Who are the modern day "Greeks"?
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Topic: Who are the modern day "Greeks"?
Posted By: Axl Low
Subject: Who are the modern day "Greeks"?
Date Posted: 10-Jun-2005 at 11:16
Hellenized Albanians,Macedonians,Bulgars,Vlach and Turks? And these "people" have the nerve to question the macedonians and their identity lol:
It is a striking fact that the leading defenders of Greek liberty at this time were largely Non-Greek. Koundouriotis was decended from the Albanian invadors of Greece in the 14th century,and spoke Greek only with difficulty. His principal colleague was John Kolettis, a Vlakh who had been Ali Pasha's court doctor at Ioannina. One of the few leaders who maintained resistance far to the north of the Gulf of Corinth was the Souliote,Marko Botsaris,whos followers were largely Albanian. By a strange chance, it happend that two of the Turkish commanders-in-chief during the war, Khurshid Pasha and Muhammad Rehid Pasha(known to the Greeks as Kiutahi), were by birth Orthodox Christians, who had been converted to Islam for the sake of career in the Sultans service.
Modern Greece A Short History C.M. Woodhouse Page 139
Greece included considerably fewer than half of those who regarded themselves as Greeks by virtue of their language,their religion, and (less plausibly) their race. It was easy to stir up agitation in favour of enlarging Greece's frontiers by a progressive extension of "enosis" (union).
Modern Greece A Short History C.M. Woodhouse Page 163
In practice the Greeks had only exchanged arbitrary rule by Bavarians for arbitrary rule by others scarcely closer to themselves. The first six prime ministers under the new constitutions were all war-time leaders, several of them only nominally Greek. They included the Phanariote Mavrokordatos,the Vlakh Kolettis, and the Albanian Koundouriotis. With the exception of the last prime minister of Otho's reign, Admiral Kanaris,all of them paid litle regard to the constitution which had cost them so much toil and intrigue. Mavrokordatos in particular culpably betrayed his trust as Greece's first constitutional prime minister(March 1844), and was compelled to resign within six months. Kolettis, who succeeded him in August 1844,remained in office until his death three years later. Neither took naturally to democratic principles, though both had a superficial acquanintance with Western Europe. Mavrokordatos' background was the Phanariote society of Constantinpole and the Rumanian principalities.
Modern Greece A Short History C.M. Woodhouse Page 162
The conditions of the war were now completely changed. The Greeks, who had been squandering the money provided by the loans in every sort of senseless extravagance, affected to despise the Egyptian invaders, but they ~ were soon undeceived. On the 21st of March Ibrahim Mo,ea. had laid siege to Navarino, and after some delay a Greek force under Skourti, a Hydriote sea-captain, was sent to its relief. The Greeks had in all some 7000 men, Suliotes, Albanians, armatoli from Rumelia, and some irregular Bulgarian and Viach cavalry.
http://63.1911encyclopedia.org/G/GR/GREEK_INDEPENDENCE_WAR_OF.htm - http://63.1911encyclopedia.org/G/GR/GREEK_INDEPENDENCE_WAR_O F.htm
Anthony D. Smith points out, specifically in reference to the modern Greek nation, "Greek demographic continuity was brutally interrupted in the late sixth to eighth centuries A.D. by massive influxes of Avar, Slav and later, Albanian immigrants." He adds that modern Greeks "could hardly count as being of ancient Greek descent, even if this could never be ruled out.
A process of "re-hellenization" took place, led by the Greek Orthodox Church, using the vehicle of the Greek language. To use the words of Nicholas Cheetham, (in the south) "religion and Hellenization marched hand in hand." The Slavs and Albanians, in particular, converted to Christianity and learned to speak Greek.
Albanians settled in Athens, Corinth, Mani, Thessaly and even in the Aegean islands. In the early nineteenth century, the population of Athens was 24 percent Albanian, 32 percent Turkish, and only 44 percent Greek. The village of Marathon, scene of the great victory in 490 B.C., was, early in the nineteenth century, almost entirely Albanian."
Nicholas Hammond a historian who is sympathetic to the Greek view that the ancient Macedonians were a Greek tribe and who has had several works published in Athens says that by the middle of the fourteenth and early fifteenth century the majority of people in the Peloponnese were Albanian speakers.
The continuing impact of this new ethnic and cultural force is indicated in Hammond's comments that the Albanian incursions into Greece continued under the Turkish system and went on right into the eighteenth century, and that the descendants of these Albanian people were still speaking Albanian when he was in Greece in the 1930s. This is not a reflection on the national consciousness of these Greek citizens, for as Hammond explains, they thought of themselves as Greek. Indeed Hammond points out that the Albanian role in the resistance to the Turks, and in the formation of the Greek nation, was significant. Like the Slavs, the Albanians became attached to their new lands, learned the new language, and began to think of themselves as one with the other peoples living there.
Finlay recognized " the vigorous Albanians of Hydra, the warlike Albanians of Suli, the persevering Bulgarians of Macedonia, and the laborious Vallachians on the banks of the Aspropotamos" who embarked together on a struggle for Greek independence, "as heartily as the posterity of the ancient inhabitants of the soil of Hellas. Nicholas Hammond tells us that in the Greek War of Independence the Albanians, above all, drove the Turks out.
According to anthropologist Roger Just, most of the nineteenth-century "Greeks," who had so recently won their independence from the Turks, not only did not call themselves Hellenes (they learned this label later from the intellectual nationalists); they did not even speak Greek by preference, but rather Albanian, Slavonic, or Vlach dialects."
The Editor of The Sunday Telegraph argues that Greece has been ruthless in erasing traces of ethnic diversity, and suggests that the desperation of its actions, including the Greek claim to a monopoly of the classical past (in which all peoples of European origins have a share) can be explained by the fact that the Greeks today are a mixture of Slavs, Turks, Greeks, Bulgars, Albanians, Vlachs, Jews and Gypsies.
... the name of one of the Albanian leaders who fought so valiantly for Greek Independence against the Ottoman Turks in 1820 was Laskarina Bubalina, a female commander? And that other Albanian leaders in that same Greek war against the Turks were eo Picari, Foto Xhavella, Gjon Leka, Rrapo Hekali, Hodo Leka, Tafil Buzi, Shahin Qafezezi, and Marko Boari?
http://www.frosina.org/infobits/more_012103.shtml - http://www.frosina.org/infobits/more_012103.shtml
Clark quotes a Greek religious refrain from that era:
'Albanians, Wallachians, Bulgarians, speakers of other tongues, rejoice! And ready yourselves all to become Greeks Abandoning your barbaric tongue, speech, customs So that to your descendants they may appear as myths'
http://www.neww.org/pipermail/academic-resources/2000-August/000329.html - http://www.neww.org/pipermail/academic-resources/2000-August /000329.html
Nicholas Hammond a historian who is sympathetic to the Greek view that the ancient Macedonians were a Greek tribe and who has had several works published in Athens, is unable to support the Greek view on this matter. He says that by the middle of the fourteenth and early fifteenth century the majority of people in the Peloponnese were Albanian speakers. The fascinating point is that the people with whom they were competing for land were overwhelmingly not the original Greek-speaking Roman citizens, but the new breed of Greek-speaking Slavs. As Hammond says, many Greek- speaking people at that point in time were probably ethnic Slavs.
The continuing impact of this new ethnic and cultural force is indicated in Hammond's comments that the Albanian incursions into Greece continued under the Turkish system and went on right into the eighteenth century, and that the descendants of these Albanian people were still speaking Albanian when he was in Greece in the 1930s. This is not a reflection on the national consciousness of these Greek citizens, for as Hammond explains, they thought of themselves as Greek. Indeed Hammond points out that the Albanian role in the resistance to the Turks, and in the formation of the Greek nation, was significant. Like the Slavs, the Albanians became attached to their new lands, learned the new language, and began to think of themselves as one with the other peoples living there.
"I watched the Koutsovlachi disappear in Thessaly over a period of twenty years. I remember the first time I went up there in 1957, I was stunned, it was another world--it was Rumania. Blond, blue-eyed women wearing incredibly beautiful costumes: white, with about twelve to fifteen inches of thick fringes at the bottom, in saffron, black, and ocher. And everywhere I went, there were ducks and geese, which I didn't see anywhere else in Greece. Ducks and geese and pigs--standard east and central European farm culture. But I saw all of that disappear.
It's a pity because Greece has lost the Sarakatsani, it's lost the Vlachi, the Koutsovlachi, the Karagounidhes -- it's lost all these fascinating minority groups, and now people are getting up and trying to stop it, but they're about twenty years too late."
--"A Point of Contact: An Interview with Nikos Stavroulakis," by Peter Pappas in The Greek American (January 9, 1988)
To the Ottoman authorities what had always mattered were religious rather than national or linguistic differences; Balkan Christians were either under the authority of the Patriarch in chemas-microsoft-comfficemarttags" />lace>Constantinoplelace>, or they were more rarely Catholic or Protestant.
The Patriarch shared the same outlook; it was indifferent to whether its flocks spoke Greek, Vlach, Bulgarian or any other language or dialect. As for its flock , the illiterate Slav- speaking peasants tilling the fields outside the cities rarely felt strongly about Greece or Bulgaria and when asked which they were, many insisted on being known simply, as they had been for centuries, as Christians.
In Salonica itself, the growth of the Christian population had come from continual immigration over centuries from outlying villages, often as distant as the far side of the Pindos mountains, where many of the inhabitants spoke not Greek but a Vlach ( a Romance language akin to Romanian), Albanian, or indeed various forms of Slavic. They citeys life, schools and Priests gave these villagers, or their children, a new tongue, and turned them into Greeks. In fact many famous Greek figures of the past were really Vlachs by origin, including the savant Mosiodax, the revolutionary Rhigas Velestinlis, as well as the citys first Greek printers, the Garbolas family, and the Manakis brothers, pioneers of Balkan cinema.
chemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />> >
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Mark Mazower
Page 257
> >
The Academy was built with bequest from Simon Sinas, the hugely wealthy son of Georgios Sinas, a Hellenised Vlach whose family came from Moschopolis in Southern Albania, who made his fortune in the Habsburg Empire and was himself the donor of Theophilos Hansen's observatory (1843-6).
A concise history Of Greece Richard Clogg Page 79
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Replies:
Posted By: Yiannis
Date Posted: 10-Jun-2005 at 11:27
I see, so apparently Greek culture is strong enough to absorve all those people with such ease, over the course of just a few decades. I can only take that as a compliment.
Be carefull, perhaps you'll become the Greek that you so much hate, as well in a couple of years!
------------- The basis of a democratic state is liberty. Aristotle, Politics
Those that can give up essential liberty to obtain a temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin
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Posted By: Phallanx
Date Posted: 10-Jun-2005 at 11:40
OK, it seems that there are alot more than I originally thought.
The world is filled with morons.
Well, you can quote your wanna-be historians all you like. I'll just put up a bit of GENETICS. (this will be a loooong one)
Of course Hellines are not a "pure race", but the available data
demonstrate that any potential introgression into the Hellinic gene
pool were minor and did not replace the indigenous people. Hence, Fallmerayer's thesis has been disproved.
Let's start with his BS.
The Fallmerayer Thesis in the Light of Genetic Evidence
Jacob Fallmerayer stirred quite a controversy in the 19th century by
proposing that the Hellenic nation had perished in the Middle Ages by
admixture with Slavs and Albanians.
