Countdown to Open Beta - Pahlava

[Marinakis]

Question- Are huns and sarmatians white or asian?

the huns come from north of china, they are decendents of the mongols, i think.

[Moros]

they come from north of china, they are decendents of the mongols, i think.

mongols came after the huns , about 900 years later!

[Marinakis]

mongols came after the huns , about 900 years later!

well i hear that the great wall of china was built partly to keep both the huns and mongols out of china, so they atleast lived near eachother

[GoreBag]

Actually, you know the whole Aryan race crap that Hitler invented? Aryan is (possibely) what the Iranians called Iran, and (possibely) themselves. There is more proof than just Hitler's "proof", but I think it's incunclusive.

He didn't make it up, he just got it wrong. Germans aren't Aryans.

The comparison between Persians and other Iranians reminds me of comparing one Celtic tribe to another. The Cymru were darker in complexion and hair than the Goidils, for example.

[Turin]

Okay so let me get this straight.

In 280 or so BC, the Northern Iranians and the Sarmatian tribes west of the Urals were "white" in the sense that they looked somewhat like the modern Swede, or what not.

Then comes the migrations westward of Asiatic peoples from east of the Urals, culminating in the arrival of the Huns in the Western Roman Empire. So in the end the whitish peoples of Eastern Europe and the Caucauses were replaced or intermarried into Asiatic peoples with darker hair and complexions?

[Moros]

Okay so let me get this straight.

In 280 or so BC, the Northern Iranians and the Sarmatian tribes west of the Urals were "white" in the sense that they looked somewhat like the modern Swede, or what not.

well I think with whot they mean is more like the avarage European.

[SpawnOfEbil]

Countdown to Open Beta - Pahlava

I don't want this pahlava!

*pun on pahlava, in case you missed it*

EDIT: They look very very nice. Should definately be an improvement over Vanilla, with more flexible infantry battalions (EI are, for want of a better word, crap).

[Ranika]

He didn't make it up, he just got it wrong. Germans aren't Aryans.

The comparison between Persians and other Iranians reminds me of comparing one Celtic tribe to another. The Cymru were darker in complexion and hair than the Goidils, for example.

Good qoute, but I think a bit poor wording; Cymru weren't a tribe, they were a subculture (as were Goidils). However, they did have different genetic roots that gave cause that Goidils were generally fair-skinned and fairer-haired (brown hair and red hair {even before the vikings, there are graves of red-haired Goidils, likely descended from Belgae, who had red hair sometimes}, compared to the more common black hair of Cambrians and later Cymrians, though Goidils had black hair too sometimes; however, this is speaking in general).

Of Aryans, Hitler's assertations were just wrong, as NeonGod said; the Aryan race exists, but they aren't 'Germans'; his definition of Aryans would have lent itself more to Gauls (and southern 'Gallic' Britons, Tylisians and Galatians that stemmed from them) than it would Germanic tribes.

[GoreBag]

I would dispute the use of the term of 'subculture' in this case, but I digress.

[Steppe Merc]

sarmatians are white I believe, huns are asian, right?

Well it's a bit difficult, since there were "white" Iranians living in Asia to just say "white" or "asian". But we are not entirely sure what the Huns are. Probably related to the Turks more so than the Iranians. So they were possibly more Asiatic. It is difficult to say, however, since the Romans discriptions really helpful, and I don't think too many burials have been found (unlike say the Iranians and the Turks).

Okay so let me get this straight.

In 280 or so BC, the Northern Iranians and the Sarmatian tribes west of the Urals were "white" in the sense that they looked somewhat like the modern Swede, or what not.

Then comes the migrations westward of Asiatic peoples from east of the Urals, culminating in the arrival of the Huns in the Western Roman Empire. So in the end the whitish peoples of Eastern Europe and the Caucauses were replaced or intermarried into Asiatic peoples with darker hair and complexions?

More or less. Only some Iranian peoples were blonde, some were darker. And then the Huns, Turks, Arabs, and finally Mongols came, and interbred with the Iranians. Some remained pretty independant, like the Alans after the Huns fell. But as a whole other peoples assimilated them (nomadic peoples tended to just join up with a stronger tribe), yeah.
And before the migrations, the Iranians weren't mixed with Asiatic peoples.

He didn't make it up, he just got it wrong. Germans aren't Aryans.

The comparison between Persians and other Iranians reminds me of comparing one Celtic tribe to another. The Cymru were darker in complexion and hair than the Goidils, for example.

