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<p>[QUOTE="Severus Alexander, post: 8140904, member: 84744"]OK, here’s the promised further comment, which is focused on some hypothesized linguistic derivations of the terms we find on these coins. I’ll start with “Buridava” before moving on to the main course, “Cosota.” Sorry, this is a bit long! <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie10" alt=":oops:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>So: the word “dava” seems to mean “<a href="https://limbaromana.org/en/the-language-of-the-inscriptions-of-the-sinaia-tabletsii/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://limbaromana.org/en/the-language-of-the-inscriptions-of-the-sinaia-tabletsii/" rel="nofollow">fortress or city</a>”, not just any old settlement. Something large enough to be a city would include a fortress as an important component, but a fortress need not be accompanied by a city. Since the word “dava” (going back to Greek sources) is included in place names applying to both cities and mere fortresses, it seems likely that the original meaning is just “fortress.” So I tentatively conclude that the name “Buridava” originally referred to a fortress. That’s even consistent with how archaeologists and others <a href="https://www.icomos.org/risk/2002/romania2002.htm; see also http://muzee-valcea.ro/buridava/B9_07.iosifaru.pdf" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.icomos.org/risk/2002/romania2002.htm; see also http://muzee-valcea.ro/buridava/B9_07.iosifaru.pdf" rel="nofollow">refer to it now</a>, e.g. “The area is rich in archaeological monuments and sites, like the Dacic Buridava fortress, 1st-2nd century BC, on the Cosota Hill.”</p><p><br /></p><p>Cosota Hill! Yes, this is the other important place name in the area. “Cosota” is used locally for the <a href="https://ro-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Cosota?_x_tr_sl=ro&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://ro-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Cosota?_x_tr_sl=ro&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US" rel="nofollow">village</a> where the ruins were first discovered, the surrounding hillside, and the whole valley where the ruins are buried:</p><p><br /></p><blockquote><p><font size="4">Cosota is located on the right bank of the Sărata brook and is known especially by the most important systematic archeological researches and discoveries from Vâlcea county, here being identified with the ancient Dacian fortress Buridava…. The Cosota Foundation ("Fundatura Cosotei") is surrounded on three sides by Cosota Hill.... the hill surrounds the civilian settlement from the point of Fundatura Cosotei on three sides with an opening to the north, towards the Sărata brook. The hill has three descending heights, all inhabited in antiquity… (Translated from <a href="http://muzee-valcea.ro/buridava/B9_07.iosifaru.pdf" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://muzee-valcea.ro/buridava/B9_07.iosifaru.pdf" rel="nofollow">Situri arheologice din oraşul Ocnele Mari, judeţul Vâlcea</a>, by Mariana Iosifaru.)</font></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>and</p><p><br /></p><blockquote><p><font size="4">The place where Buridava is situated is called Cosota (Ocnița, near Onele Mari). Three fortified hills, named by the archaeologists Fortress 1, 2 and 3, appear in the shape of a horseshoe, surrounding a little depression – Fundătura [“Foundation”] Cosotei, opening up towards Ocniţa and the old salt mines. It is supposed that in the Fundătura Cosotei there was the civil part of the settlement and on the hills were the structures with political, sacral, and military purposes. (From <a href="https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/51781076/Silviu_Purece_Salt_Ancient_Coins_and_the_Olt_Valley.pdf?1487016646=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DSALT_ANCIENT_COINS_AND_THE_OLT_VALLEY_in.pdf&Expires=1640812471&Signature=TKKhIi15-tk1Jkc~t0aLaf9inT3eAe8ppew-pmSZvPB7dUUhymmri9h~MgXiNDgks9qmS4MpguBqe8tYPZxxF8HCGthiO8d29gSw69AUhToYsubM5A8JUBsTTm96LDk7UEASa9N~~HkEeC3txVAmPrwJy~S5T1nmQtmuXItoO8sNZAuFBJWhlA-JlDUlSJSPgv8fGFRoT083lo3C8lyua928waIgGMK86bGP2fa1vF6QVIYDJ4s44b~UzeheSFfdZumVQWG4p8nazrmF4wmmpbAPMx6rk29jLKB9lTJgfPGu4dh-9npO7ui2aqBHEFMEUlnHYU8aniT2h4jRYjGHVg__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/51781076/Silviu_Purece_Salt_Ancient_Coins_and_the_Olt_Valley.pdf?1487016646=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DSALT_ANCIENT_COINS_AND_THE_OLT_VALLEY_in.pdf&Expires=1640812471&Signature=TKKhIi15-tk1Jkc~t0aLaf9inT3eAe8ppew-pmSZvPB7dUUhymmri9h~MgXiNDgks9qmS4MpguBqe8tYPZxxF8HCGthiO8d29gSw69AUhToYsubM5A8JUBsTTm96LDk7UEASa9N~~HkEeC3txVAmPrwJy~S5T1nmQtmuXItoO8sNZAuFBJWhlA-JlDUlSJSPgv8fGFRoT083lo3C8lyua928waIgGMK86bGP2fa1vF6QVIYDJ4s44b~UzeheSFfdZumVQWG4p8nazrmF4wmmpbAPMx6rk29jLKB9lTJgfPGu4dh-9npO7ui2aqBHEFMEUlnHYU8aniT2h4jRYjGHVg__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA" rel="nofollow">Salt, Ancient Coins, and the Olt Valley</a> by Silviu Purece. Studia Universitatis Cibiniensis. Series Historica, vol. XIII Supplement / 2016, p. 109-119)</font></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>Question: is the current place name “Cosota” derived from the word Koson that we see on the coins? I think the answer is yes.