Pelasgians
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The name Pelasgians (
In the Classic period, enclaves under that name survived in several locations of mainland Greece, Crete, and other regions of the Aegean. Populations identified as "Pelasgian" spoke a language or languages that at the time Greeks identified as "barbarian", though some ancient writers nonetheless described the Pelasgians as Greeks. A tradition also survived that large parts of Greece had once been Pelasgian before being Hellenized. These parts fell largely, though far from exclusively, within the territory which by the 5th century BC was inhabited by those speakers of ancient Greek who were identified as Ionians and Aeolians.[4]
Etymology
Much like all other aspects of the "Pelasgians", their ethnonym (Pelasgoi) is of extremely uncertain provenance and etymology. Michael Sakellariou collects fifteen different etymologies proposed for it by philologists and linguists during the last 200 years, though he admits that "most [...] are fanciful".[5]
An ancient etymology based on mere similarity of sounds linked pelasgos to pelargos ("
Gilbert Murray summarized the derivation from pelas gē ("neighboring land"), current at his time: "If Pelasgoi is connected with πέλας, 'near', the word would mean 'neighbor' and would denote the nearest strange people to the invading Greeks".[8]
Ancient literary evidence
Literary analysis has been ongoing since classical Greece, when the writers of those times read previous works on the subject. No definitive answers were ever forthcoming by this method; it rather served to better define the problems. The method perhaps reached a peak in the Victorian era when new methods of systematic comparison began to be applied in philology. Typical of the era is the study by William Ewart Gladstone, who was a trained classicist.[12] Unless further ancient texts come to light, advances on the subject cannot be made. Therefore the most likely source of progress regarding the Pelasgians continues to be archaeology and related sciences.
The term "Pelasgians" in ancient sources
The definition of the term 'Pelasgians in ancient sources was fluid. The Pelasgians were variously described by ancient authors as Greek, semi-Greek, non-Greek and pre-Greek.[13] There are no emic perspectives of Pelasgian identity.[14] According to an analysis by historian Tristn Lambright of Jacksonville State University:
While defining Greek identity in terms of collectivity or superiority...Greek writers always had the option to resort to traditions about Pelasgian ancestors to emphasize the shared legacy of all Greeks as descendants of the autochthonous Pelasgians. By contrast, if the definition of Greek identity was parsed in terms of opposition, Greek writers could employ discourses about the alterity and barbarity of the Pelasgians to underline the distinction between Greek and non-Greek peoples. Consistently, however, Pelasgians appear in Greek literature as links to the Greeks' distant past. In this way, the Pelasgians enabled Greek writers to trace the historical roots of Greek identity, to explain the development of contemporary cultural conditions, and to promote Greek political projects in various political contexts.[15]
Poets
Homer
In the Additionally, according to the Iliad, Pelasgians were camping out on the shore together with the following tribes:
Towards the sea lie the Carians and the Paeonians, with curved bows, and the Leleges and Caucones, and the goodly Pelasgi.[23]
In the Odyssey, they appear among the inhabitants of Crete.[16] Odysseus, affecting to be Cretan himself, instances Pelasgians among the tribes in the ninety cities of Crete, "language mixing with language side by side".[24] Last on his list, Homer distinguishes them from other ethnicities on the island: "Cretans proper", Achaeans, Cydonians (of the city of Cydonia/modern Chania), Dorians, and "noble Pelasgians".[25]
Hesiod
Asius of Samos
Aeschylus
Aeschylus incorporates all the territories that the Archaic tradition identifies as Pelasgian, including Thessaly (the region of Homer's Pelasgian Argos), Dodona (the seat of Homer's Pelasgian Zeus), and Arcadia (the region ruled by autochthonous Pelasgus' son Lycaon) into an Argive-Pelasgian kingdom ruled by Pelasgus. This affirms the ancient Greek origins of the Pelasgians as well as their widespread settlements throughout central Greece and the Peloponnese.[31]
In Aeschylus's play,
The Danaids call the country the "Apian hills" and claim that it understands the karbana audan[34] (accusative case, and in the Dorian dialect), which many translate as "barbarian speech" but Karba (where the Karbanoi live) is in fact a non-Greek word. They claim to descend from ancestors in ancient Argos even though they are of a "dark race" (melanthes ... genos).[35] Pelasgus admits that the land was once called Apia but compares them to the women of Libya and Egypt and wants to know how they can be from Argos on which they cite descent from Io.[36]
According to Strabo, Aeschylus' Suppliants defines the original homeland of the Pelasgians as the region around Mycenae.[7]
Sophocles and Euripides
Sophocles and Euripides affirm the Greek origins of the Pelasgians while highlighting their relationship to the
Ovid
The Roman poet Ovid describes the Greeks of the Trojan War as Pelasgians in his Metamorphoses:[40]
Sadly his father, Priam, mourned for him, not knowing that young Aesacus had assumed wings on his shoulders, and was yet alive. Then also Hector with his brothers made complete but unavailing sacrifice, upon a tomb which bore his carved name. Paris was absent. But soon afterwards, he brought into that land a ravished wife, Helen, the cause of a disastrous war, together with a thousand ships, and all the great Pelasgian nation. [...] Here, when a sacrifice had been prepared to
Jove, according to the custom of their land, and when the ancient altar glowed with fire, the Greeks observed an azure colored snake crawling up in a plane tree near the place where they had just begun their sacrifice. Among the highest branches was a nest, with twice four birds—and those the serpent seized together with the mother-bird as she was fluttering round her loss. And every bird the serpent buried in his greedy maw. All stood amazed: but Calchas, who perceived the truth, exclaimed, "Rejoice Pelasgian men, for we shall conquer; Troy will fall; although the toil of war must long continue—so the nine birds equal nine long years of war." And while he prophesied, the serpent, coiled about the tree, was transformed to a stone, curled crooked as a snake.
