The most interesting version of the origin of peoples Etruscans and Umbrians, as well as their language and writing, is their origin from the "peoples of the sea" - the Pelasgians, Lelegs, Dardani, Trojans and Danaans.
« The Egyptians called the peoples of the sea the culprits of the universal turmoil of the XII century (BC - author). However, according to Egyptian data, from this motley conglomerate of tribes one can actually isolate Pelasgians. In some monuments they are directly called Pelasgami (Pulasati), in others, appear under the names Trojan Pelasgians-Dardans (Dardna), Pelasgians-Tevkrovs (Takkara) or Argive Pelasgians - Danaans (dainiuna).
The mention of the Dainiuna in Egyptian inscriptions has given rise to a whole literature, mainly focused on the question: were the Dainiuna the famous Homeric Greek-Danaans? However, it seems doubtful the legitimacy of the very formulation of such questions, because the Danaans, rather, were not the Greeks, but the same Pelasgians " .
An extremely important and full-fledged study on the Pelasgians and other peoples of the Mediterranean pre-Greek era was made by the researcher Sergei Darda in the book "Belt of Peace". He noted the following interpretations of the name "Pelasg":
"PELASGA (PELASGA) or PELASGUS (PELASGUS - Πελασγις).
Used as a second the name of the Thessalian Hera and Demeter. Demeter under this name had Temple in Argos and, according to existing belief, she received this name from Pelasg, the son of Triop, who founded a sanctuary dedicated to her.
"PELASGI (PELASGI - Πελασγoι) - d zealous people who inhabited prehistoric times all of Greece and the coast with the islands of the Aegean Sea. Their traces are also in Asia Minor (Türkiye) and Italy. A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography".
Absolutely ingenious, in my opinion, an assumption regarding the origin the name of the Pelasgians and Lelegs Sergey Darda put forward: “ According to ancient legends, the Pelasgians were called Pelasgians because it was nomadic people who, like storks, flew from place to place. in Greek stork - πελαργoς, pelargos - pelargós, and, according to ancient authors, it is from this word that the ethnonym Pelasgians comes. The name of the second most frequently mentioned pre-Greek people, Lelegov, very similar With Ukrainian word"leleka" - stork, Turkish - leylek, Albanian - lejlek.
“The Attic historian tells of their life there, and says that because of their tendency to migrate, the inhabitants of Attica called them Πελαργoι (storks), (Strabo, 5.R.221) ".
« Further, Anticlides relates that the Pelasgians were the first to settle the regions around Lemnos and Imbros, and, indeed, some of them, led by Tyrrhenus, the son of Atis, crossed to Italy. And the collators of the "History of Atfis" also report on the stay Pelasgians in Athens, but since it was a nomadic tribe that, like birds, flew anywhere, the inhabitants of Attica called them "pelargs" (literally "storks")» .
Another interpretation of the name is associated with the word Πελαγoς - sea (Greek). Pelasgians are known in history as the people who inhabited Palestine under the name Philistines :
"Term Philistines- typical in Greek translation Bible adaptation of Hebrew pelishtim. In turn, the biblical pelishtim is a reworking of the Pelasgian word with a characteristic rethinking of this ethnonym, which acquired the meaning of a wanderer, settlers» .
Based on historical data about the Pelasgians Sergei Darda makes the following conclusion: “Given that Asia Minor was at that time inhabited mainly by Pelasgian peoples, it can be assumed that Asia Minor authors had direct access to information about the Pelasgians, which increases the reliability of data on Pelasgians. Based on the information provided to us by the authors of antiquity, we can draw the following conclusions regarding the Pelasgians.
1. According to legend, the Pelasgians were the most ancient chronicled people, who lived in what is now Greece, east coast Anatolia(Greek ἀνατολή) (modern Turkey) and on the territory Italy.
2. The areas in which the Pelasgians lived for sure areArcadia, Argolis, Attica, Boeotia, Thessaly, Epirus, Ionia, Samothrace, Lemnos, Imbros, Lesbos , which according to legend was formerly called Pelasgia And Crete, as well as parts of Italy.
