T Omsk scientists argue that Alexander the Great was defeated not in India, and in Siberia from Russ
How this is possible, the publication "Russian Planet" found out from the head of the researchers, geographer Nikolai Novgorodov.
In Tomsk, you are preparing an expedition to search for artifacts of Alexander the Great's stay in Siberia. In our time, it is already difficult to be surprised at anything, but justify why you are sure that Macedonian was in Siberia?
Because I studied a huge amount of materials related to Alexander's campaign. And when I get acquainted with critical remarks, I immediately see what the opponent read and what the opponent did not read.
What sources do you rely on?
These are ancient authors, and Arab travelers, and Slavic chronicles, and cartographic materials and imperishable creations of Ferdowsi, Nizami, Navoi, and much more.
What have poets got to do with it?
Philologists have their own "poetic" version of Alexander's route. Poets of all times and peoples claimed that Alexander crossed the Kypchak steppes, fought with the Rus for a long time and with great difficulty and reached the Sea of Darkness. The Roman poet Juvenal in the second century ran around Rome and shouted that Alexander the Great had reached a motionless, that is, a frozen sea, and this was in the land of Darkness, that is, in the Arctic.
Promotional video:
Well, poets are capable of a lot for the sake of a catchphrase
Don't tell. A poet in the whole world is more than a poet. A poet is the wisdom and conscience of the people. In the old days, poets wrote, of course, floridly, but they strictly adhered to the truth. This is how Nizami Ganjavi wrote about it:
The clarity of my thought is from the source of knowledge, Having learned all the sciences, I achieved recognition.
In describing Alexander's campaign, the poets relied on the oral stories of veterans. The poetic version is at odds with the generally accepted version developed by historians.
Isn't the historical version of the campaign based on the stories of veterans?
Yes, but … Alexander's companions published their memoirs, but they have not survived to this day. They were used in their works by the historians Diodorus (1st century BC), Curtius Rufus (1st century), Arrian (2nd century), Plutarch (2nd century), Justin (II-III centuries), geographers Strabo and Ptolemy. All subsequent historical literature about Alexander is based on their works. You can see that the above-mentioned authors wrote 400-500 years after the era of Alexander (IV century BC).
Geographical knowledge has greatly increased during this time, the scientists of Greece and Rome already knew well that deep snow cannot lie in India, severe frosts are inconceivable in the subtropics and tropics, and there can be no gloom, so they diligently cleaned these places from the memoirs of veterans. But, despite all the tricks, some of the northern realities have been preserved by ancient authors. Modern historians try not to notice them, but specialists in historical geography, when they get acquainted with these works, begin to doubt that Alexander was in India.
From the point of view of the logic and methodology of science, the dispute between the two sciences of philology and history marks, firstly, the presence of the problem of Alexander's route, and secondly, that this problem is of an interdisciplinary nature and, in my opinion, the science of geography is called upon to solve it. World science does not notice this problem, because it considers the proven version offered by historians.
What is the essence of the historical version and what part of the route is the dispute over?
Everyone knows the historical version very well. From Central Asia, Alexander rushed to India, stayed in the Punjab, floated down the Indus to the ocean, overwintered at the mouth and went on foot to Babylon. Along the way, he lost 105 thousand of his invincible fighters from the 135 thousand army. Let's remember this figure, it will be useful to us.
The essence of the historical version is that everything in it is rearranged. What was at the beginning was put at the end, and what was at the end was put at the beginning.
For example, Alexander killed Klyt Cherny with his own hands at a feast in Samarkand and soon went to "India". There, Klit is mentioned three times as a living and unharmed participant in the battles. And this is, undoubtedly, "the same" Klit, the brother of Alexander Lanika's nurse, the commander of the tsarist squadron, with whom Alexander always went into battle. In the very first battle with the Persians at Granicus, Cleite saved the life of Alexander. And this man, Alexander "soaked in a drunken business." Historians carefully ignore this episode, because, taking into account it, the historical version of the Eastern campaign crumbles.
If Oliver Stone knew about Cleet, he would hardly have made his famous film about Alexander.
After all, it turns out that after the battles on the Indus and Gidaspe, after rafting to the ocean and wintering at the mouth of the Indus, Alexander entered Samarkand ?! Then where and under what circumstances did he lose more than three quarters of his army? Historians are astonishingly indifferent to the rearrangement of events: "Here, it seems to me, one should not remain silent about one wonderful deed of Alexander, no matter whether it was done here or earlier in the land of parapamisades."
The internal inconsistency of the historical version leads to the fact that, along with the confusion of events, historians have confused rivers flowing into each other. In the same Arrian one can read that Akesin flows into the Indus, that Akesin is the largest tributary of the Hydasp, that the Hydasp flows into Akesin, that the Hydasp flows into the Great Sea with two mouths.
