Neuri
Encyclopedia
According to Herodotus
the Neuri were a tribe living beyond the Scythian cultivators, one of the nations along the course of the river Ὕπανις Hypanis (Southern Bug River
), West of the Βορυσθένης Borysthenes (Dniepr river), roughly the area of modern Belarus
and Eastern Poland
.
(512 BC)" by an invasion of serpents. He also reports a Scythian tale that the Neuri changed once a year into wolves, although giving no credence to it. This is perhaps a reference to a shamanic
practices.
According to Herodotus the Neuri (Νευροί) were a tribe living North of the Tyres, and the furthest nation beyond the Scythian farmers along the course of the river Hypanis
. The land of the Neuri is described as being bounded by the rivers Ister, Tyras, Hypanis, Borysthenes, Gerras and Tanais; whilst the region itself is referred to as Hypakyris.
Herodotus also mentions wild white horses nearby that grazed by a great lake.
historian Olof von Dalin
wrote that the Neuri were a mixture of races: Scythians, Greeks
and Hebrews
who accompanied the Budiner or "Shepherd Scythians", to the Swedish islands around 400 BC
. This exodus was the result of pressure from the Macedonian
s. He also indicated a belief that the Neuri were the common ancestors of Finns, Sami
, and Estonians
.
Dalin's theory is regarded as quaint by modern scholars of linguistics
, who can find no connections between the Uralic
family of languages and the Semitic
languages.
" and notes they may have been Balts
(i.e. possible ancestors of Lithuania
ns and kindred peoples).
. The position assigned to their district appears to be about the head waters of the Dniester and Bug (Bugh) and the central course of the Dnieper just the region which, on general grounds, place-names, recorded migrations and modern distribution, appears to be the original location of the Slavs (q.v.). The wolf story again recalls the tales of werewolves so common among Slavonic peoples, and there is much probability in Schafarik's conjecture that the Neuri are nothing but the ancestors of the Slavs.
Geographically, the upper Hypanis
merges with the Narew
river, which is called Naura in Baltic
Lithuania
n. The people living on the Naura river were West Balts at that time. There remains a town named Nur, Poland
along the upper Bug River, near the Bialowieza Forest. The Nurzec
River is in same region.
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
the Neuri were a tribe living beyond the Scythian cultivators, one of the nations along the course of the river Ὕπανις Hypanis (Southern Bug River
Southern Bug
The Southern Bug, also called Southern Buh), is a river located in Ukraine. The source of the river is in the west of Ukraine, in the Volyn-Podillia Upland, about 145 km from the Polish border, and flows southeasterly into the Bug Estuary through the southern steppes...
), West of the Βορυσθένης Borysthenes (Dniepr river), roughly the area of modern Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
and Eastern Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
.
Herodotus's Account
In Herodotus's account, he states that the Neuri were driven from their land "one generation before the attack of DariusDarius I of Persia
Darius I , also known as Darius the Great, was the third king of kings of the Achaemenid Empire...
(512 BC)" by an invasion of serpents. He also reports a Scythian tale that the Neuri changed once a year into wolves, although giving no credence to it. This is perhaps a reference to a shamanic
Shamanism
Shamanism is an anthropological term referencing a range of beliefs and practices regarding communication with the spiritual world. To quote Eliade: "A first definition of this complex phenomenon, and perhaps the least hazardous, will be: shamanism = technique of ecstasy." Shamanism encompasses the...
practices.
According to Herodotus the Neuri (Νευροί) were a tribe living North of the Tyres, and the furthest nation beyond the Scythian farmers along the course of the river Hypanis
Hypanis
Hypanis may refer to:* The Ancient Greek name of the Southern Bug river in Southern Ukraine* The Ancient Greek name of the Kuban River in Southern Russia.* Hypanis , a genus of cockles...
. The land of the Neuri is described as being bounded by the rivers Ister, Tyras, Hypanis, Borysthenes, Gerras and Tanais; whilst the region itself is referred to as Hypakyris.
