Religion in the Balkans before Christianity

[nushevski77]

Originally Posted by YuriB

Could it be that the Olympian religion is just the flavor of an ancestral (P.I.E.) and perhaps shared religion? The ancient Greeks just documented it first and then influenced their neighbors

this is what I'm thinking at the moment, it seems a lot more plausible.

[Liberator of Makedonija]

Originally Posted by YuriB

Perhaps one of you has done the literature review and knows about this: Could it be that the Olympian religion is just the flavor of an ancestral (P.I.E.) and perhaps shared religion? The ancient Greeks just documented it first and then influenced their neighbors (and apparently old kin) towards the Greek version?

There are similarities among ancient Indo-European languages in their gods. Greek, Latin and Sanskrit are prime examples, they all have Zeus one way or another.

Yes, I personally see Olympianism as just a variant of a greater mediterranean religion that had existed prior, most notably amongst the Egyptians and Phoenicians.

[Gocka]

They were all some variants of polytheism that derive from the ancient Egyptians one way or another just with different names and faces. A lot of Macedonians in antiquity practiced religions similar to the Thracian's. This is a poorly documented are given hat very little is written about the common Macedonian. The Hellenic influence was certainly strong with some of the nobility, but it seems like that took root as time progressed.

If I had to guess I'd say the majority of common Macedonians didn't practice the Hellenic religion. If I am not mistaken I don't think the Spartans did either.

Maybe Vangelovski has some insight? This is his area of expertise.

[Carlin15]

From wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chthonic

In his book The Mycenaean World, linguist and classicist John Chadwick argues that many chthonic deities may be remnants of the native Pre-Hellenic religion and that many of the Olympian deities may come from the Proto-Greeks who overran the southern part of the Balkan Peninsula in the late third millennium BC. He does, however, note that this may be somewhat of an overgeneralization and that the origins of chthonic and Olympian deities are probably much more complex. The German classicist Walter Burkert explicitly rejects the notion of chthonic deities as pre-Greek and the Olympian deities as Indo-European in his book Greek Religion. He comments, "It is the chthonic chaoi which are related to Indo-European, whereas the Olympian sacrifice has connections with Semitic tradition."


An interesting book I found and purchased in a used bookstore a couple of years ago has a short article titled "Indo-European mythology in the Bronze Age". The book is called "Bronze Age Migrations in the Aegean, Archaeological and lingustic problems in Greek prehistory - Proceedings of the First International Colloquium on Aegean Prehistory....." published in 1974 (in U.S.A.) by Noyes Press. On page 259 there is a short paper by Ivan Pudic, titled "Indo-European mythology in the Bronze Age" which is less than 3 pages in total. His short article starts as follows: "The greatest god of Greeks, Illyrians, Macedonians, Romans, Germans and Indians was the same, a god of the light: Zeus, Deipatyros, Ziu, Diespater, Tyr, Dyaus..."


From Early Byzantine Churches in Macedonia & Southern Serbia - URL to the book:
https://books.google.ca/books?id=WoS...page&q&f=false

[sydney]

Originally Posted by YuriB

Perhaps one of you has done the literature review and knows about this: Could it be that the Olympian religion is just the flavor of an ancestral (P.I.E.) and perhaps shared religion? The ancient Greeks just documented it first and then influenced their neighbors (and apparently old kin) towards the Greek version?

There are similarities among ancient Indo-European languages in their gods. Greek, Latin and Sanskrit are prime examples, they all have Zeus one way or another.

About the documentation you’re on the right path. The Greeks humanised and moralised nature worship and gave poetic beauty to mortal-like gods whereas the Balkan peoples didn’t evolve their worship with the same poetic abilities. I believe this is a strong argument for the non-Greek nature of the tribes north of Thessaly.