Home
Back
Datelines
Map List Перечень Карт Alan Dateline
Avar Dateline
Besenyo Dateline
Bulgar Dateline
Huns Dateline
Karluk Dateline
Khazar Dateline
Kimak Dateline
Kipchak Dateline
Kyrgyz Dateline
Sabir Dateline
Seyanto Dateline 

Dionysius Periegetes

Orbis terrae descriptio

Introduction

The dating of the author of the Greek poem called in Latin De situ habitabilis orbis Dionysius Periegetes (the Guide) life  varies from 405 BC to 124 AD. So, the timing of the evidence has an upper, the most conservative limit, 124 AD.

Among topics that were subject of voluminous and tortured speculations aimed at re-writing history under a pretence of new discoveries are:
 - Serica populated by Seres, who were speculatively attributed to a slew of unrelated sedentary real and imaginary Indo-European speakers. Dionysius Periegetes locates them north of India and Tibet mountains, in the west of Central Asia or South Siberia, on in present Mongolia. The mountainous steppe location, mobility that made them known to the far-away Greeks and Romans, location along the Silk Road that facilitated knowledge of them, and their name that pops out everywhere in various forms centered around the name Sary = Tr. Blond or Pale or the like, all point to Kipchaks, these Pale Saka mounted nomads that carry paleness in their name to this day.
 - Hyrcanium Sea =  from Tr. Yiryk/Iyryk meaning nomad, as were nomadic horsemen all the tribes abounding flatlands and foothills around Caspian Sea: the Tokhars/Dahae, the Masgut/Massagets, the Ases/Yases, the Saka/Scythians/Asguza/Ashkenazes. The conjuncture of name of the Hyrcanium Sea with Dahae and Yiryks on the southeast shores, and Unni/Hunni/Huns on the northwest shores, and the Taurus/Tavrus name for the mountain range form the Tr. Tau/Tag/Dag = mountain points to heavy presence of the Türkic-lingual tribes in the Central Asian southwest from early Classical times.
 - Unns/Huns are shown on the northwest shores of the Caspian Sea long before they were officially approved for appearance in Eastern Europe. Their position is consistent with the later location of the city Bülünjar/Belendjer/Varachan, named from Tr. bülün = soldier. soldiery, and jar = head, headquarters, i.e Army Central Command, and with the location of the Caspian Huns' state recorded in the Armenian annals and many other sources.
 - Massagets are shown in the northeastern shores of the Caspian Sea, under the name Masguts they figure as the old appellation of the Alans, and Masguts/Alans were one of the Hunnic tribes figuring in the Armenian and early Christian Greek annals. A Masgut king Sanesan was a king of Caucasian Albania and a head of the Hunnic army.

With this evidence of the contemporary, no wonder that fabrications are largely limited to the propaganda department, with sound bites substituting for scholarship. For more Turkofilic gems of Classical time, see Maps of Antique World, Dionysius was not the only ancient writer to blunder into the modern patriotic IE minefield.

Links

http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/Ancient Web Pages/117.html

http://www.graybooksellers.com/incunabula/incunableTWO.html

http://www.lib.byu.edu/~aldine/63Dionysius.html

fl. c.300? B.C., Greek poet. He wrote the poem Description of the Inhabited Earth, which was popular in antiquity.

Dionysius of Alexandria, called Periegetes (the Guide), was a contemporary of the great Hellenistic geographers Marinus of Tyre (ca. 70 - 130 AD) and Claudius Ptolemy (ca 90 – ca 168AD). He composed a description in verse of the inhabited world (AD 124) that was long used as a school textbook.

Dionysius, a Greek author of the time of Hadrian (76–138AD), is commonly known as Periegetes (the Guide), to distinguish him from other authors of the same name and refers to his work Orbis terrae descriptio, called De situ habitabilis orbis ("Descriptive Account of the Habitable World"). Designed more as a geographical handbook for a reader of the Greek poets than as a systematic or scientific treatise on geography, De situ habitabilis orbis undertakes a verse account of the known world and its seas, countries, and islands.

The 1543 Aldine edition of De situ habitabilis orbis was translated into Latin verse by Simon Lemnius, who in his dedicatory preface mentions both Amerigo Vespucci and Columbus and the discovery of America. The title page of this work has a view of the earth which shows South America, labeled "America." Franciscus, mentioned in the colophon, is Francesco Torresani, the uncle of Paulus Manutius.

 
Home
Back
Datelines
Map List Перечень Карт Alan Dateline
Avar Dateline
Besenyo Dateline
Bulgar Dateline
Huns Dateline
Karluk Dateline
Khazar Dateline
Kimak Dateline
Kipchak Dateline
Kyrgyz Dateline
Sabir Dateline
Seyanto Dateline 
1/8/2004
Рейтинг@Mail.ru