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The Neuri, or Navari (; , also known as Neurians) were an ancient people whose existence was recorded by ancient Graeco-Roman authors.
They were first mentioned by Herodotus (5th century BC), who left the most detailed description of them in his “History”.
The Neuri lived in the region corresponding to present-day Belarus, in the territory including the Desna, Pripyat, and middle Dnieper rivers. To the south, the territory of the Neuri reached the upper section of the Southern Bug river.
The neighbours of the Neuri to the east of the Dnieper river were the Androphagi, the Melanchlaeni, and the Budini as well as Finno-Ugric peoples. Their neighbours were the Agathyrsi to the south-west, and the Scythians tribe of the Aroteres to the south-east.
Academician Baltist V. Toporov agreed with the connection of the name Neuri with the name Narowlya, but interpreted the ethnic attribution of the Neuri differently:He linked the Neurs with the territory where the Yotvingians are later known in written sources, alongside those mentioned by Claudius Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD. the Western Baltic tribes of the Galinds and the Sudins (Prussian and Jatvegian tribes, respectively). In addition to geographical coherence (in the extreme northwest of the eikumene known to the Greeks), the name of the Neuri is plausibly compared to the Jotvingian name of the Narew River - " Naura", attested in the "Jotvingian Dictionary". Also located in the old Prussian territory, to the west of the Jatvegian territory, Lake Kikity was called "Naury" (< Naurai), and above it is known "Naury Mountain"V. N. Toporov. Once again about Neuri and Selis in the pan-Baltic ethnolinguistic context (people, land, language, name). From the history of the Indo-Hebrew *neur- : *nour- and *sel- (the undying memory of one Baltic tribe) // Studies in etymology and semantics. Vol. 4. Baltic and Slavic languages. Book 2. Moscow, 2010. Pp. 453-462.. Among the Balts, including the Jotvingians, tribal names often came from river names.
Belarusian ethnographer and local historian Pavel Shpilevsky believed that the Neuri inhabited the territory of future Belarus, since ideas about werewolves were most widespread here.
Some Belarusian ethnologists believe that the evidence of the location of the Neuri on the territory of Belarus is the widespread existence of hydronyms with the root Nar-. It is also worth mentioning the testimony of Herodotus that the Neurs supposedly turned into wolves for several days every year, as well as the fact that they changed their place of residence because of the snakes, which bred a lot there. Scientists, as evidence of this, began to cite Belarusian legends about werewolf wolves and snakes, as well as the "The Tale of Igor's Campaign", which mentions Prince Usiaslau of Polotsk, who supposedly could turn into a wolf.
According to some marginal interpretations, the Hephthalites and Neuri were descendants of the Naphtali tribe. Supporters of this version claim that one of the sons of Naphtali was named Hun. The name "Neuri" supposedly comes from the Hebrew " Naar", which means "youth". The Norwegians were called "youthful" by their own rulers and neighbors. According to this version, the name Norway comes from the name of the Neuri.
The 18th century Swedish historian Olof von Dalin wrote that the Neuri were descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, and were ethnically a mixture of Scythians, Greeks and Jews who accompanied the Budini or "Scythian shepherds" to the Swedish islands around 400 BC during an exodus said to have been caused by the Macedonian invasions of Phillipe and Alexander. From the Neuri, in his interpretation, came the ancient Finns, the Sami and the Estonians.
The Neuri seem to be the remnants of the Ten Tribes of Israel whom Shalmaneser V, the king of Assyria, carried away as captives from Canaan… (If we understand that) the language of the ancient Finns, Sami and Estonians is similar to Hebrew and even that these people in ancient times counted the beginning of their new year from the first of March, and Saturday was their Sabbath, then it is clear that the Neuri in all likelihood had this origin Svearikes Historia, Volume 1, 1747: pages 54–55.
