Ancient and Archaeology听 permalink
Tyre, Tara and the Ancient Irish kings.
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Message 1.听
Posted by Dai Bath (U2444609) on Wednesday, 27th December 2006
I spent an excellently creative Xmas day studying the origins of the Irish who came from Lebanon, the Phonoecians from Tyre.
I am actually searching the Welsh connection with
those ancient kings of Tara, the Milesians.
What surprises me again is the amazing genealogies of the Irish way back to 3000 years or so of Irish kings and a very precise knowledge of where they came from.
Yet when it comes to the English and Welsh counties there is a dearth of information, the tribes being known vaguely before 5192 (0AD) but detail about the personalities being scant.
I learn also that the west Waleians of whom i am one, modern name (Howell) Hy-well the good (dda)
was ALSO Milesian in origin but that there is precious little information available today either in Irish or Welsh history about the links between the two countries WEST Wales and Ireland.
There is on very sound reason and that is PREVAILING winds! When the Milesians came from
the south, these Ibero Celts, EITHER headed for
Ireland OR for Wales, after which there was very little contact between the two; Ireland may only be 70miles from Wales but if you try to tack against the wind in a sail boat it is more like 400 miles!
Net Effect? Welsh Milesians such as the Hy-Well family had very little contact with the Irish ones
although well aware of their ancient Middle eastern connections! Hy-Well (the prefix crops up frequently in Irish and is the translation for
Ui-Well those two words pronounced the same way,
both "Ui-" and "Hy-" meaning yes(!) "descendants of".
If your name was Enoch Powell writer on "Llyfyr Blegwyrydd" 30 years ago, you were the
Ap-Hy-Well ==== Descendants of the son of "Well"
Whoever he may have been!
I fear that clever as Enoch Powell was, eminent classicist, he may never have got quite as far as
thinking about the Irish, and Irish kings.... In fact i am quite certain of it..... (but let's not talk about that) and the frequent use of the Hy-
prefix in Middle ages Ireland names -
Message 2
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Wednesday, 27th December 2006
Not so sure (or convinced) by the Near Eastern connections but given the benefit of the doubt I wonder if there is any connection between Tyre, Tara and the Gaelic word 'tir'.
'Tir' means land as in 'Tir Eoghan' - land of Owen (Tyrone) and also 'Tir na nOg' - land of the young ... etc
Any connection? -
Message 3
Posted by stanilic (U2347429) on Wednesday, 27th December 2006
Might I recommend some Irish mythology is read as well. These allege that the Sons of Mil came from Spain - very possible. But what about the Fomorians: where do they come in?
There is strong evidence for Irish settlement in western Wales following the collapse of Roman power. Is it possible that the Roman military occupation of Wales was intended to protect their industrial facilities from the raiding Irish rather than the native Welsh? -
Message 4
Posted by Dai Bath (U2444609) on Wednesday, 27th December 2006
Message 2 demolishes what is known as the Israelitish pount of view which also seems to be
Baptist. I don't know.
Is Jeremiah also Olyy Fludhe Or whatever his name was!!(?)
The idea that the Tyreneans or the Milesians of Lebanon came ACROSS Spain up the Ebro valley as a very well worn track to the Bad sea of Biscay, at baal Bas and so on, is a very attractive one.
The Spanish of the Ebro valley accept without question the Hebrew origins of the town names.
On the question the Milesians and the people of Tyre and consequently Tarans too being ISRAELITES, I have my doubts even BEFORE they started out let alone once they got to Ireland/West Wales.
Elwyn Jones late Lord chancellor was a firm believer in these Israelitish theories, and belived himself to be descended in that way,
a native of West Wales. I have my own ancestor
WH Howell, a colonel in the army a West Waleian,
late 18thC who also believed in such things but for a soldier to do that with a name like Miletus in the back ground, is not surprising.
I won't give you a link that I rather like,from the Hebrew point of view,objective and not religious, because I would like to see whether Message 2 (thanks) has many more demolition jobs that he can suggest! -
Message 5
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Wednesday, 27th December 2006
Hi everyone,
Saxa loquuntur
There is fairly good linguistic evidence linking the Phoenicians and the British Isles. Sodom and Gomorrah were famously 鈥榗ities of the plain鈥 which were destroyed for their iniquities. Their exact location has not been proved by archaeology but their most famous resident, the prophet Lot鈥檚 wife, died during the process of destruction. It is widely known that she was turned into a pillar of salt. What is the most famous brand of salt? Saxa.
