Post by Niklianos on Jan 14, 2008 20:28:21 GMT -5
Do we have any archeologic ruins left for Dorians as to know if they were Greeks? I really don't know.
The Dorians
The Dorians
There are many descendants of the Dorians and of whom speak a Dorian dialect. There are the Spartans, the Messenia, the Argolíds, the Corinthians, the Melians(Melos), the Therans, the Rhodians, the people from Cos, the Hallicarnassians, the Cnidians, the Corcyrans, the Syracusans, the Agrigentians(Greek Acragas), the Gelans, the Tarasians(Taranto in Italy) the Cyrenians(North Africa), and several colonies around the Black Sea coast.
Read this article from Britannica Online Encyclopedia.
Any member of a major division of the ancient Greek people, distinguished by a well-marked dialect and by their subdivision, within all their communities, into the “tribes” (phylai) of Hylleis, Pamphyloi, and Dymanes. These three tribes were apparently quite separate in origin from the four tribes found among the Ionian Greeks. The Dorian people are traditionally acknowledged as the conquerors of the Peloponnese (in the period 1100–1000 BC).
In Greek tradition, the Dorians were thought to have gained their name from Doris, a small district in central Greece. According to this tradition, the sons of Heracles, the Heraclidae, were driven from their homeland in the Peloponnese by Eurystheus of Mycenae. The Heraclidae took refuge with Aegimius, the king of Doris. Several generations later, the Heraclid brothers Temenus, Aristodemus, and Cresphontes led the “Dorians” back in a successful invasion of the Peloponnese and thus recovered their heritage.
In actual fact, the origins of the Dorians are necessarily obscure, but it appears they originated in northern and northwestern Greece, i.e., Macedonia and Epirus. From there they apparently swept southward into central Greece and then into the southern Aegean area in successive migrations beginning about 1100 BC, at the end of the Bronze Age. The invading Dorians had a relatively low cultural level, and their only major technological innovation was the iron slashing sword. The Dorians swept away the last of the declining Mycenaean and Minoan civilizations of southern Greece and plunged the region into a dark age out of which the Greek city-states began to emerge almost three centuries later.
The migrating Dorians settled chiefly in the southern and eastern Peloponnese, establishing strong centres in Laconia (and its capital, Sparta), Messenia, Argolís, and the region of the Isthmus of Corinth. They also settled the southern Aegean islands of Melos, Thera, Rhodes, and Cos, along with the island of Crete. In fact, the Dorians reached as far east as the cities of Halicarnassus and Cnidus on the coast of mainland Anatolia (now southwestern Turkey). A great wave of renewed colonization beginning in the 8th century BC brought Dorian settlers to the island of Corcyra (modern Corfu), to Syracuse, Gela, and Acragas (now Agrigento) in Sicily, to Taras (now Taranto) in Italy, and to Cyrene in North Africa, as well as to scattered sites in the Crimea and along the Black Sea. Sparta, Corinth, and Argos were among the most important cities of Doric origin.
Doric was one of the major dialects of the classical Greek language, along with the Ionic-Attic, Aeolic, and Arcado-Cypriot dialect groups. But because the Ionic-Attic dialect of Athens dominated Greek culture from the 5th century BC, very little remains of ancient writings in pure Doric dialect.
The Dorian peoples had a seminal influence on the later development of Greek art. Indeed, the crowning achievements of Greek art and architecture from the 5th century BC arose from the combination of the art of the Doric peoples (with its restraint, power, and monumentality) and that of the Ionian peoples (with its grace, elegance, and ornateness). The massive and simple Doric order of architecture earned its name from its origin in the Doric-populated cities of the southern Aegean. The choral lyrics in Greek tragedy were also a Doric invention.
