Iron Age myths about the Bronze Age Collapse?

[diegosimeone]

I can also do that with Linear B and the Byblos Syllabary and so on...

So why do you say that the egg made the chicken just because it feels easier to accept?

 

[Abdul Goatherd]

I can also do that with Linear B and the Byblos Syllabary and so on...

Then do it.

 

[diegosimeone]

Then do it.

I will do it during the week when I find time for it.

In the meanwhile, a fun task for you would be to back your words and find us these "all writers" that you mentioned earlier. It's "all" afterall, can't be that hard to find at least 4-5 of them. I can settle with 2 contemporary sources that agree with Herodotus that the alphabet was called Phoenician. Wonder why Homer forgot to mention it though. Probably not a "writer" but merely a "poet", so bad luck for me.

 

[Geriander]

I can also do that with Linear B and the Byblos Syllabary and so on...

With the 87 syllabic and 100+ ideographic symbols of Linear B you are way more likely to coincidentally produce the same symbol than when comparing two alphabets of 20+ characters.
It may not even be coincidences as some symbols may have been exchanged between Linear A/B and the precursors to the Phoenician alphabet.

Similarities of Byblos Syllabary are hardly surprising as it also appears to be derived from Hieroglyphs just as the Phoenician alphabet.

This isn't just the symbols though but the actual names and sounds they represent.

So why do you say that the egg made the chicken just because it feels easier to accept?

I say that events happening earlier cause later events and not the other way around. I don't see why I would find one explanation easier to accept than the other as I am neither Greek nor Phoenician and therefore have no nationalist bias at stake. The evidence proves that the alphabets are related. The evidence shows that the Phoenician one existed in 11th century BC in the Levant and in the 9th century BC on Cyprus and Sardinia. Then in the 8th Century we have the first known Greek text using an alphabet, the Dipylon inscription, that is even more similar to Phoenician letters than later Greek texts.

I'm not even sure what your argument is any more. Do you claim:
1) That the alphabets developed independently.
2) That the Greeks developed an alphabet before the Phoenicians and taught it to them.

1) Is disproved by similarities in symbols and extreme similarities in sounds they represent. Simultaneous developments of alphabets by people with that much contact is also highly unlikely to be unrelated. It is a rather rare invention during human history after all.

2) Ignores the evidence we have of linking the Phoenician alphabet to previous writing systems in the Levant all the way back to Hieroglyphs. It also requires the Greeks to have had an alphabet to teach the Phoenicians prior to the 11th century. We have plenty of Greek artefacts from the period but on none of these are there any text in the Greek alphabet (or in any other writing system except for on Cyprus). That is at a minimum (depending on how quick the Greeks were to teach the Phoenicians) three hundred years that the Greeks would have to have the alphabet without making any inscription that survives to this day. With all of that geometric pottery it mould be nice if the maker could at least put his signature on the bottom.

Edit: Before you spend time comparing alphabet characters to Linear B, I found someone who has done it already:

https://linearbknossosmycenae.com/2...h-correlations-with-some-linear-b-characters/

The sounds don't seem to match at all unlike comparison between Greek and Phoenician Alphabets. Given 87 syllabic symbols to play with any similarities could be coincidental or, as the author speculates, they "could have been appropriated by the Phoenicians, or the other way around, or even that some of the characters would have suffered cross-fertilization".

 

[Kazanov]

ITT: What happens when you discuss something with a nationalist from the balkans.

 

[Arilou]

ITT: What happens when you discuss something with a nationalist from the balkans.

You have no idea. This is diegosimone being a crackpot but a relatively normal one. He has on various occasions claimed that latin is a dialect of greek, that the indo-european language continuum is a german conspiracy, that the greek alphabet is 20,000 years old, and that greeks discovered the americas.

 

[diegosimeone]

I'm not even sure what your argument is any more. Do you claim:
1) That the alphabets developed independently.
2) That the Greeks developed an alphabet before the Phoenicians and taught it to them.

1) Nope.
2) Nope.

Just to keep it simple and avoid long posts for no reason other than general spread of viewpoints

 

[diegosimeone]

You have no idea. This is diegosimone being a crackpot but a relatively normal one. He has on various occasions claimed that latin is a dialect of greek, that the indo-european language continuum is a german conspiracy, that the greek alphabet is 20,000 years old, and that greeks discovered the americas.

Nope, ancient sources claimed that Latin is a mixture of Aeolian Greek and an Italic language, I just found it plausible.

I actually commented on the Proto Indo-European revisionist nonsense and not the general classifications of languages.

I don't think I ever made a claim on the age of the Greek alphabet other than Linear A was had great probabilities of being a Hellenic alphabet.

As for the Americas, all I said was that the big plot of land outside the Pillars of Heracles (Gibraltar) were known to Greeks since Homer and that there was evidence of raw materials found in the Mediterranean during the Minoan times that were found in Canada of all places. So again, plausible that some people ventured there. Same odds as the Chinese reaching the West Coast of the Americas.

