar of Aquitaine
Kievan Letter
Cambridge Document
Abd al-Jabbar ibn Muhammad al-Hamdani
Dimashqi
The Islamic and Christian elements among the Khazar tribe were a
minority during the tenth century. That is why we hear statements
about the Khazars joining Judaism and about Khazars writing in Hebrew.
Most sources that don't admit to such things can be shown to be
archaic, that is, to reflect what happened in the ninth or eighth
century, and are thus irrelevant in our analysis.
The Khazars have no relation to Celts whatsoever. The
ethnonym "Khazar" has roots in Eastern Turkestan where the Uygurs and
other groups used the name. It might ultimately derive from the Turkic
and Persian spelling of the Latin title "caesar".
David, you refer to a writer called "Arthur Dunlop". You meant to
say "Douglas Dunlop". His work is very much outdated, having been
published in 1954. In other words, it doesn't cover anything from the
46 years that followed, and in fact it has some errors like most
books. I would argue that Dunlop's works are overshadowed by the much
more complete and accurate works by Peter Golden, Norman Golb, Jonathan
Shepard, Dan Shapira, and Thomas Noonan. But since you haven't
bothered to actually investigate the current state of Khazar studies
you wouldn't know who they are anyway. But your message to Edward is
very well-written and I compliment you. The Khazars WERE the elite of
Khazaria by virtue of their domination over the Goths, Slavs, Kalizes,
Arabs, Alans, Greeks, and others that they ruled and taxed. But these
other groups outnumbered the Khazars. Dunlop speaks about the extreme
heterogeneity of the Khazar Kingdom, which contributed to its
collapse. This is because not everyone in Khazaria considered himself
to be a Khazar, and easily regrouped with some other confederation or
nation as Khazar power declined. The Slavs and Goths certainly had no
loyalty to Khazaria over any other country. When an Arab source says
that Jews were a minority in Khazaria what they usually mean is that
Khazars were a minority in Khazaria. As I have explained elsewhere:
Khazars = mostly Jews
non-Khazars = non-Jews
Population of Khazar Empire = mostly non-Khazars
Population of Khazar Empire = mostly non-Jews
Rulers of Khazar Empire = Khazars
Rulers of Khazar Empire = mostly Jews
Khazars = in same ethnic group as the Khazar king
----
The Jews of Khazaria
by Kevin Alan Brook
For more information visit:
http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewwork.asp?AuthorID=921
(Our correspondent Edward Rockstein's name appears in the
Acknowledgments and Bibliography of my book. His research on the
Szekely runes is of great interest to scholars of Hungarian and
Khazarian history.)