My Road of Life

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© 2013 Sabir Rustamkhanli. All rights reserved.

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Published by AuthorHouse 4/18/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4817-9182-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4817-9183-0 (e)

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Motherland through My Life

Foreword

Fire and Ashes

A Song about the Motherland

Evidence and Sense

History does not Forgive Mistakes

In the Castle of Nushaba, or the Memory of Gene

Pictographs of Gobustan or the World of Gobustan

Clever Rocks of Dalidag

Land of Noah, the Grave of Noah

Homewards Along the Araks

Tabriz

The World of Kurgans or the Kura-Araksian Culture

Garabagh

Shusha

Roads … Roads

Clouds Originate from Seas

Words - Keys to Doors

Caravan of Grief

Translator’s Commentary

Endnotes

About the Author

Motherland through My Life

No one in the world lives only his own life.

I have always felt the presence of spirits of my forefathers, of the prominent sons of my nation at our fireplace, at our table, since I have opened my eyes in the world. I have witnessed that no one dies in the family. Even those, who pass away, mix and mingle with the earth, remain among their grandchildren and great-grandchildren with their stories, sayings, memories, holy tributes …

Everyone looks back, traces the past and derives lessons from the spiritual and moral world of our ancestors.

There is a door in the heart of each of us for the past, for the future, for kindness, for light, for love; there is a holy thirst for the lost, for the past in our souls …

The dread of the brave, strong, huge men, who were not like our contemporaries, as if come from a distant, magic world, hovered on us as a strong eagle warning us that all our steps are watched, that we are wanted to follow the right road:

Somebody returns us to our ownselves … 

The old men said on holidays, on Friday evenings: Do not close the doors, do not shut the windows, keep the house and the yard clean and neat, keep the fire alive, let it burn, let the kettles cook the food, the spirits of the dead return, let them gladden!

The power of the sages and the aged were in their roots, which went too deep into the centuries, in their ability to lay a bridge between the past and the present. Their brains were like the diary of a great generation. The examples from the past experience of the ancestors endowed flesh and blood to their conversations like the truth weighed for hundreds of times.

As if a dozen ancestors shared a common chest to breathe; the memory of one man contained the meaning of dozen men’s life, a single eye contained the light of dozen eyes, and the arm of one man was equal to the arms of dozen men in strength.

The best features, the beauty of the national-traditional upbringing were in the fact that each newly-born child was inoculated into the spiritual roots of many hundred years. Though he was still tiny bodily, his little feet reached the other end of the past centuries … The children grew faster than their ages; their spiritual world, their memories, their responsibilities grew …

The life stories of our ancestors, who marched forward along together with us every day, were just the history of our motherland, which like a piece of mirror reflected the grandeur of this history …

The memory of the nation, its mythic thinking, examples of folklore surpassing each other in beauty tie the presence and the past with each other, because of it, we live not only our own life, but also a part of the great history of our nation.

Therefore, I think that I live not only my own life, but also the life of my country. The motherland lies through us, through our lives from the birth to the death with its history of thousand years, with its griefs, victories and losses.

In the Present Book I wish to speak of my successes and failures, sufferings and struggles, in one word, of my fate, of my Motherland, which forms my whole existence, of my country, which I know and cognize. There may appear books equal to the number of the Azerbaijanis. I write my own share. Such books must be written by men, who gain the age of wisdom. Such books must reflect the accumulated life experience of men. But shall I attain the age of wisdom, who knows? Either I may not attain that age, the age of wisdom, or the steed of the angle of death may neigh at my doorstep to take my life as it has done with so many brave men of the world …

The advice of a friend of mine helped me to justify the purpose of my writing this book, which is: the job which you are to complete tomorrow, try to complete it today. And I have no time to wait for the next day. The popular saying is like this: You are to know that the future is your past. It seems to me that all the roads from the future to the past and from the past to the future lie through me:

Time passes through me like water which leaks through the earth and becomes transparent.

My heart is an eternal filter for love,

Olev leaks through my heart and becomes transparent.

The light of the sun, the light of the moon,

Pass through mt thoughtful eyes and become transparet.

The whirligig of thoughts runs like mountainous rivers,

Passes through my suppressed words and become transparent.

What remained in my filter, what did I not retain? –

The blow of tests falls on me one by one.

I passed he history through my nerves,

I am the bridge between past and future!

