Threads about Aegean Prehistory and Protohistory, as well as presentation of cultural parallels outside the Aegean Basin.
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Dec 6 • 13 tweets • 6 min read
[PART ONE] Caucasus Hunter-Gether / Iran Neolithic Farmer lineage: When, where and through what processes did its formation take place. 1/ In 1976, a local Soviet archaeologist carried out excavations in the Satsurblia cave (western Georgia), bringing to light various layers of human habitation, the oldest of which date back to the Upper Palaeolithic (27 kya). The cave was a seasonal camp for mobile groups of 👉
Dec 3 • 10 tweets • 5 min read
1️⃣ The conclusions of a new archaeogenetic research confirm the theory of the descent of Proto-Indo-European speakers of an early form of the Greek language around 2250 BC (ΕΗ II / III). However, it is likely that their descent into the Helladic area took place a little earlier.
2️⃣ The earliest Helladic samples of steppe origin indicate this early descent (Theopetra - 2312 BC), in combination with the characteristics of the Proto-Greek language (centum). The Neolithic peoples are directly descended from the Yamnaya culture and passed into northern 👉
Nov 30 • 21 tweets • 8 min read
1/ In 1903, the Italian archaeologist Roberto Paribeni discovered inside an elite chamber tomb (Tomb 4) in the area of the royal Villa of Hagia Triada, Crete, one of the most important artifacts of Aegean art: the Hagia Triada sarcophagus. It is dated to around 1400 BC. #Minoans 2/ The sarcophagus was made of limestone and there are holes in its bottom. Its construction cannot be considered as something extraordinary and its shape is very irregular. However, its importance lies in the fact that it is decorated on all four sides 👉
Nov 27 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
1️⃣"Son of Laertes-what a fine, faithful wife you won! What good sense resided in your Penelope - how well Ikarios' daughter remembered you, Odysseus, the man she married! The fame of her great virtue will never die. The immortal gods will lift a song for all mankind, a glorious👉
👉song in praise of self-possessed Penelope. Not on this wise did the daughter of Tyndareus devise evil deeds and slay her wedded husband, and hateful shall the song regarding her be among men,and evil repute doth she bring upon all womankind, even upon her that doeth uprightly."
Nov 25 • 20 tweets • 8 min read
1/ The Pelasgians constitute one of the greatest chimeras of the modern scientific community, as the ancient Greek sources referring to this mysterious people hover on the borders of myth and a faded historical memory, each time motivated by various motives.
#Pelasgians 2/ Thus the Pelasgians are presented as the most important of a series of Pre-Greek or non-Greek tribes who lived in the distant past or even at the time when the various ancient accounts about them were written. Most often Pelasgians are used to describe all of these tribes.
Nov 18 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
1️⃣ Linguistic and archaeogenetic studies have shown that the Mycenaeans were the oldest ancestors of modern Greeks. However, by reading the Mycenaean texts we discover impressive evidence regarding the continuity of Hellenism from the LBA to the present day.
2️⃣ The tablet MY V 659 was found in the palace of Mycenae and records either the distribution of beds or bedclothes (δέμνια) by the palace to mainly female persons (workers?), or for deliveries of bedclothes by female workers to the palace. The given names are recorded in pairs.
Nov 15 • 19 tweets • 8 min read
1/ Regarding the function of the Phaistos disc, we have mentioned in an earlier thread that it was probably a literary text of a religious nature (some religious hymn or divine invocation), according to its particular characteristics and the possibility of capturing verse. 2/ However, we must be careful in every interpretive scenario and give due importance to a series of elements that come from the cultural environment in which the disc was created. Thus, the evidence arising from the archaeological context in which the disc was found 👉
Nov 12 • 23 tweets • 9 min read
1/ Attempting to determine who the Mycenaeans were, we could say that they were a Greek tribe that formed in central and southern Greece through the mixing of Proto-Greek groups, which descended from their northern cradle to the south, and a strong local Pre-Greek population. 2/ Genetic studies have shown that the steppe ancestry of the Mycenaeans was amounting to 0-30%, while the remaining genome includes ancestry originating mainly from the early Anatolian Neolithic Farmers who brought the Neolithic package to the Aegean, as well as a small 👉
Nov 11 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
1️⃣ Mycenaean texts from Pylos and Knossos testify that the Mycenaean palaces gave particular importance to the breeding of equines, which were used either in war to pull chariots, or as symbols of prestige. Some of them were probably also used for agricultural work. #Hippos
2️⃣ The horse in particular, which had a special importance to the Mycenaeans, was brought to Greece after 2500 BC by the PIE groups, bearers of the ancestor of the Greek language. Studies have shown that the type of horse known at that time was a small-bodied type of horse.
