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Archiver > HERBARZ > 2001-05 > 0989054817


From: "Geoffrey Vasiliauskas" <>
Subject: Re: Celestial Horse statue in Lodz
Date: Sat, 5 May 2001 11:26:57 +0200
References: <F293PumSeAkRH3ALZ9f00001f97@hotmail.com>


Thanking Mr. MacGregor for going over what for the rest is old ground, I
wonder why Poles and Lithuanians would have to inherit tamgas from
Sarmatians. Tamgas were in continual use by Turkic tribes from their first
mention BC by Chinese chroniclers till now. Uighurs and other clans used
specific tamgas to mark property, especially livestock. Their tamgas are
rounded as might brands be expected to be. I thought tamgas originated in
Central-East Asia, but the correspondents here write they were in use from
Germany to China, as if their origin is obscure. Analyzing Lithuanian-Polish
herbai with tamga-like elements, it's possible to trace them back to
specific Turkic clans. I will send anyone who is interested images of charts
showing the correspondences between Tartar herbai and their Asian analogues.
The Columns of Gediminas I haven't found per se, but they obviously fit the
pattern. I'm wondering if maybe there isn't some confusion over runes and
tamgas. Swastikas DON'T seem to figure in the Turkic clan tamgas, while they
are quite common in pagan Europe to India.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Daniel MacGregor" <>

> Although I have (unfortunately) not kept earlier Emails on the subject, my
> impressions of earlier exchanges of the subject is that the Poles (and
> through them, the Lithuanians) happened to pick up on "tamgas" long after
> the Sarmatians would have passed from human memory, and that their having
> done this is a "fortuitous happenstance," as a more wordy generation would
> have had it.


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