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The Silings or Silingi (; – ) were a Germanic peoples, part of the larger Vandals group. The Silingi at one point lived in Silesia, and the names Silesia and Silingi may be related.Jerzy Strzelczyk, "Wandalowie i ich afrykańskie państwo" p. 59, Warszawa 1992.Norman Davies, Roger Moorhouse "Mikrokosmos", p.70, Kraków 2003Jerzy Krasuski "Historia Niemiec" p. 13, Wrocław 1998.Andrzej Kokowski "Starożytna Polska" p. 260, Warszawa 2006.Jerzy Strzelczyk, "Wandalowie i ich afrykańskie państwo" p. 29, Warszawa 1992.
The tribe of Nahanarvali is speculated by modern scholars to be the same people as the Silingi. Tacitus Germania, 43 mentions the Naharvali as the keepers of sanctuary of the Lugii (the grove to twin gods Alcis). Tacitus does not mention the Silingi; however, he places the Naharvali in about the same geographical area in which Ptolemaeus placed the Silingi.J.H.W.G. Liebeschuetz, "Gens Into Regnum: The Vandals". IN: Hans-Werner Goetz, Jörg Jarnut, Walter Pohl (ed.), "Regna and Gentes: The Relationship Between Late Antique and Early Medieval Peoples and Kingdoms in the Transformation of the Roman World", Brill, 2003, , p.62.
According to some historians, during the reign of the Roman Empire Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 161–180), the Silingi must have been among the Vandals who were reported to have lived in the "Vandal mountains", possibly the Sudetes, which are now part of the Czech Republic.J.H.W.G. Liebeschuetz "Decline and Change in Late Antiquity", 2006, Ashgate Publishing, p. 61 ( google Books); also see his similar discussion "Gens Into Regnum: The Vandals" p.61. Cassius Dio 55.1.
Pushed westwards by the Huns around 400, the Vandals crossed the Rhine into Gaul in 406 and the Pyrenees into Iberia in 409. While the other main Vandal group, the Hasdingi, settled in Gallaecia, the Silingi settled in Hispania Baetica. In 419, following Roman-sponsored attacks by the Visigoths against the Silingi in 417–18, the remnants of Silingi and the Alans voluntarily subjected to the rule Hasdingian leader Gunderic, who had fled from Gallaecia to Baetica after having been defeated by a Roman-Suebi coalition. After Gunderic's succession by Genseric in 428, the Vandals relocated to North Africa, where they established a Vandal Kingdom centered at Carthage. The kingdom collapsed in the Vandalic War of 533–4, in which Justinian I managed to reconquer the Africa province for the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire.
After the migratory movement of the 5th century, any Silingi remaining in Silesia were most likely slowly replaced in the sixth century by an influx of people holding the Korchak culture, who are supposed to be new Slavs tribes migrating from the east.T. Hunt Tooley "National Identity and Weimar Germany: Upper Silesia and the Eastern Border", 1997 University of Nebraska Press, p.6 ( Google Books)
The name of the territory of Silesia is often assumed to either derive from the river or the mountain now called the Ślęza River or Mount Ślęża. The hill was a religious center of the Silingi, situated south-south-east of modern-day Wrocław (Breslau),Adrian Room "Placenames of the World", McFarland 2004m p.333 ( Google books)Anthony Richard Birley, "Agricola and Germany" 1999, Oxford University Press, p.130 (Notes to pages 56–60) ( Google books) although the religious importance of the location dates back to the sun-worshipping people of the Lusatian culture, as early as 1300 B.C.Paweł Jasienica, "Polska Piastów" (Piast Poland), Munken, 2007, pg. 35
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