I am like tree grown between the heaven and earth –

It is the will of God that I play the role of a filter.

Songs unheard by any one pass through me,

Like the wisper of the cloud, the wisper ofcloud!

The spirit of the nation passes through me,

With the highness of heaven and the lowness of fear,

This is the spirit aging thousands of years, but is is still alive in me.

Who dies in the world? Who becomes mortal? Those who lose their memories!

My heart is a refugee camp,

The tears of infants leak into it!

The defeats of the hundreds of years pass through me,

I have become tired walking amid the tree continents.

If the motherland is strong, its banner is flying high.

If the motherland feels weak, the banner looks tired.

My heart feels what the beginning is and what the end is.

Those who move to the past, move through me.

Mingled with time along my life

God himself was moving through me into the past.

Foreword

The holy objective of any penman is to work for the happiness of the nation.

Jalil Mammadgulu-zade¹

A voice from the depth of the history! At the sunset of his fame Sultan Hussein Baygara² wrote a sincere letter to Shah Ismail Khatai,³ and to relieve, soothe him the Sultan sent a team of dancers for him. Shah Ismail looked at the dancers and said that he had no time to be engaged in entertainment: I am a warrior; I do not need such companions. I must ride my horse tirelessly along the borders of my country.

When I remember his words, something thrills me in heart. It is impossible to admire such vigor, such a spirit.

Is it the duty, objective only of the men like Shah Ismail Khatai, heads of states and heroes to gallop the steeds and encircle their countries?

I think that these words sound like a lullaby. The lesson which should be taught to a child after his birth must be: your objective is to defend the Native Land! …

The neigh of steeds boils my blood as calls from the depth of centuries when sometimes I go to the village. I hear those distant screams. I let loose the bridle of my steed under the pretext to pay a visit to someone, and the roads, which encircle the motherland, call me with a tender motherly voice.

My eyes begin to ache for an unending vastness. It seems to me that this pain penetrates into the hooves of the steed, too …

To ride, to gallop along the borders of the country!.. What a wonderful period our country lived once! Motherland, country … These words seem dear and complete as one’s home, as one’s family. Now that steed, those swords, which cut the half of a metre-long barrel of the heavy gun, are lifeless as toys for children and deceptive; the belief and happiness of defending the motherland with one’s chest and strength sound like a naive fairy-tale. The intercontinental missiles, the weapons, which have filled the whole world, seem to be insufficient, satellites with nuclear headed rockets hover on the world day and night like the angles of death. We have invented them and entrusted our fates upon them …

But the spirit of man also has it laws! The weapons have changed, their types and exploitation forms have been renewed, hundred means of technical assistance for assault and defence have been created, we encircle the country not on horseback, but by supersonic jet planes, nevertheless, the desire to defend the country, the love for the motherland, its eternal freshness and vigor never ends. And it seems that when one is filled with this love, his wrests possess the power of the whole world, his brain is filled with all the light of the world.

It seems to me that everyone must ride his steed along the borders of the motherland day and night, though it is even imaginary.

It was one of the sunny, but cold days of Baku, when I began to pen these lines. When I looked through the window, it seemed that it was spring, but when I opened the window, the piercing cold wind seemed to freeze the marrow; ft was February 13, 1985. Unfortunately, it was not a lucky day, as they say that the figure 13 is unlucky. In the early morning when I began to coin my lines, my vision began again to wander around my motherland Azerbaijan, sometimes wholly, sometimes part by part, the names of its parts ones were Manna, Mede, Atropatena, Turkestan, Aran, Albania.

Science and technology have given us many things and also deprived us of many things. One of the best things, of which we have been deprived by the contemporaneity, is the travel. One may argue our view and say that it is not true, on the contrary, the tourist routes have even lengthened, it has even reached the Moon, the world is full of tourists: trains, ships, various motorcars, planes take millions of people from continent to continent, one can hardly find a spot on the world not stepped by man … they may say … But can we call tourism a travel? A tourist flies thousands of miles within several hours, flies from clime to clime. The distance between the starting and landing points – a huge world with its mountains, plains, rivers and seas remain unseen. As a closed book! A man in sleep does not feel the length of the night, a patient induced by drugs does not feel the pain … who can feel the nighthood of night better than a man who waits for the break of dawn? How can one imagine tfhe pain if he does not feel it in his own body? When I say travel, I mean that one must feel its pains, live its hardships, trample the roads, remain awake the whole night, reach the destination step by step, but not jump from one spot to another, or cut the distance with scissors.

