Busting the "Vergina Tomb" myth

[Archaeologicum]

2. Macedonian langauge did become influenced by Greek, simply because Greek was used for writing.

Cyrillic alphabet is and was used by by Makedontsi.
I dont know one word of Greek and in my 45 years of speaking Macedonian, not one Greek has understood me

I cant stand liars. Come clean about what you are, because it sure is not Macedonian

Sorry, what period are you talking about. 1985 AD or 400 BC ?

[Soldier of Macedon]

Nobody from Bitola says "makedonats", but despite you insulting our intelligence, I will entertain this a little further and allow you to prove your assertion. There are persons from Macedonia that aren't ethnic Macedonian but who normally speak the Macedonian language, let's first determine if you are even from where you say. Write a full sentence in the Bitolsko dialect here.

[julie]

Sorry, what period are you talking about. 1985 AD or 400 BC ?

WTF?
go back to your maggotted forum, tell me one more time how the Macedonian language evolved from the Greek language you albanian piece of kaka

[Daskalot]

Hi All. I have been researching publications on the findings not only from Vergina, but all other ancient townships, villages and burials not only Ancient Macedonia, but also neighbouring regions, north-south, east & west.

There is a undeniable trend by Greek archaeologists to mis-represent archaeological findings, either (a) out of poor methdology or (b) blatant "nationalist archaelogy", as Borza put in in Before Alexander. And I want to highlight that some Greek archaeologists are great and very neutral, however these are the guys who focus on deep prehistory -Neolithic & Bronze Age Macedonia; these guys don't crap on about Hellas or "Greekness", but purely generate hypotheses about susistence, societal organization, trade, etc based on the archaeological finds. And that's great ! Unfortunately their colleagues focussing on Classical Period cannot divorce themselves from overriding (modern) political issues.

Greeks studying the cemetery at Vergina, eg, speak of the Greek epigraphy, Doric columns, paintings of hunting done by Greek painters, etc. And this is true. What they do not mention, however, is that Vergina existed since 900 BC ! ! The burial type, pottery, weapons, jewellery etc found in vergina during this period, until c. 600 BC, show barely any Greek character, whether Corinthian, Athenian, Euboian, or what have you {as per Snodgrass, Lemnos, Coldstream Whitley, Morris. Even that blatantly Hellenophilic dinosaur, Hammond, demonstrates this in his works}.

The findings at Vergina are similar throughout Macedonia, showing remarkable continuity since the Nelithic ! Sure, there has always been a small amount of Greek type finds, eg Mycenaen swords, Mycenean pottery, Geometric pottery, etc. However, these represent a very small overall proportion, and do not signify anything other than trade, exchange, cultural contact, etc.

It is only in the 6th century that a large influx of of "greek" imports which appear. However, these are not limited to "Argead Macedonia". If anything, this was a more backward part of the region, and the earliest Greek finds are in the Chalkidike, south-western Thrace. With this came Greek inscriptions for trade, beuracracy and hence, the learning/ adaptation of Greek, or a linguistic accomodation to a more "Greek" type of speech. What Greeks also do not know, or neglect, is that Greek writing is foudn earlier in Thracian and Paeonian areas than that Pella Curse tablet they keep going on about., But they never claim that the Paeonians were Greek, do they ?

Even during this period of Greek influence, traditional Macedonian culture continued - eg the warrior burials, use of "Illyrian" -type Helmets, etc. And the finds at Vergina at this period share most affinities with Sindos, Gevgelia, Pelestra, etc - all site near the Strymon, Vardar, etc; and not the traditional Greek mainland.

This clear archaeological evidence shows the process of "Hellenization" of a region which had never really been part of a Greek core. This mirrors the evidence found in ancient sources: contrary to what modern Greeks claim, the evidence is clear ! Greeks did not accept Macedonians as fellow Greeks, and likely, the Macedonians disliked the Greeks. Macedonians only began to be consistently viewed as Greeks during the Roma period, but, by then, Hellenism in Macedonia was on the way, and the way of "Rome" took over. That is why there are now Vlachs throughout Macedonia and Thessaly.

Welcome to our forum, and thank you for your interesting insights into this topic Arch.

[George S.]

which part of bitola are you from?i was born in bitola.

[Daskalot]

Oh do we have a pretender amongst us, I who thought that he was for real so we could have an interesting debate.

[George S.]

It's amazing how much these forum sneakers will get up to greeks masquerading as macedonians You notice from their posts as to who they are by what they say. A greek would only say makedonats Also i noticed he uses the greek version of vergina & not the macedonian version of kutlesh.

