Do Ancient Greeks have African Origins?

[Bill77]

I hope you also know that if ancient Greece had African influence then so would ancient Macedonia, the two were next to eachother and had a lot of population exchanges,

Yes they were next to each other and i think they still are

But didn't a great Philhellene N.G.L.Hammond say,

"Literary evidence and archeological evidence show that between 460 and 360 the standard of life in Upper Macedonia was at a primitive level and the area was remote from the orbit of Greek trade, and even from coastal Macedonia".

This might explain why African influence did not spread to Macedonia, because of the remoteness.

Ulrich Wilcken in his book 'Alexander the Great' also mentions,

"Having stayed in the extreme north, they (Macedonians) were unable to participate in the progressive civilization of the tribes which went further south, and so, when in the time of the Persian wars they emerged in the horizon of the other Greeks, they appeared to them as non-Greek, as barbarians".

http://www.mymacedonia.net/ancient/ancient.htm

Again for what ever reason, Macedonians were seen not to be progressive as their neighbors further south. So its fair to say there was not much contact between the two.

[Voltron]

An interesting read on the Philistine Greek connection.

This certainly answers the traditional Greek-Israeli animosity in the past. lol.
Also raises few questions about the adoption of the "Phoenician" alphabet. In fact it may have been Greek all along.

oh and of course, another reason for the curly hair.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43695120/ns/technology_and_science-science/

Bible's bad guys
The Philistines 'are the ultimate other, almost, in the biblical story,' archaeologist says

Greek roots

In a square hole, several Philistine jugs nearly 3,000 years old were emerging from the soil. One painted shard just unearthed had a rust-red frame and a black spiral: a decoration common in ancient Greek art and a hint to the Philistines' origins in the Aegean.

The Philistines arrived by sea from the area of modern-day Greece around 1200 B.C. They went on to rule major ports at Ashkelon and Ashdod, now cities in Israel, and at Gaza, now part of the Palestinian territory known as the Gaza Strip.

At Gath, they settled on a site that had been inhabited since prehistoric times. Digs like this one have shown that though they adopted aspects of local culture, they did not forget their roots. Even five centuries after their arrival, for example, they were still worshipping gods with Greek names.

[Bill77]

Voltron, Here is a great article for you to read mate. Its been posted before, i'm not sure if you have read it.



The Nigerian/Ethiopian Roots Of the Ancient Greeks – Edited By – Jide Uwechia

http://www.africaresource.com/rasta/sesostris-the-great-the-egyptian-hercules/the-nigerian-origins-of-ancient-greeks-complied-by-jide-uwechia/

[Soldier of Macedon]

Even five centuries after their arrival, for example, they were still worshipping gods with Greek names.

That seems like a cheap piece of revisionism which rests on jumbled facts.

[George S.]

Voltron if you look at the words they seem similar.I wonder why you don't see giants in greek people anymore??The greeks are short & black people whereas macedonians are tall & fair.
Macedonians could have some kind of connection with the caanannites but i'm just speculating here.

[George S.]

Sir george ythe description of greeks is adequate all i have to do is show you pictures of lybians & youd swear that they are greeks.But i'm not saying that of all greeks.Generally the greeks are short people.Sir george you are taking this black thing to the nth degree we don't mean to say that they are black as negroes.They might have been in the beginning but it's just dark people now.Dark skinned does not mean black.Also who cares if they are black white in between etc they are still people.

[Soldier of Macedon]

SoM, I am referring to things I have seen on other European nationalist forums on the internet, not necessarily on here.

Ok, I needed to clarify that because I certainly don't consider this a "hate" forum where we wish the demise of a nation or people as a collective objective (unlike several racist Greek websites who need to be under some sort of sedation before they accept the existence of Macedonians). I can't speak for some individuals that burst out with impulsive tirades, we've all done it, some of us are better at learning from past mistakes than others. But collectively speaking, we don't "hate" any nation or people as a whole, just the actions of certain people and groups that unfortunately belong to neighbouring states.

@Bill & Voltron....did ancient Greeks and Macedonians even know people like the Vikings, Slavs, and Germanics existed?

Yes and no, depending on how well versed they were with geography. But it is important to keep in mind that people who spoke Balto-Slavic, Celtic, etc languages, haven't always identified in the same way they did in later years, so there is nothing to suggest that ancient Macedonians and Greeks weren't aware of such people, only they knew them by other names, such as Pannonians, Veneti, Getae, etc.

Even if a country was closer south, Africans had little technology to boat across the Mediterranean as a whole ...possibly it would have been easier through Spain.

Hence this would naturally mean that those areas which have a coast on the north mediterranean have been impacted more by 'African' influence than those further into the hinterland. It only makes sense.

