Talk:Gelae (tribe)

Removal of content

Hello @P Aculeius, I have provided multiple links of books and references for my edits, what is the reason for your deletion of all of this content? And please be specific to each source. Also why is a distorted interpretation of Strabo's text shown? He mentioned the Gelae and Legae living beyond (above) Albania, and said that the Amazons are seperated FROM the Albianians by these two tribes Gelae and Legae, which means the Gelae would not have been located in Caucasian Albania and especially not further south of Caucasian Albania, since the Amazons were located in North Caucasus. There is also a lack of sources and references in this article. Researchers unanimously link the Legae to the Leks or Lezgins, who ethnically are not Scythian, even though ther are called this. Many North Caucasian nations have been mentioned as Scythian, because in various sources all of North Caucasus was called Scythian, even though it was not such. So my content should not be discarded in this manner. There should at least be a mention of this version in the article. Muqale (talk) 18:59, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Also the Bardaisan 'book of laws..." source is too weak to be regarded as a authentic, the author states in the introduction on page 1 "I write as a non-expert for the benefit of other non-experts, and this is not intended to be a work of scholarship." Why would you remove all my references, and keep this one?" Muqale (talk) 19:10, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Georgian historian A.S. Chikobava writes in 2010 (translation from Georgian Doctor of Philology, Prof. I.B. Kapanadze):

"The Sindian-Gligvian-Legian-Albanian languages are united by the term "Sarmatian languages", and all the Iberian-Caucasian languages - by the term "Georgian-Sarmatian languages", and, accordingly, there is a "Georgian-Sarmatian linguistics" The terms "Sindian", "Gligvian", "Legsky", "Albanian" correspond to the names of the tribes mentioned in the Greek historical sources: Sinds are one of the Adyghe tribes; γilγ- the old Georgian name of for the Nakh tribes, in particular the Ingush, γαlγα- (galga) the self-name of the Ingush people, is close to the ancient Greek 𝐠𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐢, and 𝐥𝐞𝐠 is close to the ancient Greek 𝐥𝐞́𝐠𝐨𝐢 (cf. cargo leḳ-i - the collective name of the peoples of Dagestan); the term "Albanian" corresponds to the name of the Albanian tribes of the Caucasus."

A.S. Chikobava. Введение в иберийско-кавказское языкознание [Introduction to Iberian-Caucasian Linguistics]. Tbilisi State University. University. Ed. "Universal". 2010 / p. 30-31. Muqale (talk) 19:28, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Just to be clear, it wasn't so much "content removal" as a rollback of all your recent edits. But this may take a while to parse, so I'm going to go through them one at a time and try to explain my rationale. It's possible that some of the changes are good and can be restored, but I felt it would be easier to do this from the previous state of the article, since you deleted contents that should not have been removed, and then based subsequent edits on those revisions.

Revision of 14:34: you revised the lead sentence to state that Strabo calls them Scythians, rather than that they were Scythians, presumably because you later added material to the article arguing that they weren't Scythians, presumably based on modern ethnographic definitions rather than what writers from antiquity used the term to mean. I have to guess at your reasoning, since your edit summary was "Strabo's account added. Expanded sections and added references." You then distinguished their geographical location mentioned by contemporary writers from Strabo, and deleted the secondary source provided for the lead and the following two paragraphs.

You then deleted mentions of the tribes among whom Strabo locates the Gelae and instead substitute an unnecessary quotation which for some reason dwells primarily on the Amazons. You then altered the discussion of where this location corresponded with and the source cited for it, leaving random an unsourced description of their location that doesn't correspond with anything. You then deleted the source for the correspondence between the name of the tribe and the location where they might have lived, and placed a "citation needed" tag there instead.

You then added an assortment of early 19th-century writers in Russian and German, some of them evidently authors of early travelogues, placing the Gelae in a different place and connecting them with different people than the other sources, with little discussion of what their opinions are—apart from a repeated mention of the Amazons, which undercuts any credibility they might otherwise have had—and none at all about why these early authors were so at-odds with the rest of the scholarship on the subject. If you reviewed the article's history, you'd see that most of these sources have been added to and removed from the article multiple times, as being poor and outdated sources of dubious authority, propping up ideas about the Gelae that are not in agreement with other scholarship. Inexplicably, you then placed a "citation needed" tag immediately following a citation.