Historians
Hecataeus of Miletus
Acusilaus
A fragment from the writings of
Hellanicus
Herodotus
In the Histories, the Greek historian
I am unable to state with certainty what language the Pelasgians spoke, but we could consider the speech of the Pelasgians who still exist in settlements above Tyrrhenia in the city of Kreston, formerly neighbors to the Dorians who at that time lived in the land now called Thessaliotis; also the Pelasgians who once lived with the Athenians and then settled Plakia and Skylake in the Hellespont; and along with those who lived with all the other communities and were once Pelasgian but changed their names. If one can judge by this evidence, the Pelasgians spoke a barbarian language. And so, if the Pelasgian language was spoken in all these places, the people of Attica being originally Pelasgian, must have learned a new language when they became Hellenes. As a matter of fact, the people of Krestonia and Plakia no longer speak the same language, which shows that they continue to use the dialect they brought with them when they migrated to those lands.
Furthermore, Herodotus discussed the relationship between the Pelasgians and the (other) Greeks,[50][51] which, according to Pericles Georges, reflected the "rivalry within Greece itself between [...] Dorian Sparta and Ionian Athens."[52] Specifically, Herodotus stated that the Hellenes separated from the Pelasgians with the former group surpassing the latter group numerically:[53]
As for the Hellenes, it seems obvious to me that ever since they came into existence they have always used the same language. They were weak at first, when they were separated from the Pelasgians, but they grew from a small group into a multitude, especially when many peoples, including other barbarians in great numbers, had joined them. Moreover, I do not think the Pelasgian, who remained barbarians, ever grew appreciably in number or power.
In Book 2, Herodotus alluded to the Pelasgians as inhabitants of Samothrace, an island located just north of Troy, before coming to Attica.[54] Moreover, Herodotus wrote that the Pelasgians simply called their gods theoi prior to naming them on the grounds that the gods established all affairs in their order (thentes); the author also stated that the gods of the Pelasgians were the Cabeiri.[55] Later, Herodotus stated that the entire territory of Greece (i.e., Hellas) was initially called "Pelasgia".[56]
In Book 5, Herodotus mentioned the Pelasgians as inhabitants of the islands of Lemnos and Imbros.[57]
In Book 6, the Pelasgians of Lemnos were originally Hellespontine Pelasgians who had been living in Athens but whom the Athenians resettled on Lemnos and then found it necessary to reconquer the island.[58] This expulsion of (non-Athenian) Pelasgians from Athens may reflect, according to the historian Robert Buck, "a dim memory of forwarding of refugees, closely akin to the Athenians in speech and custom, to the Ionian colonies".[59] Also, Herodotus wrote that the Pelasgians on the island of Lemnos opposite Troy once kidnapped the Hellenic women of Athens for wives, but the Athenian wives created a crisis by teaching their children "the language of Attica" instead of the Pelasgian.[60]
In Book 7, Herodotus mentioned "the Pelasgian city of Antandrus"[61] and wrote about the Ionian inhabitants of "the land now called Achaea" (i.e., northwestern Peloponnese) being "called, according to the Greek account, Aegialean Pelasgi, or Pelasgi of the Sea Shore"; afterwards, they were called Ionians.[62] Moreover, Herodotus mentioned that the Aegean islanders "were a Pelasgian race, who in later times took the name Ionians" and that the Aeolians, according to the Hellenes, were known anciently as "Pelasgians."[63]
In Book 8, Herodotus mentioned that the Pelasgians of Athens were previously called Cranai.[64]
Thucydides
In the History of the Peloponnesian War, the Greek historian Thucydides wrote about the Pelasgians stating that:[65]
Before the time of
Hellenes; though a long time elapsed before that name could fasten itself upon all.
