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THE VENETIC LANGUAGE OF ANCIENT BRITAIN
PART TWO: Investigation of the Influences and Impacts of Veneti
Traders on Ancient Britain [DRAFT#2]
Andres P ä ä b o
It has been traditionally assumed that the language of the Britons when the Romans arrived
t
oc
onque
ri
t
,was“Ce
l
t
i
c
”,andmor
es
pe
c
i
f
i
c
al
l
yt
he“Br
i
t
t
oni
cCe
l
t
i
c
”.
The“Br
i
t
t
oni
cCe
l
t
i
c
”
term has developed from the models of Welsh and other languages in British that are considered
to be of a Celtic nature, with apparent similarities to the Celtic in Ireland and Scotland.
However, when the subject of ancient events is thoroughly analyzed it appears that the
“Br
i
t
t
ani
c
”l
anguageofBr
i
t
ai
nwhe
nt
heRomansar
r
i
v
e
dwasac
t
ual
l
yt
henor
t
he
r
n
international trade language developed through the Venetic large scale trade system. In other
wor
dsi
twas“Ve
ne
t
i
c
”not“Ce
l
t
i
c
”.In Part 1 I discussed the nature of the Venetic language
as I determined it in my analysis of the Adriatic Venetic inscriptions in VENETIC
LANGUAGE An Ancient Language from a New Perspective: FINAL which included a look
at some inscriptions in Roman age Brittany and Wales that seemed to be a dialect of Venetic. I
then showed an inscription at Aquae Sulis followed an Adriatic model, although words used
were a little different. Here, in Part Two I discuss my belief thatt ancient British was a FinnicVenetic, not just in some local areas in the southwest Britain and in Venetic Brittany, but in
general throughout the British Isles in early Roman times, not from any invasion, but from
centuries of involvement in large scale international trade activity. I used place names given by
Ptolemy in his geography of Albion and Hibernia (Britain and Ireland) to show how they seem to
describe a highly evolved patterns of long distance trade featuring Venetic traders.
______________________
1 BEYOND AQUAE SULIS
1.1 Veneti and Belgae Affect Britain from Two Directions
In Part One of this series on the Veneti language in ancient Britain, I looked at an inscription
found at Bath, Somerset, England, in association with Roman baths found at hot springs located
there which in Roman times was called Aquae Sulis. I saw that the inscription appeared to follow
a structure similar to inscriptions written to the Godess Rhea found at Baratela Italy, made by the
ancient Veneti there. The chances of such a coincidence occurring by chance is so small that the
probability my interpretation is close to the truth is quite strong. In that paper I also show some
examples of my having found Venetic words in Roman era Brittany and Wales that resonated
with the Adriatic Venetic words.
We will not repeat what is covered in Part One, but continue our investigation, now viewing
the British Isles as a whole through Roman texts and names given by Ptolemy for early Roman
Britain, when Roman disturbance of the original British Isles would still have been a minimum.
1
That the Brittany Veneti were in ancient Britain is without question. What will be new will be
my claim that the Venetic language dominated and shaped the general large scale language of the
British Isles. What I am saying is that a widely spoken native British language was established
even before Belgic tribes crossed into southeast Britain, and as a result, the language of the
Belgae remained a foreign language, spoken only among them. It was as it is today –when a
l
a
ng
ua
g
ed
o
mi
na
t
e
sar
e
g
i
on’
st
r
a
de
,i
ndus
t
r
ya
ndc
omme
r
c
e
,a
nyi
mmi
gr
a
nt
sha
vet
oa
d
o
ptt
he
use of that language in their commercial activities. I propose this pre-establishing of the large
scale native British language because, as I will discuss below, Britain would have been of
interest to Veneti already four or more centuries before the Romans arrived, and a few centuries
before the Belgae took initiatives in southeast Britain. Considering how fast North America
recently became English speaking –a few centuries can produce considerable change. Thus the
theory this document will pursue is that Venetic interest in Britain for many centuries shaped the
native British language in the direction of Venetic, so much that when Belgae and other
immigrant peoples arrived, they had to submit to using the established native British language. If
it was developed from Venetic initiatives, and Veneti were not Celtic, then the native British
language was non-Celtic. Venetic, as my deciphering of the Adriatic inscriptions shows, turned
out to be Finnic in nature. That is the summary of the theory. What follows in the following
writing is evidence proving this is the correct theory.
What kind of information can we find that is relevant to our understanding of Venetic
involvement with ancient Britain?
Most significant is that Julius Caesar, who observed and sought to conquer the Brittany Veneti
at their home base where the city of Vannes, France, is found today, described without
reservation that the Brittany Veneti sailed regularly to Britain, and belonged to a confederation of
seagoing nations calling themselves, according to Caesar, Armoricae
He
r
ea
r
et
hepa
s
s
a
ge
sf
r
omCa
e
s
a
r
’
swr
i
t
i
ng
:
These Veneti exercise by far the most extensive authority over all the sea-coast in those
districts, for they have numerous ships, in which it is their custom to sail to Britain, and they
excel the rest in the theory and practice of navigation. As the sea is very boisterous and open,
with but a few harbours here and there which they hold themselves , they have as tributaries
almost all those whose custom it is to sail the sea.
[Caesar, The Gallic Wars, 3, 8]
The wide activity in the seatrade involving Britain is suggested by all the tribe names
mentioned by Caesar. Here are two passages.
The nations of the Veneti belong in the states touching the Ocean, commonly called by them
Armoricae, among whom are the Curiosolites, Redones, Ambibari, Caletes, Osismi, Veneti,
Lemovices, and Venelli.
[Caesar The Gallic Wars, 7, 75]
A few of the tribes named can be identified as Belgic. The following names some others:
They [the Veneti] unite to themselves as allies for that war, the Osismii, the Lexovii, the
Nannetes, the Ambiliati, the Morini, the Diablintes, and the Menapii; and send for auxiliaries
from Britain, which is situated over against those regions.
[Caesar, The Gallic Wars, 3.9]
2
Common sense suggests that the Veneti and associated seatrader nations of the Armoricae
mainly sailed to the southwest coast of Britain, or up the west coast, as those areas were closest.
Theot
he
rwa
yt
r
a
de
r
sont
hema
i
nl
a
ndc
oul
di
nt
e
r
r
a
c
twi
t
hBr
i
t
a
i
nwa
sa
tBr
i
t
a
i
n’
ss
out
he
a
s
t
,
where the channel was at its narrowest, today called the Strait of Dover, betwe
e
nt
oda
y
’
sCa
l
a
i
s
and Dover. This was the location where Caesar crossed with his army when he finally decided to
invade it.
Ac
c
or
di
ngt
oCa
e
s
a
r
’
swr
i
t
i
ng
s
,t
het
r
i
be
sont
hema
i
nl
a
nds
i
debe
l
onge
dt
oagr
oupofn
a
t
i
ons
that had similar characteristics so t
he
yc
oul
dha
veas
i
ng
l
ei
de
nt
i
t
ya
s“
Belgae”
.Ca
e
s
a
rs
a
wt
ha
t
western Europe before organized into Roman Gaul, had three distinct regions:
Gaul (Gallia) is a whole divided into three parts, one of it is inhabited by the Belgae, another
by the Aquitani, and the third by a people called in their own tongue Celtae, in Latin Galli. All
these are different from one another in language, institutions and laws
[Caesar, Gallic Wars, I.I]
These groupings of similar language and culture were not the result of there being any formal
nation dictating a standard language. It was a natural development from tribes associating with
each other, mainly by belonging to the same river system or coast, and sharing the same market
city usually near the mouth of the river system. The common large scale market city over the
long term exerted influence that brought its visitors together in their language laws and
institutions. According to linguistics, languages or dialects drift apart when separate, but
converge, or avoid divergence when there is dependency and contact. Britain too became such a
region of common language laws and institutions because of sharing of markets and commerce.
(And this principle can be applied to the geographic region of Germania, to claim that the
“
Sue
bi
c
”t
r
i
be
sde
s
c
r
i
be
dbyTa
c
i
t
us
,ha
dt
he
i
rownl
a
ng
ua
g
e
,i
ns
t
i
t
ut
i
onsa
ndl
a
wst
oo,ori
nde
e
d
that Britain had enough contact between tribes to similarly establish over the long term their own
language and institutions and laws.)
Ca
e
s
a
r
’
sde
s
c
r
i
pt
i
onoft
he regions covered by the divisions of Gaul is vague, but we can see
it more clearly when later the Romans created provinces: the Aquitani region basically covered
the entire Garonne River system, the Belgae region basically covered the lower Rhine and coast
out from the mouth. It might have originally been defined by the entire Rhine River system, but
Romans arbitrarily used the Rhine as a boundary and there had been wars with Germanic tribes
in the area. The remaining region of Gaul, which Caesar associated with the Celtae, was mostly
defined by the Loire River system. Since Celts are Indo-European, land-based peoples, the actual
traders on the Loire would more likely have been Venetic, while Celtic tribes occupied the
farmale lands between the tributaries.
According to Caesar, the Belgae tribes were located directly across from mainly southeast
Britain, across the Strait of Dover. Thus while Venetic tribes, or Armoricae, crossed between
Brittany and southwest Britain, Belgic tribes obviously had communication and transportation
from ancient Belgium to southeast Britain. Caesar actually speaks of ships from Gaul using that
location for crossing - as did he and his army itself.
The island is triangular in its form, and one of its sides is opposite to Gaul. One angle of this
side, which is in Kent (Cantium), whither almost all ships from Gaul are directed, [looks]to the
east;
[Julius Caesar, Gallic Wars, 5.13]
3
What was the reason for the crossing? –obviously trade.
Looking more closely at Cantium and the southeast, after Caesar and his army had made it
across to southeast Britain, he noticed that southeast Britain seemed to be an extension of Gaul
opposite –the same developments, the same kind of culture –and that the Belgic tribe names on
the British side seemed to mirror tribe names on the mainland side. What does such mirroring
mean? Why would a tribe create a branch in another location?
Can we explain it purely as immigration, with the immigants wishing to remember home? Not
likely if the home tribe was so close. Such mirroring was common among trading peoples who
needed to set up colonies to facilitate their operations. If Caesar saw mirroring of tribe names on
the mainland side, it could be indicative of coorinated trade activity. Those on the British side
could have been gathering wares in Britain and handing them to the parent tribe on the Gallic
side, where the goods were sent into Gaul. The involvement of some Belgae with Venetic traders
is another indication of involvement in trade activity connected to the Veneti. It is possible that
the Belgae may have originated from traders in the Rhine, the closest large river to the coast
opposite Cantium. Caesar mentions somewhere that Belgic tribes originally came from Germania
–the east side of the Rhine. This would be true if the Belgic tribes originally occupied the Rhine
waterway. The Roman arbitrarily using the main course of the Rhine as a boundary, arbitraily,
divided the Belgic tribe river valley homeland in two –in terms of location from the Roman
point of view..
Caesar mentions how the Belgic tribes in southeast Britain seemed to mirror tribes on the
mainland, and seemed to have arrived in more recent times than the natives.
The interior portion of Britain is inhabited by those of whom they say that it is handed down
by tradition that they were born in the island itself: the maritime portion by those who had
passed over from the country of the Belgae for the purpose of plunder and making war; almost
all of whom are called by the names of those states from which being sprung they went thither,
and having waged war, continued there and began to cultivate the lands.
[Julius Caesar, Gallic Wars, 5.12]
However I think Caesar is wrong to assume the Belgae crossed for the purpose of war and
plunder. The
ypr
oba
bl
yc
r
os
s
e
df
ort
hepur
pos
eoft
a
ki
ngove
rBr
i
t
a
i
n’
si
nt
e
r
na
t
i
ona
le
c
onomi
c
activity, and developing it for profit motives. By the time Julius Caesar arrived, the British
Belgic tribes of the southeast, were very active and had developed southeast Britain so much that
it looked attractive for Roman conquest. When he arrived, southeast Britain was already well
developed, as he described:
The number of the people is countless, and their buildings exceedingly numerous, for the most
part very like those of the Gauls: the number of cattle is great. They use either brass or iron
rings, determined at a certain weight, as their money. Tin is produced in the midland regions; in
the maritime, iron; but the quantity of it is small: they employ brass, which is imported.
[Julius Caesar, Gallic Wars, 5.12]
Here was something to conquer for Rome. But what was here centuries earlier before the
Belgic tribes established mirror colonies in southeast Britain? Why would the Belgae cross and
set up mirrors of their tribes on the British side? The answer is “
TIN”
. This is even implied in the
4
l
a
s
ts
e
nt
e
nc
ea
bove
.Hewr
ot
et
ha
t“
tin is produced in midland regions.
”Hea
ddst
ha
ti
r
oni
sa
l
s
o
produced in maritime regions, but the quantity is small, and brass has to be imported. It implies
that Britain was rich in tin.
Tin in the midland regions, means the tin was brought to the coastal ports in two directions –
down the Thames, or via other rivers that drained southwest. The Belgae could pick up tin
reaching the southeast to be taken across the Strait of Dover, while the Veneti could pick up tin
reaching the southeast coasts.
ByRoma
nt
i
me
s
,Br
i
t
a
i
n’
sr
ol
ea
sa
ni
nt
e
r
na
t
i
ona
ls
our
c
eoft
i
nwa
sa
l
r
e
a
dyc
e
nt
ur
i
e
sol
d
.Tin
was added to copper to produce the harder metal, bronze. While there was plenty of copper in
southeast Europe, tin was scarce. Someone discovered tin in Britain, and were established for
shipping it all the way to Greece. Obviously the Veneti, who already had a millenium of
experience trading with Greece from the Baltic, mostly on the basis of Baltic amber,
The ancient Greek historian, Herodotus, in his writing of about the 5th century BC, mentions
howt
i
nwa
sbyt
he
nc
omi
ngt
oGr
e
e
c
e‘
f
r
om t
hee
ndsoft
hee
a
r
t
h’
.Theot
he
rpr
oduc
tc
omi
ngby
trade from afar was amber, but amber came from the southeast Baltic.
.....Of the extreme tracts of Europe towards the west I cannot speak with any certainty; for I
do not allow that there is any river, to which the barbarians give the name of Eridanus,
emptying itself into the northern sea, whence (as the tale goes) amber is procured; nor do I know
of any islands called the Cassiterides (Tin Islands), whence the tin comes which we use.
....[Herodotus 3.115]
To me the pairing of amber and tin in this quote loudly speaks of the Veneti long distanc trade
system and their long established relationship with Greece.
If Herodotus wrote this in the 5th century BC, that means Britain became an international
source of tin before that time. That would be at least four centuries before Caesar arrived in
southeast Britain. Clearly Britain was involved in international trade, visited regularly by Venetic
ships, already for several centuries before Caesar appeared on the scene. And the Belgae,
although they had boats, there is no evidence they were long distance shippers. The narrow
crossing of the Strait of Dover was enought. (I think Belgae may have been more mature in river
trade. There were traders on the Rhine, Danube and Rhone.) So they were subservient to the
Veneti, or as Caesar wrote: tributaries to the Veneti.
It is entirely possible, even likely, that Venetic initiatives developed the original southeast
Britain, such as Londinium, centuries before interest developed among Belgic tribes to move in
and take their own initiatives to bring Gallic ways across.
Where did the Brittany Veneti come from? By the time the Brittany colony was accessing
Britain, the Veneti were already established at the north end of the Adriatic Sea. According to
archeology, the Adriatic Venetic colonies developed from about 1000BC, as a trade route
energized by moving amber. Baltic amber came south via the Elbe River and descended to the
Adriatic by the Adige River. The Brittany Veneti colony was probably established after the
Adriatic Veneti had become successful and Greeks were fond of Baltic amber.
To summarize, the probable scenario is that the Veneti originated as north-south long distance
traders specializing in the amber trade, and as they prospered, they expanded their interests
according to additional interestes among their Greek customers. Shifting activities west and
procuring tin was one of these expansions.
5
Then once it was internationally understood that tin was available from Britain, Britain
obviously became of great interest to all international (long distance) traders. But there really
was noone else in the north. Probably Phoenician and Greek traders investigated at the
beginning, but did not succeed as they were not familiar with northern water, the people, nor the
required ships.
Caes
a
r
’
swr
i
t
i
ngi
ndi
c
a
t
e
dt
ha
tt
i
nwa
sf
oundi
nt
h
ec
e
nt
r
a
lr
e
g
i
ons
.There is one more passage
from Caesar that seems to tell a story of the situation with tin, at least in the southeast.
When he had come thither, greater forces of the Britons had already assembled at that place,
the chief command and management of the war having been intrusted to Cassivellaunus, whose
territories a river, which is called the Thames, separates, from the maritime states at about
eighty miles from the sea. At an earlier period perpetual wars had taken place between him and
the other states; but, greatly alarmed by our arrival, the Britons had placed him over the whole
war and the conduct of it.
[Julius Caesar, Gallic Wars, 5.12]
We note from this quote, that the Belgic tribes el
e
c
t
e
dt
obel
e
a
da
ga
i
ns
tCa
e
s
a
r
’
sa
r
mybya
leader named Cassivellaunus. Note how this name begins with Cassi –which is the Greek word
f
or‘
t
i
n’(
a
swes
a
wi
nHe
r
odot
us
’Cassiterides ‘
t
i
ni
s
l
a
nds
’
)
.It
hi
nk–vellaunus is probably in
Venetic (veli –‘
br
ot
he
r
’
?
)
. What if Cassivellaunus’t
r
i
bewa
si
nc
ont
r
olofama
j
ors
our
c
eoft
i
n,
and had been dealing with Veneti before Belgic tribes established their own rival colonies? It
would have been of great interest among the Belgic tribes to defeat them and take control of their
tin mines. Obviously tin mines were developed aleady many centuries ago through Venetic
interest and influence. It
hi
nkCa
e
s
a
r
’
sme
nt
i
ont
ha
tAt an earlier period perpetual wars had
taken place between him and the other states tells the story. The tribes fought over tin resources,
but Cassivellaunus had repelled everyone. In doing so, he proved his superiority, and when all
the tribes were faced with the Roman threat, naturally they saw the best military confederation
should have Cassivellaunus as leader. I may be reading alot into it, but the fact is that if
Herodotus was already speaking of tin coming from Cassiterides in the 5th century BC, Britain
was already mining tin for Veneti even before that time, and it is certainly feasible that the
Belgic tribes had not taken any initiatives themselves at that early date. If they crossed to
“
pl
unde
r
”i
twoul
dha
vebe
e
nt
ot
r
yt
ogr
a
bc
ont
r
ol
sove
rt
het
i
nr
e
s
our
c
e
sf
r
om t
hos
ewhoha
di
t
.
Thus, I propose that the Veneti took early intiatives in developing Britain for international
trade, particularly tin trade, and then later for other products of interest further away.
What other products?
Some indication of what southern Europe found valuable among northern products is implied
by what is known of the travels in the north of the Greek merchant named Pytheas at Massilia
(Marseilles). He visited southern Britain –which he called Prettanike –probably to see where tin
came from, and then appears to have gone into the northern isles where the Orkney Islands are
located where seal and walrus products came from, then to Iceland which he called Thule
through more seas of seals, walrus and whales, and finally he was taken to the southeast Baltic
from which Baltic amber was collected. Pytheas was obviously hosted by a Venetic merchant
ship travelling its rounds in the northern seas, showing Pytheas from where major northern goods
came from. Py
t
he
a
s
’j
our
ne
yoc
c
ur
r
e
di
nt
he4th century BC, about a century later than
Herodotus wrote about tin coming from the Cassiterides.
6
1.2 Summary: Veneti and Belgae Affect Britain from Two Directions
To summarize: Britain was originally developed by Veneti for trading with the east
Mediterranean, but over time, Belgic interest drew Beglic tribes across too. By the time Caesar
arrived, Britain was actively being visited from from Veneti at Brittany which affected the
southwest, and from the Belgae at Calais. Veneti also visited Belgae, in some business
relationship. As today corporations can develop business relationships even where there is
competition or rivalry. Thef
ol
l
owi
ngma
ps
howst
hes
i
t
ua
t
i
ona
tt
het
i
meofCa
e
s
a
r
’
sa
r
r
i
va
l
,
when the Belgic tribes had significantly established their agenda.
The above map roughly illustrates the Venetic and Belgic involvements with Britain on the
southeast and southwest at the time of Caesar
1.3 Ancient Place Names Repeated around Europe Reveal a Large Scale
Venetic Trade Language
PTOLEMY’
SGEOGRAPHI
ESPRESENTANCI
ENTPRE-ROMAN NAMES
The ancient Greek geographer, Ptolemy, early in the Roman period of Europe, collected all
information he could find in Mediterranean libraries, that Roman officials and trading peoples
had gathered over the centuries about different geographical regions of the known world.
Because he lived during the beginnings of the Roman Empire, he benefitted from the information
Roman survey parties had gathered about the world that Romans were interested in, or already
conquered for the Roman Empire. As a result information about these areas that Romans
investigated were f
orPt
ol
e
my
’
spur
po
s
e
s
,quite recent and good.
7
Ptolemy appears to have been able to develop a geographic description of Britain (Albion) as
well as Ireland (Hibernia). He probably drew from information from Roman survey parties
charged with planning Roman initiatives once Britain was in Roman hands. Other information
could have come from traders. While there may have been mistakes made in interpreting what
their informants told them, perhaps Pt
ol
e
my
’
s place and tribe names will reveal a little about
Britain and the native Brittanic language. We bear in mind that place names were established
well before the Romans arrived, and generally Romans did not change well established, wellused names.
My theory is that if Britain was developed by the international trade initiatives of the Venetic
trade system, then most of the place names given by Ptolemy should have a Venetic character.
That also means of a Finnic character.
METHODOLOGY OF INTERPRETING ANCIENT PLACE AND TRIBE NAMES: OBVIOUS
DESCRIPTIONS, AND ANCIENT SYLLABIC LANGUAGES
What would be our methodology?
There has been a tendency in toponomic analysis to accept just about any interpretation –the
name of a god, the name of a totem, anything for which an explanation can be described. But that
contradicts human nature. In preliterate times it was necessary for names to be obvious and
memorable to its users, since there was no mapping, no official naming, no way of maintaining a
name other than from constant everyday use.
The answer is that place names should have obvious meanings in the language from which the
names arose. Since a name was maintained by everyday use, it had to be an appropriate name
that was easy to remember and maintain.
For example, given that people experienced their world most often locally, it was possible for
ar
i
ve
rt
os
i
mpl
ybena
me
dbyt
hewor
dme
a
ni
ng‘
r
i
ve
r
’
.Fore
xa
mpl
ei
nNor
t
hAme
r
i
c
at
hewor
d
“
Mi
s
s
i
s
s
i
ppi
”i
sa
nAl
gonqui
a
nwor
dme
a
ni
ngs
i
mpl
y‘
r
i
ve
r
’
.Butmor
eus
ua
l
l
yi
nwe
s
t
e
r
n
Europe a river was named by what it meant to the users who used its name, Since rivers were
most often used for transporting something by boat, the most common name for a river was to
c
onve
yt
hei
de
aof‘
r
out
e
,wa
y
,f
orc
a
r
r
y
i
ngwa
r
e
s
’
.The word element is RA (Rha) with a trilled
R. (Allowing for vowel variation in dialects and even individual speech, we should indicate it
with R+vowel instead of arbitrarily selecting a vowel) That is why the largest European rivers
we
r
eRA’
s
,s
t
a
r
t
i
ngwi
t
ht
heRhone
,Rhi
ne
,a
ndVol
g
a(
a
nc
i
e
ntRha) all of whose names were
based on RA. When more rivers came into use, -RA was tagged onto names to indicate river
route- Loire was Ligera, Danube was Istra, Wesser was Vesera, Oder was Otra, and more. The
next term that came into use for trade rivers was related to bringing wares to market, and that
was based on TO, TA, TE or generally T+vowel (or D + vowel)1 When thought of in a nominal
1
It is important to note that human languages began syllabically, where the vowel was only the way to reveal the
consonant. This is why when languages shift to various dialectic forms, if we systematically shift the vowels we can
still understand it.Fore
x
a
mpl
ewec
a
ns
t
i
l
lun
de
r
s
t
a
n
dt
h
a
t“
HI
PPYDI
Y”me
a
ns“
HAPPYDAY”
,bu
ti
fwec
h
a
n
g
e
a consonant, we can get lost –f
ore
x
a
mpl
e“
J
APPYTI
Y”l
os
e
si
t
sc
onn
e
c
t
i
ont
o“
HAPPYDAY”
.Fort
h
a
tr
e
a
s
on
,i
n
analyzing ancient place names it is more important to pay attention to the consonant character and patterns, and not
the vowel character if the word was written purely phonetically and captured these shifts in the sounded aspects. (To
a lesser extent there is also hardening and softening of consonants as in B vs P, D vs T, G vs K). Foreigners will not
toss out a well established name, but may alter it to aesthetically suit the nature of their own language. Thus when
the Venetic word was transformed into Latin or Greek, there is a need to try to reverse the change back to its original
form, especially when it shows obvious Greek or Latin endings like –ones, or -um., or –ia, etc
8
wa
y
,i
tde
s
c
r
i
be
s‘
t
ha
tt
hi
ng
’
,whi
l
ei
nave
r
ba
lwa
yi
tme
a
nt‘
t
a
ke(an item)’or‘
br
i
ng(an item)’
depending on point of view.
This truth that ancient pre-literate naming was obviously descriptive, gives us a methodology
to follow in interpreting ancient place names. If we find the very same word used over and over
again, we can conclude it has a very plain descriptive meaning that will naturally be used again
and again.
I already mentioned how T,D+vowel appears over and over in connection with rivers. But this
is just a syllable. It usually appears in conjunction with other syllables, like R+vowel, or
N+vowel, or P,B+vowel. When combined in various ways we arrive at different meanings. As
any student of ancient languages knows, early language was syllabic, and the important element
was the consonant. That is why ancient syllabic writing only needed to specify the consonant.
The vowels between the consonant originally only served to give the voice that revealed the
consonant. If the vowels has meaning, it was related to emotion connected with the sound (such
as IIII being stressful, AAAA being normal, UUUU being wonderous and introspective)
The ancient Venetic and earlier languages could be broken apart into syllables each with their
own meaning, that, when combined with other syllable with their own meaning, formed complex
ideas. Such complex words from various syllabic combinations could become frozen from
acquiring more precise meanings and frequent use. For example we often see the structure vBv
orvVvwhi
c
hme
a
ns‘
wi
de
,c
ont
i
nui
ng
,e
xt
e
ndi
ng
’buti
na
c
t
ua
lpr
a
c
t
i
ce it tended to refer to an
open bay, usually an estuary, and by extension the river of the estuary. Sometimes the implied
meaning seemed vague when viewed in isolation. But we should remember that ancient preliterate language was always spoken, so that all words were used live and in context. If the word
was general or vague in isolation, its meaning was understood in actual use. vVv as in AVA
c
oul
di
na
c
t
ua
lus
eme
a
n‘
ope
nf
i
e
l
d’
.La
ng
ua
g
ebe
c
a
mec
ompl
e
xwhe
ni
twa
ss
e
pa
r
a
t
e
df
r
om
actual live use in real context, such as in storytelling and writing.
