[gothic-l] Re: Baltic Amber

[James Young]

Good point Dirk,

Amber should be in the archeology; although, the Goths weren't as prone to burying valuables in graves as other groups.

Didn't they have some sort of early monotheistic spirituality that predates even Wulfilas' Bible? I know there was a flash about the same time as Julian's reversion to the old Roman gods, where Athanaric was making people swear to Odin. Fritigern takes the Christians out of Dacia into Roman Moetia Inferior to get away from him, but that's after Wulfilas, and I think part of some pan-German thing.  I've heard the Goths were unique in the Germanic world. Some French source said " If not the Goths then none," when referring to the successful conversion of Germans to Christianity by Wulfilas. I also heard on a History Channel program that the monotheism related to a population of 1st C diasporan Jews that settled near Tannais, on the Sea of Azov.Though the Jewish faith has at times been more aggressive about converting gentiles than many Christians believe (ie the Kassars of the 9th C in the same area), I like to think there was some Persian Zorastrian or Kushan Buddhist witnessing to
 the Goths from time to time.

The archeology around Chernovsky supports the Gothic tendency to keep the valuables with the living, but I'd like more info about Gothic pre-Christian monotheism.

Jim


faltin2001 <dirk at smra.co.uk> wrote:
--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "James Young" <daddio52 at s...> wrote:
> As early as the Agustus era a merchant was sent to the Baltic to
make
> purchases of Amber He reported back that there was a sophisticated
> wholesale system established on the coast. Could this have been
> controlled by the Goths?



Hi James,

I think this is unlikely. Firstly, the really big amber deposits are
found at the Samland coast of the former German province of East
Prussia, which was outside Gothic settelment areas. Note, the Gotones
did not live at the coast itself, as suggested by Tacitus, but lived
further south inlands. Secondly, amber is rare among Gothic/Gothonic
grave deposits, suggesting that they had no direct access to it.
Instead, amber objects are a frequently found in the graves of the
Baltic people who lived at the Baltic sea coast just north of the
Gotones.

Cheers
Dirk



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