The Totem and the Old World. The Caucasus -The Mediterranean - The Pyrenees

Review

Studies have shown close links between Near Eastern and Mediterranean prehistoric civilizations and the Caucasus, especially Georgia. Language and cultural affinities connected Georgia with the homogeneous pre-Indo-European environment, which gave rise to pre-Egyptian, proto-Sumerian and pre-Greek civilizations. It has taken decades to refine and develop research methodology, which, parallel to archaeological discoveries, has perfected and broadened the framework of our scientific knowledge of the area. Under such circumstances, witnessing a further deeper and larger scale study to verify the theory on Kartvelian and pre-historic contacts seemed certain and inevitable.

Unfortunately, things took a different turn: the mentioned theory was completely neglected both in Georgia and in the west. As a result, the search for the prehistoric roots of Kartvelian languages and culture so wonderfully initiated by Georgian scholars (M. Tsereteli, V. Svanidze, D. Bakradze, Iv. Javakhishvili, R. Gabashvili, V. Bardavelidze, V. Kotetishvili and others) was relegated to the sphere of fantasy. Georgian academics turned their backs on the cultural depths of “their own flesh and blood” and declared any research along the mentioned lines to be groundless, fruitless, unscientific and “non-prestigious”. Anyone attempting to approach the “tabooed” sphere was ridiculed, and denigrated with labels which broke rules of scholarly ethics. People who dared to explore the territory were marginalized by relatives and friends, and deemed outside the scientific arena. Moreover, putting it mildly, the “trespassers” were put on the list of “non-ordinary” people.

In such an unfavourable scientific environment talking about and conducting research on Kartvelo-prehistoric contacts equalled real heroism. It was a doubly heroic act to attempt to publish an article on the subject; and even more so if anyone from a different scientific field endeavoured to approach Kartvelian language and cultural depths. People who did so suffered the ignominy of being described as “non-professional.”  Many forget that a number of great discoveries were made by people who were not “experts” in their fields of interest. I will recall just a few. H. Schliemann was a businessman who, enchanted by Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, became an archaeologist and discoverer of Troy. G. Grottefeld, a teacher of Greek at a German school, became one of the pioneers to decipher the Achamenid cuneiform inscriptions of Behistun. Th. Young, an English physician and physicist, founder of modern science of optics whose avocation in foreign languages (Greek) enabled him to perceive the hieroglyphic origin of the demotic script.   The name H. C. Rawlinson does not even need any explanation. P. Bota, a French consul in Iraq who laid the foundation for archaeological excavations in Northern Mesopotamia, Michael Ventris, an architect who deciphered Linear B, were other “non-professionals” who made significant contributions to the world’s body of scientific knowledge.

Merab Mikeladze will enrich the list. It is his book that you are holding in your hand now.
The Totem and the Old World. The Caucasus-The Mediterranean-The Pyrenees, using the author’s words “is the reflection of his own thoughts and feelings over a number of years”. These “feelings and thoughts” of the author put on paper represent a study which retrieves one of the layers of a highly complex informational system codified in the names of Kartvelian tribes (Colchi, Iberi, Heniokhi, Kartu, Tushi, Svani, Megreli) - the totemic stratum and ethno-cultural micro-systems. The backbone of the mentioned totemic system is the wolf (and dog) totem, whose chain-like phonetico-semantic ties with the lexical and cultural environment of both ancient and modern civilizations, enables the author to reopen, shed new light and resolve some problems connected with the history of mankind. One of the issues in this multi-coloured spectrum that deserves special attention is the problem of genetic contacts of the Kartvelian tribes with the ancient culture of the Near East and the Mediterranean – Etruscan, Basque and pre-Greek in Europe, and Sumerian and Hattian in the Near East.

A profound study of the tightly linked wolf and dog totem elucidate their contacts with different totemic symbols: the wolf-dog and wolf-horse totem (pp. 58, 61, 64, 72), wolf-dog and wolf-boar (p. 56), wolf-dog and wolf-bull totems (pp. 64, 74), etc.  With unusual shrewdness Merab Mikeladze uncovers the affinities concealed behind their semantic ties, forming the foundation for the nominating motivation of ethnic names. As an example I would like to cite the word Turshani, the name of Etruscans originating from the Kartuli tur (jackal) + Shani (sign; p. 23). Mention should also be made of the Etruscan fertility god Turani originating from the Kartvelian (Tush-Pshav-Khevsurian) fertility deity Tusholi (p. 22). The same name features in the name of the Urartian capital Turushpa (p. 24), etc.