The most important concept in the ancient trade world was the combination
[T,D+vowel]+[R+vowel]. It appears to have marked the name of a large market city. We find
this patterns surviving everywhere that ancient long distance Venetic/Finnic traders went,
starting with the north-south amber trade. For example names of this kind surviging today range
from Turku, Finland, to Truro, England, to Taragona, Spain, to Turin Italy. All these locations
we will find, were located in the world of large scale trader dominated by Venetic seatrade. In
ancient times names ranged from many ancient Troy’
s
, to ancient Venetic Tergeste(Terg +
suffix) Taragona like many other place names still in use around northern Spain is very close to
Finnic Venetic. (ie Estonian turu-konna ‘
c
ommuni
t
yoft
hema
r
ke
t
’
)
.
VENETIC LONG DISTANCE TRADE ROUTES
Here are the major Venetic trade routes that began from the earliest transportation of amber
down to Babylon.
-from the east Baltic or Gulf of Finland down to the ancient Hellespont (Troy near the
Paphlagonia of the Eneti of the Iliad);
- from the east Baltic to the Adriatic and down the east Adriatic coast (Tergeste of the Veneti);
-from the Elbe down to the Adige River;
- between the Mediterranean and Atlantic via the Ebro (Taragona) or Garonne;
- via the Loire to central western Europe, into the Rhone, etc.
- the Rhine to the Danube or Rhone, etc
-and more.
9
It is important to realize that the trade routes will show the Venetic repeated names, and
conversely, finding the repeated Venetic names will reveal the trade routes. I believe a scholar of
the Phoenician language could probably similarly trace the trade routes of the ancient
Phoenicians in the south Mediterrean , or Greek traders in the north shore of the Mediterranean –
if there is enough information from Roman documents giving those names. Aside from the
obvious need for names for mountains and major rivers, the major need for place names was for
identifying trade infrastructure –marketplaces, shipping rivers, ports, etc.
MISREADING OF REPETITI
ONSOFVENETI
CAS“CELTI
C”
If scholars have noticed repetition of ancient place names in western Europe, they have
a
s
s
ume
di
tr
e
f
l
e
c
t
sawi
de
l
yus
e
d“
Ce
l
t
i
c
”
.Butt
he
r
ei
sg
oodr
e
a
s
onf
ori
tNOTbe
i
ng“
Ce
l
t
i
c
”
.
Celtic was spoken by land-based peoples who knew everything about land-based life –farming,
etc –and had no traditions in boats or boat-oriented trade. If Celtic art is found widely distributed
around Europe in ancient times, it was distributed by the Veneti and not the Celtic craftsmen who
created the items. Thus tr
a
di
t
i
ona
l
l
yt
hewor
d“
Ce
l
t
i
c
”ha
sbe
e
ne
r
r
one
ous
l
yus
e
di
ns
t
e
a
doft
he
mor
ec
or
r
e
c
t“
Ve
ne
t
i
c
”
.
I have so far mentioned two syllabic elements –Tv and Rv. But there are more, and studying
where they are used will reveal their intrinsic meanings. There is Mv, Nv, Bv, Lv, and many
more. We will not investigate this further in this writing, since our focus is on the ancient British
Isles. I will explain more when we being looking at Pt
ol
e
my
’
sge
og
r
a
phi
e
sofAlbion (Britain)
and Hibernia (Ireland). In this introduction I only want to demonstrate that not only did the
Ve
ne
t
iope
r
a
t
el
ongdi
s
t
a
nc
et
r
a
der
out
e
st
ha
tc
oul
dbr
i
ngwa
r
e
st
oGr
e
e
c
e“
f
r
om t
hee
ndsoft
he
e
a
r
t
h”buta
l
s
ot
ha
ttheir activity left traces of Venetic along their routes.
Trade routes can be determined from common sense and archeological information. For
example archeology shows strong trade connection between the north end of the Italic Peninsula
and the Jutland Peninsula, and has even found dropped amber to determine routes. But what is
often overlooked is that there will also be traces of place, mountain, river, etc names along those
routes. If we know where to look, we will find them.
EXAMPLE REPEATED WORDS IN VENETIC SEATRADE ACROSS THE NORTH: UXELLA
I have repeatedly spoken of how the ocasional repetition of place names in ancient northern
Europe arose from the fact that the language from which they were created was an international
large scale trade language.
Investigating such repetitions across the trade networks is beyond the scope of this writing. It
would be too complicated and need a very large book. We have therefore focussed only on
repetitions within the British Isles.
But the reader will at least want one example that appears to describe a Finnic Venetic
language across the northern seas. The example should be an obvious one. I chose for the
example a word that has an UX element that is so uncommon it cannot be by coincidence
something else.
Note that although this section will deal with the UX word across the ancient north, we can
find it elsewhere too. The reason it is a very good example is because its meaning is highly
appropriate to seafaring –t
hei
de
aofa
r
r
i
vi
nga
ta“
por
t
”
.I
nt
hef
ol
l
owi
ngma
p,t
hes
t
a
r(
*)
shows the location. Use the capital letter for a description in the text.
10
In all cases the Uxella’
ss
e
e
mt
omar
kapas
s
aget
or
e
ac
hs
ome
whe
r
ebe
yond,ofi
nt
e
r
e
s
t
t
ot
r
ade
r
st
r
ave
l
l
i
ngbywat
e
r
.
’
A - Thel
oc
a
t
i
ona
t“
A”de
s
c
r
i
be
st
hei
s
l
a
ndt
oda
yc
a
l
l
e
dUshant, which ships appeared to use
as a launching location for their crossing to southwest Britain, attempting to hit the Scilly
Islands. Pytheas went that way when he travelled into the north, and he recorded the name as
Uxisama. This word is a little different from the more common Uxella, which is composed of
UX or UKS plus the –LA e
ndi
ngme
a
ni
ng‘
l
oc
a
t
i
onof
’
.Ia
mi
nc
l
i
ne
dt
ovi
e
wt
he–isama as
being a word that can be mirrored with Estonian ise ‘
byi
t
s
e
l
f
’a
ndmaa ‘
c
ount
r
y
,l
a
nd’
.Thi
sI
think is an ancient Finnic way of naming an island. (Another way would be ISE-LA ‘
pl
a
c
eby
i
t
s
e
l
f
’
)
.ThusIpr
opos
ei
nt
he Ve
ne
t
i
cs
e
a
t
r
a
del
a
ng
ua
g
eUxisama me
a
nt‘
i
s
l
a
ndt
ha
ti
st
he
por
t
a
l
,door
wa
y
,(
t
oc
r
os
s
i
ngt
oBr
i
t
a
i
n)
’
.TheUX doe
snots
e
e
mt
ome
a
n‘
por
t
’a
sweus
ei
t
today, meaning a static loca
t
i
on,but‘
door
wa
y
,pa
s
s
a
g
e
wa
y
,por
t
a
l
’t
or
e
a
c
hade
s
t
i
na
t
i
onbe
y
ond
–the true meanin of a doorway as a passageway. Thus the remaining examples on the map relate
to the Uxella form signifying a passageway to where the ship is headed. The Uxella’
sorr
e
mains
of Uxella’
sIf
ounda
r
ea
sf
ol
l
ows
.I
nFi
nni
ct
hepa
r
a
l
l
e
li
suksela ‘
pl
a
c
eoft
hedoor
wa
y
’
D, C, B - Pt
ol
e
my
’
sg
e
og
r
a
phyofAlbion gives an estuary called Uxella at D, and at C (the C
Uxella survives today in the word Exeter). B refers to the modern na
meoft
hei
s
l
a
ndsof
fLa
nd’
s
End - Scilly Islands. It is obvious they were once called Uxella Islands, since Uxella easily
be
c
ome
s“
Sc
i
l
l
y
”
.
C - Ptolemy shows an Uxella, which survives today in the name Exeter.
D - Ptolemy shows an Uxella Estuary, which could be the Bristol Channel generally or a
smaller estuary on its coast.
11
E - Ptolemy shows an Uxellum. It might have been at Luce Bay. Perhaps it named a way to
get around the peninsula there.
I - I believe that Uxella was also the origins of the passageway between Sc
y
l
l
a’
sRoc
kand the
shore to get past the whirlpool The Odyssey called Charybdis, which is generally thought to be
the real whirlpool at the Lofoten islands, the Moskstraumen caused by strong tidal currents
flowing through the shallows between these islands and the Atlantic Ocean and the deep
Vestfjorden, creating eddies and whirlpools, the largest one having a diameter of some 40–50
meters (130–160 ft) and inducing surface water ripples up to 1 meter (3 ft 3 in) in amplitude.
Tacitus revealed in his Germania that already in his time there has been a belief from some of
the coincidences that Odysseus travelled in the northern world. In any event, Sc
y
l
l
a’
sRoc
k
according to Circe marked the passageway close to the shore by which ships could get past the
whirlpool. “Sc
y
l
l
a”obvi
ous
l
yc
ome
sf
r
om ‘
UXELLAr
oc
k2. I show this item at the top at letter
“
I
”
.Foramor
ede
t
a
i
l
e
di
nve
s
t
i
g
a
t
i
o
nofVe
ne
t
i
c
-Finnic place names in The Odyssey, see my
paper on the subject (see References).
The remaining three locations are ones that I discovered from a modern map by studying
place names along trade routes towards the east and the Baltic.
F- i
st
oda
y
’
sCuxha
ve
nwhi
c
ha
ppe
a
r
st
os
howt
hee
nt
r
yt
ot
heEl
beRi
ve
r
.
G - south of Nyköping, south of Stockholm, obviously was once an UXELLA and marked the
entry to a water route towards Lake Vättern and onward to Göteborg.
H - is historic. The historic town in the Finnic Livonian language Üksküla obviously meant
‘
por
t
-t
own
’a
si
twa
sl
oc
a
t
e
dont
heDa
ug
a
va(
Fi
nni
cVaina) River by which traders accessed the
Dneiper that went to the Black Sea.
My intention here is to show that repetition of trade or seafaring words appear to reflect the
Venetic lond distance trade –in this case the seatrade across the northern seas. We will generally
find those repeated words a)across the northern seas, b) down the Dneiper River to the Black
Sea, Greece, etc. c)south on the Vistula or Oder to the Adriatic Sea, d) through the Loire River
Valley and the Rhone, e)the Garonne and Ebro Rivers connecting the Mediterranean and
Atlantic. They are often modified or hidden as a result of the great number of additions and
alterations over the last two millennia, which is why discovering the names as they existed in
Roman documents will be revealing. Modern languages are often so far from the original
syllabic (consonants are not run together) languages it may be necessary to find the Roman or
Greek names.
For Example, Marseilles was once called Massilia in Greek. Massilia seems like MAASILLA ‘
br
i
dgeove
rt
hec
ount
r
y
’
,which views rivers as bridges over land. We know that
Massilia must have been based on a descriptive word, because the word is repeated I think in the
river today called Meuse, which has a branch today called Moselle. Massilia, before the Greek
t
r
a
de
r
ss
e
tup,or
i
g
i
na
l
l
ybe
l
onge
dt
ot
heLi
g
ur
i
a
ns
,whi
c
hl
i
ng
ui
s
t
sha
vei
de
nt
i
f
i
e
dwe
r
e“
pr
e
/
non
Indo-Eur
ope
a
n”
.Si
nc
et
heLoi
r
eRi
ve
rha
dt
hes
a
mena
me–Liger, Ligera –this suggests the
Ligurians were in fact the river traders associated with the Veneti trade system. In Finnic the
word liigu me
a
ns‘
t
r
a
ns
por
t
,move
’
,he
nc
et
heLi
g
ur
i
a
nswe
r
e‘
Move
r
s
’
.Pr
ooft
ha
twea
r
e
speaking of a descriptive word of this sort is that Tacitus wrote in his Germania, that some tribes
in the Oder River were collectively called Lygi which can be regarded as a reuse of the same
2
(see my paper: THEODYSSEY’
SNORTHERNORI
GI
NSANDADI
FFERENTAUTHORTHAN
HOMER at www.paabo.ca for more on northern places referred to in the Odyssey and dating to before 500BC..)
12
descriptive concept for similar river shippers, in this case on the lower Oder River. This is the
kind of analysis that I could repeat over and over for 1000 pages if I were to spend years closely
scanning ancient and modern place names along the major trade routes associated with large
scale continental and northern European trade in the Bronze Age.)
NAR-, NARBO; HEL- ACROSS VENETIC TRADE NETWORKS
Another example is the use of NAR, NER, etc which identified narrows or similar places
where there was a bottleneck for watercraft. But it is easier to notice the word when a V+vowel
ending was added. There was a Narbo (today Narbonne) where one transferred from the
Mediterranean to the Garonne, Narvik (
t
oda
y
’
swor
d)where one transferred from the Atlantic at
the Lofotens to the waterways by which one could travel the Tornio River to the Gulf of Bothnia,
and Narva (still today) by which one transferred from the Gulf of Finland to Lake Peipus. I have
come across others from time to time. I have not done an exhaustive search.
Another repeated seafaring word element was HEL-. It appears to come into use from early
lighthouses hanging polished metal to flash sunlight out into the sea. In Estonian the word helk
me
a
ns‘
f
l
a
s
h’
.The
r
ei
sa
ni
s
l
a
ndoutf
r
om t
hemout
hoft
heEl
bet
oda
yc
a
l
l
e
dHe
l
g
ol
a
n
d.In
addition there is the peninsula at the estuary of the Vistula is today called the Hela Peninsula.
Then there is Helsinki. And I recall now and then seeing other such HEL words associated with
the sea. In Estonian this stem describes all concepts related to brightness or lightness, and its use
extended to jewelery and influenced Greek words. Because of the static electricity of amber
traded to Greece, mostly in the form of amber necklaces, it is the origin via Greek of the word
“
e
l
e
c
t
r
i
c
i
t
y
”
.Anc
i
e
ntGr
e
e
c
ec
a
l
l
e
da
mbe
relectridas, but that word sounds like (Est.) hellekede
rida ‘
r
ow (
r
i
da
)ofbr
i
g
htt
hi
ng
s(
i
ej
e
we
l
-t
hi
ng
s
)
’
.Si
nc
enor
t
he
r
na
mbe
rworkshops created the
amber necklaces at source, the southern world mostly experienced amber in the form of
necklaces. But where the HEL occurs in conjunction with seatrade, it relates to –I think –to
lighthouse locations guiding ships to their destinations. Wea
s
s
umet
hei
de
nt
i
t
yof“
Ve
ne
t
i
”
(Eneti, Venedi, etc) began with the amber trade, originally down the Dneiper to Babylon, and
wa
snotne
c
e
s
s
a
r
i
l
yor
g
a
ni
z
e
d.I
nEs
t
oni
a
n“
vened”me
a
ns‘
boa
t
s
’a
nds
oa
s“
venede”i
tc
a
nr
e
f
e
r
t
o‘
(
pe
opl
e
)oft
heboa
t
s
’a
ndi
twa
sus
e
dup to several centuries ago (ie applied to Votes) and
was a general description of shippers. In fact I found the Adriatic Veneti inscriptions appeared to
use the word (in the form .e..n.no(d) )notf
orana
t
i
on,butf
ort
hewor
l
dof‘
s
hi
ppe
r
s
’
.Our
c
onc
e
ptofana
t
i
onbe
g
a
nwi
t
hki
ng
l
yg
ove
r
nme
nt
s
.Ot
he
r
wi
s
e“
venede”s
i
mpl
yde
s
c
r
i
be
d
shipper-traders unified mainly from the bonds of interracting in trade and business, and maybe it
is better to view the ancient trade world more in terms of associated business corporations than in
the common idea of a kingdom or empire.
Thusi
twoul
dbei
nc
or
r
e
c
tt
ovi
e
w“
Veneti”a
si
fi
twe
r
eoneg
i
a
ntna
t
i
on.I
twa
sr
e
a
l
l
ya large
variety of clans and tribes who participated in a trade network that had been developing for
centuries and because it was dominated by northern boat peoples the lingua franca that had
developed was of a Finnic nature. Local variations were possible –it is all in accordance with the
linguistic truth that communication contact promotes convergence, while lack of contact allows
divergence, and there was nothing stronger for creating convergence than the continual contact
year after year, century after century of players in the world of trade, industry and commerce
connecting with each other and needing a common language.
Such linguistic convergence along the tradeways of Europe began long ago. It could have
started several millenia before Caesar saw Europe. Thus the nature of Europe as a place of trade,
13
industry and commerce was well established by the time Caesar was charged by Roman to
c
onque
rwe
s
t
e
r
nEur
opewhi
c
hwa
sg
e
ne
r
a
l
l
yr
e
f
e
r
r
e
dt
oa
s“
Ga
l
l
i
a
”
.
Thus all the Venetic seatrader terms we can find in ancient records and even sometimes
recognizable on modern maps, are very old, dating to before the Roman Empire, and they are
everywhere (if you know Estonian intuitively –from being raised in it –and learn what to look
for). We are not speaking of a few coincidences here and there.
We can even point to proof that Finnic-using traders from the north may have established
Greece. But following the story of the Pelasgi told by Herodotus, would take up too much space.
It is enough to say that Thessaly reached by the Axios seems like Estonian teesealu ‘
lower end of
t
hebr
i
ng
i
ngr
oa
d’at the uksese ‘
door
wa
y
’river. To the right you see Mount Olympus which
siunds like ülim pea ‘
hi
g
he
s
tmount
a
i
n’
.Anot
he
ri
sMycenea, a pre-Greek market which was
then invaded by Indo-European Greeks, who transformed the Pelagsic east Mediterranean to
Greek form. The Mycenea name resonates with müügin ‘
(
pl
a
c
e
)oft
hes
e
l
l
i
ng
’
.Onc
eonebe
g
i
ns
to see these things, one can continue to arrive at quite a number of remarkable coincidences.
. It is possible for all kinds of languages to find meanings to ancient words, but what is
remarkable, and which suggests it is true, that all the results from the Finnic perspective are
amazingly close to the most obvious descriptions –which was necessary for non-literate, nonorganized early Europe where places were named by what most people understood as their best
description.
The solution to the mystery of Greek origins is that the Pelasgi, who Herodotus said began
Greece, were traders who came from the Danube by way of the Axios and established markets.
Archeology shows that there was little industry and trade in the Aegean originally, and suddenly
there was a major developmen when all the barren volcanic island of the Aegean came alive with
craft industries to create wares to trade. This development agrees with the Pelasgi giving rise to
the Hellenes, which although began from Pelasgi, drew all kinds of people into it. The trade
created may have begun in Pelasgic, but because Mycenean Greeks conquered Crete and asserted
control over trade, Greek replaced it. According to Herodot
us
,t
hePe
l
a
s
g
iwe
r
e“
ba
r
b
a
r
i
a
n”
which means they spoke another language, and they did not themselves grow, which means they
were just a colony for traders, and not settled people. (Meaning their kind was found elsewhere.)
There is more, but it would take us outside the scope of our current interest in the more obvious
Venetic initiatives and influences closer to Roman times and up to the Roman transformation of
Europe.
ROMAN DISRUPTION OF THE ORIGINAL LONG DISTANCE TRADE SYSTEMS
This age of Venetic trade systems, paralleling the Greek and Phonecian ones in the
Mediterranean, came to an end with the Roman Empire –nor did it spare the breakup of the
Phoenician trade colonies on the Mediterranean south coast, and the Greek trade colonies on the
Mediterranean north coast. We cannot pretend that the powerful Mediterranean trade system
would break up and not the Venetic. (Not entirely, as I will point out. The northern Venetic
system did continue to the end of the Roman Age, because the Romans had little impact in
northeastern and eastern Europe.
Thus the Roman Empire changed everything. The Venetic trade system, like that of the
Phoenicians and Greeks, collapsed. All activity became Roman controlled. The large scale
standard language became Latin (in practice various coarse forms of Latin)
Scholars generally agree that Europe was originally NON-Indo-European, and have cited
examples like the Iberians, Ligurians, and Etruscans. Archeology has confirmed that there were
14
also Indo-Europeans in the form of Celtic, Germanic, and Slavic tribes, too, but they were landbased farming peoples who did not travel far from their settlements, had no boat-trader
traditions, and were the customers of the trader peoples.
Note that in order to have a trade system, there also had to be consumers who demanded it.
and the consumers came from the settled farming people who were stuck in one spot. Mobile
traders were welcome –they brough exotic goods and stories from afar to the poor sedentary
peoples. It follows that a trade sytem could not develop until first Europe became colonized by
farming peoples who spread up through the highlands north of the Danube.
When the original non-political systems of western Europe were broken up by the highly
organized Roman Empire, the large scale trader people, the Veneti and associated traders,
continued in a more localized way. As I will point out later, the southeast Baltic Venedi, lost their
connections in the direction of the Adriatic Veneti, now Romanized, and so they were limited to
trading up the Vistula in the direction of the Black Sea, that, along with the post-Roman
expansions of Slavs, gradually converted them to employing the Slavic languages. Similarly –
and this is relevant to the discussion of Britain –the Brittany Veneti tended to be limited to
dealing with Britain as before, but no further than carrying wares into western Europe via the
Loire, that, gradually made the Brittany Veneti use the Celtic of the settled peoples, the
customers, in the Loire Valley. Between the two, Tacitus writes about Hermonduri being
permitted by the Romans to trade between the Germanic settlements down to Rhaetia. They were
probably technically Veneti, but with another name. There has been a lack of reference to any
Germanic Venedi/Veneti which has lead to debates between Germanic and Slavic scholars.
Ta
c
i
t
us
’c
omme
nt
sont
heHermonduri reveals just how much the Roman system hampered
the freedom of all long distance traders. They appear to have gone up and down the Rhine and
went as far as Rhaetia. They are clearly descended from the original Veneti who took the route
south to the Adriatic from the Jutland Peninsula (as opposed to the other route from the southeast
Baltic)
[Hermonduri] a people this, faithful to the Romans. So that to them alone of all the
Germanians, commerce is permitted; not barely upon the bank of the Rhine, but more
extensively, and even in that glorious colony in the province of Rhaetia. They travel everywhere
at their own discretion and without a guard; and when to other nations, we show no more than
our arms and encampments, to this people we throw open our houses and dwellings, as to men
who have no longing to possess them.
[Tacitus, Germania, Ch 41]
This shows just how much the traders had to be true to the Roman system, and loved by all its
customers, to have even half the freedom they had before the Roman Empire. It makes us think
that the Brittany Veneti had to similarly become very friendly with the Romans, and as a result
they would have had similar freedom of movement –except they had no other Venetic colonies
to interface with. It is probably that the Brittany Veneti became unofficial agents of Rome when
concerning the western side of the British Isles. With Veneti being faithful to the Romans –
paying taxes, etc –the Romans did not need much of a Roman presence there in western Britain
and Hibernia.
15
1.4 Summary of the Venetic Trade World Centuries before the Romans
As I said above, anyone studying place names given in Roman documents in relation to
western Europe (“
Gallia”
)
,wi
l
lf
i
n
d ma
ny r
e
pe
t
i
t
i
onsofwor
ds
.Tha
trepetition is partly
responsible for the traditional belief that there was one language in western Europe, even if
Caesar wrote that western Europe was divided between three areas with their own langauges,
laws and institutions –Aquitani in the Garonne River valley, Belgae in the northeast and down
the Rhine, and the Celtae in the Loire River valley.
If there was no evidence of any large scale organized empire before the Roman Empire, then
the only way in which there can be the same words repeated over wide geographic areas, is
through steady contact through the tradeways of Europe. According to linguistics, languages
naturally diverge when left alone, and thus it is only through amounts of contact that the
divergence is prevented or even reversed.
I mentioned at the start how at a basic level, if tribes come into contact with one another by
living in the same river system, over centuries the tribes in that river system will soon be
speaking the same language –like the Aquitani in the Garonne River valley. There can be
smaller scales of uniformity too. Settled people might not contact one another by rivers, but by
horse or on foot. They might have a local market. Thus the farming peoples –Celtic, Germanic,
Slavic –might develop dialects covering the reach of that local market. Throughout central
Europe three were probably a hundred dialects of Celtic, Germanic and Slavic. I invite linguists
who understand this principle to imagine the regions of a single language among trading boat
peoples, and conversely imagine how the farming settlements of central Europe would have had
many languages –contrary to the traditional simpleminded notion that there was once a single
Celtic language, a single Germanic one and a single Slavic one, or worse still there are Celtic
scholars who claim Germanic was Celtic, and now Slavic scholars who claim they were all
“
Sl
a
vi
c
”
.Thet
r
ut
hi
st
he
ya
l
lor
i
g
i
na
t
e
df
r
om as
i
ng
l
eI
ndo-European language somewhere in the
east and over many centuries of migrations, there was major divergence –every settled area, out
of contact with sister settlements, diverged from all the sister languages. It would be similar to
how more recently there developed a large number of Germanic languages in Germany,
Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, Norway, Britain...and within each many dialects from
r
e
g
i
ont
or
e
g
i
on.Tha
twa
show i
twa
swi
t
ht
hes
e
t
t
l
e
me
nt
soft
hea
r
c
he
ol
og
i
c
a
l“
Cor
de
d-ware
Cul
t
ur
e
”–only immediate neighbouring settlements were in anyway similar in their language.
By contrast, the language of trader peoples, always interracting with one another century after
century, cultivate a single lingua franca. Thus by linguistic truths alone, the repetition of words
across Europe before a large scale empire like the Roman Empire, could only have been created
by a large scale lingua franca of trade –ie Venetic.
Languages had different amounts of reach according to the patterns of contact. If traders
from eastern Europe travelled all the way to western Europe or vice versa, they would develop
their own language, but that language was also shaped by more local contacts, and vice versa.
Obviously the trade system of Europe was structured according to geography, settlement, wealth,
and consumer behavour. Geogaphically speaking, river valleys tended to draw all tribes in those
river valleys together, and that is why Caesar observed three divisions of Europe according to the
Garonne, Loire, and Rhine River valley, and of course the north coast, My hypothesis in this
writing is simply that Britain too formed its own large scale language as a result of associations.
16
Although there was a large river, the Thames, Britain had a long coastline. A coastline can be
viewed as a long river, when no interior people were very far from any coast.
The Romans never suggested that the British Isles had many languages. In fact Tacitus
identified a native British language. Thus western Europe, when Caesar arrived, consisted not
only of the languages of Aquitani, Belgae, and Celtae, but also Brittani While traditional belief
has been that Brittanic was Celtic, I propose that is impossible. Like the other large scale
language, the Brittanic language could only have developed from British peoples all being
involved in a single large scale trade system, and the only candidates for the developers or
promoters of large scale trading was the Veneti who history confirms were involved with Britain.
