ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3006
http://www.s-gabriel.org/3006
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* NOTE: Later research turned up additional *
* information relevant to this report. *
* See the end of the letter for details. *
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9 Feb 2005
From: Josh Mittleman
Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel!
You asked our help choosing a historically accurate pre-500 Scythian
name, and specifically asked about the name <Tomyris>.
We know almost nothing about names in that time and place; and only a
very little more about Central Asian names of any period. As far as
we know, the Scythians left no written records, so any evidence of
their names will have been recorded by one of the neighboring cultures
-- most likely the Byzantines or Persians -- which means that the
names will be distorted by at least one rendering into an unrelated
language [1]. To give you an idea of how that can affect a name,
consider that the name of the Persian king <Khshayarsha> comes to us
through Greek sources as <Xerxes> and through Aramaic (via the Old
Testament) as <Ahasuerus> [2].
The Greek historian Herodotus mentions <Tomyris> as a queen of the
Massagetai, who he identifies as a people similar to the Scythians
[3]. (A thousand years later, a Byzantine historian identified the
Massagetai as the precursors of the Goths [4]). Herodotus said
Tomyris defeated the Persian king Cyrus, who reigned in the 6th
century BC [3]. Herotodus lived about a century after those events,
so he was working with second-hand accounts at best: He very likely
never heard Tomyris' name in its original form. In other words,
<Tomyris> is a Greek rendering of a name whose original form is almost
certainly lost. We probably can't even identify with any certanty the
language it originally came from.
You mentioned that the name <Tahmuras> appears in Persian histories.
We found several references to a Persian king Tahmuras [5]. Persian
and Scythian were related languages, both members of the Indo-Iranian
language family, so it is possible that they shared some names. But
this is a masculine name, so it most likely isn't identical to the
feminine one that we know as <Tomyris>; and without a greal deal more
information we can't possibly say how or if the two names were
related. (Note that Gothic was _not_ Indo-Iranian; neither were the
Turkic or Mongol languages. Using evidence from a second language to
justify a name is always difficult and chancy. When the two languages
are not closely related, extensive evidence would be needed to draw
any meaningful conclusions.)
What we do know is that <Tomyris> is a 5th century BC Greek rendering
of the original name, whatever it was. That suggests one solution to
your problem: You could decide to re-create a Massagetai woman of the
5th century BC who is now living in Greece. Your Greek neighbors
can't manage your original name, and you accomodate them by using the
version of your name that they've contrived. We may be able to help
you construct a complete name to fit this scenario [9].
We also know, as you discovered, that <Tomyris> was used by a late
15th century northern Italian woman, <Tomyris Macachio> [6]. Giovanni
Boccaccio included the story of Tomyris' defeat of Cyrus in his late
14th century book Famous Women, written in Latin; her name appears
there as <Thamiris> and <Tamiris> [8]. Probably as a result of that
book, the story became a popular subject for Renaissance artists
(e.g. a painting by Andrea del Castagno c.1450 [7]); and that very
likely explains this woman's name. If the name is more important to
you than the early Central Asian persona, then we would be happy to
help you create a complete late-period Italian name.
If you prefer to consider other Central Asian names, you can find a
small selection in our library at
http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/otherasian.shtml#centralasian
I was assisted in answering your question by Maridonna Benvenuti,
Kolozsvari Arpadne Julia, Ursula Georges, Talan Gwynek, Aryanhwy merch
Catmael, and Juetta Copin.
For the Academy,
Arval Benicoeur
9 Feb 2005
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References
[1] The website you mentioned that discusses the Scythian language,
http://www.lostlanguages.com/scythian.htm , is not a reliable source.
The author has a rather remarkable theory about the origin of language
(one is tempted to call it a "crackpot theory"), and has carefully
selected & interpreted evidence to fit his theory, ignoring the vast
body of evidence that doesn't support it.
[2] "Xerxes I", The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition (WWW: Columbia
University Press, 2004).
http://www.bartleby.com/65/xe/Xerxes1.html
[3] "Herodotus: Queen Tomyris of the Massagetai and the Defeat of the
Persians under Cyrus", Ancient History Sourcebook (WWW: Paul Halsall,
1998).
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/tomyris.html
[4] Charles C. Mierow, tr., "Jordanes: The Origin and Deeds of the
Goths" in Texts for Ancient History Courses (WWW: Department of Greek,
Latin and Ancient History, University of Calgary, 1998).
http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~vandersp/Courses/texts/jordgeti.html
[5] References to the Persian king Tahmuras include
http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/bashiri/Farr/shahnamecharacters.html#tahmuras
[6] "RAMUSIO", LoveToKnow 1911 Online Encyclopedia (WWW: LoveToKnow,
2003, 2004).
http://41.1911encyclopedia.org/R/RA/RAMUSIO.htm
[7] Andrea del Castagno. Queen Tomyris. From the Cycle of Famous Men
and Women. c. 1450.
http://www.abcgallery.com/C/castagno/castagno13.html
[8] Giovanni Boccaccio, _Famous Women_, edited and translated by
Virginia Brown (I Tatti Renasissance Library, Harvard Univ. Press,
2001, ISBN 0-67-00347-0).
[9] If you decide to take the Greek approach, you may be interested in
this source:
Fraser, P.M., and E. Matthews, "The Lexicon of Greek Personal Names"
(WWW: Oxford University, 1998)
http://www.lgpn.ox.ac.uk/
This scholarly work is an ongoing compilation of every personal name
mentioned in Greek sources surviving from the late 8th century BC
through the late Roman (Byzantine) Empire. Several volumes have been
published; and the one due to be published this year includes names
recorded in Scythia Minor.
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Addendum, Ursula & Arval, 18 Feb 2005: We discovered one instance of
<Tami/ras> and four instances of <Tha/muris> in early medieval or
classical Greece. Both these names are masculine, as far as we know.
Fraser, P.M., and E. Matthews, "The Lexicon of Greek Personal Names"
(WWW: Oxford University, 1998)
http://www.lgpn.ox.ac.uk/