Taken as a whole we know the world better now in comparison with the past. But who can feel the earth, the soil, the ground better than those who travel on feet, who travel with caravans? Do we forget our small motherland, when the roads take us to the great world?

I am for feeling the pain, for remaining awake at nights, for walking the roads inch by inch!

But I am still looking through the window and watching the sunny winter morning, I have only an opportunity to travel my motherland in my reflections, in my memories and thoughts …

My thoughts are wandering like a plane looking for an airport to land. Below are the towns and villages of Azerbaijan; the roads below are inviting one to drive, to travel. But the thought is in search of a camp, it can not alight everywhere! … One of the camps is Tabriz, the other – Baku. But because of weather my thought is not able to alight in Tabriz, like a plane unable to land, returns back. The sky is cloudy … Tabriz is not able to receive it. The third camp is Ardabil, the next one-Ganja … but the airports of Ardabil are still closed for us …

Azerbaijan is like an open book. It has become unreadable, as if water drops have fallen on its pages and the letters on them have become illegible. The territory in the south of the River Araks seems to us as a kind of a fairy tale, memory, tears shed … one may speak of it as a fairy tale, as a memory and the tears shed … We see the south of the Araks only on the pages of books in history; we may travel there in our dreams and only by the caravan roads. But what concerns the north of the Araks; I have travelled it inch by inch. And the lands which I once travelled are open for me as airports ready to receive a plane. I may land in any of them; speak of any of them if you like.

My motherland consists of two quarters. In one of them, there is no light; in the darkness of the night I can only imagine it.

Azerbaijan for me is like a map of hemispheres, that is, it consists of two hemispheres. On one of them, everything is conspicuously seen: its mountains, gorges, towns, villages, natural resources, historical monuments, everything is in its own place, everything catches the sight. With closed eyes, I can show them by my finger. The other hemisphere is like a contoured map. I can fill it only in my imagination …

The northern Azerbaijan is sometimes resembled to an eagle in flight with widely open wings. The Apsheron Peninsula is its hooked beak, Baku – its eyes! But what can you say about the other part of Azerbaijan – the southern Azerbaijan? The north-west of Iran! The eastern and western provinces of Azerbaijan, it is officially recognized in Iran like that. What about the provinces of Zanjan, Hamadan, Astara? The population of these provinces consists mainly of Azerbajanis. When the movement for democracy began to develop in Azerbaijan, the periodicals of Iran wrote of these provinces in fear calling them the eyes, soul, lungs of the country.

Once, when disclosing his opinion concerning the independence of Azerbaijan, the creation of a democratic republic apart from Iran, the shah of Iran said, Look at the map, Iran looks like a sleeping lion, Azerbaijan forms its head, if it is cut, the country will remain headless! It is not the view of the shah. Since the antiquity all the Iranian historians considered Azerbaijan to be the head of the Iranian Empire.

My thought fly over the northern Azerbaijan like an eagle, but I can not touch the head of the lion, or even aim my finger at the south. Within a century four revolutions took place there, but they could not break the iron cage! How wrathful it is! I turn my face towards that iron cage, then lean against the barbed wire, which separate Azerbaijan into two, and gaze. And with a sweet rage I forget its burning eyes and want to embrace it as a lost, but then found dear to me man! …

Fire and Ashes

Ask the ashes what the fire suffered …

(Rasul Rza)⁴

The fire beneath is live,

do not touch the ashes!

(Suleiman Rustam)⁵

There is such an episode in the novel The Snowy Pass by Farman Karim-zade:⁶ Before making a decision Karbalai Ismail (one of the characters in the novel) is sitting in front of the fire place and stirring the fire with a stick, drawing strange sketches on the ashes and meditating. If he is stirring the ashes, then it means that something will happen, he will make and disclose his decision on something. As if he is extracting his thoughts from beneath the ashes. Words also rise like ashes from beneath of ashes …

I am also stirring with my pen the ashes of the time piled on each other for thousands of years. I am bending over the extinguished fire of the history with all my soul to ignite a small spark in it, to find a live coal in the fire, which many centuries ago burned so brightly. How many live burning coals of truth lie beneath these ashes!