Nov 9 • 17 tweets • 7 min read
1/Around 2200 BC the era of the so-called "international spirit" collapses and the Aegean communities that had benefited from their participation in the Mediterranean trade networks are now faced with an unprecedented crisis, experiencing destructions and intense transformations. 2/ The world that emerged had completely different characteristics from the past, but in some regions of Greece the new reality was considerably more complex. In the western Peloponnese (Olympia and Andravida) and sporadically in several sites in southern and central Greece 👉
Nov 3 • 23 tweets • 10 min read
1/We often refer to the impressive artifacts with which the first kings of Mycenae were buried in Grave Circle B, marking the beginning of the Mycenaean era. But what was Grave Circle B, what secrets does it hide and what were the characteristics and habits of those buried in it? 2/ Grave Circle B was excavated by Greek archaeologists in the early 1950s on a small raised earthen mound a few meters outside the Acropolis of Mycenae. Inside an enclosure ca 28 meters in diameter that resembled the corresponding one of the later Grave Circle A, 👉
Oct 29 • 18 tweets • 7 min read
1/ In various Linear B' texts, a strange term appears: ta-ra-si-ja /tala(n)sia/. Sometimes it is associated with the textile industry (Pylos, Knossos, Mycenae, Thebes?), and sometimes with the working of bronze (Pylos) and the production of chariot wheels (Knossos). #tarasija 2/ Thus, the mycenaeologists concluded that this was a production system organized directly by the central administration, in which the palace distributed a weighed quantity of raw materials (wool and bronze) to regional workshops that processed it and then produced 👉
Oct 25 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
(1) Recent excavations at the Minoan palace of Archanes revealed an impressive Gate Sanctuary outside the main entrance of the complex, including four altars and two bases for double axes that framed a platform, as well as two more altars, a large elongated one and a stepped one. (2) During the classical era, Gate Sanctuaries were built in honor of a deity, who was associated with the protection that provided to a particular area, while in Crete, Eileithyia Prothyraea was known, a quintessentially Cretan deity, who was associated with the cult of Artemis.
Oct 8 • 25 tweets • 9 min read
1/Although the information about the Mycenaean religion is clearly less than the corresponding Minoan one, in recent years the archaeological data has increased significantly, providing the possibility, in combination with the Linear B texts, to have a fairly informative picture. 2/ A controversial issue is the origin and development of Mycenaean religion mainly due to the lack of evidence of religious practices during the early Mycenaean period. However, the archaeological dig has brought to light ritual environments 👉
Oct 2 • 14 tweets • 6 min read
1/ The Mycenaean bureaucracy was a crucial tool of administrative and financial control of a centralized palatial power. The Linear B' tablets archive of Pylos presents us with a remarkable picture of the control exercised by the palace over the Messinian territory. #Pylos
2/A first observation from the textual evidence is that the Pylian state, although it seems that it monitored the economic activity in the entire territory, controlled only a limited part of it,which testifies to an efficient bureaucracy and concurrently a weak central authority.
Sep 29 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
1/ Recent scientific analyzes of the structural and palaeographic features of Linear A' have led to an impressive conclusion: the texts of Linear A' do not reflect only one language or dialect, as is observed with Linear B' which reflects "koine" Mycenaean Greek. #LinearA 2/ The structural features of Linear A' texts demonstrate local variations, concealing the existence of dialectal or linguistic differentiations between Cretan regions, raising the question of whether the so-called Minoan language represented one or more languages or dialects.
Sep 23 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
1/ The Minoan libation formula is a field of intense debate among scholars of prehistoric Aegean scripts, having attracted attention from a very early date. As we have already mentioned, its connection with the proto-writing of Archanes is a point of doubt.
2/Wanting to outline the libation formula, we could say that it is a kind of text, which in its complete form has 8 words and always the word (J)A-SA-SA-RA-ME, while it is recorded only on objects, such as stone offering tables, cups,altars, ladles etc,but never on clay tablets.
Sep 21 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
1️⃣ The first examples of writing in the Aegean appear in Crete with the Archanes script at the end of the 3rd millennium BC. These are pictographs on a small number of seals, made of ivory or steatite, which were found in elite family tombs in the Cemetery at Fourni Archanes.
2️⃣ Although there are some objections as to whether the Archanes script is indeed a writing, the majority of scholars consider it to be a precursor phase of the later Cretan scripts. Several elements of evidence support the fact that the Cretan hieroglyphs gave rise 👉
Sep 12 • 14 tweets • 6 min read
1/ According to the archaeological surveys, Troy appears to have been one of the most important regional centers of the Eastern Mediterranean during the Late Bronze Age. It might well be compared in area, population, and wealth with the great trade port of Ugarit. #Troy 2/ Nevertheless, the big difference with Ugarit was that it had a crucial role in the political and diplomatic developments of the Near East as a close ally of the Hittites, while on the contrary Troy seems to have been an important city for the Hittites that merited 👉
Aug 20 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
1️⃣ In the 1950s, a very interesting finding was discovered by chance in Dohnsen, Lower Saxony, which immediately aroused the interest of the scientific community. It was a bronze cup with exceptional artistic features both in its shape and decoration.
2️⃣ The bronze cup referred to Aegean patterns and the first ascertainments were that it is a artefact that was a product of long-distance transit trade between the Aegean and local communities within the context of the circulation of metal objects during the Late Bronze Age.
Aug 14 • 15 tweets • 7 min read
1/ According to the Hittite texts the Myc warlord Attarsiya carried out military operations in Anatolia and Cyprus around 1400 BC. We don't know if Attarsiya was the king of Mycenae, however he must have been an important member of the most powerful royal family of the Myc world. 2/ However, what was the visitor seeing when he was coming to Mycenae at the time of Attarsiya? He certainly was not seeing the majestic palatial Mycenae with the large building complexes and the huge walls, which were creations of newer periods.