Re: [cybalist] River names - Quietly Flows the Don to the Sea

----- Original Message -----
From: John Croft <jdcroft@...>
To: <cybalist@egroups.com>
Sent: Friday, 05 May, 2000 2:40 PM
Subject: Re: [cybalist] River names - Quietly Flows the Don to the Sea

The only references I had was to a P.Montet who wrote
"Byblos et l'Egypte, quatre campagnes de fouilles a Gebeil" dated 1928/9,
and to a Pierre Montet who asserted that Hellenes had inhabited the Nile
valley in pre-Dynastic times. Is this the same person?

>
> Evidence Dennis? Trade Routes joined Australia to Papua New
> Guinea and Indonesia and thence to Europe from Roman times. This
> does
> not mean that Romans knew of Australia, or that Romans traded baler
> shells and beche la mer from the Australian northern coasts....
>

Of course, I have no "smoking gun" evidence. But I'm not claiming the
Egyptians knew about
Australia (although there is an Australian website that makes such claims),
just the other side of the Mediterranean. There is evidence that they were
in contact with Troy as early as 5th dynasty, and from there to the Black
Sea and mouth of the Danube is not so far. I'm also not claiming they were
intimately acquainted with the whole course of the Danube, just enough to
know there was a major river there.

> > And of course, they were right about Crete being an island.
>
> Yes there is evidence that Keftiu - the name given to Crete
> originally
> meant "Pillar". As a Pillar of Smoke would have been seen from Thera
> from a long way away, this could be an explanation. It also explains
> the confusion with Plato's confused explanation about Atlantis being
> beyond the Pillars (of Hercules - i.e. Gibraltar).
>

I think this explanation unlikely, because :
1. the earliest attestation of the term /keftiu/ comes from the First
Intermediate Period, i.e. well before the Thera eruption;
2. it's unlikely that the column of ash/smoke could have been seen from
Egypt, due to the curvature of the earth. It's more than 500 miles from the
Delta to Thera.
3. the term ceased to be used after 1350BCE, which would mark the definitive
Greek (Achaean) conquest of Crete. It was revived in Ptolemaic times, but
referring to Phoenicia. So perhaps /keftiw/ referred to the pre-Greek
peoples of Crete rather than the island itself.

Cheers
Dennis






I don't think a pillar of smoke from Thera would have been visible from
Egypt - it's more than 500 miles distant. From what I've read on the Thera
eruption, it would seem that the main ash fall went to the north-east,
towards Rhodes and the Anatolian coast.
The name Keftiu also seems to have applied rather to Semitic (Phoenician)
people of Crete. As I posted some time ago, after the Greek take-over of the
island, the reference of Keftiu was transferred to Phoenicia.

Cheers
Dennis