The present work is not limited to the study of totemic symbols. The author offers an interesting analysis of the Basque names “Euskari” and “Euskaldunak”. In his view, the names are linked with the ancient Kartvelian tribal name of “Kardu-Kalda” and the name of the Karians of Asia Minor, the contacts that attract both the names and the peoples into proto-Kartvelian world.

Parallel to this, the author also offers evidence and analysis of linguistic and cultural interrelation between the Kartvelian and, in more general terms, the Ibero-Caucasian and Indo-European worlds. It has to be underscored that Indo-European is not limited to one concrete language, but is represented by Latin, Greek, Spanish, Slavonic, etc. (pp. 51, 69, 71, 73…).

Sight should not be lost of Merab Mikeladze’s contribution to the etymological study of Kartvelian architectural terminology: arch (archus) and stoa (stoa). The term archus, a word of Etruscan origin is linked with the Kartvellian rka (horn). For this the author had to cover a wide linguistic and geographical area and connect such lexical items as e.g. Scythian stu and Kartvelian shto-rto.

In addition, I would like to especially underscore Merab Mikeladze’s unusual linguistic sense. With objectivity and a surprising scale of vision, Merab Mikeladze, Doctor of Technical Sciences, Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences of Georgia, is able to perceive the existence of similar language items in geographically distant areas and offer a comparative linguistic analysis, identifying subtle linguistic nuances that often escape the eye of even the best specialists. We do not have to go far in search of examples: take the Greek igr-os (water, moisture) and the wizard-healer of the Amirani epic, the owner of rejuvenating water Igri Batoni (p. 12); the Nuragis - round tower-like constructions spread in Italy (Sardinia), and the Kartvelian nuagi/noagi (p. 27), whose detailed linguo-cultural analysis should be carried out in future by all means. Take also the etymology of Marseils from the Kartvelian Meskhi (p. 34; a Kartvelian tribal name, A.M.) and the connections between the name of the Eniot tribe, and the name of their country Enetica and En-Ea-s, the name of the Trojan crown prince with Sumerian and Kartvelian language evidence (p. 35). Brilliant examples of etymological search are represented by jigit which indicates a horse rider and a horse of good breed in a number of Indo-European languages and originates from the Kartvelian jiki-jiketi (p. 35; a panther or leopard, and the country of panthers respectively, A.M.), and many others.

I, as a linguist, am delighted by Merab Mikeladze’s linguistic intuition, profound analysis, daring comparisons, erudition, and highly significant conclusions, whose recognition is only a matter of time. The authority of his work is closely linked with objective analysis, which, in its turn finds confirmation in the recurrence of conclusions.

Here are two illustrative instances. According to Merab Mikeladze’s research, French baragoin (bara+gvin) belongs to the Bretonic dialect, i.e. the dialect of historical Armorica where it designates muttering, mumbling, or speaking in a broken language. The author thinks that it derives from Kartvelian linguistic and cultural realm and consists of two words pur+gvino (bread+wine; p. 36).

On my part, I would like to add that the mentioned word does not belong only to the Indo-European world. It is much, much older. It leads us to the Sumero-Babylonian world. Let us listen to Revaz Gabashvili: «Baba-Nunu (according to G. Contenau) – the ancient name of the Euphrates 2,000 B.C., which means « bread-wine » and which is the source of the French word baragoiner). The same Euphrates river received the name of Alazani (according to Herodotus). Baba-Nunu and Alazani are Georgian names. The same can be said about the Akkadian name of the same river Pouratou (puradi – generous with food (literally: bread ; A.M.), it is also Georgian» (R. Gabashvili, Contribution of the Caucasian Race to World Civilization. Tbilisi, 2001. p. 38).  

Now, let us recall the conclusion reached by Prof. Giorgi Tsereteli as a result of the linguistic analysis of the Kartvelian ghvino (wine), according to which the Indo-European world obtained the word wine from Kartvelian via Semitic. My personal observation confirms G. Tsreteli’s conclusion. The forms of the word wine found in the languages of ancient (Egyptian, Hattian, Hittite, Luvian, Greek, Latin, etc.) and modern (Germanic, Slavonic, etc.) civilizations reveal a distinct tendency of articulatory difficulties in the pronunciation of the Kartvelian voiced, velar spirant gh (γ). Consider for yourselves: Hattian uindu, Hittite uiiana, Greek oīyoς, Latin uīnum, Russian vino, Old English wīn, OHG wīn, Modern English wine, German wein, and so on, where the Kartvelian velar spirant γ is reduced to either labial v, a semi-consonant w, or a vowel. Therefore, the existence of the Kartvelian root/roots in the depth of different language material becomes an indubitable fact, which renders Acad. T. Gamkrelidze and V. Ivanov’s view on the IE origin of the word incorrect (T. Gamkrelidze, V. Ivanov, Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans. Part II, Tbilisi, 1984. pp. 647-55).