The author regards the Athenians as having lived in scattered independent settlements in Attica; but at some time after Theseus, they changed residence to Athens, which was already populated. A plot of land below the Acropolis was called "Pelasgian" and was regarded as cursed, but the Athenians settled there anyway.[66]
In connection with the campaign against Amphipolis, Thucydides mentions that several settlements on the promontory of Actē were home to:[67]
[...] mixed barbarian races speaking the two languages. There is also a small
Chalcidian element; but the greater number are Tyrrheno-Pelasgians once settled in Lemnosand Athens, and Bisaltians, Crestonians and Eonians; the towns all being small ones.
Ephorus
The historian Ephorus, building on a fragment from Hesiod that attests to a tradition of an aboriginal Pelasgian people in Arcadia, developed a theory of the Pelasgians as a people living a "military way of life" (stratiōtikon bion) "and that, in converting many peoples to the same mode of life, they imparted their name to all", meaning "all of Hellas". They colonized Crete and extended their rule over Epirus, Thessaly and by implication over wherever else the ancient authors said they were, beginning with Homer. The Peloponnese was called "Pelasgia".[7]
Dionysius of Halicarnassus
In the Roman Antiquities, Dionysius of Halicarnassus in several pages gives a synoptic interpretation of the Pelasgians based on the sources available to him then, concluding that Pelasgians were Greek:[68]
Afterwards some of the Pelasgians who inhabited Thessaly, as it is now called, being obliged to leave their country, settled among the Aborigines and jointly with them made war upon the Sicels. It is possible that the Aborigines received them partly in the hope of gaining their assistance, but I believe it was chiefly on account of their kinship; for the Pelasgians, too, were a Greek nation originally from the Peloponnesus [...]
He goes on to add that the nation wandered a great deal.[68] They were originally natives of "Achaean Argos" descended from Pelasgus, the son of Zeus and Niobe.[68] They migrated from there to Haemonia (later called Thessaly), where they "drove out the barbarian inhabitants" and divided the country into Phthiotis, Achaia, and Pelasgiotis, named after Achaeus, Phthius and Pelasgus, "the sons of Larissa and Poseidon."[68] Subsequently, "about the sixth generation they were driven out by the Curetes and Leleges, who are now called Aetolians and Locrians".[68]
From there, the Pelasgians dispersed to
Geographers
Pausanias
In his
Strabo
Strabo dedicates a section of his Geography to the Pelasgians, relating both his own opinions and those of prior writers. He begins by stating:[7]
Almost every one is agreed that the Pelasgi were an ancient race spread throughout the whole of Greece, but especially in the country of the Æolians near to Thessaly.
He defines Pelasgian Argos as being "between the outlets of the
Language
In the absence of certain knowledge about the identity (or identities) of the Pelasgians, various theories have been proposed. Some of the more prevalent theories supported by scholarship are presented below. Since Greek is classified as an
Reception
The theory that Pelasgian was an Indo-European language, which "fascinated scholars" and concentrated research during the second part of the 20th century, has since been critiqued; an emerging consensus among modern linguists is that the
Pelasgian as Indo-European
Greek
Anatolian
In western Anatolia, many
Thracian
Vladimir I. Georgiev, a Bulgarian linguist, asserted that the Pelasgians spoke an Indo-European language and were, more specifically, related to the Thracians.[87][page needed][88][page needed] Georgiev also proposed, relying on a sound-shift model, that pelasgoi was a cognate of a Proto-Indo-European root and Greek Πέλαγος pelagos "sea".[citation needed]
Georgiev also suggested that the Pelasgians were a sub-group of the Bronze Age
Albanian
In 1854, an
Undiscovered Indo-European
Albert Joris Van Windekens (1915—1989) offered rules for an unattested hypothetical Indo-European Pelasgian language, selecting vocabulary for which there was no Greek etymology among the names of places, heroes, animals, plants, garments, artifacts and social organization.[92][93] His 1952 essay Le Pélasgique was skeptically received.[94]
Pelasgian as pre-Indo-European
Unknown origin
One theory uses the name "Pelasgian" to describe the inhabitants of the lands around the
Though Wilamowitz-Moellendorff wrote them off as mythical, the results of archaeological excavations at Çatalhöyük by James Mellaart and Fritz Schachermeyr led them to conclude that the Pelasgians had migrated from Asia Minor to the Aegean basin in the 4th millennium BC.[95] In this theory, a number of possible non-Indo-European linguistic and cultural features are attributed to the Pelasgians:
- Groups of apparently non-Indo-European loan words in the Greek language, borrowed in its prehistoric development.
