Origins of Ancient Greece

[damian]

Macedonia does have its own history. But not all people on this forum are educated, or well informed for that matter. Those that aren't but speak as if they are can quite often be counter-productive and unnecessarily make knuckleheads like "Pamaveris" look better than they really are.

There are some very good contributors here actually especially on the archaic stuff.

[George S.]

That's the mentality of these morons they just have preconceived brainwashed minds.They won't listen to anything different.I think all that greek govt propaganda has got to him & no amount of convincing will make him beleive in our way.

[damian]

That's the mentality of these morons they just have preconceived brainwashed minds.They won't listen to anything different.I think all that greek govt propaganda has got to him & no amount of convincing will make him beleive in our way.

Yes its hard to break any states ideology and propaganda system.

[Makedonska_Kafana]

Makedonska_Kafana
Thanks for the link on anal sex. Actually it was full of useful information.

NOTE

when, you arrive at the athens airport they (church) really want you to feel greek during your visit.

[Carlin]

Pre-Greek place-names of the Aegean

http://minoablog.blogspot.ca/2010/08/pre-greek-place-names-of-aegean.html

In my next post, I shall briefly tackle an interesting and very popular approach to the research of ancient Aegean languages. It is all about the faint traces a language can leave after millenia of its disappearence: the toponyms or place-names. Thanks to the conservative nature of our species, while conquests, migrations or cultural assimilation may swap the ethnic composition of entire regions, names of towns, mountains or rivers often survive without any major change. For example, while the overwhelming majority of Turkey now speaks an altaic language, towns and villages of Anatolia preserve their names from the Byzantine era, some of them even have original Hittite names - only in a slightly changed form.

The fact that a large portion of toponyms in ancient Hellas were actually of non-Greek origin, has already drawn attention in the beginning of the 20 century. Professors Blegen and Hailey have published their milestone article in 1928, analysing a large number of ancient toponyms in and around Greece. They come to the conclusion that there is a surprising homogeneity among toponyms found in Greece and western Turkey, pointing to an unexpected lingustic union in these regions predating the "coming of Greeks". They have also found intriguing patterns in the way these names were formed. The most typical and common ones were place-names ending in either -nthos/-ntha or -(s)sos/-(s)sa. Other scholars later expanded their lists and confirmed their findings. What I shall do now is show a good collection of these toponyms on maps, to give you an approximate picture of their geographical distribution. It took me a good deal of time to comply. My main sources were Blegen & Hailey (JSTOR, 1928), the neat list of Best & de Vries & Brill (Book title: Thracians and Myceneans, 1989), the Barrington Atlas (published in 2000), and many other minor articles. I admit I may not be the best in calculating geographic coordinates: if you encounter any major error or can give me further examples I could put on my map, let me have them. I welcome any comments, as always.



First of all, let us analyse the first class: Names ending in -nos/-na are among the most commonly seen in southern Hellas and western Asia Minor, also on the Cyclades and Crete. These are the most overlooked ones, too: Despite their "ordinary look", most of them do not possess any meaningful Greek (or even Indo-European) ethymology. On the other hand, they perfectly fit the pattern we would expect from adjectives in some ancient languages of Aegean origin. The suffix -na is well-attested in Etruscan, and also found in Eteocretan (Φραισονα = "Praisian", from the town of Praisos). Conforming this pattern, many names falling into this category have no vowels inserted between the stem and the *-na suffix. This is quite an un-Indo-European feature, yet perfectly explicable by a once-widespread "Aegean" presence in the area, from what Eteocretan, Eteocypriot, Lemnian and Etruscan are just meager, relictual remains. It should not be forgotten that there does exist a similar (perhaps very distantly related) Indo-European formative *-en-, but the IE languages tend to preserve that -e- vowel.

Toponyms ending in -nos/-na are widespread all around the Aegean, also found on Cyprus and even in Eastern Anatolia. Yet the latter ones are generally thought to be from Hurrian and Hattic but not Aegean origin. Originally, most of them did not end in -na. This is demonstratable in quite a few cases, e.g. Tyana comes from Tuwanuwa and Adana from Adaniya. On the other hand, there is a surprisingly high concentration of originally *-na-type names on Crete, some of them already mentioned in Linear B sources (e.g. Itanos as U-TA-NO). Thus there can be little doubt about the close relationship between the language of Minoan Crete and those "Aegean" languages once spoken in Mainland Greece and Western Anatolia - only evidenced by their toponyms.



