Merv, the Queen of the
World;
and the Scourge of the Man-stealing Turcomans. With an
Exposition of the Khorassan Question:
By Charles Thomas Marvin, Published by W.H. Allen, 1881
CHAPTER III. THE ORIGIN OF THE Turkmen.
WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE MINOR TRIBES.
Page 39
- Page 40 - Page 41
- Page
42 - Page 43
- Page
44 - Page 45
- Page
46 - Page 47
- Page
48 - Page 49
- Page
50 - Page 51
- Page
52 - Page 53
- Page
54 - Page 55
- Page
56 - Page 57
- Page
58 - Page 59
- Page
60 - Page 61
- Page
62 - Page 63
- Page
64
Page 40
IN
the opinion of Professor Vambery,* "there is no
doubt that the Turkmen
belong to that branch of the Turkish race which first
separated from the bulk of the natives known to have
lived in pre-historic times in the Altai and in the upper
regions of the Yenissei and of the Irtish, and who
started the first in the search of a new home on the
plains of southwestern Asia. This evidently took place
long before the beginning of the Christian era; possibly
at the same time that the ancestors of the modern
Baskirs, Chuvashes, and Nogais appeared on the banks of
the Ural, of the Dnieper, and of the Volga ; and whilst
these latter ones only touched in their migration the
northern region of the Caspian sea, the Turkmen
have spread gradually, partly southwards, partly
eastwards, in the great steppes and deserts which extend
on the eastern shores of the said sea towards the outlying
ranges of the Hindu Kush.
Here they lived in remote antiquity,
and here they were met with by the outposts of the Roman
and Greek armies ; nay, I go even further in assuming
that the Parthians were simply the ancestors of the
present Yomuds and Tekkes, for the home of the ancient
Parthians — namely, Dehistan (so called from Dahae,
a Parthian tribe, as we learn from Sir Henry Rawlinson)
— consisted
of the region between the Atrek and the Balkan hills, at
present and, as far as historical record reaches, always
the abode of the Turkmen.
Of course the thick veil of obscurity hanging over this
part of ancient Asia does not permit us to penetrate into
geographical and ethnical
* Lecture, London, April 10th, 1880.
Page 39
- Page 40 - Page 41
- Page
42 - Page 43
- Page
44 - Page 45
- Page
46 - Page 47
- Page
48 - Page 49
- Page
50 - Page 51
- Page
52 - Page 53
- Page
54 - Page 55
- Page
56 - Page 57
- Page
58 - Page 59
- Page
60 - Page 61
- Page
62 - Page 63
- Page
64
|