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Gnomes
Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2010 1:48 am
by Baron Alcyoneus
I was thinking, and a radio show reminded me of the idea...
[img]http://compassconversations.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/garden-gnome-pipe-9r.jpg[/img]
The standard conception reminds me of...
Yes, Scythians.
Opinions?
Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2010 12:18 pm
by Kaos
Check out Priapus statues, which were often found in Roman gardens..
Gnomes
Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2010 2:06 pm
by BNRichard
Looks like he's sharing his weed with the frog!
Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2010 2:13 pm
by Baron Alcyoneus
The Scythians were known for that. Well, not the frog part.
Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2010 10:27 am
by Norman
I had a vaguely similar thought --
There is an Altaic tradition of putting up Babas or Bulbuls (from Turkic word for father) - small hero or ancestor statues (like early Japanese Haniwa)
In Europe (well, eastern Europe - Ukraine), the Scythians were putting them up, then there was a space of a good thousand years until the Kipchaks came - and the Kipchaks put up some realy nice ones (but in central asia they were put up all the time through that thousand years)
They kinda do seem like garden gnomes in the middle of the Steppes.
The tricky thing is, the gnome hats very much look like Steppes-men hats but ironicaly none of the Babas I've seen have them.
And ... you'd realy have to track the history of garden gnomes to make any plausible connection - seems quite unlikely
At the start of this thread I hae links to a whole batch of photos of Babas
http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/ ... p?t=101443
Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2010 10:30 am
by Stump
Reminds me of the Great PENNSIC Gnome Protest.