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History Forum / General / Ancient History / January 2006Greeks vs Phoenecians
Both Greeks and Phoenecians colonized extensively throughout the Mediterranean world. They traded with eachother. Fought against eachother at times, and other times fought against another enemy. Yet the Greeks produced intellectual giants and their contributions to philosophy, science and other disciplines laid the foundations for the Western civilization. On the other hand, I know of Phoenecians contributing little in this area. Have there ever been any studies done that provided any answers as to why the Greeks were special? Thanks. > Both Greeks and Phoenecians colonized extensively throughout the > Mediterranean world. They traded with eachother. Fought against eachother [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > > Thanks. Loads. All involving the word 'blonde' in every sentence. > > Both Greeks and Phoenecians colonized extensively throughout the > > Mediterranean world. They traded with eachother. Fought against eachother [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > > Loads. All involving the word 'blonde' in every sentence. Not wishing to be so rude as to rename the thread (dont know how to anyway) shall instead simply pick up the strand about the phoenicians and run with it. So ...ignoring the blonde JOKE above.... Were the phonecians Semitic speakers. Assume they were. Hearing recently about how a third of the proto-Germanic language is of proto-Semitic origin caused one to think of Hannibal and the Carthaginians (descendents of the phonecians) but then to discount them as being too late an influence for Proto-Germanic but possibly there is in their control of spain an indication of the strong capacity to take a relationship that exists between spain and holland (as shown in the middle of the last millenium) and the possibility that earlier phonecians did the same and made contact with the dirty huns (oops) in holland. Is it possible the Germans are a third * for phonecian then? *no NOT 'a quarter'. I think it has a bit to do with the influence the Greeks had on the early Romans who eventually wrote most of the history of the era. >I think it has a bit to do with the influence the Greeks had on the > early Romans who eventually wrote most of the history of the era. And terminated Carthage with extreme prejudice. > Yet the Greeks produced intellectual giants and their contributions to > philosophy, science and other disciplines laid the foundations for the [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > Have there ever been any studies done that provided any answers as to why > the Greeks were special? You may be underestimating the Phoenicians. Consider the alphabet -- where would the Greeks be without that little contribution? Also ship design. Probably a great deal about the conventions of trade as well. Also: The Phoenicians were much more exposed to the dangers of the mainland empires than the Greeks. > > Yet the Greeks produced intellectual giants and their contributions to > > philosophy, science and other disciplines laid the foundations for the [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > Also: The Phoenicians were much more exposed to the dangers of the mainland > empires than the Greeks. Plus the Phoenicians were in numbers less then the Greeks and the Phoenicians left less literature behind. Would it not be great if we found a library from Carthage.  SignatureWhen I went to the zoo as a kid, I could see the animals big as they were close. Today you have to really concentrate just to find them and if you do find them often they are too distant to see them. Observations of Bernard - No 93 > Both Greeks and Phoenecians colonized extensively throughout the > Mediterranean world. They traded with eachother. Fought against [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > > Thanks. They didn't get terminated. This made it much easier for them to pass on their culture. > Both Greeks and Phoenecians colonized extensively throughout the > Mediterranean world. They traded with eachother. Fought against [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > Have there ever been any studies done that provided any answers as to why > the Greeks were special? The Phoenicians didn't have theatres so the common people were not inspired to be as creative as the Greeks who invented them. The Phoenicians didn't have symposia either so the common people didn't have a chance to talk about philosophy over a drink. The Phoenicians didn't have Platos Academy or Aristotle's Lyceum so the common people didn't have anywhere to advance their studies. > Thanks. > > Both Greeks and Phoenecians