The illustrated linguistic evidence, which, by the way, does not exceed regular sound correspondence patterns established by historical linguistics, confirms the existence of a continuous path linking old and new worlds; this path is constructed by Kartvelian languages and culture.

Hence, it becomes obvious that starting with Sumer, the entire civilization of the Near and Middle east, in the same way as Europe later, borrowed the word wine from Kartvelian; it is even more obvious that the mentioned cultures would have partaken of the culture of farming the vine from the same source. Even today, in the highly developed technocratic civilization, we see such a harmonious system in the social and religious status of wine in the Kartvelian world (sufra = feast, types of supra, regulations, etc.), that in its light, many western food consumption habits and sharing rituals seem rather underdeveloped.  

One could present a number of similar examples, but I presume this is sufficient to see the contribution and great significance of Merab Mikeladze’s work The Totem and the old World. The Caucasus-the Mediterranean-the Pyrenees in reconstructing an objective picture of prehistory and the development of mankind. Therefore, I truly believe that in this work, the Kartvelian and Western science have received a very important document where some of the key problems of prehistory have been analysed and resolved anew on the basis of a large body of factual material. 

The ability of Kartvelian languages and culture to explain the mysteries of the hoary past (peoples’ migrations, emergence of tribes, etc.), as well as new insights gleaned from existing evidence should not be attributed to coincidence or chance happening. The recurrent emergence of Kartvelian evidence in the linguistic and cultural material of a number of civilizations is proof of their objective nature, which is an undoubted prerequisite for the recognition of this unusual phenomenon. That every new way of thinking brings about the destruction of an old one is an axiom. Therefore, we should not be surprised to see the breaking down of a number of traditional canons, and even entire methodological systems that took dozens of years to be built.

The above does not mean an unquestioning acceptance of all the analyses offered by the author. Additional analysis is required for such items as the identification of Ardi and Argi (p. 26); Kartvelian language items in Russian and the ethnonym Rossmosoch (p. 43) also need more examination. The author’s etymology of the Greek tribal name needs a second look (p. 49), as well as the Arabic origin of Fares (p. 61).

Separate mention should be made of the identification of Kerkets and Gergesevels. According to G. Eradze’s very interesting work, the Kerkets, the same as Heniokhs, Korakses and Sanigs are viewed as terms of military defence given to Georgian settlements. In the view of the author, which I completely share, the word Kerkets comes from the word kirkiti (stare, watch intensely) and depicts one of the segments of defence terminology, namely enhanced protection of a geographically and politically significant corridor (G. Eradze, Iberia Spectri, 4-10, 08.00, p. 10. In Georgian). Despite this the co-existence of two meanings (stare+horsemanship) in one ethnoterm Kerketi can not be ruled out, a fact that turns the word under scrutiny into an item of multi-layered semantics. The same can be said about the interrelationship between Hattian Harsh (eagle) and Kartvelian rashi (p. 64). True, the enumerated items lack testifying evidence but this happens when one tackles such huge problems as raised in the work.

Before closing I would like to recall an early autumn evening of 1998. With the help of Mrs Nukri (Valida) Tsertsvadze my husband and I visited the Mikeladze family for the first time. The talk revolved around Batoni Merabi. Kalbatoni Dali, Mr Merab Mikeladze ’s beautiful wife, brought the manuscript of the present book. While the guests and the host were talking I turned the pages of the manuscript carefully. Suddenly, I caught sight of the analysis of Gilgamesh. I read the passage at a “gulp”. “Batoni Merabi has deciphered the name of Gilgamesh in the same way as I have!” I exclaimed. My husband knew about my work on deciphering the name, so he asked me: “As a wolf-bull?” I nodded in answer. Kalbatonebi Dali and Nukri looked at us with interest. It is exactly with the wolf-bull that Merab Mikeladze has deciphered the name of the first king of one of the city states of Sumer – Uruk, the name that even today continues to defy Assyriologists’ attempts to decode it. For me, however, there was nothing unexpected or surprising in the repetition of the decipherment (Cf. the case of the bread-wine), which once again proves that the prehistoric enigmas concealed in the Kartvelian languages will not remain hidden for ever under the dust accumulated by history.

Whether it is today or tomorrow, whether we oppose to the revelation of Kartvelian roots or not, whether we forbid scientific research on the subject or not - these mean nothing in light of the ultimate aim.  What is concealed will be uncovered and buried treasure will see the light of day, for “Concealed wisdom and invisible treasure – What is the use of either?” (The Apocrypha. The Wisdom of Sirach, 41:14).

Anna Meskhi, Ph.D.
August, 2005.