The word saxa was exported, presumably by trading Phoenicians, all over the Western Mediterranean. In Old Latin, due to a subtle shift of meaning, it is used as the plural general form of 鈥榬ock鈥 or 鈥榮tone鈥 rather than maintaining the sense of 鈥榗ake of salt鈥. Saxa Vord is still a recognised place name from Unst, the most northerly island of the Shetlands, where the Phoenicians traded for tin (unsuccessfully as it turned out since the nearest source of tin was Cornwall).
Most vitally 鈥榮axa鈥 gave its name to the Saxons 鈥 the tribal name presumably meaning something like 鈥榩eople of the salt鈥. Those speaking early and recent forms of English are often described as Anglophones, although we can clearly see that Saxophone would be a more correct description. This is another example of linguistics quickly demonstrating a link when boring and tiresome archaeological evidence is so difficult to come by.
A very happy New Year to all lovers of history,
TP -
Message 6
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Wednesday, 27th December 2006
I spent an excellently creative Xmas day studying the origins of the Irish who came from Lebanon, the Phonoecians from Tyre.
听
My christmas crackers just had the usual terrible puns in them. Yours sounded much funnier! -
Message 7
Posted by Dai Bath (U2444609) on Wednesday, 27th December 2006
Nordmann comes from a different direction altogether, a different tradition of Celtic movements.
There is the link above to what seems a very reputable although Israelish biassed explanation.
The Spanish parts are toally convincing and are in keeping with the Story of Orosius tranlsated by Alfred at the scriptorium at Winchester in 880-915AD.
Can any body pull the argument to pieces or have i missed out on that part of history (heard a little and ignored it)?
Turkey/Lebanon and Tyre are scarcely Hebrew though, just the same names along the way. -
Message 8
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Thursday, 28th December 2006
If you are serious about studying Irish mythology and its possible relationship to history I recommend TF O'Rahilly's 1946 "Early Irish History and Mythology". O'Rahilly, rather remarkably given that he worked in a society then besotted with marrying all aspects of Irish mythology to a narrow nationalist and ultra-christian vision of Ireland and Irish, was the first to successfully divorce Irish mythology from that milieu and set it in its true context - that of a part-fabulist, part-entertainment and part-historical narrative that had evolved from roots planted long before narrower notions of nationality and subsequent demographic developments had isolated it in a relatively small island on the westernmost extremities of the continent.
O'Rahilly - and the man would have cringed at what has happened since he wrote his book - is also alas responsible for firing the imaginations of many others whose grasp of the subject matter does not extend beyond forcing it to fit several other agendas, some of which deserve attention but most of which are slightly crackpot. The one you direct us to with your link is unfortunately of the latter variety, as a cursory glance at how it plays havoc with the chronological order of the 'invasions' shows. The author has seized on elements of Irish mythology, and through the not-so-subtle (but boringly predictable amongst charlatans) device of linking similar sounding words from different linguistic and contextual backgrounds, forced them to fit a narrative of his own devising.
O'Rahilly set a note of caution in his epilogue that the author of the drivel you will have us read (and probably yourself) could do well to memorise. "I have used," he said, "the standard spelling, grammatical construct and resonance of English to list and pronounce the nomenclatures contained in my book. These in turn have been based on the Irish language as it was spelt, grammatically constructed and sounded by those who wrote it in the late middle ages. These authors were in turn translating that which had gone before, and so on through the millennia. I have avoided therefore the temptation, great as it has often been, to claim any vindication for my speculations through linguistic coincidences."
He goes on to illustrate his point with "Tuatha De Danann", the race (chronologically misplaced by your author, I note) who were in myth accredited with establishing the first 'human' society whose remnants are still visible on the island today. In the earliest annalists' mention of this race, for all the claptrap devised later about 'goddesses' called Danu and links with Dan-this and Dan-that, it is worth noting that the D in 'Dan' was often represented by a T. It might mean little to anyone outside of Ireland, but those who remember from learning Irish the genetive inflexions and how they affect certain consonants, or for that matter the principle of elision in language and speech evolution, the warning is obvious.