We are now in a position, through genetic evidence to evaluate this
thesis, at least with respect to the question of Slavic settlements.
Slavs are distinguished by having a specific Y-chromosome haplogroup
R1a, or HG3, or Eu19. This reaches frequencies of higher than 50% in
Poles and decreases significantly in non-Slavic populations. The
"Macedonians" of FYROM, the Slavic population immediately to the north
of Greece have frequencies of R1a of 35%.
We must warn that R1a itself is not a Slavic marker. This means that
any particular R1a sequence could, or could not be of Slavic origin.
But, a population that has mixed with Slavs is likely to show this in
relatively high levels of R1a.
Ornella Semino published a study in Science 290: 1155 in which the
levels of R1a (which she calls Eu19 are given in various populations.
Greeks have 11.8%, that is about 1/6 that of the Hungarians, who top
the list at 60%. The Hungarians are not Slavs, but from the genetic
standpoint they could very well be of Slavic origin, converted
linguistically by the Asiatic Magyars. The Poles at 56.4% are the
highest Slavic population.
We must note that ancient Slavic groups at the time of the Slavic
dispersals probably had even higher levels of R1a. After all, Poles and
Hungarians are themselves only partly Slavic in origin, and the result
of admixture of a predominantly Slavic element with indigenous
pre-Slavic ones. As a result, it is likely that at the time of their
migrations, the Slavs had even higher frequencies of R1a.
R1a did not originate with the Slavs (that is why it is not a Slavic
marker). Its origins in a Eastern European refugium after the Last
Glacial Maximum means that it has had plenty of time to spread across
the continent even to places where Slavs were never present. For
example, its frequency in Syrians at a frequency of 10%, close to that
of Greece, in the Saami of Scandinavia at 10%, Turks at 6.6% and in
Albanians in 9.8%. It is even found in the Dutch, at a frequency of
3.7%, a population that has been largely unaffected by any Slavonic
incursion. Given that Greece is closer to the area where R1a probably
originated, it is very likely that R1a lineages would have been part of
early population elements of the Balkans.
Thus, we know that at least a part of 11.8% of R1a in Greeks is of
pre-Slavic origin. We also know that the ancient Slavs had frequencies
of it in excess of 50%. It's hard to quantify the exact percentages,
but I will give an educated guess, that 5% of R1a lineages in Greece
are of Slavic origin, while the ancient Slavs had it in frequency of
75%. The picture is not much different if we change these numbers, but
they will do for now. As a result, the Slavonic influence in Greece
turns out to be about 7%, an almost exact match for the figure given by
Vasiliev in his History of the Byzantine Empire based on demographic
considerations.
This figure might turn out to be less, or slightly more. Better
resolution using markers distinguishing R1a chromosomes might provide
us with additional information. But, the conclusion seems unavoidable,
that the contribution of Slavs to the Greek gene pool (if any) is very
limited, certainly not enough to extinguish the noble Hellenic nation
as Fallmereyer had proposed.
It seems that a certain cystic fibrosis mutation is of Slavic origin
(in other words, the original population who became the Slavs came up
with this gene). The intersting thing is that Serbs, Croats and
Bulgarians don't carry the gene. What does this mean? It might mean
that the gene is not really the Slavic gene. Or, as the authors of the
report below say, southern Slavs lost the gene when they mixed with
other populations. I'm not saying they're right in making that
assumption. But who knows?
"Our results indicate that this mutation is particularly common in
Czech, Russian, Belorussian, Austrian, German, Polish, Ukrainian,
Slovenian, and Slovak patients. It is the second most common CF
mutation to be identified in Central and Eastern European CF patients.
By contrast, it was only sporadically detected in Western Europe and
was absent in Bulgarian, Croatian, Romanian and Serbian CF patients. It
was not found in diverse other populations of non-Slavic origin. The
geographic distribution of the mutation is similar to the spread of
Slavic populations during the first millenium."
------------------------------------------------------
Y Chromosomes
The most comprehensive study of Y-chromosomal diversity in Europe thus
far is Rosser et al., [1]. The human Y chromosome is passed on from
father to son. One can thus study one half of a population's ancestry
(along the paternal line) by studying the Y-chromosome. Greek
Y-chromosomes belong to haplogroups HG1, HG2, HG3, HG9, HG21 and HG26.
None of the 35 Greek Y chromosomes are of non-Caucasoid origin.
A second Y-chromosome study including Greeks have also shown similar
results. Helgason et al., [2] reports one HG16 sequence of North
Eurasian provenance in a sample of 42 Greeks (at least 97.6%
Caucasoid). To put this in perspective, eight HG16 chromosomes occur in
110 Swedes (at least 92.7% Caucasoid) and three HG16 sequences in 112
Norwegians (at least 97.3% Caucasoid) were also found. HG16 is shared
by many populations ranging from Europe to Mongolia. Its origin has
been placed by [7] in the Eastern range of its current geographical
distribution.
A third Y-chromosome study, by Malaspina et al., [3] which included a
sample of 28 continental and 83 Cretan Greeks (total sample size of
111) found no evidence of the presence of non-Caucasoid Y chromosomes
in Greeks.
A fourth Y-chromosome study, by Semino et al., [4] included 76 Greeks
and 20 Macedonian Greeks. One Eu6 lineage, corresponding to HG10/HG36
[5] is probably of East Asian origin. One Eu17 lineage corresponds to
HG 28 which is frequent in Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent
[6]. In total, admixture of 2.1% is detected (if we label HG 28 as
non-Caucasoid).
A fifth Y-chromosome study, by Weale et al., [8] included 132 Greek
students from Athens. The same haplogroups found in [1] were detected
in this study. No non-Caucasoid chromosomes were found.
The most recent and comprehensive study of Greek Y-chromosomes, by Di
Giacomo et al., [9] included 154 individuals from continental Greece
and 212 from Crete, Lesvos and Chios. In total, Greeks from thirteen
separate locations were examined, thus giving the most complete picture
of variation so far. A single haplogroup A chromosome was found (in
Lesvos) which is usually found in Africa. The remainder belonged to
haplogroups found in Caucasoid populations. The breakup (in percent) of
the haplogroups observed) based on the set of markers typed is as
follows.
P*(xR1a) R1a DE G2 I-M170 J2(DYS413≤ 18) J2*(xDYS413≤ 18) J*(xJ2) A Y*(xA,DE,G2,I,J,P)
12.8 9.8 20.2 6.6 14.8 20.2 4.9 2.7 0.3 7.7
A newer study by Semino et al. [10] has studied two samples of Greeks
of size 84 and 59 (Macedonian Greeks). The focus was on two specific
haplogroups E and J which are frequent in the Mediterranean region and
can be used to detect population movements between Europe, Africa and
the Near East. 2.4% of Greeks belong in haplogroup E-M123 and 21.4% in
E-M78. Clades of E prevalent in Northern or Sub-Saharan Africa were not
found. According to Cruciani et al. [11] most Greeks and other Balkan
people belong to a specific cluster α within haplogroup E-M78 that is
found in lower frequencies outside the Balkans and marks migrations
from the Balkan area. E-M123 and its daughter haplogroup E-M34
originated in the Near East in prehistoric times. As for haplogroup J,
most Greeks (22.8% Greeks/14.3% Macedonian Greeks) belong to J-M172 and
its subclades which is associated with Neolithic population movements.
Only 1.8%/2.2% of Macedonian Greeks/Greeks belonged to haplogroup
J-M267 which could potentially (althought not certainly) reflect more
recent Near Eastern admixture.
Thus, at present, in a total of seven studies, in which 925 Greek males
were tested, one HG16, one HG28, one HG10/HG36, and one haplogroup A
chromosomes have been found, for a total of 0.4% possible non-Caucasoid
contribution to the modern Greek male gene pool. Additionally, the
latest studies [9, 10] with a more refined version of the Y chromosome
phylogeny indicate that influences from the Near East and North Africa
in historical times are unlikely (perhaps in the order of ~2%).
Additionally, Y chromosome haplogroup R1a which is very frequent in
Slavic populations (>50%) is found in only around 9.8% of Greeks,
and is also found at comparable frequencies further East (10.8% in
Iraq; Al-Zahery et al. [12]) indicating that its presence in Greece
need not be associated with medieval intrusions by Slavic speakers. The
emerging picture of Y chromosome variation in Greece indicates genetic
continuity, with slight influences from neighboring Caucasoid regions
and virtually no influence from non-Caucasoids.
Future studies with larger samples and more detailed founder analyses
will allow us to obtain a better pictures of Y-chromosome variation in
Greece, Europe and the world at large. At present, it appears that
modern Europeans share many of the haplogroups, while there is also
geographic structure in the distribution. With the exception of the
Northeast corner of Europe, all other European populations have very
small traces of extra-Caucasoid genetic input(a).
[1] Rosser et al. (2000) European Y-Chromosome Diversity. Am J Hum Genet 67:1526-1543
[2] Helgason et al. (2000) Ancestry of Icelandic Y Chromosomes. Am J Hum Genet 67:697-717
[3] Malaspina et al. (2000) Patterns of male-specific inter-population
divergence in Europe, West Asia and North Africa. Ann Hum Genet
64:395-412
[4] Semino et al. (2000) The genetic legacy of Paleolithic Homo sapiens sapiens in Extant Europeans: A Y Chromosome Perspective
[5] Zerjal et al. (2002) Y-Chromosomal Insights into Central Asia. Am J Hum Genet 71:466-482
[6] Qamar et al. (2002) Y-Chromosomal DNA Variation in Pakistan. Am J Hum Genet 70:1107-1124
[7] Zerjal et al. (1997) Genetic relationships of Asians and Northern
Europeans, revealed by Y-chromosomal DNA analysis. Am J Hum Genet
60:11741183
[8] Weale et al. (2001) Armenian Y chromosome haplotypes reveal strong
regional structure within a single ethno-national group. Hum Genet 109:
659-674
[9] Di Giacomo et al. (2003) Clinal Patterns of human Y chromosomal
diversity in continental Italy and Greece are dominated by drift and
founder effects. Mol Phyl Evol 28:387-395
[10] Semino et al. (2004) Origin, Diffusion, and Differentiation of
Y-Chromosome Haplogroups E and J: Inferences on the Neolithization of
Europe and Later Migratory Events in the Mediterranean Area. Am J Hum
Genet (to appear)
[11] Cruciani et al. (2004) Phylogeographic Analysis of Haplogroup E3b
(E-M215) Y Chromosomes Reveals Multiple Migratory Events Within and Out
Of Africa. Am J Hum Genet (to appear)
[12] Al-Zahery et al. (2003) Y-chromosome and mtDNA polymorphisms in
Iraq, a crossroad of the early human dispersal and of post-Neolithic
migrations Mol Phyl Evol 28:458-472
-----------------------------------------------------
Some Anthropology for you.
J. Lawrence Angel sorted Greek skeletal tendencies into six arbitrary
morphological types, including several sub-varieties. These were not
“races,” but rather [1]:
“Types are entirely aribitrary creations from sorting of individuals.
Genetically determined traits will recombine and re-form in each new
generation largely at random so that types cannot express these new
individualities adequately, only schematically. At best they give a
preliminary overview of change.”