colonized extensively throughout the > > Mediterranean world. They traded with eachother. Fought against [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > > > Thanks. Another point is Plato's(?) that the Greeks invented nothing but were merely very good at adapting what evry other culture had invented. The most probable reason for this however is a good one. The Greeks had no priest caste. None. Nada. Zip. Op Tue, 24 Jan 2006 04:38:47 +0000, bracht Agamemnon het volgende te berde: > The Phoenicians didn't have theatres so the common people were not inspired > to be as creative as the Greeks who invented them. The Phoenicians didn't > have symposia either so the common people didn't have a chance to talk about > philosophy over a drink. The Phoenicians didn't have Platos Academy or > Aristotle's Lyceum so the common people didn't have anywhere to advance > their studies. Perhaps you overstate the benefit to the 'common' people. After all, most people were women or slaves or foreigners. They wouldn't be entering the Academy in any significant numbers. >> Both Greeks and Phoenecians colonized extensively throughout the >> Mediterranean world. They traded with eachother. Fought against [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > Platos Academy or Aristotle's Lyceum so the common people didn't have > anywhere to advance their studies. And how much of this Greek culture would you have known about if they had been terminated at the time of Carthage? Very little. What you would have had is some ruins and a vague idea that somebody did something there. >> Thanks. > Both Greeks and Phoenecians colonized extensively throughout the > Mediterranean world. They traded with eachother. Fought against eachother > at times, and other times fought against another enemy. > Yet the Greeks produced intellectual giants and their contributions to > philosophy, science and other disciplines laid the foundations for the > Western civilization. On the other hand, I know of Phoenecians contributing > little in this area. > Have there ever been any studies done that provided any answers as to why > the Greeks were special? You mean Phoenicians invented nothing of interest but a phonetic written language. I can see that. As to the Greeks and intellectual giants ... at best they considered themselves Hellenes. There were a few places in what we call Greece (Aggie! think before you reply. Read who is posting.) where some people made some memorable accomplishments. The greatest accomplishment may have been not the discoveries but the fact they were preserved and studied in separate gymnasia rather than in 'cults' that died with the person. One of the hardest to explain things is why the Greeks had so many new ideas to quickly. Perhaps they were not new at all. Consider perhaps they were either old or reinvented and what the western Hellenes did was preserve the ideas independent of the person who expounded the idea. So the great invention (read carefully, Aggie) was not the individual invention but the gymnasium, the _university_, the impersonal means of preserving ideas independent of the person who promoted the idea. As a parallel, Thomas Edison is remembered for many individual inventions but his most valuable invention was the research institute. He, personally, invented only a few things. His idea of bringing dozens of inventors to one place to solve problems produced the majority of inventions we commonly attribute to him. So rather than actually having all those new ideas at one time as we commonly attribute to the Greeks perhaps they simply invented a means of preserving them and building upon them. In which case they invented colleges and universities which is much more important than any single idea or any dozen ideas as hundreds of thousands of ideas have come from the invention of single places of scholarship. SignatureThe most common accent in Israel is Brooklyn. -- The Iron Webmaster, 3562 nizkor http://www.giwersworld.org/nizkook/nizkook.phtml Mission Accomplished http://www.giwersworld.org/opinion/mission.phtml a12 >> Both Greeks and Phoenecians colonized extensively throughout the >> Mediterranean world. They traded with eachother. Fought against [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > You mean Phoenicians invented nothing of interest but a phonetic written > language. I can see that. Except it wasn't phonetic. It didn't have any vowels and the Phoenicians didn't even invent it anyway. It (proto-Siaitic) was brought to them from Egypt by a descendent of Greek colonists called Phoenix after whom they were later known. > As to the Greeks and intellectual giants ... at best they considered > themselves Hellenes. There were a few places in what