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The Gelae (Template:Lang-grc, Γέλαι, or Γέλοι, Gélai or Géloi ), or Gelians, were a Scythian tribe mentioned by Strabo and other ancient writers as living on the southern shores of the Caspian Sea, in what is now the Iranian province of Gilan. The name of the province might possibly be derived from the Gelae.

Classical sources

According to Strabo, the tribes of the southern Caspian included the Gelae, Cadusii, Amardi, Witii, and Anariacae. If, as seems probable, this description accurately represents their distribution from west to east, then the Gelae would have lived directly east of the river Araxes, along the border of Armenia. Their territory is supposed to have been relatively unproductive, of little agricultural or mineral value. Pliny considers the Gelae and the Cadusii to be synonymous, with "Cadusii" being the tribe's name in Greek, and "Gelae" being its eastern equivalent. If he is correct, then it is likely that the name of modern Gilan is derived from the Gelae.

Recent scholarship

20 BC

Strabo first mentions Geli, or Galgai in his reference to a nation in the center of the Caucasus. American O.W. Wahl in 1875 in his book "The Land of the Czar" page 239 mentioned "These two opinions mentioned by Strabo come after all to the same point ; for the Legi are the modern Lesghi, and the Geli the Ingush tribe Galgai, and the Keraunian Mountains are the northern ranges of the Caucasus as far as the Beshtaú." The same statement about Gelia being Ingush was made by a German professor Karl Koch in 1843 in his book "Reise durch Russland nach dem kaukasischen Isthmus" page 489. Jacobus Van Wijk Roelandszoon, Jacobus van Wijk (Roelandszoon) in 1821 book "Algemeen aardrijkskundig woordenboek volgens de nieuwste staatkundige veranderingen, en de laatste, beste en zekerste berigten" page 1050 also mention that Gelli or Gelad are the Ingush people which is mentioned by Zonaras.

References

1. Strabo, Geographica, xi. pp. 508, 510.
2. Plutarch, "The Life of Pompeius", c. 35.
3. Ptolemy, Geographia.
4. ^ Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, vol. I, p. 986 ("Gelae").
5. Strabo, Geographica, xi. p. 508.
6. Pliny, Historia Naturalis, vi. 16. s. 18.
7. "The Land of the Czar". Wahl. 1875. Retrieved 2014-02-28.
8. "Reise durch Russland nach dem kaukasischen Isthmus". Karl Koch. 1843. Retrieved 2014-02-28.
9. "Algemeen aardrijkskundig woordenboek volgens de nieuwste staatkundige veranderingen, en de laatste, beste en zekerste berigten". Jacobus van Wijk. 1821. Retrieved 2014-02-28.

Bibliography

• Strabo, Geographica.
• Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus (Plutarch), Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans.
• Claudius Ptolemaeus (Ptolemy), Geographia.
• Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1854).
• Peter von Uslar, Этнография Кавказа. Языкознание. IV. Лакский язык (Ethnography of the Caucasus, vol. IV: "The Lak Language"), Tbilisi (1890).
• Kamilla Trever, "Albania in the IV–II Centuries BCE", in Essays on the History and Culture of Caucasian Albania: IV Century BC–VII Century AD (1959).
• "Onomastics and Epigraphy of Medieval Eastern Europe and Byzantium" (1993), p. 204.
• Naturkunde: Lateinisch-Deutsch, Buch VI, Kai Brodersen, ed., Zürich (1996), p. 184.
• A.K. Alikberov, "To the Sources and Historical Foundations of the Koranic story about Yl'juj, Ma'juj and Zu-l-Karnain", in Ars Islamica: In Honor of Stanislav Mikhailovich Prozorov, Nauka, Moscow (2016), p. 350.

External links

Cadusii, at Encyclopædia Iranica.

• Cadusii
• History of Gilan
• Iranian nomads
• Scythians
• Historical Iranian peoples