To the second major class of toponyms belong names ending in either -nthos/-ntha (Mainland Greece, Cyclades, Crete) or -ndos/-nda (Ionia, Lydia, Rhodes, Lycia). This type is slighly less common in Greece than the others, yet I managed to glean a sufficient number of examples to show that their geographical distribution is no different from the other "Pre-Greek" place-names. In Western Anatolia (especially in Lycia) on the other hand, they are the most typical toponyms. Apart from these main versions, there is also a variant in -nza/-nzos seen in Eastern Anatolia. Some Greek toponyms end in normal -s in their nominative case, only showing the -nth- stem in oblique cases (e.g. Tiryns [gen: Tirynthos]). Heteroclites were absolutely typical in Ancient Greek, adoption of this feature on non-Greek terms shows how perfectly these names were assimilated into early Greek.

When trying to interpret the meaning of this suffix, we encounter unexpected difficulties. Mycenean Greek had no such formative; and it was not used by Etruscan, either. But from the analysis of loan-words entering early Greek (e.g. Labyrinthos, etc), it is obvious that this suffix must have been existing, and still productive in Minoan. Fortunately it also existed in ancient Anatolian languages, like Hittite and Luwian, whence we can find out the exact meaning. Interestingly enough, Hittite presents us not only one, but two classes of such endings. One of them, the -wand- formative has a general possessive sense of meaning (e.g. esharwands = 'bloody' from eshar = 'blood'). This one is perfectly explainable from an IE *-went- suffix, sporadically also seen in Mycenean Greek (e.g. O-DA-TWE-TA = οδόνταϝέντα (odontawenta) = 'teethed'). The other ending is the fairly common -and- formative, carrying a 'collective' sense of meaning (e.g. udneyands = 'all lands' from udne = 'land'). It was also used as an "agentive", when forming subjects from neuter nouns. The same structure is also seen in the Luwian "collective plural": For example, the word dawi = 'eye' admits a normal plural dawa meaning 'eyes'. But when speaking about eyes of different individuals, the correct plural form is dawanda. Although some linguists seek to derive the latter formative with the Proto-IE *-ent- present participle, the collective meaning is hardly explainable. It is a more reasonable explanation that this is non-IE loan structure.

Conforming this duality, a high number of Greek toponyms actually has an ending in -u-, i.e. -ynthos. The rest most commonly ends with -i-, as -inthos. These would conform to the -wanda and -anda endings of Anatolian toponyms. What is strange, the -ynthos type toponyms are also found on places, where no early IE presence could be expected, such as Crete. And when we remove the -ynthos ending, we get stems practically meaningless in Greek. We are left with the conclusion that some ancient, supposedly non-IE languages used these formatives, and while the *-(i)ntha ending might be orginally Aegean, they might have borrowed the *-wuntha (-ynthos) version from some early Indo-European language, perhaps an Anatolian one.



Last, but not least, there is the group of toponyms ending in either -ssos/-ssa or simply -sos/-sa. This is the most populous class by far. In a geographic sense, it also extends further than any other type. Many examples can be gleaned from outside the Aegean, such as Naissos (present day Niš, Serbia), Orgyssos (in Illyria) or Arabissos (in the Taurus mountains, eastern Turkey). One cannot exclude the possibility of either the Greek colonists spreading "usual" place-names of Hellas, or simple hellenization of local toponyms, no matter how meaningless these were for Greek speakers. Though the Thracian names in -dessa do not seem to belong here (I did not put them on the map either), we can also see variants in -ttos/-tta, conforming the Ionic Greek dialects.