[Delodephius]

The Greek word 'philosophy' - φιλοσοφία meaning "love of wisdom", is a rough translation of the Persian word 'mazdayasna' - "worship of wisdom". Mazdayasna is how Zarathustra called his system of thought, that later became the name of the religion Zoroastrianism (called like that in the West) and is to this day used by Zoroastrians. Many ancient Greek philosophers, like Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Plato, Tales, etc. were greatly influenced by Zoroastrian philosophy and they adopted many concepts from the Zoroastrian Magi (priests) under whom some of them even studied.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Many ancient Greek philosophers, like Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Plato, Tales, etc. were greatly influenced by Zoroastrian philosophy and they adopted many concepts from the Zoroastrian Magi (priests) under whom some of them even studied.

Slovak, do you have anything further to the above?

On another note but pertinent to the subject title of this thread, the cities of both Egypt and Greece that share the same name - Thebes - is an interesting case. The Greek rendition of 'Thebes' in Egypt comes from the Egyptian word 'Ta-opet'. The Greek city of Thebes was founded by the Phoenician king named Cadmus, who has been credited with spreading the Phoenician alphabet. It was originally named Cadmeia but became known as Thebes at a later date after a mythical female figure named Thebe. It has been suggested that this name meant 'loved by the river', and developed as follows:

From Ancient Greek Θῆβαι (Thēbai), from Ionic-Attic Θῆβῆ (Thēbē), from Mycenean teqa, from Proto-Greek *Thēgʷā.

I haven't checked it in further detail to verify if the above proposals have any validity.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Here is an excerpt from Martin Bernal's 'Black Athena':

Bartheley........believed in the Egyptian colonization and civilizing of Greece and maintained that 'it is impossible that in this exchange of ideas and goods, the Egyptian language did not participate in the formation of Greek'. He then gave a list of etymologies from Egyptian into Greek, several of which - such as the Coptic hof, Demotic hf to the Greek ophis (snake) - would seem plausible today. (Page 171)

[Daskalot]

The Ancient Hellenes had partly African roots according to the new Hollywood block buster movie "IMMORTALS".
Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1253864/
So where has the film maker gotten this from?

[Carlin]

If I may, I will contribute to this thread by adding the following articles.

Egypt: origin of the Greek culture
For centuries, scholars have identified the Greek culture as the source of the western civilisation. But what if the Greek culture itself was a legacy – a colony – of the ancient Egyptians?

http://www.philipcoppens.com/egyptgreece.html

Crete: the Egyptian island of the dead?
Crete has been the home to an enigmatic civilisation for more than 3000 years. Could it be that the island, however, was an Egyptian colony, with care for the dead their primary occupation?

http://www.philipcoppens.com/crete_dead.html

I have selected a couple of passages from these articles.

i) Greek myths take the evidence further. They clearly state that the first “Greeks” were Egyptians, who had colonised the Greek isles and mainland. Diodorus Siculus wrote that Kekrops originated from Egypt and founded Athens as a colony of the Egyptian town of Sais. The goddess Athena was in truth the Egyptian Neith, matron of the city of Sais. Two Greek families, the Eumolpidae and the Ceryces, were said to descend from Egyptian priests. The two families were tasked with the rituals of the goddess Athena. They stated: “and their offerings and their old ceremonies were practiced by the people of Athens in the same manner as it was held with the ancient Egyptians. [These two families] are the only Greeks who swear to Isis and they resemble both facially and in mannerisms the Egyptians.”
Martin Bernal adds that Neith was written as “Ht” in Egyptian. This was pronounced “Ath” or “At”. This means that even in Sais, the ancient goddess Neith was addressed as “Athanait”, with the Greeks later chosing to call the “nait” ending for Neith, rather than the “Athan” for “Athena”. Such verbal gymnastics aside, it is known that the Greek writer Charax of Pergamon, in ca. 200 AD, wrote that the inhabitants of Sais referred to their town as “Athenai”.

ii) In 1971, Greek archaeologist Theodore Spyropoulos began his dig on the Amphion hill, which was the legendary burial place of the twins. He soon discovered a stone chamber, deep within the funerary mound. It contained jewellery, including four golden hangers in the shape of lilies… a typically Egyptian motif. He also discovered a vaulted tunnel that ran in several directions. Spyropoulos labelled it a “typically Egyptian tomb”. Further research showed that the tomb dated back to 2900-2400 BC, placing this Greek discovery as a veritable anomaly: there was no Greek civilisation at this time… though there was already an Egyptian civilisation.
It was not the first archaeological discovery that showed such evidence. Greek legend holds that an Egyptian king Danaos landed in Apobathmi, in the Peloponnesus with a great fleet. He made himself ruler and ordered the natives to call themselves "Danaans". Homer states that the Greeks do not call themselves Greeks or Hellenes, but Danaans. Coincidence? In Graeco-Roman times, tourists made pilgrimages to Apobathmi and even went as far as to argue that the exact date of the landing can be dated to 1511 BC, using an inscription on the Parian Marble.

