Discover

'Tiras' was, according to ''Genesis'' 10, a son of Japheth. Josephus wrote that he became ancestor of the "Thirasians" (Thracians), the first fair-haired people known to antiquity (later known as the ''"Getae"''). Others have identified them among the components of the Sea Peoples known to Ancient Egypt as Tursha and to the Greeks as Tyrsenoi.
According to the Book of Jubilees, the inheritance of Tiras consisted of four large islands in the ocean.

Contents

Medieval Explanations

Medieval Explanations

Some have suggested that Tiras was worshipped by his descendants as Thuras, or Thor, the god of thunder. The earliest Norse sagas name Thor as an ancestral chieftain, and trace his origins to Thrace.
The Germanic peoples also worshipped a god called Tiwaz (which some scholars consider to originally have been Odin), whose name was rendered Tyr/Tir in Scandinavian languages, and Tiw in Old English.
The mediaeval rabbinic text ''Book of Jasher'' records the sons of Tiras as ''Rushash, Cushni, and Ongolis''.