3. As a result of the arrival of the ancient Greek tribes, Pelasgians were forced out of Greece to the east, in Asia Minor and adjacent islands. The remaining Pelasgians were assimilated by the Greek colonists. Despite the differences between Greeks and Pelasgians, both belonged to Indo-European group peoples" .
Other pre-Greek peoples of the Mediterranean, which is often found in historical sources are LELEGI. Sergei Darda reports the following about the Lelegs: "IN in general terms The following conclusions can be drawn based on the information about the Lelegs:
1. Historians of antiquity believed the Lelegs, like the Pelasgians, the oldest people who inhabited Greece. 
2. According to the historians of antiquity, the Leleges lived over a large area Greece, namely: on Leukas, in Acarnania, Locris, Boeotia, Messenia, Laconia, Argolis, in Ionia on the coast of Asia Minor, near Troy, in Caria, Halicarnassus, Pisidia, Chios and Samos.
3. Lelegs were considered a kindred people Carians, Lydians and Mysians.
4. If the Lydians were a people related to the Leleges, and thus it is possible and Pelasgam, then the legend retold Herodotus about the ancestors of the Etruscans, colonists from Lydia to Italy, indirectly confirms belonging Etruscans to Pelasgian peoples who inhabited the Mediterranean before the arrival of the Greeks.
5. Homer counts Lelegov to the peoples, allied Trojans.
6. There was a legend according to which Leleg, the ancestor of the Lelegs, came from Egypt.
7. Lelegi(Greek λελεκι - Leleks) were ousted from Greece, and then from Asia Minor Greek tribes » .
At Slavic peoples stork (gr. λελεκι - Leleks) it is a sacred animal, about which many legends, beliefs and stories are composed, killing a stork is a mortal sin, it is believed that storks were once the totem animal of the ancient Slavs. In one of Slavic legends it is said that in autumn the stork flies to a mysterious distant land Vyry or to Irey ( "to the Aryan country"), to Paradise where the souls of dead ancestors live. According to one of the legends about storks, the stork flies to the end of the world in autumn, where he plunges into the lake and turns into a man; in the spring he dips into another lake, turns back into a stork, and returns home. Etymology of the word Irey associated with a distant sea: “According to this version, Z.-Rus. cut out, Ukrainian viry, virey, white vyray, floor. dial. Wyraj"a mythological land where they winter migratory birds"(Proto-Slavic form *irijь or vyrijь) goes back to I.-e. *iur"body of water, sea", lit. Jura"sea". (F. Bezlay, Slavic Antiquities, T2, p. 423). This is confirmed by numerous Russian hydronyms: Vyry, Vyrya, Vyra, toponyms Vyrya, Vyrets and Old Russian lexemes vyr, vir whirlpool, Ukrainian Virey, virij, "circle, whirlpool, whirlpool", Slovenian. virij "swamp", ir "depth, depth", as well as the name of the Slovenian village Verjana standing at the confluence of two rivers, reconstructed as *vyr(üj)ane - "living near vyry".
Most of the storks from the Slavic lands fly to Africa for the winter. Among the ancient Egyptian artifacts of 3-2 millennia BC, images of storks are found, afterworld or paradise among the ancient Egyptians was called Iar.
It can be assumed, that Pelasgians and Leleges — kindred peoples who had one totem - a stork.
The composition of the pre-Greek peoples of the Mediterranean included DARDANUS (Greek Δαρδανος). Concerning the dardan, Sergey Darda writes: “ On this moment the following conclusions can be drawn:
1. The period of life of the Biblical Darda and Dardanus of the Mediterranean approximately coincide on the time scale.
2. The lifetime of the Dardanus of the Mediterranean falls approximately on a period close to flood of Deucalion. In this regard, it is interesting to recall that according to the legends Dardan left Arcadia as a result of the flood and the riots that followed.
3. Because, according to the legends, Pelasgians were the original inhabitants of Arcadia., then Dardanus, who immigrated to Asia Minor, can be considered with a high degree of probability a Pelasgian.
4. Battle of Kadesh in which the Dardani are mentioned as allies of the Hittites, occurred about a hundred years after the foundation Dardania in Asia Minor; thus these two facts (the battle of Kadesh and the founding of Dardania) are linked in a chronological sense with each other.
