Northeast European Tribe, Scythian

We sacrifice unto the awful kingly Glory, made by Mazda ....
That clave unto Takhma Urupa, the well-armed, while he ruled over the seven Karshvares of the earth., AVESTA: YASHTS (Hymns of praise) [ http://www.avesta.org/ka/yt19sbe.htm ]

As Herodotus says Scythians themselves believe their three main tribes descended from three kings that one of them was Arpoxais (Herodotus. History, Book IV, verse 5&6.) the Avestan name of this king is Urupax�aya which means 'King of Urupeans".

"Uru", Old Norse "Urn", means "Eagle/Erne" and "Pa" means "foot", so "Urupa" is the name of a legendary creature which is said to be a "Quadruped Eagle", this name has entered into Greek myths in two ways: "Grupa" (Griffin) and "Harpia" (Harpy), as Herodotus again says this legendary creature lived in Scythia to guard its gold.  (Herodotus. History, Book IV, verse 13)

Read more about Griffins: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griffin

 

Edited by Cyrus Shahmiri - 28-Dec-2007 at 14:00

Ehm...are you serious or just joking????

The original name ,pronounced "Europi" is coming from a well-known Ancient Hellenic/Greek myth. She was the daughter of Aginoras and Tilefasa , whom Zeus fell in love with.

In ancient Greek mythology, Europa was a Phoenician princess who was abducted by Zeus in bull form and taken to the island of Crete, where she gave birth to Minos, Rhadamanthus and Sarpedon. For Homer, Europe (Greek: Εὐρώπη Eurṓpē; see also List of traditional Greek place names) was this mythological queen of Crete, not a geographical designation. Later Europa stood for mainland Greece, and by 500 BC its meaning had been extended to lands to the north.

In etymology one theory suggests the name Europe is derived from the Greek words meaning broad (eurys) and face (opsis)�broad having been an epithet of Earth itself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion; see Prithvi (Plataia). A minority, however, suggest this Greek popular etymology is really based on a Semitic word such as the Akkadian erebu meaning "to go down, set",[3] cognate to Phoenician 'ereb "evening; west" and Arabic Maghreb, Hebrew ma'ariv. (see also Erebus).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#Etymology

This is a serious discussion, of course by "Europeans" I meant just a tribe in the northeast of Europe not the whole modern European nations.

The original name ,pronounced "Europi" is coming from a well-known Ancient Hellenic/Greek myth. She was the daughter of Aginoras and Tilefasa , whom Zeus fell in love with.

In ancient Greek mythology, Europa was a Phoenician princess who was abducted by Zeus in bull form and taken to the island of Crete, where she gave birth to Minos, Rhadamanthus and Sarpedon. For Homer, Europe (Greek: Εὐρώπη Eurṓpē; see also List of traditional Greek place names) was this mythological queen of Crete, not a geographical designation. Later Europa stood for mainland Greece, and by 500 BC its meaning had been extended to lands to the north.

As you say "Europa" was not a Greek, so it couldn't be a Greek name, that white winged bull can be considered as the Greek and Persian version of Scythian Urupa.

again, whats your source that Scythians had the same religion as ancient Persians?

I believe they were Persians who adopted a Scythian religion, it is even said Zoroastrianism was found in the north of Russia or Scandinavia.

http://www.avesta.org/vendidad/vd2sbe.htm : Zarathushtra, as a heavenly priest, was, by right, the ratu or Spiritual Lord in Airyana Vaejah, where he founded the Religion by a sacrifice.

http://www.avesta.org/vendidad/vd1sbe.htm : The first of the good lands and countries which I, Ahura Mazda, created, was the Airyana Vaeja, by the Vanguhi Daitya. There are ten winter months there, two summer months; and those are cold for the waters, cold for the earth, cold for the trees.

What evidence is there to confirm the existence of a tribe that went by this name?  The name of this king is Urupakhshaya and the name means king of griffins as you say.  I believe the name of Daravayush's father was Wishtaspa  which means white horse?  Could it not be that this king's name was just his name and it wasn't the name of a tribe?  

Interesting etymological theory.. so what actual evidence is there to suggest that the Rus are the Urupax?

It is interesting that similar to Avestan Urupa and Greek Grupa, we have also Akkadian Kuruba (Cherub).

Relief from Ashurnasirpal II's palace at Nimrud of a Assyrian Kuribu

Originally posted by Cyrus Shahmiri I believe they were Persians who adopted a Scythian religion, it is even said Zoroastrianism was found in the north of Russia or Scandinavia. http://www.avesta.org/vendidad/vd2sbe.htm : Zarathushtra, as a heavenly priest, was, by right, the ratu or Spiritual Lord in Airyana Vaejah, where he founded the Religion by a sacrifice. http://www.avesta.org/vendidad/vd1sbe.htm : The first of the good lands and countries which I, Ahura Mazda, created, was the Airyana Vaeja, by the Vanguhi Daitya. There are ten winter months there, two summer months; and those are cold for the waters, cold for the earth, cold for the trees.

Herodot gave some names of Scythian deities:

http://home.ix.netcom.com/~kiyoweap/myth/arms-weap/akinakes.htm

 as far as i know Zoroastrian religion was monotheistic (Ahura Mazda).

The important point is that "Uru" exatcly means "Eagle/Erne" in the Avestan language, of course there are also similar words in the Slavic languages, for example in Slovak it is "orol" (Compare to "Ural" mountains in the west of Russia) In the Persian language there is a "K" between "U" and "R", so we have Ukra (Arabic Uqab & Aqrab come from this word) similar to Latin Aquila, French Aigle and English Eagle. (Comapre to Ukraine & Ugrians/Hungrians)

in russian, the word for eagle (orel) is pronounced as aryol, which doesn't soudn at all like "uru".

also, the Ural is a recent name, the Russians named the river & mountain range Ural only in the 18th century. before that, it was known as Yaik, which, if i'm not mistaken, was a Turkic word.