IX.] THE NORTHERN MONGOLS. 319 



Mr E. H. Parker has unfortunately lent the weight of his 

 authority to the statement that the word "Tiirko" [Turki] "goes 

 no farther back than the fifth century of our era," and that "so 

 far as recorded history is concerned the name of Turk dates from 

 this time 1 ." But Turki tribes bearing this national name had 

 penetrated into East Europe hundreds of years before that time, 

 and were already seated on the Tanais (Don) about the new era. 

 They are mentioned by name both by Pomponius Mela 2 and by 

 Pliny 3 , and to the same connection belonged, beyond all doubt, 

 the warlike Parthians. who -*oo years earlier were 



Parthians 



already seated on the confines of Iran and Turan, and Turko- 

 routed the legions of Crassus and Anthony, and for 

 five centuries (250 .0-229 A.D.) usurped the throne of the 

 " King of Kings," holding sway from the Euphrates to the 

 Ganges, and from the Caspian to the Indian Ocean. Direct 

 descendants of the Parthians are the fierce Turkoman nomads, 

 who for ages terrorised over all the settled populations encircling 

 the Aralo-Caspian depression. Their power has at last been 

 broken by the Russians, but they are still politically dominant 

 in Persia 4 . They have thus been for many ages in the closest 

 contact with the Caucasic Iranians, with the result that the 

 present Turkoman type is shown by J. L. Yavorsky's observations 

 to be extremely variable 5 . 



1 Academy, Dec. 21, 1895, p. 548. 



2 "Budini Gelonion urbem ligneam habitant ; juxta Thyssagetas Turcceyue 

 vastas silvas occupant, alunturque venando" (i. 19, p. 27 of Leipzig ed. 1880). 



3 "Dein Tanain amnem gemino ore influentem incolunt Sarmatae...Tindari. 

 Thussagetae, Tyrar, usque ad solitudines saltuosis convallibus asperas &c." (Bk. 

 vm. 7, Vol. I. p. 234 of Berlin ed. 1886). The variants Turc<z and Tyrcce are 

 noteworthy, as indicating the same vacillating sound of the root vowel (u and 

 y=u) that still persists. 



4 Not only was the usurper Nadir Shah a Turkoman of the Afshar tribe, 

 but the present reigning family belongs to the rival clan of Qajar Turkomans 

 long settled in Khorasan, the home of their Parthian forefathers. 



5 Of 59 Turkomans the hair was generally a dark brown ; the eyes brown 

 (45) and light grey (14); face orthognathous (52) and prognathous (7); eyes 

 mostly not oblique; ceph. index 68-69 to 8176, mean 75*64; dolicho 28, sub- 

 dolicho 1 8, 9 mezaticeph, 4 sub-brachy. Five skulls from an old graveyard at 

 Samarkand were also very heterogeneous, ceph. index ranging from 7772 to 

 94*93. This last, unless deformed, exceeds in brachycephaly "le celebre crane 