5. The Trojan War (1240-1230 BC) approximately coincides in time with the battle of Ramesses III with the Philistines (Pelasgians). Considering that Asia Minor lost the Trojan War, and the Philistines, according to legend, flooded in from Asia Minor and the adjacent islands, it is likely that the Philistines made a forced migration from Asia Minor, unless, of course, we can identify them with the Trojans and their allies.
6. Peleg of the Bible and Pelasg of the Mediterranean, if the dating we have is correct, they lived in different eras.
7. Dardania of Asia Minor and the country of Darada on northern India, probably existed in parallel in time, however Indian Darada, most likely originated before the Dardania of Asia Minor.
Sergei Darda did not mention DANATSEV ( Dayniuna - Egyptian) - the people of the Mediterranean known for many historical legends, including the ancient Greek myth about King Danae and his Danaid daughters. True, according to the story of Euripides, the Danaans forced the Pelasgians to take on the name of the Danaans:
"Father of fifty daughters Danai,
Arriving in Argos, founded Inaha city
And to all who bore the name of the Pelasgians,
Danaev ordered to take a nickname in Hellas».
Nevertheless, the Danaans have the right to be mentioned in history under their own name among the "peoples of the sea", as well as the Pelasgians.
Another people mentioned in Egyptian chronicles as part of the "peoples of the sea" - TEVCRAS (takkara -Egypt.) or TROJANS. The Trojans, as well as the Danaans, cannot claim independence, since they are an association of the tribes of the Dardanians and the peoples of Asia Minor.
All of the above "peoples of the sea", who were the parents of known ancient civilizations, have in historical terms the mysterious status of mythical or disappeared peoples, although we know from the laws of physics that nothing disappears without a trace and also does not arise from nothing. And the phrase of the chronicler Nestor: “ Disappeared like obra " in this case is unfair.
"In other parts of Italy, we constantly stumble", - Schwegler is perplexed, - “to the same common names. So, they say that Guernicah the Pelasgians once lived. Pichenum was also once inhabited by them. There is evidence that Noceria, Herculaneum and Pompeii were founded by them, or that they lived there for some time. Examples have already been given of other cities that history associates with the name of the Pelasgians».
Based on this and on such legends, according to Sergey Darda, Barthold-Georg Niebuhr, put forward a hypothesis, which is now universally recognized, and against which objections can only be expressed from the point of view of comparative philology. According to Niebuhr y, The Pelasgians were the very first people who inhabited not only Greece, but also Italy. Once upon a time in the past, he says, Pelasgians - the most numerous people, inhabited all countries, starting with Arnus and Padus and ending with the Bosphorus; And they were not nomads, as many historians imagine, but as a settled, powerful and respected indigenous people. It was in the distant past, long before the beginning Greek history in its classical sense. Later, however, in the time of our historians, only isolated, scattered parts of this vast nation remained of them - as happened to the Celts in Spain - who, like the tops of mountains, rise in islands, after the dry land has been turned into a lake by a flood. “Antiquity can be compared to a huge city of ruins, in which there is not even a plan in which everyone must himself figure out and understand the whole from the parts, and the parts from a careful comparison and study of the relationship of the latter to the first,” wrote Barthold-Georg Niebuhr .
Sergey Darda states: “That the name "Pelasgians" once meant an existing people, we can fully believe; but we cannot form any historical concept the people who Herodotus calls sedentary, others - nomadic, and whose ancient place residence was somewhere between Mount Ossa and Mount Olympus, as well as in Arcadia and Argolis«
AND if we pay more attention to the Pelasgians today than to other real-life races, not because they left a lot of truthful evidence of their existence, but because they took such a really important place in the myths of Greece and Italy" .
The first thing I want to say is that the concept, in fact, has already been presented in the work of the author "Fear the Danes who bring gifts." And second, definitely, the proposed concept needs to be improved. Before introducing the concept development of the Indo-European ethnic group Let us summarize the findings of various researchers regarding Origins of the Sea Peoples, their location, common names, customs, culture, economic relations.
