Copyright © 2006 by Sergei V. Rjabchikov. All Rights Reserved.

SCYTHIAN/SARMATIAN SIGNS ON COINS FROM SOLKHAT

by Sergei V. Rjabchikov

Coins from the medieval town Solkhat (the town Stary Krym; the Crimea, Ukraine) came to my attention (Dombrovsky, Sidorenko 1978), see figure 1.

Figure 1.

Scythian/Sarmatian sol-, sur- 'the sun', hat- 'house' were recognised earlier in variants of the names of this town, Solhat and Surhat, and they were interpreted as 'The house of the sun deity' (Rjabchikov 2001). Account must be taken of O.I. Dombrovsky and V.A. Sidorenko's information: the names of this town are known as Solkat (according to Genoa documents) and Surgat (according to Armenian documents), too.

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.

REFERENCES

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.

Published 18 September 2006.

Sergei V. Rjabchikov, Krasnodar, RUSSIA.

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