Cambrensis Rex. I wish you well in your new study. But please find better tutors! -
Message 9
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Friday, 29th December 2006
What is this recent notion of equating Phoenicians and everybody else that passed from Palestine to Jewish? Palestine had been the home of a large variety of tribes ranging from Greeks to Egyptians, and from Assyrians to Phoenicians and these people were not related closely in any sense. The fact that Aramaic-related languages were predominant in the region does not imply any other close connection (political, religious or national) since Aramaic had long been the international commerce language of the region and it can only be seen as such. Jewish were simply one of the tribes of the region and till predominance of the christian religion based on theirs in the late Roman Empire they had been rather an insignificant one (apart one major revolt in the 1 A.D. century that backlashed by bringing tons of legions on them causing their demise).
Jewish had not particularly good relations with the Phoenicians and Phoenicians had simply no time to lose with a tribe that was not much interested in sea-commerce, (though later in the internationalised context of Persian and Hellenic Empires many Jewish took up to commerce following the examples of their neighbours but then they never exactly became famous sailors or such).
Phoenician presence outside Hercules columns is well established as it is Minoic presence (Mycenean is also highly probable since they replaced them) prior to them, hence all that was nothing new under the sun. They traded all over the Atlantic coasts of Europe and of North Africa and strangely enough there is an ancient writer that claims a shipwreck on the coast of modern-day Somalia had looked "unmistakeably" like it had been a Carthagenian ship (based on type of construction and type of wood etc.) and thus he got the argument that it was feasible to circumnavigate Africa from the south!! It would not surprise me if that was true or even if Carthagenians traded occasionally with America.
Now regarding the British Isles and Ireland there was some Phoenician presence in commercial terms - probably they had installed commercial stations (little port villages for trading) as was their fashion (they had even next to Thebes and Athens such but that was no mass immigration of Phoenicians) but then we do not have substantial evidence of mass immigration of Phoenicians from the south to justify all the above talk. On the contrary there are many hints (evidences) that there was immigration from the Iberic peninsula, somethign 100% natural as one should expect people of all over western coastal Europe to roam around by boat and establish themselves where the business was more promising. -
Message 10
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Friday, 29th December 2006
Note down for the "jewish" related names in Spain half must be down to the Carthagenian presence in ancient times (hence it is not at all jewish but punic, i.e. aramaic-related) while other might be more recent due to the mass influx of Jewish from North Africa following the Arabs (with whome they had better relations and made good business).
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Message 11
Posted by Dai Bath (U2444609) on Friday, 29th December 2006
boringly predictable amongst charlatans) device of linking similar sounding words from different linguistic and contextual backgrounds, forced them to fit a narrative of his own devising听
Thank you nordman for taking such pains to explain
things to me; I shall listen carefully what you have to say.
Nikolaos theories below look interesting...
an xplanation of the diffrent movement of tribes in those days around the mediteranenan, which would seem the obvious explantion to anybody who wants to make Irish men in to unreconstituted Jews! -
Message 12
Posted by Dai Bath (U2444609) on Friday, 29th December 2006
Message 10
Nikolaos equally my surmise about Jud铆o names on the Ebro; to suggest that it ws part of a "route" from one place to another is exagerated, and that they are only to be associated with Jews post Islamic departure, who filled a void.
but then we do not have substantial evidence of mass immigration of Phoenicians from the south to justify all the above talk.听
The mythical view being that they did come en masse in considerable numbers; that might have been 500-600-1000 perhaps. I shall try to give N the reference to that myth, if I can see it again.
Gentlemen thank you for all that great effort for the sake of my own reading; I am most obliged to you. -
Message 13
Posted by stanilic (U2347429) on Friday, 29th December 2006
I once found it suggested that the people we know as Phoenicians appear in the Old Testament as Philistines.
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Message 14
Posted by Dai Bath (U2444609) on Friday, 29th December 2006
Read that too yesterday;
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Message 15
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Friday, 29th December 2006
There are quite different views on Philistines, with one that says they were close to Phoenicians (though Phoenicians lived mainly in Northern Palestine while Philistnies in southern) and the other saying that they were Minoans from Crete, later to be related to other Greeks (as in the area "suddenly" appeared the Greeks), i.e. they were one of the forms of proto-Greek tribes - not necessarily a specific one but most possibly various ones as they established themselves there for commercial reasons. Phoenicians came in contact there with them and it seems rather fitting that only after Cretan established in Palestine did a Middle Eastern nation (Phoenicians) take it to the sea. For the period of say 10,000 - 1500 B.C. years earlier there is no evidence for major Middle Eastern sea travel in the central and western Mediterranean - not even a lot in the Eastern. Egyptians of course are not considered exactly as Middle Easterners! However there is a lot of evidence of sea travelling of Minoans and Myceaneans that date back a lot earlier than 2000 B.C., activity in the Aegean isles shows a commercial fleet existing prior to 3000 B.C. and it could go back further since we do not have any hint of any "first human contact" with the Aegean islands - people must had known them millenia before! Quite reasonable for the land with the longest coastal line in the Mediterranean.
