Getas Basileis. Historical Odin revisited

Sun Mar 2 17:58:10 UTC 2008

Abstract. 
Near Cluj-Napoca, in a well known antic site, a seal with a cross was 
found in a gepidic tomb.The exhibition is very recent. This is 
related to the Getic logo on antic coins. Moreover the site 
corresponds to the description of old Dacian Sarmizegetusa. This 
supports the statement of Jordanes that Gots and Gets are the same kin
(rulers). This also suggests that a better model for the incoming of 
Gepids in Transylvania is reconsidering the hypothesis by Gibbon on 
historical Odin: a better fit is given by the king Duras of Dacia 
which left the kingdom of Dacia to Decebalus in 87AD.

The need for the guess of an east germanic tribe to explain 
historical events is eliminated. Only rulers, feuds and wars, but 
no "migration" as incoming data. The direction is two-wards.

The global interpretation of the data in the National Museum of 
History of Transylvania along with the pictures on the Trajan's 
column supports the interpretation that the religion of the Dacians 
(and threfore Gets) was Mithraic.

1. Getas Basileis
1a. Sarmizegetusa. More at http://download.academic.ro/Vlaha/index.htm

We try to bring to life the significance of such words as "sighet" -
engl. creek and sarmas-salted water which apparently enter in the 
name of Sarmizegetusa, the alleged capital of the last Dacian king 
Decebalus.
These words remained through  time in the language of the shepherds 
and remained intact as basic geographic notions, a matter of life and 
death for these people.
Sarmis denotes the 4 Somes rivers in Transylvania: the Grand, Small, 
Warm and Cold. Moreover Särmas is a
frequent village name.

Sarmas means salted water. It is very frequent since Transylvania is 
the bottom of the sarmatic sea.

We have today: Saliste,Sarata, Saratura, Saratel, Sarateni, Sarile, 
Sarmas (5), Sarmasel, Sarmasag. 
We have not found (yet) Sargetel and Sarmagel or Sarmagata (look at 
Trajan's Sargetia). 
Sarmatau is impossible, since 'tau' denotes a source of flowing 
water. 
Therefore, Sarmis should be a small river, passing near a salt 
deposit; Sargetia (sargâtza-in today Romanian), a small river near 
the citadell (where the treasure was hidden) may be found, but not a 
creek of 2 salted rivers. Perhaps they meant the Somes but the 
combination Somesseged didn't sound enough triumphalistic.

Let us continue with the sighet word. It denotes a confluence:

Szeged in Hungary- confluence of Mures and Tisa
Sighisoara (small confluence) Tarnava Mica and Shes
Sighetu Marmatiei Tisa and Iza
Sighetu Silvaniei (near Zalau) Crasna and Zalau
Sighii (plural, called SIBIU on maps- an incompetent alteration of 
the original romanian name), many
afluents of the Cibin River

We get the word SIGHET in dacian, suggesting that today romanian is 
actually the same old dacian.
Therefore, we have 3 hypothesis for the confluence of then two 
Sarmis/Somes :
- Near DEJ (confluence of Grand Somes/Sarmis with Small Somes/Sarmis).
We know that Trajan destroyed the Dacian citadel and build a Roman 
Castrum. No convincing traces were found there however.

- Confluence of Warm Somes with Cold Somes at Gilau. 
One also has a smaller river passing by, called today Sarata which 
may be the antic Sargetia where Decebal hided his treasure. It is 
well in the mountains. 
There is an old stone fortress there, called "Cetatea Fetei" - 
uninvestigated archeologically perhaps assigned to another Romanian 
hero, Voievod Gelou, beatten by hungarians in 895. However, there is 
a Roman castrum founded in 106 AD by Trajan there.
The nearby village Vlaha suggests a matrix of old Transylvanian 
voyevodate.

