Re: Pelasgians - Consensus

----- Original Message -----
From: John Croft <jdcroft@...>
To: <cybalist@eGroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, 21 March, 2000 1:27 PM
Subject: [cybalist] Re: Pelasgians - Consensus

John
Thanks a lot for your reply. I've no argument against the
Tyrrhenians/Pelasgians originating in the neolithic cultures of NW Anatolia.
Basically we're in agreement that Tyrrhenians = Pelasgians, and that the
term was used by classical Greek writers as a general term for natives.
As for my getting tied up in knots, I was only really questioning your use
of the term "elite" when referring to the Hellenes. We seem in fact to be in
agreement that the Greeks were numerically superior while the
Tyrrhenians/Pelasgians were technically more advanced. This would account
more realistically for me for the facts that the Pelasgians adopted Greek
speech, while the Greek-speakers reatined the Pelasgian name.

>
> Thus, whatever the circumstances such a series of hypotheses are fully
> compatible with Rex's Pelasgians!
>

On the Greek mainland, yes. Rex's arguments did convince me of that. I still
don't agree with the extension into macro-Pelasgia, either in the Aegean or
Italy.

Now we get to the crux of our differences.

> No it doesn't point to Egypt at all... Horns of consecration, the
> double axe and all that it implies is not Egyptian, but rather
> Anatolian... They have been found by Melaart at Catal Huyuk in the
> earliest Anatolian neolithic. To try to derive them from Egyptian
> exemplars implies Egyptians coming by sea to the Aegean... And as
> Sabine will tell you, there is no evidence of this at such an early
> phase. Occasional finds of pharaohnic "faience" and other mass
> produced trade goods (no doubt carried by Aegean rather than Egyptian
> intermediary traders) is all that we find. It would seem, as the
> neolithic came to the Aegean from Anatolia, so they brought their
> religious iconography with them.
>

The problem with Catal Huyuk is the 4000 year hiatus between the time that
culture flourished and the appearance of the Cretan bull cult. As far as I
know, there is no evidence of the bull cult before the early Palatial
period.
I suppose then that the following is pure coincidence :
Roughly contemporaneous with the establishment of Palatial society in Crete,
the 11th dynasty reunified Egypt and established the Middle Kingdom. The
royal emblem of this dynasty was the hawk/bull Mantu (Rd' Mantw "Mantu
disposes" = Rhadamanthys?). In connection with this there was the revival of
the Apis bull cult, said to have been founded by the legendary first pharoah
Min/Menes, and the cult of the Great Bull Mr Wr (Mnevis to the Romans) whose
name in hieroglyphics contains the symbol "winding walls" (also used in the
name Mn Nfr Memphis).
The ritual double-axe is also found in Lower Egypt around this time,
developed from Upper Egyptian antecedents, and can be seen to be the symbol
"khm" mounted on a pole. The "khm" has meanings revolving around the idea of
sanctity, but its original significance seems to be its use in a kind of
sympathetic magic to ward off the thunderbolts (the symbol developed from a
double-headed arrow, a stylised lightning bolt) of the god who wielded the
"khm", namely Min, god of Thunder and Fertility.
The horns of consecration have been seen as a (Cretan) juxtaposition of two
Egyptian symbols, the "wpy" "horns", used in the verb "to open, of the womb
in childbirth", and "djm" "valley between two mountains". When combined with
the sun symbol, this last is used for the setting sun, uttermost west and
entrance to the underworld. Together the meaning would seem to be "death and
rebirth".

> I think this link is back to front. Siwa was fortified by Merenptah
> and Rameses III by Dardani from the Peoples of the Sea, to guard
> against Libyan incursions. Hence the ddwn of the Egyptians. It
> doesn't refer to Dodona (unless there is an earlier etymological link
> between Dodona and the Dardanoi (and the modern Dardanelles). Once
> again we are back into the same area as our Pelasgian=Etruscan areas.
> So rather than Dodona coming from Siwa, I would suggest a Late Bronze
> Age connection going the other way - from Dodona to Siwa at the time of
> the Peoples of the Sea.

Well, it was Herodotos, not me, who said that Dodona was established from
Siwa. Besides what has the fortification of the site got to do with its
antiquity as an oracle? Ddwn is/was a Nubian god.

>
> Hmmm.. Semites are not Egyptians Dennis. There are clear connections
> between Io, Europa, Kadmos, Aegenor and Phoenix - which imply
> Phoenician connections not necessarily Egyptian ones. Phoenicians
> appeared in the Aegean in the cultural vacuum there by about 1,000
> operating out of a base in Rhodes. These myths in this case would have
> been post-Mycenaean in origin, not pre-Mycenaean as you suggest.
>

Yes, I know. But Egyptian and Semitic names seem to be pretty well mixed up
by the time they get to Greece.
As an example. Sabine posted referring to Apollo and Daphne. I looked up the
myth, and what do I find? Daphne, daughter of Ladon (Semitic, root /ltn/
source of Liwyatan Leviathan = Python), seeks help from Peneus (Egyptian p3
nwy "the flood"), son of Okeanos (Semitic or Sumerian).
Io is also connected to Danaos, who is supposed to be Egyptian. It is also
said to be a dialect word for "moon" in Argos, cf Bohairic Coptic "ioh"
"moon").
I'm using Phoenicia as a general term for the Levantine
coastal trading cities, which go back well into the 3rd millennium.
I think the myths go back to Hyksos, early Mycenean times.