Politically, the Dorian centres took two different courses of development. In Corinth, Rhodes, Argos, and various other mercantile-oriented city-states, the Dorian invaders, though at first reserving political power unto themselves, eventually merged with the conquered indigenous peoples of their regions. In Sparta and the island of Crete, by contrast, the Dorians kept power to themselves and constituted themselves into a ruling military class. These militarized Dorian aristocracies deliberately “froze” an archaic form of society (and sacrificed most of their cultural and artistic promise in the process) in order to maintain dominance over a larger population of serfs.
teuta1975 said:
Legends which survived among the Dorians and which have come down to us through Pindar, Herodotus and other ancient writers, say that the earliest ancestors of the Dorians were Makednoi (that is, Macedonians), who migrated to Doris from Pindos, more precisely from the Lakmos region. Since it has already been seen that the Dorians took their name from Doris, where they formed themselves into one ethnic group by the union of the local inhabitants and the newcomers, it can readily be inferred that the name Makednoi and the mention of Pindos as their original homeland do not refer to the whole of the Dorian tribe but just to one of its component groups - not the Hylleis, however, because these had settled in present-day Sterea Hellas earlier. Ancient texts containing echoes of fragments of a very old lost epic about Aigimios say that the Dorians stood in danger of attack by the Lapiths, that the king of the Dorians, Aigimios, sought the help of Herakles in return for the reward mentioned above, and that Herakles repulsed the Lapiths and established the Dorians in a region from which he had driven out the Dryopians. It follows that the race which was led by Aigimios and helped by Herakles was not yet the Dorians but the Makednians. Herakles here is no more than the representative of a people in central Sterea Hellas. One of the texts mentioned above says that Aigimios people at the time of the Lapith attacks were in Histiaiotis; others imply that they had already reached the northern part of present-day Sterea Hellas. The second version must be the earlier one, because it tallies with the mention of the alliance of the people who are represented by Herakles. The mention of the Lapiths as enemies of the Dorians, i.e. the Makednians, does not conflict with this version since, as we have seen, there are traces of Lapith settlements in the Spercheios Valley. The Dorians of the historical period were divided into three tribes: Hylleis, Dymanes, and Pamphyloi. The eponymous heroes of the Dymanes and the Pamphyloi were believed to be the sons of Aigimios who had led the Dorians to Doris. The eponymous hero of the Hylleis was said to be the son of Herakles who had acquired one third of Aigimios kingdom for helping him against the Lapiths.
Refer to my above response.
Macedonia 's archeological map - three volumes of which have been published by the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts - has recorded over 5,000 archeological sites in Macedonia. Very few of these are open to visitors, while the others have only been identified. The law does not allow unauthorized individuals to conduct archeological research without the approval and consent of the relevant institutions, which is the Republic Bureau for Cultural Monuments' Protection and local municipal bureaus for monuments' protection. Individual research, which is an adventure for anyone, is possible in coordination with these institutions and with their consent.
CHRONOLOGY
Late Paleolithic period , 30,000 years BC. No sites have been registered so far, but numerous objects from this period have been discovered.
Old Neolithic period , 6,000 years BC. The most famous sites that have been recorded and partly explored are Govrlevo and Madzari Tumba near Skopje and Amzabegovo in the Sveti Nikole and Stip area.
Hellenic period : Trebeniste, Prentov Most (Ohrid area)
Roman period : Heraklea and Stibera ( Bitola area), Stobi (Veles area), Astibo (Stip), Skupi ( Skopje )
Roman roads :
Via Egnacia (linked the Adriatic and the Aegean Seas ) -- Dirahion-Struga-Ohrid- Bitola -Gradsko-Demir Kapija-Idomene
Via Aksija (Via Militaris) – a military road that connected the Kumanovo-Pcinja area with Gevgelija and linked on to Via Egnacia.
Via Dijagonalis – a diagonal road between Kicevo and Skupi
CHRONOLOGY
Late Paleolithic period , 30,000 years BC. No sites have been registered so far, but numerous objects from this period have been discovered.
Old Neolithic period , 6,000 years BC. The most famous sites that have been recorded and partly explored are Govrlevo and Madzari Tumba near Skopje and Amzabegovo in the Sveti Nikole and Stip area.