[Daskalot]

Well I didn't hear about anyone being killed, but one thing is for certain. There was a body of work by an Ancient Macedonian writer, who wrote in Macedonian, not Greek. His work would have been invaluable insight about the true nature of Macedonian culture and language. However, this work was somehow mysteriously "lost".

Which Ancient Macedonian writer are you referring to above? Can you give us a name?

[Stojacanec]

My Greek is as good as your Macedonian, Arch.....don't you mean arhidi ??

[rosetta]

rosetta this is a couple of years ago it was even in the greek press how this archaelogist talke about the vergina tombs & how he said the glory is not greek its not"ellada" then pow he suddenly died.i cant think of his name but all i know pow he was gone.All i remember was his words "its not ellada"
i'M NOT LYING TO YOU HE WAS A NOTED GREEK ARCHAELOGIST!FOR SPEAKING OUT HE GOT THE chop.

I'm not saying you invented this story right now, but you were naive enough to believe it and irresponsible enough to reproduce it.
Give it a try to find a link. I'm very curious.
If he was a noted archaeologist he would have a name. The only noted diseased archaeologists that I can think of since the death of Manolis Andronikos (1992) are Yiannis Sakellarakis and Dimitrios Constantios (they both died in 2010). I can't find anything controversial about their opinions or their death.

[rosetta]

Also if you look at some of these so called ancient greek bwriters they wrote a lot of the stuff 100's of years after the event.Do we eexpect the greeks would tell the truth about the macedonians ,they wrote the history from a greek point of view.Undeniable fact the greeks hated & resented macedonian rule .No only that but waged anti macedonian wars for many years to come.

The main contemporary historiographers of Alexander the Great were
-Callisthenes (he was adopted, of unclear or mixed origins, anyway he grew up in the Macedonian court and he can be considered a Macedonian)
-Ptolemy (a Macedonian)
-Nearchus (a Cretan)
-Aristobulus (from Cassandreia, of Phocian origin)
-Onesicritus (from Astypalaia, a small island in South Aegean Sea)

They are all considered Greek authors because they wrote in Greek. In case you wonder how Ptolemy (a king) wrote a book, all authors of the time were nobles practicing their rhetoric skills and they were writing their books by dictating to a slave.
Their work was lost, only fragments have survived, but it is their Histories on which the existing later works were based.

[Makedonska_Kafana]

they are all considered greek authors because they wrote in greek.

Πόσο καιρό έχετε κάνει σκληρά ναρκωτικά; Ακριβώς, γιατί ένα άτομο μπορεί να γράψει σε μια γλώσσα που δεν σημαίνει τίποτα όσον αφορά την εθνικότητα.

Επιστροφή στην αχυρώνα μέχρι χρειάζομαι!

Sammy Davis Jr., Athens Georgia

[Archaeologicum]

Nobody from Bitola says "makedonats", but despite you insulting our intelligence, I will entertain this a little further and allow you to prove your assertion. There are persons from Macedonia that aren't ethnic Macedonian but who normally speak the Macedonian language, let's first determine if you are even from where you say. Write a full sentence in the Bitolsko dialect here.

I am somewhat flattered by your intrigue in my personal life. i was born in the main bolnitsa in Bitola, and lived in the centre of the grad - Nikola Tesla ulitsa, and went to kole Kaninski to for 3 years (to year 2). I am sorry, but given that i was so young when I left, i did not develop a dinstinctly "Bitolchanets" dialect, my dialect is a "North Shore Sydney" dialect. I can speak Maco Ok, but not like a "local". If this is grounds for my expulsion from this forum, then so be it. {and, I am 6'4'' and green -eyed, so there is no way I can be Greek }

[Archaeologicum]

WTF?
go back to your maggotted forum, tell me one more time how the Macedonian language evolved from the Greek language you albanian piece of kaka

You need to work on your manners and drop the attitude, coz you don;t know who i am or what i represent.

Modern Macedonian has nothing to do with Greek, yes, of course. It is related to Serbian, Russian, Polish, etc. Although Macedonian, Romanian, Serbian, Greek 9whilst different langauges) do have some grammatical/ structural similarities because of their long period of contact. This is called a sprachbund

As for ancient Macedonian, what is your understanding of it, then ?

[Soldier of Macedon]

There is not a single Macedonian with origins from Bitola, irrespective of where they are living now, who would write 'makedonats'. If you said it was a typo it would have been more believable than this spill you've just given. I couldn't care less about your personal life, just merely trying to establish what sort of poser you are.

Are you going to write as full sentence in the Bitolsko dialect, or not?