Angel studied skeletal material from the Paleolithic to modern times,
and participated in examinations of skeletal material throughout the
East Mediterranean. With respect to Greece, he found that the
morphological types already established in the third millennium BC, if
not before that, persisted in all subsequent ages. Thus, he emphasized
the racial continuity of Greeks, stating epigrammatically [2]:
“Racial continuity in Greece is striking.”
Angel, by an examination of ancient Greek burials expressly rejected
the hypothesis that a genetically distinct isolated caste was
responsible for Hellenic achievement [3]:
“Both evidence and speculation contradict Nilsson's hypothesis that
Graeco-Roman decline resulted from production of vacillating
individuals by unlimited bastardizing and from elimination of a
racially pure upper class by lowered birthrate, after this capable
group inbred during the Geometric period had created Classic Greek
culture!”
Morphological Types
To illustrate the six morphological types of Ancient Greeks, we
reproduce in the following Angel's descriptions of the types, as well
as pictures of modern Greeks chosen by Angel to illustrate the
appearance of these types on the living. His pictures illustrate the
varieties that we would expect to find among the creators of Ancient
Greek civilization. The descriptions and pictures in the following are
reproduced from [4].
Basic Whites (Type A)
Basic Whites (Type A: Plate XL, u-y) are sturdy. They have large and
long heads with somewhat low and receding bony foreheads, massive
browridges, and a generally angular and ill-filled appearance
emphasized in slight midline gabling of parietals and lamboid
flattening just above the projecting occiput. Their almost trapezoid
faces lack height, and show rectangular orbits, short, straight, coarse
noses, angular profile, and strong chin and teeth. They were probably
above medium stature, strong, dark-brown haired, and swarthy. They show
noteworthy similarity to Chalcolithic Palestinians, Siculans,
Chalcolithic Sardinians, and Neolithic type British, and are obviously
also comparable to Atlanto-Mediterraneans in Mesopotamia. They are less
homogeneous as a group than the other types, covering the range from a
linear and high-skulled “Megalithic” variant with high, thin-nosed
hatchet-face (A1 and A2: Cephallenian and Athenian in Plate XL, v, w),
to a low-headed and squat-faced extreme with wide nose and low orbits
(A4: S.C. Macedonian in Plate XL, u), with a central group (A3 and A5:
Corinthian of Argive parentage and Lemnian in Plate XL, x and y)
connecting these divergent tendencies.
Classic Mediterraneans (Type B)
Classic Mediterraneans (Type B: Mytilenean, W. Cretan, and Corinthian
of Argive parentage in Plate XL, r, s, and t) are light-boned, almost
fragile. They have small, barely dolichocrane heads, pentagonoid in
outline in both vertical and occipital views, contracted neck muscle
area, and low almost vertical rounded foreheads. Their slender,
fine-featured faces have square orbits, thin noses smooth and low in
the nasion region, and a triangular taper down to pinched jaws with
shallow and pointed chin, weak prognathism, and an overbite linked with
subnormal degree of teeth wear. They were probably just below medium
stature, gracile, slender-necked, brunet, with black or dark hair. They
are virtually identical with ancient Libyans and modern Sicilians, and
similar to Upper Egyptians of prehistoric and Early Dynastic dates, and
to modern Spanish. Type B is the most homogeneous one, with only slight
tendencies in longer-headed, linear-faced and smaller, more squat-faced
directions.
Throughout the Mediterranean region Type B occurs in various
proportions with the Basic White type, and a composite made of Types A
and B in equal proportions is very close to Minoan Cretans and somewhat
resembles Lower Egyptians of XXVI to Dynasties and Iron Age South
Palestinians.
Nordic-Iranians (Type D)
Nordic-Iranians (Type D: Plate XL, m-q) have long and high heads with
peculiarly deep occiputs, smooth ovoid-ellipsoid contour, sharply-cut
muscle impressions, strong browridges, and tilted and capacious
foreheads. Marked facial height and narrowness of cheeks compared to
wide forehead and jowls makes a rectangular, horse-faced impression.
Large but slightly retreating cheekbones enclose drooping orbits, and
big, salient, and aquiline noses, long-arched palates, muscular jaws
wide at the angles, and cleft chins lacking prominence all add to the
same effect. Nordic-Iranians were tall and muscular, strong-necked, and
probably included tawny-haired blue- or green-eyed blonds as well as
brunets. Approximate identity, and noteworthy resemblances to North
Iranian Bronze Age Proto-Nordics, to Anglo-Saxons, and to medieval
Irish Monks show the divided eastern and northern relations of this
Greek type. And although Type D has low variability, it includes four
slightly different tendencies: a cylindrical-skulled, slab-faced
Iron-Age Nordic one (D1: Chalcidian and E. Thracian, in Plate XL, n and
o), a high-skulled, ellipsoid, “Corded” tendency (D2: Chalcidian in
Plate XL, p slightly “dinaricised”), a long byrsoid, deep-skulled,
huge-nosed, convex-profiled Iranian trend (D4: Athenian of Arcadian
parentage, in Plate XL, m), and a small-faced Iranian-Mediterranean
divergence approaching Coon's Cappadocian and Danubian types (D3:
Athenian in Plate XL, q).
Dinaric-Mediterraneans (Type F)
Dinaric-Mediterraneans (Type F: Chalcidian, Corinthian, and E.
Thessalian in Plate XL, j, k, and l) are the least Alpine of two
intermediate, hybrid, Alpinoid forms. Their short (high mesocrane) and
relatively high byrsoid heads have pinched and flatly sloping foreheads
and non-projecting occiputs. They have big and drooping, hound-like,
faces with an elongated hexagonal outline, stemming from striking
(though variable) flare of the cheek region. Face height is emphasized
in their long and thin noses pulled down almost parallel with their
foreheads, in high palates, and in long deep jaws.
Dinaric-Mediterraneans are medium tall, long-necked, and presumably
mainly brunet. They resemble both dinaricised Mediterraneans from Lower
Egypt in the third and second millennia BC and dinaricised Alpines
including inhabitants of the Roman Troad, modern Greeks from Anatolia
and European Turkey, Serbs and Croats, and Slovenes. Type F is
homogeneous but shows divergences toward linearity on the one hand and
toward true brachycrane Dinaric makeup on the other.
Mixed Alpines (Type E)
Mixed-Alpines (Type E: Plate XL, f-h) are closer to Alpines
morphologically than in their proportions. Their large mesocrane heads
are well-filled, with peculiarly large and wide foreheads with little
slope and smooth parietals with a long flat plane in the
obellion-lambda region. The massive foreheads dwarf their low faces
which have an inverted trapezoid outline and a retreating profile,
high-rooted but insignificant noses, and shallow and relatively
delicate jaws despite respectable size. They were not especially short
but probably heavy-bodied, probably with some mixed blonds among a
brunet majority. Their approximations to Etrusco-Roman Tarquinians and
Merovingian Franks are both good, and they resemble adequately
Bessarabian Scythians, Carniola Illyrians, Basques and Teneriffe
Guanche. This parallelism stresses their hybrid origin. Type E is
homogeneous, but with some inner divergences including Nordic Alpine
(E2: W. Macedonian and E. Arcadian in Plate XL, g and h) as opposed to
Mediterranean-Alpine (E1, E3: N.W. Macedonian in Plate XL, f)
tendencies.
Alpines (Type C)
Alpines (Type C: Plate XL, a-e, and i) have shortened and laterally
bulging heads, with weakly curved occiputs equipped with strong torus
for neck muscles, broad and full foreheads (narrow relative to bulging
parietals) and a short ovoid to sphenoid or spheroid outline in norma
verticalis. Their heads as a whole range from “square” to globular. The
Alpine face is low and orthognathous with square to hexagonal outline
rounded at the angles. Non-retreating cheekbones, and dominantly short,
low-rooted, non-salient and concave nose combine to give the face a
certain flatness, emphasized further by alveolar retraction with short
and low palate, and by a prominent chin linked with an edge bite and
much worn and somewhat poor teeth. Alpines were notably short and
probably stocky, and dominantly brunet. They resemble significantly
both recent Carinthian villagers and medieval citizens of Hythe in
Kent, with good approximations to Foothill Bavarians and to Bronze Age
Eastern Cypriotes. This suggestion of divided resemblance is confirmed
fully by Type C's slightly elevated variability. And various divergent
tendencies are appreciable: C1, C2, and C3 (Maniote, E. Thracian, and
Athenian in Plate XL, a, b, and c) tend respectively toward the
globular Central European Alpine, its paedomorphic extreme, and a
rugged slab-faced Borreby-like type; an Eastern Alpine trend (C4:
Ithacan and Athenian in Plate XL, d and e) toward a high, sphenoid
vault with flat occiput and high-nosed, square-jowled face, and a
squate Eastern Alpine tendency (C5: S.E. Messenian in Plate XL, i)
toward sphenoid-byrsoid and broad-based vault with short face and puffy
nose both have obvious Near Eastern rather than European appearances.
References
Angel, J. Lawrence, in Mylonas, George E., 1972-1973, Ο ταφικός κύκλος V των Μυκηνών, Εθνική Αρχαιολογική Εταιρεία, Athens
Angel, J. Lawrence, 1944, A racial analysis of the ancient Greeks: An
essay on the use of morphological types, American Journal of Physical
Anthropology
Angel, J. Lawrence, 1946, Social Biology of Greek Culture Growth, American Anthropologist
Angel J. Lawrence, 1945, Skeletal Material from Attica, Hesperia
---------------------------------------------------------- -
For all those that believe in the TWISTED theory of ancient Hellines being blone and blue-eyed.
Proof in literature:
There are numerous references to brunets in ancient mythology and
literature, e.g., the Muses, Poseidon, Alcmena, Theseus, Zeus, Dionysos
and Odysseus are described as possessing either dark hair or dark eyes.
Hercules, the Greeks' favorite hero is described as dark (melanan),
hook-nosed (grupon) by Dicaearchus (Clement of Alexandria, "Protreptic
to the Greeks" 2.30.7). Hercules was also proverbially melampugos
(having a black behind) as indicative of his bravery, as opposed to
pugargos (having a white behind), a coward . Irwin, E., 1974, Colour
Terms in Greek Poetry, Hakkert, Toronto
The Greek poetess Sappho (an aristocrat from the isle of Lesbos in the
7th c. BC) reveals that both she and her mother were dark (Fr. 98a,
line 11). Philoktetes and Aias were also both brunet-skinned and
black-haired (Malalas, Chronogr. 104, 3-8). We must also not neglect to
mention the detailed analysis of classicist Denys Page who, in
agreement with the ancient testimony of Callimachus (Fr. 299.1)
demonstrates that the epithet elikôpes, collectively used for the
Homeric Achaeans, probably meant "dark-eyed" .Page, D.L., 1959, History
and the Homeric Iliad, Berkeley : University of California Press
Eleanor Irwin, who wrote the definitive work on color terms in Greek
poetry agrees with this opinion. Irwin, E., 1974, Colour Terms in Greek
Poetry, Hakkert, Toronto Aristotle in his Physics defines graying as
the process by which hair turns from dark to grey, furnishing some
evidence that the Hellenes had usually a dark hair color.
The author of Aristotelis Physiognomica claims that both excessive
paleness and excessive swarthiness are indicative of cowardice.
