Prehellenic Tetrapolis

From: Glen Gordon
Message: 5797
Date: 2001-01-27

Miguel had said in a previous post:
>There was a town in Greece called Tetrapolis (Four-town),
>which was also known under the Pre-Greek "Pelasgian" (remember that
>Herodotus calls the Lemnians "Pelasgians") name Huttenia.

I knew something was incorrect and I've given Miguel enough to time to
correct himself. I found the reference. It's Massimo Pallotino's "The
Etruscans" alright and he states on page 216 concerning the issue of whether
/huth/ really means "six" because of the Tuscania dice or just "four":

"The only doubt that may persist concerns the
identification of the prehellenic place name
Ytte:nia as Tetr�polis."

The name is written in Greek letters in the book but the initial apostrophe
is clearly glottal, not aspirate, before the upsilon. So no H- appears to be
present, Miguel. Further, just for exactness' sake, the /e/ is long with
accent on the /i/. Hence, Ytte:nia. Here's a site for ya, Miguel, concerning
how to read Greek properly:

http://www.ibiblio.org/koine/greek/lessons/alphabet.html

There ya go. Now, perhaps Ytte:nia derives from an EtruscoLemnian name
*Huttena or *Huttenia with *hutta meaning "four" attached to the infamous
*-(e)na suffix, as in /ras'na/ "Etruscan". This analysis of the Greek name
in itself makes some sense but maybe it also had a collective *-ia suffix
added too?

Just thoughts. Tgif, yo'll.

- gLeN





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