-nos \-na
General conclusions about the "peoples of the sea" suggest the following:
1. "Peoples of the Sea" territorially localized in one region of the Mediterranean (see the map of the residence of the Pelasgians and Lelegs in the Mediterranean of S. Darda).
2. Dardane, according to sources, there are from the island of Samothrace and further migrated to Asia Minor, founding Troad.
3. Lelegi according to the sources, they moved from Egypt to Asia Minor in the neighborhood with the Carians and Lydians.
4. The origin of the Pelasgians is unknown.
5. Danaans appropriated Argolic Pelasgians own name. From historical sources known that the Pelasgians migrated from Egypt to Argolis and took the name of the Danaans under the compulsion of King Danae, according to Euripides, but in ancient Greek myth about the Danaids it is said that King of Argos Pelasg sheltered the Danaids, who fled from the persecution of the Egyptians, led by King Danai. The Egyptian chronicles mention the invasion of the "peoples of the sea" Pelasgians and Danaans. Apparently, the mythical flight of the Danaans from Egypt is an interpretation of historical data about the invasion of Egypt by the “peoples of the sea”.
: -ssos \-ssa; -sos\ -sa.
6. Pelasgians and Lelegs lived in Crete and the islands of the Aegean Sea.
7. Pelasgians, Leleges according to the sources, they are called nomadic peoples (storks).
8. The ethnonym Leleg in Eastern Slavs stork means "stork" in sian languages.
9. One of the symbols of the later form Cretan letters(XV-XII centuries BC), the so-called "Linear B" is a symbol very similar to stork - ai.
10. Pelasgians and Leleges partially moved to the Apennine Peninsula after a natural disaster or for other reasons.
11. The peoples of the sea were warlike(attack on Egypt), created a high culture of agriculture, crafts, urban planning, which borrowed autochthonous tribes of the ecumene of the Mediterranean and Greeks.
12. The Pelasgians and Leleges spoke a barbarian language unknown to the Greeks.
13. The Pelasgians brought writing to Italy.
On - nthos/-ntha; -ndos / -nda; -nza / -nzos in Eastern Anatolia
14. The Pelasgians and Leleges did not have topographical and toponymic names from own name , although they built and lived in many cities and in different territories.
15. Dardani and Danaans(from the root of the word dan - river, stream) had topographical and toponymic names ( Dardan, Dardanelles, Danube, Danube, Dnieper, Dniester, Don, Donets, etc..).
16. Ethnonyms Dardani and Danes have one root "-dan-".
17. The Pelasgians, under the name of the Philistines, lived in Palestine, fought and coexisted with the Jews as the dominant ethnic group.
18. The Pelasgians made human sacrifices(first-born babies) to their gods. In the Zagreb mummy, the Etruscan language describes the custom of human sacrifice (a dozen is a swaddled child), which, by the way, was also characteristic of the Jews (an episode from the Bible of the Massacre of Innocents).
19. According to sources, the Pelasgians were excellent sailors.
20. "Peoples of the Sea" suddenly appear in the field of view of chroniclers and historians, as well as suddenly disappear.
21. Etruscan texts, the Zagreb mummy, Iguva tables are translated only with the help of Slavic languages.
The coincidence of many characteristics of the "peoples of the sea", such as migration, appearance, disappearance, a barbaric language incomprehensible to the Greeks, along with a high level of civilization, suggests that Pelasgians, Leleges, Danaans, Dardani are one people that existed before the Greeks under different names.
The name of this people DANIES. Only, this numerous people is not the “people of the sea”, but the “people of the rivers” in the root "dan, d-n", in Sanskrit :( related words in Russian lang.: DON, Dnieper, DONets, Dniester, the river Don was called " Quiet Don”, i.e. “Tikhaya River”.). The Danes came from the north of Europe to the Balkan Peninsula somewhere in 4 thousand BC, and later settled in the Mediterranean.
The Egyptians, in fact, did not care where this people came from, the main thing is that they came from the sea on ships, therefore they called him, as one "people of the sea" - Danes, steel collectively"peoples of the sea". The Danaans were endowed with all the epithets that the settlers of the Mediterranean had: Pelasgians - "nomadic", Lelegs - "storks", Dardani - "keeping the stream", that is, the Hellispont.