A crackpot would probably be someone who refuses to learn how to read anything that is not identified with what he thinks is the only truth, not someone seeking it and not settling for whatever some people decided is the only truth..
And then there's the people who cannot understand what is written and blame the other person for it, just because it's not written in the way they are used to read it in.

 

[diegosimeone]

Edit: Before you spend time comparing alphabet characters to Linear B, I found someone who has done it already:

The 'ox' sign, aka 'aleph' which corresponds to the 'alpha' letter, well, corresponded to the Cretan hieroglyphs and it was called 'alopyx'. It grew to mean a fox or a fox's head, but back then the symbol was the A upside down.

If anyone knows a pinch of Greek, they'd know that we've always removed some parts of the word just for the sake of ease. So alopyx... alops..alop.. Sounds a lot like alpha or aleph for that matter. Those symbols were used around 2100 BCE and 1700 BCE.

(the source is at http://richardvallance.academia.edu/ )
Middle Minoan period as some call it.

Conveniently, a lot Greek letters look like the first letter/sound of the symbol that depicts it, but obviously it had to be very important to the people. For example olives, which is ελιά, had a symbol that included the E shape.

We also know that Linear A or B did not come from the Egyptians, but scholars believe that the Phoenician alphabet was an evolution of an Egyptian form.


Another interesting discovery that should have been breakthrough but is conveniently ignored is the Dispilio Tablet.

Strikes any resemblence to anything we know?

I see Ε, L, Δ, V, C, F, Y, I, H, Λ, O, Θ, U, μ, Π, π, A, M, W, T and a few others there.

Found in a small villlage in northern Greece, dated around 5000BCE. It must also be Phoenician.

 

[Graf Zeppelin]

ITT: What happens when you discuss something with a nationalist from the balkans.

Depends, I find the discussion very interesting.

 

[Geriander]

The 'ox' sign, aka 'aleph' which corresponds to the 'alpha' letter, well, corresponded to the Cretan hieroglyphs and it was called 'alopyx'. It grew to mean a fox or a fox's head, but back then the symbol was the A upside down.
If anyone knows a pinch of Greek, they'd know that we've always removed some parts of the word just for the sake of ease. So alopyx... alops..alop.. Sounds a lot like alpha or aleph for that matter. Those symbols were used around 2100 BCE and 1700 BCE.

(the source is at http://richardvallance.academia.edu/ )
Middle Minoan period as some call it.

Conveniently, a lot Greek letters look like the first letter/sound of the symbol that depicts it, but obviously it had to be very important to the people. For example olives, which is ελιά, had a symbol that included the E shape.

How can you claim to know what the Cretan hieroglyphic was called when the writing hasn't been deciphered and we don't even know what language it was supposed to represent? The Eteocretans, attested by Homer and Strabo, still hadn't adapted Greek by the 1st century AD and their writings, while by then using a Greek alphabet, weren't in Greek. It is therefore unlikely that any Cretan writings preceding the Mycenaean invasion in the 15th Century BC, would be in Greek.The symbol was subsequently not used for an "A" value syllable in the Linear B or Cypriot Syllabic systems:

We also know that Linear A or B did not come from the Egyptians, but scholars believe that the Phoenician alphabet was an evolution of an Egyptian form.

And for the Phoenician "A" we can actually trace it from the Egyptian Hieroglyph for an ox, to the Proto-Sinaitic symbol alp, to the Phoenician aleph to the Greek alpha. We can also do the same for "B" and several other letters.

Another interesting discovery that should have been breakthrough but is conveniently ignored is the Dispilio Tablet.

Strikes any resemblence to anything we know?

I see Ε, L, Δ, V, C, F, Y, I, H, Λ, O, Θ, U, μ, Π, π, A, M, W, T and a few others there.

Found in a small villlage in northern Greece, dated around 5000BCE. It must also be Phoenician.

Only the A) symbols are supposedly identified from the tablet so I am very interested in how you claim to have identified 19 greek letters from 11 symbols.....


This is what the Dispilio tablet looks like:

George Hourmouziadis claims to have identified the "letters" you posted above but almost everyone disputes the relation to Greek letters because, if you tried hard enough, you could probably identify Chinese characters in that mess of scratches and be as likely to be right. This artifact is pre-Indo-European so whoever made it didn't speak any form of Greek. The "letters" you identify don't show up in Linear A, Linear B, the Cypriot Syllabic or in any other artifact from the Greek world for another 4000 years. When the letters do show up they do so with a well documented evolution from Hieroglyphs, not from this tablet.

For a "script" that actually may be related to the Dispilio tablet, see the contemporary Vinca script in Bulgaria and Romania, also Pre-Indo-European.

