Joao salut!
> Athenaia was a very complex Greek deity. She surely has Greek and
Pre-Greek components, like Ugaritic Anath (sister/lover of Baal) and
North Egyptian Neith ( Shield-Goddess, virgin mother of Sun Ra), but
... has she any IE feature?
> I think so.
> I think one of IE components of Greek Goddess of War and
Intelligence Athena, was a feminine form of an IE god that has
parallels in Indian TRITA and Norse THJALFI. This IE minor god was a
young partner of great Thunder-God, explaining:
> 1) Indian Trita Aptya was a young partner of Thunder-God Indra, and
help him to defeat monster Vrtra..
> 2) Thjalfi was a slave of Thunder-God Thorr, and help him to defeat
giants Hrungnir and Mokkurkalfi.
> 3) Persian myth had and analogous god THRITA, seen in name of hero
THRAETAONA ("son of Thrita").
> 4) Athena was named TRITOGENEIA and TRITEIA. There were many
attempts since Antiquity to explain this epitethus. From Lake
Tritonis? From sea-god Triton? I think this name is cognate of
*Trito-
"third?" or "marine?(vide Old Irish Triath "sea")
Fascinating.
Jacquetta Hawkes "Dawn of the Gods" is interesting on Athena. She
suggests that she shows a clear derivation from Potnia Athana.
Certainly Athens is the one state that managed to survive the
Mycenaean submergence. She believes that she was especially
associated with the ruling dynasty. This seems to be the case
from the Pylos records, and from the role she took with
Cecrops and Erechtheus, Odysseus and Theseus, good Ionians all.
Athena's symbols, the cat, the snake, the bird, the pillar and the
shield, don't come from Anath or Neith, but direct from the Cretian
Great Goddess. Yves Bonnefoy in his seminal work on Egyptian
and Greek mythology suggests she was one of twelve divinities
mentioned in Mycenaean Crete, the others being Zeus Dictaeus ('of
the Sacred Mountain"), Athana Potnia, Posedaon, Entalios (an early
surname of Ares), Payawon ("The Striker", the future Apollo Paean),
Erinyes (a surname of future Demeter), Eleuthiya ("she who delivers
pregnant women"), Pade (Pandes, Phandes, "the Divine child",
Querasiya ("the Huntress"), the Winds (Pasaya), Pipituna (divinity
of Gacynthus) and Malineus. Athana was also called Dapuritoyo
Potiniya ("Sovereign Goddess of the Labyrinth"). This suggests
that an early identificaion with the Cretian Royal Palace may be a
real one. The Huntress appears in various guises in Eastern and
Western Crete. In Eastern Crete she is Britomarpis ("Sweet Virgin"),
in the west Dictynna ("She of the Sacred Mountain") in which one had
to be barefoot to enter her sanctuary. The Daughter of Minos
(Phaedra
("the Brilliant One"), Ariadne ("the Very Pure One"), Acalle ("the
Flower of Narcissus"), and Xenodice ("the Right of Guests") seem to
titles to the fallen Great Goddess. It is interesting that despite
the fact that the later Greeks saw the Titans as the fallen Gods of
the autochthonous Pelasgians, not a single name of a Titan appears in
the Linear B divinities. (The war between rival families of the Gods
may be an old IE myth projected upon subject peoples in different
localities)
If one is forced to look for origins of Athana I would suggest
*At-hana. *At- is found in a large number of Greek divine
and semi-divine names, Atlas, Atlantides, Atalanta, Atlantis
etc, which seem pre-Greek. Hanahana was a major Anatolian Khattic
goddess - whose name appears in Ana-t (Syria), In-anna (Sumeria) and
Ana-hita (Iran). With such a spread across such linguistic divides
she is quite possibly the neolithic divinity that came out of
Anatolia
with the first farmers. The classical story that she came from
Egyptian Neith I suspect is a late story coming from Saite times, to
balster the Athenian-Egyptian alliance against the Persians.
Certainly, all identification with Egyptian Neith stems from writers
after this event, none before (Ancients were great in cementing
political alliances with divine identifications - it goes right back
to Sumeria if not before).
Regarding your derivation of her Tritogenaia title, with the
suggestion of identification with the Sea, reminds me of the famous
struggle with Poseidon over the identification and dedication of
Athens. Poseidon gave a horse, Athena gave the olive! And then
there
is the famous struggle with Poseidon over Odysseus's return to
Ithaca.
There does seem some reference to some struggle between Athena and
Poseidon over the Sea.
Poseidon has been identified as the Mycenaean Poseidas - a consort of
Potnia. Could it be that Athena was originally a Cretan Goddess of
the Sea (along with her many other atributes) and Poseidon was her
consort, who later usurped her maritime role.
Indeed interesting
John