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This incredibly fine NHK documentary on "The Iron Road" will only be available online until November 8.  Since I do not know whether and in what form it will be available after November 8, I'm including it here only as a link embedded in the title.  If anyone discovers that, after November 8, it might be available on YouTube, Vimeo, or other easily accessible platform, I would be very grateful.  In any event, if you are interested in the history and transmission of ferrous metallurgy across Eurasia, together with its cultural and political impact, as well as Hittite and Scythian art, architecture, and language, and what came before the Silk Road, I strongly urge you to view this video by November 8.  This is one of the best Eurasian archeology documentaries that I have ever seen.

Here's the summary of the 50 minute film provided by the producers:

Before the Silk Road, another route carried iron eastward from Western Asia to Japan. Recent discoveries along its path are shedding light on ancient civilizations once shrouded in mystery. With special access to archeological sites, and featuring exquisite, highly sophisticated artifacts, this program highlights iron's role in shaping history. This metal was forged into awesome weapons of war. But it also promoted peace and commerce by revolutionizing the way we travel and grow our food.

In our many discussions on the spread of languages across Eurasia, the question often arises how the word for a cultural artifact or concept can be transmitted across long distances when we cannot document cultural continuity from starting point A to ending point B, even though the cultural phenomenon (and sometimes the word associated with it) at point A and point B are uncannily similar in shape, meaning, and sound.  What distinguishes the research presented in this documentary is the way that it accounts for what happened when and where in the intervening stages between the point of origin and the point of furthest arrival.

In tracing the impact of the spread of iron across Eurasia, the film focuses on weapons, horse equipage (especially the bit), and agricultural implements.  In all three of these areas of human endeavor, iron revolutionized the way people interacted and carried out their affairs.

Let us take the short sword, the akinakes, as a concrete example:

The acinaces, also spelled akinakes (Greek ἀκῑνάκης) or akinaka (unattested Old Persian *akīnaka^h, Sogdian kynʼk) is a type of dagger or short sword used mainly in the first millennium BC in the eastern Mediterranean region, especially by the Medes, Scythians and Persians, then by the Greeks.

The acinaces is of Scythian origin, but was made famous by the Persians, and rapidly spread throughout the ancient world. The Romans believed this weapon originated with the Medes.

(source)

Through its highly distinctive features, the akinakes can be traced all the way from Crimea to Japan.  The main carriers of this short sword were the Scythians, who play the central role in this documentary.  This is particularly interesting for those of us who have recently been following the research of Christopher Beckwith on the centrality of Scythian modes of thought in first millennium BC Eurasia (see "Selected readings" below).  This documentary on The Iron Road provides powerful support for the overall thrust of Beckwith's thesis.

C. Scott Littleton, who was heavily influenced by the theories of Georges Dumézil and the co-author (with Linda Malcor) of the extraordinary From Scythia to Camelot: A Radical Reassessment of the Legends of King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table, and the Holy Grail, referred to such distinctive weaponry found in far-flung places as "epi-Scythian".

The documentary, in magisterial manner, presents the origins of iron production and utilization among the Hittites, and pays due attention to Hittite language (the oldest Indo-European tongue) and script.

Japanese, Russian, Turkish, and Mongolian archeologists contributed to this magnificent documentary, which I recommend to one and all with great enthusiasm.  I have barely begun to touch upon its many riches.

Just as the new technology of iron — closely associated with the Hittites and Scythians (Iranians) — transformed human life and society during the second and first millennia BC so did bronze technology — closely associated with Iranians and Tocharians — transform human life and society during the third and second millennia BC.  I touched upon this phenomenon in the ancillary materials for my translations of the Tao Te Ching: The Classic Book of Integrity and the Way (1990) and The Art of War: Sun Zi's Military Methods (2009).

 

Addendum

A dictionary of Tocharian B by Douglas Q. Adams (Leiden Studies in Indo-European 10), xxxiv, 830 pp., Rodopi: Amsterdam – Atlanta, 1999. [The k̂ of that book is called ḱ here.]

A second, much enlarged, edition (964 pp.) has appeared in print and on-line in 2013.

