Re: [tied] Re: IE, AA, Nostratic & Black Athena

----- Original Message -----

From: Håkan Lindgren

To: Cybalist

Sent: Wednesday, 02 August, 2000 6:23 AM

Subject: [tied] Re: IE, AA, Nostratic & Black Athena

Dennis,

thanks for your reply!

 

I've seen Black Athena before without being interested, now I'm going to give it a try (even though Guillaume calls it "ce livre a la con"). I'm already getting the impression that this is a hotly debated area. Some people want everything to come from Africa as a kind of revenge for the slavery and colonialism of the 18 and 19th centuries, others scream at such provocative thoughts. Myself, I don't belong to any of these camps - not yet! :o)  - I prefer people who give me the whole picture, people who do not distort or leave out facts that don't fit their theory.

 

Yes, but cave. As Guillaume says, the book has its flaws. But one of its advantages is its massive bibliography. The trouble is that there appears to be no-one giving the full picture, most seem to be either in one camp or the other, or studiously refusing to draw any possibly controversial conclusions from their discoveries. An example of what I mean, is Ventris and Chadwick (the decipherers of Linear B), after noting that the system and ratios of weights and volumes conformed to Canaanite standards, then duck back under the parapet by saying that direct influence on Mycenae is perhaps doubtful.

So you really have to draw your own conclusions.

 

I don't have the knowledge to begin discussing your examples of Egyptian or Semitic loan words in Greek, but I would like to know more about this. Could you recommend some articles/books on this subject (your links, except for Bernal's rewiev, were broken). When you say that as much as 50% of the Greek vocabulary might be borrowed, what are your sources for this?

 

Unless Piotr knows of any scholarly work in this area, I certainly don't. So, again, as above, glean the information from wherever you can, and form your own conclusions.

 

If so many Greek city names, lake and river names etc. are of Semitic origin, wouldn't this imply that a Semitic people had lived there before the Greeks? If the Greeks borrowed the names of foreign technologies, weaponry and architecture that's one thing, but they wouldn't borrow the name of their city or river from a foreign people. When a people move into a new country, they usually keep some toponyms from the people who lived there before them (such as the Indian place names in the USA). Hmm... on second thoughts, this sounds vaguely familiar, perhaps this is what you & John are quarrelling about (I haven't been following that discussion too closely). If that's the case, you don't have to repeat it all for me!

 

There was a fairly advanced culture in Greece (Early Helladic II) dated from ca.3000 to 2450BCE, which predates even the earliest estimates of the arrival of the Greeks. Some archaeologists have seen indications of Egyptian involvement in the Tomb of Amphion and Zethos (possibly a step pyramid), the irrigation and drainage works around Lake Kopais, and the enormous Rundbau, a round structure seen in Egyptian illustrations as a granary. This culture is centred in Boeotia, Argolid, Attica and Arkadia. As for the Semitic component, apart from the trading ventures of the Levantine cities (Ebla, with its massive trading network, predates the arrival of the Greeks), I am coming more and more to the opinion (thanks in large part to John) that the population of Lower Egypt was predominantly Semitic from pre-Dynastic and neolithic times, with only a thin under- and overlay of Egyptians. So that, if there were Egyptians in EHII Greece, they would have been already a largely mixed Egypto-Semitic people, speaking both languages. An example may be found in Kythera, said to mean a head dress, which could be derived from Semitic ktrt (ko:teret) "crown", while its harbour Skandeia comes from the Egyptian skHmty, the double crown of Egypt.

 

Also, I would like to know more about Senwosre - you said he was the legendary founder of Athens (I couldn't find him in the Encyclopaedia Britannica). Was this a Greek legend? Did the Athenians believe that their city was founded by an Egyptian pharaoh?

 

No, I didn't. Some Greek legends have it that Kekrops was the founder of Athens. The legends are also divided on whether he was Egyptian or autochthonous. Kekrops, the name, however could be derived from kHpr k3 ra', which was a by-name of Senwosre I. He's in Enc.Britt. as Sesotris I.

Although the EB article is rather terse, he was one of the most powerful and warlike of the pharoahs and one of the greatest builders. If he can be equated with Herodotos' Sesotris, then he may even have campaigned into Anatolia. I don't want to get into this, and it's not strictly relevant to Greece. But it would seem quite natural that his fame would have spread far and wide, even to primitive Middle Helladic Greece. There is however no evidence for any Egyptian presence in Greece throughout the Middle Kingdom.

 

And, since we are talking about Egyptian, what are the relations between Egyptian and other Semitic/Afro-Asiatic languages, like Hebrew or Arabic? Are they closely related or very different? How much do we know about Egyptian today? Everything I've read about Egyptian makes it seem like a language that's still half unknown. Piotr, you seem to know Egyptian as well! Would you like to explain what is known about this language?

 

Again, an area very much still under construction. Afro-Asiatic may be a phylum (see a recent posting by Piotr for a definition) rather than a family. Defining of relationships and reconstructions are still very much ongoing, and the nature of Egyptian is disputed.

 

So, I'm sorry, but there are no generally accepted guides that I know of for this line of enquiry. If you're really interested, you have to gather the data from wherever it presents itself, evaluate it for yourself, make your own connections, and draw your own conclusions.

 

 

Cheers

Dennis