Aristotle in the Eudemian Ethics mentions that "some men are blue eyed
(glaukoi) and others black eyed (melanommatoi) because a particular
part of them is of a particular quality" without assigning any moral
superiority on either of the types. In the same passage, he continues
that the blue-eyed man (glaukos) does not see clearly, an error which
illustrates that he did not believe in a superiority of blue-eyed
individuals. Indeed, the Greeks in general were somewhat repulsed by
blue eyes, because of their rarity and association with disease
(cataract and glaucoma), as Maxwell-Stuart, P.G., 1981, Studies in
Greek colour terminology, vol.1 "Glaukos", Leiden : Brill in a complete
study of all the uses of the adjective (glaukos) shows: Instinctive
fear of blindness must be very strong among all sighted human beings,
so their immediate reaction to such an eye will manifest itself in a
repulsive frisson. Men will wish to ward off a similar fate from
themselves.
Healthy eyes of that colour therefore have something unnatural about
them, and their relative infrequence in Greece proper (and, indeed, in
Crete), will have aroused a similar instinctive hostility. Fear of the
unknown and of the unusual would contribute to the notion that
possessors of such eyes must be malign; hence the long association of
blue and the Evil Eye which has lasted in Greece and the surrounding
area until modern times. Not surprisingly, these feelings of hostility
would be strengthened by knowledge that foreigners from the cold North
- those dangerous, incursive, un-Greek people - had blue eyes. The
author of Aristotle's On Colours mentions that infants are born with
light-colored hair but their hair turns to black as they grow up.
Hence, unlike Nordics who retain (to some degree) the paedomorphic
trait of blondness, Hellenes appear to possess mostly dark hair in
adult life. There are a number of references in the Greek authors in
the practice of women dyeing their hair blond (e.g., in Euripides) or
using artificial means (white lead) to lighten their complexion.
This is taken by some as a pursuit of a "Nordic ideal". When we read in
Athenaeus' Deipnosophists that: Another woman has eyebrows too light:
they paint them with lamp-black. Still another, as it happens, is too
dark: she plasters herself over with white lead. One has a complexion
too white: she rubs on rouge. Plato, in the Republic mentions that
statues' eyes should be painted black so that they will have the
appearance of eyes, and not some exotic color. He continues that by
painting eyes in proportion (i.e., black) and all other parts of the
body in proportion, then the result is "beautiful". Hence, it will
appear that Plato did not find any fault with dark eyes, he believed
them to be beautiful and proposed that statues be painted naturally,
i.e., with black eyes. In the Republic, Plato presents direct evidence
that blondness might be admired for its beauty, but "dark" [melanas]
men are of manly aspect: One, because his nose is tip tilted, you will
praise as piquant, the beak of another you pronounce right royal, the
intermediate type you say strikes the harmonious mean,the swarthy are
of manly aspect, the white are children of the gods divinely fair, and
as for honey hued, do you suppose the very word is anything but the
euphemistic invention of some lover who can feel no distaste for
sallowness when it accompanies the blooming time of youth?
An oft-quoted passage from the 4th c. AD Jewish writer Adamantius
Judaeus is used to "prove" that the original Greeks were tall, pale,
blond and light-eyed. Let us not question, for the sake of argument,
the knowledge of Adamantius as to the physical type of early Greek
speakers already twenty five centuries in his past. Reproducing the
passage in the original Greek reveals that the Greeks were moderately
tall men (autarkôs megaloi andres), broader, i.e., not linear-bodied
(euruteroi), with moderately firm flesh (sarkos krasin echontes metrian
eupagesteran), lighter-skinned (leukoteroi tên chroan), with a
medium-sized head (kephalên mesên to megethos), a strong neck(trachêlon
eurôston), slightly-curly brown hair (trichôma hupoxanthon hapalôteron
oulon praôs), a square face, i.e., with a broad jaw and not long
(prosôpon tetragônon), narrow lips (cheilê lepta), straight nose (rhina
orthên), liquid, "glad", quick eyes full of light (ophthalmous hugrous
charopous gorgous phôs polu echontas en heautois). It is a common
secret between Europeans that todays western Turks are mostly of Greek
origin (some of them are Syrians and several other ethnicities).
Of course this must not be expressed and revealed to the public cause
as Mustafa Kemal said the unity of the country is above all. It is not
only the difference in the facial characteristics (people in
Constandinoupoli and Asia Minor have totally different characteristics
then the mainland Turks who are Mongols), that can lead someone to that
conclusion but a bit remanding of history would be enough. For instance
it is known that Greeks were the majority of the population inhabited
in the coasts of Asia Minor. I’m translating from Felix Sartiaux (a
French archeologist and intellectual who spent several years of his
life in Asia Minor to find the trace of the Greek population who
migrate to France to establish the Greek colonies). ‘ The Turkish
population present in the region (he means Minor Asia), is a very mixed
population (not with Greeks though). The original Turks constitute a
very small part and the majority of them are not native’. (Felix
Sartiaux- The Hellenic Micrasia 1993 pp 130-131).
Further, according to anthropologic studies made by the German Von
Luschan (the early inhabitants of Western Asia), there used to be 22
different population groups, 10 of which were Christians. The
statistics provided for the Muslim groups (the remaining 12) is
misleading since among the original Turks, there are other group of
people with nothing in common: Naggers, Turkmans, Jourouks,
Tachtachides OF Lycia, Arabs, Perses etc. the Turks themselves can be
classified in two different groups. He continues saying that ‘ The
Turks in the region has nothing in common with Osamns, who conquer the
Byzantine Empire in the 11th century. Some of the defeated populations
were fiercely change their believes and created ‘Turkish’ families’.
And he continues ‘…I have already mentioned Genitsarous , Greek
Children, who had to join that body by force, and the young girls who
were sold in the Turkish harems. 47.000 people have suffered this only
in island Chios’. Besides some of the populations that thought that
they had changed their religion, still remain CryptoChrystians’ ( he
uses the example of a Greek tribe called Stauriotes). In addition, the
American Ambassador in Constntinoupoli H. Morgenthau in a letter to the
head office reveals that: ‘…the Greek youth is kidnapped from their
parents and under the ‘humanitarian’ veil were put in Turkish schools
where they had to change religion and confess to Muslim by force. Greek
families led to Muslim villages where they had the option of either
becoming Muslims or die’. 2 French historians report ‘..the young women
were led to harems’ (Alaux and Puax – les persecutions anti-Hellenique
en Turquie pp26-30) Last, but not least comes the official policy
imposed by the Turks during the Ottoman Empire (Orchan Sultan) and it
is nothing else than the so-called paidomazoma, which took official
form and every 5 years 1/5 of the young boys were captured in order to
serve the Jenisarous (which means new army). So to come to a
conclussion Physical anthropology indicates racial continuity in
Greece, with main Dinaric-Alpine-Mediterranean racial elements. Racial
type of aristocrats, commoners and criminals is the same.
Greek literature furnishes evidence of brunet and fair individuals, as
today, without ascribing any superiority to either type. Greek art
shows a predominance of brunet types, with a small minority of fair
ones, rarely as fair as northern Europeans and with the same physique
as their brunet counterparts
-------------------
Artistic Evidence:
Greek art furnishes important information about the racial type of the
ancient Hellenes. Coon in observed that the beauty ideal of a straight
nose and a lithe body was borrowed from Minoan Crete which was
undisputably peopled by Mediterraneans.The characteristic nose-forehead
continuity of idealistic depictions of gods and heroes is more typical
of Mediterraneans than Nordics , although it was rare for ancient
Greeks as it is for modern ones. Angel observes though, that his
Dinaric-Mediterranean (Type F) morphological type approaches this
ideal, in contrast to the Nordic-Iranian (Type D) in which the nasal
bone projects at a sharp angle with the frontal bone.
Statues sometimes show traces of pigmentation; this includes different
pigment types and is not uniform, representing the different hair
colors among Greeks. Manzelli in a study of polychromatic Archaic Greek
statuary records an incidence of only 2% of yellow hair.(f) Manzelli
also records that eye colors were black, “red,” and brown in the
majority of surviving examples, with only a single example having green
eyes. Mary Stieber who studied the appearance of archaic statues of
young women called korai also concludes that despite the presence of
light hair in some examples, “it remains a fact that yellow hair is a
rarity; for this reason alone it is tempting to infer that the
percentage of its occurrence in female statues on the Acropolis is
largely a reflection of its occurrence in real life.” Buxton in records
an interesting fact observed by Sergi, Ripley and Deniker and the Greek
anthropologist Klon Stephanos. A quote from Ripley (p.410) “these ideal
heads [of the statues] are distinctly brachycephalic.” Importantly,
various populations in modern Hellas who are suspected by some (for
historical and linguistic reasons) to represent a relatively pure
Hellenic type, the Sphakiots and Maniates are also brachycephalic.
Ancient Greeks were, however, on average mesocephalic.
The German art historian, Winckelmann discusses extensively the Greek
beauty ideal. The low forehead, luxurious curly hair, straight nose in
continuity to the nose, large eyes and ovoid faces described by the
author are typical of Southern Europe, contrasting with the small eyes,
high forehead, angular features and straight hair typical of more
northern climes. Winckelmann observes the similarity of modern Greeks,
particularly from the islands to the classical forms, relating in
particular that the Greek women of Chios are the “most beautiful of the
human race.”
Greek pottery cannot be used directly for determining pigmentation,
because most of it is bi-chromatic. It is interesting though, that in
the more realistic red-figure vases, the hair is almost always painted
black, creating a great contrast with the body which is white (numerous
examples in). In white background lekythoi, realistic colors are used.
Extreme blondness, typical of Nordic individuals is almost completely
absent while many examples have hair that is black or a dark brown.
Reddish brown is also present. Martin F. Kilmer, in [7: p.131, n.4] in
discussing an Etruscan vase showing a blond woman says that this is
“not a common Greek feature.” Thus, while examples of blonde hair in
Greek art are not unknown (e.g., the Blonde Ephebe of the Acropolis,
whose hair is deep yellow), they are not common.
Theater masks also sometimes provide information about human
pigmentation; this may be especially important since in theater
different character types are given stereotypical features. For
example, a 4th c. BC mask of a hetaira or courtesan had colour that
“seems to have been black for the brows and eyelashes and red for the
hair,” while “Good Athenian girls had black hair.” As will be shown
below, this agrees with the ancient literary evidence which disparages
hair lightening as unfit for wise women.
Examples from Greek Art: An Athenian woman; A Greek man from Tarentum; A Greek woman from Paestum; A Greek man from Paestum
Unlike statuary and pottery, most Ancient Greek painting has not
survived. Fortunately, Greek originals were copied by the Romans, and
several frescoes with themes from life and mythology have survived in
Pompeii and Herculaneum. These were buried under tons of volcanic ashes
and have been brought back, almost intact, by modern archaeology. In
all scenes, men and women are given the familiar features known from
the plastic arts, and are painted with vivid colors. Eyes are uniformly
brown, and hair ranges from a lightish brown to black. The frescoes of
Pompeii are particularly valuable because they show a virtual roster of
ancient Greek heroes, indicating how these were imagined by the Greek
mind.
-------------------------------------------
Some more Anthropology:
THE ORIGIN OF THE GREEKS BY ARIS N. POULIANOS
(1961, 1964, 1968, 1988)
(The book is sold out, but soon will be republished).