In Curtius Rufus, Akesin merges with Hydasp and flows into the Indus, but with him "the Ganges intercepts Akesin's road to the sea and creates an inconvenient mouth with whirlpools at the place of its confluence." Justin writes that Alexander swam along Akesin to the Ocean, swam along the coast and entered the mouth of the Indus. Imagine, according to Arrian, Alexander approaching the Indus from the east: “The regions beyond the Indus River to the west up to the Cofena River are inhabited by tribes … that's who lives on the other side of the Indus to the west, up to the Cofena River. It is clear that it is absolutely impossible to restore the true route of Alexander on such a geography.
It is good that we have a geographic characteristic of the areas visited by Alexander, which is deadly for historians, indicating that the land he called India was not actually located on the Indian subcontinent.
What is this killer characteristic?
We are talking about measuring the length of the shadow from trees at noon and about calculating the latitude of the area based on these measurements. The learned Greeks accompanying Alexander's army measured the length of the shadow from trees of a certain height everywhere. They did it at noon (the midday line is the shortest shadow). The ratio of the height of the tree to the length of the shadow was determined by the tangent of the angle of the sun above the horizon at noon, and the tangent of the angle itself.
The height of the sun above the horizon depends on the latitude of the area and on the season. In Tomsk, for example, on the winter solstice of December 21-22, the sun does not rise above 10 degrees. And at the summer solstice at the end of June it reaches 56 degrees. In subtropical India, the sun does not drop below 34 degrees above the horizon in winter.
The Greeks brought some measurements to us. Diodorus wrote that a tree 70 cubits high cast a shadow over three plephra. With an elbow dimension of 0.45 m and a plephra of 28.7 m, the tangent is 0.354 and the angle itself is 19.5 degrees. The latitude calculation for the winter solstice is shown in the figure. The latitude is 47 degrees. If the measurement was made at any other time of the year, it was made to the north. If, say, at the equinox, then at a latitude of 70 degrees, and at the summer solstice, even at the pole, the sun does not drop below 23 degrees.
So you believe that this measurement was not made in India?
According to trigonometry and celestial mechanics, Alexander's army at this time was 15 degrees north of India. It is over 1600 km. Strabo gave half of the second dimension. He did not indicate the height of the tree, but the length of the shadow turned out to be equal to five stages (925 m). If the measurement was taken in India in winter, the height of the tree should be more than six hundred meters. There are no such trees on Earth. At normal tree height, this measurement was made in the Subpolar region at a latitude of 64 degrees with the sun being 2 degrees above the horizon. Agree, there is no smell of India in the Polar region.
You are leading to the fact that (as in the case of Columbus, who went to discover India, and discovered America), in written sources India was simply called a country unknown to Macedonian historians?
Quite right. The famous English philologist and orientalist Max Müller (1823-1900) emphasized that all unknown countries in the old days were called the Indies. On the map of Siberia, Claudius Ptolemy INDIA Superior is located on the shores of the Arctic Ocean. And on the historical and ethnographic map of the Siberian Metropolitan Cornelius, compiled in Tobolsk in 1673, the Indian Samoyad is placed between the Pura and Ob rivers.
With whom do you think the Macedonian troops fought on the territory of "India", with the ancestors of the Samoyeds?
The Greeks called everyone living to the north barbarians and Scythians. Regarding the Scythian ambassadors who exhorted Alexander: "Calm down!" (Curtius Rufus), Mavro Orbini claimed that in fact they were Slavic ambassadors. Persian poets later wrote that Alexander fought not with the Scythians, but with the Rus. And in the ancient texts it is quite clearly said that Alexander fought with the Rus and Slavs. For example, the Ustrushans are the Russians; gedros are Rus with a prefix that means military affiliation; the king of Por and his people pores - if you restore the initial "s" - disputes, as the Byzantines called the Slavs. It is no coincidence, but near Tomsk the river Poros flows into Tom on the left, and on it there is the village of Porosino. This is not from the pig, but from the Pig. The Macedonians called the Porosians the Prasians.
And why did the Macedonian even need to go to Siberia?
Siberia, which the learned Greeks who accompanied the Macedonian, called India, was fabulously rich and densely populated. From Siberia to Europe with a frequency of 200-300 years, waves of immigrants rolled in: Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians, Goths, Huns, Khazars, Bulgars, Hungarians, Pechenegs, Polovtsians, etc. These waves rolled from Siberia due to overpopulation. In ancient times, the Siberian forest-steppe zone was called the earthly paradise, because it provided everything necessary for life, and in abundance. Rivers - fish, forests - furs, honey and elk, arable land - rye, millet, oats and barley, meadows - abundant grass and hay for the winter.