… I have not forgotten the taste of the miller’s loaf, which I ate in childhood. There was an old mill on the river, which runs through a deep ravine and also an old miller, who looked like that old mill. He never left the mill and the ravine, never appeared in the village.

There used to be a fire in the middle of the floor of the mill which smoked day and night. The fire burned, and the ashes around the fire resembled to a white table-cloth. The old miller sat by the fire and with his rough hand extracted the baked plump round loaf from beneath the ashes. It looked like a moon of fifteen days of age.

When he brushed the ashes on the loaf with his hand, it seemed as if he was sawing a tree. Then he tore the steaming hot loaf and shared it among us. It was usually saltless, but the salt of his jokes replaced it.

Sometimes I want to resemble myself to that old miller!

Our history under the ashes of time is hot and tasteful like that miller’s loaf.

… Our first fires have been made by the nature itself -on the shores of the Caspian Sea, on the mountain ranges of the Minor and Major Caucasus, at the feet of the Mountain of Agridag, in Savalan and around Urmia.

There is a spot in the Apsheron Peninsula called Yanar-dag (literally a burning mountain, a burning hill). The travellers, who came to Azerbaijan thousands of years ago, saw these sights as they are now. They have written with amazement about the natural flames onshore and offshore burning day and night. When one looks at the boiling hot springs in Nakhchevan, Kalbajar, Astara, and Masalli by the road of Yardimli, in Babadag, one feels the warmth of the heart of the earth.

Many people remember the piece of rock in the River Tartar. The boiling hot and icy cold water spouts alternate each other in intervals.

The eternal flames of Surakhani have been attracting the fire worshippers from the faraway nations and countries for hundreds of years. The writings in Indian on the walls of that Temple of Fire Worshippers are the memories of the travellers. Looking for the cradle of the Fire Worshippers the oracles from the faraway India found their main temple described in the ancient manuscripts in Apsheron. If we express it in the language of today, it was the Mecca of the fire worshippers …

Because of these eternally flaming fires of nature our country was called the Land of Fires.

Digression: It does not seem to me convincing that the root of the word Azərbaycan (Azerbaijan) derives from Atropatena.

The world history is well aware of the efforts of some Islamic, Greek, Roman historians who, as a custom, called their towns, countries and nations either by the names of their rulers and generals, or by the name of Noah and his children. Such an approach is very far from truth and obstacles its discovery seriously.

The historians know it; nevertheless, they can not give up the idea told for the first time by the Greek geographer Strabo. Proceeding from each other they relate the word Azərbaycan to a person, that is, to the name of Atropat, ruler of the ancient Media Minor.

The word is also related to a person by name of Azerbaz ibn Burasef by such historians as Mugaddasi, Ibn al-Fagih, Yagut al-Hamavi and others, to a mythic family tree by name of Azerbaz ibn Iran ibn Asvad ibn Sam ibn Noah.

This word has also been decoded as a land where the cold winter winds blow. Really many cold winds of history have blown over my motherland!

Azərbaycan has also been decoded in Pehlevi as deriving from azər (fire) and bayig (treasury, a spot where fire is protected and kept alive).

According to Hamadulla Gaznavi,⁷ during the rule 8 of Shahpur⁸ a man by name of Azerbad claimed to be a prophet. T is said that he founded a temple of fire worshippers and this land was named in his honour.

Rashidaddin, the author Jami at-Tavarikh (Book of History), which is appreciated as a matchless work in the oriental and world history, in the XIV century, and Mahammad Hussein ibn Khalafi in the XVIII century broke the wrong tendency and began to look for the meaning of Azərbaycan in our own language. The latter noted that "azər" meant high, tall in the ancient Turkic and baycan meant people, men of great, noble origin.

The meaning of fire is dominant in its forms Atar and Odər, too. The latest researches of the Azerbaijani scholars also begin to search for the root of this word in our mother tongue.

We think that the root of the word Azərbaycan is connected with the name of an ancient nation called Az, or Azər, a nation covered with mysteries of history who gave their own names to Asia, Araks, the Caucasus, and Azov. It is doubtless that this nation was a Turkic speaking one.