Four successive editions, constantly enriched with new data, are edited
concerning the Anthropological - Ethnogenetic study of the Greek
population. The basis of this work is Aris N. Poulianos dissertation,
which took place in the University of Moscow, under the supervision of
the famous professor of Anthropology F. G. Debetz. The research was
based on the study of 70 human characteristics (p. ex. body height,
width of face, skin colour, shape of eyes etc.) of about 3000 Greek
emigrants (after 1949 civil war) in the f. Soviet Union from different
Hellenic areas. The statistical elaboration of these characteristics in
combination with their geographical distribution demonstrated
mathematically (because of their low dispersion) the incessant
biological continuity of the Greeks all through the historic and
prehistoric epochs, which refer at least to the Mesolithic and Upper
Palaeolithic periods (15.000-30.000 years). This historical continuity
is also proved by the comparison of measurements of the contemporary
inhabitants with those of the ancient skulls of Greece, which
statistically show no differences. Despite the occasional influences
and limited migrations of populations, the anthropological research has
shown that the population of Greece is basically native and that the
contemporary Greeks are descendants of the ancient peoples who resided
in the Greek peninsula. The same study indicated that the
Albanian-speaking, Slav-speaking (Monte Negro included) as well as
Valaches (Vlachi) of the greater Macedonian region are in their
majority also autochthonous and therefore the influences from abroad
mainly concerns the adoption of the chronologically younger languages,
which are in use today.
The interest of the Press concerning the "Origin of the Greeks" is indicatively quoted in the following publications:
Avgi, 6-1-1962: “Over 150 scientists of the University and the Academy
of Moscow have fully agreed with the scientific views of Mr. Aris.
Poulianos, underlining the seriousness of the research, and without
sparing their expressions, they spoke with praising words about him. Dr
S. A. Tocarev, professor of ethnography in the University of Moscow and
head of the Department of Ethnography regarding the peoples of Europe
at the Institute of Ethnography of the Moscow Academy of Sciences,
stated the following:
Aris Poulianos work presents an exceptional interest for the
ethnographic science. The huge anthropological material of Greeks,
which is concentrated and statistically elaborated, introduces for the
first time new scientific sources for the study of a problem of basic
importance, as is the problem of the origin of the Greek people. So
far, concerning same issue it was generally accepted in science that
contemporary Greeks historically have very few common elements with the
ancient Greeks founders of the ancient civilization, and that
contemporary Greeks in their greatest part represent descendants of
Slavs, Albanians and other peoples who migrated in Greece and blended
with the Greeks of the Byzantine era. Contrary, the writer of the
present study, convincingly and based on analogous material, showed
that whatever the influence of Slavs and other peoples who came in
contact with the Greeks was, the people of modern Greece is basically
descendant of the ancient population of the Balkans and the Aegean
islands.
The worldwide famous anthropologist of Moscow University Dr I. I.
Roginski notes that in the southern part of the Balkans a wide border
between the Dinaric and the front Asian anthropological types is
located. Therefore, in this area some of the general problems of the
classification of the European and front Asian populations may be
ascertained. It must be also noted that by this work, the critique of
the racist fabrications, regarding the genesis of the ancient Greek
civilization, is found. “(Note: meaning the racist theories supporting
that contemporary Greeks are not descendents from the ancient and this
is the reason why their civilization today falls short compared to that
of the developed countries. On the contrary, besides the groundless
comparison – if for instance the traditions would be taken into account
– the scientific verification regarding the biological continuity of
Greeks once more proves that the socio-historical and geographical
conditions are the main factors ruling the people’s cultural level.)”.
“The director of the Anthropological department of the Academy
Ethnographic Institute in Moscow, Dr M. G. Levin added: ...It may seem
paradox that many European peoples have been studied less than the
peoples from Australia, Melanesia and other remote countries, Greece
being one of the lesser examined ...A. N. Poulianos work completes this
missing knowledge. The writer is fully aware of the methodology of the
anthropological researches, has strictly kept all the necessary terms
and paid suitable attention.
The director of the Anthropological Institute and Moscow
Anthropological Museum Dr B. P. Yiakimov stated: " My own view is that
Mr A. N. Poulianos work represents the most perfect recapitulation
regarding the Anthropology of Greeks."
From the other side of Atlantic, in USA, the director of the
Smithsonian Institute, G.L. Angel, in a book review of “The origins of
the Greeks” at the American Journal of Physical Anthropology (No 22, v.
5, 1964, p. 343) writes: Aris Poulianos… correctly verifies that there
is a full genetic continuity from ancient to contemporary times.
In the newspaper "NEA" of 25-1-1962, it is mentioned that: “The
scientific study of A. N. Poulianos refutes the dogmatic theory of the
Greek hater, German historian Fallmerayer, who lived from 1790 to 1861,
the time of the Greek fight for independence. Him (Fallmerayer)
altogether dogmatically, that is without prior anthropological research
- and therefore self-evidently anti-scientifically - tried to support
the theory that Greeks are mainly Slavs. The researcher (A. Poulianos)
ends by mentioning that the anthropological study, with the necessary
historical and linguistic data, is necessary for the solution of
ethnogenetic problems.
The present is the reflection of the past and in this lays its
historical value. If the past helps us understand the present, the
present helps us meditate on the future.
CRETANS – AEGEANS – PELOPONNESIANS – SARAKATSANI
Thereinafter Aris Poulianos studied other 10.000 individuals and
hundreds of skeletal remains from various Eurasian sites. The Greek
groups, which were less represented in his PhD thesis (Aegeans,
Peloponnesians, Pindos mountains), were finally studied after his
return to Greece in 1965.
THE ORIGINS OF THE CRETANS AND AEGEANS
The basic conclusion (A. Poulianos 1971,1999) is that the contemporary
population of Crete (based on a sample of 3.000 individuals) and the
Aegean sea as a whole including the hinterland of Thrace and Asia Minor
remained unaltered at least since the Minoan era and belongs to the
aegean indigenous anthropological type. The migrations, which occurred
during several historical periods, resulted in some light variations,
but did not change the morphology of the original type. The influences
do not exceed more than 1-3 % and this homogeneity betrays once again
that the dwellers of the Aegean basin in general are locally born, at
least since the Mesolithic epoch, that is 15.000 years BP (before
present).
In 1987, the Italian Professor of Anthropology G. Facini during the 2nd
World Congress of Palaeoanthropology in Torino, announced the existence
of a 50.000 years human skeleton from Crete, with a morphology similar
to the contemporary Homo sapiens sapiens and not that of the
Neanderthal man. The announcement never reached the Greek Media, once
the “Hellenic” Ministry for Culture stayed, as it was expected,
indifferent!
In January of 1999, the medical magazine Tissue Antigens (vol.53)
published an article based on blood studies, regarding the origin of
Cretans. The final conclusion of this article is that the today
inhabitants of Crete have a greater kinship to the … Berbers, to the …
Semites and even to the … Japanese than to the Greeks (who, as they
allege, arrived … 4.000 years ago in Greece!). In this way the origin
of Cretans is transferred to …Africa or to the Middle East 10.000 years
ago. Seven professors from Spain and three from Greece sign the article
and unfortunately they reached the above conclusion following a route
of low scientific standards, since they were based on a sample of only
135 individuals only the HLA gene is studied. They also little
respected deontology, because ignoring the previous and more accurate
anthropological bibliography, since the phenotype is represented by
thousands of genes. Along this slippery way, also the work of A.
Mourant et al: “The distribution of human blood groups and other
polymorphisms”, University of Oxford, 1976, pp 1055, is missing from
their bibliography. In this edition it is referred that the HLA gene is
an unreliable basis to exact conclusions on such matters, since it
makes the inhabitants of Basque, Iceland and Congo to have … bonds of
kinship. It may be noted that views of this kind appeared since 1965,
i.e. in a time when studies of molecular biology based on human DNA
were not yet started, curiously coordinated toward the same direction
(for example see the opposing Athens newspaper Athinaiki, 15/4/1966 :
“Cretans … do not derive from Phoenicians and Semites.”).
As for their historical, linguistic and archaeological arguments the
situation is no better. For example they make the hypothesis that when
10.000 years ago Sahara became a desert, perhaps the Berbers migrated …
to Crete creating the Minoan civilization. In other words, instead of
trying to find a way to survive they constructed … ships, and went to …
Crete! Did not the authors really wonder about the probability that
Cretans, rulers of the high seas at the time, traveled the opposite
way, as many ancient sources refer? Moreover, the Sahara’s succulent
sojourn faced an abrupt end about 5.500 years ago.”(see Sara Simpson,
Scientific American Oct.1999, p.19) and naturally not 10.000 ago when
the last fluvial climatic conditions (cataclysm) occurred.
However, this hematological work may be considered as just a hoax and
not as related to analogous to Cyprus situations. It is only sad, in
the verge of the 3rd millennium, to see scientific journals publishing
uncritically such “essays”.
THE PELOPONNESIAN POPULATION (1977/8)
Th. Pitsios conducted the anthropological research regarding the
Peloponnesian population, under the guidance of Dr A. Poulianos,
preliminary announced in "Anthropos" (1977, v. 4, p. 5-36). It has
verified the basic conclusions of “The origin of the Greeks”,
completing the anthropometrical data with 1582 individuals. In 1978 it
was published in a separate edition of the Anthropological Association
of Greece (book No 2), dedicated with love to his master.
-----------------------------------
The alleged "Sub-Saharan" theory that your "scholars" (damn am I funny or what) have manipulated to prove their stupid point
In numerous recent studies, the mitochondrial DNA of Greeks was
examined and was found to be predominantly Caucasoid with only
infrequent presence of "erratic" sequences from non-Caucasoid sources.
Mitochondrial DNA ("mtDNA") is inherited from one's mother and is thus
a good way to establish the maternal ancestry of a population.
The most comprehensive European-wide study of mtDNA is [1] in which 125
Greeks were sampled among thousands of Europeans. The Greeks and the
Albanians appear in the "Mediterranean-East" category of the study.
Greeks tested belonged overwhelmingly to the Caucasoid-specific
haplogroups ("Seven Daughters of Eve" popularized by Bryan Sykes'
book).
The "erratic" sequences include a Sub-Saharan African (L1a) sequence,
which was derived from the Albanian part of the sample [2]. The other
two sequences non-attributed to a European founder are members of
haplogroups prevalent in Asia, M and D. Thus, the total percentage of
erratics in the Greek sample was 1.6%. The Greeks, like most Europeans
are fairly pure in terms of their maternal ancestry.
It is sometimes argued that the Greeks absorbed large numbers of Negro
slaves or immigrants. There is no evidence of such an event in Greek
mtDNA. If it ever took place, it was so limited in scope that not a
single sequence in a total of 125 could be found.
The number of non-European sequences in the rest of Europe is also
small, while in the Near East it is about 5%, only slightly larger. One
can easily verify that Sub-Saharan African admixture (L sequences) has
been detected in Scandinavia (Sweden, Norway and Iceland - 0.6%),
Southeastern Europe (Bulgaria/Romania - 0.5%), Central Mediterranean
(Italy and Sardinia - 1.7%; mostly in Sardinia), the Mediterranean West
(Spain and Portugal - 3.7%), North Central Europe (Poles, Czechs,
Germans, Danes - 0.9%), North Western Europe (Britain, Ireland and
France - 0.4%). In another recent study [3] on Norwegians, an L2
Sub-Saharan African sequence was found in the sample of 74 Norwegians
(1.4% Sub-Saharan admixture). Finally [4] showed 0.5% to 1.2%
introgression of Sub-Saharan African genes into the European American
gene pool.