Almost all the languages originating in the region have had a version of this formative: The -(i)śa suffix was used by Etruscans as a patronymic. In Anatolian languages, the related genitival adjectives were highly popular: the -assa type endings even superseded normal genitives in Luwian. We only have fragmentary evidence from Minoan, but it looks promising: Linear A names ending in I-ZA (*-itsa) likely belong to this class. According to some opinions, this suffix was not only used by substratum languages, but also had an effect on the development of Mycenean Greek: its endings were sometimes morphed into faintly similar structures, i.e. μελισσα (*melitia) = 'bee' from μελι = 'honey' or ϝανασσα (*wanaktia) = 'queen' from ϝαναξ = 'king'. Nevertheless, it is hard to track the origins of this suffix, because Proto-Indo-European also had a very similar form of singular genitive (variously reconstructed as *-(o)s, *-oso or *-osyo) and related adjectives. Only one thing is certain: these formatives almost invariantly express a possessive sense of meaning. The same should be expected from the cited toponyms.

Of course, some names can come in more than one version. Apart from spelling variants (i.e. Kérinthos [Boiotia] is almost certainly the same name as Korinthos [Isthmos]), there are some regular changes as well. Most common are pairs with and without a formative. Harald Haarmann gives a nice collection of them in his publication (2007): Alos (Thessaly) vs. Alinda (Caria), Bargos (Illyria) vs. Bargasa (Caria), Kyrba (Crete) vs. Kyrbasa (Caria), Leba (Macedonia) vs. Lebinthos (Caria), Oinoe (Attica) vs. Oenoanda (Lycia), Passa (Thrace) vs. Passanda (Caria), Prinos (Argolid) vs. Prinassos (Caria), Sardos (Illyria) vs. Sardessos (Troad) and Tegea (Arcadia) vs. Tegessos (Cyprus). Stems with more than one ending - though less common - also exist, e.g. Alyssos (Arcadia) vs. Aloanda (Lycia) or Parnes [gen:Parnethos] (Attica) vs. Parnassos (Boiotia).

A single place can also have more than one name: e.g. the Dirphys mountain in Euboia is also referred to as Dirphossos, and the township in Laconia by the name Kardamylessos is also called Kardamylé. In Hittite sources, some even more intriguing variations exist. The land of Caria is not only referred to as Karkiya, but also as Karkissa. One could argue that the different names were used by different languages spoken in the region, i.e. the Indo-European Hittites may have preferred the form Karkiya, while some indigenous Aegean tribes (the Karkas?) may have stuck with the form Karkissa. Such a "partial translation" of names can also explain the puzzling evolution of some toponyms. For example, it was always problematic for linguists to derive the Greek name of Troy, Ilion from the Hittite Wilusa. But the name Wilusa strongly looks Hattic: the -sa ending seems to be the same as that in Hattu-sa. If so, One could easily imagine a variant of the name in a more Indo-European form *Wiliya (that was not recorded in Hittite sources). From the latter, the Greek name Ilion would come simply and rather straightforwardly.

Lastly, it should be mentioned that some of these names (especially the longer ones) also enable us to reconstruct some more complex word-formations of Aegean tongues. For example, there is the group of names ending not just in *-na, but in *-sarna (Phalasarna, Alasarna, Halisarna, etc.). Since the stem *sar- has a meaning 'upwards', 'high', 'great', etc. in all Anatolian languages (also do not forget the Etruscan words śar = numeral '10' and srenc = 'mural' or the Philistine seren = 'prince') it is reasonable to translate these place-names as '-burg' or '-castle'. Just remember that the germanic word burg or borough (or Greek pyrgos) also comes from an IE stem (*bhregh-) meaning 'high'.

[Carlin]

Bronze Age cultures in Central and Eastern Europe
By Marija Gimbutas

https://books.google.ca/books?id=BvtRdigDtFoC&pg=PA338&lpg=PA338&dq=arkadia+slavs&source=bl&ots=M2yH3tYHYm&sig=Z1_b0o5IiBjiPlfVRr_ribkFr2Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwibq5XLsoDPAhUHqx4KHQ7ECZ44ChDoAQgbMAA#v=onepage&q=arkadia%20slavs&f=false

Page 338:

The route by which the Phrygians went from the north to Argos is shown by place and cult names or legends to have been the following: from the Bermion mountains, they passed Olympus and went to Larisa in Thessaly, thence down along the Oita mountains. To the south is Mideia, the city of King Midas, later called Lebadeia. Between Boeotia and Attica there is a place called Ta Phrygia. Phrygians spread over the whole Peloponnese, except Arkadia.
.