Thanks Neon God and Ranika for clearing up the Aryan issue, I wasn't entirelly sure about the whole thing.

[Chester]

So modern day Iranians are decendents from white boys mixed with arabs? I'm I getting this right? They are very light in skin color. My proffesor looks like an italian or even a jew, but he's Iranian.

I really appreciate the knowledge people here pass around. This is by far one of the best forums, for games, that I've attended.

[Steppe Merc]

I'm not sure about current day Iranian. But I think the Arabs had difficulty in conquering many regions, so in Iran itself there are probably a good amount of people with more Iranian blood than not, which explains you're proffesor's complexion.

[Big_John]

didn't turkic peoples overrun that area after the arabs? maybe they didn't really populate it though..

[Moros]

didn't turkic peoples overrun that area after the arabs? maybe they didn't really populate it though..

I don't know about that but a turc ran over my cousin once

[Angadil]

If you are speaking of peoples like the Seljuks, etc.. That would be a sort of second (or even third or fourth wave) turkic wave. They were already converted to Islam. Before them, there had been previous westwards movements of a diversity of pre-Islamic turkic peoples that the Caliphate fought as it expanded towards Central Asia.

[Steppe Merc]

didn't turkic peoples overrun that area after the arabs? maybe they didn't really populate it though..

Well there was the Gok "Blue" Turks, that then divided into the Eastern and Western Turkish Khagans who were at war often with the Sassanians, and some probably mixed with Iranian peoples in that area. Then the Arab invasions happened, and the Turks broke up into a whole bunch of tribes. Many converted to Islam, though some resisted. In fact, Persians (Iranians), Turks and Arabs were the three main Islamic people. They all sort of helped form what Islam was about, militarily and culturally.

And I think that there is Turkish blood in many modern peoples, from Asia Minor to Asia and the Middle East. Again, I don't know much about the people in that area after the Middle Ages.
And a main part of that is that I'm not sure how much each nation makes up of ancient Iran, so I'm not sure which of today's nations that Turks invaded, etc.

edit: And Angadil's right, many spread out, and then came back in, though some stayed in the area I think.

[TheTank]

Great update EB,

Lots of units to watch + interesting information but i prefer the Sauromatae..


Spongly

Tacitus indeed says that the Germans are known for their red hair, rather than blonde, which the Romans considered more a feature of the Celts and various other people.

Some germanic tribes painted their hair red but where not naturarlly so.
Gauls and Britons (don't know about the Geals) often bleeched their hair with lime or some other substance maybe this is the reason that Romans imagined that gauls where all fairhaired...

Ranika,

Of Aryans, Hitler's assertations were just wrong, as NeonGod said; the Aryan race exists, but they aren't 'Germans'; his definition of Aryans would have lent itself more to Gauls (and southern 'Gallic' Britons, Tylisians and Galatians that stemmed from them) than it would Germanic tribes.

Please explain ranika,
Where the aryans a group of people that invaded India and Iran a very long time ago?!
I don't think about the Celts if I hear the word aryans...

[Steppe Merc]

Tank the Aryans themselves were Iranians (Scythians, Sakaes, Sarmatians, Persians, Parthians, etc.). It's two words for the same thing.
However, they probably had relatives amongst the Celtic people.

[Zero1]

I was under the impression that the Indo-Iranians were closer in relation to the Germanic peoples then the Celts, was I mistaken?

[Aenlic]

It depends upon which migration model is followed, and where and when one places the Urheimat for the Indo-European language.

If the Kurgan hypothesis is followed than the Urheimat is placed on the northern shore of the Black Sea with the Yamna culture. The Iranian and Indo-Aryan come from the Pontic steppes and the Yamna culture then the Adronovo culture and then circle around the north Caspian and back down and around to the south and west. This would make Indo-Aryan and Iranian more closely related to pre-proto-Germanic, since the pre-proto-Celtic peoples like the pre-Unetice culture had already moved farther west, splitting off west from the Yamna culture.

If the much earlier Neolithic revolution, or proto-Hittite, hypothesis is followed then the Urheimat is placed around Lake Urmia, and then spread north to form the Yamna and Maykop kurgan cultures and south, west and east to form proto-Hittite cultures. This allows for the possibility that the pre-proto-Celtic cultures came from a spread west and northwest, while the pre-proto-Germanic spread from the Yamna culture north and then west.