If the British Isles became a focus of international trade many centuries before the Romans
arrived it would have been impacted by the outside intrusion of seatraders using the Venetic
language.
While a few contact events have no impact, if it went on for centuries, it could transform the
native British from an original fragmentary form of independent tribes each with their own
varying language and culture fighting one another, to one which was unified by the interractions
between the tribes in the world of trade developed or inspired by the Veneti.
In this light, there is a passage that is very interesting from the standpoint of the interraction
between the native British tribes and markets to which international traders went and which they
may have begun. This passage does not refer to Veneti, but Phoenicians (which also points out t
that other international traders were interested in the British Isles), but it would apply to Veneti
as well. It shows how vigorously native peoples will respond to traders. In more recent history
we saw a vigorous response of the native peoples of eastern North America to the promise of
obtaining iron axe-heads and pots from the French. Nobody should pretend that native peoples
need to be taught or encouraged to become involved in trade. Consumerism seems to be intrinsic
to human nature. People who want something will become motivated to obtain it. Here is the
revealing passage:
According to Farley Mowat in Farfarers, the Roman poet Avienus, quoting fragments from a
Carthaginian periplus (seaman's sailing directions) dating to the six century B.C. described a
rendevous with native British in skin boats as follows (my underlining).
To the Oestrimnides [Scilly Islands] come many enterprising people [from among the British
natives] who occupy themselves with commerce and who navigate the monster-filled [ie
walruses, seals, whales, propoises, etc] ocean far and wide in small ships. They do not
understand how to build wooden ships in the usual way. believe it or not, they make their boats
by sewing hides together and carry out deep-sea voyages in them. Two days farther north lies the
great island formerly called Holy Island [Ireland] where the Hierne people live adjacent to the
island of Alba [mainland Britain]
Note that if this dates to the six century BC, it shows that the native British –at least towards
the south –were already quite involved with international trade, industry and commerce at that
time. It may be possible to place the involvement of British Isles people in the context of
international trade maybe as early as 1000BC, which was about the time that archeology reveals
the Veneti, originating in amber trade with Greece going back to 2000BC or more, was
expanding their trade interests westward by starting a new trade route that went down the Adige
River to the Adriatic. Maybe the Veneti interest in Britain was started about that time too, or
already existed since prehistoric times from natural contacts between boat-oriented aboriginals.
17
While the British Isles may have been visited by Phoenicians or Greeks in those early years,
they lacked the technology or knowledge to handle the northern seas, and so the Veneti remained
the dominant seatrading people in the north.
It is thus important not to minimize the ability of the native British tribes, coming in contact
with traders, of adapting to it and exploiting it, and in the long run –if they were mostly dealing
with Venetic traders –of adapting to the Venetic language and using it for the benefits of being
easily able to communicate with and negotiate with the international interests coming to their
shores.
It is easy to see how with this sort of energy, native British would soon become linguistically
one, and that this would not be undermined by the intrusion of Belgic tribes. Only Roman
conquest threatened the native British language and institutions - as happened also with the
Aquitani, Belgae and Celtae on the mainland.
I think I have above made the case for the British Isles becoming organized around trade, and
developing their own large scale trade language.
As for what was the nature of the native British language that developed requires some further
study of information we have available. Since the Romans did not change place names after they
c
onque
r
e
dBr
i
t
a
i
n,wec
a
nf
i
r
ml
ys
a
yt
ha
tt
hepl
a
c
ena
me
si
nPt
ol
e
my
’
sge
og
r
a
phyofBr
i
t
a
i
n
(Albion) and Ireland (Hibernia) will reflect that original native British language. The names may
appear distorted by Roman interpretation of what informants said (since Roman observers could
only write it down phonetically), and be changed a little to be more agreeable to speakers of
Latin, but I believe in the place names given by Ptolemy, we will be dealing with the original
native British language, which we propose was of a Finnic nature as a result of the strong
involvement for centuries by the Venetic large scale trade language, which our study of the
Adriatic incription shows was founded in Finnic.
18
2
THE STORY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNATIONAL
BRITAIN REVEALED I
NPTOLEMY’
SPLACE NAMES
2.1 British Isles as an International Place, Accessed from several directions.
In section 1, I discussed Britain being accessed from two directions, from the southeast and
southwest. The Belgic tribes who had moved into southeast Britain were obviously moving trade
goods between southeast Britain and their mirror tribes on the mainland coast. Perhaps earlier
only the Veneti were there.
On the other hand the southwest was mostly accessed by the Veneti tribes coming from
Brittany. I think that since the Veneti had a longstanding relationship with Greek traders from
ancient amber trade with Greece, they may have introduced British tin to Greece, and finding the
demand initiated turning Britain into the international role beginning with tin.
While they may have begun fetching tin from central Britain. because they were so adapted to
the sea, they began to explore further options. Was there tin elsewhere? Was there other ores?
What about copper?
I already showed on the map showing Alaunus, how by Roman times, the Veneti were also in
the north, crossing from the Irish Sea to the North Sea via the short gap between the Firth of
Clyde and Firth of Forth. From there, ships crossed to the Norwegian coast and followed the
coast the Jutland Peninsula, and continuing as far as the east Baltic. While we may consider this
a long distance today, there is an ancient document revealing that under sail day and night, it was
possible to travel from Britain to the east Baltic in only 10 days. More time was spent stopping
at ports than on the sea!!! Thus we must not be afraid of viewing international, large scale, trade
via sailing vessels as quite common –ever since sailing vessels reached maturity during the
Br
onz
eAg
e
.He
r
ei
sCa
e
s
a
r
’
sde
s
c
r
i
pt
i
onofVe
ne
t
i
cs
hi
ps
:
Their keels were considerably more flat than those of our own ships, that they might more
easily weather shoals and ebbtide. Their prows were very lofty, and their sterns were similarly
adapted to meet the force of the waves and storms. The ships were made entirely of oak, to
endure any violence and buffeting...Skins and pieces of leather finely finished were used instead
of sail...When our fleet encountered these ships (ours) proved its superiority only in speed and
oarsmanship [note: Roman galleys could be rowed, hence could attain greater speed if needed
and travel even in calm seas]; in all other respects, having regard to the locality and force of the
tempest, the others were more suitable and adaptable. [meaning, if there was wind, the Veneti
ships were better]
In other words, Venetic ships were well-adapted to the northern seas –and probably for the
purpose of trade –and were superior to Roman ships that followed Mediterranean designs –and
also was designed for military purposes.
Ships like those of the Veneti used for long distance seatrade (NOT fishing) existed already
in the Bronze Age. That means that if Caesar wrote that the Veneti dominated all who sailed the
seas, in fact it meant throughout the northern seatrade activity, which reached to the Baltic. It
makes no sense that Veneti would only assume power over the sea only a day or two distant,
19
when in only ten days a ship could reach the east Baltic. I suggest the Veneti dominated ALL
who sailed the seas, ALL across the north. This does not mean that the Armoricae nations listed
were not found at Brittany, but some of those named nations in the northwestern seas –
if they
travelled the length of the northern seas –had mirror colonies at the east Baltic. A good example
may be the Lemovices of the Armoricae, since Roman historian identified a nation of Lemovii at
3
t
hes
out
he
a
s
tBa
l
t
i
ca
mongt
he“
Venedae races”
.
By common sense alone, we can expect that long distance seatraders created colonies, even if
only stopping places for long journeys, and that some of them specialized in east-west journeys
across the northern seas, while some specialized in north-south journeys up and down the
Atlantic coast. There were so many possible seatrade routes. The following map shows mostly
the main contact areas to the British Isles. One missing avenue would be ships from the Jutland
Pennisula travelling to southeast Britain via the Jutland Peninsula coast. Because of the many
routes, I generalize routes with double ended arrows.
BRITAIN AS AN ANCIENT INTERNATIONAL FOCUS FROM THREE DIRECTIONS
Traditional thinking practically ignores large scale trade, and naively only thinks in terms of
military invasions across the Channel; but the information since centuries BC portrayed the
Br
i
t
i
s
hI
s
l
e
sasade
s
t
i
nat
i
onofl
ongdi
s
t
anc
et
r
ad
e
r
s
.Fr
omJ
ul
i
usCae
s
ar
’
swr
i
t
i
ngal
one
,we
can l
e
ar
nt
he
r
ewasas
t
e
adyc
r
os
s
i
n
goft
hec
hanne
lat“B”,i
nv
ol
v
i
ngBelgae, and that the
Brittany Veneti (
“A”)s
ai
l
e
dr
e
gul
ar
l
yt
oBr
i
t
ai
n.
ButPt
l
ol
e
my
’
sge
ogr
aphyofAlbion reveals
that there was major activity crossing between the Irish Sea and North Sea, through the narrow
gap between the Firth of Clyde and Firth of Forth
3
Another Armorican tribe that may be a mirror of their presence in the east Baltic may be the Curiosolites as
this name resonated with the Curonians and Osilians who were closely associated in the seas out from the Gulf of
Riga
20
If the place and/or tribe names given by Ptolemy for Britain and Ireland were in the FinnicVenetic large scale language as as result of Venetic initiatives for centuries before the Romans
arrived, then we should be able to detect Finnic patterns in those words, and they must yeild
suitable meanings. This of course will contradict traditional beliefs that the ancient words were
i
n“
Ce
l
t
i
c
”
.
Our being able to interpret a large number of place names via Finnic would be revolutionary
in our assumptions about the native British language when the Romans arrived. (My
interpretations from a Finnic perspective will try to find word elements found in the Adriatic
Venetic inscriptions and generally repeated throughout the Venetic trade world as discussed
earlier. For references to Finnic, I will be using mainly Estonian, which has a seagoing, seatrade,
history as well as a connection to the Aestii nations (
orPt
ol
e
my
’
s“
Venedae races”
)
.
Our pur
pos
ei
st
of
oc
usont
heBr
i
t
i
s
hI
s
l
e
sa
ndt
ous
et
heva
l
ua
bl
er
e
s
our
c
eofPt
o
l
e
my
’
s
geography of Britain (Albion) and Ireland (Hibernia) in early Roman Britain times, to interpret
place names according to the general Venetic-British language that I believe developed there
over the previous centuries of the British Isles becoming the focus of international trade,
especially in quest of tin.
Simply trying to decipher words one by one is not enough. More important is to discover how
the meanings in place names relate to both the geography and economic activity. In section 3 I
will look at specific parts of Britain and Ireland, to show, via geography and meanings in the
names, the trade routes.
In this section I will show generally how some syllabic elements and complete words in place
names are dominated by concepts associated with trade –bringing wares to market, gathering
wares for distribution, etc. I have already discussed it a little in section 1. In this section we will
specifically look at place names for Albion and Hibernia given by Ptolemy. Our focus now will
be on the British Isles.
2.2 Some Repet
i
t
i
ons Reveal
ed i
n Pt
ol
emy’
s Pl
ace Names i
n Al
bi
on and
Hibernia
FINNIC ALREADY IN BRITAIN AFTER THE ICE AGE
We now focus our attention on the ancient British Isles.
The advantage the British Isles has for analysis is that it is so self-confined, on it own.
They are islands, separated, not part of mainland Europe, because of the separation by the
seas. That means the British Isles had most contact with seagoing peoples. It was very difficult
for land-based peoples like Celtic or Germanic or Slavic tribes to casually cross into Britain and
cause havoc. Over time, of course, the shortest spans would be crossed by various tribes on the
mainland who did not necessarily have much of a seagoing capability It is not surprising that the
closest span, that at the Strait of Dover, would cause southeast Britain become almost like an
extension of Gaul. It is also probably that the Celtic Scots, land-based peoples, would manage to
cross from northern Ireland to Britain, probably at the closest crossing at the North Channel. Had
the gap been larger it is likely Scotland would still be Pictish (or Pictish-Norse), and not Scottish.
Note too, that even if land-based peoples got ferried across, the amount of people that could
be carried across in ships was small. It meant that there could never be any major military
invasion, nor any major refugee crossing, until the Romans mounted a massive military assault.
21
That is the mainr
e
a
s
onwhyt
het
r
a
di
t
i
ona
lbe
l
i
e
ft
ha
t“
Ce
l
t
s
”c
r
os
s
e
dove
ri
nt
oBr
i
t
a
i
nf
r
om t
he
mainland and overran Britain is unsupportable. Note how difficult it was for Julius Caesar to
get his army across at the Strait of Dover. Before the Romans it is unlikely there was any major
invasion or immigration from outside.
But there could be plenty of visits from seagoing peoples for centuries and millenia!!!!!!! A
trickle of contacts over many centures has much more impact than a single enormous military
invasion which moreover is resisted. (Steady trade contacts of many centuries is not even
imposed. There is a natural change.)
Thus the seas around it ensured that the British Isles was maritime in nature –mainly visited
and influenced only by seagoing peoples with ships with which wide gaps of sea was no
problem.
Where did the seagoing visitors come from? Archeological information suggests northern
Europe was inherently boat-us
i
ng
,a
ndt
ha
t“
Fi
nni
c
”c
ul
t
ur
ewa
si
nhe
r
e
nt
l
yboa
t
-using with
portions having larger boats and being seagoing. Thus the seagoing peoples who visited the
British Isles did not come from somewhere else –they were native. They were descendants of
t
hea
r
c
he
ol
og
i
c
a
l“
Ma
g
l
e
mos
ec
ul
t
ur
e
”
,a
ndt
ha
twa
sa
l
s
ot
heul
t
i
ma
t
eor
i
g
i
nsoft
heVeneti
seatraders.
MAGLEMOSE CULTURE: The seagoing peoples who frequented Britain before the seatrading,
were those who arose out of the boat-oriented nomadic hunter gatherers that developed since the
e
ndoft
heI
c
eAg
e
,a
ndwhi
c
ha
r
c
he
ol
og
i
s
t
sha
vec
a
l
l
e
dt
he“
Ma
g
l
e
mos
eCul
t
ur
e
”
.Ar
c
he
ol
ogy
has further found that they originated out of the reindeer peoples in the late Ice Age, when the
north European mainland plain was reindeer tundra. The climate then warmed rapidly and
reindeer hunters had to adapt now to marshes, lakes, rivers. Not being able to easly walk, these
people developed logs into dugout canoes, and once they had mastered it and the whole nature
was coming alive with life, their population grew and they expanded east via all waterways as far
as reaching the Ural Mountains via the Volga and Kama Rivers. This scenario reveals that the
Finno-Ugric cultures arose from it. (Finnic referring to those towards the west of this range, and
Ugric to those in the east closest to the Samoyeds). Meanwhile some reindeer hunters did
manage to not change –in eastern Europe the reindeer herds were free to shift north with the
shifting tundra and reach the arctic.
22
In general linguists (notably Finnish linguist Kalevi Wiik) realized that the reindeer hunters
and the boat peoples of“
Ma
g
l
e
mos
e
”be
g
i
nni
ng
s
,a
r
et
hes
our
c
eoft
he“
Ur
a
l
i
c
”l
a
ng
ua
g
ef
a
mi
l
y
.
Unf
or
una
t
e
l
yove
rt
i
me
,t
hewe
s
t
e
r
npa
r
toft
heboa
tpe
opl
e
s
,whowec
a
nc
a
l
l“
Fi
nni
c
”
,wa
s
assimilated at various points in history, sometimes very recently –for example Germanic
Norwegian and Swedish kingdoms in earlier history spoke of the native peoples of Scandinavia
be
i
ng“
Fi
n
n
s
”a
ndf
r
om t
ha
tt
hehi
nt
e
r
l
a
ndsofNor
wa
ya
ndSwe
de
nwe
r
ec
a
l
l
e
d“
Fi
nnma
r
k
”a
nd
“
Fi
nnl
a
nda
”r
e
s
pe
c
t
i
ve
l
y
.“
Fi
nnl
a
nda
” ga
ve r
i
s
et
ot
he na
t
i
on ofFi
nl
a
nd. Other historic
r
e
f
e
r
e
nc
e
si
nc
l
udeTa
c
i
t
usi
de
nt
i
f
y
i
ngpe
opl
ec
a
l
l
e
de
i
t
he
r“
Fi
nni
”or “
Fe
nni
”
.Toda
ys
c
hol
a
r
s
t
e
ndt
oonl
yt
hi
nkoft
he“
Fi
nns
”now c
a
l
l
e
d“
Sa
a
mi
”i
na
r
c
t
i
cNor
wa
y
,whot
e
ndr
e
i
nde
e
r
,but
history does not single out reindeer people – they were also living in forests and harvesting the
seas, notably the places recieving the North Atlantic Drift (the extension of the Gulf Stream).
It follows that for millenia the British Isles was mostly if not entirely in contact with boat
peoples of someva
r
i
a
t
i
onoft
he“
Fi
nni
c
”c
ul
t
ur
eoft
heboa
t
-using hunter-gatherers. Even when
boat peoples came up the Atlantic coasts, and landed in Britain to leave megalithic constructions
on its shores, they could only do so because they mastered navigating the seas.
I
ti
s100% obvi
oust
ha
tt
heBr
i
t
i
s
hI
s
l
e
swa
sor
i
g
i
na
l
l
y‘
s
e
t
t
l
e
d’byboa
tpe
opl
e
s
,buta
si
tt
ur
ns
out, mostly by seahunters exploiting the bountiful waters of the north and west coasts, washed by
the North Atlantic Drift, with one branch turning east through the northern isles. Today
archeologists continue to find rock carvings left by such boat peoples from the Lofoten Islands
northward, where the North Atlantic Drift turns into the Norwegian Arctic waters. Those rock
carvings show skin boats. Some images show skin boats made from moose hides, where the
moose head is on the prow. Identical images have been found at Lake Onega and White Sea,
suggesting they came from the same Finnic boat culture –from a branch who went north and
were forced to develop skin boats as trees were too small for dugouts suitable for the sea.
One could continue with further evidence along these lines to show that the British Isles was
mostly a maritime location, where inland regions were originally relatively uninhabited until
influences from the mainland managed to cross the channel.
Taking all the information together, the Br
i
t
i
s
hI
s
l
e
swe
r
ei
nt
r
i
ns
i
c
a
l
l
y“
Fi
nni
c
”i
nna
t
ur
e
,long
before the involvement of the Finnic Veneti. The British Isles, like Scandinavia and the Jutland
Peninsula and south Baltic were all the locations that were originally the archeologically defined
boat peoples called the “
Ma
g
l
e
mos
ec
ul
t
ur
e
”
.The“
Kunda
”c
ul
t
ur
eoft
hee
a
s
tBa
l
t
i
cc
oa
s
twa
s
an extension of it that moved out into the sea to harvest whales and seals.
If the original British languages had not been Finnic (meaning lacking the basic linguistic
structure and core words) it would have been necessary for original tribes to lose their original
language. But in this case the original tribes did not have to adopt something completely new,
but simply converged their own language with the one of large-scale Britain introduced by
traders.
The reason for briefly giving the above background –t
ha
tBr
i
t
a
i
nwa
s‘
s
e
t
t
l
e
d’byboa
t
-using
people since the Ice Age because it was surrounded by seas, and that the northern Venetic
seatraders were also of the same boat-using Finnic origins –is to anticipate that when we analyze
ancient British place names, the Finnic character might not be entirely from Venetic. Place
names could be originally native. In my analysis of the place names given by Ptolemy,
sometimes I can clearly identify their origin in influence of Venetic traders, but at other times –
such as names of isolated island names which certainly had no involvement in Venetic trade - it
seems as if the place name was already there from more ancient origins. We know from recent
North America, that newcomers do not necessarily dispose of already established place names,
23
and as a result most of the major geographical features of North America are of native origins. It
follows that just as the Romans did not dispose of the place names already being used by native
British, so too as Venetic large scale trade spread through Britain, the Veneti did not dispose of
earlier place names already being used. And just as the Romans created Latin place names only
where they did major developments, so too the earlier Veneti would have given Venetic place
names only where they established their trade activity, where it ha
dn’
tbe
e
nbe
f
or
e
.
But it is also important that the original pre-Venetic place name was being well-used and
newcomers then could not displace it.
The problem though, is that if the original aboriginal British spoke a Finnic language, then
when the Venetic traders came along, they understood the original name, and what happened was
that the original name simply changed to fit Venetic better, especially when all the users were
now speaking the same Brittanic language that was more like Venetic.
ALAUNA –LANDING PLACES
I
fIbe
g
a
nmys
ur
ve
yofPt
ol
e
my
’
spl
a
c
ena
me
sf
orBr
i
t
a
i
ni
nt
hee
a
r
l
yRoma
nt
i
me
s
, by
simply interpreting names one after another without any rhyme or reason, I will fail to capture
some of the information that will help convince the reader of its probable correctness. Thus there
has to be some rhyme and reason to the process.
The most convincing interpretations are for place names that are repeated all over. The
repetition will mean the same language was simply giving places the same descriptive meaning,
and therefore our interpretation had to be meaningful in all places.
Earlier I showed how Uxella was found all over through all locations where we know there
was long distance trade across the northern seas or north-south along major rivers. Those were
the Venetic trade routes. Uxella oc
c
ur
ss
e
ve
r
a
lt
i
me
si
nPt
o
l
e
my
’
sBr
i
t
a
i
n(
Albion). Alauna
words occur many more times and at least once on the mainland side –proving it too is of
Venetic origins.
The following map shows the approximate locations of the Alauna word. But I also show
some instances of a Veneti –related word that suggests the Veneti presence in the north, as that
was a source of sea resources such as walrus tusks and skins.
The obvious meaning of Alauna is ‘
l
a
ndi
ng
’
.Fort
hewor
d to be so similar in both north and
south, and to be associated with seatrade coming up and down the Atlantic coast and up and
down the Irish Sea. Otherwise there would be dialectic variations.
Let us look at the word Alauna from a Finnic perspective, since my study4 of ancient Adriatic
Venetic inscriptions revealed it was a Finnic language, and it seems a variety of it was also at
Brittany and southwest Britain.
In Estonian we have alu ‘
ba
s
e
,f
ou
n
da
t
i
on’
,alla ‘
down,t
o-be
l
ow’
.I
fve
r
ba
l
i
z
e
dalu/ma could
me
a
n‘
t
ol
owe
r
,t
ol
a
nd’ThusAlauna qui
t
ec
l
e
a
r
l
yanomi
na
l
i
z
a
t
i
onofave
r
ba
li
de
aof‘
l
a
ndi
ng’
with an added –N(
A)f
ort
hege
ni
t
i
ve(
‘
oft
hel
a
ndi
ng
’
)
.
Suppor
t
i
n
gt
heme
a
ni
ng‘
l
a
ndi
ng
’
,not
et
ha
ti
ta
ppe
a
r
sont
hec
oa
s
t
sa
torne
a
rt
heVe
ne
t
i
c
seatrade routes.
4
VENETIC LANGUAGE An Ancient Language from a New Perspective: FINAL (see at www.paabo.ca)
24
We know that the ancient Veneti
also used the word, without the T.
This is most evident from the fact
that today the city where the
ancient Brittany Venetic were
located is called “
Vannes”
. There
is a good explanation in Estonian.
In Estonian, the name for Venedi,
as it has evolved is Võnd (in
Finnish Venta), but when Võnd
becomes the genitive or a stem for
case endings, it becomes Võnnu.
Thus it is possible that in ancient
Brittany Venetic, the same was
true in its dialect –a town may be
name
dwi
t
ht
hege
ni
t
i
ve(
i
e‘
(
t
own,
tribe) of the Veneti’= VENNE,
etc). The map on this page shows
in the north a tribe named
Vennicones. The tribe in northern
Hibernia, Vennicni is obviously the
same name recorded from another
source who reduced the ending.
Thus considering the above
discussion, this repeated tribe name
was originally VENNE-KONNA
which in modern Estonian would
be
Võnnu-konna
‘
c
ol
ony
/
c
o
mmuni
t
yoft
heVeneti’
.
It means the Veneti established
colonies there to handle both
access to northern sea-products and
as a stopping place for moving
goods between the Firth of Forth
and Firth of Clyde. (We will study it more closely later.)
Note too how Alauna appears also between the smaller distance across the channel between
Cap de la Hague, France, and the British coast opposite. Note that I have included the tribe
Romans knew as Venelli on the mainland side. This word is easily interpreted with VENNE and
LA(
pl
a
c
e
)he
nc
e‘
(
t
r
i
be
)oft
heVe
ne
t
i
c
-l
a
nd/
pl
a
c
e
’
.
T+ vowel WORDS PERTAINING TO BRINGING WARES TO MARKET
In the case of Alauna, the word is repeated in the same way everywhere. This tells us that it
was named and maintained by the seatraders –who would have had the same dialect.
But when we deal with inland names, we will be dealing with variations in dialects. The
source of the word could be a farmer, a miner, a manager –there is no consistency. As a result
25
we can have words that are exactly the same, but sound differently to the foreigners writing
down the word phonetically. To use an English example with Happyton, in one location the
f
or
e
i
g
ne
rr
e
c
or
ds“
HAHPI
I
TN”whi
l
ei
na
not
he
rl
oc
a
t
i
onhehe
a
r
s“
HUPPYI
TOUN”
,a
ndi
ny
e
t
a
not
he
rl
oc
a
t
i
onhehe
a
r
ss
ome
t
hi
nge
l
s
e
.Pt
ol
e
my
’
spl
a
c
ena
me
sf
a
l
lvi
c
t
i
mt
ot
hi
s
,a
nds
o
i
nt
e
r
pr
e
t
i
ngPt
ol
e
my
’
spl
a
c
ena
me
s requires we look for the underlying pattern. In the case of my
example we would look for - H+vowel+P/B+ highvowel + T/D +low vowel + N Without
detailed linguistic study of a dialect, we must make decisions intuitively. I simply imagine I am
listening to a dialect, and whether the distortions make sense to my Finnic-trained ears.
We will find in our interpreting that sometimes Ptolemy will give the same word written one
way and the same word written nearby in another way –as if each came from different
informant. I noticed for example that he gave a tribe name in the north Taezali but the town they
manage is shown as Devana, on a river named Deva. That suggests Devana could have been
c
a
l
l
e
d“
Taevana”i
ft
hei
nf
or
ma
ntha
dbe
e
nt
heonewhos
poke“
Taezali” orc
onve
r
s
e
l
yTaezali
c
oul
dha
vebe
e
nwr
i
t
t
e
n“
Desali”orma
y
be“
Devali”
.I
fwemi
r
r
or
e
di
twi
t
hEs
t
oni
a
norFi
nni
s
h
the tribe name would be TUOSE-LA‘
(
t
r
i
be
)ofpl
a
c
eoft
r
a
de
g
oods
’
,a
ndt
het
ownTUOVA-NA
‘
(
pl
a
c
e
)oft
hec
ha
r
a
c
t
e
rofbr
i
ng
i
ngt
r
a
de
g
oods
’
.