- Non-Greek and possibly non-Indo-European roots for many Greek toponyms in the region, containing the consonantal strings "-nth-" (e.g., Rhamnus, and others.[96]
- Certain ).
- Non-Greek inscriptions in the Mediterranean, such as the Lemnos stele.
The historian George Grote summarizes the theory as follows:[97]
There are, indeed, various names affirmed to designate the ante-Hellenic inhabitants of many parts of Greece – the Pelasgi, the Leleges, the Curetes, the Kaukones, the Aones, the Temmikes, the Hyantes, the Telchines, the Boeotian Thracians, the Teleboae, the Ephyri, the Phlegyae, &c. These are names belonging to legendary, not to historical Greece – extracted out of a variety of conflicting legends by the logographers and subsequent historians, who strung together out of them a supposed history of the past, at a time when the conditions of historical evidence were very little understood. That these names designated real nations may be true but here our knowledge ends.
The poet and mythologist
Minoan
According to the Russian historian and linguist Igor M. Diakonoff, the Pelasgians may have been related to the Minoans.[99] A number of scholars consider Minoan to be essentially the same language as Pelasgian.[100][101]
Ibero-Caucasian
Some
Archaeology
Attica
During the early 20th century, archaeological excavations conducted by the Italian Archaeological School and by the American Classical School on the Athenian Acropolis and on other sites within Attica revealed Neolithic dwellings, tools, pottery and skeletons from domesticated animals (such as sheep and fish). All of these discoveries showed significant resemblances to the Neolithic discoveries made on the Thessalian acropolises of Sesklo and Dimini. These discoveries help provide physical confirmation of the literary tradition that describes the Athenians as the descendants of the Pelasgians, who appear to descend continuously from the Neolithic inhabitants in Thessaly. Overall, the archaeological evidence indicates that the site of the Acropolis was inhabited by farmers as early as the 6th millennium BC.[105][Note 1]
The results on the prehistoric material of the American excavations near the Clepsydra have also been analyzed by Immerwahr, arguing (in contrast to Prokopiou) that no Dimini-type pottery was unearthed.[106]
Lemnos
In August and September 1926, members of the Italian School of Archaeology conducted trial excavations on the island of
Boeotia
During the 1980s, the Skourta Plain Project identified Middle Helladic and Late Helladic sites on mountain summits near the plains of Skourta in Boeotia. These fortified mountain settlements were, according to tradition, inhabited by Pelasgians up until the end of the Bronze Age. Moreover, the location of the sites is an indication that the Pelasgian inhabitants sought to distinguish themselves "ethnically" (a fluid term[109]) and economically from the Mycenaean Greeks who controlled the Skourta Plain.[110][Note 3]
See also
- Barbarian
- Dacians
- Etruscan civilization
- Falisci
- Illyrians
- Leleges
- Minyans
- Names of the Greeks
- Old European culture
- Paleo-Balkan languages
- Pelasgian creation myth
- Pre-Greek substrate
- Rûm
- Sea peoples
- Thracians
- Tyrrhenians
Notes
- ^ According to Prokopiou: "Some forty years ago excavations on the Athenian Acropolis and on other sites in Attica brought to light many indications of neolithic life – dwellings, vases, tools, skeletons of sheep – which confirmed the traditions recorded by Herodotus that the Athenians were descended from the Pelasgians, the neolithic inhabitants of Thessaly. Indeed the neolithic vases of Attica date from the earliest neolithic age (5520–4900) like the ceramics from the Thessalian acropolis of Sesclos, as well as from the later neolithic age (4900–3200) like those from the other Thessalian acropolis of Dimini...The search for traces of the neolithic age on the Acropolis began in 1922 with the excavations of the Italian Archaeological School near the Aesclepium. Another settlement was discovered in the vicinity of the Odeion of Pericles where many sherds of pottery and a stone axe, both of Sesklo type, were unearthed. Excavations carried out by the American Classical School near the Clepshydra uncovered twenty-one wells and countless pieces of handmade pottery, sherds of Dimini type, implements of later Stone Age and bones of domestic animals and fish. The discoveries reinforced the theory that permanent settlement by farmers with their flocks, their stone and bone tools and ceramic utensils had taken place on the rock of the Acropolis as early as the sixth millennium."