we call Greece [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > ideas to quickly. Perhaps they were not new at all. Consider perhaps they > were either old or reinvented and what the western The Phoenicians, Babylonians and Egyptians thought they had life the universe and everything sussed so they stopped inventing new things and new forms of mathematics. The Greeks on the other hand were always arguing over what was right and that led them to resort to providing proofs for all of their philosophical and mathematical theorems. Thus Pythagoras proved his theorem about right angled triangles whereas people before him took it as gospel that it worked. After him Archimedes proved that the value of Pi was what it was and that the area of a circle was Pi r^2 by inventing the theory of infinitesimals or calculus so no one could argue with him. The only thing was that no one ever came up with a decent theory to explain Chemistry until 200 years ago. It was only after that happened that everything cascaded and within 100 years we had quantum theory which provided the proof. > Hellenes did was preserve the ideas independent of the person who > expounded the idea. So the great invention (read carefully, Aggie) was not [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > idea or any dozen ideas as hundreds of thousands of ideas have come from > the invention of single places of scholarship. ---- snip ---- >After him Archimedes proved that the value of Pi was >what it was and that the area of a circle was Pi r^2 by inventing the theory >of infinitesimals or calculus so no one could argue with him. I'm sure you could have contrived to have argued with him. :-) Apart from that. The method that was used by Archimedes is described in http://itech.fgcu.edu/faculty/clindsey/mhf4404/archimedes/archimedes.html Archimedes used an iterative approach which converged to the value of Pi if one took an infinite number of approximations. That each step got successively smaller may allow you to describe the final steps as infinitesimal but that is not the same as saying that it was the same as the infinitesimal calculus. The nearest modern mathematical equivalent is the idea of the convergence of an infinite series to a value. As I am sure you already know, it is generally accepted that the infinitesimal calculus was independently invented by both Newton and Liebnitz. --- snip --- Eric Stevens >>> Both Greeks and Phoenecians colonized extensively throughout the >>> Mediterranean world. They traded with eachother. Fought against >>> eachother at times, and other times fought against another enemy. >>> Yet the Greeks produced intellectual giants and their contributions >>> to philosophy, science and other disciplines laid the foundations for >>> the Western civilization. On the other hand, I know of Phoenecians >>> contributing little in this area. >>> Have there ever been any studies done that provided any answers as to >>> why the Greeks were special? >> You mean Phoenicians invented nothing of interest but a phonetic >> written language. I can see that. > Except it wasn't phonetic. It didn't have any vowels and the Phoenicians > didn't even invent it anyway. It (proto-Siaitic) was brought to them > from Egypt by a descendent of Greek colonists called Phoenix after whom > they were later known. I do not see lacking vowels as all that important. Take English spoken today (even just in the British Isles) and although agreement on the consonant sounds is complete, the disagreement on vowels sounds is almost total. If there had been a deliberate effort to phoneticize the written language there would have been no way to come to an agreement on the vowels. Of course who might have actually done it first is always open to speculation but in many things we have seen credit going not to the inventor but to the popularizer. However I am not aware of traceable evidence to an Egyptian origin. SignatureZionists are not human. It is long passed pretending they are. -- The Iron Webmaster, 3567 nizkor http://www.giwersworld.org/nizkook/nizkook.phtml Mission Accomplished http://www.giwersworld.org/opinion/mission.phtml a12 Part of it was independent thought and not afraid to express it. Ancient Greeks focused on virtue not vices. Knowledge and money wasn't what they were searching for but wisdom,truth and honor. Ideals that are missing from today's society.... > Part of it was independent thought and not afraid to express it. > Ancient Greeks focused on virtue not vices. Knowledge and money wasn't > what they were searching for but wisdom,truth and honor. Ideals that > are missing from today's society.... Well, at least a few of them may, some of the time. They were kind of exceptional