Re: [tied] Re: Odin as a Trojan Prince

The idea that in the basis of both Greek and Roman mythologies lies
ultimately the same Aegean source only slightly coloured with sparse IE
motifs seems to me rather likeable too.

However we may not equate Helladic Pelasgians and the Anatolian ancestors of
Etruscans. Pelasgians appeared in Greece before Greeks, i.e. not later than
in the Middle Bronze Age. Archaeology allows us think that population of
Middle Greece (Early Helladic II B), Cyclades (Early Cycladic II B) and the
West Anatolian coast (Troy II) was since the middle of the 3rd millennium
actually the same and had eastern roots. Perhaps the main "Aegean"
mythological ideas were formed in that period (if not earlier). But the
destinies of the west and east coasts of the Aegean sea were different. The
former was "covered" by the Greek superstratum, and the latter - by Luwian
one. Besides, more than 1500 years had to pass before the Greek mythology
was formulated by Hesiod & Homer and Etruscans left for Italy.
So in my opinion we should treat Pelasgians and Etruscans as cousins.

Alexander

----- Original Message -----
From: <tgpedersen@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, August 17, 2001 1:04 PM
Subject: [tied] Re: Odin as a Trojan Prince


> --- In cybalist@..., cas111jd@... wrote:
> > --- In cybalist@..., MrCaws@... wrote:
> > > --- In cybalist@..., tgpedersen@... wrote:
> > > > --- In cybalist@..., MrCaws@... wrote:
> > > > > --- In cybalist@..., cas111jd@... wrote:
> > > > >
> >
> > Well, we would need one of our resident know-it-alls to fill in the
> > details more accurately than I can recall without digging through
> my
> > notes, but these theories have major problems:
> >
> > 1. the Trojan war occurred around 1250 BC. This would have been the
> > time of Aeneas, who first settled amongst kindred Thracian tribes
> of
> > northern Greece.
> > 2. the collapse of the Mycenaean culture nearby bronze age cultures
> > occurred about 1200 BC, followed by a depopulation of Greece and
> much
> > of Anatolia, and the Mycenaean colonization of Cyprus, Pamphylia,
> and
> > the attack of the Sea Peoples across the eastern Mediterranean
> until
> > their defeat against Egypt. Some may have ended up sailing into the
> > western Mediterranean, but that is another subject.
> > 3. No significant Aegean-Anatolian cultural influence is
> discernable
> > in the western Mediterranean until centuries later. As I recall,
> the
> > metallurgy of Sardinia (it was a source of copper) improved after
> > 1200 BC, but that's about it.
> >
> > First Phoenician and then Greek traders and settlers opened up the
> > western Mediterranean after the 'Dark Age' ended around 800 BC.
> Only
> > after this time in the "Orientalizing" period did significant Greek
> > influence reach Etruria. This included Greek deities such as
> Apollo,
> > who we also find in Hittite records as Apulianas of the vassal
> state
> > of Wilusa (Ilion). Only in the Iron Age did the Etruscan alphabet
> > appear. If we are to believe that the Etruscans are descended from
> > the people of Lemnos, some explanations are necessary:
> >
> > How did the population of a tiny island like Lemnos come to
> populate
> > a large state like Tuscany?
> > Given that Etruscan was a non-IE language, how did its parent
> > population ever manage to survive the waves of Anatolians,
> Thracians,
> > and Greeks through the Mediterranean? Not even the Minoans could do
> > that. Herodotus says the Tuscans were descended from a faction of
> > Lydians that left in a drought in the 9th century BC. Lydia was, I
> am
> > certain, an IE Anatolian-speaking state since Middle Bronze Age
> > times.
> >
> > Now, the only way to explain any of this, as far as I can tell,
> would
> > have to include arguments such as:
> >
> > the Etruscan alphabet was written only on perishable materials such
> > as leather and papyrus before it is found carved in stone in the
> > eighth (or whichever) century.
> >
> > the refugees from Anatolia were too few in number to impact the
> > indigenous early Etruscan language.
> >
> > the Lemnos stele is not necessarily proof of Etruscan language or
> > origin. After all, about every city in Anatolia had its own, if
> > similar, script that lasted into Roman times. This shows the
> > fractured nature of the Anatolian city-states that apparently were
> > more worried about keeping their own distinct identities than
> > communicating with each other. Perhaps some day some more evidence
> of
> > Anatolian alphabets will be uncovered showing a clearer picture of
> > the place. Unfortunately, the Greeks and Romans used old buildings
> > and cities as quarries for their new buildings and cities, so lotsa
> > luck on that!
> >
> > Besides the Lemnos stele and its obvious similarity to the Tuscan
> > alphabet, there are the names of the Tuscan rulers of Rome.
> Tarquinas
> > Superbus and Tarquinas Priscus are, IMO, titles. They relate to the
> > name of the Armenian king Tigranes, the Greek word tyrant, and the
> > name of an early Welsh king whose name I cannot recall at the
> moment.
> > Anyways, I believe the name translates as something like 'lord',
> but
> > in any event is for a sovereign. The Tuscan city of Tarquina was
> > located on the coast of southern Tuscany, which may have been a
> > landing spot for the Anatolian refugees, no matter what ethnic
> > identity or century of arrival you believe them to be.
> Snorri's Turks.
> >
> > As for Aeneas: the Romans grafted a lot of Greek mythology onto
> their
> > own. Indeed, they shamelessly adopted wholesale the Greek myths of
> > Zeus, Hera, Aphrodite, etc to their deities Jupiter, Juno, Venus,
> and
> > so on. Why should we not believe Aeneas was also adopted?
> Your concept of cultural transmission here is the traditional one
> Greek > Etruscan > Roman. But if the Lemnians were Pelasgians, as
> some classical writers wrote, and if Lemnian and Etruscan culture
> were the same (the identity of these two cultures is not based on
> similarity in alphabet, but on similarity of the texts themselves,
> which is not found anywhere else in Anatolia) then it would sense to
> believe instead in a transmission Etruscan(-Lemnian) > Greek, Etruscan
> (-Lemnian) > Rome. Hercle > Heracles, Hercle > Hercules makes more
> I thought briefly of a Etruscan(-Lemnian) etymology *ays-na- > *ays-
> nya- for Aeneas, but it doesn't look right.
>
> After all,
> > the archaeology of Rome shows little more than some wattle and daub
> > huts before the Tuscans took over the place in the eighth century.
>
> Well, sometimes the lowlier the huts, the more extravagant the
> mythology.
>
>
> Way back, and I forgot the details, I saw a theory that there was a
> massive fault in the dating of prehistoric events. The revision
> proposed shrank the dark ages after 1200 BCE to a very short time. As
> far as I can see, this (and only this) would save the incorporation
> of Aeneas story, like this:
>
> Troy consists of a city and the surrounding land. After Troy is
> sacked, people try to live on, but because of disasters (and because
> of loss of income from the city) are forced to leave. This would make
> both the Aeneas and the Ulysses legend part of the Sea People
> campaign.
>
>
>
>
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