> Dennis, Phoenicians were not the great Bronze Age traders and sailors
> that you suggest. Sabatini suggests that the earliest Phoenician
> sailors were operating out of Sidon and Tyre circa 1,000 BCE. Ahiram
> of Surru was the same as Hiram of Tyre who assisted Solomon with the
> building of his temple and the voyage from Eilat to Ophir. This was
> the time of the Ships of Tarshish of the Bible. The great sailors and
> traders of the Bronze Age were not Phoenician but Minoan and later
> Mycenaean.

Tyre is said to have been founded around 2500BCE. The word "turijo" is found
in Linear B (as are "aikupitijo" the Geek for Egyptian and "misirajo" the
Semitic for Egyptian). Byblos was the predominant city of Phoenicia with
links to Egypt going back to the 4th millennium. Not only has it given the
Greeks their word for 'book', but its form, corresponding to Sem. Gublu
indicates that it was known to the Greeks before the breakdown of
labiovelars in Greek and West Semitic (i.e. well before 1000BCE). Then there
is Ugarit, where documents unearthed have revealed an extensive trading
network in the 2nd millennium.
Frescos discovered under the volcanic ash at Akrotiri on Thera reveal a
thoroughly mixed population as early as the 17th century (or 15th depending
on the dating of the Thera eruption), with Levantine types dressed in
typically Levantine garb, as well as Egyptians and of course Aegean types,
as well as scenes (such the "Nile scene" of the cat stalking a duck) which
reveal an intimate knowledge of the flora, fauna, and motifs from the
Aegean, Crete, Near East and Egypt.
I would also refer you to the findings of marine archaeologist George Bass,
who has excavated bronze age shipwrecks off Cape Gelidonya and Ulu Burun.
From these findings he has concluded "I do not suggest that the Phoenicians
held a monopoly on maritime trade during the Late Bronze Age, but that they
played a major part in it". The Ulu Burun wreck seems to suggest a mixed
crew, or Mycenean sailors on a Phoenician vessel. It would seem that the
major exports from the Levant were metals, cloth and ivory which do not
require
containers and are either perishable or locally worked. Levantine pottery
and a statuette dating from the 14th century have recently been found near
Sardinia and Sicily.
There is still the possibility that the Minoans were (basically) Semitic.
The historian K. Brannigan (among others) has written of influence from
Palestine at the juncture Late Neolithic-Proto-Palatial, and of a migration
of Semitic people to Crete at this time. That the Egyptians regarded the
Minoans as Phoenicians may be inferred from their transference of Katfiw
from Crete to Phoenicia after the Greek take-over of Crete.
If we add to all this the plausible Semitic etymologies for numerous place
names around the Aegean, a few examples :
Thera - Lin.B Qera, from Kwer, Canaanite Kiyor, "kettle, cauldron";
Kythyra, said to mean "head dress (Hdt), from Phoen. Koteira "crown",
"tiara";
Megara, said to mean "cave" (Paus.), from Sem. Megharah "cave"
Salamis, from Sem. root /slm/ "safety"
Mycenae, from Sem. mukhaneh "camp, resting place"
this suggests to me that the Phoenicians were an integral and vital
ingredient in the Bronze Age Aegean mix. And of course, through most of this
period, the Levantine coast was to all intents and purposes a part of Egypt.
I would see Egypt's main influence (apart from grain exports) as mainly in
the field of ideas : religion, mythology, symbolism, as well as technical
and scientific knowledge.

>
> Thus the unity of culture in the Aegean was not of Phoenician
> provenance but came from Anatolia. In fact Western Anatolia and the
> Greek region were linked as a single cultural sphere since neolithic
> times. That did not shift with the coming of the early pre-Mycenaean
> Greeks. Egyptian influences were distant, intermittent and not
> formative.

During neolithic times, fair enough. But apart from the Tyrrhenian/Pelasgian
Troy I/II
period, which ended by 2250, and does not seem to have extended as far as
the southern
Aegean and Crete in any case, Anatolia. particularly during the period of
Hittite domination, seems quite absent from the Aegean sphere - "not one
shard of Minoan/Mycenenean pottery found at Bogazkoy" I remember reading
somewhere. While I
agree Egyptian influences were intermittent, the main periods being EHII
(c.3000 to 2400) and 18th Dynasty (1567-1320), together with the Hyksos
colonisation around 1700, I certainly think they were formative, but not
necessarily exclusively so.

Overall, the fundamental influence of Egypt and Phoenicia on Greece was
never questioned throughout history until the last 100-150 years or so.
Their exclusion from the Aegean seems to be based on reasons largely
unconnected with archaeology or linguistics. The onus of proof of such
influence has somehow been placed upon those who would maintain credence in
the ancient writers from Herodotos on. Yet, this whole discussion was based
on the statements of these same ancient authorities. We have spent a couple
of months trying to square the circle of the confusing and often
contradictory statements regarding Pelasgians, Tyrrhenians et al. yet their
statements on the Egyptians and Phoenicians are ignored, or contradicted
outright. The statement of Isokrates that "In former times any barbarians
who were in misfortune presumed to be rulers of Greek cities..." shows that
the Greeks also were not happy with the debt they owed to Egypt and
Phoenicia, but that it could not be denied. I think we also do ourselves a
disservice in denying ourselves interesting and possible fruitful lines of
enquiry into history, comparative mythology and linguistics offered by Egypt
and the Semitic Near East, by our outright rejection of even the possibility
of their influence.

Cheers
Dennis