though. > > Part of it was independent thought and not afraid to express it. > > Ancient Greeks focused on virtue not vices. Knowledge and money wasn't > > what they were searching for but wisdom,truth and honor. Ideals that > > are missing from today's society.... HEY! MANNERS!! Oh for an online rubber truncheon... > Part of it was independent thought and not afraid to express it. > Ancient Greeks focused on virtue not vices. Knowledge and money wasn't > what they were searching for but wisdom,truth and honor. Ideals that > are missing from today's society.... The Phonecians were the business majors and MBA's of their times. Spending every day making deals, improving efficiency, ripping off the unwary, keeping books, building wealth. No time for speculation or smelling the flowers when there's money to be made. Time is money. The Greeks were the Liberal Arts majors of their day. Their training was not so much "how to do" but "how to think." Why, they would ask, are things are the way they are? To a Greek, if you didn't have a theory about just about everything you just weren't in the game. There are pros and cons for being raised either way. I would not be too quick to say one of the societies was better than the other any more than one degree is better or one person is better. Just two different ways so spend one's time, that's all. But it does explain why all the creativity came from the Greeks. puttster > > Part of it was independent thought and not afraid to express it. I'm fond of the idea that named authors made a big difference. Sure, the Egyptians and the Hebrews and to a limited extent even the Akkadians had named authors, but the Egyptian and Hebrew ones tended to be Great Revered Sages who embodied the Wisdom of Their Cultures (in Egypt, most of the names-attached texts are "instructions" rather like, and in one case a direct source for, the book of Proverbs, and routinely named for famous guys from the Old Kingdom). The Greek ones were people you could argue with, leading to the situation you describe. Yeah, the Greeks tried to do the Great Revered Sage thing with Homer, but by the time they thought of it they already had Hesiod and some proto-philosophers disagreeing with him. And I don't think their hearts were ever all that much in it. You have leftists like Euripides saying "That doesn't make sense!" and you have conservatives like Pindar saying "That's irreverent!" and basically the whole concept of Homeric literalism had to wait for a modern sha kook to come up with it. I would like to go on from this to comparative talk, but that would almost certainly sabotage this thread, so I won't. Sigh. > The Phonecians were the business majors and MBA's of their times. > Spending every day making deals, improving efficiency, ripping off > the unwary, keeping books, building wealth. No time for speculation > or smelling the flowers when there's money to be made. Time is money. Hmmm. No matter what your political views are, I just *bet* you're used to calling media that challenge those views "biased". Did it ever occur to you that you're buying into the Greek's and Roman's descriptions of their main competitors here? Not what I'd call neutral sources! > The Greeks were the Liberal Arts majors of their day. Eh? These Greeks you're talking about were busy trading, pirating, and colonising like mad. Don't sound too dreamy to me. > Their training > was not so much "how to do" but "how to think." Why, they would ask, > are things are the way they are? To a Greek, if you didn't have a > theory about just about everything you just weren't in the game. This describes the new-fangled Greeks of Euripides' time. See, for example, Aristophanes' <The Clouds> for what sensible traditional Greeks thought of such stuff. We still use the word "sophist", which was the name for people who *did* this sort of training, to mean "person who makes a bogus argument", more or less. Anyway, I want to put forward another notion. The Phoenicians originally came from basically half a dozen major cities. Now, I'm prepared to believe that at the relevant time several of these - certainly Tyre and Sidon, perhaps also Beirut and Byblos and I suppose *maybe* also the others - were Really Big For Their Time. But the Greeks came from a whole lot *more* cities. Far as I know, the pattern repeats in the colonial era, though at least Tunisia gave the Phoenicians something they'd never had before, a hinterland. I don't know what the comparative demographics are, and don't know if anyone does, but isn't it possible there were simply *more* Greeks? Joe Bernstein SignatureJoe Bernstein, writer joe@sfbooks.com <http://www.panix.com/~josephb/> "She suited my mood, Sarah Mondleigh did - it was like having