Do Ancient Greeks have African Origins?

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  • Carlin
    Senior Member
    • Dec 2011
    • 3332

    The Historian's History of the World, Ulrich von Willamowitz-Moellendorff:

    "[t]he umpires at the Olympian games are the first to apply the name of Hellenes to the nation - more exactly speaking, to the class. For here it has come to pass that, though politically divided into numberless cantons, though involved in perpetual feuds and irreconcilable local animosities, the members of this class recognise one another, intermarry, call a truce for the festivals, and find a common interest in maintaining their class supremacy against the encroachments of the lower orders [sic]." (1989: 67). See also Schaefer 1963: 283.

    The suggestion is arresting: the Olympic Games were originally restricted to a transregional community of aristocrats.

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    • Carlin
      Senior Member
      • Dec 2011
      • 3332

      Crna Atena, Martin Bernal - p. 385 (Macedonian Edition):

      "Vo sekoj slucaj, kako opstoprifaten fakt, barem sto se odnesuva do epohata na procutot na helenizmot, se zema deka oficijalen jazik na Krit vo negoviot ran period bil fenikiskiot jazik. Na primer, postoi eden zapis napisan od Lukij Septimij, koj datira od IV vek od nasata era, vo koj se veli koga po zemjotresot od 66 g.n.e. bile pronajdeni izvesni dokumenti koi ocigledno poteknuvale od antickoto minato na Krit, imperatorot Neron, so cel da gi razgatne, povikal uceni semitisti."*

      * - Poglednete kaj Evans (1909, p. 109). Toj dava pricini za prifakanjeto na ogledot na Septimius; isto taka, mozete da poglednete i kaj Gordon (1966b, p. 16).

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      • Carlin
        Senior Member
        • Dec 2011
        • 3332

        The Classical Quarterly (New Series)


        Classical Quarterly 61.1 91-113 (2011)

        NEAR EASTERN SLAVES IN CLASSICAL ATTICA AND THE SLAVE TRADE WITH PERSIAN TERRITORIES

        During the Classical period, Athens and a number of other poleis relied upon trade with 'barbarian' territories on the periphery of the Aegean world to maintain large slave populations which played an integral role in economic life and formed the bedrock of elite wealth.
        Last edited by Carlin; 02-02-2014, 11:51 AM.

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        • Carlin
          Senior Member
          • Dec 2011
          • 3332

          Originally posted by Carlin View Post
          Foundation Tales as Cultural Thievery.

          Celebrated characters from legend could serve as founders of foreign nations. Or, more inventively, fictive tales ascribed names derived from extant peoples to fabricated figures who became those peoples' progenitors. The Hellenic penchant for peering through parochial spectacles is well known. Alien nations became transformed and familiar when fitted into Greek traditions.

          That held true even for the supposed archenemy, Persia. According to Herodotus, the Hellenic hero Perseus wed his rescued damsel Andromeda whose son by him was named Perses. And from him the Persians took their own name. So Herodotus (or rather his sources). The story is a noteworthy one. The most inveterate foe of Hellas thus came within the Hellenic embrace. Greeks slipped one of their most celebrated legendary figures into a fictitious narrative of Persian history, thus to account for the very name of the people.

          That fable, in its many manifestations, may be the most dramatic instance of identity theft. But far from the only one. Another tradition took this maneuver a step further. The ruling house of Persia carried the designation of Achaemenids. That played nicely into the hands of Greek fashioners of legend. They concocted an Achaemenes as founder of the dynasty, made him a son of Perseus, and explained his name as derived from his grandfather, who came from Achaea in the Peloponnese. So even prime villains of the Greek master narrative, the Achaemenid clan and the Persian empire, turn out to be Greek in origin. That is appropriation indeed.

          If Persians could be hellenized, anyone was fair game.


          Page 224 -- Rethinking the Other in Antiquity, Erich S. Gruen.





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          • tchaiku
            Member
            • Nov 2016
            • 786

            Ancient Greeks show less affinity with Levant and Africa than Sicilians and Aegean islanders in terms of genetics.
            The African and Asiatic origin of the old Greeks is a myth.
            Last edited by tchaiku; 04-11-2020, 12:29 PM.

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            • Carlin
              Senior Member
              • Dec 2011
              • 3332





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