Invented etymologies, false decoding, subjection of the historical truth of thousands years to one’s will with the application of violence and adaptation of them to one’s imperialistic policy have inflicted great harms on the science. These harms can not be weighed by any scales. By distorting the names, traces and histories of peoples, who lived in the vast space of Eurasia and created great states and cultures, by introducing to the public an abstract notion as the Iranian culture, by eulogizing this culture, which has neither a beginning, nor an end, which has gone too far from its nuclear as a result of exaggerations, some so-called scholars have misappropriated the right of many nations by putting on them a common Iranian brand. They have created such a maze that the real historians must toil very hard to untwine the knots of history.

The historical truth concerning Azerbaijan and its people has also been subjected to numerous adornments; it has been veiled by parti-coloured rags.

The truth has been cut by the swords of the occupants into pieces, trampled by the hooves of their horses, set into fire and its ashes have been blown into the air.

We are a book; its pages have been torn into pieces and thrown on a space endless as the earth itself. Now pick these pieces, restore your book, restore your past, and restore your truth! I wonder if you can. Will the brokers and hegemonies of the history allow you to do it?

Forget yourself and your past! Deny your ancestors! Such repressions are against separate nations, nevertheless, they distort the history of the mankind, stain the memory of the world.

Before decoding the meaning of a word one must study its origin, know when and where, in what situation, in what conditions, in what language it emerged.

The harms of attaching ancientness to nations, to words, to languages artificially are known to everybody. That is, ancientness does not attach greatness, or belittle anyone. The power of the nations is in its spiritual energy, in its service to the world civilization. The history of a nation is like a living being, it emerges, grows and leaves the stage. That is, the last thousand-year history of the Azerbaijani people and language is on a level able to win fame for it in the world, it has already won it …

But how can you forcibly refuse the roots of your nation, when you see that they go too deep into the history, how can you deny the origin of your nation, when you see that it is too ancient in the world civilization, when you see that it leads the world civilization which began many thousand years ago? …

There is only one way there, not to betray the fact, to introduce the fact as it is!

There have been attempts to suffocate the truth about Azerbaijan, to drown it under the layers of many alien cultures, but all of them have failed.

Recently it has been repeatedly proved that it is wrong to relate the Turkic nations to the last centuries of our era in pre-Asia and particularly in Azerbaijan, to consider them strangers in these territories, to wipe out our traces in the ancient layers of history.

The material and cultural-spiritual monuments, elements of religion in these territories confirm that the proto-Azerbaijanis, proto-Turkic tribes populated these territories many-many centuries before our era.

The serious researches of the outstanding historians of the world refuse these mazes and pressures and introduce such a common view that it is wrong to say that the forefathers of the Turkic peoples, including those of Azerbaijanis, populated not only the orient. The ancient traces of the proto-Azerbaijanis, proto-Turkic nuclear, that is, the first steps to read the petroglyphs, inscriptions and pictures on the rocks reveal that our language, culture and myths are closely connected with those of the Sumerians, Akkadians, Hetts, Assyrians, and Pelsags-Etrusks. Prior to these cultures, there was a great culture and we are not alien to it; we are either its direct heirs, or our forefathers were among its creators.

The real scholars have not once confessed that the Sumerians are of Turani origin, that is, of the same origin with the peoples living in the territory known as Turan. Recently there have appeared half-scientific, half-dilettantish views about the Sumerian-Azerbaijani relations. Anyhow, one can not deny the closeness of cultures, territories (perhaps closeness on the level of neighbourhood, coexistence and the same age).

I looked through many researches of the world historians in connection with these problems. Sometimes they complete and sometimes contradict each other.

When all the views are clarified from nationalism and political pressures, there emerges quite a different sight which can not be denied because of its scientific substantiation.

Because of an established tendency it is said that the motherland of the Turkic peoples is the territory between the Aral Sea and the Altai Mountains. This territory is extended sometimes towards the north of China and towards the Caspian basin. But many researchers confess that the forefathers of the Turkic peoples lived in Azerbaijan, Sumer, even in the North Africa in the V-VI mil-lenium before our era, the traces of the said are so conspicuous that one can not deny them. Therefore, some Azerbaijani and world scholars consider the Turks to be the most ancient etnos of the Caucasus and the adjoining territories. There are numerous material, cultural and linguistic monuments and sources which prove that the Turkic speaking peoples and tribes populated Azerbaijan and the lands around Urmia before the arrival of peoples speaking in the Indo-European languages. As the readers are aware of these researches, we do not think it to be necessary to repeat them again. But we have something to add to them. In the first place we want to remind some facts mentioned repeatedly by the scholars of the world which concern the role of the Turkic speaking nations, including that of Azerbaijan, in the history.