a kitten in the room, like a vote for unreason." <Glass Mountain>, Cynthia Voigt >> > Part of it was independent thought and not afraid to express it. > Anyway, I want to put forward another notion. The Phoenicians > originally came from basically half a dozen major cities. Now, I'm [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > if anyone does, but isn't it possible there were simply *more* > Greeks? All right lest see what Isocrates has to say. "[47] After he (Evagoras) had taken over the government of the city (Salamis), which had been reduced to a state of barbarism and, because it was ruled by Phoenicians, was neither hospitable to the Greeks nor acquainted with the arts, nor possessed of a trading-port or harbor, Evagoras remedied all these defects and, besides, acquired much additional territory, surrounded it all with new walls and built triremes, and with other construction so increased the city that it was inferior to none of the cities of Greece. And he caused it to become so powerful that many who formerly despised it, now feared it. [48] And yet it is not possible that cities should take on such increase unless there are those who govern them by such principles as Evagoras had and as I endeavored to describe a little before. In consequence I am not afraid of appearing to exaggerate in speaking of the qualities of the man, but rather lest I greatly fall short of doing justice to his deeds. [49] For who could do justice to a man of such natural gifts, a man who not only increased the importance of his own city, but advanced the whole region surrounding the island to a regime of mildness and moderation? Before Evagoras gained the throne the inhabitants were so hostile to strangers and fierce that they considered the best rulers to be those who treated the Greeks in the most cruel fashion. [50] At present, however, they have undergone so great a change that they strive with one another to see who shall be regarded as most friendly to the Greeks, and the majority of them take their wives from us and from them beget children, and they have greater pleasure in owning Greek possessions and observing Greek institutions than in their own, and more of those who occupy themselves with the liberal arts and with education in general now dwell in these regions than in the communities in which they formerly used to live. And for all these changes, no one could deny that Evagoras is responsible. " > Joe Bernstein >>> > Part of it was independent thought and not afraid to express it. > [quoted text clipped - 44 lines] > >> Joe Bernstein From my perspective, it seems that the hinterlands of Greece and Phoenicia determined their character. Phoenician cities were independent but easily overrun and subjugated by old and powerful cultural empires. They were incorporated into each succeeding superpower in the region. Their culture was a mere derivative of them. Greece, however, was not conquered until Macedonia (itself a cultural derivative of Greece) became powerful. Greek culture was Indo-European derived, being more warlike and more democratic. Their culture was one of proud independence in personal as well as national matters. RodneyK RodneyK PHOENICIAN ANTHROPOMORPHIC MAPS These maps were formed by configuring the virtual body of a god or goddess over the area to be mapped. The name of each part of that body became the name of the area / feature under that part. This technique produced a scale 1:1 map-without-paper with place names that automatically indicated their approximate location relative to all other places that were named in the same manner. APHRODITE The body-part map of Aphrodite is in north Africa. Her face [PaNim] was lost during the 3rd Punic war. The rest of her is still there. She is looking backwards over her right shoulder, so her CRaniuM is reversed at Morocco. It still has a Fez. Her chin [SaNTir] is also reversed at Tunisia. The Atlas mountains [anatomical atlas: first cervical vertebra] support her head. Her hair [Sa3aRa] is the Sahara desert. Her backbone [SHiDRa] is the Gulf of Sidra. Her heart [LeV] is Libya. Her breast [SHaD] is Chad. Her narrow [TZaR] waist is Misr / Mitzraim. Her side [TZaD] is Sudan. Her left [SMoL] leg is Somalia. Her navel was at NuBia, but the Greeks moved it to Wast and changed its name to Thebes (as in Semitic TaBor). Today it is called Luxor / Karnak. Representing the letter aiyin as 3 with an ancient velar G/K-sound, CaNa3aN was her Latin cunnus (and a reversal of Greek gyneco-). Its name changed to YiSRa@eL at the time Ya3aKoV / Jacob "fought with god and men" [Gen 32:29]. This represented a change in sovereignty from Africa to Asia minor. YiSRa@eL is that body part that gives @oSHeR = delight to god when