</p><p><br /></p><p>As far as I can tell, the current prevailing trend is to suppose that there’s a lot more Thraco-Dacian in Romanian than was previously thought (see e.g. Sorin Paliga in <a href="https://digilib.phil.muni.cz/bitstream/handle/11222.digilib/143017/2_OperaSlavica_30-2020-4_3.pdf?sequence=1" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://digilib.phil.muni.cz/bitstream/handle/11222.digilib/143017/2_OperaSlavica_30-2020-4_3.pdf?sequence=1" rel="nofollow">Opera Slavica</a>). One advocate of this who has probably taken it too far is <a href="https://independent.academia.edu/MihaiVinereanu" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://independent.academia.edu/MihaiVinereanu" rel="nofollow">Mihai Vinereanu</a> (now retired from CUNY), whose etymological dictionary finds nearly 60%(!) of the Romanian lexicon to be derived from a Thraco-Dacian substrate language. His explanation for why linguists have mistakenly assumed most of Romanian comes from Latin is that both Latin and Romanian share an Italic-Celtic-Thracian root: many words thought to be derived from Latin are in fact derived from that common root language. For criticism of the extremes to which he takes this view, see the Sorin Paliga piece cited above, as well as <a href="https://www.upit.ro/_document/32125/no_22-2018.pdf#page=49" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.upit.ro/_document/32125/no_22-2018.pdf#page=49" rel="nofollow">this paper</a>.</p><p><br /></p><p>Even if Vinereanu is a bit over-enthusiastic, old place names are particularly likely to have a Thraco-Dacian origin, especially if they’re not known to have another explanation; this is a pretty mainstream view. I haven’t been able to find any comments about the name “Cosota” specifically. But Vinereanu’s dictionary has some pretty interesting entries that might be relevant.</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://limbaromana.org/en/introduction-to-the-etymological-dictionary-of-the-romanian-language/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://limbaromana.org/en/introduction-to-the-etymological-dictionary-of-the-romanian-language/" rel="nofollow">Here’s one</a>:</p><blockquote><p><font size="4">Romanian caună ‘mine, salt mine’ (reg.) was considered to come from Latin *cavina < cavus ‘hollow’ (Puşcariu, 324; DAR). The Latin form is not attested, and there are no similar forms in any of the Romance languages. On the other hand, in Romanian, there is a multitude of forms derived from the same root as caună: cavă ‘depression’, căuc (variant căuş) ‘ladle, dipper, scoop’, caval ‘(little) ditch’, gaură (dial. gavră) ‘hole, opening, gap, cavity, crack’, găunos ‘hollow’.</font></p></blockquote><p>I’d particularly like to note “căuş”, meaning a ladle or scoop, which is very close in sound to "cos-", and also very descriptive of the human occupied depression surrounded by the horseshoe of Cosota Hill, even to the point of facing in exactly the right direction to "scoop" salt from the mines. It's pretty neat that the word for “salt mine” is likely related. (Let me remind you that the ancient Dacian remains discovered in Cosota/Buridava have turned out to be those of a large and important city, financed by salt mining.) The word “cosu” (sanctuary) could also be relevant here.</p><p><br /></p><p>All in all I find it very plausible that "Cos-" (or “Kos-“) is the native Dacian word referring to the large salt-mine based city surrounded by the triple-peaked Cosota Hill, topped by a fortress (Buridava) and other buildings, both sacred and political. In Greek, the suffix “-on” means “of the” applied to a place name, commonly seen on coins all over the Greek world, so we have “KOΣON” meaning “of the city of Kos-.” The actual name of the city could have been Cos, Cosa, Cosu, Coso, Cosot, or even Cosota… there are a number of possibilities.