Another strong hint is that in the Bible the term Philistine and Cretan is interchangeable while later on (as centuries progress) in their place "appears" out of nowhere the term for Greeks.
It is therefore natural to suggest that Philistines were more on the Greek side rather than on the Middle Eastern, though a lot of intermixture certainly occured with local middle Easterners to the point that around 6th B.C. century most if not all of them would not be accepted in Olympia (though non participation int the games did not necessarily mean non-Greek ancestry as many cities were denied the right on muddy grounds) and much later by the time of Alexander the Great most of them might had already been assimilated in the Middle Eastern population body since I do not recall many ancient texts referring to 'numerous Greek cities' in Palestine as they might had been centuries earlier. Philistines by that time were fully assimilated. Later Greek presence can be attributed of course to the Hellenistic culture and in times of Jesus Christ (beggining of the Imperial phase of Rome) there were numerous Greek cities (not to be affiliated with Philistines of course).
Referring to the above intermixture, some view the Phoenicians as the odd kid of Middle East (indeed a lot of their cultural characteristics were more common to Greeks living a few 1000s km away rather than with their neighbours just 50km in the east)... to the point that they regard them practically as a mixture of Middle Easterners and Philistines. However I am not so sure on that, I remain very sceptical as along with differentiated linguistics many other basic cultural characteristics are quite different (religion, practice of human sacrifice etc.)/// I am sure of the many technical and certain cultural exchanges though. -
Message 16
Posted by Dai Bath (U2444609) on Friday, 29th December 2006
Fascinating thanx E Nikolaios E,
Interesting that the Jews have never been a sea going people, and their names go all the way up the Ebro valley in Spain;(as we agreed probably due to later post Moorish influences)
The Phonoecians going to northern Europe would probably have hugged the coast all the way to everywhere, including the (Portuguese) coast.
Practical seafaring is that once you are through the Straits of (Gibraltar) it is plain sailing along the coast ,holding the wind all the way to the Tin Islands.
Talking about trade in America for the Pheoenicians, EAST winds which last all summer,
have been predictable even to me, a hardened land lubber, and that wind carries all the way to South /Central America in days rather than weeks.
Who are the archaeologist/type sailors who researched that, if anybody?
It IS off my own topic which is the name Tara in Ireland associated with Tyre in Southern Lebanon,
which Niko does not seem to disagree with.
I am fairly certain he has discredited the Judaic thesis, which amounted to an excessive enthusiasm for archaeology by Jewish investigators at Tara a few years ago. I don't think he has troubled to do so in as many words.
If only I knew Arabic AND Greek as well as english I think I might be able to solve my own "quest"..... that Hy-Well Dda of West Wales, retraced his steps to the Islamic Law Schools of C贸rdoba, only a few years after Alfred had translated Orosius at the Winchester scriptorium.
Hy-Well Dda's father would almost certainly have visited the scriptorium at some time or other, and it MAY have been he, who went to C贸rdoba.
The Milesians are presumably the same as the "Tyreans"?/x
The Phoenecians WERE Celts?/x
The Ibero Celts were those who had settled in Spain at trading posts along the coast such as C谩diz?/x
The winds going "DOWN" to Spain are, I believe, more difficult to ride, in view of their westerly strength, against the wind rather than with it.
The traders would have come with the trade.. and stayed, which would make a great deal of sense, to be sure that 1000 or so of a tribe, had decided, after descriptions of Ireland from somebody who had returned ..... to go together in great numbers and ...STAY.
Hy-Well dda is known to have gone to Rome during his life time as was his father, but how would a journey to C贸rdoba, such as the one made by Gilbert (also the Good)of Aurillac who later became Pope, have been made by Hy-well, over land or across the sea?
Arch bishop Sigeric (Canterbury)used the Via Francigena about 50 years after Hywell and claimed it for his own! -
Message 17
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Friday, 29th December 2006
TwinProbe,
how I admire those British, let's say the Anglo-Saxons (even including the Irish...Nordmann...) for their ability to take distance from themselves and describe what they see in a sarcastic way...