Hellenic period : Trebeniste, Prentov Most (Ohrid area)
Roman period : Heraklea and Stibera ( Bitola area), Stobi (Veles area), Astibo (Stip), Skupi ( Skopje )
Roman roads :
Via Egnacia (linked the Adriatic and the Aegean Seas ) -- Dirahion-Struga-Ohrid- Bitola -Gradsko-Demir Kapija-Idomene
Via Aksija (Via Militaris) – a military road that connected the Kumanovo-Pcinja area with Gevgelija and linked on to Via Egnacia.
Via Dijagonalis – a diagonal road between Kicevo and Skupi
You claim the Ancient Macedonians were not a Greek people but an Illyrian or Thracian or related people. I want to know what do you have, which has been uncovered from that period, which supports this claim?
I don’t want to know the archaeology of the MODERN nation of FYROM. I only want the archaeology from the areas which were part of Ancient Macedonia during the timeframe we are discussing.
There are mostly Greek ruins in FYrom BECAUSE OF Hellenization in a later period................That's why we need other approaches...(also we know pelazgians existed, but what archeological proves do we have from them?)
We do not need other approaches. You must free your mind of the bias in the belief that the Ancient Macedonians were “Hellenized” first in order to get a better understanding of why the Ancient Macedonians came to have “Greek” ruins there. Let me clear one thing up. Only the areas of Ohrid and Bitola in FYROM were part of Ancient Macedonia, NOT THE REST. That is the southwest portion only. Skopje was never part of Macedonia in the timeframe we are discussing. As for the Pelasgians that is for another topic.
Here we are discussing the Ancient Macedonians from their earliest beginnings to the founding of the Argaead dynasty(8th century B.C.E) up until the death of Alexander the Great.
And UNLESS you give me some archeological evidence that suport the interpretation of Dorians as Greeks (I am really ignorant in here... )
The Dorians were one of the Main language and culture groups making up the Ancient Greek tribes.
Again: how can a NON-written language be found written??? We are discussing about the spoken language of MAcedonians because the written language was obviously Greek when they started to write and adopt it.
My point exactly! This is where the archaeology comes into play. What if anything is there that supports the claim of there being an actual language besides Greeks which the Ancient Macedonians spoke. This is why I do not want the word Makedonisti which can be interpreted as either ‘dialect’ or ‘language’ to be the basis for a belief in a ‘mythical’ language. ‘Makedonisti’ is the term in which all the arguments for “Alexander speaking in his tongue.” etc, is based on. The text would read “Alexander spoke in Makedonisti.”
So to base an entire argument, and be adamant about it, on a single word which can be interpreted 2 different ways, is illogical and totally unsubstantiated. So if anyone wants to use that term to base there argument I need to see HARD evidence from archaeological excavations which support it. Otherwise that mythical ‘mother-tongue’ is non-existent.
What do we have when it comes to a language spoken in Ancient Macedonia? We have more than 6000 samples of writings, such as, Names on grave stelae(headstones), curse tablets, royal decrees, other inscriptions, etc. The Greek which was spoken in Ancient Macedonia was not always Attic and Koine(which derived from Attic after Alexander). We have inscriptions that are Aeolic or Northwest Greek. We have an archaic form of Dorian. We later have Attic adopted by the nobility and later turns into Koine. So to say that the Ancient Macedonians were “Hellenized” is incorrect. You must show us how and why the Pella Katadesmos and the Aeolic dialects came from and why were they found in Macedonia. We know when and how the Nobles, artisans and traders adopted Attic and later Koine. What we don’t have is a dismissal of how Dorian and Aeolic came to be
Historical means what describes the events of a certain period without any passion or literary style (ex: Illiad is not History but Herodotus and Ptolemy are). Prehistory, the Contemporary history and all PERIODS of histories are included in History.
I should have said that Historical Archaeologically means ‘written history’.
Archeology are RUINS. Not the scripts. Because what we have left from Troy as archeological evidence is not any Troyan script for sure. And yet...still today people debate what language they spoke!!!
There are scripts in archaeology. They are the inscriptions written in stone(epigraphic evidence), they are the papyri. They are the curse tablets such as the Pella Katadesmos. These are all archaeological evidence. And NO archaeology is not only ruins, it is also graves, shipwrecks and all cultural material(pottery, jewelry, clothing, weaponry, religious and ceremonial statues, charms, etc.) found.