At Dabâca, at 30 km away of both Cluj-Napoca and Gilau another 
fortress, also assigned to Gelou may be found. We mention that in 
Transylvania (family) names are formed starting with the village of 
origin while surnames are given. Thus, Ioan Giloan is John from Gilau 
and Ioan Calborean is John from Calbor. Thus Gelou may be the family 
name of the IX-th century hero. BUT, for Dabâca, the name of the 
natives is formed as Däbalä. Thus we get the origin of the name of 
the last Dacian King and his village, which ressembles to Decebalus.

I encountered such a contraction of sounds personally: Gordes from 
Gheorghies, because the special group Ghe (or Dece in our case) is 
negligently pronounced. This also explains the origin of the dacians 
people name.

When Decebalus lost the fortress, he left, but was captured by Romans 
at 60 km away at Porolissum, i.e Moigrad today. This would'nt be 
possible with the Roman army at Hunedoara at 300 km away.
Therefore we believe having indicated the proper location of 
Decebal's last fight.

Dabâca always had an important administrative role, including in the 
middle ages, when it was center of a comitate (county). While the 
antic water pipe is still functioning today, there is no Somes-Sighet 
there and no salted water. It might be the village of origin of 
Decebalus. (i.e. both Decebalus and Gelou mastered both Gilau and 
Däbâca citadels, separated by 30km).

Thus everything happened near Cluj-Napoca, which is a very populated 
area. Chances to find huge treasuries or artefacts are scarce.
However, the History Museum there may supply lot of encouraging 
evidence.

b. In previous posts I showed that Jordannes  "Galtis on Aucha" 
(Aluta) corresponds to Galati, near Fagaras and that Flautasis 
(Raftsmen) corresponds to the Bistritza/Cogeanus south border of 
Moldavia before 1500. Galtis in the antic acception (e.g. in Sapain) 
should be taken as betten earth citadel.

c. In sept 2006, a fabulous site was discovered in Floresti, near 
Cluj-Napoca, Romania. A few month before that I have published that 
the location (see 1a above) corresponds to the same site.
The exhibition of the artefacts shows a seal with a cross which 
undoubtely means the seal of the Gets, according to poorly documented 
antic coins which bear the same logo and the label "Getas ... 
Basileis". These coins were also found in Babylon, also in agreement 
with Jordannes on the wars with Ramses (lost reference-volunteer 
needed):
- seal:http://download.academic.ro/columna/polus/Sigiliu.gif
- back of seal:http://download.academic.ro/columna/polus/Pistil.gif
- coin: http://download.academic.ro/columna/polus/moneda.gif

Nearby, the largest gepid necropola (500 tombs), the antic Napoca, 
attested former gepid royal residences. See also Erdely Tortenete
(http://mek.oszk.hu/02100/02109/html/17.html - the english version is 
incomplete: Mihacs garden denotes the garden of the local landlord, 
10 km upstream).

2.d. Orhodoxian christian canonic representation of "Christ as a 
judge" consists in Christ dressed with a robe painted with crosses in 
circles or squares. I suggest this is a canonic posture for a ruling 
Voievoda (Basileus)-not Zeus on coins.

2.Historical Odin revisited

2.a. Vlahii Sarmatae are a people appearing in north Transylvania on 
the Tabula Peutingeriana. Also the prince of Vlachs appears in 
Niebelungen Lied. A hill(stone) near Cluj Napoca bears the name of 
Feleak (closer to the sanskrit Valaka). The meaning of Vlaha/ ValaKa 
is a diminutive for valley and is not quite unique to the Cluj Napoca 
surroundins, but fits with Valaskialf of Woden who is supposed to be 
a king not a shepherd.
In Romanian, Woda (see Wodan) comes from Voie-va-da(u)(I allow you 
to  ...)- meaning judge or ruler. Not slavian warrior. The slavs 
(Carintia) had Voievoda as rulers/Judges not as warriors ! 

2.b. Duru(yielding Duras), from "a durui" means thunder/make thunder 
noise in Romanian, e.g. Duruitoare=water fall, etc.  This fits the 
war name of Wodan, Thor.