Revision of 14:46 adds a map from 1856 showing a small landlocked territory called "Gelia" several hundred miles from where the Gelae were supposed to have lived, according to one of the sources that you deleted, and the article's original map, with a caption claiming that this was "ancient Gelia" and that it corresponded with modern Ingushetia and Chechnya. This map has also been added to and removed from the article before, for the same reasons that the outdated sources mentioned above were removed. Also, Strabo doesn't mention a place called "Gelia", he mentions a tribe called the "Gelae". And while the passage that you quoted in the previous edit mentions the Amazons, it is not the passage cited, which places the Gelae amongst several other tribes, which for no apparent reason you removed from the article.

Skipping over a few edits that don't significantly change anything, at 15:04 you claim to have "removed unsourced statements", but in fact all you did was remove the description of a quotation, then improperly alter the quoted text and leave it appearing to be a paraphrase, in violation of copyright. Finally at 00:48 you simply deleted the entire passage, leaving as your explanation, "[a]uthor himself acknowledges in the first paragraph that the article is not intended to be a work of scholarship. Not a valid source."

Here you seem to have confused the PDF article by Anthony Alcock with Bardaisan (or his disciple). Alcock's scholarship is not in question; you should not have deleted the quotation from Bardaisan simply because you felt that Alcock was not a good scholar. However, I also note that you seem to have read the statement "this is not intended to be a work of scholarship" to mean "you shouldn't rely on my translation to be accurate", rather than "this is just a translation, not a discussion of Bardaisan or his work". Be that as it may, you appear to have used these words as an excuse to delete a scholarly source from antiquity, and what it says about the customs of the Gelae, although you could have found it in other published copies—I found two English-language translations of Bardaisan at Archive.org, along with German and French translations.

The overall effect of these edits was to restore an outdated version of the article, equating the Gelae with modern people of the north Caucasus, although mainstream scholarship places them south of the Caspian, likely in what today is northern Iran. Some of the sources cited aren't very recent, but they are in accord with mainstream scholarship. Even older travelogs and outdated ethnographic studies that vary with those views should probably not be given equivalence with mainstream scholarship. The only reason I can imagine for deleting the passage from Bardaisan would be if one felt personally aggrieved by his description; but this would not be a justified change. There may be contemporary sources that explain what Bardaisan related, but evidently none of the sources added attempt to do so; they seem to be busy revising Strabo and other ancient writers to be relevant to their own work.

I thought that perhaps reviewing these edits one by one would show that there was valuable material I could add back into the article, but after having done so I can't see anything useful that wasn't previously removed due to being outdated, dubious, or misleading scholarship. There are surely more recent and peer-reviewed sources that treat this topic and could be worked in, but doing so would not justify ignoring what the sources already cited say, or replacing their contents without adequate explanation in the article, not merely alluded to in edit summaries. P Aculeius (talk) 22:18, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

@P Aculeius Fair enough. I’ll take your suggestion in account. Let us then reset from the previous state (update: current) of the article, and see if we can reach consensus, because there is valid cause to at least include the information I added to the article, without the deletion of some of the parts we already have, unless we can agree on which ones are more accurate.

1. First off, you pointed out that I added “an unnecessary quotation which for some reason dwells primarily on the Amazons”. Actually, I added Strabo’s literal words in the ‘Classical Sources’ section of the article, which is in fact the very first mention of the Gelae in Strabo’s ‘Geographica’ (Book XI, Chapter 5). And it is precisely from this account that we even know that they are Scythian or at least called so. How is this an unnecessary quote? I heaviliy disagree. This is significant to the article. And I do not see a valid reason for your removal of this quotation.

2. However, it is true that the second mention of the Gelae suggests that they were located more south, as they are briefly listed among other tribes near the Caspian Sea. This should not have been removed by me. I have no issue with having this quotation in the article.

3. This being said, this does not change the first account provided by Teophanes, which does not place the Gelae in Albania, nor south of Albania (near modern Gilan)

I’ve searched for some more recent scholarship (references + links) where this is discussed:

• “Plutarch, on the other hand, specifies that they do not border on the Albanians but are divided by them from the Gelae and Leges, just as we read in Strabo, according to whom it was Theophanes of Mytilene who said that between the Amazons and the Albanians live the Scythian Gelae and Legae. Therefore, Gelae and Legae must have been peoples neighbouring the Albanians, but distinct from them” (Caucasian Albania: An International Handbook Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, 2023)
• In the Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1988 (Vol 108) it is pointed out that Teophanes does in fact place the Gelae and Legae between the Amazons and Albanians, and he does not mention Cadusii, a name which he must have known.
• “The Gelians and Legians are unknown except for Strabo's report and a similar one by Plutarch (Pompeius 35.4), probably both from Theophanes.” (A Historical and Topographical Guide to the Geography of Strabo. Cambridge Un. Press, 2018)
• As I mentioned before, Strabo’s first mention of the Gelae has to be taken into account, as is mentioned in the commentary in “The Geography of Strabo, 2020” (Vol.1-3):

962* "Strabo mentions the Gelæ again, C. VII. § 1, but in a manner which does not agree with what he here says of their position. We must perhaps suppose that this people, in part at least, have changed their place of residence, and that now the greater part of their descendants are to be found in Ghilan, under the name of Gelé, or Gelaki. The name of Leges, or Legæ, who have continued to occupy these regions, is recognised in that of Legi, Leski."