</p><p><br /></p><p>Again, the BYP monogram (remember the Latin BUR inscriptions found in the ruins also) could refer to Burebista, Buridava, or the Dacian tribe of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burs_(Dacia)" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burs_(Dacia)" rel="nofollow">Burs/Buri</a> who were originally based in Buridava/Cosota. Before the Republican and imitative Republican coinage circulated in this area, the main coinage of the Buri was the Aninoasa-Dobreşti tetradrachms, more commonly known as Kinnlos type, as pictured below. The Purece paper cited earlier ("Salt, Ancient Coins, and the Olt Valley”) argues that the expansion of the Buri, mostly under Burebista, saw these Macedonian imitations replaced with Roman style coinage, like Curtisimo’s stater.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1419171[/ATTACH]</p><p><font size="4">Example of a "Kinnlos" or "Aninoasa-Dobreşti" tetradrachm (not my coin), used by the Buri in the 2nd c. BCE</font></p><p><br /></p><p>I’ll add that I doubt the competing “Cotiso” or “Kotys” interpretations of “KOΣON” because on all existing Thracian coinage for a king called Cotis or Kotys, the T is unequivocally included, therefore representing a key phoneme in the native Thraco-Dacian language. It would be very strange for these staters and drachms to be the only exception to that rule, especially when there is another perfectly good explanation, a place name, which also makes better grammatical sense of the “-on” suffix.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="Severus Alexander, post: 8140904, member: 84744"]OK, here’s the promised further comment, which is focused on some hypothesized linguistic derivations of the terms we find on these coins. I’ll start with “Buridava” before moving on to the main course, “Cosota.” Sorry, this is a bit long! :oops: So: the word “dava” seems to mean “[URL='https://limbaromana.org/en/the-language-of-the-inscriptions-of-the-sinaia-tabletsii/']fortress or city[/URL]”, not just any old settlement. Something large enough to be a city would include a fortress as an important component, but a fortress need not be accompanied by a city. Since the word “dava” (going back to Greek sources) is included in place names applying to both cities and mere fortresses, it seems likely that the original meaning is just “fortress.” So I tentatively conclude that the name “Buridava” originally referred to a fortress. That’s even consistent with how archaeologists and others [URL='https://www.icomos.org/risk/2002/romania2002.htm; see also http://muzee-valcea.ro/buridava/B9_07.iosifaru.pdf']refer to it now[/URL], e.g. “The area is rich in archaeological monuments and sites, like the Dacic Buridava fortress, 1st-2nd century BC, on the Cosota Hill.” Cosota Hill! Yes, this is the other important place name in the area. “Cosota” is used locally for the [URL='https://ro-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Cosota?_x_tr_sl=ro&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US']village[/URL] where the ruins were first discovered, the surrounding hillside, and the whole valley where the ruins are buried: [INDENT][SIZE=4]Cosota is located on the right bank of the Sărata brook and is known especially by the most important systematic archeological researches and discoveries from Vâlcea county, here being identified with the ancient Dacian fortress Buridava…. The Cosota Foundation ("Fundatura Cosotei") is surrounded on three sides by Cosota Hill.... the hill surrounds the civilian settlement from the point of Fundatura Cosotei on three sides with an opening to the north, towards the Sărata brook. The hill has three descending heights, all inhabited in antiquity… (Translated from [URL='http://muzee-valcea.ro/buridava/B9_07.iosifaru.pdf']Situri arheologice din oraşul Ocnele Mari, judeţul Vâlcea[/URL], by Mariana Iosifaru.)[/SIZE][/INDENT] and [INDENT][SIZE=4]The place where Buridava is situated is called Cosota (Ocnița, near Onele Mari). Three fortified hills, named by the archaeologists Fortress 1, 2 and 3, appear in the shape of a horseshoe, surrounding a little depression – Fundătura [“Foundation”] Cosotei, opening up towards Ocniţa and the old salt mines. It is supposed that in the Fundătura Cosotei there was the civil part of the settlement and on the hills were the structures with political, sacral, and military purposes. (From [URL='https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/51781076/Silviu_Purece_Salt_Ancient_Coins_and_the_Olt_Valley.pdf?1487016646=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DSALT_ANCIENT_COINS_AND_THE_OLT_VALLEY_in.pdf&Expires=1640812471&Signature=TKKhIi15-tk1Jkc~t0aLaf9inT3eAe8ppew-pmSZvPB7dUUhymmri9h~MgXiNDgks9qmS4MpguBqe8tYPZxxF8HCGthiO8d29gSw69AUhToYsubM5A8JUBsTTm96LDk7UEASa9N~~HkEeC3txVAmPrwJy~S5T1nmQtmuXItoO8sNZAuFBJWhlA-JlDUlSJSPgv8fGFRoT083lo3C8lyua928waIgGMK86bGP2fa1vF6QVIYDJ4s44b~UzeheSFfdZumVQWG4p8nazrmF4wmmpbAPMx6rk29jLKB9lTJgfPGu4dh-9npO7ui2aqBHEFMEUlnHYU8aniT2h4jRYjGHVg__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA']Salt, Ancient Coins, and the Olt Valley[/URL] by Silviu Purece. Studia Universitatis Cibiniensis. Series