Responding to: John Croft's: "definitive answer to the Macro-Pelasgian?"
Rex adds: John, I can't find much there to disagree with. You and Professor
George Thomsen seem to be right on target with my thinking. I add some
comments or other support to your key points below.
>The Lycians were so called because their national god, Appollon >Lykeios
was worshipped as a wolf (lykos). His mother Leto was said >to have been
changed into a wolf before his birth, or led by wolves >to the spot where he
was born.
Argos: The earliest of the Pelasgian settlements, it was also the most
important. Legend very soon associated it with a goddess (Hera), the cow
(Io), and the wolf (Danaos). (Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites)
> The cult of Zeus Karios, found in Mylassa, capital of Caria was also
> found in Boetia and Attica. (snip) In Greece proper they left their
> name at the temple of Zeus Pelasgios at Dodona. (snip) Hermes too >may
have been Pelasgian.
The gods whose names they say they do not know were, as I think, named by
the Pelasgians, except Poseidon, the knowledge of whom they learned from the
Libyans. (Herodotus Histories 2.50.2)
It was not so with the ithyphallic images of Hermes; the production of these
came from the Pelasgians, from whom the Athenians were the first Greeks to
take it, and then handed it on to others. ( Herodotus Histories 2.51.1)
The Athenians, then, were the first Greeks to make ithyphallic images of
Hermes, and they did this because the Pelasgians taught them. The Pelasgians
told a certain sacred tale about this, which is set forth in the
Samothracian mysteries. (Herodotus Histories 2.51.4)
When the Pelasgians, then, asked at Dodona whether they should adopt the
names that had come from foreign parts, the oracle told them to use the
names. From that time onwards they used the names of the gods in their
sacrifices; and the Greeks received these later from the Pelasgians.
(Herodotus Histories 2.52.3)
...Zeus, thou king, Dodonaean, Pelasgian,(Homer Iliad 16.230)
In the sanctuary is a wooden image of Orpheus, a work, they say, of
Pelasgians. (Pausanias Description of Greece 3.20.5)
This oracle, according to Ephorus, was founded by the Pelasgi. And the
Pelasgi are called the earliest of all peoples who have held dominion in
Greece. And the poet speaks in this way: "O Lord Zeus, Dodonaean, Pelasgian"
(Strabo Geography 7.7.10)
> Tyrrhenos is an ethnical derivative of Tyrrha, a town in Lydia. The
> name was born by a browther of Tarchon - the Greek form of >Tarquinus
That is a key piece in the whole matter: Still not sure if this is
resilient of pre-Pelasgi Tyrrhenian (italian) in Anatolia..or a coincidence
of sound locally produced /named. It could also be the source of a great
deal of academic confusion, if the latter.
>.....common linguistic substratum covering the whole region from the >Black
Sea to Syria and from the Aegean to Sumer.
Da Da..Pelasgic. (I deliberately said T/E valley to avoid
using...Sumer..scared me..significant I think:-)
> .... must be older than Greek itself."
Da Da..."proto Greek' = Pelasgic
> Where does this leave us? Parts of Glen's thesis seem to hold (i.e. a
> Pontic origin to Etruscan).
Yes, we all agree here..Glen is just insisting on a separate
arm/branch/route for Etruscan..while supporting the Lemnan link.
>And a Macro-Pelasgia stretching as a substratum language much >further than
any of us suggested.
As stated in my original position: " Anatolia below the Black sea and east
(sporadically) to the T/E valley, the Aegean islands below Thrace, and the
Greek mainland below Macedonia. ..(snip).. expanding first into Crete with
an influence that would develop the Minoan culture and directly yield the
Acheaen..(Anatolia to Crete to Pelopponese..and to project influence
into..(snip)..Rhodes, Sicily, Cyprus, and Sardinia. Then penetrating via
colonies the Italian mainland and many other colonial sites to include N.
Africa and the Levant. "
> I have quoted him at length because as a classic scholar George >Thomson
is pretty sound.
He gets my vote. Thanks for all that input, John.
La Revedere;
Rex H. McTyeire
Bucharest, Romania
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rexbo@...>