The most ancient cultural layers in the Central Asia and in the Caspian Basin, one of the first cradles of the world civilization, belong to the Turkic peoples. This idea is supported by many researchers.

Speaking about the ancient history of Asia Minor and Azerbaijan, Pavel Vinogradov wrote, Settled manner of life developed with the arrival of the Aryan peoples; they fought here with the local Turkic tribes, occupied some part of their lands and ousted a part of them to the north.⁹

According to many European scholars this great culture created in this vast and fertile territory was widely spread all around because of migrations which took place due to various reasons and pressures.

The archeological excavations discovered the traces of this culture on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The waves of migrations replaced each other, the strong flows of the Turkic tribes covered the North Africa, Egypt, Cypress, Rados, the Crete Islands and Greece.

The scholars think that the ancient states famous in Mesopotamia and along the River Nile were created by the local farmers engaged in husbandry and the migrant Turks who were the organizers.

Wild horses for the first time were tamed and domesticated by the Turks. It gave them the power to reign in the world.

The Altai legends and Oghuz eposes mention the facts that the ancient Turks invented the wheel-carts and rafts; they were the first to fish with nets, make gunpowder, reed pipes and play in them.

The connoisseurs of the history of the ancient Egypt think that the nomadic culture, which existed along the Upper Nile in BC 2000, is also connected with the Turks. A part of the nomadic Turks are still living in Altai.

The arrival of the Turks in Sumer from the Central Asia and Altai (all the roads lay through Azerbaijan) took place in the VI millennium BC. Professor Wihelm Koppers writes like this in his book The First Turkism and Indo-Germanism BC by the end of the IV millennium the nomadic tribes, who had horses at their disposal, began to appear at the doors of the ancient West very frequently, the proto-Turks brought with them the traditions of the Oriental culture and contributed to its development’ It is not the product of somebody’s fantasy, but a fact. Then he continues: The first Indo-Germans owe the ancient Turks for the domesticated horse and shepherd culture." The traces of the said live in the German mythology, too.

Many other scholars also insist that the first inhabitants of Sumer came from the north-east.

The scholars think that the Sumerian, Elamite and Hurrite cultures were created by mixed ethnoses, six nomadic proto-Turkic ethnoses with horses, they occupied a particular place among them.

The archeological excavations prove it, too. The ancient iron-smith forefathers of the Turks brought mining culture to Sumer and this culture developed.

A part of the European historians think that the Sume-rians are the proto-Turkic ethnoses; they try to substantiate this idea by finding similarity in customs, languages. For example, there are many identical words, words having the same meaning, similarity in endings, which denote the doer of the action, identity in the word order in the sentence, etc …

Mushiraddovla Pirniya in his book The History of the Ancient Iran writes that the Sumerian and Elamite languages are very close to the Turanian, Altaic, or to the Ural-Altaic languages.

The first volume of The World History published in Moscow writes that the ancient Sumerian epic songs speak of the travels of their heroes to the oriental countries behind seven mountains and of their friendship with the local population there.

Note: The same volume speaks of the military marches of the Akkadians (in BC 2290-2254, during the reign of Naramsin) and mentions an inscription found on a clay dish. It says, It is a trophy from the country of Magan. Because of unknown reasons the authors of the volume understand the word Magan as Misir (Egypt). We think that this country must be looked for in the orient, perhaps in Azerbaijan.

… As the scholars write, there were found beads made of amazonite in the grave of the rulers, when excavations were conducted in the ancient Sumerian town of Ur. The beads refer to twenty-eight centuries BC. This stone in general is found by Baikal Lake in the mountainous Altai. Thus, there remains nothing, but confess the relation of the motherlands of the Sumerians and Turks.

Another example: The History of the Eastern and Central Asian Peoples writes about the last Neolithic monuments, petroglyphs on the rocks in the Yenisey Basin. One of them describes a four-wheel cart drawn by oxen. It is noted that the said pictures are connected with the worship of the sun and lightning. The pictures of the sun there are connected with the Mesopotamian culture of the IV-III millenniums. We also shall speak of the pictures of the sun carved on the rocks in Gobustan. The outstanding traveller Thor Heyerdahl thinks of Gobustan as a relative of Mesopotamia. Thus, there appears a strange circle.