Historica, vol. XIII Supplement / 2016, p. 109-119)[/SIZE][/INDENT] Question: is the current place name “Cosota” derived from the word Koson that we see on the coins? I think the answer is yes. As far as I can tell, the current prevailing trend is to suppose that there’s a lot more Thraco-Dacian in Romanian than was previously thought (see e.g. Sorin Paliga in [URL='https://digilib.phil.muni.cz/bitstream/handle/11222.digilib/143017/2_OperaSlavica_30-2020-4_3.pdf?sequence=1']Opera Slavica[/URL]). One advocate of this who has probably taken it too far is [URL='https://independent.academia.edu/MihaiVinereanu']Mihai Vinereanu[/URL] (now retired from CUNY), whose etymological dictionary finds nearly 60%(!) of the Romanian lexicon to be derived from a Thraco-Dacian substrate language. His explanation for why linguists have mistakenly assumed most of Romanian comes from Latin is that both Latin and Romanian share an Italic-Celtic-Thracian root: many words thought to be derived from Latin are in fact derived from that common root language. For criticism of the extremes to which he takes this view, see the Sorin Paliga piece cited above, as well as [URL='https://www.upit.ro/_document/32125/no_22-2018.pdf#page=49']this paper[/URL]. Even if Vinereanu is a bit over-enthusiastic, old place names are particularly likely to have a Thraco-Dacian origin, especially if they’re not known to have another explanation; this is a pretty mainstream view. I haven’t been able to find any comments about the name “Cosota” specifically. But Vinereanu’s dictionary has some pretty interesting entries that might be relevant. [URL='https://limbaromana.org/en/introduction-to-the-etymological-dictionary-of-the-romanian-language/']Here’s one[/URL]: [INDENT][SIZE=4]Romanian caună ‘mine, salt mine’ (reg.) was considered to come from Latin *cavina < cavus ‘hollow’ (Puşcariu, 324; DAR). The Latin form is not attested, and there are no similar forms in any of the Romance languages. On the other hand, in Romanian, there is a multitude of forms derived from the same root as caună: cavă ‘depression’, căuc (variant căuş) ‘ladle, dipper, scoop’, caval ‘(little) ditch’, gaură (dial. gavră) ‘hole, opening, gap, cavity, crack’, găunos ‘hollow’.[/SIZE][/INDENT] I’d particularly like to note “căuş”, meaning a ladle or scoop, which is very close in sound to "cos-", and also very descriptive of the human occupied depression surrounded by the horseshoe of Cosota Hill, even to the point of facing in exactly the right direction to "scoop" salt from the mines. It's pretty neat that the word for “salt mine” is likely related. (Let me remind you that the ancient Dacian remains discovered in Cosota/Buridava have turned out to be those of a large and important city, financed by salt mining.) The word “cosu” (sanctuary) could also be relevant here. All in all I find it very plausible that "Cos-" (or “Kos-“) is the native Dacian word referring to the large salt-mine based city surrounded by the triple-peaked Cosota Hill, topped by a fortress (Buridava) and other buildings, both sacred and political. In Greek, the suffix “-on” means “of the” applied to a place name, commonly seen on coins all over the Greek world, so we have “KOΣON” meaning “of the city of Kos-.” The actual name of the city could have been Cos, Cosa, Cosu, Coso, Cosot, or even Cosota… there are a number of possibilities. Again, the BYP monogram (remember the Latin BUR inscriptions found in the ruins also) could refer to Burebista, Buridava, or the Dacian tribe of the [URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burs_(Dacia)']Burs/Buri[/URL] who were originally based in Buridava/Cosota. Before the Republican and imitative Republican coinage circulated in this area, the main coinage of the Buri was the Aninoasa-Dobreşti tetradrachms, more commonly known as Kinnlos type, as pictured below. The Purece paper cited earlier ("Salt, Ancient Coins, and the Olt Valley”) argues that the expansion of the Buri, mostly under Burebista, saw these Macedonian imitations replaced with Roman style coinage, like Curtisimo’s stater. [ATTACH=full]1419171[/ATTACH] [SIZE=4]Example of a "Kinnlos" or "Aninoasa-Dobreşti" tetradrachm (not my coin), used by the Buri in the 2nd c. BCE[/SIZE] I’ll add that I doubt the competing “Cotiso” or “Kotys” interpretations of “KOΣON” because on all existing Thracian coinage for a king called Cotis or Kotys, the T is unequivocally included, therefore representing a key phoneme in the native Thraco-Dacian language. It would be very strange for these staters and drachms to be the only exception to that rule, especially when there is another perfectly good explanation, a place name, which also makes better grammatical sense of the “-on” suffix.[/QUOTE]
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