2.c.  Wodan appears in Denmark after 88AD whiled Duras leaves Dacia 
in 87 AD, after beating Fuscus, an event marked in Jordannes. Since a 
hiatus appears among the rulers, north and south Alutus (today Olt) 
it is normal to have a Jordannes ignoring the northen kingdom 
conquered by the Romans.

2.d. Transylvania (Dacia), similarly to Denmark is the only kingdom 
where the people is called scithians (siculy >>>seklars today), 
dacians and gets altogether along with RUNES. 

2.e. The elder futark rune42. Järsberg Stone (1st half of the 6th 
century)
"C1: /// ubaR hite: harabanaR
C2: hait ///
C3: ek erilaR
C4: runoR w
C5: aritu"

contains the word "harabanaR". This may be taken as today's 
Romanian "Darabantz"- eagle. The Presidential Guard in Romania is 
called today "1. Darabanti" - with the secondary sense of 
heroes: "800000 dorabantz fell for the union of Romania in WWI".

Along with this one, many other elder futark runes contain the 
invocation "haide" (let's ... (do something) in Romanian).

2.d. It is believed that Transylvania comes from hungarian Erdely. 
However the today name of Transylvania, as kept by Romanians is 
ARGHEAL (currently Ardeal, as Sibiu for Sighiu and yielding erdely). 
There are many toponimics in Transylvania with arg: Argheal, Arghies, 
Aghires, Agarbiciu, Arghies(Ariesh). In romanic languages it means 
silver, but the toponimics match better the sanskrit description of 
divine or sweet.
Therefore I advance the hypothesis that the tradition assigned to 
Odin of naming Sweden after his country shoud mean sweet or divine.

2.e. This origin of Odin explains the interest of its inheritors for 
the "gepidic" kingdom-Transylvania- and the joke mentioned by 
Jordannes which only has meaning in Romanian ("what the heck").

2f. The first mention of a "voloke"(see 2a) tribe in 168AD appers 
also in Erdely Tortenete as "victovoloke". The "east germanic" 
attribute deduced by the authors is ignored in this paper and should 
be regarded as doubtfull and far fetched.

2.g. A review of the sagas reveals mistic aspects of Mithraic origin 
(the serpent) which also appears in Etruscan and Dacian artefacts.
I charge that "Draco" (the Dacian Flag, Dracia>>Dacia, Drakkar for 
viking ships) means Nidhog, actually-the devil, the underground worm 
of death.

2.h. I deduce that Vareg might mean "Varec", little cousin.

2.g. There is a Vlaherne quarter in Constantinopole from antic times. 
Tradition says it was founded by a Voievoda. There is a Voievoda road 
in Constantinopole(today Istanbul).

Discussion and conclusions

1. Data in Jordannes is rather accurate, yielding a fabulous 
contribution to the history of Dacia and Romania. 
2. Skilled Romanian language is also required to back substitute 
antic Greek and Latin references.
3. As a concept,"Gothic" should represent a language spoken in the 
west, rulers and personel, and may be German not Romanian. The 
migration hypothesis is not neccessary, just adjustment of 
the "historical Odin" issue. Gracious thanks to Prof. Nordgren for 
his implicit suggestion. 
4. I stress that antic and feudal rules speak what language they 
pleased, bought whatever jewelry they liked and therefore no 
conclusion may be dram as to the 'national language' of the 
inhabitants of the feud, BUT for toponimics.
5. A semantic difference may appear between the house of Odin-Goths 
on one side and the local families-Gets, the difference beeing 
obscure apart at the level of ruling families and does not apply to 
commons.My guess is that Vulfilla may have or not visited Romania, 
but he did preach to rulers not Romanian shepherds(whatever their 
mother tongue).
5. Romanians do not call themselves as Gets or Vlachs; this supports 
my previous statement that "get" means of clear ancestry (OK for 
gentry) and Vlach and derivatives a feud.-I put it in Cluj, yielding 
later the Gelu's Voievodate and later the Doboka(Decebalus fief)-
Solnok duchy.

REFERENCES
-Volunteers needed. The list is too long for a post.
(c) D. Ciurchea 2008

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