Coins from the medieval town Solkhat (the town Stary Krym; the Crimea, Ukraine) came to my attention (Dombrovsky, Sidorenko 1978), see figure 1.
Let us consider "tamgas" of the same type presented on coins now. There are Scythian/Sarmatian signs: the symbol "round" is added to the unit 77-59. The text can be read as Sol- kata, Sol- gata, Sur- kata, Sur- gata, so they are variants of the name of this town. Evidently that such designations were preserved here since the Scythian/Sarmatian time. O.N. Trubachev (1967: 37) compares Ukrainian hata '(rural) house; cottage of daubed brick or wood' with Scythian/Sarmatian hata (< *kata-) and Old Iranian ("Avesta") kata- 'room, store-room, cellar'. These words are extensions of Indo-European *kot- 'primitive dwelling'. The form kata/gata is comparable with Old Indian hat 'to shine' (< 'hearth', 'heat', 'house') as well.
Dombrovsky, O.I. and V.A. Sidorenko, 1978. Solkhat i Surb-Khach. Simferopol.
Trubachev, O.N., 1967. Iz slavyano-iranskikh lexicheskikh ontosheniy. In: O.N. Trubachev (ed.) Etimologiya: 1965. Moscow, pp. 3-81.
Rjabchikov, S.V., 2001. The Scythian/Sarmatian Influence on the Slavonic Mythology and Decorative Art. The web site "The Slavonic Antiquity": http://slavonicweb.chat.ru/sl37.htm.
Copyright © 2006 by Sergei V. Rjabchikov. All Rights Reserved.
Published 18 September 2006.
Sergei V. Rjabchikov, Krasnodar, RUSSIA.
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