The main conclusion to be drawn from these studies, is that Caucasoids
of European descent have negligible traces of non-Caucasoid maternal
admixture. Sub-Saharan African traces of such ancestry are found at
levels of about 1% in many populations. But not in Greeks(a).
References
1) Richards et al., Tracing European founder lineages in the Near
Eastern mtDNA pool. American Journal of Human Genetics, 67, 1251-1276.
Online paper and supplementary data in Vincent Macaulay's home page.
2) Michele Belledi et al., Maternal and paternal lineages in Albania
and the genetic structure of Indo-European populations, European
Journal of Human Genetics, 8, 480 - 486 (01 Jul 2000)
3) Giuseppe Passarino et al., Different genetic components in the
Norwegian population revealed by the analysis of mtDNA and Y chromosome
polymorphisms, European Journal of Human Genetics10, 521 - 529 (23 Aug
2002)
4) Esteban J. Parra et al., Estimating African American Admixture
Proportions by Use of Population-Specific Alleles, Am. J. Hum. Genet.,
63:1839-1851, 1998
---------------------------------------------
Racial Type of the Ancient Hellenes
Greek women through the ages: Minoan, Cycladic, Mycenaean, Classical, Modern
Introduction
This essay attempts a critical evaluation of the extant evidence about
the racial type of the Ancient Greeks. It is in part an anthropological
study in its own right, and in part a response to those, especially of
the Nordicist school, who claim that the Ancient Greeks were physically
different from the modern ones. If it sometimes appears that too much
effort is spent in convincing the reader of simple enough points, it is
because of my desire not to let any of the arguments of people holding
different views unchallenged.
Anthropological Evidence
Early anthropologists commonly believed that the Hellenes belonged
principally to the Mediterranean(a) race. This was the view shared by
Sergi [1] and Ripley [2]. In a more recent study of the problem of
Race, John R. Baker in [5] says that later studies “do not appear to
have disproved” these views. Buxton in [3] shares this general view,
although he observes that brachycephals(b) were a part of the Greek
population from the beginning and that the Greeks were a mix of
Alpine(c) and Mediterranean people from a “comparatively early date.”
The American anthropologist Coon in [4] agrees when he asserts that the
Greeks are an Alpine/Mediterranean mix, with a weak Nordic(d)
component, being “remarkably similar” to their ancient ancestors.
The most complete study of Greek skeletal material from Neolithic to
modern times was carried out by American anthropologist J. Lawrence
Angel [6] who found that in the early age racial variability in Greece
was 7% above average, indicating that the Greeks had multiple origins
within the Europid racial family. Angel noted that from the earliest
times to the present “racial continuity in Greece is striking.” Buxton
[30] who had earlier studied Greek skeletal material and measured
modern Greeks, especially in Cyprus, finds that the modern Greeks
“possess physical characteristics not differing essentially from those
of the former [ancient Greeks].”
The most extensive study of modern Greeks has been carried by the Greek
anthropologist Aris N. Poulianos [10,11]. Poulianos’ study included the
collection and study of more than seventy anthropometric measurements
from a large sample of thousands of Greeks from different parts of the
country. His main conclusions are that both Greeks and their
neighboring populations are basically a mixture of Aegeans (a
Mediterranean type local to the area) and Epirotics (Dinarics(e)) and
are descended from the ancient inhabitants of the lands in which they
live. The presence of individuals which approximate the Nordic subrace
is minimal, and does not exceed 4-6% even in the most depigmented
groups of Greece. More frequent are individuals which approximate the
Alpine race of Central Europe. These reach up to 20-30% of some groups
and are often blended with more southern racial types.
Nikolaos Xirotiris [37], more recently, surveyed Greek skeletal
material and a number of genetical and anthropometrical studies on
modern Greeks. His discoveries were that like in antiquity, the Greek
terrain which favors isolation, has led to the formation of local types
by micro-evolution. He too concludes racial continuity in Greece, not
finding traces of any significant alteration of the Greek racial
complex, from prehistory, through classical and medieval, to modern
times.
The American anthropologist Roland Dixon studied the funeral masks of
Spartans and found them to be Alpine [23]. Italian anthropologist
Raffaello Battaglia found the death masks of the Shaft Grave Mycenaeans
to represent Dinaric physiognomies [35]. J. Lawrence Angel exressed
similar opinions in that he believed that northern intruders in Greece
were always of “Dinaroid-Alpine central trend” [19] added to the
earlier Mediterranean/Alpine blend. Racial elements were not separate
but combined to produce Greek civilization [19]. Finally, a more recent
statistical comparison [18] of ancient and modern Greek skulls resulted
in the discovery of “a remarkable similarity in craniofacial morphology
between modern and ancient Greeks.”
Examples of Ancient Greek types: “Mediterranean”: Pericles, 5th c. BC
statesman, narrow-faced and fine-featured; Εικ 2 “Alpine”: Plato, 4th
c. BC philosopher, broad-faced and broad-headed; Εικ.3 “Dinaric”:
Aristippos, 4th c. BC philosopher, short and high-headed, salient nose
Baker [5] discusses the origin of blondism and says “It is often
supposed that blondness is an indication of Nordid ancestry. Taken by
itself, it is nothing of the kind.” Hence, it can be safely assumed
that the existence of blond individuals in the Classical world does not
require an explanation of Northern ancestry, as German anthropologist
Hans Guenther [15] and the Nordicist school presumed. This view was
shared by Buxton in [3] where he states “In regard to the Achaeans we
have shown that there appears to be no good ground for suspecting the
presence of Nordics.” F.G. Debets expresses a similar opinion [32] when
he states that “In the Bronze Age, we generally find the same types as
in the modern population, with different distribution. We cannot speak
of miscegenation with the Nordic race.” With regard to the modern
Greeks Buxton says [30] “the evidence of blue eyes is certainly
insufficient to establish their [Nordics’] presence as a significant
element in the population.” Carleton Coon [14] also cautions against
ascribing blonde elements in Mediterranean populations to “some
invasion of Goths or Scyths, or the miscegenation of Crusaders,” noting
that “one of the characteristics of the Mediterranean race is a
minority tendency to blondism.” Coon warns that “we cannot be sure that
all prehistoric skeletal material which seems Nordic in an osteological
sense was associated with blond soft parts” [4]. Moreover The Alpine
race (prevalent in much of continental Europe) has an even greater
occurrence of blondism and frequently gray eyes [2]. W. W. Howells of
Harvard University also notes [48] that “Not all ‘Nordics’ are blond,
and not all blonds are ‘Nordic,’ by any means.” American anthropologist
Earnest Hooton [40] cautions that the existence of occasional blonds in
Greek literature “does not justify inflation into pseudo-histories of
conquering ‘Nordic’ tribes invading the Greek peninsula.” American
anthropologist W. M. Krogman put it simply [36]: “Nordics today have
not cornered the market on blondism!”
Coon [4], based on a sample of 113 Greeks measured in Boston linked the
presence of the weak blond component (<5%) present in Greeks with
Nordic origin, mainly due to its linkage with an absence of eyebrow
concurrency. No such correlation emerges in Poulianos’ [10] sample from
different regions, which exceeds 3,000 individuals. Note also, that the
blondest Greek group (Macedonia) has a cephalic index of 83.08, higher
than the Greek average. Like in Italy [4], blondism in Greece is
slightly correlated with broader heads. The opposite would be expected
if it was Nordic in origin.
In conclusion, it is most likely that the minority blonde element in
Greece is not necessarily associated with historical migrations. It is
also true that the introduction of northern strains to the Greek
population in various times from pre-history to recent times may have
introduced more blond elements.
-----------------------------
Hope you have a looong and educational read.
------------- To the gods we mortals are all ignorant.Those old traditions from our ancestors, the ones we've had as long as time itself, no argument will ever overthrow, in spite of subtleties sharp minds invent.
|
Posted By: Spartakus
Date Posted: 10-Jun-2005 at 11:58
Wh are you replying to this stupid thread?
------------- "There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them. "
--- Joseph Alexandrovitch Brodsky, 1991, Russian-American poet, b. St. Petersburg and exiled 1972 (1940-1996)
|
Posted By: Perseas
Date Posted: 10-Jun-2005 at 12:29
What i love with your case Axl_low, is that when your pathetic arguments are leveled to ground zero (no need to remind you it happened already in two topics!!) you will jump like the troll you really are and start another topic trying to continue your political agenda's campaign.
Though, what i love mostly from you, is that there is no need even to use arguments... All i have to do is using your previous gibberish refuting the present ones.
And now once again ladies and gentlemen watch out Axl_low becoming a fool of himself with his own quotes.
Axl_low in his best form!!!
Originally posted by Axl Low
Like i said the macedonian have never questioned the right of the so called "greek-macedonians" and never told them off for thinking they are greek. |
Axl_low in serious mode now!!!
Originally posted by Axl Low
and they dont even question the "greekness" of modern greeks |
More of Axl_low!!
And again, you will always find a greek macedonian having the nerve to deny a Macedonian his Macedonian identity, yet you will never see this from a Macedonian |
Axl_low in angry mode!!
Originally posted by Axl Low
I dare you to find me one macedonian orgaisation that denies the greekness of the modern day greek people |
Axl_low in his conclusion!!!
Originally posted by Axl Low
Like i said, its obvious to see whos playing dirty games here |
------------- A mathematician is a person who thinks that if there are supposed to be three people in a room, but five come out, then two more must enter the room in order for it to be empty.
|
Posted By: GENERAL PARMENION
Date Posted: 10-Jun-2005 at 17:18
------------- "There is no doubt, that Macedonians were Greeks."
(Robin Lane Fox "Historian-Author" In Interview with newspaper TO BHMA)
|
Posted By: BirTane
Date Posted: 10-Jun-2005 at 17:23
why they want so desperately to make us
SLAVS, or ALBANIANS, or TURKS, or what a sh*t they put in their minds?????????????????????????????
What do they affraid of????????????????
PLEAAAAAAAAASEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
|
Posted By: ArmenianSurvival
Date Posted: 10-Jun-2005 at 17:28
This thread is pretty stupid. Freedom of speech is all good, this is
just some of the idiotic things we have to listen to in order to secure
this freedom. We have to take the good with the bad.
------------- Mass Murderers Agree: Gun Control Works!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Resistance
Քիչ ենք բայց Հայ ենք։
|
Posted By: Komnenos
Date Posted: 10-Jun-2005 at 17:37
Originally posted by ArmenianSurvival
This thread is pretty stupid.
|
I agree, there was never any point to it other than to provoke Greek members of AE, and that was rather successful. If you want to insult each other, exchange e-mail adresses, do it in private and spare the rest of us!
------------- [IMG]http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i137/komnenos/crosses1.jpg">
|
Posted By: ArmenianSurvival
Date Posted: 10-Jun-2005 at 17:43
Originally posted by Komnenos
If you want to insult each other, exchange e-mail adresses, do it in private and spare the rest of us! |
This is the best suggestion i have heard thus far. No wonder you were chosen part of the AE staff .
But, propagandists need an audience, or else their senseless cause will be senseless AND useless.