It is quite possible that the elite of Neuri could have been of Celtic-Germanic originLev Gunin, Bobruisk, Chapter One, Section Two, while the overwhelming majority were local peoples
According to , several centuries later, after the climate warmed, some of the Neuri moved to Pomorie on the Baltic. They retained the image of werewolf warriors, fighting in wolf skins, and for a long time served as mercenaries for the Celts, who called them "lyuty", "lyutichi" or "lyutva" (from the Celtic word for "wolf")
The Neuri are first mentioned in Book 4 of Herodotus's "Histories" as a people living "above the Scythians":
…One generation before Darius’s campaign they abandoned their country entirely because of the snakes. The fact is that many snakes appeared in their country, and others more numerous rushed down to them from above from the deserts, until finally the Neuri, pressed by them, settled together with the Budinians, leaving their landThis fragment has repeatedly attracted the attention of researchers, who have hypothesized that it does not refer to real snakes, but to mythical enemies, perhaps to a people with a snake totem who attacked the Neuri and forced them to leave their lands. There are different opinions about which ethnic group of Eastern Europe could have served as the historical basis for this story. Thus, B. A. Rybakov interpreted the "snakes" as the Balts, known for their ancient snake cultBoris Rybakov, B. A. Herodotus' Scythia. P. 148, 190-191. Based on an analysis of the areas of Baltic and Slavic hydronymy, he assumed that the mention of the invasion of "snakes" from the "desert in the interior of the country" reflects the migration of the Balts from the northern shore of the marshy floodplain of the Pripyat River to the southern shore, occupied by the Neuri. As an archaeological confirmation of this migration, Rybakov considered the Volyn group of monuments of the Scythian period, located in the Sluch River basin, where it alternates with settlements of the Milograd culture, which he associated with the Neuri. A version of the Thracian origin of the plot about snakes was also proposed, since snakes played a significant role in the religious beliefs of the Thracians, being a symbol of the most important Thraco-Phrygian deity Sabazius.
Archaeological data interpreted by B. N. Grakov seem to confirm the migration of the Neuri to the lands of the Budins: a number of monuments on the Vorskla are related to the synchronous Chernoles culture of the right bank of the Dnieper, which he identified with the NeuriGrakov B.N. Scythians. Popular science essay.. However, the story about the "snakes" contradicts the chronology set out by Herodotus: although the migration of the Neuri is mentioned as preceding the campaign of Darius, in the description of the campaign itself they and their territory are still in the same place - between the lands of the Agathyrsi and Androphagi. According to B.D. Grakov, either Herodotus' informants transferred a more ancient event closer to their time, or the described migration, which ended up in the second chapter of the fourth book, was the last episode in a series of similar migrations.
During the campaign, the Scythians and the Persian army pursuing them passed through the territories of the Melanchlaeni, Androphagi, and Neuri, before they reached the borders of the Agathyrsi, who refused to let the Scythian divisions to pass into their territories and find refuge there, thus forcing the Scythians to return to Scythia with the Persians pursuing them.
The Scythians who lived beyond the Ister were driven from their native lands by the Huns who attacked them and, having shown friendly intentions, came under the rule of the Romans. These Huns are obviously the same ones whom the ancients called Neuri, who lived at the foot of the Riphean Mountains, from where the Tanais originates, pouring its waters into the Maeotian swampPhilostorgius, Abridgement of the "Ecclesiastical History" .Thanks to Philostorgius, we can see how the literary legend was finally formed. The Neuri turned into the Huns, Borysthenes into Tanais. Too great a distance separates this legend from Herodotus's "History" - one of the main sources of information about the Neuri, Borysthenes and Tanais. The Neuri, Geloni, Hypemolges and other characters of such legends could not have been real contemporaries of the Romans
Marcian of Heraclea Pontica (Southern Black Sea region) around 400 AD wrote:
Along the river Khesin live the Agathyrsi, the people of European Sarmatia. The rivers Khesin and Turunt flow (from the mountains of Rip, which) lie inside the continent between the Meotian (Azov) lake and the Sarmatian ocean (Baltic). The river Rudon flows from the Alan mountain (the southern district of the Valdai hills); near this mountain and in general in this region live in a wide space the people of the Alans-Sarmatians (proto-Slavs and neighbors), in whose land are the sources of the river Borysthenes (Dnieper), flowing into the Pontus. The land beyond the Borysthenes, beyond the Alans, is inhabited by the so-called European Huns (Huns, who were then considered close to the Neuri)"VDI. 1948. N 3. P. 279
The Neuri may have left traces of their presence in the region of the Desna, Pripyat, and middle Dnieper rivers in the form of Baltic languages-derived hydronyms and typonyms which pre-date the migration of Slavs into this area. However, the presumed etymology of the tribal name, as well as other linguistic evidence, suggests that their legacy may be continued in the Slavic zone.
Herodotus also claimed that the Neuri "seemed to be magicians," and that all members of their tribe would allegedly each year Werewolf for some days before being restored to their human form. This might suggest that the Neuri performed cults in which they wore wolf skins and masks, and that the wolf might have been a totem animal of this tribe.
As a powerful two-handed weapon, the iron axe was in special demand, which was used not only for close combat, but also in everyday life. But due to the poorly developed metallurgy, it was in great shortage (although there are reports of its successful and destructive use by the Neuri). But there were plenty of stone axes, wooden maces and clubs, copper hammers, flint spears, darts, iron and bone arrows.
The enemy was always subject to a surprise attack by a small group of local "natives". And only after the enemy discovered the settlement of the Neuri, axes, maces and battle-axes were used.
The southernmost of part of the Milograd culture, which adjoined the territory of the Scythian Aroteres, included many Scythian elements.
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