- ^ Professor Della Seta reports: "The lack of weapons of bronze, the abundance of weapons of iron, and the type of the pots and the pins gives the impression that the necropolis belongs to the ninth or eighth century BC. That it did not belong to a Greek population, but to a population which, in the eyes of the Hellenes, appeared barbarous, is shown by the weapons. The Greek weapon, dagger or spear, is lacking: the weapons of the barbarians, the axe and the knife, are common. Since, however, this population...preserves so many elements of Mycenaean art, the Tyrrhenians or Pelasgians of Lemnos may be recognized as a remnant of a Mycenaean population."
- PGeras, most of these sites in the NE sector are not again inhabited for well over a millennium. Elsewhere, within the more accessible expanse of the Skourta plain itself, LH settlements are established on many sites which are later again important in the C era..."
References
Citations
- ^ Abel 1966, p. 13: "Common fifth century tradition claimed not only that the Pelasgians were the oldest inhabitants of Greece and among the ancestors of the Greek heroes."; p. 49: "Fifth century opinion assumed that the Pelasgians were the ancestors of the heroic Greeks, e.g. the ancestors of the Danaans, Arcadians and Athenians.".
- ^ Brug 1985, p. 41: "The Greek sources identify the Pelasgians as forerunners of the Greeks in the Peloponnesus and Attica.".
- ^ Rhodios & Green 2007, [1] (Commentary on I.987).
- ^ "Ionian". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 5 April 2017.
- ^ Sakellariou 1977, pp. 101–104.
- ^ Beekes 2009, p. 1165.
- ^ a b c d e Strabo. Geography, 5.2.4.
- ^ Murray 1960, p. 43.
- ^ Pokorny 1969, pp. 831–832.
- ^ Gladstone 1858, Chapter 2, Section 3, "Derivation of the Pelasgian Name", pp. 211–215.
- ^ Klein 1966, "Pelasgian and Pelagic".
- ^ Gladstone 1858. The Pelasgians are covered especially in Volume I.
- ^ Lambright 2022, p. 2, 31, 106-110.
- ^ Lambright 2022, p. 106.
- ^ Lambright 2022, p. 109.
- ^ a b c Gruen 2011, p. 241.
- ^ Homer. Iliad, 2.840–2.843. The camp at Troy is mentioned in Iliad, 10.428–10.429.
- ^ Not the same as the Larissa in Thessaly, Greece. Many towns bearing the same (or similar) name existed. This specific "Larisa" seems to have been located in Asia. See: Gruen 2011, p. 241
- ^ Homer. Iliad 2.806–12, 17.320–57 (transl. Robert Fitzgerald). See: Gruen 2011, p. 241
- ^ Homer. Iliad, 2.681–2.684.
- ^ The location is never explicitly given. Gladstone shows, by process of elimination, that it must be in the north of Thessaly. (Gladstone 1858, pp. 100–105.)
- ^ Homer. Iliad, 16.233–16.235.
- ^ Homer. Iliad, 10.428.
- ^ Homer. Odyssey, 19.175–19.177 (Robert Fagles's translation).
- ^ Homer. Odyssey, Book 19 (T.E. Lawrence's translation).
- ^ Hesiod, fr. 319 M–W = Strabo. Geography, 7.7.10.
- ^ Hesiod. Catalogue of Women, fr. 161 = Strabo. Geography, 5.2.4
- ^ Prichard 1841, p. 489.
- ^ Lambright 2022, p. 39.
- ^ Lambright 2022, p. 33.
- ^ a b Lambright 2022, pp. 80–81.
- ^ Aeschylus. The Suppliants, Lines 249–259.
- ^ Aeschylus. The Suppliants, Lines 262–263.
- ^ Aeschylus. The Suppliants, Lines 128–129.
- ^ Aeschylus. The Suppliants, Lines 154–155.
- ^ Aeschylus. The Suppliants, Lines 279–281.
- ^ Sophocles & Dindorf 1849, Fragment 256 (p. 352).
- ^ Euripides. Orestes, Lines 857 and 933.
- ^ Euripides. The Phoenician Women, Line 107.
- ^ Ovid. Metamorphoses, 12.1.
- ^ Hecataeus of Miletus & Klausen 1831, Fragment 224 (p. 140).
- ^ Hecataeus of Miletus & Klausen 1831, Fragment 375 (p. 157).
- ^ Mentioned in Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 2.1.
- ^ Hellanicus fr. 36, Fowler, p. 173 (apud Scholia (T+) Iliad 3.75b); cf. Hellanicus fr. 7, Sturtz, pp. 49–51; Homer. Iliad, 3.75.
