1/On the western side of the Pyrenees live the most enigmatic European people, the Basques. Coming from ancient times and living in a difficult mountainous environment, they have a special culture with an ethnological and linguistic background distinct from the rest of Europeans. 2/ Their distinct identity and proximity to powerful Indo-European peoples (French, Spanish), who have attempted several times in the past to assimilate them, has forged them with the idea of constantly striving to preserve their own cultural characteristics.

1/ Rhaetic, like Etruscan, are two non-Indo-European languages, which were spoken in two neighboring regions, surrounded by Indo-European Celtic and Italic languages. Together with Lemnian, they belong to the same linguistic family called Tyrrhenic.
#Rhaetians 2/ The study of epigraphic texts of the three languages has demonstrated that they share common features in phonology, morphology and syntax. Their lexical correspondences are rare, which is probably due to a very early separation from the common protolanguage.

1/My view is that initially the Mycenaean world was divided into scattered, interconnected, autonomous communities. During the 16th century BC,a process of emergence of powerful centers and absorption by these new regional centers of the secondary settlements began. @StefanT2005
2/ Mycenae played an important role in the transformation of the Mycenaean world, as it evolved into a leading power in Argolid and mainland Greece in general. The warlords of Argolid were the protagonists in the conquest of Crete, the islands of the Archipelago and Miletus.

1/ The ship that sank at the end of the 14th century BC near the coast at Uluburun (SW Anatolia) is not a simple case of another wrecked merchant ship that was making a typical voyage sailing the sea routes of the Eastern Mediterranean of the Late Bronze Age.
#Uluburun
2/ Its cargo testifies to a special purpose sea voyage. It included a large quantity of copper ingots, numerous vessels and mainly exotic - precious objects intended for a very specific elite audience (carved ivory vessels and jewelry made of gold and semi-precious stones), 👉

1/ Preclassical Lemnos is shrouded in the mist of myth, constituting a special case for the ancient Greek world due to the presence of a strong pre-Greek population. Thus, mythological Lemnos is associated with various peoples.
#Lemnos #Sintians #Minyans 2/ The first inhabitants of Lemnos were the Sintians, a people of Thracian or Phrygian origin, who, according to legend, cared for and raised Hephaestus, who was exiled from Olympus. More generally, the Sintians are related to the Neolithic inhabitants of Poliochni and Myrina.

1/ In the past, there was a strong belief among members of the scientific community that the appearance of Minoan palaces was a "sudden" event in which various "ancestral" palatial patterns of the Near East, such as those at Mari and Alalakh, played an important role. #Minoans
2/ On the other hand, there were some scholars who argued that the appearance of the Minoan palaces was the creative result of a native genius craftsman. On a more logical basis, other scholars seek the emergence of palaces through the evolution of local architectural structures.

1/ The Aegean was a marginal area for the Egyptians of the Bronze Age, but nevertheless they had very good relations with its inhabitants. Archaeological and textual evidence demonstrates close trade, diplomatic and cultural contacts between the two lands, even royal marriages. 2/ However, where the close relationship between the two peoples is most vividly commemorated is in the representations of Aegean emissaries with offerings for the Egyptian king, which adorned the tombs of officials in the cemeteries of Thebes. The motif of the representations 👉

1/ Ancient Greek texts refer to a mythical king of Crete with divine origins and extraordinary abilities, Minos. Thucydides reports that Minos was the most ancient king of Crete, who dominated the entire Aegean with a powerful fleet (Minoan Thalassocracy). #Minoans 2/ He had the perspicacity to colonize the Aegean islands and defeat the pirates who "polluted" the seas, promoting peace and trade. However, he also had another aspect: he is presented as a wise legislator, gaining great fame and becoming after his death the judge of the dead.

1/ In 1903, during his excavations at Knossos, and specifically in a palatial area to the south of the Throne Room, Arthur Evans brought to light two elaborate Minoan figurines of a clearly ceremonial nature. He named the site of the figurines' discovery "Temple Repositories".


2/ Evans believed that he had discovered a Minoan palatial sanctuary with the two figurines, being made of faience, the larger of which represented a "Snake Goddess" and the smaller a priestess (he called her "Snake Priestess"), considering them to be votive objects.

[PART TWO] CHG/IRF-related ancestry. From the plateaus of the Caucasus and NW Zagros to the Aegean Archipelago.
#Caucasus #Aegean #Dimini 1/ Around 6200 BC the first signs of Neolithicization appear in the Caucasus, marking a new era for local human presence. Thus, domesticated animals and plants appear and technological innovations, such as pottery, are introduced. All of these elements have a foreign character.

[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 👉

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 👉

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 👉

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."

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.

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.

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 👉

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 👉

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.

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 👉

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, 👉