The Phrygian language is very much related to Thracian and also to Illyrian. There are numerous grammatical similarities between Phrygian and Thracian; relations with Greek can also be traced, but what is more important for the question of Phrygian origins, are the close relations of Phrygian with Slavic and Baltic.

[Carlin]

Tumulus as Sema: Space, Politics, Culture and Religion in the First ...
edited by Olivier Henry, Ute Kelp

https://books.google.ca/books?id=qnD9CwAAQBAJ&pg=PA2008-IA43&lpg=PA2008-IA43&dq=Phrygians+Peloponnese&source=bl&ots=2xzTcd4fak&sig=n_bNvbRkr2PvFzkbe7Q-fvfTtSQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjVhq33zIDPAhWDWBoKHZT-CFoQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=Phrygians%20Peloponnese&f=false

1) "... as Athenaeus confirms, the mounds in the Peloponnese, especially in Laconia, were attributed to Phrygians who were supposed to have emigrated there with Pelops.."

2) "Our sources mention 'Phrygian' tumuli a few times; not, alas, the tumuli in Phrygia itself, but tumuli on the Peloponnese which were attributed to Phrygian emigres.

3) "In antiquity the Phrygians were often thought to have migrated from Thrace."

[Carlin]

New Ideas about Minoan-Mycenaean Relations

http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/new-ideas-about-minoan-mycenaean-relations-plus-what-is-behind-false-copyright-claims-aimed-at-ancient-aliens-stars

There is a very interesting article in Smithsonian magazine this week describing new revelations about the Mycenaeans based on excavations of a particularly rich Mycenaean grave. Because the article takes forever to get to the point, I’ll share it with you here: The grave goods from a very early Mycenaean burial are heavily influenced by Minoan culture, which has led to a new hypothesis that the Mycenaeans adopted Minoan culture right at the start and therefore their takeover of Crete was less like an invasion and more like a merging of two cultures, perhaps without distinct and formal divisions between them. The fact that the researchers claim that it might have been similar to the modern E.U. and can teach us lessons about modern issues of xenophobia and nationalism should, though, give us a bit of pause that, as with so many new ideas, we’ll find in them a few years from now a bit too much of a mirror of modernity.


This 3,500-Year-Old Greek Tomb Upended What We Thought We Knew About the Roots of Western Civilization

The recent discovery of the grave of an ancient soldier is challenging accepted wisdom among archaeologists

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/golden-warrior-greek-tomb-exposes-roots-western-civilization-180961441/

The Minoan language and writing system (Linear A) remain undeciphered and a matter of academic dispute, but seemingly convey a language entirely different from the Greek dialects in later periods.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoan_civilization

[Carlin]

From Bronze Age Migrations in the Aegean, Archaeological and linguistic problems in Greek prehistory.

Proceedings of the First International Colloquium on Aegean Prehistory, Sheffield, organized by the British Association for Mycenaean Studies and the Departments of Greek and Ancient History of the University of Sheffield.
Edited by R. A. Crossland and Ann Birchall

John Chadwick - page 255:

"The only certain historical conclusions to be drawn for Greece from linguistic evidence of this type are these: at least one language was spoken there before Greek; Greek is the product of the engrafting of an IE idiom on non-Greek stock..."

[Amphipolis]

The origins of all Iliad heroes in a map

[Soldier of Macedon]

The origins of all Iliad heroes in a map

I don't see a reference to Iphidamas, born of a Thracian mother and raised in Thrace by his maternal grandfather Cisseus (Homer, Iliad, 11. 221 - 248). It has been suggested that the city of Cissus, near Solun, may be where Iphidamas came from (Strabo, Fragments, 24). This area later became part of Macedonia. Nor is there reference to the Paeonian named Asteropaeus, the son of Pelegon. The latter is said to be descended from the river god Axius (Homer, Iliad, 21. 140 - 150). Asteropaeus called his homeland Paeonia, Axius is another name for the river Vardar and the name of the region of Pelagonia (basically, Prilep, Bitola and Lerin) is likely to be derived from Asteropaeus' father. So one could place these people in an area which later became Macedonia.