Where did the Danaans come from in the Mediterranean basin?
The collapse of the linguistic Indo-European community dates back to IV millennium BC Indo-European tribes, living in the northern Black Sea region, settled along the main rivers of Eastern Europe - the Danube, Dnieper, Dniester, Don and moved to Western Europe and the Scandinavian Peninsula. It was a united Indo-European ethnic group, not yet divided into Celts, Germans, Slavs. Later, during 2nd millennium in Eastern Europe ethnos was formed along the rivers Danes(peoples of the rivers), in Western Europe took shape celtic tribes. A new ethnic group was born in Scandinavia, which returned to the shores old Europe under the name Germans.
Numerous tribes of Danes mastered not only Danube, but also the Adriatic coast and the Balkan Peninsula, and then the Mediterranean basin. On the island Crete to the Danes and an ancient advanced civilization was created, appeared linear A.
Invasion Greek tribes in the II millennium BC from Asia Minor stopped the expansion of the Danaans in the Mediterranean. On mainland Greece, the Greeks gradually ousted the Danaans and created their own Mycenaean civilization. On the island Crete was the first written Minoan civilization - Linear B. In the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. there was a natural disaster on the island of Thera, which practically destroyed the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations. Survivors Danaans from Crete migrated to the Apennine Peninsula, where they merged with the autochthonous population and later became known as the Etruscans and Umbrians (lat. Umbri) - an ancient Italian people that formed in Northern Italy at the end bronze age. After the events Trojan War and the subsequent natural disaster at the end of the 2nd millennium before. n. e. The Danes have practically returned to their former habitats, that is, to Eastern Europe. Routes:
- - The Balkan Peninsula, where they became known under the name Veneti and Dardanians;
- — Pannonia- known by name sloppy;
- — Central Europe – Western Slavs(Czechs, Slovaks, Poles);
- - Eastern Europe - East Slavs(Ukrainians, Belarusians, Russians.).
Slavs were not the only people who inhabited Ancient Rus'. In her cauldron "boiled" and other, more ancient tribes: Chud, Merya, Muroma. They left early, but left a deep mark on the Russian ethnos, language and folklore.
Chud
"Whatever you call a boat, that's how it will float." mysterious people chud quite justifies its name. The folk version says that the Slavs dubbed some tribes Chud, because their language seemed strange to them, unusual. In ancient Russian sources and folklore, there are many references to the “chud”, which “the Varangians from overseas imposed tribute”. They took part in the campaign of Prince Oleg to Smolensk, Yaroslav the Wise fought against them: “and defeated them, and set up the city of Yuryev”, legends were made about them, like a white-eyed miracle - ancient people, akin to European "fairies". They left a huge mark in the toponymy of Russia, their name is Lake Peipus, Peipus coast, villages: "Front Chud", "Middle Chud", "Rear Chud". From the north-west of present-day Russia to the Altai mountains, their mysterious “wonderful” trace can be traced to this day.
For a long time, it was customary to associate them with the Finno-Ugric peoples, since they were mentioned where representatives of the Finno-Ugric peoples lived or still live. But the folklore of the latter also preserved legends about the mysterious ancient people of the Chud, whose representatives left their lands and went somewhere, not wanting to accept Christianity. Especially a lot about them is told in the Komi Republic. So they say that the ancient tract Vazhgort " Old village» in the Udora region was once a Chudi settlement. From there they were allegedly forced out by Slavic newcomers.
In the Kama region, you can learn a lot about Chud: locals describe their appearance (dark-haired and swarthy), language, customs. They say that they lived in the middle of the forests in dugouts, where they buried themselves, refusing to obey the more successful invaders. There is even a legend that “the miracle went underground”: they dug a large hole with an earthen roof on pillars, and they brought it down, preferring death to captivity. But none popular belief, nor the annalistic mention can answer the questions: what kind of tribes were they, where did they go and whether their descendants are still alive. Some ethnographers attribute them to the Mansi peoples, others to the representatives of the Komi people, who preferred to remain pagans. The most daring version, which appeared after the discovery of Arkaim and the "Country of Cities" of Sintashta, claims that the Chud are ancient arias. But so far one thing is clear, the Chud are one of the natives of ancient Rus', whom we have lost.
