Update of Heyerdahl section

Not exactly. Or at least, not without qualification.

Heyerdahl theorized an Azerbaijani origin. His idea was that the Azeri people were the Æsir and and people around Lake Van were the Vanir.

Heyerdahl was doing excavations at Azov (on the Black Sea, or more strictly near the Sea of Azov, not the Caspian Sea) because he thought Azov might have been Odin's capital -- because Azov might be "as-hof" (temple of the Æsir).alias "as-gaard" (dwelling of the Æsir).

Here are some resources:

http://azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/31_folder/31_articles/31_...

http://www.azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/82_folder/82_articles...

https://skandinavisksenter.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/program-heye...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DW-LLguaIMA

Looking for something to make that a little clearer so no one has to brush up. There's this:

"On Heyerdahl's visit to Baku in 1999, he lectured at the Academy of Sciences about the history of ancient Nordic Kings. He spoke of a nation, made by Snorri Sturluson, a 13th-century historian-mythographer, which relates that ''Odin'' (a Scandinavian God who was one of the kings) came to the North with his people from a country called Azer.

"One of the last projects of his life, ''The search for Odin'', was a sudden revision of his Odin hypothesis, in furtherance of which he initiated 2001-2002 excavations in Azov, Russia."

http://www.wu.edu.az/en/th/ThaAz/

Still not exactly right, but close.

I went by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakten_p%C3%A5_Odin (in multiple language versions), which points to Azov and the Don river as central parts of the reconstructed legend.

Contemporary Azerbaijan is about 1000 km further south-east from here, which is why I wanted to remove it from the paragraph.

From the sources cited, it looks like there's a strong desire on the part of some Azerbajani to link the two things, perhaps in the form of "the people that Odin came from were Azerbaijani", but my take from the Wikipedia article was that geographically, Heyerdahl theorized that Odin came from Azov on the Don, not from present-day Azerbaijan.

This is a case where Wikipedia stumbles.

There are not two different theories. There is a shading from one to the other, both painted by Heyerdahl in broad strokes. He never abandoned the Azerbaijani theory. He merely supplemented it by starting his own excavations at Azov, which he thought better fit Snorri Sturluson's geography.

This is all "old hat" to anyone who was following the subject back in the old BBS and Usenet days. And, it's not hard to see even now if you take time to investigate the sources.

https://www.amazon.com/Heyerdahls-Ancient-between-Azerbaijan-Scandi...

"Thor Heyerdahl put forward the theory that the Udi, an ethnic minority in Azerbaijan, were ancestors of the Scandinavians. In the last 20 years of his life, he travelled to Azerbaijan several times and visited the Albanian churches in Kish, Nij, Oghuz and elsewhere. Thor Heyerdahl twice visited the village of Nij during his tours of the Shaki-Gabala region (1999 and 2000)."

Heyerdahl said about his own research: "I don t have to prove that I m right and that before Oslo there was Azov and before Azov there was Nij [in Azerbaijan], I just want to find the truth about what the world was like several thousand years ago, where the peoples came from and where they went."

http://docplayer.net/30883082-10-robert-mobili-thor-heyerdahl-and-t...

Hi! It was I that pointed out for Harald that there needed to be an update. I think there might be two questions: Where did Odin come from? And where did the Æsir come from?
According to Jakten på Odin, Thor suggest that one line of Odin's heritage goes along the Black Coast towards Thrace where Thor was King. Thor himself was a prince from Troja.

He also suggest that Odin might be connected with the Russian word Odin (pronounced Adin) meaning one, ie. Odin being a title, the prince or Norwegian fyrste. Here is where he run into Word-Feuds with the Ethymologists.

The peoples of Azov might not come through Thor from Thrace, but somehow being related to the peoples of Azerbaijan/Caucasus Albania. The stone carvings of Gobustan indicate similar expressions, but those are a few thousand years before Odin.

I have lived in Baku for 10 years and have been several times both to Gobustan, Kish and Nij. Speak Azerbaijani.

I think we could re-write this little section so it captures a bit more of Heyerdahl's theory. As it stands now, it's deceptive. And, it was also deceptive before but in a different direction.

Ivar Magne Auestad
" He also suggest that Odin might be connected with the Russian word Odin (pronounced Adin) meaning one, ie. Odin being a title, the prince or Norwegian fyrste. Here is where he run into Word-Feuds with the Ethymologists."

In what way? Odin the name match exactly still один=1 on russian, so what was the word for ONE before Odin? It easy to think that the word un, una, from Latin and Greek stands as some raw model for the word one, but they too belong to the same Indo-European language family anyhow we twist and turn it, but the name Odin points to an important influence in the shift towards our "one", en, and "adin", just as Wednesday Onsdag, does, as it's clear that Onsdag, counted as the first day in the week before the later imported Christianity's Monday, måndag, as the first one, and wednesday means Odins day, how people actually ignore this fact is astonishing!

The very thought that Odin wasn't once a real man, who had an enormous influence for several generations to come, with an impact in peoples mind so strong that they made him into a god, is to deny our oral tradition, ad of course, he created the name Goths, Goths that seems to deliberately been confused with Geter "Geats", who lived a couple of hundreds of years before Odin, just as nothing happen in between.

Actually, it is after Odin we first read about the Goths, and they migrated into an broad eastern and a western population, and its the same people who later became know as Visigoths and Ostrogoth's and a couple of hundreds years after that, vikings and varjags, and they lived in these areas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geats#/media/File:Chernyakhov.PNG

"The earliest known surviving mention of the Geats appears in Ptolemy (2nd century A.D.)" and it should be separated from Geter, "Geter (grekiska Γέται, getai) var en thrakisk folkstam vid Donaus nedre lopp i norra delen av Balkanhalvön. Geternes land söder och norr om Donau blev romersk provins år 46 respektive 106 e. Kr. Namnlikheten med goterna förledde senantika historieskrivare till förväxlingar".

So, before Odin, there was no Goths, Goths means Odins people, nothing else, one people, contrary to Allemagne, = all (sorts of) people.

What about the first Odin, referred as Nimrod?
https://books.google.no/books?id=OD_ATrB-g2gC&pg=PA312&lpg=...

Most Gods are men or women that were idolised like the president of North Korea or Turkmenistan or Nebukadnesar in the Bible, and ended up like myths. I think this is interesting because the myths are to big for the historical Odin from third century. If Odin means Prince, it would be natural that more than one myth are mixed together in one person.

Nimrod was a grandson of Noah. His geni profile is here:

Nimrod King of Assyrie in Babylon

2-3000 years too early to be unified with the man who went to Scandinavia.

The Nimrod legend may have influenced the Odin legend, but if there was a "historical Odin" and if there was a "historical Nimrod", these two people were different people.

Yes. They are clearly different persons, but the myths overlap.