------------- Mass Murderers Agree: Gun Control Works!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Resistance
Քիչ ենք բայց Հայ ենք։
|
Posted By: Axl Low
Date Posted: 11-Jun-2005 at 06:22
Aeoolous, if the macedonians are "not allowed" by the greeks to claim the ancient macedonians - since they are just "slavs", then what ties do modern day "greeks" such as Koundouriotis, John Kolettis have with the ancient greeks -they were albamnian or vlach up untill the 18th century....
|
Posted By: Spartakus
Date Posted: 11-Jun-2005 at 06:49
Another propagandist nationalist FYROMIAN.......Man,these people are maniacs
------------- "There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them. "
--- Joseph Alexandrovitch Brodsky, 1991, Russian-American poet, b. St. Petersburg and exiled 1972 (1940-1996)
|
Posted By: Spartakus
Date Posted: 11-Jun-2005 at 06:53
I was in Katerini,near Olympus with my family for vacations.There we found some FYROMIANS,who told us they are Macedonias.We opened a discussion and after we show them historical facts that they are not,in the end they told us:"But America says we are Macedonians!".......
------------- "There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them. "
--- Joseph Alexandrovitch Brodsky, 1991, Russian-American poet, b. St. Petersburg and exiled 1972 (1940-1996)
|
Posted By: Justice
Date Posted: 12-Jun-2005 at 04:36
The word ''Greek'' is not much a term of birth as of mentality,and is applied to a common culture rather than a common descent....Isocrates.
------------- THEY WILL NOT PASS
|
Posted By: GENERAL PARMENION
Date Posted: 12-Jun-2005 at 10:37
Theese Fyromians are really starting to bore us !!
------------- "There is no doubt, that Macedonians were Greeks."
(Robin Lane Fox "Historian-Author" In Interview with newspaper TO BHMA)
|
Posted By: Murtaza
Date Posted: 12-Jun-2005 at 10:39
LOL
General I understand you my friend
|
Posted By: Kenaney
Date Posted: 12-Jun-2005 at 11:23
Who are the modern day "Greeks"?
Citizens of Greece.
------------- OUT OF LIMIT
|
Posted By: azimuth
Date Posted: 12-Jun-2005 at 11:35
finaly someone answered that Question
-------------
|
Posted By: BirTane
Date Posted: 12-Jun-2005 at 15:18
Originally posted by Kenaney
Who are the modern day "Greeks"?
Citizens of Greece.
|
clever answer, I must admit...but it is not correct
|
Posted By: TheodoreFelix
Date Posted: 12-Jun-2005 at 16:28
The word ''Greek'' is not much a term of birth as of mentality,and is applied to a common culture rather than a common descent....Isocrates.
|
I dont think you can apply that to this as I dont think Isocrates was in a different era then. Where people claimed descent from a polis. Thats was your country. So(and this is my view) by him saying that he is tying all the greeks together from whatever polis you come from.
-------------
|
Posted By: Spartakus
Date Posted: 12-Jun-2005 at 16:34
Not necessarily.The evolution of the Hellenic civilization,is imaged on the meaning of those words.Whoever participates the Hellenic educational system,follows the Hellenic principles,speaks Hellenic(modern or ancient) etc is a Hellen.I think that he is trying to show.
------------- "There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them. "
--- Joseph Alexandrovitch Brodsky, 1991, Russian-American poet, b. St. Petersburg and exiled 1972 (1940-1996)
|
Posted By: TheodoreFelix
Date Posted: 12-Jun-2005 at 16:46
About the "eratic" subsaharan genes(which was 2.9%). On diekenes site when it gave a list of them, it stated the Albanians tested were Arbresh(from Southern Italy). WHy didnt he do or show a test for the Albanians in Albania? Furtermore, why didnt he state that in this study?
-------------
|
Posted By: Phallanx
Date Posted: 12-Jun-2005 at 18:27
The word ''Greek'' is not much a term of birth as of
mentality,and is applied to a common culture rather than a common
descent....Isocrates. |
Not necessarily.The evolution of the Hellenic civilization,is
imaged on the meaning of those words.Whoever participates the Hellenic
educational system,follows the Hellenic principles,speaks
Hellenic(modern or ancient) etc is a Hellen.I think that he is trying
to show. |
Spartakus
Since our last discussion on this exact quote, I honestly believed you would have looked it up.
First of all, this is from Isocrates' Panegyrikos, which was actually
an attempt to unite the cities of Hellas against Persia, clearly
showing throughout the speech, his pride of Athens' past (since at that
time Sparta lead Hellas at that time.
We must also keep in mind, that this is a speech directed only to the Atheneans
If he was attempting to claim something like this, why would he previously say :
"for we did not become dwellers in this land by driving others out of
it, nor by finding it uninhabited, nor by coming together here a motley
horde composed of many races; but we are of a lineage so noble and so pure
that throughout our history we have continued in possession of the very
land which gave us birth, since we are sprung from its very soil and
are able to address our city by the very names which we apply to our
nearest kin."
( Panegyrikos 24)
Why speak of noble and pure lineage if he was to accept anyone as a Helline just a couple of lines down only based on intelect and culture???
Now to the text in question.
What he said:
"And so far has our city distanced the rest of mankind in thought and in speech that her pupils have become the teachers of the rest of the world; and she has brought it about that the name Hellenes suggests no longer a race but an intelligence, and that the title Hellenes is applied to those who share our culture OR to those who share a common blood.
(Panegyrikos 50)
In Hellinic:
" "
Why is the name Hellines a synonym to intelligence??
Because they are the teachers of the entire world, so when someone mentions Hellinas, he is describing knowledge/inntelect and not blood. Now compare that to the idea that anyone was accepted as a part of the Hellinic race.
What do you see??? Two totally different things.
It would also be interesting if anyone could provide a quote that
clearly says we accept anyone, since this one does nothing of the kind.
As the renowned German historian Ulrich Wilcken tells us.
"Isocrates by saying this does not include in to the Hellinic race the Hellinized barbarians, because for him the barbarians and especially the Persians, continued to be the natural enemies of Hellas.
What Isocrates means is that he considers the real Hellines to be only those that have the Attik culture."
Ulrich Wilcken "Ancient Greek History"
When reading his speech we find that throughout the whole speech he talks about Hellas being one unified community, both racial and cultural that is tortured by civil wars among the city states, while accross them stand the Persians, their agelong enemies.
The solution he gives is one, that they stop all disputes and that the HELLINES unite and start a campaigne against the BARBARIANS.
As seen in the beginning of the speech:
"I have come before you to give my counsels on the war against the barbarians and on concord among ourselves."
(Panegyrikos 3)
Just a couple more quotes that prove that Isocrates never was the 'internationalist' some would like to believe but the exact opposite.
"For we have reason to reproach the Lacedaemonians for this also, that
in the interest of their own city they compel their neighbors to live
in serfdom, but for the common advantage of their allies they refuse to
bring about a similar condition, although it lies in their power to make up their quarrel with us and reduce all the barbarians to a state of subjection to the whole of Hellas."
Some more:
"Of my own countrymen also I have a similar tale to tell. For towards
all other peoples with whom they have been at war, they forget their
past enmities the moment they have concluded peace, but toward the
Asiatics they feel no gratitude even when they receive favors from
them; so eternal is the wrath which they cherish against the barbarians .Our fathers, again, condemned many to death for
the crime of Medism, and in their public assemblies even at the present
day, before transacting any other business, they invoke curses on any citizen
who proposes to send an embassy to negotiate peace with the Persians; and
the Eumolpidae and the Ceryces, in the celebration of the mysteries,
on account of their hatred of the Persians warn all other barbarians, as
if they were murderers, to keep away from the sacred rites."
(Panegyrikos 157)
And
"So ingrained in our nature is our hostility to them
that even in the matter of our stories we linger most fondly over those
which tell of the Trojan and the Persian wars, because through them we
learn of our enemies' misfortunes; and you will find that our warfare against the barbarians has inspired our hymns, while that against the Hellenes has brought forth our dirges; and that the former are sung at our festivals, while we recall the latter on occasions of sorrow."
Read the speech you'll actually be quite suprised.
------------- To the gods we mortals are all ignorant.Those old traditions from our ancestors, the ones we've had as long as time itself, no argument will ever overthrow, in spite of subtleties sharp minds invent.
|
Posted By: philiptheuniter
Date Posted: 12-Jun-2005 at 19:24
Originally posted by Axl Low
Hellenized Albanians,Macedonians,Bulgars,Vlach and Turks? And these "people" have the nerve to question the macedonians and their identity lol:
It is a striking fact that the leading defenders of Greek liberty at this time were largely Non-Greek. Koundouriotis was decended from the Albanian invadors of Greece in the 14th century,and spoke Greek only with difficulty. His principal colleague was John Kolettis, a Vlakh who had been Ali Pasha's court doctor at Ioannina. One of the few leaders who maintained resistance far to the north of the Gulf of Corinth was the Souliote,Marko Botsaris,whos followers were largely Albanian. By a strange chance, it happend that two of the Turkish commanders-in-chief during the war, Khurshid Pasha and Muhammad Rehid Pasha(known to the Greeks as Kiutahi), were by birth Orthodox Christians, who had been converted to Islam for the sake of career in the Sultans service.
Modern Greece A Short History C.M. Woodhouse Page 139
Greece included considerably fewer than half of those who regarded themselves as Greeks by virtue of their language,their religion, and (less plausibly) their race. It was easy to stir up agitation in favour of enlarging Greece's frontiers by a progressive extension of "enosis" (union).
Modern Greece A Short History C.M. Woodhouse Page 163
In practice the Greeks had only exchanged arbitrary rule by Bavarians for arbitrary rule by others scarcely closer to themselves. The first six prime ministers under the new constitutions were all war-time leaders, several of them only nominally Greek. They included the Phanariote Mavrokordatos,the Vlakh Kolettis, and the Albanian Koundouriotis. With the exception of the last prime minister of Otho's reign, Admiral Kanaris,all of them paid litle regard to the constitution which had cost them so much toil and intrigue. Mavrokordatos in particular culpably betrayed his trust as Greece's first constitutional prime minister(March 1844), and was compelled to resign within six months. Kolettis, who succeeded him in August 1844,remained in office until his death three years later. Neither took naturally to democratic principles, though both had a superficial acquanintance with Western Europe. Mavrokordatos' background was the Phanariote society of Constantinpole and the Rumanian principalities.
Modern Greece A Short History C.M. Woodhouse Page 162
The conditions of the war were now completely changed. The Greeks, who had been squandering the money provided by the loans in every sort of senseless extravagance, affected to despise the Egyptian invaders, but they ~ were soon undeceived. On the 21st of March Ibrahim Mo,ea. had laid siege to Navarino, and after some delay a Greek force under Skourti, a Hydriote sea-captain, was sent to its relief. The Greeks had in all some 7000 men, Suliotes, Albanians, armatoli from Rumelia, and some irregular Bulgarian and Viach cavalry.
http://63.1911encyclopedia.org/G/GR/GREEK_INDEPENDENCE_WAR_OF.htm - http://63.1911encyclopedia.org/G/GR/GREEK_INDEPENDENCE_WAR_O F.htm
Anthony D. Smith points out, specifically in reference to the modern Greek nation, "Greek demographic continuity was brutally interrupted in the late sixth to eighth centuries A.D. by massive influxes of Avar, Slav and later, Albanian immigrants." He adds that modern Greeks "could hardly count as being of ancient Greek descent, even if this could never be ruled out.