The roads which begin from the rivers of Tigris and Euphrates and lie along the rivers of Kura and Araks link us with the basins of Khan-Bayan and Orkhon-Yenisey. Comparisons with the Hettish, Urartian, Assyrian, Greek, Chinese, Korean languages and those of the local American peoples are very interesting for the demonstration of the role of the Azerbaijani-Turkic language and culture in the orient. The study of these relations creates a picture which can be measured only by oceans, which the human brain is unable to confine.

*****

… The ancient Greek-Etrusk-Turkic relations form one of the interesting pages of this history. The mythology and languages of the Etrusks and the ancient Greeks retain the traces of close relations with the Turks. Professor L.Rasho-nie comments on a number of proper names in the Roman sources borrowed from the proto-Turkic language.

Numerous research works have been devoted to these relations. Adile Aydan, a Turkish scholar, who was educated in Europe and occupied diplomatic posts in the European countries for many years, published the results of her researches conducted for many years. It is in French and titled The Etrusks were Turks: Proofs. She also published a book in Ankara in 1987 titled The Forefathers of the Turks. There also appeared books Writings in prqto-Turkic, The Turks of Anatolia by Kazim Mirsha. These books are very interesting from the aforesaid point of view and are based on the achievements of the latest researches.

As Adile Aydan shows, the form of Etrusk in the Greek sources, that is, the word Turhen has been also used in the form of Turhen-Pelasg in the works of many Greek writers.

Proceeding from the Greek and German sources, Adile Aydan shows that the Pelasgs (in some sources it is introduced as the Balasags) came to Greece in BC 3000; they were nomads, talanted craftsmen and builders. The languages of the Etrusks and Peiasgs did not resemble the Indo-European languages. It is impossible to deny the similarities of these languages with the proto-Turkic language. These peoples took also the names of their gods to their new lands from the Asia Minor. Turin, Tarkhan, Alpan are some of them.

The Huns, Avars, Kumans, Pechenegs, Oghuzes followed the same road to the Balkans once traversed by the Etrusk-Pelasgs.

According to Heredotus, the ancient name of Greece was Pelasgia; when the Greeks came to their present lands, they encountered the Pelasgs.

When one follows these foggy and zig-zag roads, when one blows and ignites the extinguishing coals, the roots of misunderstanding connected with the links between the Azerbaijani and Greek mythologies become evident.

It is also known that the ancient Greeks considered the Iskits to be the inhabitants of the Asia Minor and the peoples who populated the coasts of the Black Sea. Much has been spoken about the Sags-lskits who populated the Asia Minor since the ancient times.

The scholars have discovered identities in the topics and contents of the works of Homer and the Turkic eposes and traces of the orient in them..

It is explained with the arrival of the Iskits and Sags at this territory.

Professor Ali Sultanl compared the motif of Homer’s Odyssey with the epos of Dede Korkut and sugested such a view that the plot of the Cyclop in Dede Korkut may be more ancient. But what he said hesitatingly then was proved by historical evidences.

The studies reveal that the Iskits moved from their own lands towards the west because of the attacks of the Ar-maste tribes. The Iskits regarded their enemies strange and cyclops. This bitter memory, which followed them from their motherland, could be spread to the Asia Minor by the Sags who created their states in Greece and Azerbaijan.

It is also interesting that the Germans call the Etrusks as Turks even now.

The main elements in the collections of the Iskits and Sags were also Turkic. As an evidence of it such an example is demonstrated from the Iliad of Homer. The XVII chapter of the book says that Zeus called the Troyans the drinkers of the horse milk. It was said about 1,300 BC.

This war took place 1,300 BC (Homer lived in the VIII century BC).

The ancient Byzantine sources describe the Iskits as Turks which also included the Kutigurs, Onogurs, Gahgays, Turks, Avars, Khazars, Bulgars, Ungars, Uzes, Pechenegs, and Kumans, Seljuks and other peoples and tribes.

Since the HI millennium BC the proto-Turkic migrations covered the east and the south.

The Turkic influence is also felt in the ancient Indian culture. Buddhism has originated from Shamanism. The iron culture has also been brought by the smith Turks.

