[gothic-l] Scanza - Was: Trailing the Eruli in the North

[troels_brandt]

--- In gothic-l at y..., Tore Gannholm <tore.gannholm at s...> wrote:
>
> Dirk,
>
> There are two places Thule and Scandzam. I think Jordanes is mixing
them up.
>
> Prokopius clearly talks about the tribes in Thule. This makes sense.
>
> It is to Thule that the Eruli according to Procopius returned and
he
> counts the tribes in Thule. He does not mention Scanzam as he only
> deals with the Erulis and their new neighbours.
>
> Scandzam is the island in the Baltic.
>
> Jordanes says: "And at the farthest bound of its western expanse it
> has another island named Thule, of which the Mantuan bard makes
> mention:
>
>
>
> "And Farthest Thule shall serve thee."
>
> The same mighty sea has also in its arctic region, that is in the
> north, a great island named Scandza, from which my tale (by God's
> grace) shall take its beginning."
>
>   " III (16) Let us now return to the site of the island of
Scandza,
> which we left above. Claudius Ptolemaeus, an excellent describer of
> the world, has made mention of it in the second book of his work,
> saying: "There is a great island situated in the surge of the
> northern Ocean, Scandza by name, in the shape of a juniper leaf
with
> bulging sides that taper down to a point at a long end." "
Pomponius
> Mela also makes mention of it as situated in the Codan Gulf of the
> sea, with Ocean lapping its shores. (17) This island lies in front
of
> the river Vistula, which rises in the Sarmatian mountains and flows
> through its triple mouth into the northern Ocean in sight of
Scandza,
> separating Germany and Scythia."
>
> At good weather you can see Gotland from Danziger Bucht.
>
> As Jordanes talks about the Goths that he thinks come from Scandzam
> but also knows about Thule and the Eruli he has some problem to
> separate them.
>
> It has by earlier Swedish historians been taken as an axiom that
> Gotland did not exist. You can see it on how they describe the
> Geography.
>
> If one includes the archaeological finds in this analysis the above
> arguments make very good reason.
>
> Just look at the map starting from the mouth of the Vistula.
>
> Beginning of the 13th century an Englishman namned Barholomaeus
> Anglicus wrote an encyklopedi: "De proprietatibus rerum".  If you
> look at the word "Gothia" it says  "Huic regioni adiacet insula
> quedam nomine gothlandia, gothorum terra dicta que a gothis fuit
> antiquitus habitata."
>

Tore,

If we accept your explanation that the island described in Jordanes
III, 16-17 (1. sentence) was Gotland, which "Island" of Scanza did he
then in your opinion describe in III, 19-23 and the rest of 17? Do
you have 40 days of midnightsun in the northern part of Gotland, but
nothing in the south? Do you have room for so many tribes at Gotland?
Why do some of these tribes and the name of the "island" remaind us
of Scandinavia?

Troels


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