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Hermahai

@hermahai

Dec 5

1/Sicily has been a major trade crossroads since the Neolithic era,through which sea routes passed, connecting the peoples of the Eastern Mediterranean with the West and vice versa. The result of this event was the long-term habitation of the Sicilian land by a mosaic of peoples.

2/ Thus, when the Greek colonists arrived on the island after the mid-8th century BC, they found three population groups: the Sicilians in the E, the Sicanians in the C-W, and the Elymians in the NW. The origin of these peoples has been a subject of controversy since antiquity.

3/ The literary tradition has handed down to us several contradictory narratives, referring to mass migrations, often in the form of mythical tales. The best-known mythological tale is Minos' pursuit of the fugitive Daedalus in Sicily and the founding of Cretan cities there.

Read 16 tweets

Hermahai

@hermahai

Nov 25

https://twitter.com/hermahai/status/1992688029610463440

1/ Athens has been associated since antiquity with the city's patron goddess, Athena. However, although most people believe that the city was named after the goddess, perhaps the opposite was actually the case. The two words have a common root that is likely of pre-Greek origin.

https://twitter.com/hermahai/status/1992688029610463440

2/ But let's start from the beginning. Long before the city of Athens became the dominant center of the region, its name was Actaea and it belonged to a wider community, Att(h)is < Attica. The inhabitants of Attica at that time were not Greek-speaking (pre-Greek substrate).

3/ Several scholars argue that both the word Actaea and Attica, and the word Athéne (Ἀθήνη), derive from the word Atthis through corruption. Athéne is the common root from which the word Ἀθῆναι and the word Ἀθηνᾶ came. So both the city and the goddess have pre-Greek origins.

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Hermahai

@hermahai

Nov 23

1/ During the same period (1250/40 BC) that the major fortification works were taking place in Mycenae and Tiryns, and the hill of Midea was being rebuilt with new palatial buildings and Cyclopean fortifications, a new fortified palatial settlement was founded on the Acropolis.

2/ But who were the ones who built the new Mycenaean citadel Athens? The answer lies in the question of what purpose its building served. In my opinion, the Athenian elites had neither the financial means nor the know-how to construct such a project.

3/ So the project was designed and financed by a powerful Mycenaean actor outside Attica and he - according to the available evidence - was in Mycenae. The stakes were the limitation of Thebes' influence in Attica and in particular the exploitation of the mines of Lavrion.

Read 11 tweets

Hermahai

@hermahai

Oct 20

1/ The Citadel of Dymaean Wall at the NW end of the Peloponnese has a special place in Aegean prehistoric studies, as it was previously believed to be proof (along with the Isthmus Wall) of the existence of a northern threat (Dorians) to the core of the Mycenaean palatial world.

2/ Recent field study has placed its presence on a more realistic basis. First of all, the human presence on the Hill of Kalogria where the Citadel is built bears evidence of human presence, residential remains and pottery, dating back to the end of the 4th millennium BC.

3/ The choice of location is due to its great strategic importance, at the intersection of the land and the sea, constituting a significant defensive stronghold and an ideal point of surveillance of the sea routes of the Ionian Sea, already since the end of the 3rd millennium BC.

Read 16 tweets

Hermahai

@hermahai

Oct 9

https://twitter.com/lefineder/status/1975325057225261363

1/ The Trojan War, as presented to us by the Homeric Iliad, is nothing more than a literary text with an epic-mythological character that captures in a single narrative various memories of events of the Mycenaean past, altered by time.
#Ahhiyawa #Homer #Troy

https://twitter.com/lefineder/status/1975325057225261363

2/The main body of the myth of Trojan War - the gathering of the Achaean warlords under the leadership of the strongest of them, the king of Mycenae, and the naval campaign in the Troad - constitutes the only connection between the historical background and the Homeric narrative.

3/ During the palatial period, the Mycenaean world was structured into powerful local houses that recognized the supremacy of the Great King of the Achaeans, who had his throne in Mycenae and was equal to the powerful rulers of the Eastern Mediterranean (Hatti, Egypt etc).

Read 10 tweets

Hermahai

@hermahai

Aug 25

1/ One of the biggest questions of Minoan archaeology is the existence of two scripts, which accur simultaneously in the same palatial centers (Old Palaces) or even in the same rooms: Cretan Hieroglyphics (2100-1700 BC) and Linear A' (1800-1450 BC).
#Minoan_Scripts

2/ This fact is not an unusual occurrence for the Eastern Mediterranean, as in Egypt and Anatolia two or more languages were used to serve different purposes. However, in Minoan Crete the coexistence of the two scripts for a period of about a century served the same purpose: 👉

👉 the recording of administrative texts, mainly of a financial - accounting nature. What is the reason for this simultaneous presence of two different scripts in Crete? Does this fact conceal some linguistic differentiation between groups of the local population?

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