Look, a little to the south, the merciless sun burns out the grass and the cattle breeders have to roam. In the forest-steppe, livestock raising is settled. And a combination is formed, which the ancient Greeks called an idyll: shepherding and fishing (in Greece itself, these occupations are landscaped). The abundant herbage on the riverine meadows provided hay for the winter for any number of domestic cattle. And this is milk, sour cream, cottage cheese, butter all year round. Hence the low infant mortality rate. With a high birth rate (Russian women who moved to Siberia in the 17th – 18th centuries gave birth to 18 children each), the population increased explosively. Hence the overpopulation, which required the regular resettlement of part of the people, which was happening.
Since wealth is created by human labor, Siberia was fabulously rich. The Greeks and Macedonians were literally shocked by the greatness and antiquity of the culture that opened to their eyes. Many cities, and these were huge cities, up to 45 sq. km. Majestic temples. The continuous genealogy of the kings consisted of 153 names and lasted 6040 years. The complete absence of slavery and universal literacy. They wrote on birch bark, the Greeks called it bark.
Siberia was inhabited by the Russian Slavs because there was Siberian Russia, the original Russia. Our ancestors called it Lukomoria. On the maps of Western European cartographers of the 16th – 17th centuries, the right bank of the Ob River is named Lukomoria.
The city of Tanais on the Tanais River attracts special attention. (Not to be confused with Tanais on the Don, it will be built only in a century). If we drop the Greek suffix, we get the river and the city of Tana. The pseudo-Arrian calls him Tina and says that he lies completely in the north, under the Ursa Minor itself. Greek scientists in this city measured the length of the shadow and calculated the length of the longest day. It turned out to be equal to 17 hours 10 minutes, just like in Tomsk. And the latitude of the area was impeccable (since the measurement was made at the summer solstice) was calculated by Claudius Ptolemy - 57 degrees (at Tomsk, 56 degrees 30 minutes).
Apart from the books you have studied on this subject, is there any further confirmation of your theory? Maps, pictures, or something else?
I know only one map. S. U. Remezov in the "Drawing Book" cites a map of the Lower Amur with the inscription "Tsar Alexander the Great reached this point and hid the weapon and left the bell with the people."
This card could be regarded as a curiosity, if not for one important circumstance. Rafting down the Yenisei, Alexander reached an area near the ocean, which the Mongols called "Mangu". In the same way, the name Amur sounds in the Tungus-Manchurian languages. Apparently, the Tunguses reported to Remezov that the Macedonian had reached Mangu and he decided that it was Cupid.
Many images of Alexander have been found in Russia, not only in India. This is the relief of the scene of the ascension of Alexander on the southern facade of the Dmitrievsky Cathedral in Vladimir, and similar scenes on silver dishes "caught" with a fishing net at the mouth of the Ob. But “something else” is especially interesting, namely the Slavic chronicles.
V. N. Tatishchev referred to the Joachim Chronicle, which spoke about the ties of the Slavic princes with Alexander.
The Czech chronicle cited the letter given by Alexander to the Slavs.
The Polish "Great Chronicle" claimed that the sorcerer Leszek expelled the Macedonian from the Polish lands with witchcraft. The Grand Duke Vladimir Monomakh, in his "Teachings", expressed confidence that Alexander came to Ugra. The secretary of the Egyptian sultan Al-Omari in the XIV century confirmed the words of Vladimir: "Behind the lands of the Yugorsk, which are on the outskirts of the North, there are no longer any settlements, except for the large tower built by Iskender."
The war with Alexander the Great left a noticeable mark on the soul of the Russian people. In Russian epics, Alexander is referred to as Tugarin Zmeevich.
Our ancestors knew that Alexander positioned himself as the son of God, either Zeus, or Amun. Mother Olympias assured Sasha that Zeus had penetrated her bed in the form of a snake, at which Plutarch laughed mercilessly. Our forefathers also knew about this and called Alexander only Zmeevich.
In the texts about the campaigns of the Macedonian, one can find a mention of the fact that he built the great wall, and also that as retribution for losing the battle in the East, he erected the Copper Gate. Did you manage to find something that fits this description in Siberia?
The wall and gate are one object, not two different ones. Ferdowsi, Nizami and Navoi wrote that Alexander built a wall and the Copper Gate against the gogs and magogs at the request of local residents who were offended by these gogs and magogs.
Sura 18 of the Koran mentions the construction of this facility, and mentions some kind of payment, either "we will pay you for your work", or "you will pay us for our losses." I have already written that a new, more thorough reading of the ancient text by the Arabists is required.
I believe that this object was built in the Tonel (Putorana) mountains, that only the exit from the cave complex could be successfully blocked. This gate was seen and described by the Arab traveler Sallam at-Tarjuman on the instructions of Caliph al-Wasik. Tomsk architect and local historian Gennady Skvortsov reconstructed the image of the Copper Gate. I drew up a project to search for an object, submitted two applications for funding, did not receive anything, tried to organize a trip to those regions, but so far I have not mastered it.