[gothic-l] Heyerdahl, the Goths and the Aesir

[bertil]

Esteemed listmembers,

What makes Heyerdahl’s recent research interesting is that it involves a migration southeast to north in the first century AD, while around the same time or earlier Goths and Gepids migrated south from southern Scandinavia. There certainly is reason to listen to Dr. Heyerdahl because the new field he is opnening is of interest also in Gothic history.

Background

The first time Heyerdahl came to Azerbaijan was in 1981 [He also visited in 1994, 1997 and 1999]. He was invited by Azerbaijan's Academy of Sciences. 

At that time Heyerdahl was fighting with scientists all over the world - both in the East and the West - because he believed that there had been peaceful contact between nations much longer than we, who consider ourselves civilized, ever realized. He thought there was contact by ships along the rivers and oceans long before civilization began. Earlier this century, nobody believed that people could navigate with the kinds of vessels that men were using 5,000 years ago. 

Heyerdahl was educated in Oslo University in biology. As a student he in 1938 went on an archeological expedition to an island in the middle of the Pacific called Fatu-Hiva in Polynesia. 

It caused him to wonder: how did early people travel across the ocean? Europeans never discovered a single uninhabited island in any ocean. Every single island that could have been inhabited already was. All the thousands of islands in the Pacific and also all those in the Indian Ocean were populated. The islands in the Atlantic - the Canary Islands and the Caribbean Islands - were also populated. 

Heyerdahl and historians

Scientists at that time insisted that no American Indian could have left America before Columbus, and no people could have reached America before Columbus except via the Bering Straits in the Arctic. Heyerdahl discovered how important it is to collaborate across different branches of science. 

Historians and anthropologists told that in South America they had only rafts before the Europeans came. The Norwegian anthropoligist the decided to construct a raft the he imagined the South American Indians had done, and to sail with friends from Peru to Polynesia. This voyage on the "Kon Tiki" in 1947 was the first experience he had with a small vessel on the open ocean. 

Europeans usually think that they have discovered everything, but that's not correct.But everywhere there were people who came before the Europeans. His anthropological training made him  understand more and more how much alike people are, regardless of nationality, race or physical features.
 
So he went on to prove that earlier scientific theories were wrong. The Kon Tiki raft kept afloat for 101 days until it arrived in Polynesia. In Egypt it was said at the Papyrus Institute that papyrus reed would absorb water and sink after two weeks. Instead Heyerdahl trusted the ancient pharaohs more than modern scientists. Then he built his first reed boat. Together, with an international crew of seven people they sailed for two months. The reed boat was still afloat.

So Heyerdah attempted the trip crossing the Atlantic from Morocco to Barbados in 1970 with the papyrus ship Ra II. He then sailed another reed ship in the Indian Ocean in 1977-78. That reed ship, the Tigris, was larger. The crew sailed down the river Tigris up to the Persian Gulf, up to Pakistan, the Indus Valley, then reversed the direction and sailed across the Indian Ocean and came back to the entrance of the Red Sea. 

After those three expeditions on three different oceans Heyerdahl was invited to visit Azerbaijan.

On his first visit,  he came to study the reed ships that are similar to the boats of the ancient Mediterranean. On his second trip Heyerdahl learned that the people in Azerbaijan call themselves Azeri.  Heyerdahl remembered the legends in Norway woven into Norwegian history in such an intricate way that it is impossible to know where history starts and mythology ends. The documented history of Norway dates back more than 800 years. Traditions about the original homeland of Norway’s ancestors were recorded in the 18th century in Ireland and say that Norwegians are descendants of the land of the Aser.

Scandinavians

The actual years for the lineage of historic Scandinavian kings began around the year 800 AD. 
The mythology, however, started with the god Odin. From Odin it took 31 generations to reach the first historic king. The record of Odin says that he came to Northern Europe from the land of Aser. 

Snorre, who recorded these stories, started by describing Europe, Asia and Africa, all with their correct names, Gibraltar and the Mediterranean Sea with their old Norse names, the Black Sea with the names we use today again, and the river Don with its old Greek name, Tanais.. 

Snorre wrote that the homeland of the Asers was east of the Black Sea. He said this was the land that chief Odin had, a big country. He gave the exact description: it was east of the Black Sea, south of a large mountain range on the border between Europe and Asia, and extended southward towards the land of the Turks. This had nothing to do with mythology, it was on this planet, on Earth. 

Then came the most significant point. Snorre says: "At that time when Odin lived, the Romans were conquering far and wide in the region. When Odin learned that they were coming towards the land of Asers, he decided that it was best for him to take his priests, chiefs and some of his people and move to the Northern part of Europe." 

The Romans are human beings, they are from this planet, they are not mythical figures. 
There's a very logical way of figuring out when Roman inscriptions in Azerbaijan were written. It had to be written after the year 84 AD and before the year 97 AD. If this inscription matched Snorre's record, it would mean that Odin left for Scandinavia during the second half of the 1st century AD. Then Iheyerdahl counted the members of the generations of kings, every king up to the grandfather of the king that united Norway into one kingdom, because such information is available - around 830 AD.

In anthropology 25 years per generation for ruling kings is common. In modern times, a generation may extend up to 30 years, but on average the length of a generation in early reigns is 25 years. Multiplying 31 generations by 25 years, you come exactly back to the second half of the 1st century AD. So there is proof that these inscriptions carved by the Romans in stone coincide with the written history written almost 1,800 years ago in Iceland.

We all know that the Northern people are called Caucasian. Here is where history, archeology, geography and physical anthropology come together.

Mummies in China

A most surprising discovery was when Heyerdahl contacted China. They had discovered blond-haired mummies in the Karim Desert deep inside China, so perfectly preserved in the cold climate and salty earth that you could see the color of the skin and hair. The Chinese archeologists were surprised because these mummies were not Mongoloids at all; they suspected instead that they were Vikings.

But it didn't make sense that Vikings should be deep inside the deserts of China. When the Chinese archeologists conducted radio-carbon dating, they determined that the mummies were of Nordic type dating from 1,800 to 1,500 years BC. But the Viking period started around 800 AD. It then became obvious that these mummies were not Vikings who had come to China. Here was a missing link. And again the Caucasus enters into the picture as a mutual migratory center. 

These mummies were dressed in cloth that had been woven, and the colors and the woven pattern were of a very specific type. The Chinese themselves studied the mummies and then invited American experts to study the clothing who determined that the weave and coloring were typical of the Celts of Ireland. But this made no sense at all. The the Irish sagas had to be consulted. One saga says that their ancestors were Scythians. The Irish seem to believe their roots were in the Caucasus. 

This is only the beginning, because this is as far as we have obtained documentation from the Academies of Sciences with which we are in contact. I will not go into detail further, but I have also found archeological evidence that is so striking that there can no longer be any doubt.

Heyerdahl’s research Azerbaijan has only begun. He believes the Caucasus has been a very important center, sending people in many directions and attracting people from many directions. There were metals that made the Romans want to come to the region. Caucasus seems to have been very central in the evolution of civilization.

Gothically

Bertil




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