Name of the Goths

[John Larsson]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Carl Edlund Anderson" <cea at carlaz.com>
To: <gothic-l at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 02, 2006 6:27 PM
Subject: Re: [gothic-l] Re: Name of the Goths


> On 01/08/2006 00:06, John Larsson wrote:
>> Let me instead introduce you, honourable readers, to a new (at least, I
>> think so!) possible meaning of the origin of the Goths. There might still 
>> be
>> doubt about details, but it seems like the Black Sea area once was 
>> flooded
>> with an enormous "flowing stream", when the Bosphorous Strait was
>> established. This should have happend ca 7500 years ago [....]
> > people, probably of many ethnic origins, fled the Black Sea area and
>> by the peoples, which noticed (and suffered from!) their migration they 
>> were
>> called "those who flee the Great Water Fall". Voila!
>
> 7500 years seems a _very_ long time for a tribal name of this sort to
> persist essentially unchanged, especially given the frequency with which
> we see tribal groups and confederations changing and altering in the
> historical period.  Not that this is impossible -- just that I find it
> somewhat unlikely on the face of things.  I have relatively little
> difficulty imagining that the Goths (or some Goths, at least) had a
> tribal name that described them living near some body of flowing water,
> but I have an easier time imagining the name being coined not more than
> a few centuries of its first recording, and with an eye towards a more
> relatively ordinary river or stream than a catatrophic Black Sea flood
> (and there remains some, at least, scientific controversy over how
> catastrophic interactions between the Black Sea and Mediterranean may
> have been at different times).
>
> Cheers,
> Carl

Hello Carl,

Well, 5000 years or maybe 5500 ( I guess you meant that!) is a long period 
and cultures and people can mix and divide quite a lot, I admit that. I 
don't know what you have accepted from this theory, but it seems that quite 
a few scholars have accepted that this catastrophy could well be the origin 
of the Gilgamesh epic and the flood story in the Bible. So, if is acceptable 
to think that a culture orally can transit an event for 5000 years, I think 
it must be most plausible to accept that the very culture existed!

I didn't write that the flooded Black Sea area was populated with one tribe 
or one ethnic group, eventually one will possibly find out about that, but 
when this event formed legends like the Gilgamesh epic (i. e. *if* this was 
the case!), one must assume that the flooded area had an agriculturing a 
dense population with a political and technical skills. If this population 
(these tribes) started a migration period, they could possibly form *now* a 
ethnic group, just like peole in e. g. the New World form *new* cultures!

Regards
John







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