I notice that the Thracian leader Rhesus is located in the east of Thrace, along with his kinsmen Acamus and Peiros. In the Iliad only the latter two are mentioned as hailing from an area near the Hellespont (Homer, Iliad, 2. 840 - 850). There is no indication of Rhesus' birthplace. His father was Eioneus (Homer, Iliad, 10. 430 - 440), a name which may be connected to Eion near the Struma, again, in an area which later became part of Macedonia. I also notice that Pyraechmes, leader of the Paeonians, is placed in the central / northern part of the river Vardar, even though the exact location of Amydon, his home town, is not mentioned (Homer, Iliad, 16. 280 - 290). Strabo suggests that Amydon was much closer to Solun (Strabo, Fragments, 20).

Anyway, a good deal of anachronism in this map - neither Macedonia nor Illyria are mentioned in the Iliad. What is for certain is that the original inhabitants of the territory that later became Macedonia fought on the Trojan side.

[Carlin]

Verbatim citations from J. M. Hall's book "Hellenicity" -

Page 201:
- "... it has been suggested that the circular tholos in the Athenian agora was modelled on a Persian tent, that Perikles' Odeion on the southern slopes of the akropolis was meant to evoke images of Persia and that even the famous 'Panathenaic' frieze on the Parthenon echoes the ceremonial processions depicted on the great APADANA (audience hall) at Persepolis.* Orientalia that had formerly served as elite symbols were appropriated as Athenian, thus neutralizing their original social and ethnic significance. Robbed of their non-Athenian connotations, their symbolic utility to the elite was negated."

* Lawrence 1951; Root 1985. The hypothesis is rejected by Castriota though he suggests that the Parthenon frieze and Apadana reliefs represent parallel (and not structurally dissimilar) idealizations of Athenian and Persian society respectively.


Page 107:
- "New Semitic load-words were borrowed along with artifacts and techniques - e.g. khiton (a linen tunic), kanon (measuring-rod), deltos (writing-table) and khrysos (gold) - and some have argued that Mesopotamian epics provide the influence for some passages in the Homeric epics as well as in the Homeric hymns and the poetry of Hesiod. Yet, while we are content to say that the cultural traditions of Sicily or South Italy were profoundly Hellenized, we do not claim that Greek culture was 'orientalized'. The term used instead is 'orientalizing' which emphasizes the active nature of Greek initiative..."

"Walter Burkert is one of the few lone voices to protest against this unashamed Hellenocentrism, arguing that 'the "creative transformation" by the Greeks, however important, should not obscure the sheer fact of borrowing'."

[Carlin]

Ancient Athens was a radically multicultural and multiethnic society

Athens and Persia in the Fifth Century BC: A Study in Cultural Receptivity, By Margaret C. Miller

https://books.google.ca/books?id=oGXMMD5rXBQC&pg=PA81&dq=foreign+slaves+Athens&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjYoODn0KXTAhWl2YMKHWDmCgUQ6AEIJDAA#v=onepage&q=foreign%20slaves%20Athens&f=false

Some keypoints (pages 81 to 84):
- Pritchett concluded from his study of the Attic Stelai that at least 70 per cent of all slaves in Attica were foreign barbaroi who derived from the east and north-east rather than the west.
- There is good evidence of the use of barbaroi as nurses and paidagogoi in wealthy households, like the Thracian nurse on an Athenian loutrophoros and Alkibiades' Thracian paidagogos.
- Table 3.1 presents and lists the Ethnic distribution of foreign slaves in Attica (there are slaves from Thrace, Scythia, Kolchis, Kappadokia, Paphlagonia, Phrygia, Lydia, Karia, Syria, Persia, Arabia). From analysis of evidence, Ehrenberg concluded that Lydian and Phrygian slaves predominated, but Table 3.1 suggests rather that in addition to Phrygians, Thracians and Karians rather than Lydians were most numerous.
- By the second half of the fifth century, Athens and the Peiraieus had become a home to many metics of non-Greek origin, including a population of Egyptians.
- There existed a 'Little Phrygia' in the immediate vicinity of Athens.
- All the new cults known came from the same countries whose products and slaves were imported into Attica. Thrace, the major exporter of slaves, sent Bendis, known in Attic red-figure in the 440s and already incorporated into the Athenian cult structure by 429/8. Adonis came to Athens by the third quarter of the fifth century. Phrygia sent Sabazios (who was also Thracian).
- How can we explain the introduction and growth of foreign cults in the fifth century other than through the existence of a population of non-Greek metics?


