Re: 'dyeus' chronology

From: Francesco Brighenti
Message: 66724
Date: 2010-10-09

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "shivkhokra" <shivkhokra@...> wrote:

> We should also think about why on Crete the palaces were called PUR
> on linear B tablets and not the greek term polis. Pur is what
> palaces are in Vedas.

If you are referring to the term "pu-ro", attested repeatedly in Linear B tablets, that is considered a place-name (Greek Pulos, i.e. Pylos), not a word for 'palace'. In John Chadwick's opinion, "pu-ro" is most certainly the name of the principal site and location of the tablets themselves, Pulos. He further adds the tablets contain evidence for one and possibly two other towns with the same name. Based on the occurrence of the name Pulos in Iliad 5.397 with the probable meaning 'Gate of the Underworld', some scholars have tried to connect this name etymologically with Greek pulê 'door', pulôn 'gateway', etc., suggesting that the place-name Pulos might have designated places of Greece with appropriate natural characteristics (such as, for instance, proximity to a pass). In any event, there seems to be no Indo-European etymology for pulê, pulôn etc., as is mainained in both Frisk's and Chantraine's Greek etymological dictiories. Therefore, these terms, as also the toponym Pulos, may be Pre-Greek ones.

As to "pur is what palaces are in the Vedas", this statement of yours is simply ridiculous. In the Rigveda, pur means only 'rampart, wall made of mud and stones, fortification, palisade', and its supposed Indo-European cognates, Greek polis and Lithuanian pilis, originally meant only 'fortress, stronghold'. The reconstructed Proto-Indo-European form is generally given as *plh1- (which cannot have resulted in Greek <pulos>).

Regards,
Francesco