By the end of the III millennium and the beginning of the II millennium a group of the Altaic tribes migrated to Manchuria and Korea.

The roots of the Turkic-Chinese relations are very deep, and unfortunately they have not been sufficiently studied. In a general form it is known that the colourful dishes found in the valleys along the rivers in China are thought to be brought there by the ancient Turks in BC 2000. Those Turks came there on horseback and they also brought there a naturalist religion connected with the sun. They called their god Tanri. This religion was based on monotheism. Thus, the monotheistic religion belongs to the Turks.

The Finnish scholar G. U. Ramstedt, who studied the ancient layers of the Chinese and Korean languages, suggests such an idea that the Turkic languages emerged in the same territory with those of Chinese and Korean. He thinks that the the Korean language has derived from an ancient Turkic dialect.

The Japanese scholar S. Okava also speaks of the Turkic influence on China and proves with evidences that the people, who ruled China between BC 1450-1117, were of the Turkic origin.

Nearly for a thousand years (BC 1116-247) China was again ruled by the ancient Turkic Chu tribes. There are numerous facts evidencing the influence of the Turkic culture on the Chinese language and culture.

There are also many words in the languages of the local peoples of America living on the coasts facing Asia, which are similar to the Turkic words in form and meaning.

Digression: It is very interesting that among the Turkic words there are also Albanian ones in the languages of the tribes, who are supposed to migrate from Asia to Alaska by crossing the frozen gulf about 30,000 to 32,000 years ago, who then scattered on the American continent. These words are still in use in their language. If we take into account that the word Tanri, which is the name of an ethnos, and which originated from the Caucasian Albania, from the Etrusks, made such a long road, then we find a mysterious historical relation, closeness, or tie in them.

These all do not only speak of the ethnoses, the most ancient inhabitants of the present Azerbaijan and of the adjoining lands, but also show the natural difficulties in the study of their history.

The view, that there lived an ethnos by name of Azerbaijan in the territories populated by the forefathers of the Azerbaijanis, is widely spread.

The scholars are not unanimous in the approaches to the Azerbaijanis. Some scholars think them to belong to peoples speaking in the Iranian languages thatTurkicized completely during the rule of the Gok Turks.

The scholars also find differences between the Azes and Uzes (as well as the Uzuns and later the Oghuzes). But we think that they may be of the same root. The Russians arrogantly called the Uzes the Turks. They regarded the Uzes to be the neighbours of the Pechenegs, the forefather of the Gok Turks, one of the main participants in their origin.

The Hettish texts of the Bronze Age speak also of the powerful Azzis who lived around Urmia and the highlands of Anatolia and barred their marches towards the south-east.

Some Iranian scholars think that the Azeri language was also widely spread in the Caucasus.

In general, the Azi is one of the less studied peoples of the world, but the traces of this ethnos are observed in the vast territory from the sunrise to the sunset. They lived in the territory of Azerbaijan in the east of the lands inhabited by the Hetts and Gashgays. Their neighbours called them the Azzis, Azas, Azars (Azers). Strabo writes more clearly that the River Araks runs along the walls of Artak-sat, crosses the Araks Valley and falls into the Caspian Sea. The name of this ethnos is frequently mentioned in the ancient Turkic texts.

The name of the tribe As is also very often mentioned among the Sags of Island, some sources say that they came from the country of the Turks, some others tell of their arrival from Troy. Though a long time has passed since the arrival of the Ases in Island, the traces of their previous language still have remained; they lived in the proper names till the Middle Ages when the Sags began to form an ethnos. Examples may serve the proper names of Gəl, Anar, Torkel, Ate, Einar, Elli, Ərp and others.

It seems that ar-ər- ir-ir initially meant ər (man), later they began to mean multitude as word-forming suffixes (it is interesting that the proper names in the languages of many world nations are decoded as man, male being). These suffixes are found in the roots of the names of many peoples, tribes and dynasties, such as Suvar, Subar (or Sa-bir), Avar, Majar, Khazar, Gajar, Bulgar, Hungar, Tatar, etc. The word Azər is simply the name of a people, of an ethnos connected with the word Az. It has emerged in compliance with the word-building laws of the Turkic peoples. It is supposed that the word Az (Uz) meant man, craftsman in the ancient Turkic languages.

We also know