With esteem to the TwinProbes and their (virtual) kin.
Warm regards,
Paul. -
Message 18
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Friday, 29th December 2006
Hi Paul,
Many thanks. I thought that no one had noticed my contribution, but I admit heavy handed irony is not to all tastes. W.S. Gilbert had a better idea: "on the fire that glows with heat intense I turn the hose of common sense; and out it goes at small expense".
Best wishes,
TP -
Message 19
Posted by priscilla (U1793779) on Saturday, 30th December 2006
Any one ever watch 'Get Smart?" I'm with nordman in part on this debate. 'The old, lets wrangle a name link to find a theory game, eh ninety-nine?'
Phoenicians are always good for an airing though. Why, I wonder would they have gone to Ireland, mm? They were sea people and first class traders.
Then all that stuff about sails. Early people probaly used currents more - take a look at the ones down western Iberia. In swinging at best.
Phoenecians preferred islands - sometimes causewayed - dozens of instances - and apart from the secret port of Olipso on the western coast , perhaps did not settle much there. I would be interested in any one knowing of places that they did.
I know nothing of Wales but perhaps the isle of Man was a good stopping of point for travellers in both directions... currents again.
As for where did the Phoenicians come from - ah well I've my own pet theory. The great Indus valley civilisation trade by sea and far.... study trading seals as found at Dubai. They had 180 large florishing city settlements about the Indus and a port with stone quays. Then their cities collapsed. Don't look up Sir M. Wheeler's account - there are better explanations. However I've long nursed a thought that some may have gone westwards. The problem is alphabets... The seal ideograms (?) yet to be properly translated do not lend themselves to that theory.
That said I shall now get on with my crochet here in Nepal.
Regards P. -
Message 20
Posted by Dai Bath (U2444609) on Saturday, 30th December 2006
Early people probaly used currents more - take a look at the ones down western Iberia. In swinging at best.听
What just get out as far to sea as possible and then
use sail and current to get back in further up coast? -
Message 21
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Saturday, 30th December 2006
I have the same problem with the crackpots who insist that the Phoenicians were colonising Britain and Ireland in the year dot as I do with the ones who, for example, insist that the pyramids were beyond the ability of the Egyptians to build so therefore must have been erected by spacemen (with presumably nothing better to do).
What they share is a lack of belief in human ingenuity, and an almost patronisingly pompous dismissal of their ancestors' achievements.
In the case of Ireland, for example, there is some background as to why such weird theories took root. For too long there have been strong political reasons for the vaunting of ludicrous claims related to its inherent antiquity by the nationalists, just as there were for the dismissal of everything as fairytale by the colonisers. These conflicting but equally ill-informed standpoints tended to colour and drive the debate about the island's earliest inhabitants until relatively recently. Since those reasons have died out however the residue of their influence is exemplified by these many weird and wonderful ideas that tend to be easily found on the internet, normally vaguely entwined with some pseudo-'Celtic' theme, and presented in a manner so far removed from science and reality (but with much 'borrowed' from the field of science with regard to presentation) that it might just as well be the US and British evidence for Iraqi 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' one is reading.
The truth, as ever, is more prosaic, but none the less wonderful and amazing for that. What can be deduced from the scant evidence related to population movement in the period from early Bronze Age to early Iron Age is that trading in commodities seems to have existed for as long as there have been means to transport them, and that the process, even in the Bronze Age and earlier, might not have been as haphazard and primitive as had been generally assumed until recently. Without the need to transport Phoenicians up to the North Sea and beyond there is still a plausible scenario that can be deduced in which goods traded by Phoenicians did indeed make their way that far afield - and as part of an established system of coastal trading that operated both as a carrier of goods and cultures over a very lengthy period. Ireland is fortunate in that an echo of these influences resonates in its mythology and that this mythology has remained more or less intact despite the politically motivated mauling it has received in recent centuries. But mythology makes a lousy starting point for historical research, unless it is research conducted by sensationalists whose interest in history does not extend further than as an auxiliary source of data taken out of context with a purpose to flesh out their own subjective fantasies. Tripe, and the pedlars of tripe, in other words.