 

[Nykyus]

The peoples of the sea are the Philistines (Peleste), Tevkra (Trojans), Etruscans, Sicula, and Sardinians. Their professor calls Pelasgic peoples. Claims that Pelasgians lived in Greece before the arrival of the Greeks. However, where were the Pelasgians in the time of the Achaean Greeks? Didn't the Greeks kill all the Pelasgians? In this case, the Greeks should have been part of the peoples of the sea.
Also, the end of the Hittite Empire is associated with the invasion of the Phrygians from the Balkans. They were stopped by Assyria.
Their culture was very high. The Romans learned from the Etruscans, the Greeks learned from the Pelasgians, the Jews learned the Philistines

 

[Nykyus]

Philistines Sailed With Their Pigs to Ancient Israel
Genetic analysis of 3,000-year-old pig remains in Israel shows that they came from Greece, probably brought by the Sea Peoples to Canaan
https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology...ir-pigs-with-them-to-ancient-israel-1.5469130

 

[Arilou]

Philistines Sailed With Their Pigs to Ancient Israel
Genetic analysis of 3,000-year-old pig remains in Israel shows that they came from Greece, probably brought by the Sea Peoples to Canaan
https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology...ir-pigs-with-them-to-ancient-israel-1.5469130

The general consensus is that the Philistines were Mycenean greeks (or at least somehow related to them), yes.

The identity of some of the other sea peoples remains obscure, or even if the term is particularly useful.

 

[Antediluvian Monster]

The general consensus is that the Philistines were Mycenean greeks (or at least somehow related to them), yes.

Did they emigrate from Greece due to their distate for the high culture that was about to develop there? Pre-mature philistines?

 

[Geriander]

Philistines being Myceneans displaced from Greece by invading Dorians makes some sense. One people pushing another people into migrating and invading a third people is pretty common in history after all. That of course doesn’t mean that all of the ”Sea peoples” were Mycenean as some of them are recorded as already living in the Levant for centuries while others could be completely unrelated peoples driven to migrate by the same climatic changes.

 

[Kazanov]

As for the Americas, all I said was that the big plot of land outside the Pillars of Heracles (Gibraltar) were known to Greeks since Homer and that there was evidence of raw materials found in the Mediterranean during the Minoan times that were found in Canada of all places. So again, plausible that some people ventured there. Same odds as the Chinese reaching the West Coast of the Americas.

Well, we have proof that the ancient chinese landed on Peru, but it was a failed experiment as the chinese never felt good about colonizing other parts of the world (UNTIL NOW xD) and abandoned their new lands or something like that , after all, ancient peruvian peoples were advanced and somewhat misterious . And also, there is a mapuche historian that claimed years ago some ancient link between the greek and the... mapuche (but i see it just as mapuche larping, as we dont have any archeological evidence, only cultural similarities). The ancient greeks were amazing.

 

[diegosimeone]

The peoples of the sea are the Philistines (Peleste), Tevkra (Trojans), Etruscans, Sicula, and Sardinians. Their professor calls Pelasgic peoples. Claims that Pelasgians lived in Greece before the arrival of the Greeks. However, where were the Pelasgians in the time of the Achaean Greeks? Didn't the Greeks kill all the Pelasgians? In this case, the Greeks should have been part of the peoples of the sea.
Also, the end of the Hittite Empire is associated with the invasion of the Phrygians from the Balkans. They were stopped by Assyria.
Their culture was very high. The Romans learned from the Etruscans, the Greeks learned from the Pelasgians, the Jews learned the Philistines

Depending on the contemporary source (usually Homer or Herodotus or others), the Pelasgians are either assimilated with Greeks, or were one of the 4 main Greek tribes, Aeolians in particular, who were always a bit different or others claimed that these were the Ionian which explains why they're so cocky and think that Greece belongs to them and that the Dorians, Achaeans etc are inferior (as Greeks or in general). And the other floating theory is that they were a completely foreign entity that predated the Hellenes and eventually were wiped out.

Unfortunately not much research has been made for them. My guess is that they are this Cycladic culture people and at some point they were assimilated with the Hellenes, highly likely as a core group like the Aeolians or even Ionians. Others say that their origins are in Crete, but their name suggests otherwise. We also have the Minoans and the Eteocretans there, so the Pelasgians simply being one of those cultures is a possibility but maybe a small one.

I like your theory. Etruscans and/versus Tyrrhenians is also another nice one that gets zero coverage and it could explain their origins.

 

[Antediluvian Monster]

Well, we have proof that the ancient chinese landed on Peru, but it was a failed experiment as the chinese never felt good about colonizing other parts of the world (UNTIL NOW xD) and abandoned their new lands or something like that , after all, ancient peruvian peoples were advanced and somewhat misterious .

I thought it was the ancient Japanese? But no, we don't have "proof" for that. Proof is something that proves, and this idea is really tenuous (based on some similarity in pottery and dubious genetic evidence).

 

[Kazanov]

I thought it was the ancient Japanese? But no, we don't have "proof" for that. Proof is something that proves, and this idea is really tenuous (based on some similarity in pottery and dubious genetic evidence).

Most local media talk about the chinese, the japs are more of a weaaboo meme than something about historic especulation.