Merya
“The Chud did it, but measured the gates, roads and milestones ...” - these lines from Alexander Blok’s poem reflect the confusion of scientists of his time about the two tribes that once lived next door to the Slavs. But, unlike the first, Mary had a "more transparent story." This ancient Finno-Ugric tribe once lived in the territories of modern Moscow, Yaroslavl, Ivanovo, Tver, Vladimir and Kostroma regions of Russia. That is, in the very center of our country.
There are many references to them, merya (merins) is found in the Gothic historian Jordanes, who in the 6th century called them tributaries of the Gothic king Germanaric. Like the Chud, they were in the troops of Prince Oleg when he went on campaigns to Smolensk, Kyiv and Lyubech, about which records have been preserved in the Tale of Bygone Years. True, according to some scientists, in particular Valentin Sedov, by that time, ethnically, they were no longer a Volga-Finnish tribe, but "half-Slavs." The final assimilation occurred, obviously, by the 16th century.
The name Merya is associated with one of the largest peasant uprisings Ancient Rus' 1024 years. The reason was the great famine that engulfed the Suzdal land. Moreover, according to the annals, it was preceded by "immeasurable rains", drought, premature frosts, dry winds. For Mary, most of whose representatives opposed Christianization, this obviously looked like “divine punishment”. At the head of the rebellion were the priests of the "old faith" - the Magi, who tried to use the chance to return to pre-Christian cults. However, unsuccessfully. The rebellion was defeated by Yaroslav the Wise, the instigators were executed or sent into exile.
Despite the scarce data that we know about the Merya people, scientists managed to restore them. ancient language, which in Russian linguistics was called "Meryansky". It was reconstructed on the basis of the dialect of the Yaroslavl-Kostroma Volga region and the Finno-Ugric languages. A number of words were restored thanks to geographical names. So it turned out that the endings "-gda" in the Central Russian toponymy: Vologda, Sudogda, Shogda are the heritage of the Meryan people.
Despite the fact that the mention of Merya completely disappeared in the sources back in the pre-Petrine era, today there are people who consider themselves to be their descendants. Basically, these are residents of the Upper Volga region. They argue that the Meryans did not dissolve over the centuries, but formed the substratum (underlying) of the northern Great Russian people, switched to the Russian language, and their descendants call themselves Russians. However, there is no evidence for this.
Murom
As the Tale of Bygone Years says: in 862 Slovenes lived in Novgorod, Krivichi in Polotsk, Merya in Rostov, Murom in Murom. The chronicle, like the Meryans, refers to the non-Slavic peoples. Their name is translated as "an elevated place near the water", which corresponds to the position of the city of Murom, which for a long time was their center.
Today, on the basis of archaeological finds found in large cemeteries of the tribe (located between the tributaries of the Oka, the left Ushna, Unzha and right Tesha), it is practically impossible to determine which ethnic group they belonged. According to domestic archaeologists, they could be either another Finno-Ugric tribe or part of the Mary, or Mordovians. Only one thing is known, they were friendly neighbors with a highly developed culture. Their weapons, in terms of workmanship, were among the best in the surrounding areas, and Jewelry, which are found in abundance in burials, are distinguished by the inventiveness of forms and the care taken in manufacturing. Murom was characterized by arched head ornaments woven from horsehair and strips of leather, which were spirally braided with bronze wire. Interestingly, there are no analogues among other Finno-Ugric tribes.
Sources show that the Slavic colonization of Muroma was peaceful and occurred mainly due to strong and economic trade ties. However, the result of this peaceful coexistence was that the Muroma was one of the very first assimilated tribes that disappeared from the pages of history. TO XII century they are no longer mentioned in the annals.