The article (in its current state) only focuses on the second mention of the Gelae, but the first mention has to be taken into account as well and added to the article, as in the first one the Gelae and Legae are placed by Strabo between the Amazons (in northern Caucasus) and the Albanians, than you can at least agree that placing the Gelae south of the Albanians and the Legae North of the Albanians directly contradicts this. Also the connection to Gilan is also a theory. Since the Gelae are placed next to the Legae, who are unanimously connected to modern Leks, we have to at least allow the version that the Gelae could be the Galgai (a Nakh people), as is the opinion of many authors. As we know both Gelae and Legae are called Scythian by Strabo, but Lezgins do not belong to the Iranian language group but instead are part of the Nakh-Dagestanian language group. So this in fact would not make them Scythian, so the same could apply to the Gelae. This is why I rephrased the lead sentence to “Strabo mentioned them as a Scythian tribe”. The reason for calling them Scythian could have been merely a way of referencing all North Caucasian tribes, which was called Scythia by some ancient authors, Sarmatia by others.

• Can you tell me why you have an issue with 19 century authors, when the lead sentence you mention provides a reference to a 19th century dicitionary: Vol. 1. of the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1852)? By your logic this would be outdated as well. In the same manner I can reference a similar Geographical Dictionary (1821) https://www.google.be/books/edition/Algemeen_aardrijkskundig_woordenboek/PmSzpPIyyFQC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Strabo+Ghalgha+Gellai&pg=PA1050 which attributes Strabo’s Gelai (Gellai) to the Ghalghaï (Ingush). So I disagree on that view, also because Russian, French, German, and Georgian scholars have studied the Caucasus region more than anyone else and there are multiple works published on this subject throughout the 19-20 centuries.

• You have also stated that you have issues with the usage of Colton’s map (the on I added to the article), because you say the term Gelia is not appropriate to designate their territory, as they were a tribe. If you don't like this cartopgraher, then how about French ethnographer Frédéric DuBois de Montperreux’s map based on Strabo’s Geography? See: here for FULL SIZE MAP

As you can see F. Dubois de Montpereux takes both mention’s of the Gelae into account when composing the map. The first would place them in Central Caucasus – Galgai (Gheles) to the west of the Lesghae (Leghes). And the second mention places them near Gilan (South of Albania); which proves that they were either two separate tribes, or there were simply 2 different geographical accounts.

• The following historians, scholars, etc., attribute the Gelae to the Galgai (there are more, but I added the more valid ones):

- Arnold Chikobava (2010). Введение в иберийско-кавказское языкознание [Introduction to Iberian-Caucasian Linguistics] (in Russian). Tbilisi: «Универсал» / p. 31

“The terms «Sindian», «Gligvian», «Legian», «Albanian» correspond to the names of peoples mentioned in historical Greek sources: Sindi — are one of the Adyghe peoples; Γιλγ- [Gligvi] — the old Georgian name of for Nakh peoples, in particular the Ingush, Γαλγα- [Galga] — the self-name of the Ingush people is close to Ancient Greek 𝐠𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐢, and 𝐥𝐞𝐠 is close to Ancient Greek 𝐥𝐞́𝐠𝐨𝐢 (cf. Georgian «leḳ-i» — the collective name of the peoples of Dagestan)”

- Ivane Javakhishvili. (1937). "The initial structure and relationship of the Georgian and Caucasian languages." Tbilisi, 1937. / p. 97

“In ancient times, Greek and Roman geographers called the native inhabitants of the middle and eastern parts of Transcaucasia «Geli» and «Legi». The name Geli (Gelae) is the equivalent of the modern «𝐆𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐠𝐡𝐚», as pronounced in their own language and in the Tushin language; and the equivalent of Legi is the Georgian «Lekebi» (Leks, Avars). In Georgian, the first corresponds to «𝐆𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐠𝐡𝐯𝐢» (singular) and «𝐆𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐠𝐡𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐛𝐢» (plural), which are often found in old Tushin folk poems. And in other regions of Georgia, it is customary to designate them as «𝐆𝐡𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐯𝐢».”