A process of "re-hellenization" took place, led by the Greek Orthodox Church, using the vehicle of the Greek language. To use the words of Nicholas Cheetham, (in the south) "religion and Hellenization marched hand in hand." The Slavs and Albanians, in particular, converted to Christianity and learned to speak Greek.
Albanians settled in Athens, Corinth, Mani, Thessaly and even in the Aegean islands. In the early nineteenth century, the population of Athens was 24 percent Albanian, 32 percent Turkish, and only 44 percent Greek. The village of Marathon, scene of the great victory in 490 B.C., was, early in the nineteenth century, almost entirely Albanian."
Nicholas Hammond a historian who is sympathetic to the Greek view that the ancient Macedonians were a Greek tribe and who has had several works published in Athens says that by the middle of the fourteenth and early fifteenth century the majority of people in the Peloponnese were Albanian speakers.
The continuing impact of this new ethnic and cultural force is indicated in Hammond's comments that the Albanian incursions into Greece continued under the Turkish system and went on right into the eighteenth century, and that the descendants of these Albanian people were still speaking Albanian when he was in Greece in the 1930s. This is not a reflection on the national consciousness of these Greek citizens, for as Hammond explains, they thought of themselves as Greek. Indeed Hammond points out that the Albanian role in the resistance to the Turks, and in the formation of the Greek nation, was significant. Like the Slavs, the Albanians became attached to their new lands, learned the new language, and began to think of themselves as one with the other peoples living there.
Finlay recognized " the vigorous Albanians of Hydra, the warlike Albanians of Suli, the persevering Bulgarians of Macedonia, and the laborious Vallachians on the banks of the Aspropotamos" who embarked together on a struggle for Greek independence, "as heartily as the posterity of the ancient inhabitants of the soil of Hellas. Nicholas Hammond tells us that in the Greek War of Independence the Albanians, above all, drove the Turks out.
According to anthropologist Roger Just, most of the nineteenth-century "Greeks," who had so recently won their independence from the Turks, not only did not call themselves Hellenes (they learned this label later from the intellectual nationalists); they did not even speak Greek by preference, but rather Albanian, Slavonic, or Vlach dialects."
The Editor of The Sunday Telegraph argues that Greece has been ruthless in erasing traces of ethnic diversity, and suggests that the desperation of its actions, including the Greek claim to a monopoly of the classical past (in which all peoples of European origins have a share) can be explained by the fact that the Greeks today are a mixture of Slavs, Turks, Greeks, Bulgars, Albanians, Vlachs, Jews and Gypsies.
... the name of one of the Albanian leaders who fought so valiantly for Greek Independence against the Ottoman Turks in 1820 was Laskarina Bubalina, a female commander? And that other Albanian leaders in that same Greek war against the Turks were eo Picari, Foto Xhavella, Gjon Leka, Rrapo Hekali, Hodo Leka, Tafil Buzi, Shahin Qafezezi, and Marko Boari?
http://www.frosina.org/infobits/more_012103.shtml - http://www.frosina.org/infobits/more_012103.shtml
Clark quotes a Greek religious refrain from that era:
'Albanians, Wallachians, Bulgarians, speakers of other tongues, rejoice! And ready yourselves all to become Greeks Abandoning your barbaric tongue, speech, customs So that to your descendants they may appear as myths'
http://www.neww.org/pipermail/academic-resources/2000-August/000329.html - http://www.neww.org/pipermail/academic-resources/2000-August /000329.html
Nicholas Hammond a historian who is sympathetic to the Greek view that the ancient Macedonians were a Greek tribe and who has had several works published in Athens, is unable to support the Greek view on this matter. He says that by the middle of the fourteenth and early fifteenth century the majority of people in the Peloponnese were Albanian speakers. The fascinating point is that the people with whom they were competing for land were overwhelmingly not the original Greek-speaking Roman citizens, but the new breed of Greek-speaking Slavs. As Hammond says, many Greek- speaking people at that point in time were probably ethnic Slavs.
The continuing impact of this new ethnic and cultural force is indicated in Hammond's comments that the Albanian incursions into Greece continued under the Turkish system and went on right into the eighteenth century, and that the descendants of these Albanian people were still speaking Albanian when he was in Greece in the 1930s. This is not a reflection on the national consciousness of these Greek citizens, for as Hammond explains, they thought of themselves as Greek. Indeed Hammond points out that the Albanian role in the resistance to the Turks, and in the formation of the Greek nation, was significant. Like the Slavs, the Albanians became attached to their new lands, learned the new language, and began to think of themselves as one with the other peoples living there.
"I watched the Koutsovlachi disappear in Thessaly over a period of twenty years. I remember the first time I went up there in 1957, I was stunned, it was another world--it was Rumania. Blond, blue-eyed women wearing incredibly beautiful costumes: white, with about twelve to fifteen inches of thick fringes at the bottom, in saffron, black, and ocher. And everywhere I went, there were ducks and geese, which I didn't see anywhere else in Greece. Ducks and geese and pigs--standard east and central European farm culture. But I saw all of that disappear.
It's a pity because Greece has lost the Sarakatsani, it's lost the Vlachi, the Koutsovlachi, the Karagounidhes -- it's lost all these fascinating minority groups, and now people are getting up and trying to stop it, but they're about twenty years too late."
--"A Point of Contact: An Interview with Nikos Stavroulakis," by Peter Pappas in The Greek American (January 9, 1988)
To the Ottoman authorities what had always mattered were religious rather than national or linguistic differences; Balkan Christians were either under the authority of the Patriarch in chemas-microsoft-comfficemarttags" />lace>Constantinoplelace>, or they were more rarely Catholic or Protestant.
The Patriarch shared the same outlook; it was indifferent to whether its flocks spoke Greek, Vlach, Bulgarian or any other language or dialect. As for its flock , the illiterate Slav- speaking peasants tilling the fields outside the cities rarely felt strongly about Greece or Bulgaria and when asked which they were, many insisted on being known simply, as they had been for centuries, as Christians.
In Salonica itself, the growth of the Christian population had come from continual immigration over centuries from outlying villages, often as distant as the far side of the Pindos mountains, where many of the inhabitants spoke not Greek but a Vlach ( a Romance language akin to Romanian), Albanian, or indeed various forms of Slavic. They citeys life, schools and Priests gave these villagers, or their children, a new tongue, and turned them into Greeks. In fact many famous Greek figures of the past were really Vlachs by origin, including the savant Mosiodax, the revolutionary Rhigas Velestinlis, as well as the citys first Greek printers, the Garbolas family, and the Manakis brothers, pioneers of Balkan cinema.
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Mark Mazower
Page 257
> >
The Academy was built with bequest from Simon Sinas, the hugely wealthy son of Georgios Sinas, a Hellenised Vlach whose family came from Moschopolis in Southern Albania, who made his fortune in the Habsburg Empire and was himself the donor of Theophilos Hansen's observatory (1843-6).
A concise history Of Greece Richard Clogg Page 79
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WOW dude, what's motivating you to this? Really, nobody goes out of their way for this if there is no motivation. Anyways, no joke when I say I hope you find some peace. Mellow out buddy, you might even meet some people you like.
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Posted By: philiptheuniter
Date Posted: 12-Jun-2005 at 19:33
One more thing dude. Reading your post, it's full of poison. Hate is a nasty way to go through life mate. Hope you sort it out.
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Posted By: Phallanx
Date Posted: 12-Jun-2005 at 19:54
Originally posted by Iskender Bey ALBO
About the "eratic" subsaharan genes(which
was 2.9%). On diekenes site when it gave a list of them, it stated the
Albanians tested were Arbresh(from Southern Italy). WHy didnt he do or
show a test for the Albanians in Albania? Furtermore, why didnt he
state that in this study? |
Well, from what I understood, Dienekes Pontikos doesn't conduct these studies, he just presents them in his site.
After a couple of mails I've sent him, it's obvious that the dude does
know his stuff. If you want more info I suggest you contact him, he's
always willing to assist and answer to any questions.
------------- To the gods we mortals are all ignorant.Those old traditions from our ancestors, the ones we've had as long as time itself, no argument will ever overthrow, in spite of subtleties sharp minds invent.
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Posted By: TheodoreFelix
Date Posted: 12-Jun-2005 at 20:22
No, I know the man is a professional. I have accesed that site many times and have used it's fun little calculator. ,
I just feel like there was some kind of motive behind not giving that info.
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Posted By: Phallanx
Date Posted: 12-Jun-2005 at 20:41
Well he did title the article "GREEK MTDNA" so I guess that such
details were irrelevent.
Where did you find that the Albanian samples
were from S.Italy?
Every abstract I've seen makes no reference of that area, they just
state that Michele Belledi presented results from 42 Albanians.
------------- To the gods we mortals are all ignorant.Those old traditions from our ancestors, the ones we've had as long as time itself, no argument will ever overthrow, in spite of subtleties sharp minds invent.
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Posted By: TheodoreFelix
Date Posted: 12-Jun-2005 at 21:15
Well he did title the article "GREEK MTDNA" so I guess that such details were irrelevent.
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True...
Well he did title the article "GREEK MTDNA" so I guess that such details were irrelevent. Where did you find that the Albanian samples were from S.Italy?
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Ofcourse, Ill post it as soon as I can find it again. It will tkae a while though...
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Posted By: Spartakus
Date Posted: 13-Jun-2005 at 06:14
Originally posted by Phallanx
The word ''Greek'' is not much a term of birth as of mentality,and is applied to a common culture rather than a common descent....Isocrates. |
Not necessarily.The evolution of the Hellenic civilization,is imaged on the meaning of those words.Whoever participates the Hellenic educational system,follows the Hellenic principles,speaks Hellenic(modern or ancient) etc is a Hellen.I think that he is trying to show. |
Spartakus Since our last discussion on this exact quote, I honestly believed you would have looked it up.
| I am not going to discuss it again.
------------- "There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them. "
--- Joseph Alexandrovitch Brodsky, 1991, Russian-American poet, b. St. Petersburg and exiled 1972 (1940-1996)
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Posted By: Phallanx
Date Posted: 13-Jun-2005 at 06:19
As long as you really see what the speech says, which has nothing to do with accepting anyone as a Helline.
I honestly have no problem with that.
------------- To the gods we mortals are all ignorant.Those old traditions from our ancestors, the ones we've had as long as time itself, no argument will ever overthrow, in spite of subtleties sharp minds invent.
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Posted By: Spartakus
Date Posted: 13-Jun-2005 at 06:22
I have my point of view on the subjet which does not focusing on what an ancient said 2000 years ago and you have yours.The end.
------------- "There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them. "
--- Joseph Alexandrovitch Brodsky, 1991, Russian-American poet, b. St. Petersburg and exiled 1972 (1940-1996)
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Posted By: Phallanx
Date Posted: 13-Jun-2005 at 06:26
I've never mentioned your or my point of view, I'm clearly talking
about how the specific quote is wrongly presented to support something
Isocrates never said nor implied in the entire speech.
------------- To the gods we mortals are all ignorant.Those old traditions from our ancestors, the ones we've had as long as time itself, no argument will ever overthrow, in spite of subtleties sharp minds invent.
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