ārkwi (adj.) ‘white’
[m: ārkwi, -, -//-, -, arkwinäṃ] [f: arkwañña, -, arkwaññai//arkwina, -, -] /// āst=arkwina ‘white bones’ (28b3), tseñān=arkwina meñ[äṃ] ‘blue and white moons’ (73a4), /// [yaik]ormeṃ arkwīna pīrat ṣa[māni] [arkwīna = BHS śuklāṃ] (299a4), se laiko ārkwi yamaṣäṃ ‘this bath makes [one] white’ (W-11a5). ∎TchA ārki and B ārkwi reflect PTch *ārkw(ä)i (for the relationship of –k– vs. –kw– one should compare A kip and B kwipe ‘shame’), a derivative of PIE *h₂erǵ– ‘bright, white.’ This root always appears suffixed, inter alia, by –i [: Hittite harkis ‘white,’ and further suffixed or compounded in Greek argikéraunos ‘with bright, vivid lightning,’ árgillos ~ árgīlos (< *arginlo-?) ‘white clay, potter's earth,’ arginóeis ‘bright-shining, white,’ etc.], –ro– [: Greek argós (< *argrós) ‘white; swift,’ Sanskrit ṛjrá– ‘brilliant’], or –u [always further suffixed, as in Greek árguros (m.) ‘silver,’ Sanskrit árjuna– ‘light, white’]. We also find *-ṇt-o– in a derivative early specialized in the meaning ‘silver,’ *h₂(e)rǵṇto– (nt.) [: with full-grade in Latin argentum, Yezdi āl-ī, Khotanese āljsata, zero-grade in Avestan ərəzatəm, Ossetic ärzät ‘bronze,’ indeterminate as to grade Old Persian ardata, Old Irish airget, and Middle Welsh ariant, and perhaps in Armenian arcat` (if –at` is by contamination with erkat` ‘iron’) (P:64; MA:518)] (Mallory and Huld, 1984). PTch *ārkwi must reflect in some fashion PIE *h₂erǵ-u(i)-n-. It appears that PIE *-u– and *-wi– normally fall together after a velar and before another consonant. We have -KwäCC- but -KwiCV- for both. Starting from *h₂erǵ-u-i-n– makes it easier to account for masculine accusative singular (extended also to the nominative) ārkwi, if from *h₂erǵuyenṃ (the alternative *h₂erǵwenṃ should have given *ārś). Likewise *h₂erǵ-u-i-n– makes it easier to account for the plural forms seen in TchA, m. nom. ārkyañc, f. nom./acc. ārkyant. They would be from a *h₂erǵu-yon-t-. This etymology goes back in embryo to Meillet and Lévi (1911:149) (see also VW:167). See also arkwiññe, arkwaññaṣṣe, arśakärśa, and ñkante.

 

Selected readings

• "Indo-European religion, Scythian philosophy, and the date of Zoroaster: a linguistic quibble" (10/9/20) — with a bibliography of numerous relevant previous posts
• "Sword out of the stone" (8/9/08) — see especially this comment
• "Trefoils across Eurasia: the importance of archeology for historical linguistics, part 4" (10/11/20)
• "Headless men with face on chest" (9/28/20)
• "The geographical, archeological, genetic, and linguistic origins of Tocharian" (7/14/20)
• "The importance of archeology for historical linguistics, part 3" (6/3/20)
• "The importance of archeology for historical linguistics" (5/1/20) — with a list of more than a dozen previous posts related to archeology and language
• "The importance of archeology for historical linguistics, part 2" (5/11/20)
• "Archeological and linguistic evidence for the wheel in East Asia" (3/11/20)
• "Of armaments and Old Sinitic reconstructions, part 6" (12/23/17) — particularly pertinent, and also draws on art history as well as archeology
• "Indo-European 'cow' and Old Sinitic Reconstructions: awesome" (1/16/20)
• "Horses, soma, riddles, magi, and animal style art in southern China" (11/11/19)
• "'Horse Master in IE and in Sinitic" (11/9/19)
• "'Horse' and 'language' in Korean" (10/30/19)
• "An early fourth century AD historical puzzle involving a Caucasian people in North China" (1/25/19)
• "Of horse riding and Old Sinitic reconstructions" (4/21/19)
• "Of reindeer and Old Sinitic reconstructions" (12/23/18)
• "Of precious swords and Old Sinitic reconstructions, part 5" (3/28/16)
• "Of dogs and Old Sinitic reconstructions" (3/7/18)
• "Of jackal and hide and Old Sinitic reconstructions" (12/16/18)
• "Galactic glimmers: of milk and Old Sinitic reconstructions" (1/8/19)
• "Mare, mǎ ('horse'), etc." (11/17/19)
• "The Names of Metals in the Turkic, Indo-European, and Finno-Ugric Languages"
• J. P. Mallory, The Problem of Tocharian Origins: An Archaeological Perspective (Sino-Platonic Papers, 259 [Nov. 2015]; free pdf, 63 pp.)
• Victor H. Mair.  "The Horse in Late Prehistoric China:  Wresting Culture and Control from the 'Barbarians'."  In Marsha Levine, Colin Renfrew and Katie Boyle, ed.  Prehistoric steppe adaptation and the horse. McDonald Institute Monographs.  Cambridge:  McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research,  pp. 163-187.
• C. Scott Littleton, "Were Some of the Xinjiang Mummies 'Epi-Scythians'? An Excursus in Trans-Eurasian Folklore and Mythology." In Victor H. Mair, The Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Peoples of Eastern Central Asia (Washington D.C. and Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Man and the University of Pennsylvania Museum, 1998), vol. 2, pp. 746-766.
• C. Scott Littleton and Linda A. Malcor, From Scythia to Camelot: A Radical Reassessment of the Legends of King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table, and the Holy Grail (New York and London: Garland, 1994; rev. pb. 2000). In the British journal, Religion, 28.3 (July, 1998), 294-300, I [VHM] wrote a review in which I pointed out that the celebrated motif of a mighty arm rising up out of the water holding aloft the hero's sword can also be found in a medieval Chinese tale from Dunhuang. That review is available electronically from ScienceDirect, if your library subscribes to it. Otherwise, I think this version on the Web is a fairly faithful copy.
• Andrew Sherratt, "The Trans-Eurasian Exchange: The Prehistory of Chinese Relations with the West," in Victor H. Mair, ed., Contact and Exchange in the Ancient World (Honolulu:  University of Hawaii Press, 2006), pp. 30-61.
  
• Barry Cunliffe, By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean: The Birth of Eurasia (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2015).

 

[Thanks to Chau Wu]

November 5, 2020 @ 12:23 pm · Filed by Victor Mair under Language and archeology, Language and science

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