- William Edward David Allen, A History of the Georgian People: From the Beginning Down to the Russian Conquest in the Nineteenth Century

"Of the ethnography of the east Caucasus, the ancients were entirely ignorant. The Amazons occupied the blank upon the map, and Strabo records only two names which may be recognizable: the Ghelae, possibly the Galgai of Russian writers; and the Legas, the Leki of the Georgians - Lazgis, a generic name sometimes applied to all the tribes of Dagestan."

- P. Butkov. «Slavic antiquities. Three ancient treaties of the Russians with the Norwegians and the Swedes». St. Petersburg, 1837 / p. 10

“Strabo, a native of the Cappadocian city of Amazia, neighboring Themyscira, claims that the Amazons retreated into the depths of the Caucasus, close to the 𝐿𝑒𝑔𝑖 and 𝐺𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑖, that is, to the Lezgins and the same 𝐺𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑖, or 𝑮𝒂𝒍𝒈𝒂𝒊-𝑲𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒊, who dwell on the river 𝑂𝑠𝑎 (Assa), flowing into the Sunzha. As a result, the Amazons settled on the 𝑍𝑎𝑢𝑟 path or in 𝑆𝑎𝑢𝑟𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑎, and here their ancient name is remembered by Ptolemy, the Byzantines and Movses Khorenatsi. who calls the Amazons – 𝐴𝑚𝑎𝑧𝑢𝑛 , the Lezgins – 𝐿𝑒𝑔𝑖, and the 𝑮𝒆𝒍𝒂𝒊 – 𝐾ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑖, placing the latter nearby 𝐾𝑎𝑧𝑏𝑎, that is, the Caucasian mountain 𝑲𝒂𝒛𝒃𝒆𝒌.”

- Adolf Berge, «A Brief Review of the Mountain Tribes in the Caucasus». Tiflis, 1858 / p. 38

“The antiquity of their very name is confirmed by the fact that it is found in the works of Strabo and Plutarch, who mention 𝞚𝞰𝜸𝞪𝞲 and 𝞒𝞰𝞴𝞪𝞲 as tribes living between Albania and the Amazons. Scientist Klaproth recognizes these 𝞒𝞰𝞴𝞪𝞲 scientist Klaproth recognizes in today’s 𝑮𝒂𝒍𝒈𝒂𝒊, inhabiting the lands at the confluence of the rivers Shalgir (Assa) and Sunzha.”

- A. Yanovsky. «Journal of the Ministry of Public Education». Part LII. Saint Petersburg, 1846 / p. 201

“𝑮𝒆𝒍𝒂𝒊, the present-day 𝑲𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒊, are the 𝑮𝒂𝒍𝒈𝒂 tribe, living northwest of Sheki and the Alazani Valley, and the Leki or Lezgins — to the north at the peaks of the Caucasus, just as then, lived, where they live now, and beyond them in the northern slopes of the mountains and in the valley neighboring them, perhaps even up to Kuban, are believed to be the dwellings of the Amazons. Even if you accept the 𝐺𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑖, as others do, to be forest inhabitants, even then their location will not change; for Pliny’s Sylvi lived only below or south of the 𝐿𝑒𝑧𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑠 and 𝐾𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑖, and the people on the north side of the Caucasus, occupying the forest mountains, could as well be called 𝐺𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑖.”

_____

Lastly, can you provide me the links to those other works with provides the same translation of Bardaisan?

I would like to check these sources. Thank you. Muqale (talk) 12:58, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Too much to unpack at one time—but given the continuous attempts to re-insert this dubious material over and over again, I'll do my best to explain why it doesn't belong in this article. Your question about "19th century sources" misunderstands the problem with them. One is an encyclopedia describing what Greek and Roman sources have to say about various topics; it's not pushing an agenda by trying to tie brief references to people whose name might possibly be the source of the name of a locality to various claims of ancient ancestry by modern tribes using wild and haphazard etymology.

"P. Butkov"—actually Peter Butkov—in 1837, drawing a connection between the shadowy Gelae of two thousand years earlier and the modern Galgai, based on who his theories about the Amazons, who cannot be clearly identified with any particular ancient or modern people, is not a particularly reliable source, precisely because the basis for his identification is his personal theories about the Amazons and a tortured etymology. Yanovsky (1846) and Berge (1858) merely seem to be assuming that whatever tribes in the region have similar names today must be descended from Strabo's Gelae and Legae. This as likely to be accurate as asserting that the Hungarians are descended from the Huns, or the Romany from the Romans.