iii) More recently, the question of who the Hyksos were has been reopened. Linear A and B are two scripts found on the island of Crete. The newer Linear B was deciphered in 1953 by Michael Ventras and turned out to be Greek. Interestingly, in 1971, Dutch archaeologist and historian Jan Best claimed that he had deciphered Linear A and had found a connection between Minoan Crete and the Hyksos. Linear A, he argued, was Semitic, related to the languages of Ugarit and Alalach in Syria.
There is more evidence. In Knossos, an alabaster lid with the name of the Hyksos king Khyan has been found. The enigmatic Phaistos Disc, found in the palace of Phaistos on Crete, might also be linked with the Egyptian game of Senet and Snake Game. H. Peter Aleff argues that the depictions are not a script, but are related to the signs of the board game. Senet was a popular pastime in ancient Egypt from late pre-dynastic times on and is well documented because it became an important part of the funerary magic and then evolved into today's Backgammon. Its pieces simulated the passage of the player through life and, even more importantly, through death and its perils. The oldest surviving copy of any known board game is the Snake Game. It helped at least one king in the Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts to ascend to heaven and so seems to have represented the same journey, except that its path was not folded, as in Senet, but coiled into the spiral of a snake's rolled-up body. On one of its sculpted stone boards, the tail of the snake ended in the head of a goose.
During the Middle Kingdom (1500 BC), the dead in Egypt were buried in valleys – the same practice was adhered to in Crete, with one of the more famous Valley of the Dead behind the Palace of Kato Zakros. Namewise, Zakros is similar to Saqqara and Sokar, an important necropolis and god of the dead in ancient Egypt.
Interestingly, the ancient Egyptians argued that the dead went to live on an island in the West. Crete is an island in the west. Furthermore, the concentration of Minoan civilisation is in Eastern Crete – the part closest to Egypt.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Thanks for reviving this topic Carlin, interesting information you've brought to our attention. Just on this below:

The newer Linear B was deciphered in 1953 by Michael Ventras and turned out to be Greek. Interestingly, in 1971, Dutch archaeologist and historian Jan Best claimed that he had deciphered Linear A and had found a connection between Minoan Crete and the Hyksos. Linear A, he argued, was Semitic, related to the languages of Ugarit and Alalach in Syria.

You should read this:

http://www.macedoniantruth.org/forum/showthread.php?t=3980&highlight=linear+ventris

[Carlin]

Thanks SOM.

The Ancient Hellenes were definitely of mixed racial and ethnic descent. They were a mix of Pelasgians, Phoenicians (Semites), Egyptians (Africans), Thracians, Carians, and others. Herodotus himself tells us as much. According to him, Egyptians settled in the eastern part of the Peloponnese and introduced religion and irrigation. Phoenicians settled in Boeotia and other regions, and introduced writing. In my opinion, the Greek language is Pelasgian - changed or modified by Semitic and Egyptian languages. That's pretty much what Martin Bernal and others argue, citing that not more than 40% of the Greek lexicon is of Indo-European origin.

It's unfortunate that the modern Greek state and historiography chooses to ignore elementary historical facts and continues to promote half-truths and lies, both abroad and for domestic purposes.

If there is a book that I can recommend, although you may have read it already, it's "Stolen Legacy: Greek Philosophy is Stolen Egyptian Philosophy". I don't agree with it 100%, and I'm sure there are holes and incorrect arguments and assumptions, but it is an interesting read nevertheless. Anyway, it shouldn't and can't be considered any worse when compared to some of the history books produced by the modern Greeks or western Europeans in the 19th century.

Here is the link:

http://www.jpanafrican.com/ebooks/eBook%20Stolen%20Legacy.pdf

[Carlin]

"There is also another circumstance that contributes not a little to my conviction of the weakness of ancient times. Before the Trojan war there is no indication of any common action in Hellas, nor indeed of the universal prevalence of the name; on the contrary, before the time of Hellen, son of Deucalion, no such appellation existed, but the country went by the names of the different tribes, in particular of the Pelasgian. It was not till Hellen and his sons grew strong in Phthiotis, and were invited as allies into the other cities, that one by one they gradually acquired from the connection the name of Hellenes; though a long time elapsed before that name could fasten itself upon all. The best proof of this is furnished by Homer. Born long after the Trojan War, he nowhere calls all of them by that name, nor indeed any of them except the followers of Achilles from Phthiotis, who were the original Hellenes: in his poems they are called Danaans, Argives, and Achaeans. He does not even use the term barbarian, probably because the Hellenes had not yet been marked off from the rest of the world by one distinctive appellation."

http://classics.mit.edu/Thucydides/pelopwar.1.first.html