Ainu - ancient population Japanese islands. Once this people lived on the territory of Russia. There are currently 25,000 Ainu in Japan. After colonization by the Japanese, the Ainu did not accept an alien culture for a long time, demanding independence. Long-term discrimination led to the fact that the people almost completely assimilated with the Japanese and began to forget their origins. These photographs of 1908 introduce us to the ancient people and their way of life.
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Six Ainu in traditional attire sit by a bowl
These rare images give insight into the traditions of Japan's little-known indigenous people, whose way of life is now lost.
Three elders of the Ainu people
The number of the remaining Ainu in Japan is 25,000, according to unofficial statistics, it may be 200,000 people, but they all assimilated with the Japanese and no longer remember their ancestors.
elderly married couple at the hut
Once this people also lived on the territory of Russia in the lower reaches of the Amur, in the south of the Kamchatka Peninsula, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands.
Representatives of the people in one of the villages
In Russia, according to the results of the 2010 census, 109 Ainu were recorded, of which 94 people are in the Kamchatka Territory.
Girls at the fence
During colonization, the Ainu automatically received Japanese citizenship, which effectively deprived them of their independence.
Laughter and smiles
These photographs were taken by the German photographer Arnold Gente during an expedition to Hokkaido in 1908.
Elders in the village of Piratori
The Ainu lost their independence in the 19th century during Japanese colonization.
mother and child
Only in 2008, the Japanese parliament recognized the Ainu as an independent national minority.
Elderly Ain with a stick near the hut
Ainu children
Woman in a robe and beads
Children by the fence
Ain makes a fishing net
The Ainu appeared on the Japanese islands about 13 thousand years BC. e. and created the Neolithic Jomon culture. They inhabited everything Japanese islands- from Ryukyu to Hokkaido, as well as the southern half of Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands and the southern third of Kamchatka.
woman at the hut
Elderly couple on the field
The Ainu were not engaged in agriculture, the main branches of their economy were gathering, fishing and hunting.
Woman with a baby in her arms
Everyone knows about ancient Babylon. Even old grandmothers, who have long forgotten about school curriculum and the laws of Hammurabi, heard about tower of babel or, more likely, the whore of Babylon. But here's a question for a hundred rubles, what was the name of the people who inhabited ancient Babylon? What language did he speak?
Babylon was located in a flat and very fertile area between the Tigris and Euphrates. Representatives of different peoples have long lived in this country and aspired to this country. Which of them achieved the right to be called a native Babylonian?
There are two answers to the question for a hundred rubles. Simple and complex. Let's start simple.
Meet the ancient Babylonians
Dark curled hair, a shirt without buttons to the toes, a hat or bandage on the head, women have a mandatory face covering. This is what the average Babylonians looked like, or, as they called themselves, mar-babilaya. As in our days, clothes could change depending on the season, wealth or fashion. These people had different activities, names and surnames (some of them issued foreign origin ancestors). But all of them were, first of all, Mar-Babilaya.
Something similar can be found today. Residents of Singapore have Chinese, Malay or Indian roots, but prefer to call themselves Singaporeans. Babylon was the metropolis of the ancient world, the concentration of advanced knowledge, technologies and enough high level life. The inhabitants of Babylon with dignity called themselves the children of their city. When in the 1st millennium BC it became the center of a vast empire, the title of Children of Babylon was bestowed on the inhabitants of other annexed or conquered cities and rural settlements. This is approximately as if the inhabitants of Russia were called not Russians and Russians, but Muscovites.
So, answering the question of what people he belongs to, the average Babylonian would rather classify himself as a Babylonian. Does this mean that he spoke a special Babylonian language and descended from a separate Babylonian tribe? Neither the Babylonian language nor the ancient Babylonian tribe that built the city existed. To clarify the ethnic origin of the Babylonians, we will have to move on to a complex answer.
Founders language
The interfluve of the Tigris and Euphrates is a rather curious region with geographic point vision. For the most part, it is a typical river valley with fertile soils. But in order to successfully farm and build cities, the inhabitants of these places had to dig canals, build dams and drain the banks. This work required joint efforts, so there is nothing surprising in the fact that the Mezhdurechens created the oldest civilization known to us. 
