Estuary
Ästier or Aisten (Latin Aestii ) was the name given to the population on the southeastern Baltic coast in various texts from the 2nd to 13th centuries. It probably meant Baltic groups in the Baltic States .
Mentions
Tacitus " Germania " (98)Tacitus referred to a population group on the eastern Baltic Sea
as Aestii . Although Tacitus himself never traveled to these areas and he relied exclusively on information from third parties in this regard, his ethnographic descriptions of the Aesti and other neighboring ethnic groups are the most detailed in antiquity. He describes them assimilar in usage and appearance tothe Germanic Suebi .
“Further now, on the right coast of the Sueven Sea ( mare Suebicum ) of the Aesti peoples, whose customs and whole appearance are like the Sueven, the language closer to the British. They worship the mother of gods. As a badge of this belief they wear boar images; [42] This, instead of weapons and protection for everyone, ensures the worshiper of the goddess carefree even in the midst of enemies. Iron is seldom used, and the club is often used. They grow grain and other crops with great patience for the usual indolence of the Teutons. Meanwhile they also search the sea and collect amber, among them the only ones, between the shallows and on the beach itself, which they call glass. But what its nature is or what kind it arises, they as barbarians have not investigated or fathomed; For a long time it even lay under the other expectoration of the sea, until our lust for splendor made it famous. With them it is not consumed: it is picked up raw, spent informally, and they receive the price in amazement. But that it is the sap of trees can clearly be seen from this, because earth animals and even winged animals often shine through, which, when the moisture is wrapped around them, are then locked in when the substance hardens. Really blessed forests and groves, I believe, must be, as in the interior of the East, where the incense and balsam exudes, as well as in the islands and countries of the West, where such substances are excreted by the rays of the neighboring sun and liquid into it slide very close to the sea and flood the violence of the storms on the opposite beach. If the nature of amber is examined by fire brought close, it ignites like the kien and nourishes a fat, smelling flame; then it becomes as tough as pitch or resin. "
Jordanes , " Getica " (around 550)
The Gothic historian Jordanes wrote that the branches were peaceful farmers who lived from fishing and collecting amber.
Cassiodorus , Chronica (after 519)
Cassiodorus reported that the branches sent gifts of amber to the Gothic king Theodoric the Great .
Alfred the Great (?), “ Reise des Wufstan von Haithabu ” (around 890):
The Anglo-Saxon trader Wulfstan, who visited the Truso trading centeron the Frischen Haff , still calls the Baltic population Ēstas .
" Hervararsaga " (13th century)
In the Hervararsaga , Eistland was the name for parts of the southeastern Baltic coast. Kúrland was not included.
The term estier was often used as a synonym for Baltic in Baltic studies until the 20th century .
etymology
Research is debating whether the popular name could be of Germanic origin (cf. Gothic : aisteis - 'respectable, honorable').
literature
- Estuary. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (RGA). 2nd Edition. Volume 1, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1973, ISBN 3-11-004489-7 , pp. 116ff .. Digitized
Individual evidence
- ↑ cf. also The Aesti and the Amber
- ^ Anton Baumstark (transl., 1876): The Germania of Tacitus on Wikisource
- ↑ Eistland and Kúrland supposedly belonged to the domain of King Ivar Vidfamne
- ^ Rainer Eckert, Elvira-Julia Bukevičiūtė, Friedhelm Hinze : The Baltic languages. An introduction. Verlag Langenscheidt, Verlag Enzyklopädie, Leipzig, Berlin, Munich 1994. ISBN 3-324-00605-8 (5th edition 1998)