- Roman Antiquities 1.28.3 (citing Hellanicus, Phoronis) = Hellanicus fr. 4, Fowler, pp. 156–157; cf. Hellanicus fr. 76, Sturtz, pp. 108–109.
- ^ Briquel 2013, p. 47.
- ^ Herodotus. Histories, 1.56.
- ^ Herodotus. Histories, 1.57. (Herodotus & Strassler 2009, p. 32.)
- ^ Georges 1994, p. 134: "Herodotus, like other Greeks, instinctively imagined the non-Dorian inhabitants of 'ancient' Greece—Achaeans, Argives, Danaans, Ionians, Pelasgians, Cadmeans, Lapiths, and all the rest of the races of myth and epic—to be essentially "Greek" and ancestral to themselves, as Aeschylus imagined the Pelasgian Argives in the Supplices [...]".
- ^ Herodotus. Histories, 1.56–1.58. (Herodotus & Strassler 2009, pp. 32–33.)
- ^ Georges 1994, p. 131: "Herodotus argues near the very beginning of his work that most of the people who later became Hellenes were Pelasgians, and that these Pelasgians were barbarians and spoke a barbarian language. From these Pelasgians Herodotus derives the descent of the Ionians, as well as that of all the other Greeks of the present day who are not Dorians (1.56.3–58) [...]".
- ^ Georges 1994, pp. 129–130.
- ^ Herodotus. Histories, 1.58. (Herodotus & Strassler 2009, p. 33.)
- ^ Herodotus. Histories, 2.51. The text allows two interpretations, that Pelasgians were indigenous there or that they had been resettled by Athens.
- ^ Herodotus. Histories, 2.51.
- ^ Herodotus. Histories, 2.56.
- ^ Herodotus. Histories, 5.26.
- ^ Herodotus. Histories, 6.137–6.140.
- ^ Buck 1979, p. 79.
- ^ Herodotus. Histories, 6.138.
- ^ Herodotus. Histories, 7.42.
- ^ Herodotus. Histories, 7.94.
- ^ Herodotus. Histories, 7.95. (Herodotus & Strassler 2009, p. 533.)
- ^ Herodotus. Histories, 8.44.
- ^ Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War, 1.3.2.
- ^ Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War, 2.16–2.17.1.
- ^ Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War, 4.109.4.
- ^ a b c d e Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Roman Antiquities, 1.17.
- ^ a b Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Roman Antiquities, 1.18.
- ^ a b Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Roman Antiquities, 1.19.
- ^ Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Roman Antiquities, 1.19–1.20.
- ^ Pausanias. Description of Greece, 8.1.4.
- ^ Pausanias. Description of Greece, 8.1.5 and 8.1.6.
- ^ Pausanias. Description of Greece, 8.4.1.
- ^ Pausanias. Description of Greece, 3.20.5.
- ^ Pausanias. Description of Greece, 7.2.2.
- ^ Strabo. Geography, 5.2.8.
- ^ Beekes 2014, p. 1.
- ^ García-Ramón 2004, pp. 999–1000.
- ^ Beekes 2018, "109. Pelasgian", pp. 1873–1874.
- ^ Mihaylova 2012, pp. 80–81.
- ^ An inscription discovered in Calabria in 1785 and preserved in Cardinal Borgia's collection at Velletri, discussed in Luigi Lanza, ‘’,Saggio di lingua Latina e altri antichi d’Italia'’, vol. I, 2nd ed. Florence 1824.
- ^ Lytton 1837, pp. 5–8.
- ^ Harrison 1998, pp. 25–26: "Herodotus' account, for example, of the adoption by the Pelasgians of the names of the gods (2.52.1) suggests a much closer relationship between the Pelasgian and Greek languages. Before they heard the names of the gods, the Pelasgians (assuming, interestingly, the existence of a number of gods) called them simply θεοί, on the grounds that they had 'established (θέντες) all affairs in their order'. This etymology, advanced apparently in all seriousness, seems to suggest that the Pelasgians spoke a language at least 'akin to' Greek."
- ^ Larcher, Pierre-Henri (1844). Notes on Herodotus: Historical and Critical Comments on the History of Herodotus, with a Chronological Table. Whittaker. p. 54.
If this affiliation of language be admitted, then the Pelasgians and Greeks were of the same race.
- ^ Finkelberg 2006.
- ^ Georgiev 1961.
- ^ Georgiev 1977.
- ^ Hahn 1854, IV. Sind Die Albanesen Autochthonen?, pp. 211–279.