Asy
out
her
e
a
de
rf
ol
l
ow myi
nt
e
r
pr
e
t
a
t
i
ons
,be
a
ri
nmi
ndt
ha
tPt
o
l
e
my
’
spl
a
c
ena
me
swe
r
e
phonetic recordings of specific informants, and the surveyor who wrote them down before
Ptolemy used them, had to judge what he heard. Usually the distortions are slight, but sometimes
they are very bad –especially with shortening and dropping of vowels –that I would rather skip
over them, than make an attempt and the reader will not be convinced.
Let us now look at the most common words –those that contain the Tv stem and which
pertain to bringing wares to market.
But first we must picture towns as markets. Nobody actually lived there originally, and later
only the visiting traders, and managers of the market. Cities today have grown around primitive
markets. Thus most names of towns and cities anytime in the past will basically be descriptions
of places to which surrounding peoples brought goods to trade. Originally nobody named a town
orc
i
t
yi
nc
ut
ewa
y
s
.The
ymi
g
hts
i
mpl
ybec
a
l
l
e
d‘
ma
r
ke
t
’
.This was also true of people names.
As we can see from names in aboriginal societies, children were named by inspiring descriptions.
In ancient Europe a person could also have nicknames from obvious qualities and often a person
was named by his profession. So you might have“
Re
dbe
a
r
dt
heSmi
t
h”a
ndhi
ss
onbe
c
ome
s
“
Smi
t
hs
on”
.
In order to decipher ancient place names we must put ourselves into that frame of mind. But
of course that is not enough. We must also interpret with the correct language, or else the
obvious descriptions will not be discovered.
Thus
,i
nt
hi
ss
e
c
t
i
on,wewi
l
ll
ooka
ta
l
lt
hepl
a
c
ena
me
si
nPt
ol
e
my
’
sge
og
r
a
phi
e
soft
he
British Isles from the point of view of the act of bringing goods to markets to trade.
As I said above, most of the time towns were markets, and in fact the frequent use of
“
DUNUM”i
na
nc
i
e
ntBr
i
t
a
i
na
nd we
s
t
e
r
n Eur
ope
,a
nd f
r
om whi
c
h“
t
own”c
ome
sf
r
om,
ba
s
i
c
a
l
l
yme
a
nt‘
pl
a
c
ec
onc
e
r
ni
ngg
oo
dsbr
oug
htt
he
r
e
’
.
A mor
es
pe
c
i
f
i
cwor
df
or‘
ma
r
ke
t
’a
ppl
i
e
dt
ol
a
r
g
e
rma
r
ke
t
s
,i
ts
e
e
ms
,c
a
nbeg
e
nerally
described with T/D + vowel + R + vowel (which I will indicate with TvRv)
Thef
ol
l
owi
ngma
ps
e
l
e
c
t
sa
l
lt
hena
me
si
nPt
ol
e
my
’
sg
e
ogr
a
phyt
ha
tus
et
heTv element to
indicate the carrying of wares. Some are more obvious than others
.Let us look at a couple of TvRv words f
oundi
nPt
ol
e
my
’
spl
a
c
ea
ndt
r
i
bena
me
s
,that are
obviously correctly interpreted wi
t
h‘
market’
.
26
Ther
e
pe
t
i
t
i
onofDU,DE,TA,e
t
ci
npl
ac
eandr
i
v
e
rname
si
nPt
ol
e
my
’
sAl
bi
onandBr
i
t
ai
n
suggests the meaning has to be related to the major purposes of places and rivers. Places tended
to have at their core a market, and rivers were ancient highways in a world where roads were
rare (before Romans began building them) The conclusion that this T+vowel element meant
‘
t
r
ans
por
t
,br
i
ng’i
s also based on similar usage elsewhere –for example the Danube River,
c
al
l
e
dDanubi
us
,ormany“DON”r
i
v
e
r
si
nt
hel
oc
at
i
onsoft
heVe
ne
t
i
cl
ar
ges
c
al
et
r
ader
out
e
s
.
The deviations appearing in the names can be attributed to both dialects and accents of
informants, and how the Roman, etc surveyor interpreted what he heard phonetically
Note Daruernum in the southeast. A closer look at the area shows that it was located on a road
between the coast and Londinium. Obviously wares arriving at Rutupie (
t
oda
y
’
sRamsgate)or
crossing at Dover would travel overland and reach Daruernum first. Londinium was a further
journey. I think Londinium originated to be accessed from the Thames River and by sea from the
east at the same time as from up the river. Peoples towards the interior would bring wares
downriver to Londinium, and seagoing traders would meet them at Londinium’
sma
r
ke
t
.
27
To Estonian ears, Daruernum is a Romanized development from a TvRv (Today Estonian
would use turg or turu). This looks like a major international market created for trade traffic
coming both from Belgic Gaul and from the east (Jutland Peninsula and the Baltic beyond).
Next we note how Ptolemy identified a coastal tribe named Durotriges, and a town simply
called Dunium. In Dunium or Dunum, wes
e
et
hes
i
mpl
e
s
twor
df
or‘
ma
r
ke
tt
own’
. The tribe
name is based on Durot, which in Finnic is a plural and me
a
ns‘
ma
r
ke
t
s
’(
Mode
r
nEs
t
oni
a
n
turud) The –riges word appears often in the Venetic world regardless of ultimate origins. It
appears in the word Armorica, and Brigantes. Armorica has been traditionally interpreted in
Celtic5 a
s‘
me
noft
hes
e
a
’
,butvi
aFi
nni
c
-Venetic it seems more suitably (a more precise
description) interpreted as armo-riigi (Using the original meaning of armo –‘
s
y
mpa
t
hy
,s
u
ppor
t
’
it means ‘
na
t
i
onsmut
ua
l
l
ys
uppor
t
i
veofonea
not
he
r
’which is exactly the definition of a
c
onf
e
de
r
a
t
i
on.‘
Me
noft
hes
e
a
’doe
snotwor
kbe
c
a
us
ei
ti
mpl
i
e
si
nc
l
udi
ngs
e
a
hunt
i
ngf
i
s
hi
ng
peoples too, and obviously the Armoricae were a seatrader confederation.). There were also
examples of –riges in western Europe such as the Bituriges at the Garonne. In modern Estonian
as riik, riigi i
tme
a
ns‘
na
t
i
on’
.ThusDurotriges t
r
a
ns
l
a
t
e
sa
s‘
(tribe, nation) oft
hema
r
ke
t
s
’
.
Looking beyond the Tv Rv pattern for‘
ma
r
ke
t
’ort
heRoma
ni
z
e
dTv + “UM”there are the
Tv Vv constructions. This occurs several times in Deva. The meaning of the Vv is somewhat
fluid, but it seems to suggest something continuing. It appears in AVA or ABA, often used in
conjunction with a river widening into the bay or lagoon of a sea. The wideness, openness, sense
i
squi
t
eps
y
c
hol
og
i
c
a
l
.Whe
namot
he
rwa
nt
saba
byt
o‘
ope
nup’t
of
e
e
di
tas
poonf
uloff
ood,
she will say APPA! APPA! There are a number of ancient words that must have been
maintained through time from being psychologically appropriate. It is analogous to how babies
ha
veke
pta
l
i
veMAMA f
or‘
mot
he
r
’ma
y
bef
orami
l
l
i
ony
e
a
r
s
.Thef
ol
l
owi
ngl
oc
a
t
e
sa
l
lt
he
words with the Tv or Dv stem, which speak of bringing wares to markets. In Adriatic Venetic,
the stem appeared in words like dona.s.to and donum me
a
ni
ng‘
t
hebr
oug
ht
-thing (ie for
of
f
e
r
i
ng
)
’I
nFi
nni
ci
ti
swr
i
t
t
e
ntuo or too.
Most often a Vv ending, or a Bv ending applied to a river, and actually originated from
describing t
her
i
ve
r
’
se
s
t
ua
r
y
.Si
nc
ear
i
ve
ri
ss
i
mpl
yana
r
r
owi
ngoft
hec
oa
s
t
a
le
s
t
ua
r
y
,i
twa
s
easy for it to be used for the entire river. An example from western Europe is the Danube, which
was called, in Roman times Danubius. An obvious example of Vv is the river Avon of southern
Britain. Whether it is Vv, or Bv, or even Pv, is a matter of dialect, accent, etc.
Some other names worthy of note: Ptolemy showed on the coast of what is today Wales, the
following three rivers: Tuesobis, Tuerobis, and Tobius. I think the first one is the same as the
second, and the S is an error. The third Tobius is fundamentally a Romanization of the same as
the Deva mentioned earlier in a completely different dialect. What this means is that AVA could
me
a
n‘
wi
de
ni
ng
,c
ont
i
nui
ng
’i
na
na
bs
t
r
a
c
twa
y
,ors
pe
c
i
f
i
c
a
l
l
y‘
ba
y
,e
s
t
ua
r
y
,r
i
ve
r
’me
a
ni
ngt
he
widening of the waters.
When a Tv-Rv is applied to a river, rather than naming a market, then it is to be interpreted
l
i
t
e
r
a
l
l
ya
s‘
br
i
ng
i
ng
-wa
y
’Whe
nus
e
df
orama
r
ke
t
,i
twoul
dcould be interpreted literally not as
‘
ma
r
ke
t
’buta
sag
e
ni
t
i
vea
ndme
a
n‘
(
t
own)of the bringing-wa
y
’
,whe
r
eRvme
nt‘
wa
y
,me
a
ns
’
.
5
As strange as it may seem, NOBODY has ever considered Finnic language, or that any northern historically
mentioned peoples were descended from the aboriginal peoples. Thus the absence of it is not from any rejection but
from simply never being considered. This applies to this whole writing! This is the very first consideration of the
idea that some decendants of original north Europeans adapted and survived down into historic times and became
advanced.
28
I also show in the map the repetition of the tribe name
Damnoni/Dumnoni, where this repetition seems to confirm a mirroring of trade-oriented peoples
in the two locations, for the same reasons that in the southeast there was a mirroring of Belgic
tribes. These repetitions, because of their situation in major trade landscapes, I believe were not
based purely on coincidental repetition of descriptions but of the same people creating colonies
for a concerted effort in handling the trade activity going up and down the Irish Sea.
(Today we will have international corporations establishing branch offices, but in ancient
times entire tribes in the world of trade, industry and commerce, acted like corporations.)
The Dumnoni, obviously were a tribe that handled the coming and going of trade goods in the
international trade world on the western side of Britain.
How would we interpret this name. It seems to have lost vowels, either from Roman
perception or its own reductions. Our analysis of other place names of similar structure –which
i
sba
s
e
dont
hes
t
e
m TvorDvme
a
ni
ng‘
br
i
ng’(
i
nt
hes
e
ns
eofbe
a
r
i
ngwa
r
e
st
oma
r
ke
t
s
)–we
can reverse the word from its Latin interpretations to Tv-Mv-Nv will yeild the meaning
‘
(
t
r
i
be
)
oft
hebr
i
ng
i
ng
-l
a
nd’(in Estonian a parallel would be toode-maa or toose-maa.) A
pe
ni
ns
ul
ai
nt
hes
out
hne
a
rLa
nd’
sEn
dPt
ol
e
mys
howsa similar pattern in Damnonium Pr. The
south island of the Orkneys wa also called Dumna Is. Such repretition suggests a very natural
descriptive meaning, which to me appears to have simply meant something like ‘
Tr
a
de
-l
a
nd’–
focussed on providing services to the international visiting traders who travelled up and down the
Irish Sea (and as I will show later, across the narrow gap between the Firth of Clyde and Firth of
Forth to the North Sea)
Here is an example of how named were phonetically interpreted in different ways. Ptolemy
shows a Tamara and a Tamarus R. too in the southwest peninsula. This is the same word. For
Tamara, Tv-Mvi
sa
l
s
o‘
br
i
ng
i
ngcountry’plus an additional Rvme
a
nt‘
r
out
e
,wa
y
’he
nc
e‘
wa
y
of the bringing-country’
. I believe that this approach lies behind the name of the Thames,
Tamesa. Here too we have Tv-Mv‘
br
i
ng
i
ng
-country’plus an –S ending often used in Finnic to
designate a place name via a genitive sense. Modern Estonian would say toode (ie plural) maa ‘
c
out
nr
yoft
hebr
i
ng
i
ng
s
’but it is reasonable to believe that in Britain a singular worked too. (ie
too-maa) In ful the Estonian parallel would be too-maa-se ‘
(
t
own,pe
opl
e
,ba
y
,e
t
c
)oft
hebr
i
ng
c
ount
r
y
’
DAMNONI/DUMNONI
CORIA WORDS FOR COLLECTING
The third category of words that appears often that I wish to look at as a whole before we
venture into detail in section 3, are words beginning with C+vowel+ R
While the Tv words shown in the previous map show the degree to which there were river
highways taking wares to markets, I noticed some other naming patterns that are very revealing
about what was going on from the point of view of the large scale economic picture.
The next map shows the frequency of CvRv wor
ds
,whi
c
ha
ppe
a
rt
os
pe
a
koft
he‘
c
ol
l
e
c
t
i
ng
’
th
of wares. I think one would interpret it in a similar way to how in the 19 century in North
America the Hudson Bay company set up trading posts across northern Canada to collect furs
from the natives. This is not a general market where all kinds of goods were traded, but a place
where something specific was collected.
It is interesting to note that people seemed to have viewed the merchant activity in an
oppos
i
t
ewa
yt
ohow wevi
e
wi
tt
oda
y
.Toda
ywet
hi
nkof‘
t
a
ki
ng’g
oodst
oma
r
ke
t
,wh
i
l
ei
n
ancient times peoples at the markets thought of goods being ‘
br
oug
ht
’t
ot
he
m.Toda
ywet
hi
nk
of‘
di
s
t
r
i
but
i
ng
’wares to consumers, but it seems in ancient times the focus was on ‘
g
a
t
he
r
i
ng
’
wares. The bias was towards goods coming towards you, as opposed to goods going out from
29
you. It speaks of the trader
being a collector of wares,
and what he paid for them
was simply the means by
which the collecting was
achieved.
The adjacent map shows
CvRv words that appear to be
best interpreted in terms of
‘
ga
t
he
r
i
ng
’ or ‘
c
ol
l
e
c
t
i
ng
’
wares
from
surrounding
peoples.
Note first of all, the COR,
CAR tribes in the north.
Pt
ol
e
my
’
sg
e
ogr
a
phyus
ua
l
l
y
has at least one town name
associate with a tribe names,
with Brigantes having ten, but
what does it mean if he names
tribes but does not show any
town name?
This simply means these
people did not maintain
markets of their own. They
could have been seahunters
who only kept a home base
for fixing their boats, etc. But
t
os
how u
pi
n Pt
ol
e
my
’
s
geography, they probably
showed up at markets of other tribes. If seahunters, they would accumulate excesses of sea
products, and then take them to market –in much the same fashion that I quoted earlier, of how
native British in skin boats were showing up at the market at the Scilly Islands.
They could have taken their seagoods to either Vindogara or maybe to the Vennicni noted on
the ALAUNA map.
Continuing our study of the above map, we also note that the tribes around the trade route that
connected the Firth of Clyde and Firth of Forth has a number of places called Coria I believe the
Corda is an error and it has to be another Coria. Furthermore I think Orrea is a miswriting of
another Coria –having lost its C. It makes no sense that it could be anything else. “
CORREA”is
just fine. With the writing being purely phonetic interpretations of what was heard, it does not
alter the word.
These Coria’
s,bybe
i
ngr
e
pe
a
t
e
ds
e
ve
r
a
lt
i
me
s
,me
a
nt
he
yha
veave
r
ypl
a
i
nme
a
ni
ng
.
It is obviously in the Finnic-Venetic language. Looking at Estonian for insights, we find the
common Estonian word korja, which means‘
g
a
t
he
r
,c
ol
l
e
c
t
’nominalized. By this meaning, we
can regard the Coria’
sa
swa
r
e
hous
epl
a
c
e
swhe
r
et
r
i
be
si
nvol
ve
di
nt
het
r
a
dewor
l
dwe
r
e
collecting particular goods from the surrounding lands. It would take some research to determine
30
what the trader tribes were interested in. Were they collecting ore of some kind from the northern
upands?
Proceeding south on our map, Ptolemy identifies several tribes Coritani, Cornavi, Coriondi.
The first two have towns, so they are themselves traders collecting wares to convey to markets.
The third one, Coriondi, located at the southeast coast of Ireland (Hibernia) may have been
collecting wares in the area, or it was a warehousing stop for a seatrading people.
Of these three tribe names, breaking apart and interpeting Coritani and Cornavi is a
challenge, but the third one Coriondi, is so close to modern Estonian idiom that it works even
now, when written Korjundi ‘
(
t
r
i
be
,na
t
i
on)oft
hecircumstances ofga
t
he
r
i
ng
’(I try to interpret
it in English as literally as possible, to prevent inventing new meanings such as often happens in
toponomic analysis to make results look more plausible)
The COR- words were Finnic-Venetic, because we find it elsewhere in the western European
trade system areas.
I think this word stem has survived in the English word “c
ar
r
y
”since this meaning could
arise from the act of gathering.
Another item worthy of note is that inEs
t
oni
a
nt
hewor
df
or‘
ba
s
ke
t
’i
skorv. This is probably
also the origin of the word for the ancient British skin boat, the coracle or curragh or in Latin
curucae. The ancient British skin boat may have begun as a walrus-covered boat but when
walrus herds were decimated, eventually was built by stretching ox-hide over a wicker frame.
Since a wicker frame was like a wicker basket, it seems that the curragh, or corracle, may
originally have been called maybe CORIA-KAIwhe
r
eKAIwoul
dme
a
n‘
s
ome
t
hi
ngt
ha
tg
oe
s
’
.
a
ndt
hewhol
eme
a
ni
ng‘
s
ome
t
hi
ngba
s
ke
t
l
i
ket
ha
tg
oe
s
’ButIa
ms
pe
c
ul
a
t
i
nghe
r
e
.Note that this
KAI word is very very old, as it appears in the Inuit word kayak.
The Garonne River where Veneti wares could have crossed from the Atlantic to the
Mediterranean was in Roman times called Garumna. It think that word, spoken in the Aquitani
areas dialect, me
a
nt‘
(
r
i
ve
r
)ofthe collecting-country’
. Note how Garumna has the same look as
Damnoni.Sa
mes
t
r
uc
t
ur
ee
xc
e
ptoneha
s‘
c
ol
l
e
c
t
i
ng
’a
ndt
heot
he
r‘
br
i
ng
i
ng
’
.Whe
ny
out
hi
nkof
it, seatrader ships did not travel the Garonne River to the Mediterranean, they would have had
their own people there unloading the wares from the ships to put into warehouses, then another
river boat team would according to their different schedule carry the wares from the warehouse
to Narbo (or vice versa if coming the other way). Narbo, as I said earlier is the same as the Narva
of the Votes at the southeast of the Gulf of Finland –marking the narrows between which
watercraft moved from one water system to another.
THE EMERGING PICTURE OF BRITAINS LARGE SCALE TRADE PATTERNS IN AN
INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT.
Ancient place names in a civilized area was thus reflective of the trade activity. If is rare to
f
i
ndapl
a
c
ena
mei
nPt
o
l
e
my
’
sna
me
st
ha
tr
e
f
e
r
st
oas
e
t
t
l
e
me
nt
,av
i
l
l
a
g
eofhous
e
sthis is the
reason. Homesteads were scattered over the landscape, and wa
s
n’
tat
own.
. A town was
something in the middle of regions of settlement and activity to which surrounding peoples went
to at least exchange vegetables and conversation, and at most find international traders showing
exotic goods from afar and telling marvellous stories.
It could begin with an open air market. Over time the market acquires warehouses, and
markets break up into retail shops. Then those managing the market need homes, and soon the
original market in the middle of a settlement area becomes an urban place with both marketing
and habitation.
31
Some of these places were merely serving the local settlement –such as a market where
surrounding peoples brought their excess vegetables - and such marketplaces would have been
common everywhere in Europe. But when the market served international, large scale trade –
where goods were taken by international traders and carried to distant markets –then the market
would have quite a different character. Insofar as Britain became the focus of international
interest, most of the towns that arose had a major role in the international marketplace. This
would be especially true of places close to the coastal locations frequented by the Venetic
s
e
a
t
r
a
de
r
s
.Whe
nwes
c
a
nPt
ol
e
my
’
si
nf
or
ma
t
i
on,i
tbe
c
ome
sc
l
e
a
r that a great many of the
places named are involved in the large scale trade activity –places collecting wares that will be
taken to distant locations, even as far as Greece, such as tin or any other valuable metal,
seaproducts like walrus tusks and skins, and whatever else was uniquely northern. Many of the
tribes in Britain were active in collecting those goods that were destined for distant markets. We
can understand the responses of natives to international traders by studying the response of North
American native peoples to the prospect of obtaining iron axes and pots at French, English, or
Dutch fur markets. Very quickly the Iroquoian tribes almost trapped the beaver to extinction
south of lakes Ontario and Erie. Traders did not have to do much to encourage natives to procure
the goods they wanted. They only had to show some of the marvellous goods they brought from
the southern civilizations.
Obvi
ous
l
yPt
ol
e
my
’
sg
e
og
r
a
phywoul
dnotha
veha
da
nyr
e
a
s
ont
odoc
ume
ntpl
a
c
e
sof
settlement etc. It is even possible that the local activities of households carrying vegetables to
local markets might not even have registered either –not significant for Roman interests.
We can tell which tribes have no market worth recognizing, when Ptolemy names tribes, and
do not associate them with any town. Tribes with no towns, probably took their wares to markets
operated by other tribes, as I already said above.
In general even centuries before the Roman age, Europe was aggressive in trading at all
levels, from local markets to long distance trade. This is remarkable considering when Europeans
first saw North America a few centuries ago, trade was markedly undeveloped –probably
equivalent to Europe around 3000BC-5000BC. What aggressive trade industry and commerce
needed was exactly what Europe had –northern peoples of aboriginal descent who were rooted
in boat-using culture and long distant nomadic behaviour. They were preadapted to taking up the
role of serving the static farming settlements by linking everyone together via long distance river
and sea trade. North America did have boat peoples in the Alqonquian cultures, and they had
begun to practice trading up and down the Mississippi going as far north as Lake Superior to
fetch copper. The Mississippi would have been analogous to the Volga to Finnic boat peoples
around 3000BC, which is the date archeologists have given to Baltic amber being found in the
tombs of Babylon. North America needed a few more millenia to become as advanced in trade,
industry and commerce as Europe was by the time of the Romans.
But strangely, scholars have taken trading activity for granted. The activities that made
Europe work economically were and are treated like background activity –like people marrying
and having children –instead of as the prime force in shaping history. Political behaviour, you
will notice always follows the changes already created by trade, industry and commerce, whether
it be in ancient times the blocking of the Silk Road causing traders to seek ways of reaching
China by sailing west, or modern times western fast food, blue jeans, and rock and roll helping to
cause the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Ancient Europe was so dynamic, I think, because along with trade, industry and commerce,
there was specialization. Indo-Europeans, from land-based traditions, mastered activities of
32
settled peoples, from farming to mining to manufacturing. At the same time peoples from the
original boat-oriented nomadic traditions, mastered everything connected to long distance travel
via waterways, and the skills in carrying out business.
Strength came from specialization over many generations. Thus settlements of skilled
farmers were not Venetic, and skilled farmers were not expert in boats, navigation, or even in a
nomadic life. When a people become divided into many professions, the mere limitations of
human capability, ensured that nothing was done very well. Specialists interracting with one
another are stronger than generalists.
The greatest misunderstandings today arise from the assumption that in the ancient world
only one people can exist in one geographical area at the same time. Accordingly there has been
at
r
a
di
t
i
onofa
s
s
umi
ngwe
s
t
e
r
nEur
opeonl
yha
d“
Ce
l
t
i
c
”pe
opl
e
sorc
e
nt
r
a
lEur
opeon
l
yha
d
“
Ge
r
ma
ni
c
”pe
opl
e
s
,ore
a
s
t
e
r
nEur
opeonl
yha
d“
Sl
a
vi
c
”pe
opl
e
s
.I
nr
e
a
l
i
t
yt
r
a
de
r
swi
t
ht
he
i
r
own languages and cultures cut across them all, and existed in the same geographical space –at
least until the Roman Empire altered things.
Settled peoples needed the traders to move goods around –and in those days there were no
trucks or highways. It was all in the hands of the shippers on the seas and rivers, who in the
beginning arose from the preadapted northern boat-oriented nomadic Finnic hunter-gatherers. By
the Roman era, I believe the Venetic trade system was well established in northern and
continental Europe and if there were settled peoples who wanted to become nomadic shippers,
they would have to learn to be part of the established system. But I think the easiest adaption of
the settled Celtic, Slavic, or Germanic land-based peoples was to become settled manufacturers
and managers at market towns. It is known that the Celtic tribes excelled at mining and
metallurgy. To become involved in the world of trade, industry, and commerce, it was easiest to
remain settled and become manufacturers. Celtic metal tools and ornamental ware was then
shipped all around Europe via the Venetic trade system.
The past was not simpler than today. When we look at how complex the world of trade,
industry and commerce is today, it becomes clear that we cannot create sweeping simplifications
in our interpretation of ancient western Europe.
But in order not to make the story too complicated to understand, it is wise to concentrate on a
smaller region –in this text we focus on the British Isles and try to give a sense of what was
g
oi
ngon,b
a
s
e
donPt
ol
e
my
’
spl
a
c
ena
me
s
,wha
twec
a
ni
nf
e
rf
r
om t
hege
or
gr
a
phya
nda
nc
i
e
nt
documents.
In the following discussions it is valuable to think of how things are in the real world today.
For example the behaviour today of truckers carrying wares throughout Europe would find
parallels in the ancient behaviour of river-shippers. Truckers are a special breed of people. They
have a home somewhere, but most of the time they are on the road and away from home for
weeks on end. At the end of their routes there are warehouses and other shippers who move the
wares from these warehouses to other warehouses. Then there are shippers who distribute wares
to the markets where they are sold to consumers.
Once we are able to mentally transfer modern trade systems into the low technology world of
ancient times, we can understand what we discover in the following sections much better than
the traditional practice of taking the background of trade, industry and commerce for granted,
and only look at the behaviour of kings and armies –which has been the traditional obsession of
t
hef
i
e
l
dof‘
hi
s
t
or
y
’
.
This section 2, has presented several examples of the repetition of patterns in the ancient
British Isles, which tends to confirm that the British Isles was dominated by a single large scale
33
language –much like Aquitanic, Belgic, etc –developed from centuries of international
involvement with the British Isles, notably after Veneti, already cosy with Greeks with their
amber trade, introduced Greeks to British tin.