A third possibility is placing the Urheimat for Indo-European even earlier around shores of the pre-deluge Black Sea, particularly on the land that became the Sea of Azov. This would then start major expansion with the 5500 BCE deluge which created the current and much larger sea, spreading and splitting the culture west and northwest to form the pre-proto-Celtics, south and southeast to form the pre-proto-Hittites and Iranian/Indo-Aryan and north and northeast to form the kurgan cultures and the pre-proto-Germanic and later the pre-proto-Baltic.

And don't forget the Tarim mummies from the Tarim basin. Caucasoid mummies in the Xinjiang-Uyghur region from around 2000 BCE. They had fair, often red hair, had clothing which used techniques and wool similar to western European cultures and other things which make them non-Asian. They could possible be proto-Tocharian in origin, which would make them pre-proto-Iranian/Indo-Aryan; but their clothing suggests a more northern descent, more akin to pre-proto-Baltic-Slavic.

[Ranika]

Some germanic tribes painted their hair red but where not naturarlly so.
Gauls and Britons (don't know about the Geals) often bleeched their hair with lime or some other substance maybe this is the reason that Romans imagined that gauls where all fairhaired...

I'l just focus on this part, since the Celtic part about Aryans seems answered. This is a poor conception; they're Gaels, not Geals, for one (sorry, that's not my point, but I hate that misspelling). Only Cisalpine Gauls bleached their hair, and only southern Britons. Others didn't. Midland Britons had long dark hair, but they weren't called Celts (considering them Celts emerged in the late 1800s; before that, the iron age Britons were just called Britons, except the southerners, who were, and technically are still, considered Gauls/Gallic-Britons). Transalpine Gauls wore their hair long, and many many of them had blonde hair. This wasn't from bleaching at all; many continental Celts were blonde. For example, in Fayuum, Egypt (where many, many Galatian Celts settled as mercenaries for the Ptolemies), the people are still blonde haired, fair-skinned, and blue eyed. Other hair colors existed among Celts (obviously), but there were huge numbers of them with blonde hair and blue eyes; they would fit the description of 'Aryans' quite well, and they were very likely related to groups like the Skythians.

Of Germans with red hair, it's known from the examining of DNA evidence, that many early Germans did have red hair, it wasn't all dyes, though some tribes did dye their hair.

Of Gaels, Gaelic hair colors varied a bit widely because of the mixture of settlers (Galaecians from Iberia, Gauls, Belgae, various Britons) and the natives of the island. Red hair existed, but was made more prominent by vikings (though pre-viking red haired Gaels existed, mainly in the regions where Belgae had settled); fair brown hair seemed most common at the time, probably because all involved groups likely had this hair color to some extent, but also present was black and dark brown hair in the southwest, where Iberians had settled. However, almost all were very fair-skinned.

[TheTank]

Ranika,

they're Gaels, not Geals, for one (sorry, that's not my point, but I hate that misspelling)

My humble apologies for the error.
It was a typo....

[Perplexed]

the huns come from north of china, they are decendents of the mongols, i think.

I think the word "Hun" was just a general term for some of the tribes that came over into Europe and Iran around the 4th and 5th centuries AD. There were "White" Huns (Epthalites), who took over much of Iran, and there were "Black" Huns (Attila's lot), who were the Asiatic Mongoloid people that we generally associate with the word "Hun", and who came into Europe from the Eurasian steppe. Both the White and Black Huns were steppe nomads, but the White Huns were predominantly Indo-European and the Black Huns were Asiatic in appearance. Most historians believe that the Black Huns were the descendants of the Hsiung-nu (I think this is the right name, might be confusing it with some other tribe), who were an Asiatic steppe people living somewhere around Northern China at some time in the early years of that country. I'm not really sure of all this information, as It's been awhile since I've read anything about this particular era of history, but I think the details are mostly correct.

T.P.C.

[Steppe Merc]

The White Huns were recorded as being fairer than the Black Huns, but the colors have more to do with direction than the apearance of the Huns themselves, I believe.

And the Hsiung-Nu theory is far from proven, and many times seems like a stretch. However, many do believe it, and it hasn't been proven or disproven.

[Mr Jones]

from wat i hav heard white huns were termed "white" because of their facial features more than their complection. thats not to say that they didn't hav lighter skin than the black huns, but the most notable difference was the facial features, which resembled those of europeans. of course, i could be and probly am wrong.