- The Newsletter of the Society Farsharotu. Vol. XXI & XXII, no. 1 & 2. Society Farsharotu. pp. 16–17.
Soon after this the "Pelasgian theory" was formulated, according to which the Greek and Albanian languages were claimed to have a common origin in Pelasgian, while the Albanians themselves are Pelasgians and hence come from the same ethnological stock as the Greeks. The "Pelasgian theory" began to take shape in the 1850s and 1860s and became widespread in the 1870s. ... Needless to say, there is absolutely no scientific evidence to support any of these theories.
- ^ Schwandner-Sievers & Fischer 2002; Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers and Bernd Jürgen Fischer, editors of Albanian Identities: Myth and History, present papers resulting from the London Conference held in 1999 entitled "The Role of Myth in the History and Development of Albania." The "Pelasgian" myth of Albanians as the most ancient community in southeastern Europe is among those explored in Noel Malcolm's essay, "Myths of Albanian National Identity: Some Key Elements, As Expressed in the Works of Albanian Writers in America in the Early Twentieth Century". The introductory essay by Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers establishes the context of the "Pelasgian Albanian" mythos, applicable to Eastern Europe generally, in terms of the longing for a stable identity in a rapidly opening society.
- ^ Van Windekens 1952.
- ^ Van Windekens 1960.
- ^ As, for example, in Gordon Messing's extended review, criticizing point-by-point, in Language 30.1 (January–March 1954), pp. 104–108.
- ^ Schachermeyr 1976; Mellaart 1965–1966; Mellaart 1975, "Southeastern Europe: The Aegean and the Southern Balkans".
- ^ Beekes 2009.
- ^ Grote 1862, pp. 43–44.
- ".
- ISBN 978-0-226-14467-2.
- ISBN 978-0-230-28203-2.
In the Greek islands and possibly also the Peloponnese were speakers of a language scholars sometimes call Minoan, after the great civilization associated with Crete in the second millennium BCE, or Eteo-Cretan. It is probably the language of the Minoan A script, which has largely escaped deciphering. A number of scholars consider this to be essentially the same language as Pelasgian.
- ISBN 978-0-19-537984-6.
- ^ Gordeziani 1985.
- ^ Kaigi 1969, M. G. Abdushelishvili, "The Genesis of the Aboriginal Population of the Caucasus in the Light of Anthropological Data".
- ISBN 978-0-85255-902-4.
- ^ Prokopiou & Smith 1964, pp. 21–22.
- ^ Immerwahr 1971, p. 19: "It is the Late Neolithic period that provides most of our parallels, yet, curiously, the striking Dimini-type painted wares of Thessaly are completely lacking, and there is only one small recognisable sherd of the related Mattpainted ware of Central and Southern Greece."
- ^ Palaeolexicon: The Linear B word ra-mi-ni-ja
- ^ Heffner 1927, pp. 123–124.
- ^ The American Forum for Global Education 2000.
- ^ French 1989–1990, "Skourta Plain project", p. 35.
Sources
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- Fowler, R. L. (2000). Early Greek Mythography: Volume 1: Text and Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0198147404.
- French, E. B. (1989–1990). "Archaeology in Greece 1989-90". Archaeological Reports. 36: 2–82. S2CID 128887293.
- García-Ramón, José Luís (2004). "Greece, Languages". In Cancik, Hubert; Schneider, Helmut (eds.). Brill's New Pauly, Vol. 5. Leiden: Brill.
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- Grote, George (1862). A History of Greece: From the Earliest Period to the Close of the Generation Contemporary with Alexander the Great. Vol. II. London: John Murray.
- Gruen, Erich S. (2011). Rethinking the Other in Antiquity. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-14852-6.
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- Hecataeus of Miletus; Klausen, Rudolph Heinrich (1831). Hecataei Milesii Fragmenta: Scylacis Caryandensis Periplus. Berlin: Impensis G. Reimeri.
- Hellanicus; Sturz, Fridericus Guilielmus; Canteri, Gulielmi (1826). Hellanici Lesbii Fragmenta: Edition Altera Aucta et Emendata. Lipsiae: Sumtibus C. H. F. Hartmanni.
- Heffner, Edward H. (January 1927). "Archaeological News: Notes on Recent Archaeological Excavations and Discoveries; Other News (July–December 1926)". American Journal of Archaeology. 31 (1): 99–127. S2CID 245265394.
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- Immerwahr, Sara Anderson (1971). The Athenian Agora: The Neolithic and Bronze Ages. Vol. 13. Princeton, NJ: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens. ISBN 0-87661-213-3.