These examples plus the Uxella’
se
a
r
l
i
e
r
,a
r
enote
xha
us
t
i
ve
.Yout
her
e
a
de
rwi
l
lbea
bl
et
o
see more repetitions in the next section as we study the British Isles section by section, after
a
ppl
y
i
ngPt
ol
e
my
’
spl
a
c
ea
ndt
r
i
bena
me
sa
sc
l
os
e
l
ya
spos
s
i
bl
e
,onma
psIc
r
e
a
t
e
d.Re
pe
t
i
t
i
ons
of tribe names usually means the two tribes are connected, being colonies of each other, serving
collective purposes in trade. Repetition in place names, however usually means the place name is
such a plain description that the description can occur more than once, as long as the two
locations are far enough apart so as not to cause confusion.
34
3. A CLOSER LOOK AT SPECIFIC AREAS OF BRITAIN IN EARLY
ROMAN TI
MES,ASREVEALEDFROM PTOLEMY’
S
GEOGRAPHY OF ALBION AND HIBERNIA
The previous sections presented the most general evidence and arguments. Many readers will
remain sceptical; but we are only getting started. I will attempt to show not only that interpreting
ancient Brittanic as a Finnic/Venetic language yields a great deal of results but that those results
fit well into what is revealed in terms of large scale trading activities. We will use the geography
to predict from logic, how the traders would have behaved and then see if the place names fit,
and vice versa.
3.1 The Trade Connections at the SOUTHEAST – Londinium, Cantium,
Tamesa, etc
Trader activities in southeast Britain involved a)trade crossing the channel between what is
t
oda
y
’
sCa
l
a
i
sa
ndDover, and b) trade going up the Thames estuary from the sea, and down the
Thames from the interior, mainly to Londinium.
Londinium may have been developed by Belgae and Romans, but probably dates back to
prehistoric times because of its location at the bottom of a major river.
There must have been a market and gathering place there almost since the Ice Age. It was the
pattern among the ancient seasonally nomadic boat peoples across northern Europe (and
elsewhere in the world that had seasonally nomadic hunter-gatherers) that clans moved through
the landscape from campsite to campsite for most of the year, and then all clans gathered for
several weeks in a location accessible to all, to socialize, exchange news, have festivals, trade,
find mates. This gathering defined the tribe. Then the clans broke up and each returned each to
their hunting-gathering locations.
The ideal situation for boat-using seasonally nomadic peoples was a large river draining to a
sea. Each tributary of the river would be assumed by a clan, and the gathering location was down
t
her
i
ve
rc
l
os
et
ot
hemout
h.Thi
sa
l
l
owe
dag
a
t
he
r
i
ngoft
her
i
ve
r
’
sc
l
a
ns
,whi
c
ht
oge
t
he
r
constituted a tribe. But the location of the gathering place near the coast also permitted being
joined by coastal peoples too. Several tribes could come together in this way.
Because s
uc
hde
s
c
e
nda
nt
soft
he“
Ma
g
l
e
mos
ec
ul
t
ur
e
”covered much territory in their boats,
the region of a single tribe could cover some 5-10 times land area than a pedestrian tribe such as
reindeer people, or even more immobile people like farmers. Because of the mobility of boatoriented hunter gatherers on a river system or a coast, there was contact over a wide geographical
area and that ensured that a single language covered a wide region. (A good example is in recent
North America, where arctic native languages such a that of the Cree, covered a width of 3000
km or more.)
This method of keeping a language and culture uniform –just from being nomadic boat
peoples and having annual gatherings of clans or even several tribes –preceded all other natural
mechanisms like long distance trade. In other words, the Finnic languages were already
relatively uniform since the Ice Age as a result of natural contact over long distances inherent in
a seasonally nomadic life using boats. Archeological cultures, in being defined by similarities in
ma
t
e
r
i
a
lc
ul
t
ur
e
,pr
oba
bl
ya
l
s
or
e
f
l
e
c
t
e
dl
a
ng
ua
g
ea
nds
of
tc
ul
t
ur
e
.Thi
si
ft
he“
Ma
g
l
e
mos
e
”t
y
pe
35
of material culture was found from Britain to the southeast Baltic, it is likely there was a single
l
a
ng
ua
g
ea
n
dc
ul
t
ur
et
hr
oug
houtt
ha
tr
a
nge
.Andi
ft
he“
Kunda
”br
a
nc
ht
ha
tma
del
a
r
g
es
e
a
g
oi
ng
dugouts and harvested the sea has been found to range from the southeast Baltic up to the Gulf of
Finland, we can assume that there was a single language there too. And these two would be quite
close to each other owing to their common origins.
By contrast archeology investigating the earlier reindeer hunters of the north European Plain
will not find a similar material culture covering such a vast geographical area. Their ranges will
be about a fifth. (This is because a pedestrian can only travel about a fifth the distance of a boat
in the same time. The range of a fully settled people like farmers would be even smaller, maybe a
tenth –s
ome
t
hi
ngt
obe
a
ri
nmi
ndbyt
hos
epe
opl
ewhoa
s
s
umet
he
r
ewa
sas
i
ng
l
e“
Ce
l
t
i
c
”or
“
Ge
r
ma
ni
c
”or“
Sl
a
vi
c
”l
a
ng
ua
g
ea
c
r
os
st
hef
a
r
ma
bl
er
e
g
i
onsofc
e
nt
r
a
lEur
ope---completely
false. There were probably hundreds of dialects of settled peoples where only immediate
neighbours could understand each other.)
But, returning to Londinium, some location in what is now London, was a gathering place for
all the tribes in the Thames River valley as much as 8000 years ago. Londinium is a place whose
name was there long before it became a trade center of interest to international traders.
In general, the locations of gatherings will show to archeologists some overlapping of
material culture of adjacent regions. Some examples are Lake Onega, the mouth of the Vistula,
and Asva in arctic Norway.
Since at such gathering places there was informal trading between the clans who assembled
there, it was a natural place to develop trading to more sophisticated levels. And then when
professional traders developed, those professional traders could deliberately set up markets to
take advantage of the gatherings.
36
Londinium , in conclusion, was perfectly situated to have begun as such a gathering place.
As time went on professional traders showed up at gatherings, and in due course the gathering
place became a permanent trade center. I have indicated earlier that I would like to interpret the
Thames, in Roman time Tamesa,wi
t
ht
hec
onc
e
ptof‘
br
i
ng
’(
i
nFi
nni
ctuo/ too), as the Thames
was obviously a highway from bringing wares down to the market at Londinium.
The map shows the southeast,wi
t
hPt
ol
e
my
’
spl
a
c
ea
ndt
r
i
bena
me
s(
pl
a
c
ena
me
sha
vedot
s
,
rivers are in italics, and tribe names in Roman serif text).
Let us consider what is going on in this map.
Dashed lines indicate the connections by ship. As Caesar wrote, there was a constant ship
traffic at the southeast at the closest location to the mainland –t
hec
r
os
s
i
ngf
r
om t
oda
y
’
sCa
l
a
i
s
to Dover. A ship arriving at Dover would still be a considerable distant from the nearest market
Daruernum, and even further from Londinium. If traders from the mainland wanted to reach
those markets, they could continue by ship around the peninsula and land at Rutupia or continue
to Londinium. Thus the option of having your wares moved overland by wagons was a practical
option, compared to taking a ship around the peninsula. In Venetic and Finnic, the word meaning
‘
carry overland’is KANTA. He
nc
et
hes
out
he
a
s
t
,t
oda
y
’
sKe
nt
,wa
st
ot
heRoma
nsCantium.
I have mentioned earlier how Roman texts named the people who carried wares from the
Atlantic coast to the upper Ebro, as Cantabri. In southeast Estonia, in the region between the
waters draining to the Gulf of Riga and those draining into Lake Peipus, the region was called
Ugandi, which is a development from what in Estonian would be üle-kanda ‘
ove
r
-carry
(=portage)’
.Thi
swor
ds
e
e
msa
l
s
ot
ooc
c
urtoo in the region of the ancient Adriatic Veneti, where
the peoples in the mountains above were known as Euganei. In Estonian, the D can disappear,
becoming kanna.
As
c
a
nni
ngofCa
e
s
a
r
’
sa
c
c
ountofhi
st
i
mei
nt
hea
r
e
ar
e
ve
a
l
st
ha
tt
hena
me
soft
heki
ng
sof
Cantium cannot be translated via Venetic Finnic. This suggests as I said above, that the Belgic
immigrants respected those pre-existing established place names since it was also the Venetic
language of large scale trade. In fact it is very interesting to note that tribe and personal names
associated with Belgic tribes, as given by Ptolemy, are very difficult if at all possible to be
interpreted via Finnic-Venetic, whereas place names are very true to the Finnic-Venetic
character. It makes sense –a Belgic tribe was free to use their own language for their tribe name
and personal name, but place names already established and already in constant use, could not be
replaced. It is for this same reason that in North America so many geographic place names form
the original native peoples are still in use.
As I said, Cantium wa
sba
s
e
dont
hec
onc
e
ptof‘
por
t
a
g
e
’butthere is a slight possibility of
me
a
ni
ng‘
he
e
l
’since in Finnic kand me
a
ns‘
he
e
l
’
,I
Ft
heVe
ne
t
i
cs
e
a
f
a
r
e
r
sunde
r
s
t
oodt
hes
ha
pe
of Britain, and how the southeast was like its heel.
The town of Daruernum i
sba
s
i
c
a
l
l
yaTURU ‘
ma
r
ke
t
’
, as already discussed earlier. The –
ernum ending sounds Roman, though.
Daruernum would have been reachable by a road from the Dover coast or from Rutupie. I
think there was no formal town at the Dover coast because it was not a good place for a market –
towns were markets. But there could have been facilities for those who came across. I expect
mostly merchants hired ships to ferry across loaded wagons and oxen, and they simply continued
towards Daruernum with those wagons.. On the other hand Rutupie would have recieved long
distance trader ships from the east, and it would have had facilities for harboring ships. Wagons
would carry wares from there to Daruernum and then from Daruernum to Londinium.
37
Thewor
dRATAi
nva
r
i
ousf
or
ms
,l
ooksobvi
ous
l
yl
i
keGe
r
ma
ni
cwor
dsf
or‘
r
oa
d’
,butowi
ng
to the wide early use of RA throughout Europe, it was from pre-Indo-European origins. In
modern Estonian rada me
a
ns‘
pa
t
h,t
r
a
i
l
’
.TheEstonian word for ‘
road’in terms of a highway is
tee, which probably originates from the too ‘
br
i
ng
’wor
dus
e
dor
i
g
i
na
l
l
yf
orwa
t
e
rhi
g
hwa
y
sof
transportation. Thus Rutupie can be mirrored in Estonian rada-pea ‘
r
oa
d-he
a
d’
.Does it mean it
was located at the head of roads leading west to Londinium and further.
Let us thus assume goods were transported across the Strait of Dover and carried to the
TURU at Daruernum, and possibly onward to Londinium. Let us assume goods also were
unloaded at Rutupie in order to take them to the market of Daruernum. And let us assume those
who wanted to, could carry goods by road to Londinium. Last but not least, there were ships who
travelling into Tamesa Bay and up the Tamesa estuary to Londinium.
As I said above, Londinium had probably been a gathering place since the end of the Ice Age.
It may have moved and been developed by traders, and finally by Romans, but it was certainly a
very very old place. Prehistoric users would not have given it a name, or simply called it
s
ome
t
hi
ng l
i
ke ‘
g
a
t
he
r
i
ng pl
a
c
e
’
.Something like KOTALA could have been a generic
description for the gathering place, but there were more than one way of descriptively naming a
place. What could be the origin of Londinium? I think that the Swedish town of Lund, near
Malmö, opposite Copenhagen, had the same origins as Londinium. (Malmö if of Finnic-Venetic
origins would originate from AMALA-MAA‘
s
e
a
-place country’
)
The original word would be ALUNDI which puts an –ND ending on ALU Given that we
have already seen the repetition of Alauna whi
c
hobvi
ous
l
yme
a
nt‘
l
a
ndi
ng
’
,mys
e
ns
ei
st
ha
t
ALUNDIme
a
nt‘
(
pl
a
c
e
)a
s
s
oc
i
a
t
e
dwi
t
hl
a
ndi
ng
,g
e
t
t
i
ngs
e
t
t
l
e
d.I
twoul
dma
kesense from a
seatrader point of view –the place the seatrader ship would come to rest.
The map above shows some names we have already discussed –such as the Alaunus River
whose name is mirrored by an Alaunus on the mainland side, indicating crossing between the
two location. We need not discuss it any more.
Of the tribe names, starting from the southeast, the name Canti is simply adopted from the
name of the region, the names Trinovantes, Atrebati, Belgae, Iceni, and Regni do not offer
obvious trade-related meanings (Regni looks Latin and may represent the center of Roman power
at tht time). The tribes named above are Belgic tribes. We leave the nature of the Belgic
language open to further discussion. It was not obviously Celtic or Germanic. Because the
Belgae were involved with the sea, it is possible they were of Finnic descent, but greatly
compromised by involvement with both Germanic and Celtic tribes on either side of the Rhine.
After assuming the Belgic tribes basically used their language among themselves, and basically
used the international Venetic and native British language, we need not worry about the nature of
Belgic. It does not affect our theory that the British peoples were shaped by Venetic influences,
which preceded and overruled the use of Belgic.
But when we go past the obvious Belgic tribe names, other tribe names on the map translate
with Finnic, as we have already discussed, except Silures may be a tribe from the direction of
Iberia, as Tacitus suggested. The most Estonianlike of the names on this map is Durotriges,
which is mirrored by Turud(e)riigi ‘
(
t
r
i
be
)oft
hema
r
ke
t
sna
t
i
on’
.Themos
ti
nt
e
r
e
s
t
i
ngr
i
ve
r
na
mei
nPt
ol
e
my
’
sl
i
s
ti
sSidumanis.Idon’
tknow wha
tr
i
ve
ri
tr
e
f
e
r
r
e
dt
obuti
ti
sdi
r
e
c
t
l
y
interpretable via Estonian as ‘
(
r
i
ve
r
)t
ha
tbi
nds(
sidu) the country (maa)
’Thi
si
swha
tal
a
r
ge
river does. Was it an alternative name for the Thames?
Towards the northwest part of this map, we see tribes Cornavi, Coritani, and a town called
Corinium. These names I interpret via Finnic korja or korv as discussed earlier and signify
38
people and places used for gathering wares from the surrounding regions for the purpose of trade
in the larger trade world. Since the northwest and southwest part of the map is oriented towards
the southwest trade activity, I will not discuss it further in this section. The region of southwest
Britain and southeast Ireland, is a very lively one, given it is directly opposite the Venetic trade
traffic coming from Brittany and the Atlantic coast of Europe.
3.3 The Trade Connections in the SOUTHWEST and Southeast Hibernia
The ability of long distance seatraders to navigate over large areas of sea with little difficulty
ensured that the southwest Albion and southeat Hibernia, or in other words the lower part of the
Irish Sea, appears very lively. Analysis reveals a great deal.
It is important to always bear in mind that people do not travel to someplace for no reason.
They have a purpose. Even early in British prehistory, the seagoing peoples who erected
megalithic hill tombs and stone alignments had a reason to be there. Maybe they were seahunters
39
who passed through the British Isles to fish. Maybe there was a gathering place where seagoing
people gathered annually, landing at a prescribed location, all clans together, to socialize, etc, as
I discussed above. As I said earlier, even people bent on military conquest needed a reason. One
does not march arbitrarily into a region to conquer it. What was the motive. Romans needed to
percieve already existing wealth. They were not looking to develop industries. But Veneti and
then Belgic tribes had the motive of developing trade, and industries.
Thus all my analysis has to explain WHY a particular tribe was at a particular location. And it
appears it was mostly to opt
i
mi
z
eat
r
i
be
’
sa
c
t
i
vi
t
yi
nt
he
i
rwor
l
doft
r
a
de
.
ARRIVING IN CORNWALL PENINSULA: We have already discussed my belief that DAMN or
DUMN are contractions of an original word more like Finnish would mirror it –Tuomaan ‘
oft
he
bringing-c
o
u
nt
r
y
’
.I
ti
s
,a
sdiscussed earlier from the same word as Tamesa. And in fact the
above map gives a similar higher dialect version in Tamara and Tamarus River.
Bolerium P. may reflect Est. vool ‘
c
ur
r
e
nt
’
. Hercules is of course Greek. Cenio River, eludes
interpretation as written. Volaba may be linked to Bolerium and be concerned with current. Was
there a strong current around the peninsula?
Iscala, is most logically the same as Finnic askala ‘
pl
a
c
eofbus
i
ne
s
s
’a
st
ha
twa
swh
a
tpor
t
towns were all about. And Isca would be aska. There are other ways of approaching Isca or
Iscala, but it is common sense that an established word connected with trade would have a
higher probability of being correct.
This map shows the two approaches to southwest Britain and the two Uxella’
s
.It is unclear
what Uxella Estuary refers to, since the Bristol Channel seems to be shown as Sabrina Estuary.
We access from the south takes the ship up to an Uxella which is today called Exeter. Not shown
i
nPt
ol
e
my
’
sma
psi
st
hef
a
c
tt
ha
tt
o
d
a
y
’
sSc
i
l
l
yI
slands, obviously were originally called the
Uxella Islands.
INTO THE BRISTOL CHANNEL: Let us now pretend we are a seatrader heading up the Bristol
Channel, heading up the Sabrina Estuary. Sabrina eludes any obvious interpretation as written.
If the B were D we may have something. Maybe it is Greek or in a language of the Silures. The
town name of the Silures –Bullaeum –eludes interpretation, unless B is really K. Sometimes
changing one letter will make a word interpretable, but I will not temp errors by doing so unless
the error is very obvious (as it is in one instance).
The seatrader thus heads up the Sabrina, and arrives at the town of Corinium of the Duboni. If
we interpret the B as a V since the switching of B and V is a common occurrance, we can see in
this tribe name the Finnic parallel toovani ‘
(
pe
opl
e
)oft
hebr
i
ng
i
ng’
.Corinium is a korja word,
so it is mirrored with modern Finnic Korjani.‘
(
t
own)oft
heg
a
t
he
r
i
ng
,c
ol
l
e
c
t
i
ng
’ It may
represent a warehousing place –the tribe carries wares for the seatraders to pick up. May tin ore?
FROM THE BRISTOL CHANNEL ACROSS TO SOUTHEAST IRELAND: The southeast coast of
Ireland (Hibernia) is interesting, because it seems the places there served more for stopping
places for long distance seatraders or to trade across the Irish Sea with Britain than to deal with
the interior of Hibernia to any extent. I note especially a tribe called Coriondi, a word that works
as is from an Estonian perspective as Korjundi d
e
s
c
r
i
bi
ngape
opl
ei
nvol
ve
di
n‘
g
a
t
he
r
i
ng
’
.AsI
said e
a
r
l
i
e
r
,i
ta
ppe
a
r
si
na
nc
i
e
ntt
i
me
st
hec
or
ei
de
awa
s‘
g
a
t
he
r
i
ng’from the natives whereas
t
oda
yi
ti
s‘
di
s
t
r
i
but
i
ng’or‘
ma
r
ke
t
i
ng
’
.Thef
a
c
tt
ha
tt
heCOR wor
dsa
r
es
of
r
e
que
nti
n
Pt
ol
e
my
’
sBr
i
t
i
s
hI
s
l
e
s
,s
e
e
mst
oc
onf
i
r
mt
ha
tt
he
r
ewa
smuc
hmor
ei
nt
e
r
e
st in the British Isles
for gathering its resources than in making sales to consumers here. Their customers were
probably far away in mainland Europe. That is what we would expect if in general native British
were poor and backward. They had little wealth. It would be a different matter in the
40
Mediterranean, where traders would, on the other hand, be more interested in selling rather than
gathering.
Another tribe along the southeast coast of Hibernia without a town is given as Cauci. This
was probably a stopping place and warehousing colony for the same people Roman historian
Tacitus called Chauci, located on the coast to the east of the Jutland Peninsula. This word
resonates with Finnic (Estonian) kauge ‘
di
s
t
a
nc
e
’
.I
nhi
s
t
or
i
ct
i
me
s
,Es
t
oni
a
nsof
f
i
c
i
a
l
l
ycalled
sailing outside of the Baltic Sea kauge-sõit ‘
di
s
t
a
ntj
our
ne
y
’
.I
tf
ol
l
owst
heChauci were long
distance traders within the Venetic large scale seatrading north. Maybe they were competition to
the Armoricans (since Caesar does not list them in the Armoricae), and that means if they wanted
to get involved with trade with Britain, they needed to place their colony elsewhere than the
Venetic colonies on the British coast. That is my theory –t
ha
tt
he“
Cauci”we
r
eac
ol
onyf
ort
he
Chauci mentioned by Tacitus.
The Manapi tribe, Ptolemy shows, had a town, so may have had local involvement with the
interior of Hibernia. Manapi could be interpreted via maa ‘
c
ount
r
y
’a
ndpia, pea ‘
he
a
d’
.I
tc
oul
d
l
i
t
e
r
a
l
l
yr
e
f
e
rt
ot
he‘
he
a
d,e
ndoft
hel
a
nd’i
ft
het
owni
son a peninsula, or it could mean the
town is a head of the surrounding country.
The most interesting information for the southeast Hibernia is that Ptolemy shows the
Brigantes tribe at the Birgus River. What are we to make about the name of the major nations of
central Britain, Brigantes, being located at the southeast of Hibernia? As I discussed before,
mirror colonies of tribes suggest large scale traders. Although it is unlikely the Brigantes
seatrade covered too large a territory, there is evidence that the Brigantes were indeed quite
involved in large scale trade (see later discussion of middle Britain). Was it a stopping place
colony? Did it collect wares from the Birgus River?
The name Birgus, being the name of a geographic feature, is likely to have been unchanged,
while the Brigantes name had changed. Is it possible that centuries earlier, the Brigantes tribe
name was more like BIRIGANDI, or PIA-RI
I
GANDI
,whi
c
hvi
aFi
nni
ci
nt
e
r
pr
e
t
sa
s‘
(tribe) of
t
hema
i
n,c
hi
e
f
,na
t
i
on’I
nde
e
dwhe
nwel
ooka
tt
heBrigantes region later, we see that they have
by far the most towns, and therefore they were indeed the chief nation of native Britain. As I will
explain, it seems they were a kingdom formed out of four to six smaller tribes.
The final tribe I include in the section of Hibernia within the map, that appears to be
intimately involved with Britain opposite, is the Eblani and their town Eblana. This town is
obviously what has become Dublin. The name resonates with ABALA, the name of the region
of southeast Baltic coast where amber came from, and which Pytheas called Abalus. The name
me
a
ns‘
pl
a
c
eoft
heba
y
,e
s
t
ua
r
y
’
.I
n
d
e
e
dt
he
r
ei
sa
ne
s
t
ua
r
ya
tDubl
i
n.TheEblana name was
obviously established by the Veneti,a
nddi
a
l
e
c
torPt
ol
e
my
’
ss
our
c
e
s changed it a little.
We will later see that the Eblana river reached west into Hibernia, and brought trade goods to
the coast, from which they crossed the Irish Sea in Venetic ships to the British side. (I believe the
island of Anglesey was dominated by Veneti (Gwenyd) families well into historic times.
THE ANCIENT WELSH COAST: The challenging part of the above map is the region that came
t
obec
a
l
l
e
dWa
l
e
s
.Iha
vea
l
r
e
a
dydi
s
c
us
s
e
dt
her
i
ve
r
s
.The
yc
a
nbei
nt
e
r
pr
e
t
e
da
s‘
br
i
ng
i
ng
-wa
y
’
according to combining Tv (
‘
br
i
ng
i
ng
’
)Rv (
‘
wa
y
’
)a
ndvVv or vBv (
‘
e
s
t
ua
r
y
’
,‘
r
i
ve
r
’
)pattern. I
have not discussed Ratostabius yet. Note how similar the structure is to the Roman age name of
the Danube –Danubius. Here we have Ratost plus abius.Theme
a
ni
ngi
s‘
r
i
ve
r
,e
s
t
ua
r
ya
r
i
s
i
ng
from ther
o
a
d,wa
y
’
.
41
Maridunum uses the word for sea which in Finnic is meri. This word is pre-Indo-European
and has found its way into a very large number of languages, including languages that never
went to sea.
Luentinum seems like it is at its origins the same word from which Londinium comes. It
s
e
e
msl
i
keadi
a
l
e
c
t
i
cdi
s
t
or
t
i
on.I
tc
oul
dc
omef
r
om poori
nt
e
r
pr
e
t
a
t
i
onbyPt
ol
e
my
’
ss
our
c
e
s
.
The tribe name Demetae could be a distortion of the common structure we already noted in
Dumnoni, Tamara, Tamesa, etc, wh
i
c
hwei
nt
e
r
pr
e
t
e
da
sbe
i
ngba
s
e
donTv+Mv‘
br
i
ng
i
ng
c
ount
r
y
’
.Thus Demetae could be analogous to Est Too-maa-de ‘
(
t
r
i
be
)oft
hebr
i
ng
i
ngl
a
nds
’
The Wales region names look a little sloppy (perhaps from Ptolemy not having the best
Roman resources) but to me it was using the Venetic trade language the same as elsewhere.
The only peculiar area is the northwest coast, where the tribe name is Ordovices, which as
written is elusive, and their two towns Mediolanum and Brannogenium. Mediolanum might be
AMADELA. Brannogenium, with the genium at the end, may be Latin, describing the family of
“
Br
a
nno”
.We may wonder if it reflects Celtic immigration on Venetic ships, from Eblani, a
hunded years since the arrival of the Romans.
But as we continue to the east, and come to Deva and the Cornavii, we return to the
‘
c
ol
l
e
c
t
i
ng
’people, and the plain descriptive name Deva, which occurs several times throughout
Pt
ol
e
my
’
sBr
i
t
a
i
n,a
ndwhi
c
hobvi
ous
l
yme
a
nts
ome
t
hi
ngl
i
ke‘
t
ownc
onne
c
t
e
dwi
t
hbr
i
ng
i
ng’
.
But most curious is the town of Viroconium which seems to resonate with Estonian Viru-konna
‘
c
ol
ony
,c
o
mmuni
t
yofVI
RO’ The word Viru was used in ancient times for the peoples of
northern Estonia. They were a trader people, and I think the word may have been based on VI
‘
c
a
r
r
y
’a
ndRA ‘
wa
y
’
. There is another strange coincidence with a seeming connection to
Estonia - the town called Caleva on the Thames above Londinium. (See previous map) Kaleva is
the name of the ambiguous Finnic ancestor of Finns and Estonians recorded in folklore, and
apparently Kalevan was the original name for the trade center at what is now Tallinn.
Archeology has revealed that northern Estonia had long distance connections as far as Britain as
evidence has been found, including Roman coins. This connection could have preceded the
Romans, or even the development of Britain by the Brittany Veneti.
3.5 The Trade Connections though MIDDLE ALBION –Activities of Brigantes
Tribes.
