Wednesday, July 13, 2016

A Kickstarter Project You Might Want to Back, Plus General Update

The woman I took an amazing class on kaftans from at Dragon*Con a few years back is writing a book on kaftan design. I just found out about the Kickstarter she's running for it. Only three days left!

Late last year, I got a job in and moved to Caid. Have been to an event and hung out with people a couple times and I think I'm going to very much enjoy this canton/barony (Mons Draconis in Dreiburgen). Graduation has been delayed. Again. At least I got the defense behind me... I'll be graduating in December come hell or high water, and hopefully my sanity will start creeping back in then.
But I'm kind of sick of research at the moment. Have been for quite some time, actually. This dissertation has been slowly killing me... I don't know how long after I finish I'll be willing to start up persona research again. Might be immediately, might be a few months, but the unfortunately-long hiatus from posts that aren't just links to news on other sites will definitely be over sometime next year.

4 comments:

  1. Hi, I'm glad I saw you.I'm looking Scythian-Sarmatians-Alan settlements in Europe but I have not found exactly.I need your help.

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    1. Specific settlements or general regions? Most of the earlier tribes (Iazyges, Roxolani, Aorsi...) were nomadic, so they wouldn't have had specific places they stayed (at least not year-round). They lived on the plains of Eastern Europe in what's now Russia (north of the Caucasus Mountains and Caspian Sea), the Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Hungary, and Serbia.
      The Dacian capital whose seige is portrayed on the Trajan Column was called Sarmizegetusa. It was located between where the Iazyges and Romanians lived and some Sarmatians may have lived there before it became the Dacian capital. That's hypothetical based on one possible etymology of the name, though, not substantiated. 5500 Iazyges ended up being auxiliaries in the Roman Army and were sent to a fort called Bremetennacum in northern England in AD 175. It was located right by the River Ribble and is now in a town called Ribchester. The auxiliaries stayed in that river valley after serving their time in the army.
      When one group of Alans went raiding with Vandals and Suebi, some of them ended up joining the Romans and settled in Gaul (now France), in the regions of Armorica and Brittany, as well as around the cities now called Orléans and Valentia. They left behind a bunch of settlements whose names are etymologically deriviative of "Alan" (e.g., Allainville, Les Allains, Allaines). The rest went on to Iberia with the Vandals and Suebi in 409, where they settled in Lusitania (Portugal and a part of Spain adjacent to it) and Carthaginense (east central Spain). One of the Portuguese municipalities is called Alenquer and they still have the Alaunt, which was the breed of mastiff Sarmatians brought with them, on their coat of arms. Some stayed, but most left with the Vandals after their last king died, and ended up in Tunisia and thereabouts. They were assimilated by the Vandals at that point, though, and no longer a distinct culture.
      The Alans who stayed behind in their homeland went on to form the kingdom of Alania north of the Caucasus. It was around in medieval times until the Huns overran it. The modern-day Ossetians are descendants of this group.
      One contingent of Alans was conquered by the Mongols later on and sent to the Yuan Dynasty capital of Dadu (it's inside Beijing) as part of a royal guard formed from several different conquered peoples. The Asud clan of Mongolians is descended from them. They live in the Al Khrochin banner of Inner Mongolia and the Dundgovi and Umnugovi aimags of Mongolia.
      There's Jászság in Hungary, where the Jász settled (a region with multiple towns). There are many places in what used to be Gaul

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    2. Oops, made a mistake: The *Mongols* overran medieval Alania. It was formed by the Caucasian contingent after the Huns split the Alans into two main groups (the ones that migrated with the Vandals and the ones who retreated to the southern part of their range in the Caucasus and later formed Alania)

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    3. And I forgot to remove the last partial sentence. I really wish Blogspot would let me edit my comments...

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