From the northwest, west and east, the interfluve is bordered by mountains, from the south and west - by steppes, turning into a desert. The farmers of the interfluve used this neighborhood to their advantage. They exchanged the results of their labor for timber and metals, which were brought by the highlanders, as well as for livestock products from the steppe nomads. However, the neighbors sought not only to trade. Attracted by riches, they periodically attacked and themselves tried to settle on fertile lands. Hundreds of years before the construction of the Great Wall of China and the Roman ramparts, the kings of the third dynasty of the city of Ur erected a wall many kilometers long, which was supposed to protect their possessions from nomads. But like the Great Chinese Wall and Roman fortifications, this Urn wall proved useless in the end.
There is nothing surprising in the fact that all the peoples of the interfluve known to us were descendants of newcomers. It is believed that the Sumerians, who founded a civilization in the south of the interfluve in the 4th millennium BC, appeared from somewhere in the east from the mysterious country of Dilmun. Semites who came from the west settled to the north of them. They spoke in perfect different languages, but seem to have distinguished each other more geographically than in origin.
The Mezhdurechensky Sumerians and Semites lived in separate city-states, until in 2334 the son of a simple water carrier Sargon Vekliky began to unite the cities by force of arms. He created the oldest empire known to us. Since Sargon chose the town of Agada in the region of the middle reaches inhabited by Semites for his residence, this region began to be called Akkad.
In ancient cuneiform texts, the names of the regions of Sumer and Akkad often appear, but the Sumerian and Akkadian peoples are not mentioned. These names for two peoples who spoke different languages were invented scientists XIX century. They called themselves simply “black-headed” (in Sumerian “sag-gig-ga”, in Akkadian “shalmat-kakadim”). It was in the area inhabited by the Semitic-speaking "Shalmat-Kakadim" that ancient Babylon was founded.
Thus, with modern point In terms of ethnic origin, the native Babylonians were Akkadians. For most of their history, they spoke and wrote in Akkadian. Nowadays, this language belongs to the group of Eastern Semitic languages. It is a close relative of the Arabic language.
dramatic transformation
The Babylonians experienced true devotion to the Akkadian language. The city was continually captured by representatives of other tribes and peoples who spoke other languages, but this had little effect on the linguistic preferences of the Babylonians.
Around 1895 BC, Babylon fell into the hands of western Amorite nomads. They founded their own royal dynasty, to which the great legislator Hammurabi belonged. Unlike the Akkadians, the Amorites spoke a Western Semitic language close to modern Hebrew, but all inscriptions of the Amorite dynasty, including the laws of Hammurabi, continued to be written in Akkadian.
In 1571 BC, Babylon was captured by the northern Kassite barbarians. Their origin and connection with other peoples is not precisely established. Kassites made up upper layer society, actively reformed the Babylonian state, but at the same time they were forced to accept the Akkadian language of the Babylonians. Exactly the same did the people from the powerful eastern country of Elam, who defeated the Kassites in 1160 BC.
The Babylonians not only preserved the language of ancient Akkad, but also developed it. They improved the cuneiform script, adopted by the Akkadians from the Sumerians. Akkadian became an international language. It was written and spoken in neighboring Assyria, used as a second written language in Syrian cities, Elam, Urartu and other states.
However, at the end of the 2nd millennium BC, West Semitic tribes from the mountainous Syrian region of Aram invaded the interfluve of the Tigris and Euphrates. They managed to capture the northern part of Babylonia for a while. Apparently the invasions were accompanied by migrations large groups of people. Otherwise, it is difficult to explain why the Aramaic language became widely used in Assyria and Babylonia. In the 8th century BC, the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III gave it a completely official character in his state.
The Babylonians continued to use Akkadian as the language of government, science, and culture well into the 7th century AD. But in 626 BC, Nabopolassar, a native of the small Chaldean kingdom, located in the swampy lowlands of the Tigris and Euphrates, became king of Babylon. The dynasty he founded freed Babylon from the power of Assyria and turned it into a powerful new empire. It was under the Chaldeans that the Aramaic language was established among the Babylonians as the main spoken and written language. Following the Assyrians, the Babylonians moved from among the Eastern Semites to the Western.