- Kaigi, Nihon Gakujutsu (1969). Proceedings: VIIIth International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, 1968, Tokyo and Kyoto. Tokyo: Science Council of Japan.
- Klein, Ernest (1966). A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. Amsterdam: Elsevier Publishing Company. ISBN 0-444-40930-0. LC 65-13229.
- Lambright, Tristn (2022). In Search of the Pelasgians: Discursive Strategies and Greek Identities from the Archaic Period to the Roman Imperial Era (Thesis). Jacksonville State University.
- Lytton, Sir Edward Bulwer (1837). Athens: Its Rise and Fall. Vol. I. London: Saunders and Oatley.
- Mellaart, James (1965–1966). "Catal Hüyük, A Neolithic City in Anatolia". Proceedings of the British Academy. 51: 206–208.
- Mellaart, James (1975). The Neolithic of the Near East. New York City: Charles Scribner's Sons. ISBN 0-684-14483-2.
- Mihaylova, Biliana (2012). "The Pre-Greek Substratum Revisited". In Hejl, Christina Løye; Jacquet, Janus Bahs; Heide, Marie; Whitehead, Benedicte Nielsen; Olsen, Birgit Anette (eds.). Etymology and the European Lexicon (PDF). Copenhagen: Roots of Europe (University of Copenhagen). pp. 80–81.
- Murray, Gilbert (1960). The Rise of the Greek Epic. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. LC60-13910.
- Olcott, William Tyler (1914). Sun Lore of All Ages. Rain, Tedd St (Foreword by). New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Retrieved 11 March 2013.
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- Pokorny, Julius (1969). Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (in German). New York, NY: French and European Publications, Incorporated. ISBN 0-8288-6602-3.
- Prichard, James Cowles (1841). Researches into the Physical History of Mankind: Containing Researches into the History of the European Nations. Vol. III (3rd ed.). London: Sherwood, Gilbert and Piper.
- Prokopiou, Angelos; Smith, Edwin (1964). Athens: City of the Gods from Prehistory to 338 B.C.. New York, NY: Stein and Day. OCLC 1016679.
- Rhodios, Apollonios; Green, Peter (2007). The Argonautika. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-25393-3.
- Sakellariou, Michael B. (1977). Peuples Préhelléniques d'Origine Indo-Européennee (in French). Athens: Ekdotike Athenon.
- Schachermeyr, Fritz (1976). Die Ägäische Frühzeit: Forschungsbericht über die Ausgrabungen im letzten Jahrzehnt und über ihre Ergebnisse für unser Geschichtsbild. Bd. I. Die Vormykenischen Perioden des Griechischen Festlandes und der Kykladen (in German). Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. ISBN 9783700101482.
- Schwandner-Sievers, Stephanie; Fischer, Bernd Jürgen, eds. (2002). Albanian Identities: Myth and History. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-21570-6.
- Sophocles; Dindorf, Wilhelm (1849). ΣΟΦΟΚΛΗΣ: Sophoclis Tragoediae Superstites et Deperditarum Fragmenta: Editio Secunda Emendatior. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- The American Forum for Global Education (2000). "Foreigners and Barbarians (Adapted from Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks)". The American Forum for Global Education. Archived from the original on 16 December 2000. Retrieved 13 June 2016.
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: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - Thucydides; Jowett, Benjamin (trans.) (1881). Thucydides Translated into English; with Introduction, Marginal Analysis, Notes, and Indices. Volume 1. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
- Van Windekens, Albert Joris (1952). Le Pélasgique: Essai sur une Langue Indo-Européenne Préhéllenique (in French). Louvain-la-Neuve: Université de Louvain, Institut Orientalistique.
- Van Windekens, Albert Joris (1960). Études Pélasgiques (in French). Louvain-la-Neuve: Université de Louvain, Institut Orientalistique.
Further reading
- Sakellariou, Michael B. (1974) [1970]. "Pelasgians". In Christopoulos, George A.; Bastias, John C.; Phylactopoulos, George (eds.). History of the Hellenic World. Volume 1: Prehistory and Protohistory. Translated by Sherrard, Philip. Athens: Ekdotike Hellados S.A. pp. 368–370. ISBN 0-271-01199-8.
- Mackenzie, Donald Alexander (1917). Myths of Crete and Pre-Hellenic Europe. London, United Kingdom: Gresham Publishing Company.
- Munro, J. A. R. (1934). "Pelasgians and Ionians". The Journal of Hellenic Studies. 54 (2): 109–128. S2CID 164120593.
- Myres, J. L. (1907). "A History of the Pelasgian Theory". The Journal of Hellenic Studies. 27: 170–225. S2CID 162335262.