Read about It. Рахимбергенова М.Х. - 21 стр.

«[It’s] like digging for the Garden of Eden.» But Heyerdahl insists the              There’s hard evidence, too. Archeologists in Scandinavia have
evidence all fits together. The saga’s geography is basically solid, he       found no trace of a historical Odin. But they have dug up a major flaw
reasoned; why not its genealogy? He made a few calculations. Sturluson        in Sturluson’s account. «Heimskringla» says one tradition that Odin
is widely accepted as accurate after the year 800 or so, in the days of       brought from Asgard was cremation of the dead. That’s a detail arche-
Hovdaun the Black. From there Heyerdahl counted 33 generations                ologists can check. «Cremation already was the dominant [funeral] cus-
backward to Odin. He did some quick math and found himself in the             tom in Scandinavia,» says Stalsberg. But there was a change around
first century B.C. That’s exactly when the Roman generals Lucullus and        2,000 years ago, when Odin supposedly arrived: people stopped burning
Pompey conquered the Black Sea region.                                        corpses before burial. What’s more, Sturluson himself contradicts the
        Heyerdahl had to check it out. «This is not my theory,» he says.      Azov-was-Asgard idea. Another of his works, the «Prose Edda,» iden-
«It’s Snorri’s. I’m just putting it to the test.» Early this year he began    tifies Odin’s hometown as Troy. «That is rather far from Azov,» says
digging for traces of Odin and his followers in Azov, on the east bank        Else Mundal, a professor of Norse philology at the University of Ber-
of the Don. Heyerdahl thinks Azov’s name might hold an echo of the            gen. Keller adds: «I don’t think he’ll find what he’s looking for.»
Norse word for deity: ass, as in Asgard, the garden of the gods. And the              On the contrary, Heyerdahl has already found one thing he was
deep silt here is loaded with ancient artifacts. This is where Greek colo-    looking for: a roaring good time. You can see it when he visits the dig,
nists built the region’s first major city some 2,500 years ago. Heyerdahl     striding at a breakneck speed across the rough-cut planks that span the
says what he’s looking for is a «change in the cultural layer» roughly        square-walled pits. «It’s very, very important to enjoy what you are do-
2,100 years ago – signs of the royal exodus described by Sturluson. Other     ing,» he says. «I would have been dead long ago if I didn’t have the
archeologists say they don’t know what Heyerdahl is talking about.            freedom to follow up on my own curiosity.» Heyerdahl has always
Sturluson says «a great many other people went with Odin,» but even           loved a good fight. «There will be a lot of quarrels ahead,» he gleefully
Heyerdahl thinks most of the kingdom’s inhabitants stayed behind.             predicts. «The danger is when everyone agrees.» There’s scant risk of
        Still, he figures the exodus must have left a discernible mark on     that while Heyerdahl is on the job.
the archeological record. He only has to find it. His researchers have
exhumed numerous Roman-era items, including a child’s bracelet, sev-
                                                                                     1. Find in the text the words defined below. Translate the sen-
eral belt buckles, an ancient safety pin and a six-pointed talisman they
                                                                              tences they are used in.
describe as a zoomorph. By the time they stopped work for the summer
                                                                                     1. excitement and willingness to do new, unusual or rather dan-
in July, at a depth of just over eight meters, they were unearthing bits of
distinctive black-lacquer pottery from the first century B.C. It all sug-     gerous journey or series of events;
gests he’s on the right track, Heyerdahl asserts.                                    2. the state of being alone, especially when this is peaceful and
        Impossible, his critics say: Heyerdahl’s quest is based on a whole    pleasant;
series of false assumptions. «He just sees what he wants to see, ignoring            3. an organized journey that is made for a particular purpose such
anything that gets in the way of his theories,» says Christian Keller, a      as exploration;
professor of archeology at Oslo’s Center for Viking and Medieval Stud-               4. an attempt to find something or someone by looking for them
ies. The linguistic record, for one thing. The Norse word ass, from a         carefully;
Germanic root probably meaning «wind» or «breath,» has no known                      5. a lot of people leave that place at the same time;
connection to Azov. According to Anne Stalsberg, an associate profes-                6. anything that you see, read or are told that causes you to be-
sor of archeology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technol-         lieve something is true;
ogy, the town’s name («low-lying place») dates back to the 17th cen-                 7. if you go on it you try to find or obtain it;
tury. And experts trace the name of Odin to the Germanic name Wotan,                 8. something that you hope to achieve, especially when much
not to the Black Sea.                                                         time and effort will be needed;

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