Herodotus also mentions wild white horses nearby that grazed by a great lake.
Olaf von Dalin
The 18th century SwedishSweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
historian Olof von Dalin
Olof von Dalin
Olof von Dalin was a Swedish nobleman, poet, historian and courtier. He was an influential literary figure of the Swedish Enlightenment.-Background:...
wrote that the Neuri were a mixture of races: Scythians, Greeks
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
and Hebrews
Hebrews
Hebrews is an ethnonym used in the Hebrew Bible...
who accompanied the Budiner or "Shepherd Scythians", to the Swedish islands around 400 BC
400 BC
Year 400 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Tribunate of Esquilinus, Capitolinus, Vulso, Medullinus, Saccus and Vulscus...
. This exodus was the result of pressure from the Macedonian
Ancient Macedonians
The Macedonians originated from inhabitants of the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, in the alluvial plain around the rivers Haliacmon and lower Axios...
s. He also indicated a belief that the Neuri were the common ancestors of Finns, Sami
Sami people
The Sami people, also spelled Sámi, or Saami, are the arctic indigenous people inhabiting Sápmi, which today encompasses parts of far northern Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Kola Peninsula of Russia, and the border area between south and middle Sweden and Norway. The Sámi are Europe’s northernmost...
, and Estonians
Estonians
Estonians are a Finnic people closely related to the Finns and inhabiting, primarily, the country of Estonia. They speak a Finnic language known as Estonian...
.
- the Neuri seem to be remnants of the Ten Tribes of IsraelTen Lost TribesThe Ten Lost Tribes of Israel refers to those tribes of ancient Israel that formed the Kingdom of Israel and which disappeared from Biblical and all other historical accounts after the kingdom was destroyed in about 720 BC by ancient Assyria...
which ShalmaneserShalmaneserShalmaneser is the name of several Assyrian kings:*Shalmaneser I *Shalmaneser II, King of Assyria from 1031 BC to 1019 BC*Shalmaneser III, king of Assyria *Shalmaneser IV, king of Assyria...
, king of AssyriaAssyriaAssyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the mid–23rd century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...
, brought as captives out of CanaanCanaanCanaan is a historical region roughly corresponding to modern-day Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and the western parts of Jordan...
... [When one realises that] the language of the ancient Finns, Lapps and Estonians is similar to the HebrewHebrewsHebrews is an ethnonym used in the Hebrew Bible...
and even that this people in ancient times reckoned their year's beginning from the first of March, and Saturday as their SabbathShabbatShabbat is the seventh day of the Jewish week and a day of rest in Judaism. Shabbat is observed from a few minutes before sunset on Friday evening until a few minutes after when one would expect to be able to see three stars in the sky on Saturday night. The exact times, therefore, differ from...
, then one sees that the Neuri in all probability had this origin.
Dalin's theory is regarded as quaint by modern scholars of linguistics
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
, who can find no connections between the Uralic
Uralic languages
The Uralic languages constitute a language family of some three dozen languages spoken by approximately 25 million people. The healthiest Uralic languages in terms of the number of native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, Mari and Udmurt...
family of languages and the Semitic
Semitic
In linguistics and ethnology, Semitic was first used to refer to a language family of largely Middle Eastern origin, now called the Semitic languages...
languages.
Bruce Gordon
Bruce Gordon's Regnal Chronologies associates the Neuri with the "Milograd cultureMilograd culture
The Milograd culture is an archaeological culture, lasting from about the 7th century BC to the 1st century AD. Geographically, it corresponds to present day southern Belarus and northern Ukraine, in the area of the confluence of the Dnieper and the Pripyat, north of Kiev...
" and notes they may have been Balts
Balts
The Balts or Baltic peoples , defined as speakers of one of the Baltic languages, a branch of the Indo-European language family, are descended from a group of Indo-European tribes who settled the area between the Jutland peninsula in the west and Moscow, Oka and Volga rivers basins in the east...
(i.e. possible ancestors of Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
ns and kindred peoples).
