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Okay, maybe my imagination is just getting carried away. But have a look at those ancient Thracian faces again, put up a few posts ago.
Besides looking a lot like modern Bulgarians, don’t they also look a bit… Black Irish?
I grew up among the Irish of Canada, and it seems to me I see familiar features on the streets of Sofia: the inverted smile, broad faces, dark Firbolg looks like those of my Black Irish cousins, receding chins like Tommy Makem’s.
There are two possible reasons, other than chance or personal delusion. First, we know there were Celts to the north of Greece in early Classical times. Classical Greek authors speak of them; Pythagoras claimed they taught him all he knew. It might have been a branch of these same Bulgarian Celts who later crossed the Irish Channel, in their general move westward through Europe.
Second, there is the amber route. Ancient Thrace was madly rich with silver deposits. Amber was a major trade good, and it was mostly found on beaches along the North Sea. There is a natural river trade route, up the Danube and down the Rhine, that starts in Bulgaria and ends near the English Channel. From there, the Celts dominated the sea trade in amber, at least from the 4th to the 1st centuries BC.
The Celts or the Bulgarians might easily have migrated along this route, in either direction, just as the French Metis migrated along the fur trade routes in early Canada. It would have made strategic sense for them to have tried to control both ends of the trade, the point of production and the point of retail distribution: a vertical monopoly.
It would follow that the designation of the Irish as “Celts” and the Bulgarians as “Slavs” is not really accurate; but these were always linguistic terms, and language is easier to change than blood.
It’s one way to explain the strange Black Irish.
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
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3 comments:
Well, I’m a northern Greek and searching about my possible ancestors, Thracians, I found your post. I have to let you know that you should not confuse Bulgarians with Thracians. Far before Bulgarians come to Balkans (7th century AC), the south Thracians were Hellenized by Alexander the Great and the northern Thracians were Romanized after some centuries. So when Bulgarians came to Balkans Thracians already were considering themselves as Greeks. I don't say that some Thracians didn't mix with Bulgarians but most of them were routed out by Bulgarians to the northern Greece and European Turkey. With the exchange of population in 1920 all the Thracians (who were considering themselves Greeks and were speaking Greek) left from the southern Bulgaria and the European Turkey and come to Greece.
In my opinion, in Byzantine times when Bulgarians come to the area and throw all these centuries of wars some Bulgarians were mixed with some native Thracians but that doesn’t make them descendants of Thracians. It’s like the Mediterranean Turks call them selves Greeks because of the ruins of ancient Greek cities in nowadays Turkey.
Hi, Anonymous!
Until I had seen the ancient busts in the Sofia Archeological Museum, I would have agreed with you. But now I have. The ancient busts from the Greek world generally look strikingly like modern Greeks. But the Thracian busts do not. They look a lot like modern Bulgarians.
The idea of a great migration of Slavic speakers from the area of the Volga is based on linguistic evidence. But linguistic evidence is shaky: people can learn a new language without changing their genetic makeup.
We also know from Greek writers that ancient Thrace was very heavily populated: it was believed by them to be the most densely populated part of the world after India. It is intrinsically unlikely that its population could have been completely swamped by a tribe arriving from a long distance away on horseback. The latter group, for logistical reasons, could not have been all that numerous--otherwise they would have starved on the way.
Nor is it likely that the majority of the Thracian population were rooted out. No other land area nearby could sustain such a dense population--they surely would not have left voluntarily, for this would have simply meant mass starvation. Nor would it have been in the interests of the Bulgars, nomadic people, to have driven the settlers off the land, since they themselves did not know how to tend it. Better to collect taxes.
Ergo, it seems to me almost certain that the current population of Bulgaria is, genetically, about the same as the ancient Thracians, who occupied the same territory.
They are probably also your own near relatives, although they speak a different language.
As for the Mediterranean Turks--there was probably less mixing there, because of differences in religion and the prohibition against inter-religious marriage in Islam. But I bet there was a lot, and that Mediterranean Turks are largely or mostly Greek genetically.
Helps remind us we are all brothers, I suppose.
In the Dobruja region there many black haired people but only for joke would call many of them Bulgarians,as a lot of Mongol-turkic(patzinak) races passed and stayed there,,and ofcourse mixed(mongols were a plague back then).It was the centre of ottoman rule in notrh balkan along with tataria.So you cant parallalizing them with Irish or calling them native????Also in northern greek Thrace and Southern Bulgaria there are the Pomaks,for whom 2 are the most possible scenarios:
1)Firstly they are the indigenous populations of the remnants of ancient tribes of thrace
2)they are pure slavs who settled in the area(you cant deny the fact that the area was runned by Slavs judging by the present).It was a big problem for the E.R.Empire,we have Emperors calling for the slavic problem,finding settlements for them,saving the locals by hiring slavs as cheap vessels and guardians of Danube.Also many chronicles of the 7-8-9-10th century describe the Bulgarians as different tribe which invade the land and became the plague of the old inhabbitants.Why so many wars with them(modern day turkish and greek thrace and the coastal east thrace were inhabitted by Greeks)???I totally agree that Thracians were not Greeks,as Greeks settled in the south most part and the east side of the Evros war mostly Greek and the coastal line from Kalipoli to Constantinople wasnt settled by thracians but by Greeks.Thracians were rivals to Greeks,for some times,and other times they were "secret allies"(against Persians during the Scythian campaign).Other times there was a battle of total extermination as the early Makedonian kingdom(comprising most of the modern day greek Makedonia) was suffering to barbarian(thracian mostly) raids.Makedonians kings campaigned a lot of times against those clans of warlike barbarians or used them as mercenaries.Another greek race-state Athenians is well known for its rivaly with tracians in the colonies they established in what is south(or 1/2) of greek Thrace.In most cases they found alienated areas so you cant speak of "natives and displaced" as it was in south east Sicily,where natives didnt exist or were in the mountainous regions living like primitives and dont care about the things of the "plain and coast" people.Athenians contribute a lot in hellenizing many thracia,who migrate to Athens.Also remember the statue of Victory in Samothrace,which was made after a victory over the barbarians(of a thracian tribe that were annoying the mercants of a greek city,maybe Avdyra),in which a famous Greek took part.As for the Turks,i would be stupid to call all of them Greeks,but certain areas and a percentage of 15% of them is of pure Greek blood.My race suffered the biggest islamization,and whole villages were brought to islam.Thrace is no exception,but 1914 wasn the beginning,many thracian greeks became turks during 13-14-15-16-17-18 century,and many of them became turks to save their lives(during ,1770,21' revolution,whole villages).Many alevites are of greek blood and people of lycia and mountainous pontus where emigration to greece was impossible or the turks passed a silent turkization(during 1914-1923).In thrace the lines among races had came to an end after 1878.Bulgarians were bulgarians,greeks were greeks,jews were jews and turks were turks no matter of the past.Its like Romania or Sicily.Romania has a lot of blackhaired people,but Mongols also have most of their people blackhaired.In Eastern Sicily for instance were America places the typical italian emigrante,real latin influnece was zero.Latins were the outnembered minority even in the late roman times.And until the invasion of the germanic Normands and their germanic based army,there were more Arabs and Greeks.Italians(natives) were mostly in the central part.But nowadays most Sicilians claim to be the old natives who mixed with Latins.
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