[the_handsome_viking]

i especially like the two handed lance =)

i dont think they had that in the original version.

[the_handsome_viking]

Question- Are huns and sarmatians white or asian?

sarmatians were caucasoid. were they white? who knows, probably.

huns, no ones really sure about what they were, id say they were probably a mix of various racial stocks.

[the_handsome_viking]

So modern day Iranians are decendents from white boys mixed with arabs? I'm I getting this right? They are very light in skin color. My proffesor looks like an italian or even a jew, but he's Iranian.

I really appreciate the knowledge people here pass around. This is by far one of the best forums, for games, that I've attended.

its an interesting subject really.

arab isnt a race, its a culture and a language, you can have caucasian arabs, negroid arabs and racially mixed arabs , which would appear to be the case for most north african and middle eastern arabs today.

it wouldnt surprise me if youve met arabs that could look italian or like ashkenazi jews, ive met a lot of white arabs myself.

historically speaking arabs would look like this a lot.

http://games.rengeekcentral.com/prblms/F36V.html
http://games.rengeekcentral.com/prblms/F38R.html
http://games.rengeekcentral.com/prblms/F44R.html

and their decendants can be seen today in people like

http://www.syriantopmodels.com/html/...ls.php?level=1
http://www.syriantopmodels.com/html/...ls.php?level=3
http://www.syriantopmodels.com/html/...ls.php?level=8

i think its safe to say that a great deal of mixing has gone on.

http://history.missouristate.edu/jch.../Crusades6.jpg

i hope you find this information helpful.

[Keyser]

its an interesting subject really.

arab isnt a race, its a culture and a language, you can have caucasian arabs, negroid arabs and racially mixed arabs , which would appear to be the case for most north african and middle eastern arabs today.

it wouldnt surprise me if youve met arabs that could look italian or like ashkenazi jews, ive met a lot of white arabs myself.

There was an original arabic ethnicity, people living in what is now Jordania, Saudi arabia and Yemen are known as "arab" since the highest antiquity, but you're true in saying that most modern arabs are arabs only by language and culture.

By the way this argument is valid for almost any nationality or ethnicity.

Roman of the fourth century weren't "roman" from a genetical point of view.

Turkish tribes weren't all ethnicaly turkish either (like the kirgiz) but as the turks came to be a dominant steppe people, many tribes adopted their languages (and culture, but in the steppe there was one big culture and many differant ethnical groups). Because of that (and of the customs to take women in other tribes) it's difficult to tell what the original turks looked like (although it can be assumed by various sources that they looked asiatic)

I've also read studies who explained that most of the celt of western europe were probably celts only by language and custom too.

It's interesting to try to know how people of ancient times looked like, but it's difficult to tell. By the way considering invaders usualy were dilluted in the original population (because they were far less in numbers) i think most people probably looked like modern people from the same area (with some documented exceptions). Steppe people because they weren't very numerous, weren't settled (and could leave an area en masse) and were probably very mixed are the most difficult to identify.

For example, in Fayuum, Egypt (where many, many Galatian Celts settled as mercenaries for the Ptolemies), the people are still blonde haired, fair-skinned, and blue eyed

Well that can be because of galatian who settled there, but are you sure ?
Did they settle in a number large enough to explain people still are born like that ?
Actually they can be anything else, macedonian and even greek could (can) be blonde haired and blue eyed (and they were settled in the fayum too), they can be circassian or descended from other slaves from the medieval/modern period or a mix of all (the most likely genetically speaking with blonde hairs and blue eyes being recessive genes).

I have seen a documentary on blonde and blue eyed people in central asia who lived in an isolated valley and thought they were the last of the greeks who were settled there by Alexander. It was possible, but the greeks weren't the only ethnic group with blonde hairs and blue eyes who had walked in central asia, far from it.

Edit

Colour in the steppe are meant for a direction, a cardinal point. I don't remember wich colour is for wich direction (there is white, black, blue and gold iirc) but i think that the colours in the name of the huns is meant to explain where they lived relatively to each other rather than some physical differences (who could have existed anyway).
And i think the huns were a turkish people.

[Steppe Merc]

Keyser, it's more likely they were Scythians or other Iranians if they were blonde and blue eyed.

You are correct, steppe people were very mixed, especially later. Only a very few Mongols were truly of the Mongol tribe. However in the time in question, almost all of the nomads were Iranians without any other sort of mixing. But even at this period, non Iranians start to migrate west.