Schafarik
Schafarik believes the Neuri to have been ancestors of the Slavic peoplesSlavic peoples
The Slavic people are an Indo-European panethnicity living in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, North Asia and Central Asia. The term Slavic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people, who speak languages belonging to the Slavic language family and share, to varying degrees, certain...
. The position assigned to their district appears to be about the head waters of the Dniester and Bug (Bugh) and the central course of the Dnieper just the region which, on general grounds, place-names, recorded migrations and modern distribution, appears to be the original location of the Slavs (q.v.). The wolf story again recalls the tales of werewolves so common among Slavonic peoples, and there is much probability in Schafarik's conjecture that the Neuri are nothing but the ancestors of the Slavs.
Modern geography
Herodotus description matches modern geography in the following manner:- Ister = DanubeDanubeThe Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
- TyrasTyrasTyras , was an ancient Greek city founded as colony of Miletus, probably about 600 BC, situated some 10 m from the mouth of the Tyras River...
= Dnestr - BorysthenesBorysthenesBorysthenes is a geographical name from classical Antiquity. It usually refers to the Dnipro River, but occasionally to the Pontic Olbia, a town situated at the mouth of that river. The Borysthenes is mentioned numerous times in 'The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' by Edward...
= Dniepr - Gerrοs = Konskaya (a tributary of the Dniepr)
- TanaisTanaisTanais is the ancient name for the River Don in Russia. Strabo regarded it as the boundary between Europe and Asia.In antiquity, Tanais was also the name of a city in the Don river delta that reaches into the northeasternmost part of the Sea of Azov, which the Greeks called Lake Maeotis...
= DonDon River (Russia)The Don River is one of the major rivers of Russia. It rises in the town of Novomoskovsk 60 kilometres southeast from Tula, southeast of Moscow, and flows for a distance of about 1,950 kilometres to the Sea of Azov.... - HypanisHypanisHypanis may refer to:* The Ancient Greek name of the Southern Bug river in Southern Ukraine* The Ancient Greek name of the Kuban River in Southern Russia.* Hypanis , a genus of cockles...
= Southern BugSouthern BugThe Southern Bug, also called Southern Buh), is a river located in Ukraine. The source of the river is in the west of Ukraine, in the Volyn-Podillia Upland, about 145 km from the Polish border, and flows southeasterly into the Bug Estuary through the southern steppes...
, flowing into the Black SeaBlack SeaThe Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean... - Great lake = PodlesiePodlesiePodlesie is a district of Katowice....
Marshes, by the Bialowieza Forest. Wild TarpanTarpanTarpan is an extinct subspecies of wild horse. The last individual of this subspecies died in captivity in Russia in 1909....
s from the Bialowieza Forest seasonally faded to near white in winter. - Hypakyris = Kalanchak
Geographically, the upper Hypanis
Hypanis
Hypanis may refer to:* The Ancient Greek name of the Southern Bug river in Southern Ukraine* The Ancient Greek name of the Kuban River in Southern Russia.* Hypanis , a genus of cockles...
merges with the Narew
Narew
The Narew River , in western Belarus and north-eastern Poland, is a left tributary of the Vistula river...
river, which is called Naura in Baltic
Baltic states
The term Baltic states refers to the Baltic territories which gained independence from the Russian Empire in the wake of World War I: primarily the contiguous trio of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania ; Finland also fell within the scope of the term after initially gaining independence in the 1920s.The...
Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
n. The people living on the Naura river were West Balts at that time. There remains a town named Nur, Poland
Nur, Poland
Nur is a village in Ostrów Mazowiecka County, Masovian Voivodeship, in east-central Poland. It is the seat of the gmina called Gmina Nur. It lies approximately south-east of Ostrów Mazowiecka and north-east of Warsaw....
along the upper Bug River, near the Bialowieza Forest. The Nurzec
Nurzec
The Nurzec is a river in north-eastern Poland, a tributary of the Bug River. It flows through the geographical region known in Polish as Wysoczyzny Podlasko-Bialoruskie...
River is in same region.