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CHAPTERS IN THE HTSTORY OF ARMENIA 241
to Asia Minor from the Balkan Peninsula ; they may have
lived near Thessaly, where there are still people of the Dinaric
race. In Cappadocia they intermingled with people of Asia
Minor who were also Armenoid short-skulls, and possibly
with remnants of Treres, Cimmerians, andother Indo-European
tribes. Some of the latter may have been mixed with the fair
Nordic race. No doubt the Armenians and Phrygians
themselves were to some extent of mixed race before they left
Europe ; they were mainly Armenian (Dinaric), but had
possibly a tinge of Nordic blood in their veins. It is also
possible, however, that the traces of the Nordic race, and
perhaps of the Alpine race, found among the Armenians, are
due to later admixture. Among other evidence it may be
noted that more than half (53 per cent.) of the West Kurds
examined by Luschan in the mountain districts of Kurdistan
were fair, with light-coloured eyes and long skulls.1 But the
Kurds presumably immigrated comparatively late, long after
the peoples of Armenian race.
Another point worth noticing is that the numerous tribes
and peoples who now speak the Caucasian language—both
North and South Caucasian—are on the average short-skulls,
more or less Armenoid in type. Wc must suppose that they
immigrated after the earlier long-skulled race whom they
dispossessed. Their language is related neither to the Indo-
European nor to the Semitic tongues ; on the othcr hand, it
may be related to some of the earlier languages of Asia Minor,
possibly forming a special language-group with these. It
looks as if the short-skulled Armenoid peoples had been very
long in Western Asia, and they may have lived there alongside
of peoples of the long-skulled race. But in addition there
were other peoples of the Armeno-Dinaric race who immi
grated from the Balkan Peninsula and whose language was
Indo-European.
Organization and Religion.
The Armenian people was divided into two main classes :
a proprietory upper class, the nobility who owned the land
• F. v. Luschan, op. eit., p. 229. See also the same author’s Vulker Kassen
sprachen, p. 91 f., Berlin, 1922.
Q
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