Communities and Networks in the Ancient Greek World, edited by Claire Taylor, Kostas Vlassopoulos

https://books.google.ca/books?id=d6PKBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA129&dq=foreign+slaves+Athens&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjYoODn0KXTAhWl2YMKHWDmCgUQ6AEIMDAC#v=onepage&q=foreign%20slaves%20Athens&f=false

Keypoints (pages 129, 133, 136-7, 139, 141):
- Athens of the classical period, that is the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, was a slave society. There were more slaves than adult male citizens, quite possibly several times as many. A large majority of these slaves seem to have been imported from non-Greek societies, from a wide variety of different places, with many coming from Thrace and the coast of Asia Minor.
- Rosivach argues that almost all slaves in Athens were non-Greeks.
- Non-Greek slaves made up the vast majority of slaves at Athens.
- Inscriptions reveal that Phoenicians in Athens sometimes used names representing Greek translations of Phoenician theophoric originals.
- Menander (fr. 877) depicts a Thracian, presumably a slave in Athens, boasting of his origins:

"All Thracians, and especially we Getae - for I myself proudly claim to be of that tribe - are not terribly self-controlled......"

- In Menander's Aspis (205-8) another slave makes the ironic comment that "I am a Phrygian. Many things that appear noble to you Athenians seem shocking to me - and converse is true".

- A gravestone with an amazing inscription commemorated a certain Atotas, a miner without a patronymic, who came from Paphlagonia:

"Atotas, miner.
Great-hearted Atotas, a Paphlagonian from the Hospitable [Black] Sea,
far from his land has rested his body from toil. Nobody rivalled [me] in
skill. I am from the race of Pylaimenes, who died, conquered by the
hand of Achilles."

(second half of the fourth century BCE)
The epic style of the above epitaph and its language, Greek, make it clear that Atotas has assimilated to Athenian culture. But it is just as certain that he does not consider himself a Greek, nor is he ashamed of his foreign origins. Atotas places particular emphasis on his homeland with four references: he's Paphlagonian, he's from the Black Sea, he died far from his land, and he is from the race of Pylaimenes. This last was a reference to an ill-fated ally of Priam of Troy.

- The epitaph of a certain Mannes Orumaios is similar to that of Atotas and is also worth quoting in full:

"The best of the Phrygians in spacious Athens, Mannes Orumaios, this is
his noble monument: 'And, by Zeus, I did not know of a better woodcutter than me.'
He died in the war."

[Carlin]

The sack of ancient Corinth by the Romans

The Hellenistic World from Alexander to the Roman Conquest: A Selection of ... by M. M. Austin

https://books.google.ca/books?id=Xebyor4-4KwC&pg=PA195&dq=Roman+conquest+Corinth&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiFzteJ4qXTAhWK5IMKHVFBAh0Q6AEIIjAA#v=onepage&q=Roman%20conquest%20Corinth&f=false

Page 195:
- Mummius burned Corinth;
- The Romans put to death the majority of the people found in the city, while Mummius sold the women and children into slavery;
- All the cities which had fought against the Romans had their walls razed;
- Mummius carried off the most remarkable votive offerings and other works of art.

[Carlin]

Herodotus - BOOK 8, 135: ORACLE OF APOLLO PTOUS... DELIVERED IN CARIAN.

https://books.google.ca/books?id=El_kkko0aGUC&pg=PA301&lpg=PA301&dq=The+three+Thebans+were+astonished+of+hearing+a+strange+tongue+instead+of+Greek&source=bl&ots=x47YzHP0EP&sig=tXZSOHGkDg-7Zp-_mfpXt_eayf8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwio5pXqmLLTAhUMyoMKHdqlBjgQ6AEIJzAC#v=onepage&q=The%20three%20Thebans%20were%20astonished%20of%20hearing%20a%20strange%20tongue%20instead%20of%20Greek&f=false

The three Thebans were astonished of hearing a strange tongue instead of Greek, and did not know what to do about it; Mys, however, snatched the tablet they had brought to write the oracle on, and, declaring that the god's response had been delivered in Carian.