I mentioned above how it was unusual that Ptolemy located a Brigantes at the southeast
Hibernia and that it suggested Brigantes had a significant involvement in trade, including
seatrade at least in the Irish Sea.
In this section I want to show some place name evidence of traders crossing from one side of
Britain to the other, through Brigantes territory.
In the following map I show the rough boundaries of the Brigantes territory with dashed lines.
(Ptolemy only reveals what town is owned by what tribe, and not their geographical extent.)
While other tribes had from zero to three towns, Brigantes had ten!
The large number of towns as well as the varied topography suggests that the Brigantes was a
union of several normal size tirbes, which needed a king. Since one of the towns is Camulodum,
if we look for a King Arthur and a Camelot centuries later, I suggest it will be found among the
descendants of the Brigantes. But as I described above, there had to be a reason for everything,
In this case why several tribes would unite. I believe it was because the three tribes were
connected to each other by trade that caused the tribes to interract with each other.
42
Two place names that leap out at me are the middle two located in the Pennine mountains.
The names are Olicana and Calatum. Bearing in mind the rule that everything man-made has to
be there for a reason, we have to ask why these two towns are there in the middle of the
mountains. The answer is I think revealed in Olicana, because it has the same pattern as I
discussed in section 3.2 –t
hewor
df
or‘
por
t
a
g
e
’a
sf
oundi
ns
e
ve
r
a
ll
oc
a
t
i
onsof the Venetic
trade world, which is mirrored in Finnic üle (or yle)‘
ove
r
’a
ndkanna ‘
c
a
r
r
y
’
.
The second place in the mountains Ptolemy showed as Calatum. Since it was located in the
mount
a
i
ns
,Is
ugg
e
s
ti
twa
sba
s
e
dont
heFi
nni
cwor
df
or‘
c
l
i
f
f
s
’
,which is kaljud (Estonian) or
kalliot (Finnish) The original, before Romans added the –um, would have been something like
t
oda
y
’
sEs
t
oni
a
nkaljude, the genitive plural, a
ndha
dt
heme
a
ni
ng‘
(
t
own)oft
hec
l
i
f
f
s
’
.Ib
e
l
i
e
ve
the CAL- stem probably is also the basis of the northern tribe named Caledoni –a people who
lived in the mountains of northwest Britain. As I explained earlier, in ancient pre-literate times,
names were obvious descriptions.
It is probably possible to determine the exact locations of Olicana and Calatum by analyzing
the terrain and getting a sense of the most probably overland route from the rivers on the east
side to the western Brigantes tribes of Camulodunum and Rigodunum. Perhaps Olicana has
become Oldham?
Ptolemy also shows a Setantiorum Portus (a Romanized name, showing that the Romans
found it a significant port). The stem SETA- also appeared further south in Seteia Estuary. What
43
could be the source of the word? Perhaps Estonian provides ac
l
uei
nt
hewor
df
or‘
ha
r
bour
’
which is today in the form sadam. If this is correct then Setanti- would be mirrored by Estonian
Sadandi. Possibly Seteia could be mirrored with Sadaja. The sada- stem would have originated
from saa- ‘
a
r
r
i
ve
,r
e
a
c
h’
.
’
I spoke earlier of how the HEL- element was a seafaring term from Venetic times. It seems to
be found in Belisama where the H has become a B. Butt
he
r
ei
s
n’
te
noug
ht
oproceed to a
precise interpretation.
The other trade route in the Brigantes region was taking the Ouse River north, in the Vale of
York, and I think transferring through the mountains into the upper Eden. (My map above is too
coarse –see a modern detailed map).
Some of the names going up the valley are a little complicated, and may indicate influences
from other languages. The town at the mouth, Petuaria, according to Ptolemy was called Parisi.
Since Ptolemy names the river (
t
oda
y
’
sHumbe
r
)as Abi, it suggests Petuaria and Parisi may
have originally been based on ABA, as in ABAD-aria and ABA-risi. The Humber River estuary
is quite a significant one, and ABA i
nt
hi
sc
a
s
ec
l
e
a
r
l
yme
a
ns‘
e
s
t
ua
r
y
’and in this case a plural
of estuaries if there are several rivers entering it.
The town named Eboracum probably comes from ABA too. (Note the stem is identical to the
Ebro River in Spain. Note too that a Parisi people was also found on the Seine in Gaul. Was this
a colony of trader peoples based on the Seine River?)
The Veneti involvement is proven by the town name Vinovium. Note the use of the high vowel
in VinoEpiacum in the north at the end of Ituna Estuary (Solway Firth), could also be based on ABA
f
or‘
e
s
t
ua
r
y
’
.(
i
e‘
(
t
own)oft
hee
s
t
ua
r
y
’
)
Let us continue back to the south part of the map.
There are two Brigantes towns there, one called Camulodunum and the other Rigodunum. We
must interpret these names with the fact that the Brigantes, according to Ptolemy, govern TEN!
towns. Since everywhere else a tribe has 1-3 towns, that suggests the Brigantes formed a
confederation of several tribes. Those several tribes would not have disbanded but retained their
identity within a confederation. If there was a confederation of 4-6 tribes, that required a central
government assumed by the leading tribe. The name of a confederation was usually taken from
that leading tribe, and as I suggested in our earlier discussion of the Brigantes at the Birgus River
in southeast Hibernia, the name probably originated from something that is mirrored in Finnic
PIA-RI
I
GANDI‘
ma
i
nna
t
i
on’I
nt
hos
ee
a
r
l
yt
r
i
be
s
,t
hi
swa
spr
oba
bl
yhow a
l
lt
heot
he
rt
r
i
be
s
,
connected by trade, called this prominent tribe.
The name Rigodunum i
sas
i
mp
l
ede
s
c
r
i
pt
i
veone
,me
a
ni
ng ‘
na
t
i
on’
st
own’
.Themor
e
difficult name to interpret is Camulodunum. What would a nearby town be all about? You would
not have two trade centers close to each other. Estonian offers kama which generally means to
clump together. Thus there is also kamand ‘
f
l
oc
k,c
r
owd’
.Soi
toc
c
ur
r
e
dt
omet
ha
tCamulo- was
KAMA-LA l
i
t
e
r
a
l
l
y‘
pl
a
c
eofc
l
umpi
ng
. flocking, t
og
e
t
he
r
’
,buti
nt
hi
sc
ont
e
xtme
a
ni
ng‘
pl
a
c
e
where (
t
het
r
i
be
s
,pe
opl
)c
omet
og
e
t
he
r
’A meeting place. This concept agrees with the legend of
Camelot with a meeting place with a round table. If there were as many as 6 tribal leaders, the
leader of the Brigantes, King Arthur (or maybe Oda-tera ‘
s
pe
a
r
he
a
d’
)
,designed a round table so
that no leader would seem above the other. While the legends may have developed during or
after the Roman period, the Camulodunum would have still been there, and still in use.
Also interesting is that there was a Camulodunum on the north side of Thames Bay. Tacitus
di
s
c
us
s
e
sCa
e
s
a
r
’
sus
eofCamulodunum for a meeting of veterans. I think this referred to the
44
Camulodunum in the south as it was closer to the battles being discussed in the text. I give the
applicable excerpt below
....they [The Silures continued to resist the Romans] persisted in war and could be quelled
only by legions encamped in their country. That this might be the more promptly effected, a
colony of a strong body of veterans was established at Camulodunum on the conquered lands, as
a defence against the rebels, and as a means of imbuing the allies with respect for our laws.
[from Tacitus, The Annals BOOK XII, A.D. 48-54]
Thi
soc
c
ur
r
e
dt
owa
r
dst
hee
nd ofCa
e
s
a
r
’
sc
onque
r
i
ngt
hema
i
nl
ys
out
he
r
nt
r
i
be
s
.The
Camulodunum probably already existed as a traditional meeting place of tribes, and the Romans
exploited it as a forum or laying down the Roman laws:
SOME COMMENT ON PEOPLE AND PLACES SOUTH OF THE BRIGANTES: South of the
Brigantes territory Ptolmey shows several towns being managed by the tribes called Cornavi,
Cortani and Catuvellauni. I have already discussed how COR- wor
dss
ugg
e
s
t‘
c
ol
l
e
c
t
i
ng
’
, and
the locations of Cornavi and Coritani, suggest they may have been involved with collecting the
products of mines. Others more familiar with the region and Roman documents may be more
able to reveal what was going on there. It is not our intent to do an exhaustive analysis.
The north, being further away, was the most resistant to Roman influence. It was a very
interesting place and there is much to say about it. Note that I am purely going by the place name
and its situation in the geography. I have not investigated the locations in detail, nor have I
investigated what more is known about the locations from ancient Roman documents. If what I
say concurs with what else is known from Roman texts, archeology, details in the landscape,
then that can be considered as proof of my correctness.
3.6 The Trade Connections in the NORTH –Traversing between Firth of Forth
and Firth of Clyde
Thef
ol
l
owi
ngma
ps
howsPt
ol
e
my
’
si
nf
or
ma
t
i
onpl
ot
t
e
dont
henor
t
hpa
r
tofBr
i
t
a
i
n,a
s
closely as I could manage. It contains a wide mixture of tribes and activities.
The north includes remote locations where people might have rarely encountered traders, but
the reality was, in my opinion, that once remote peoples learned of opportunities to take certain
things they caught or made to markets set up not far from their remote locations to which
seatraders from afar came and offered in exchange. exotic goods. As I mentioned earlier, in
North America, natives immediately wanted French iron axeheads and pots, and began to kill off
beavers in order to supply these foreigners the furs. In northern Europe, there is a historic
document that tells of there being a large fur market at the White Sea. Archeology pertaining to
northeast Europe about 3000 years ago or more, shows artifacts from the upper Volga appearing
at Lake Lagoda and Gulf of Finland on the one hand, and northward to the White Sea on the
other. Along with population genetics data interpretation, it suggests professional traders
developed first in the Volga –probably dealing with Babylon in the other direction –and then
went north via the Volga to seek more sources of goods desirable in Babylon. Those traders may
have begun professional trading in the east Baltic. The arrival of professional trading is revealed
45
by archeological material culture (as indicated by the distribution of particular artifacts) that
covers two or three times larger geographical area than previously. In the case of the east Baltic,
f
i
r
s
tt
he
r
ewa
st
he“
Kundac
ul
t
ur
e
”c
o
ve
r
i
ngt
hee
a
s
tBa
l
t
i
c
,a
ndne
xtc
a
met
he“
Comb-ceramic
c
ul
t
ur
e
”t
ha
te
xpa
nde
di
tt
ot
henor
t
he
ndoft
heGul
fofBot
hni
aa
nde
a
s
tt
oLa
keOne
g
a
.Butt
he
best proof is the sudden wider distribution of a product –amber objects, originally only found at
the southeast Baltic where the resource was located, was now found as far as the north end of the
Gulf of Bothnia, and as far as Lake Onega. It was at this time –around 3000BC –that
archeology is also finding amber in Babylonian tombs, Not a coincidence!! Volgic traders were
obviously descending the Volga and then the west coast of the Caspian Sea to the large
Babylonian market. Little changed in the behaviour of professional traders over millenia. Their
methods were to go to where the native peoples were located, show an interest in something they
procured or used, and offered something interesting from afar in exchange. If the natives were
nomadic, then the traders would establish a market in a central location–perhaps in the location
where nomadic peoples gathered regularly (as I described above) –and so all tribes would know
to accumulate goods the traders wanted before going there.
Where were the locations Venetic traders who frequented the British Isles established markets
to which to draw natives? Common sense will suggest it. We also saw a reference to native
British showing up at a market at the Scilly Islands –the first place seatraders met when crossing
from Uxisama. Maybe the natives themselves set up that market, to get first crack at what the
s
e
a
t
r
a
de
r
sha
d.Looki
nga
tPt
o
l
e
my
’
spl
a
c
ena
me
sa
s
s
oc
i
a
t
e
dwi
t
hnor
t
he
r
nBr
i
t
a
i
n,c
ommon
sense suggests more southerly of the seahunters went to the established marketplaces such as at
Vindogara. But for the remote seahunters, Veneti needed to actually go out to meet these
s
e
a
f
a
r
e
r
sa
tpa
r
t
i
c
ul
a
rl
oc
a
t
i
ons
.Pe
r
h
a
psPy
t
he
a
s
’j
our
ne
yi
nt
henor
t
hwi
l
lg
i
veusc
l
ue
s
.I
f
Pytheas was taken to Iceland which he called Thule (
“
DU-LEH”
)(In Finnic tule me
a
ns‘
f
i
r
e
’a
s
in tulemägi ‘
vol
c
a
no’(
i
e‘
f
i
r
e
-mount
a
i
n’
)I
ts
ugge
s
t
sVe
ne
t
i
ct
r
a
de
r
swe
ntt
he
r
et
ome
e
tpe
opl
e
there. The North Atlantic Drift passed the area to the east, so there would have been seahunting
natives towards the east side of Iceland. But then Pytheas wrote about slush ice in the sea. If
traders found something valuable further away, what was to stop them going there. We have to
bear in mind that the seatrader ships were no more primitive than the sailing ships used in the
19th century by Basque and Portuguese fishermen who crossed the Atlantic to harvest fish and
then whales off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. Strangely, modern historians have a very
narrow mindset about the capabilities of seatraders from around Roman times. There could have
been traders in eastern Canada as early as the Roman age, who went there to see if there was
a
ny
t
hi
ngp
r
of
i
t
a
bl
e
,a
nddi
dn’
tpur
s
uei
ta
si
twa
s
n’
te
c
onomi
c
a
lt
oc
omet
hi
sdi
s
t
a
nc
e
.
Pytheas also wrote about the Orcades, the Orkney Islands. They have always been teeming
with seal herds, and earlier walrus herds too. I believe that the walrus herds were called by
something like Est. orga,whi
c
hi
s‘
(
a
ni
ma
l
)oft
hepi
ke
’
,a
ndc
oul
dha
ver
e
f
e
r
r
e
dt
ot
he
i
rt
us
ks
.
(I
twoul
dbea
na
l
og
oust
ot
heEng
l
i
s
ht
e
r
mt
oda
y‘
t
us
ke
r
s
’
)
.Gr
e
e
kc
us
t
ome
r
si
nt
hes
out
hwoul
d
be told this word when sold walrus ivory or skins (skins were cut in a spiral to produce tough
ship ropes), and since the walrus was monstrous looking, the Greeks adopted the word and orca
e
ndur
e
di
nt
hes
e
ns
eof‘
mons
t
e
r
’
.
NORTHERN SEAHUNTERS TEMPORARY MARKETS:
Obviously if the Orkney Islands was one of the major sources of walrus and seal products,
that would be an ideal location for Veneti to set up a market. And we can deduce that from the
southern island, Ptolemy shows with the name Dumna. The word, as I may have already
46
me
nt
i
one
d,ba
s
i
c
a
l
l
yme
a
ns‘
(
i
s
l
a
nd,p
l
a
c
e
)oft
hewa
r
e
s
-bringing-c
ount
r
y’
.I
twoul
dha
veha
da
market at a specific time of year, and not a permanent market town (hence no town is shown). It
could have been as simple as an ad hoc outdoor market. The important thing was to have it
operate at the same time every year, so that all the seahunting peoples were aware of when to go
there.
47
Ptol
e
my
’
si
nf
or
ma
t
i
ona
boutt
hemos
tnor
t
he
r
l
ypa
r
t
sa
r
emos
tdi
f
f
i
c
ul
tt
oi
nt
e
r
pr
e
t
.Whi
l
ei
f
Venetic seatraders may have set up Dumna, hence the word is translatable, names of tribes and
some geographical features may not be Venetic, but be in the dialects of seahunting peoples who
had not converged their language too much with that of the seatraders. Either that or Ptolemy
obtained his information from diverse sources with bad pronunciation. More context is needed to
interpret Smertae, Lugi, and Decantae. Scetis I
s
l
a
nd,y
ouma
yt
hi
nkl
ookst
oomuc
hl
i
ke“
Sc
ot
t
”
,
butCe
l
t
swe
r
enots
e
a
g
oi
ng
.Mor
el
i
k
e
l
yt
heor
i
g
i
na
lwa
ss
ome
t
hi
ngl
i
keASCADE ‘
(
i
s
l
a
nd)of
the business-de
a
l
i
ng
s
’whi
c
hwoul
da
gr
e
ewi
t
hDumna being nearby. Is it possible the walrus
products were in such a demand that seatrader people other than Veneti arrived there to obtain
the goods. We note, for example that one tribe mentioned by Ptolemy is Cornavi. That name
occurs also in middle Britain. Did they maintain a second colony there? Or was it a pure
coincidence of the tribe being referred to in the same descriptive way. We note that the
geographical features of that area are interpretable. Volas Bay is another instance of a word that
seems to resonate with vool ‘
c
ur
r
e
nt
’
.Na
va
r
usRi
ve
r
,wi
t
hi
t
sr
e
s
e
ml
a
nc
et
o“
Na
r
va
”wor
ds
might describe a river by which one can move from the sea on the west side to east side. Indeed,
a detailed map shows such a possibility (See Loch Shin). The Loxa River obviously means
‘
s
a
l
monr
i
ve
r
’
.
The three tribe names Caereni, Carnonacae, and Cerones, as I have already discussed in
connection with COR- words.
Looking further south on the west side there are more island names that are extremely
distorted –Ebuda, Rhicina, and Malaeus We could suggest meanings, but chances are that these
are reduced words –missing vowels. For example Malaeus c
oul
dor
i
g
i
na
t
ef
r
om AMALA,‘
s
e
a
pl
a
c
e
’
.Rhicina could be based on Rha ‘
wa
y
’
.Ebudac
oul
dbeba
s
e
donABA,a
ndbe best
t
r
a
ns
l
a
t
e
da
s‘
(
i
s
l
a
nd)oft
hef
j
or
ds
’whe
r
eaf
j
or
di
sa
nope
ning of the land, similar to an estuary.
But these are more educated guesses.
There are more names that elude easy interpretation, and we have no idea why. But we can
c
l
e
a
r
l
ya
c
c
e
ptt
ha
tPt
ol
e
my
’
si
nf
or
ma
t
i
onoft
henor
t
hwa
sofmuc
hpoor
e
rqua
l
i
t
yt
ha
ne
l
s
ewhere
due to more limited visitors to the area.
VENNI, VINDOGARA, EPIDI, RHOBOGDI
We have already discussed earlier the presence of words for Veneti, and we see them in this
map. We see Vennicones north of the Firth of Forth, and Vennicni in northern Ireland. VENNE
was a way of naming the Veneti (as proven by the fact that the Brittany base of the Veneti is
t
oda
y“
Va
n
ne
s
”
)To mei
ti
sobv
i
o
ust
ha
tVennicni is simply an abbreviated verson of
Vennicones probably resulting from Ptolemy getting each from different sources. In Finnic these
words are VENNE-KONNA‘
Ve
ne
t
i
-c
ommuni
t
y
,c
ol
ony
’
.
We can imagine what they were doing. The Vennicones, according to Ptolemy, operated one
town Orrea. Since we see several Coria’
si
nt
hi
sg
e
ne
r
a
lr
e
g
i
on,Ipr
opos
e
d that Orrea was
miswritten, and should have been Correa, which would be the same as Coria. If the Vennicones
were crossing the North Sea in large ships, they would be smart to maintain their own
warehouses. It suggests perhaps Veneti ships were large ones, and so they did not cross to
Vindogara but provided goods to and from the warehouses. (We can tell that they followed the
south Norwegian coast. We can find even today a town called Vennesla)
But what is surprising is the name Vindogara.“
Vi
ndo”i
show i
nl
a
t
e
rhistory the Germanic
Norse called the Veneti. But there is no evidence Germanic powers had conquered southern
48
Norway or that Germanic speakers were crossing the North Sea. There is no Germanic in
Pt
ol
e
my
’
sna
me
sf
ornor
t
he
r
nBr
i
t
i
a
n.
But according to Tacitus6, he thought that the Caledonians, with their red hair, appeared to
ha
vec
omef
r
om “
Germania”
.TheRo
ma
nskne
w“
Germania”a
sage
og
r
a
phi
cr
e
g
i
ona
ndmos
t
oft
henor
t
hs
i
dewa
st
he“
Suebi”t
r
i
be
s
,whoI found appear to speak a Finnic language with a
high dialect7. The Germanic settlements were in the interior. So the conclusion is that there was
plenty of crossing between Norway and northern Britain but Norway was during the early
Roma
npe
r
i
ods
pe
a
ki
ng“
Sue
bi
c
”aFi
n
ni
cl
a
ng
ua
g
et
ha
tpus
he
dvowe
l
supwa
rds. Thus the word
Vindogara is a Finnic from Suebic.
(But wes
houl
dnotma
ket
oomuc
hoft
hevowe
ls
hi
f
t
supwa
r
dordownwa
r
di
nPt
ol
e
my
’
s
geography because those who recorded the names wrote exactly what they heard and the
peculiarity could have come from the peculiar speech of the informant.)
That a squeaky high dialect was found in the north is probable. Just to the north of the
Damnoni Ptolemy shows the Epidi. This name clearly shows a very high manner of speaking
when compared to Rhobogdi in northern Ireland, which is very low. Rhobogdi spoken in a high
“
Hi
ppyDi
”ma
nne
rwoul
dbe
c
omeRHE-BEGDI, which with abbrevition and harder vowels
comes close to Epidi (ie RHE-BIGDI > EPIDI) (Note BIGDI could become PICTI before
becoming PIDI)
If the Vindo in Vindogara me
a
nt‘
Veneti’t
he
nwha
tdi
dgara mean? The solutiion is that it
wa
sa‘
g
a
t
h
e
r
i
ng
’wor
d,akorja word, usually appearing in COR- form. Thus the meaning of
Vindogara i
s‘
Veneti (wares-)
c
ol
l
e
c
t
i
ngpl
a
c
e
’
.Gara could simply be another version of the
Coria places in the Uplands. The same word could take various forms in different mouths. (This
i
ss
ome
t
hi
n
gnotdi
f
f
i
c
ul
tt
ounde
r
s
t
a
n
d.Onec
a
nt
oda
yt
a
kea
nyEng
l
i
s
hwor
dl
i
ke“
wor
d”
,a
nd
find that if recorded phonetically it will appear in many forms –“
VI
RD”
,“
WARD”
,“
VERT”
,
“
VRD”
,e
t
c
.Wec
a
nnotf
or
ge
tt
ha
tRoma
nsus
e
dt
heRoma
na
l
pha
be
tp
hone
t
i
c
sa
ndr
e
c
or
de
d
exactly what they thought they heard, even if the actual people using it precieved only a single
word.
BETWEEN THE FIRTH OF FORTH (BODERIA ES.) AND FIRTH OF CLYDE (CLOTA ES.)
The large scale seatrade activity on this map occurs in the center, in the region dominated by
the Damnoni tribe. Recall at the southwest Britain Ptolemy gave the tribe name as Dumnoni.
Because both locations are so obviously connected to seatrade and represent destinations towards
t
he
ywe
r
ehe
a
de
d.I
nbot
hl
oc
a
t
i
ons
,t
hec
onc
e
ptof‘
c
ount
r
yofwa
r
e
s
-br
i
ng
i
ng
’a
ppl
i
e
s
.The
s
e
Dumnoni/Damnoni were obviously two branches of the same tribe, working together for trade
travelling from the Atlantic coast of Europe, and headed towards the Norwegian coast and
f
ur
t
he
r
.Thi
si
sar
out
et
h
a
tpr
oba
bl
yd
a
t
e
sba
c
kt
ot
he“
me
g
a
l
i
t
hi
ct
r
a
de
r
s
”whoby2000BCwe
r
e
travelling between Iberia and the Jutland Peninsula, going through northern Britain.
I have contained the towns associated with tribes with dashed lines. Ptolemy did not indicate
any boundaries (and in those days non-farming peoples did not define land borders). These
dashed lines are drawn just to indicate which towns are operated by which tribes. Note that the
Damnoni towns –a full six of them (making them second to the Brigantes, but first if we add the
Dumnoni towns in the south) –cover the entire region between the Firth of Forth (Boderia
6
In his biography of Agricola, first governor of Roman Britain
Se
emys
t
u
dyoft
h
eAdr
i
a
t
i
cVe
n
e
t
i
ci
n
s
c
r
i
pt
i
onswhi
c
hi
non
es
e
c
t
i
onl
ooksa
tSu
e
bi
ct
r
i
ben
a
me
si
nTa
c
i
t
u
s
’
Germania document.
7
49
Estuary) and the Irish Sea at Vindogara Bay. These Dumnoni/Damnoni people meant business!
Note that we earlier characterized the Cordia’
sa
ss
ma
l
l
er collection depots, maybe like trading
posts.Fur
t
he
ri
nve
s
t
i
ga
t
i
onma
yde
t
e
r
mi
newha
tki
ndsofpr
oduc
t
swe
r
ebe
i
ng‘
g
a
t
he
r
e
d’i
nt
he
Southern Uplands. I am not an expert in archeology. I am only interpreting a)geographic
circumstancs, b)logical trader behaviour, and c)place name interpretations that are suitable to the
world of trade or geography. Knowledge of special Roman documents about a place, and
archeological information will further illuminate what I say, and possible confirm my
deductions. Scholars are free to explore further corriboration of the theory that native Brittanic
was Venetic and not Celtic.
Let us look more closely at the towns of the Damnoni and its context with geography and
trade.
The fact that ships must have been crossing between the Firth of Clyde and Firth of Forth is
obvious from logic alone. Let us look at a modern detailed map of the geography for more
accuracy. The Firth of Clyde becomes the estuary of the Clyde River which proceeds through
t
oda
y
’
sGl
a
s
c
ow a
ndr
e
a
c
he
ss
out
he
a
s
ti
t
ot
heup
l
a
nds
.Buta
not
he
rbr
a
nc
hr
e
a
c
he
sdi
r
e
c
t
l
ye
a
s
t
towards the end of the estuary of the Firth of Forth. There are several rivers flowing into the
Firth of Forth, and that may explain the name Boderia Estuary. An estuary of several rivers
woul
dme
a
n‘
s
e
ve
r
a
le
s
t
ua
r
i
e
s
’
.ThusIpr
opos
et
hena
mec
a
mef
r
om t
hes
t
r
uc
t
ur
et
ha
twoul
dbe
mirrored with ABA-D-ERA =pl
ur
a
lg
e
ni
t
i
veofABA ‘
e
s
t
ua
r
i
e
s
’+RA ‘
wa
y
’g
i
vi
ngusthe
meaning ‘
t
hewa
yoft
hee
s
t
ua
r
i
e
s
/
r
i
ve
r
s’Thi
si
nt
e
r
pr
e
t
a
t
i
oni
snota
sobvi
ousorc
e
r
t
a
i
na
ss
ome
other names howe
ve
r
.I
fy
oua
r
enotc
onvi
nc
e
d,l
e
t
’
sc
ont
i
nue
.