Javakhishvili (1937) merely seems to be repeating this assumption. Allen, around the same time, repeats the claim with caution, preceding the same by stating, "[o]f the ethnography of the east Caucasus, the ancients were entirely ignorant. The Amazons occupied the blank upon the map". This is not a strong basis for asserting the identity of modern tribes with those barely known to Strabo or Ptolemy. The only recent source you included, Chikobava (2010), again simply repeats the tortured etymology necessary to derive a modern name from something only briefly mentioned by ancient geographers.

A quotation of Strabo's discussion of the Amazons in an earlier passage is unhelpful to this article; to the extent that the passage mentions the subject of the article, it could be cited or noted to describe what Strabo said, but it does not need a lengthy quotation that is mostly off-topic. Returning to the mythical Amazons again and again in an attempt to fix the geography of some other people is generally irrelevant. It is unclear why you continue to take this material at face value when it appears to be exceedingly unscholarly and illogical—I can only suppose that you have a personal interest in establishing the antiquity of modern peoples of the Caucasus. But since you cannot be dissuaded from pursuing your own agenda on Wikipedia, I see no point in continuing this discussion—you're going to do whatever you want no matter how many times you're reverted. P Aculeius (talk) 14:57, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

It seems rather lazy to disregard everything I provided as irrelevant. Basically your sources are not pushing an agenda, but all the ones I provided are? I showed you a similar Dutch dictionary. How is that pushing an agenda? The fact that the Gelae (and Legae) are called Scythian directly comes from Strabo's first quotation of them which you label "unhelpful to the article". And I have properly sourced this in the article. And I do not believe accusing me of "pursuing an agenda" is the right way to engage in this discussion. Also disregarding Russian and Georgian scholars and caucasologists in this way is unscientific. It is not simple the likeness in the name like you claim, but the closeness of the Legae (Lezgins) to the Gelae and contact with Amazons or a warlike women tribe cannot be viewed as irrelevant just because you deem it so. Perhaps you not having access to Russian and Georgian sources could be a factor, but that should not be the problem of others who are aware of them. Though for some reason you have no problem with leaving P. von Uslar (19th century) vague quote. Multiple archaelogical findings in Ingushetia have pointed out that there could have actually been contact with Phrygian culture and Amazons. Look up "Koorkhars" (Курхарс) or de Maiden Tower in Ingushetia, or other cultural elements, like the main deity of antiquity of the Galgai (Ingush) who was called upon as "Gelaj" (god/spirit of the Sun and fire in pagan times). There is more than enough research on this topic, for it to be simply ignored. I wouldn't be opposed to involving a third party (admin) to review all the sources. Muqale (talk) 15:23, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Third party here. I just removed most of the outdated sources. I'm really inclined to restore P Aculeius's revision. Muqale: Please see WP:RS, WP:AGEMATTERS, WP:PRIMARY, WP:PST, WP:SCHOLARSHIP and WP:SPS. This article is one heck of a mess, it needs a complete rewrite. --HistoryofIran (talk) 16:04, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

A complete rewrite is what I attempted to do a year or two ago—sticking to just the basics, and sources I felt were trustworthy, at least for their own contents. There could possibly be something in all this mess that can be sensibly incorporated into the article without giving it undue weight. But it's really hard for me to evaluate all of the sources and their claims, except that the etymological claims and sources that seem to accept a connection between ancient peoples on the periphery of Greek knowledge and modern tribes uncritically seems very dubious.

Some of the 19th century sources do not look very good to me. The DGRG is a source I know and trust for classical scholarship, not modern ethnography; but if the scholars who produced it relate something to a modern people or place, that seems like a valid opinion—albeit one that more recent scholarship might dispute or refute. What I'm not convinced of is that recent scholarship has done that.

This article needs attention from a third party who can fairly evaluate each claim for its scholarship, and not give undue weight to vague or unsubstantiated etymological associations. That would be someone more familiar with the history of this region. If HoI wants to undertake that, I suggest allowing him to try. P Aculeius (talk) 17:24, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Reversing page move

This page was listed at "uncontroversial technical requests" earlier this morning, and the almost request immediately granted, moving the page from Gelae (Scythian tribe) to Gelae (tribe). I have no idea why the requester would assume that making the title shorter by removing the only clue to readers what the topic was about would be uncontroversial. "Tribe" does absolutely nothing to indicate where or when the Gelae existed—in ancient Scythia or the modern Amazon rain forest, rural Spain, the Philippines, Caribbean, India, Africa—the list could go on forever! At least "Scythian tribe" gives the reader some idea what the article is about. It's not wordy or awkward, but it is helpful in a way that the current title is clearly not. I think it needs to be put back where it was—the move is clearly not uncontroversial! P Aculeius (talk) 17:56, 19 December 2023 (UTC)