SV: method of dating RV, III

[Sudalaimuthu Palaniappan]

In a message dated 98-10-31 08:29:37 EST, mcv at WXS.NL writes:

 <<My source is Michalowski, based primarily on Kammenhuber and
 D'jakonov.  Here are two of Piotr's postings on sci.archaeology
 regarding the matter:
........
Etymology aside, there is no evidence that marianna were
 the "aristocracy," and, indeed, the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary v. M
 defines the word simply as "chariot driver."   It is also clear from
 personnel lists from Alalakh that m. were not at the top of the heap.
 In his Pre-history of the Armenian People (NY 1984) p. 37 Diakonoff
 writes: "It seems, though, that it is a mistake to assign the
 marianna (charioteers) to the aristocracy.  And there is no evidence
 to suggest that the marianna were Indo-Iranians, as some scholars
 suggest."  N. B. Jankowka also notes that the word is Hurro-Urartian,
 and adds, "Note also that the marianna were not a "feudal
 aristocracy"; they were palace personnel..." (Diakonoff, ed, Early
 Antiquity (Chicago, 1991) 244.  For a full argumentation see
 Diakonoff, Die Arier im Vorderen Orient--Ende eines Mythos,"
 Orientalia 41 (1972).
 ........

>>

In this discussion, following has not been discussed.

In "Two Recent Studies of Indo-Iranian Origins", JAOS, 115.3, (1995),
p.474-475, Igor M. Diakonoff says,
"Actually, there was no "Aryan" population or dynasty at Nuzi and Arraphe: all
"Indo-Aryan" names which are registered in Nuzi Personal Names (whence they
have been quoted by all subsequent scholars) belong to one Mitannian
detachment which fled to Arraphe (during a civil war in Mitanni) together with
the pretender Sattiwasa, and which disappeared together with him. Sattiwasa,
alone in a single chariot, finally met the Hittite king and concluded a treaty
with him (on the latter's consditions). This treaty is preserved  and is
witnessed by a multitude of both Hittite and Hurrian gods; the four "Indo-
Aryan" deities are mentioned near the very end of the huge list. Moreover, N.
B. Jankowska has pointed out that the charioteers in Arraphe (as well as in
the other kingdoms of that time) were not owners of the chariots after the
manner of feudal nobility, but servants of the king who received both the
chariots and the horses from the royal economy when required; and they were
very far from always being Aryans. The same can be observed in eighth-century
B.C. Urartu.

It is a pity that Ye. Ye. Kuz'mina found it impossible even to hypothesize how
the Indo-Iranians (and what sub-group of them) might have reached northern
Mesopotamia as early as the sixteenth century B.C., when the Indo-Aryans ought
to have had their hands full conquering Hindustan. In my opinion, there were
not two branches of Indo-Iranians but three, viz., Iranians, Dardo-Kafirs, and
Indo-Aryans. Those whom we meet in Mitanni are a stray group of Dardo-Kafirs
coming from their original home in the steppes of central Asia before the rest
of them were displaced to Pamir, Swat, and Chitral in the tenth and ninth
centuries B.C.
....

The last chapter of the book is a summing up of the evidence, showing that the
Andronovians were Indo-Iranians. The Federovians, insofar as they did not
migrate to Siberia, would be the ancestors of Indo-Aryans (in anthropological
terms, modern Indians are, of course, descendants also of the Proto-Dravidians
of Harappa, and so on)."

(My transliteration of some names may be incorrect.)

Any comments from the specialists?

Regards
S. Palaniappan