it is YaSHaR = straight, upright. HERMES The body-part map of Hermes is in Asia minor. kHermes [kHoR = hole + MoSnaim = waist] lived at Mt. kHermon before he moved Mt. Olympus [Greek omphalos = navel]. Later his name was reversed to become Latin Mercury. His head [RoSH] was at Rus, south of Belarus. Its name changed to the Ukraine [Gk kranion = cranium]. His throat [GaRGeret] is Georgia. His left shoulder [KaSaF] is the Caspian sea. His right arm/hand is being washed [NaTiLat] at Anatolia. His upper arm [Sanskrit irma] at Armenia, biceps [Greek pontiki = muscle] at Pontus, elbow [KiFooF yaD] at Cappadocia, wrist [m'FaReK] at Phrygia, and thumb [BoHeN] at Bithynia were in Anatolia. His heart [Greek cardia] became Kurdistan. His narrow [TZaR] waist is Syria and his navel [Sanskrit nabhila] reverses to LeBaNon. South of Lebanon is the male member [Greek phallus] named Philistina / Palestine. See CaNa3aN / YiSRa@eL above. His buttocks [YeReKH] is Iraq. The letter shin in his thigh [shin-vav-kuf] had a dental T-sound so the reversal of TVK sounded like KVT or Kuwait. His knee [BeReKH] is partially reversed in Bahrain. His right [Y'MiN] foot is at Yemen. For more information about this type of anthropomorphic map, join the BPMaps discussion group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BPMaps/ The maps of Hermes & Aphrodite and similar maps of the creator of the Blackfoot indians (The Old Man) and his wife (The Old Woman) are described in the databases at the BPMaps website. Look for message # 7 entitled "Attributes of body part maps." ciao, Israel "izzy" Cohen BPMaps moderator Sicily, Greece and Crete ================== Arms and the Man In "John Donne and the Anthropomorphic Map," Noam Flinker wrote: http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/french/as-sa/ASSA-No8/NF3.html >> Renaissance commonplaces about the connections between the microcosm and the macrocosm take on greater relevance when read in the context of what Gandelman called "The Mediterranean as a Sea of Sin" in light of an anthropomorphic map by Opicinus de Canistris. He explains: "One sees 'the woman', mulier, whose head and nose constitute the coastline of North Africa (present Morocco and the Cape of Tanger), thrusting her nose toward the ear of 'the man', vir, whose head is constituted by Spain and whose armed hands correspond to the Italian peninsula and Greece. ... << The drawing at http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/LMwebpages/230A.html includes a map that is very similar to the one described above. SICILY / TRINACRIA Sicily was colonized by both the Greeks and Phoenicians at about the same time. There is a history of Sicily at http://sights.seindal.dk/sight/613_Trinacria.html but it does not mention the fact that Sicily was previously named Trinacria. I think Trinacria is a Greco-Phoenician term: Greek treìs = 3 + Semitic nun-kuf-resh NiKa:R = to jab, poke, pierce. Therefore, the weapon in his right hand is a trident, the business end of which is the triangular Sicily. Legs and the Woman The symbol of Sicily is the Triskele, a strange figure composed of a head of woman from which three human legs are folded at the knee. Its possible origins (Greek, Phoenician, Minoan) are mentioned at http://www.csssstrinakria.org/tringlis.htm A Sinister Reversal It seems that names associated with the left side of the body are reversed to differentiate them from names associated with the right side of the body. GREECE Southern Greece is a "network of islands". Greece, a toponym the Greeks themselves do not use, is a reversal of Semitic samekh-resh-gimel SaRaG = knitted. Therefore, he has a (weighted) net in his left hand. CRETE Crete is a reversal of TaR[K]is = a small shield. This word was borrowed into Talmudic Hebrew from Greek as taf-resh-yod-samekh TaR[K]iS = shield. This word evolved into English target, perhaps from the practice of hanging a shield from the branch of a tree and shooting arrows at it? Tetragrammaton For the equivalence of Hebrew yod, Greek K, and Latin CR, see http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/ABOUT-WORDS/2004-03/1080368844 Retarius http://www.pbs.org/wnet/warriorchallenge/print/print_gladiators_profile. html The Retarius ... would use his lead-weighted net to ensare an opponent ... and then move in for the kill with his trident. ... If his cast missed its object, the Retarius could retrieve it via an attached cord. To see a picture of a gladiator with trident, net and shield, go to http://itsa.ucsf.edu/~snlrc/encyclopaedia_romana/gladiators/retiarius.ht ml Needless to say, Poseidon/Neptune was a very important god around the Mediterranean basin. He customarily held a trident in his right hand. Fatherland to