Whether seatrade ships were taken across to the Clota Estuary and Vindogara Bay to continue
on, depended on the size of the ship and whether the rivers had been developed for the purpose.
Was there some canal development?. Thus, there is an area of investigation here that someone is
welcome to pursue –to see if there is evidence of canals dating to before the time of Roman
Britain. Smaller ships –like the size of the later Viking ships –might have been portaged where
needed.
Even after the Romans arrived, there is no evidence that Romans had much influence in the
north, and so the development of the area for trade must have been done before the Romans
arrived.
At the west side, we have, as I said, the Clota Estuary and Vindogara Bay. What can we
determine on that side?
First of all we may wonder about the meaning of Clota. First of all, it is possible I located the
town of Vindogara incorrectly. Perhaps it was located where Glascow is today. But it could
have been on the coast as I show. This is something a greater expert can determine. But let us
look at the Clota Estuary and Clota River. I think the towns of Coria and Colianica were
located on that river (ie the Clyde River of today). The word Clota could derive from Finnic
(Estonian) külade, whi
c
hwoul
dme
a
n‘
oft
hevi
l
l
a
ge
s
,s
e
t
t
l
e
me
nt
s
’
.The fact that in the end the
wor
dbe
c
a
me“
Cl
y
de
”t
e
ndst
os
uppo
r
ti
ts
i
nc
eEs
t
.külad like Finnish kylat has the high vowel
that is close to Y. The town name Colianica could also be based on KÜLA, KYLA, but this is
notc
l
e
a
r
.Thet
ownna
mec
oul
dbemi
s
wr
i
t
t
e
na
nds
houl
dbe“
Corianica”in which case it is
another Coria, with an additional suffix,
According to Ptolemy the Damnoni towns also include Lindum and Victoria to the northeast.
These are peculiar because they are away from the boat route. However, a glance at a modern
detailed map reveals there is a Firth of Tay. The Vennicones “
Orrea”whi
c
hIi
ns
i
s
twa
sr
e
a
l
l
y
“
Cor
r
e
a
”(
i
ea
not
he
rCoria) was probably at Dundee. This it is possible that the Vennicones may
50
have influenced both Lindum and Victoria. You may think that this Victoria is in some familiar
l
a
ng
ua
g
e
,a
st
hewor
di
sve
r
yc
ommont
oda
y
,e
xpe
c
i
a
l
l
yi
nt
e
r
msof“
vi
c
t
or
y
’
.Buti
ti
spos
s
i
bl
e
to interpret Victoria in a Finnic-Venetic manner with viik ‘
c
a
r
r
i
e
dwa
r
e
’a
ndturu ‘
ma
r
ke
t
’
.(
As
reflected in Estonian viigi-turu.) Romanization would then have given it an –ia ending. But other
explanations are welcome in this case.
The other town, Lindum, from its name, would have been located in the hills. Note that there
is another Lindum in mid-Britain, one of two towns of the Coritani. Such repetition of town
names does not connect the tribes, but simply means the meaning is very plain and descriptive.
In Estonian tradition lind me
a
ns‘
bi
r
d’butt
hemos
tc
ommonus
ewa
sa
slinn. which meant a
town on high, on a hill –a castle. The word here, Lindum, is a Romanization. But it could be a
town on a hill,
Let us complete our description of the trader activity between the Firth of Forth and Firth of
Clyde by describing the east side further –the towns that Ptolemy attributed to a tribe called
Otalini. The Otalini were obviously working closely with the Damnoni, as both managed an
Alauna –a landing at the entrance of each estuary.
To interpret the Otalini name, we have to go across to Norway, where there is still today a
significant river named Otra. This name mirrors the name of the Oder of the south Baltic, which
was originally also Otra. Otra combines OT and RA. OT (and forms with other vowels, such as
A, as in Adria) we can determine from many examples in the Venetic trade system around
Eur
ope
,me
a
nt‘
e
nd,t
e
r
mi
nus
’
.Thuswi
t
hRAme
a
ni
ng‘
wa
y
’
,Otra me
a
nt‘
wa
yoft
het
e
r
mi
nus
’
(ie end-river of the trade route). Thus the OT in Otalini i
save
r
yVe
ne
t
i
cwor
d,a
ndme
a
nt‘
e
nd,
t
e
r
mi
nus
’
.Ther
e
s
toft
hena
mei
nvo
l
v
e
st
hee
ndi
ng–LA whi
c
hme
a
ns‘
l
oc
a
t
i
onof
’
.Ther
e
s
ul
t
t
he
ni
sOTALA‘
pl
a
c
eoft
het
e
r
mi
nus
’whi
c
hwoul
dbeme
a
ni
ng
f
ult
os
e
a
t
r
a
de
r
sc
omi
ngal
ong
distance from the east, finally crossing the large expanse of the North Sea. To arrive at the tribe
name we only need to add the –LANE still used in Estonian today to describe a people of a
pa
r
t
i
c
ul
a
rl
a
nd,s
uc
ha
s“
Ca
na
da
lane”. Thus the location is OTALA and a person there is
OTALANE. This brings us so close to the Romanized Otalini, it is difficult to consider this one
to be incorrect.
There are some remaining odds and ends, but let us now continue towards the south and north
oft
hi
ss
t
r
ong‘
t
r
a
de
-c
ount
r
y
’be
t
we
e
nt
heFi
r
t
hofCl
y
dea
ndFi
r
t
hofFor
t
h.
THE SOUTHERN UPLANDS:
As we study the map I presented above, we notice the large cluster of Coria’
si
nt
hedi
r
e
c
t
i
on
of the Southern Uplands. According to Ptolemy, each tribe in the area had at least one. Ptolemy
calls the one operated by the Selgovae Corda, but common sense suggests it is miswritten, and
must be a Coria.
It is interesting that the Selgovae tribe is in the Southern Uplands. This is because often
mount
a
i
nr
a
nge
swe
r
evi
e
we
da
s‘
ba
c
kbone
s
’and in Finnic selg i
s‘
ba
c
kbone
’
.Thi
svi
e
w ofa
mountain range as a backbone is not unusual. In Estonian traditions, the mountain range of
Norway was seen as a backbone (selg), and the original name of Norway was seljamaa
‘
ba
c
kbonec
ount
r
y
’
.
Thus the tribe name Selgovae seems to describe a tribe living in the mountains, hills –the
Southern Uplands. The ending on Selgo could parallel Estonian väe ‘
oft
hef
or
c
e
’
,he
nc
ethe
me
a
ni
ngwo
ul
dbe‘
(
t
r
i
be
)oft
hemou
n
t
a
i
n-f
or
c
e
’ors
ome
t
hi
ngl
i
ket
ha
t
.
We cannot ignore coincidences with geography. Looking for a moment the north again, we
also see the tribe name Vagomagi. This name resonates with Est. vägi meaning an organized
51
force of people. (For example in Estonian sõja-vägi means ‘
a
r
my
’
,l
i
t
e
r
a
l
l
y‘
wa
r
-f
or
c
e
’
). The
other part of Vagomagi reflects Est. mägi ‘
hi
l
l
,mount
a
i
n’
.Thust
het
r
i
bei
nt
henor
t
h,a
bovet
he
Damnoni, located i
nt
heGr
a
mpi
a
nMount
a
i
ns
,ha
sana
mewhi
c
hi
nt
e
r
pr
e
t
sa
s‘
(tribe) of the
force oft
hemount
a
i
n’
.
Returning to the Selgovae towards the south of the Damnoni, Ptolemy also shows they
managed three towns along the north side of Solway Firth. Their names were Carbantorigum,
Uxellum, and Trimontium. The third looks very Latin, so I will skip over it. The second,
Uxellum, is one of the UXELA words that describe a passage to a destination. Why this word
wa
sus
e
dwoul
dne
e
dmor
ec
ont
e
xt
,i
ft
heme
a
ni
ngwa
s‘
por
t
a
lt
o(
ade
s
t
i
na
t
i
on)
’.I
tc
oul
dha
ve
referred to a river which served their Coria.
The third town, Carbantorigum, is very interesting because it may be a great example of
how Pt
ol
e
my
’
ss
our
c
e
sc
a
n ge
tana
mewr
ong
.I
nt
e
r
pr
e
t
i
ng wi
t
h Fi
nni
c
,t
heCarban, in
Carbantorigum gets us nowhere at all, but if we propose Carban was really Cauban (ie R
replaced a U –such an error could also be made by the copyist: before printing, ancient books
were copied over and over by hand.) The fact is that if the name was actually Caubantorigum, it
would perfectly mirror via Est. kauba(n)turg ‘
s
a
l
e
s
-ma
r
ke
t
’
.
But as we move west from the Selgovae, there is a tribe called Novantae, and the place names
are more confusing. It makes me think that the Romans have asserted themselves there. The
significance of this location is that the span between here and Hibernia was small. If the
Romans needed to assert themselves on Hibernia, this was a good location. It is possible that
when the Scots crossed into Britain and pushed up into the north after the end of the Roman
period, this would be the way to do it, because Celtic culture did not have their own seagoing or
seatrading traditions –they were land-based.
Looking at northern Hibernia, the Vennicni were obviously a colony of the Vennicones
traders. But I believe the Rhobogdi, like the Epidi and the other tribes on the west side of the
north, were seahunters. They brought wares to markets to trade, but their livelihood was in
harvesting the sea.
SEAHUNTERS TO THE WEST:
I have already suggested how the word Rhobogdi sounds like a very low version of what is
fast high and abbreviated in the name Epidi across the water. I believe they were the same
people, and either Ptolemy obtained the names on each side from different sources with different
speech characteristics, or dialects on each side had spread away from a common sameness.
Let us look at Rhobogdi again. I said it abbreviated to Epidi. But Epidi is an extreme
abbreviation. What happened to the G? It seems to me that without the loss of the G, we would
arrive at EPIGDI. The story is that the name Picti was first used in the third century, when
Romans had to deal with conflict in this region. The Romans may have heard EPIGDI used, and
Romanized it to Picti. From a Finnic perspective, the important word is reflected in Estonian
püük, ‘
c
a
t
c
h(
f
r
om hunt
i
ngorf
i
s
hi
ng)
’
.Is
a
wt
hi
sus
ei
nTa
c
i
t
us
’g
e
ogr
a
phyofGermania, where
in Chapter 46, he mentioned the Peucini harvesting the forests. Thus, from my point of view, we
could arrive at the Picti word from püükide ‘
(
t
r
i
be
,e
t
c
)oft
hec
a
t
c
he
s
’
. Supporting this is the
fact that this is what was mostly going on in the north –seahunters were catching fish, seals,
walrus, dolphins, etc and they were catching excess to take to markets set up by the traders.
The Epidi and Rhobogdi probably took their wares to the Vennicni. The Vennicni were at that
location expressely to collect wares from the seahunters. What other reason would they have to
be at that location? Their ships probably also went south on the west side of Hibernia, to gather
52
seahunter wares from the seahunters also found there. I think there was a steady supply of fish to
northern Gaul from Britain.
NORTHERN LAND-BASED TRIBES:
I have already mentioned the Vagomagi in the Grampian Mountains. (Vagomagi ‘
(
pe
opl
e
)of
t
hef
or
c
eo
ft
hemount
a
i
n’or‘
(
pe
opl
e
)oft
hemount
a
i
noff
or
c
e
’
)
To their west were the Caledoni. I mentioned earlier about the town of Calatum in the
Pennines, and how it can be best i
nt
e
r
pr
e
t
e
da
s‘
oft
hec
l
i
f
f
s
’
.It
hi
nkt
hena
meCaledoni has the
same basis –me
a
ni
ng‘
(
pe
opl
e
)oft
hec
l
i
f
f
s
’(
Pa
r
a
l
l
e
l
e
di
nEs
t
oni
a
nt
ha
twoul
dbekaljude)
To the east of the Vagomagi Ptolemy names a tribe called Taezali. This name is just another
phonetic interpretation of a common expression. Amazingly Ptolemy gives the name of their
town as Devana, so he could have written the tribe name DESALI just as well. It is all a matter
of the phonetic transcription. The Finnic parallel would be tuose-la ‘
pl
a
c
eoft
hebr
oug
ht
-wa
r
e
s
’
Considering ships had to cross the North Sea from the Norwegian coast, they would strike this
coast first –in the vicinity of Aberdeen –and this could be the first place a ship lands, before
they continue along the coast either south or north.
What remains is Hibernia. What was going on there? I have already said that the reason the
Romans did not extert power there was because they did not have to.
3.5 The Trade Connections in HIBERNIA –Looks Much Like Albion.
What about Hibernia? What was going on there?
The traditional thinking has been that Hibernia or Ierne in Greek texts, was inhabited by
Celtic kingdoms and remained untouched through the Roman era. It does not seem realistic.
But the alternative interpretation was that the Romans found no opposition there, no battles
between tribes, no development of army. A peaceful place that did not require much Roman
intrusion. By contrast southern Britain had Belgic tribes with experience warring with Germanic
tribes on the mainland side, and continued jockeying for power in Britain. As a result the
Romans were met with substantial opposition. What if Hibernia lacked that? Perhaps the
Romans simply had to send a small army into Hibernia and leave some officials there.
The fact is that in order for there to be a developed war culture that would take on the
Romans, the inhabitants there would have had to have immigrated from the mainland wars, and
there would have to have been competitive factions within Hibernia. History tells us that when
populations in an area grow, they come into conflict with one another. It apparently is an
instinctive behaviour also found in wild apes. Conversely if populations are low –such as across
the northern world –ne
i
g
hbour
i
ngt
r
i
be
sa
c
t
ua
l
l
ys
e
e
koute
a
c
hot
he
r
’
sf
r
i
e
nds
hi
ps. Thus if
Hibernia was a land where the resources and population were in an ideal balance, it was a
peaceful place and war culture had not developed. The name Ierna, or Hibernia, which Greeks
say meant it was a sacred island, by itself suggests a peaceful place because we equate
sacredness with peace.
But we have already seen in some of the above maps, that there was the Vennicones (written
as Vennicni) in northern Hibernia, which suggests Veneti were involved there. We will also see
that seatraders were also interested in southwest Hibernia, where probably they were after mined
ores. We already saw how the southeast had seatrader outposts handy to the trade networks.
The name Ierna, or Hibernia, could have developed via the Veneti involvement in it. The
Adriatic inscriptions described eternity with the double I, as in the word .i.io.s. (The dots
53
suggest it sounded like HIIOS). Also in Estonian the word hiiela was used for the underworldheaven associated with sacred groves. It follows that we can reverse Ierna to a Venetic-Finnic
form with (H)IIE-RA ‘
t
hee
t
e
r
na
l
/
s
a
c
r
e
dwa
y
’
.(
Mos
tof
t
e
n–NA endings reflect a possessive
suffix or case that link the description to the place or people so we do not always deal with the
final suffixes especially since Latin applied its own twists.)
But we can ask why this name was chosen. Possibly it came from observation of hill tombs,
and maybe the peaceful nature of its people.
If we look at the geography of Hibernia a
ndPt
ol
e
my
’
sna
me
s
,i
ti
se
a
s
yt
og
e
tas
e
ns
eofwha
t
was going on. I already showed earlier how the southeast coast seemed like a stopping place for
long distance seatrade.
NORTHEAST COAST
The northeast coast seemed to be a handy link to northern Britain, which was so close that it
did not need any sophisticated seatrade ships to cross (which is why I think the Scots later
invaded Britain from there.) Ptolemy identified the Darini on the Hibernia side, which is
obviously another Tv word. This tribe was obviously carrying on trade across this narrow gap.
NORTH COAST
The north coast had the Rhobogdi seahunters which I said may have simply been a branch of
the Epidi of vice versa. The Vennicni I said were Vennicones, and were located there to collect
seaproducts from the Rhobogdi and other seahunting peoples towards the west side of the British
Isles –handy to the fishing grounds beside the North Atlantic Drift.
WEST COAST
The west coast of Hibernia presents a number of coastal tribe names. We note that like the
CER- tribes in the north the tribes on the west coast of Hibernia are shown with no towns,
meaning they did not manage markets. That suggests they were seahunters and only took wares
to markets but did not manage a market themselves. The exception is the Magnatae tribe with
their port-market of Magnatae. If it is Venetic, it is greatly condensed. (For example AMAKONNADE‘
s
e
ac
ommuni
t
i
e
s
’
)
.. The other tribe names down the west coast given by Ptolemy
was Erdini, Autini, Gangani. I think that some of these or all may have been foreigners. We
know how a few centuries ago the Basques and Portuguese crossed the Atlantic to spend months
harvesting the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, and their ships were no more sophisticated than
the oceanic ships of those ancient times.
The Grand Banks were rich in sealife from being washed by the Gulf Stream to its east. There
was a similar situation with the British Isles –the North Atlantic Drift, the same current, passed
the British Isles towards its west, and continued up between the Faeroes and Iceland, and there
was a branch turning east through the northern isles of Britain. Fishing peoples of the west coast
of Europe did not have such a situation, and I think that fishing peoples from Brittany south to
Iberia may have made such long journeys, to harvest the seas off the west coast of the British
Isles. For example one of the tribes on the Gallic coast were the Pictones. That name is so close
t
o“
Picti”t
ha
tt
hena
mePictones may have originated too in a Venetic püükide ‘
oft
hec
a
t
c
hi
ng
s
’
with the final word being a Romanization.
54
SOUTHWEST COAST
Ptolemy shows at the southwest a tribe named Vellabori. The -bori ending is one that appears
e
l
s
e
whe
r
el
a
t
e
ri
nhi
s
t
or
y
,of
t
e
na
sVARIa
ndme
a
ni
ng‘
f
a
r
e
r
’
.Thef
i
r
s
tpa
r
t
,vella-, I think
pr
oba
bl
yme
a
ns‘
br
ot
he
r
’
.Ea
r
l
i
e
r, I mentioned the leader of the confederation of Belgic tribes
whoc
ha
l
l
e
ng
e
dCa
e
s
a
r
’
sa
r
mywa
sna
me
dCassivellaunus . Another instance of vellaunus is in
the tribe name on the lower east side, Catuvellauni. I have some ideas for the Catu,butwon’
tg
o
into it.
55
Thus in Vellabori Is
e
e‘
br
ot
he
r
-f
a
r
e
r
s
’
.The
s
ewe
r
enots
e
a
hunt
e
r
s
,buts
e
a
t
r
a
de
r
soft
he
Venetic realm. They were obviously regularly visiting the southwest. The mountainous area was
probably a rich area for mining.
Because it is unlikely for natives or even Veneti to name a river or a town after the name of
the entire island, instead of some more meaningful description, the fact that there was a river
called Ierna, and a town named Hibernia, to me suggests that Greeks and now Romans had been
interested in the southwest –probably for metals like copper, tin and gold.
As we look towards the interior, note that place names are similar to those Ptolemy gives for
Albion (
Br
i
t
a
i
n)
.Not
et
hec
ont
i
nue
du
s
eofTvf
or‘
br
i
ng
i
ng
’
.Wes
e
er
i
ve
r
sDuris, and Dabrona.
There is a town with the genetic name Dunum. The word closest town name to an Estonian
equivalent is Macolicum, which resembles maa küla ‘
c
ount
r
yvi
l
l
a
ge
’
THE INTERIOR: WATERWAY WITH REGIS AND FROM THE INTERIOR TO DUBLIN.
As we look towards the interior we see the Senus (Shannon) River reaching inland along the
string of lakes and rivers. Note the three towns Regis, Rhaeba, and Regis. The two Regis are
La
t
i
nf
or‘
pa
l
a
c
e
,c
a
s
t
l
e
’
.Whywoul
dt
he
yha
vet
ha
tna
me
?It
hi
nkt
heRoma
nss
i
mpl
ys
e
nti
na
small army and eliminated the royal families at each and established a few of their own officials.
Note as I said above, if it was a peaceful place, there would not have been any ability for the
natives to resist. Who were the original royal families in those two palaces? One possibility is
that they were descendants of Celtic royal families defeated by the Romans in Spain. It is easy to
imagine that after the defeat, the Celtic royal family escaped and found passage with Venetic
traders who were constantly travelling to the British Isles. Arriving in the interior via the Senus,
they would have found backward peoples of the kind found in rural Britain, and established
themselves as their rulers. Since the Veneti were involved with Hibernia as much as Albion,
traders in the interior probably spoke the same large scale language as found in Britain.
A closer look at a map of Ireland shows a string of waterways from Rhaeba (which resembles
RAVA found for rivers elsewhere in ancient Europe, and even the Ravius River on the west side
of Hibernia.)
The waterways from Rhaeba proceeded east to Eblana. As we said earlier, Eblana (Dublin)
was the end of crossings to the Veneti of Angelsey and northern Wales.
Compared to the glorious traditional painting of ancient Ireland as a dreamy Celtic-land,
a
c
c
or
di
ngt
oPt
ol
e
my
’
si
nf
or
ma
t
i
on,Hibernia looks much like everywhere else in the ancient
British Isles –mostly dominated by the Venetic shaping of it all with large-scale trade activity.
Clearly the maritime part of Hibernia had Venetic-speaking seatraders on the one hand, and
seahunters on the other, including short term visits from elsewhere to harvest the seas washed by
the North Atlantic Drift to the west of the British Isles.
Thus if there was Celtic in Hibernia, it might have been two kingdoms around the two
pa
l
a
c
e
s
,s
hownbyt
heRoma
nsonl
ya
s“
Re
g
i
s
”
,whi
c
hs
us
pi
c
i
ous
l
ys
ugge
s
t
sRoma
nst
a
ki
ngi
t
over. Given that most activity was occuring around the perifery and not the interior, and the
interior was not producing wealth for the Roman Empire (local farming did not produce wealth
for Roman coffers), it was irrelevant compared to taxing what seatraders associated with Veneti
were finding and removing from Hibernia.
Since Roman inventories of places is mostly concerned with market centers, trade routes, and
other places connected to commerce, the absence of Celtic names does not mean there were no
Celts there. There could have been rural people speaking Celtic. On the other hand it was
standard practice in ancient times that military conquests of other peoples (like for example in
56
Spain Celtic royals conquering and ruling Iberian natives) that the idea was that the conquered
people supported the royals, and it was not wise to mix the royal and dominated classes. Thus if
two royal families fled north and established two kingdoms at the Regis, we must not expect that
suddenly all the conquered people suddenly start speaking Celtic.
The idea that Celtic royals travelled from Iberia to Hibernia does exist in the mythology, but
we have to question whether these two kingdoms really change Hibernia in the sense that it was
dominated by the Venetic trade system. Celtic would have been very local, maybe very very
local. The notion of a Hibernia entirely Celtic is absolutely fals
e
.Ne
i
t
he
rPt
ol
e
my
’
se
vi
de
nc
eor
any other ancient evidence supports it.
If we go by what is written about the descent of Irish Celtic royal families, then it tends to
look like there was a major arrival of Celts after the 5th century.
Archeology also reveals that it is about that time too that suddenly Ireland gets filled with
“
Ri
ngFor
t
s
”
.Thepr
a
c
t
i
c
eofde
ve
l
opi
ngar
e
f
ug
ef
orac
ommuni
t
ywi
t
hi
npa
l
i
s
a
de
dwa
l
l
si
sa
very old practice among farming people dating to well before Roman times. Farming people,
unable to abandon their fields and buildings, could not flee from invaders; therefore already in
the Bronze Age, it became a common practice for farming peoples to find protection within
walls, when needed, otherwise farming the surrounding lands. The “
Ri
ngFor
t
”wa
sapr
ot
e
c
t
i
ve
,
defensive, measure. The stronger it was, the more it was a deterrent from attack.
It is curious that this world of ring forts in Hibernia should begin as Roman Britain ends and
Roman power withdraws. It seems to suggest the arrival of a new aggressive people from
mainland Europe. It is as if Celts in the mainland, shackled by the Roman system, are suddenly
free to mobilize to fill the void created by the withdrawal of Romans from Britain.
Hibernia, originally a peaceful naive place, suddenly becomes aggressive.
I proposed earlier that maybe Brittonic Celtic developed in Wales and other locations across
from Ireland, as a result of Venetic becoming Celticized, but we cannot overlook some
simultaneous events of British coasts opposite Ireland being invaded from this world of ring
forts and of Wales being invaded by military crossings from Eblana, just as later the Pictish
northern Albion was invaded by Scots. The resulting language in the conquered lands would be
Celtic, modified according to the original language in the area.
Le
tusnot
et
ha
tt
hec
onc
e
ptof“
Br
i
t
t
a
ny
”be
i
ngs
e
t
t
l
e
df
r
om s
out
he
a
s
tBr
i
t
a
i
n,i
sar
e
l
a
t
i
ve
l
y
r
e
c
e
ntde
ve
l
opme
nt
.Be
de
’
sa
c
c
ount
,muc
hc
l
os
e
rt
ot
hea
c
t
ua
le
ve
nt
s
,s
pe
a
ksonl
yoft
hepe
opl
e
s
of Britain seeming to have come from Armorica and seemingly becoming generally the original
Britons everywhere . This pattern, I pointed out earlier, agrees with Venetic shaping of Britain,
though developing it for international trade. A very natural scenario might be that the native
British (with the British Venetic language) were invaded by Celts crossing from Eblana, and that
caused some to flee back to their relations in Brittany. Wars always cause refugee events.
Refugees would most naturally seek to go to friends and relatives. If the Brittany Veneti were
intimately involved with western Britain, then the connections between the peoples in those
locations woul have been strong, both in terms of the commercial activity and family.
The Celticization of Venetic in northwest Europe may have occurred only after the end of
Roman Britain, when Celts flooded into Hibernia and then crossed into southwest Britain
causing many families to flee to Brittany.
But, as I said before, when people change their language, they do not change their identity.
The peoples in the region of Wales would still have viewed themselves as native British going
back to before the Romans. In ancient times, language was not as important as actual family
heritage. It was only recently that scholars began looking at language and making it important.
57
4
WHY WE USED ESTONIAN TO DECIPHER ADRIATIC VENETIC
INSCRIPTIONS AND USED IT TO HELP DECIPHER NAMES IN
ALBION AND HIBERNIA.
4.1 The Babble of Humans from Settled Peoples to Mobile Traders
It is important to note that no early historian said that the Belgic language, Venetic language,
orna
t
i
veBr
i
t
i
s
hl
a
ng
ua
gewa
s“
Ce
l
t
i
c
”
.Thei
de
aofa
ne
a
r
l
y“
Ce
l
t
i
c
”we
s
t
e
r
nEur
opei
sba
s
i
c
a
l
l
y
a
ni
nve
nt
i
onba
s
e
dl
a
r
g
e
l
yont
heRo
ma
nsc
a
l
l
i
ngwe
s
tEur
ope“
Gallia”a
nd Caesar also saying
that Celts had two names Galli and Celtae. The problem is similar to how scholars have always
assumed that the region the Romans called Germania was filled with German-speakers and
g
ove
r
ne
dbyagr
e
a
t“
Ge
r
ma
n”na
t
i
on
.Butt
her
e
a
l
i
t
yis that the Romans basically called vast
geographical areas according to natural boundaries like rivers and coasts, and named them
arbitrarily according to the tribe the Romans had most awareness.