Motherland: An ancient sex-change operation OK. I must admit that treating a female Europa as a Retiarius complete with trident, net and shield is very uncomfortable. So, let's assume that "she" really was Neptune and reverse his name: nePtuNe => eNutPen => euRoPa, changing the N to R, dropping the t that cannot be easily pronounced before a P, and dropping the (now) final n. English does not tolerate a TP combination except in concatenated words like breastplate, bulletproof, dustpan, footprint, marketplace, nitpick, outpatient, rustproof, and saltpeter. ciao, izzy Israel "izzy" Cohen, BPMaps moderator http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BPMaps Sicily, Greece and Crete ================== Arms and the Man In "John Donne and the Anthropomorphic Map," Noam Flinker wrote: http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/french/as-sa/ASSA-No8/NF3.html >> Renaissance commonplaces about the connections between the microcosm and the macrocosm take on greater relevance when read in the context of what Gandelman called "The Mediterranean as a Sea of Sin" in light of an anthropomorphic map by Opicinus de Canistris. He explains: "One sees 'the woman', mulier, whose head and nose constitute the coastline of North Africa (present Morocco and the Cape of Tanger), thrusting her nose toward the ear of 'the man', vir, whose head is constituted by Spain and whose armed hands correspond to the Italian peninsula and Greece. ... << The drawing at http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/LMwebpages/230A.html includes a map that is very similar to the one described above. SICILY / TRINACRIA Sicily was colonized by both the Greeks and Phoenicians at about the same time. There is a history of Sicily at http://sights.seindal.dk/sight/613_Trinacria.html but it does not mention the fact that Sicily was previously named Trinacria. I think Trinacria is a Greco-Phoenician term: Greek treìs = 3 + Semitic nun-kuf-resh NiKa:R = to jab, poke, pierce. Therefore, the weapon in his right hand is a trident, the business end of which is the triangular Sicily. It is simply three headlands. Legs and the Woman The symbol of Sicily is the Triskele, a strange figure composed of a head of woman from which three human legs are folded at the knee. Its possible origins (Greek, Phoenician, Minoan) are mentioned at http://www.csssstrinakria.org/tringlis.htm Skele is club. The modelling as legs is but artistic licence. see http://home.iprimus.com.au/o8ty/proto-aeolic.htm A Sinister Reversal It seems that names associated with the left side of the body are reversed to differentiate them from names associated with the right side of the body. GREECE Southern Greece is a "network of islands". Greece, a toponym the Greeks themselves do not use, is a reversal of Semitic samekh-resh-gimel SaRaG = knitted. Therefore, he has a (weighted) net in his left hand. Kreten dikte means net. CRETE Crete is a reversal of TaR[K]is = a small shield. This word was borrowed into Talmudic Hebrew from Greek as taf-resh-yod-samekh TaR[K]iS = shield. This word evolved into English target, perhaps from the practice of hanging a shield from the branch of a tree and shooting arrows at it? Tetragrammaton For the equivalence of Hebrew yod, Greek K, and Latin CR, see http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/ABOUT-WORDS/2004-03/1080368844 Retarius http://www.pbs.org/wnet/warriorchallenge/print/print_gladiators_profile. html The Retarius ... would use his lead-weighted net to ensare an opponent ... and then move in for the kill with his trident. ... If his cast missed its object, the Retarius could retrieve it via an attached cord. To see a picture of a gladiator with trident, net and shield, go to http://itsa.ucsf.edu/~snlrc/encyclopaedia_romana/gladiators/retiarius.ht ml Needless to say, Poseidon/Neptune was a very important god around the Mediterranean basin. He customarily held a trident in his right hand. Poseidon was an Arkadian god born in Mantineia. Fatherland to Motherland: An ancient sex-change operation OK. I must admit that treating a female Europa as a Retiarius complete with trident, net and shield is very uncomfortable. So, let's assume that "she" really was Neptune and reverse his name: nePtuNe => eNutPen => euRoPa, changing the N to R, dropping the t that cannot be easily pronounced before a P, and dropping the (now) final n. English does not tolerate a TP combination except in concatenated words like breastplate, bulletproof, dustpan, footprint, marketplace, nitpick, outpatient, rustproof, and saltpeter. ciao, izzy Israel "izzy" Cohen, BPMaps moderator http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BPMaps |
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