Thus in the beginning western Europe was simply the region west of the Rhine and Rhone,
named after the people in the central region. Similarly the region east of the Rhine and extending
a
sf
a
ra
st
heVi
s
t
ul
a
,nor
t
hoft
heDa
n
u
bewa
sc
a
l
l
e
d“
Germania”be
c
a
us
et
heRoma
nswe
r
emos
t
aware of the tribes in the interior closest to the Rhine.
The Romans also named other regions arbitrarily. The region east of the Vistula and north of
t
heBl
a
c
kSe
awa
sc
a
l
l
e
d“
Sarmatia”
,a
ndt
her
e
g
i
onf
r
om t
hee
a
s
tBa
l
t
i
ci
nt
owha
ti
snowRus
s
i
a
wa
sc
a
l
l
e
d“
Scythia”
.(
Thuswhe
nBe
des
a
i
dl
ongboa
t
sc
a
me‘
f
r
om Sc
y
t
hi
a
’
,i
nf
a
c
thes
a
i
dt
ha
t
traders came from the east Baltic coast.)
Before the Romans took control of these regions, they had names for them. And when Roman
text spoke about people in those regions, such as calling people in we
s
t
e
r
nEur
ope“
Galli”or
pe
opl
ei
nt
her
e
g
i
one
a
s
toft
heRhi
ne“
Germani”
,orpe
opl
eeast of the Vistula a
s“
Sarmati”
, and
so on, those terms had absolutely no implication of the ethnicity of the person mentioned. They
were geographic terms. The same appl
i
e
dt
oCa
e
s
a
rc
a
l
l
i
ngBe
l
g
i
ct
r
i
be
s“
Br
i
t
t
a
ni
”s
i
mpl
y
because they were geographically in Britain, and one should not presume they represented the
nature of native British as a whole. (For example native British had no traditions in war like
Belgic British did from experience with wars on the mainland.)
Even after Romans conquered the geographically defined regions, this view did not change.
Whe
nRoma
nse
s
t
a
bl
i
s
h
e
dRoma
nGa
ult
he
i
rme
nt
i
onofa“
Galli”s
t
i
l
ldi
dnotha
vea
nye
t
hni
c
meaning. Someone called a “
Galli”c
oul
dha
vec
omef
r
om Aquitani, Celtae, Belgae, or Latin
ethnicity (or any other ethnic minority in Roman Gallia.).
Romans and ancient people in general were not particularly aware of language other than its
practical application. Ancient Greeks c
a
l
l
e
da
l
lpe
opl
ewhodi
dnots
pe
a
kGr
e
e
ka
s“
ba
r
ba
r
i
a
ns
”
which meant speaking in an unintelligible babble. Today we are extremely aware of language
because our institution of nations has promoted nationalism and a standard language of the
nation. Romans began nationalism when they promoted their subjects use Latin and wear togas.
But before that language was just like the noises of birds –it was just how they communicated,
and nobody knew why different people babbled in different ways.
58
The tradition of assuming the Roman regions were like modern nations is the main reason for
t
hemi
s
g
ui
de
dbe
l
i
e
f
si
na
c
a
de
mi
at
ha
t“
Ce
l
t
i
c
”l
a
ng
ua
ge
sr
ul
e
dwe
s
t
e
r
nEur
opea
nd“
Ge
r
ma
ni
c
”
languages ruled eastern Europe. The reality is that the actual Celtic and Germanic speakers,
being Indo-European and land-based peoples, were settled people operating farming in fertile
interior regions. Because they tended to their settlements generation after generation, and there
was no umbrella government dictating promoting a national language, there were countless
languages across settled central Europe. It could be so extreme that a settlement a 100km away
might not even understand your dialect. Even after the institution of the large scale nation, in
spite of the central government promoting a particular language/dialect, a traveller who knew the
national standard language might still be unable to understand the speech from one settlement to
the next. He would have to seek out someone who spoke the national standard language. This
was the case only as late as a century ago (before mass media). But originally it was worse.
But if the people were nomadic hunter gatherers who gathered every year, their languages
would always be corrected by their contacting one another over large spans of geography. The
prehistoric congregating places eventually developed into trade centers, and that too brought
diverse communities throughout a river system in contact with each other. The further they
travelled the more the language remained similar.
But boat people were restricted to waterways. You could have a water system with a single
langauge, and yet farming settlements between the tributaries –if they maintained their own
languages –would have widely varying dialects. But it depended on how much peoples within a
water system were inspired to be involved with the water system –languages converge with
contacts. The more contact the more uniform all the languages will be.
That is the reason Caesar wrote that there was a region of the same language, laws and
institutions called Aquitani, another called Belgae and the central called Celtae (the Celtae were
bound together, as I mentioned by the Veneti trade on the Loire River system.)
Similarly when we look at the geographical region of Germania, we have to distinguish
between the settled peoples in the interior and the boat-using fishers and traders along the
marshy coast of southern Scandinavia and south Baltic. That means the latter, the Suebi, were a
very different people than those in the settlements in the interior. Roman historian Tacitus wrote
how the Suebi were independent tribes but shared culture (and presumably language).
The same would apply to western Europe. Celtic tribes, tied to farm settlements, would speak
“
Ce
l
t
i
c
”t
ha
tva
r
i
e
dgr
e
a
t
ly over small distances. But some of their people could, with a boat,
travel to a market far away. But the language at that market could be Venetic. They or the sellers
at the market, would have to be bilingual –their mother tongue and the large scale Venetic. Once
one is bilingual, the less used language is in danger of being lost after some generations.
The same applies to eastern Europe. Before the Roman Empire, there would similarly have
been a dicotomy between Slavic settlements with dialects varying greatly from one settlement to
another, and the traders cutting through it all with their single Venetic lingua franca.
There is a tendency for Celtic, Germanic, or Slavic scholars to presume that there were large
nations or empires and a single language, but, honestly, that was not true. Unless they travelled
t
oe
a
c
hot
he
r
’
ss
e
t
t
l
e
me
nt
sove
rawi
dea
r
e
a
,t
heCe
l
t
i
c
,Ge
r
ma
ni
c
,a
ndSl
a
vi
cl
a
ng
ua
g
e
sva
r
i
e
d
so greatly that it was more like an Indo-European spectrum of languages where only close
neighbours could understand each other easily.
After the long range contacts of nomadic boat-using hunter gatherers, it was long distance
trade that created and maintained a large scale language that did not change much from one end
of Europe to the other (except more or less surrounding the trade routes)
59
TheGa
r
onne
,Loi
r
e
,Rhi
ne
,a
c
c
or
di
ngt
oCa
e
s
a
r
’
si
nf
or
ma
t
i
on,c
r
e
a
t
e
ds
ubs
e
t
soft
h
el
a
r
ge
trade networks, and each developed their own dialects that dovetailed with the large scale
language –Aquitanic, Belgic, etc. In Germania, Suebic was large scale because its tribes were
boat peoples of the marshes and coasts from the Jutland Peninsula, Oder, and south Baltic. And
then the seagoing peoples up the east Baltic coast who frequented the Aestii market formed
another large scale situation. We could continue throughout all of Europe. It did not necessarily
require boat-using traders. Ancient Asia Minor had Assyrian traders who moved wares in
caravans of mules and camels. Asia Minor was filled with many languages, but everyone learned
Assyrian.
The British Isles did not have any major river around which native people could converge
around. But it had all kinds of sea all around it filled with boats. The result was the same –just as
the tribes of the Suebi converged with each other from their contacts mostly by sea around the
Jutland Peninsula and south Baltic, so too the tribes of the native British converged from mostly
the activity around its coasts. As for interior people in Britain, no place in the British Isles was
far from the sea, and it was difficult to be isolated from the continuous forces of convergence.
In the end, the British Isles ended up with a relatively uniform native British language. The
exceptions would have been seahunters who had little contact with the Veneti traders –but they
were out of sight and out of mind.
4.2 Clarifying the Ancient Information about the Ancient Estonian East Baltic
In the above discussions I have often referred to the Finnic language of Estonian –located
today south of Finland. There is much evidence that the Estonian name, which endures today in
Estonian as Eesti, but was applied directly to west Estonia by the Church Latin as Estones, dating
to the time of the Livonian Chronicles around the 13th century. But versions of this word dates
back to earlier centuries, appearing in the Norse form of Eistyr, and other forms like Aisti, Estas,
finally going back to Tacitus with Aestii. But in the latter instances, it is unclear what people was
described. That is because there were both a specific nation with that name, and all the tribes
who were associated with it.
According to Tacitus, the southeast Baltic contained many tribes –I expect a confederation of
peoples serving each other towards common purposes –whi
c
hhec
a
l
l
e
d“
Aestii nations”
.
According to archeologists, the entire east Baltic coast was oriented to the market at the
southeast Baltic. Artifacts found there have been found in various places of the east Baltic.
Tacitus did not travel up the east Baltic coast. His Germania text does seem to suggest he
travelled east past the Jutland Peninsula and along the south Baltic coast, probably taking
passage with traders. This is suggested by his writing to the right shore of the Suebian sea, we
find it washing the Aestii nations It makes us picture a man on a Suebic trader ship watching the
coast to the right as it approached.
Thus even if there is no clear evidence what exactly various versions of the Eesti name
referred to –a specific tribe, or all the associated Aestii nations –, we can presume that at an
early time, there was an Aestii language along the east Baltic coast, among all the seagoing
nations that had the means to regularly travel to the market of the Aestii.
Since then, in the past thousand years, expansions of Church crusades and Germanic or
Slavic powers, and Lithuanian tribes from the interior, eliminated the Aestic tribes along the
southeast Baltic coast up to the Gulf of Riga, and the Estonians. The Estonians have survived to
60
have their own country, as did the Finns. Thus the Estonian language can be viewed in two ways
a)a northern remnant of an original use of an Aestic lingua franca along the entire coast, and
b)refugees from invasions of the southeast Baltic who were able to enter the Estonian landscape
via the Pärnu River.8
A conflict exists in the fact that Ptolemy in his geography of Sarmatia (the Roman name for
t
her
e
g
i
one
a
s
toft
heVi
s
t
ul
a
)
,r
e
f
e
r
st
ot
hes
a
mea
s
s
oc
i
a
t
e
dt
r
i
be
sa
s“
Greater Venedae races”
.
Since archeology has not found any evidence of“
Venedi”be
i
ngr
e
pl
a
c
e
dby“
Aestii”(
Ta
c
i
t
us
also finds a Venedi tribe), we have to interpret the two descriptions from the point of view that
confederations (economic, military, etc) assume the name of the leading tribe at the time and that
at different times the percieved leading tribe can change.
Ptolemy got his information from Greek sources, and so came from older sources than
Tacitus, and from the point of view of Greece, who experienced Venedi bringing them amber and
other trade goods, the nations were lead by the Venedi. The Venedi, moreover, in Greek times
were strong. The Venetic trade systems began to fall apart with the rise of the Roman Empire.
Specifically,Pt
ol
e
my
’
si
nf
or
ma
t
i
onc
a
mef
r
om be
f
or
et
hef
i
r
s
tc
e
nt
ur
yBC,a
ndbe
f
or
et
he
Adriatic Veneti were Romanized and became a province of Rome called Venetia. But Tacitus,
described a situation after the Romanization of the Adriatic Veneti (who recieved amber, etc).
The Venedi who conveyed amber via the Adriatic, now had their customer base reduced to the
Sarmatians (ie Slavs) reached via the Vistula, and that began the Slavicization of the Vistula
Venedi that Tacitus already observed at that time, centuries before Venedi were fully Slavic.
In other words, between the 1st century BC and 1st century AD, the southeast Baltic Venedi
had been greatly weakened in their traditional north-south trade. When weakened, they no longer
dominated the confederacy. Who now dominated the economic confederation –t
he“
Aestii”
.
There was a political shift in the“
Greater Venedae races”t
ot
her
e
g
i
onbe
i
ngdomi
na
t
e
dby
“
Aestii”(
i
ebe
c
omi
ng‘
Gr
e
a
t
e
rAestii r
a
c
e
s
’i
ns
t
e
a
d.
)
While Tacitus wrote of the Venedi even after identifying the region with the Aestii, is the
reverse true –does Ptolemy write of the Aestii after identifying the region with the Venedi. I
think so in the name Ossi. I think Ossi was actually Osti, an easy mistake by a foreign ear.
Back from the Ocean, near the Venedicus bay, the Veltae dwell, above whom are the Ossi;...
[Ptolemy, Bk 3, Ch 5, Sarmatia]
To orient ourselves, the following map shows the area.
I
na
ddi
t
i
ont
oPt
ol
e
my
’
sna
me
s
,Iha
vea
dde
d“
ABALA”f
r
om t
her
e
f
e
r
e
nc
ebyGr
e
e
k
traveller Pytheas, who called the island from which amber came Abalus, (the Samland Peninsula
about three centuries BC when the lowlands behind it were submerged) I also identified the
international port and market by its various names –today, Elblag, in Pussian times Truso, and
probably originally simply Turuse ‘
oft
hema
r
ke
t
’
.
8
This is supported by the fact that farming developed in the first millenium in the Pärnu River valley.
61
I
nPt
ol
e
my
’
squot
e
,f
i
r
s
t behind Venedicus Bay was the tribe he called Veltae,a
nd‘
a
bove
’
them were the Ossi.
Pt
ol
e
myi
sc
onf
us
i
ngi
nhi
sus
eof‘
a
bove
’a
nd‘
be
l
ow’s
i
nc
ei
ng
e
ne
r
a
lhede
s
c
r
i
be
dt
het
r
i
be
s
r
e
l
a
t
i
vet
ot
heVi
s
t
ul
aa
l
lt
hewa
yt
ot
heBl
a
c
kSe
a
.Thus‘
be
l
ow’a
nd‘
a
bove
’c
a
nr
e
l
a
t
et
o
elevation –‘
be
l
ow’be
i
nge
i
t
he
rdownr
i
ve
r(
nor
t
hwa
r
d)a
nd‘
a
bove
’upr
i
ve
rorma
y
bet
o
wa
r
ds
the interior –higher elevation.
Butt
hi
si
s
s
uedoe
s
n’
ta
f
f
e
c
tt
hi
ng
smuc
h.Gi
ve
nt
ha
tweknow t
ha
tt
he
r
ewe
r
epe
opl
e
collecting amber that washed out of the Samland Peninsula (Abalus-ABALA ‘
pl
a
c
eoft
he
bounded wide water –in this case the lagoon created by the sandbars). If this entire area was a
confederation of specialized activity tribes, there would have to be one tribe that inhabited the
lagoon and collected amber washed to the beaches. That then allows us to propose that the tribe
name was related to the ABALA (or AVALA). If we pluralize AVALA, we get AVALAD
‘
(
pe
opl
e
)oft
hel
a
g
oonpl
a
c
e
’
,whi
c
hc
oul
de
a
s
i
l
ybeobs
e
r
ve
di
nGr
e
e
ka
sVeltae.
But what interests us is Ossi. Let us assume that the recorder of this name misheard what was
said, and Ptolemy should have said Osti. I
nt
oda
y
’
sEs
t
oni
a
noste,i
sag
e
ni
t
i
ve
,a
ndme
a
ns‘
of
t
hepur
c
ha
s
e
s
’
,he
nc
e‘
(
pe
opl
e
)oft
he pur
c
ha
s
e
s
’
.I
fi
ti
s spoken in a higher forward dialect
OSTE becomes ASTI. (It is your Hippy Dii situation once again) This ASTI or even ESTI is
obviously where Tacitus got his Aestii.
These OSTE people were obviously the operators of the market at Elblag.
While the Venedi traders were compromized by the Roman initiated changes, the market was
unaffected. The Romans never expanded east from the Rhine, other than maybe some surveys
out of curiosity. Nor was east-west trade across the northern seas particularly affected –since the
Romans were not seagoing peoples, and could only control seatrade if they controlled ports. The
Romans never controlled any ports east of the Rhine.
Thus, to summarize, originally the southeast Baltic coast was well known in Greece as the
location of the economic confederation from which amber came, but after the Roman Empire
62
compromised the original Venetic trade system, the area had to adapt (just as the Veneti-lead
Armorican seatraders had to adapt). The southeast Baltic Venedi were left to handle trade up and
down the Vistula, where the Slavic settlements were located, just as the Brittany Veneti were left
with trade in the Loire River where the Celtic settlements were located. It follows that the one
became Slavic after a few centuries, while the other became Celtic after a few centuries. (I note
what I said earlier, that in those days there was no nationalism –people did what was most
practical, and if you were trading to Celts, it was an advantage to speak Celtic, and if you were
trading to Slavs, it was an advantage to speak Slavic. As history progressed past the end of the
Roman era, we wound up with Latin Veneti north of Italy, Celtic Veneti in Brittany above the
mouth of the Loire, and Slavic Veneti reaching down towards the Black Sea and Adriatic Sea by
routes outside Roman influence. There was probably also a Germanic Veneti (maybe the
Hermondures mentioned by Tacitus in his Germania)9
Note that the merchants at the market at TURUSE, did not have to deal with the Slavs up the
Vistula. They were still recieving seatrade from the Suebic tribes to the west and Aestic tribes
from up the east coast –both speaking Finnic and at least an international Finnic-Venetic. In
other words, the coastal Aestii nations were not affected by the conversion of Vistula Venedi to
Slavic in the following centuries.
The Romans may have affected Europe in the south and west, but had little effect across the
northern seas and upper Scandinavia. I believe that actual Venetic-speaking long distance traders
continued to travel the waters across the northern seas through the Roman era.. That is why,
when Anglo-Sa
xonBr
i
t
a
i
nl
ooke
da
tt
he“
Pi
c
t
s
”i
nnor
t
he
r
n Br
i
t
a
i
n,t
he
ys
a
wt
he
i
rpor
t
s
r
e
c
e
i
vi
ngt
r
a
de
r
s‘
f
r
om Sc
y
t
hi
a
’
.Sc
y
t
hi
afrom the Roman point of view began at the east Baltic
coast.
In other words, there was trade between northern Britain and the Scythian coast, in the
original Venetic seatrade language, even as the Veneti in southeast Britain and Brittany were
now speaking a Celticized Venetic, and south Baltic Venedi were speaking a Slavicized Venetic
and Adriatic Venetic were speaking Latin.
Venedi continued to operate in the region of the Gulf of Riga and southern Estonia by the 13th
century. The Livonian Chronicles speak of Venedi being established first at the mouth of the
Venta, and then at the town today called Cesis, originally known in Livonian and Latin in the
meaning ‘
Ve
ne
di
-t
own’
.The
ywe
r
ec
a
r
r
i
ngwa
r
e
sbe
t
we
e
nt
heGul
fofRi
g
aa
ndLa
kePe
i
pus
,
wi
t
hpor
t
a
g
ea
t“
Ugandi”
.AtLa
kePe
i
pust
hewa
r
e
sc
onnected with the Votic traders based at
Narva. They were the original traders of the Russian rivers before Slavic immigration converted
Russia into a Slavic region. The Livonians actually applied the word Venede ‘
(
pe
opl
e
)o
ft
he
boa
t
s
’t
ot
he Vot
e
sa
swe
l
l
.Estonians called them Vadjad, which is close to vedajad
‘
t
r
a
ns
por
t
e
r
s
’
.It sounds like the Venedi of‘
Ve
ne
de
-t
own’we
r
es
pe
a
ki
ngFi
nni
c
,notSl
a
vi
c
.
Long story short, it is technically possible that if Ptolemy called the southeast Baltic tribes
“Gr
e
at
e
rVe
ne
daer
ac
e
s
”, that we could conclude that the ancient Aestii spoke Venetic, and by
extension Estonian today is actually technically a Venetic language too.
J
us
ta
st
hewor
dVENEDEha
sas
i
mpl
ede
s
c
r
i
pt
i
veme
a
ni
ng‘
(
pe
opl
e
)oft
heboa
t
s
’(
orby
e
xt
e
ns
i
on‘
s
hi
ppe
r
s
’
)s
odoe
sOSTE.
The fact that ancient peoples and place names were named by describing them, we do not
always have to regard a word applied to an ancient people or place a proper name. It could be
descriptive. There could be a group of people in boats described as venede, but they were not
9
Unfortunately I have had great difficulty getting scholars to accept this obvious explanation of why in postRoman times the Veneti-named peoples became Latin, Slavic, and Celtic speaking.
63
part of the sophisticated Venetic seatrade world. Similarly we could call any merchant by oste (ie
oste-mees) and it did not necessarily always describe the same person.
But if they were prominent in ancient texts, we take note of them. For example, does the
following information mean that Aestii (OSTE) were established in Brittany too? (Anything is
possible when we find Caleva and Viroconium in southern Britain!)
Here are more examples of the OST- words in anci
e
ntdoc
ume
nt
s
.Si
nc
ePy
t
he
a
s
’boo
kwa
s
l
os
t
,wel
e
a
r
nofwha
thes
a
i
dt
hr
oug
hRoma
nhi
s
t
or
i
a
ns
.St
r
a
bowr
ot
e“
…s
e
c
ondl
yt
he
r
ea
r
et
he
Osismioi (whom Pytheas calls Ostimious)”(
St
r
a
bo4,
4,
I)(Note the name appears, accordng to
Caesar, also among the Brittany Armoricae!)
Also attributed to Pytheas were Ostimion, Ostida[mn]non, etc. The word resonates with either
ostja or the common Finnic word osta ‘
buy
’ort
henounoste ‘
pur
c
ha
s
e
’
,s
ot
ha
tOSTEDE could
me
a
n‘
(
pe
o
pl
e
)whopur
c
ha
s
e
’
,a
ndOSTED-E-MAA-N wouldme
a
n‘
pe
opl
eoft
hepur
c
ha
s
e
s
l
a
nd’ori
ns
i
ng
ul
a
rOSTE-MAA‘
(
pe
o
pl
eof
)t
hepur
c
ha
s
el
a
nd’
)
.Atl
e
a
s
ti
nt
he
s
ee
xa
mpl
e
st
he
T is not missing.
The reason why the OSTE –which translates with modern Estonian –became the higher
Aestii, Eesti, etc –which does not translate with modern Estonian –is because apparently from
Polish archeology, there was immigration to the southeast Balic area from the west Baltic,
probably I think as refugees from the Germanic expansions of the Göta (which in Tacitus
appears as Chatti). Since the west Baltic Suebic dialect spoke Finnic in a forward, high, fashion
–for which there is evidence –they would have said OSTE higher as in ESTI which Tacitus
Romanized to Aestii.
Thus if the Aestii were speakers of the same language a
st
heor
i
g
i
na
l“
Venedae races”
,t
he
n
Aestic was a Venedic language, and that connects with a native British Venetic language. Both
Aestic and Brittanic were Venetic maritime languages. This makes sense for what Tacitus wrote
in his Germania:
..ergo iam dextro Suebici litore Aestiorum gentes adluuntur, quibus ritus habitusque
Sueborum, lingua Britannicae proprior.
t
r
a
ns
l
a
t
i
on:“..however, to the right shore of the Suebian sea, we find it washing the Aestii
nations who have (ritus) religious observance and (habitus) demeanour of the Suebi, but a
language (propior, ius, orism a. nearer; more like; closer) more like to that of Britain
. [Tacitus, Germania, 45, 98 A.D.
The language of the Aestii was (similar to Suebic) but closer to that of the Britanni.
It always helps when we can end up having Tacitus, when we also consider Ptolemy, in effect
writes that the native British language was Venedic. Which has been the entire purpose of this
exercise.
POSTSCRIPT
There are people who believe that the ancient Belgic language was Germanic. The theory
presented in this paper does not require we determine what it was, because I believe the Venetic
involvement dating back to before Belgae became involved with Britain, already established the
Venetic British language in Britain, and the Belgae, like everyone else was required to use that
language. Belgic in Britain, thus was an ethnic language used only among the immigrants –a
very common reality. As time went on, the Belgae on the Gallic side, became Gallic-speaking. I
believe that Gallic actually arose out of a Latinized Belgic, since Celtologists have found a great
64
lack of Celtic in modern French. The Belgic peoples became Germanic only after the end of the
Roman Empire, as a result of the expansion of Germanic tribes from the interior east of the
Rhine.
_________________________________________________________________________
References
A Paabo, THE VENETIC LANGUAGE OF ANCIENT BRITAIN PART ONE:
Translation of the Non-Latin Text on a Metal Pendant at Aquae Sulis in Roman Britain.
2015, www.paabo.ca (This is part one on the subject of the Venetic language being in ancient
Britain according to evidence from the Roman period. Having already deciphered Venetic in the
Adriatic inscriptions and found it to be Finnic, I discovered remarkable similarities in an
inscription at Aquae Sulis to the Adriatic inscriptions I deciphered in which prayers to the
goddess were inscibed on Bronze sheets. A documentation of my interpretation of the Adriatic
inscription is given below:
A Paabo, VENETIC
LANGUAGE An Ancient Language from a New Perspective:
FINAL, 2014, www.paabo.ca (This is the main paper, taking many years to refine, that
demonstrates that Venetic was a Finnic language and that remnants of it were also in Brittany
and southwest Britain. It is very important in proving that we have to look at all the place names
we can associate with Veneti, from a Finnic point of view, especially Estonian since Estonian to
agr
e
ate
x
t
e
nti
sar
e
mnantoft
hel
an
g
uageoft
he“Gr
e
at
e
rVe
ne
daer
ac
e
s
”t
oquot
ePt
ol
e
my–
which in effect says that Estonian may be the closest remnant of that ancient language of large
scale Venetic sea and river trade north of the Greek and Phoenician traders in the
Mediterranean )
A Paabo, The Odyssey's Northern Origins and a Different Author than Homer , 2015,
www.paabo.ca (This paper gives some additional information about Finnic language north of
Britain and along the Norwegian coast, about the same time as Pytheas and Herodotus, a
language in which Venetic had a role, since I believe Venetic traders were intimately involved
with seahunting people and obtaining their wares, especially walrus products!)
All maps are created by the author. The above and more on the ancientVeneti are also found at
: https://independent.academia.edu/APaabo or http://www.paabo.ca
Other references such as sources of illustrations are given within the text. Otherwise the
sources are general ones –much can be found on the internet.
This paper is subject to improvements. Because it flies in the face of beliefs centuries old
r
e
gar
di
ng“Ce
l
t
s
”Idon’
te
x
pe
c
ti
twi
l
lbewell recieved by those deeply educated and believing
i
nt
he“Ce
l
t
i
ct
he
or
y
”.But that is fine. It is in the nature of the truth that as more and more
evidence accumulates, the truth will become increasingly obvious. Eventually the theories that
are correct will find increasing support as scientific discoveries accumulate.
65