The crackpots get bogged down in pseudo-nationalistic debate (which they use much pseudo-science to corroborate) since they ascribe motives and means to the ancients which belong in more modern contexts. They tend to have a blind spot when it comes to cultural overlap, just as they do with understanding exactly the inference of dealing with a time period which accounts for several hundred human generations, a myriad of political and social influences, and a stage in human social evolution that saw the formalisation and foundation of many of the structures by which we still define society, and many of the technical innovations with which we are still struggling to develop. It is a triumph of tunnel vision over informed vision, of unrestricted fantasy posing as truth over informed imagination endeavouring to understand that truth, and it really is a crying shame. The truth, as they say, if the glimmer of it that we can deduce after so many centuries is anything to go by, is even stranger than any of their fictions! -
Message 22
Posted by Dai Bath (U2444609) on Sunday, 31st December 2006
Nord has not commented on Nikolaos reply, which, I thought, confirmed the general gist of the link that I provided at the top, even thought it was hugely
Judaic centred.
Has he not commented on Nikolaos reply because he agrees with it.... ?
Trying to get back to my first enquiry, does he accept that there WERE Ibero-celts and that the
Basques were some of them.... Galicians others?
Does he accept that these Ibero-Celts were themselves descendants of traders from today's area known as Lebanon? -
Message 23
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Tuesday, 2nd January 2007
Then you haven't read E-Nik's post, some of which I agree with and some of which - as usual - tends to the helleno-centric view of things.
He stresses the theory that Phoenicians and Minoans were one and the same - a hugely conjectural opinion when stated so strongly, though it is undeniable that the two cultures must have overlapped to some extent at some point since both were seafaring traders in the same part of the world. (His gratuitous inclusion of the Minoans among a 'Greek' milieu is a little tendentious and typical of Nik's contributions here. That the Minoans had trading, and possibly cultural links with the Egyptians is well known. That they were a race apart from the Mycenaeans who later subsumed their island is also accepted as a standard. To lump them in, retroactively, with the Hellenes is a little cheeky.)
He points out also the accepted theory that the Phoenicians' trading endeavours brought them further afield than the Mediterranean, and this indeed is a theory that is gaining currency based on evidence and re-evaluation of evidence. It has not reached the point by any means however where evidence of organised Phoenician trading posts, as Nik conjectures, were ever set up. A more realistic guess is that the Phoenicians' trading prowess brought them into contact with other nautical trading systems which they were well positioned technologically and experience-wise to utilise. How much control they exerted over these trade routes however is a moot point.
At no point does Nik make the rather basic error of imputing that the 'Celts', at least in the Iberian Peninsula, were somehow an 'offshoot' racially of the Phoenicians. To do so would be to stretch credibility way beyond what is known about both peoples, and I would advise you Cambrensis Rex to check the chronology again before you allow yourself to be suckered by such an obviously flawed hypothesis. While you're at it you might also check out the cultural 'markers' by which both Celts and Phoenicians are generally recognised and explain to the rest of us exactly what cultural overlap makes such a theory plausible.
Finally I should point out also that, in the context of what was discussed dearlier with regard to Ireland, the Celts (and the term itself is one under drastic review since it tends to impose too great a commonality on Bronze Age pan-European society) must be seen rather as 'latecomers' to the island. The Irish legends that you alluded too, and indeed a plethora of archaeological evidence, indicate that the island had been inhabited long before their arrival, and that these people - about whom little is known - operated a rather sophisticated, integrable, and economically developed society by the standards of the day.
I really feel CR - as I indicated in my earlier post - that you are failing to grasp the full extent of the timeline you are attempting to discuss, and therefore are placing false emphasis on the little you know, with terribly erroneous conclusions as a result. You are being abetted in this by information gleaned from internet sites which themselves are guilty of the same misconjecture. As a result you are attempting to find 'astounding' and 'revelatory' connections between historical elements that - when they are real - were never connected, or worse, were never real to begin with but are the fancy of under informed sensationalists (whose agenda behind their misinformation I can only guess at, but will graciously assume is simply ignorance on their part).
Which is all rather a shame really. By missing out on the true picture (at least in so far as it has been tantalisingly revealed through research) you are, believe it or not, missing out on a much more fertile source of astonishing and revelatory material. It is your loss, I feel, but one at least that can be corrected simply by studying the period more and theorising less, especially if such theories are based on misinformation posing as historical fact. -
Message 24
Posted by Dai Bath (U2444609) on Tuesday, 2nd January 2007
Thanks for those comments Nordman. I am not out of my depth but correspondents here are very knowledgeable.
I accept most of what you say. Thank you.
I am just reading Orosius of which I have a good copy; an ommission in my learning, but I did start with Spanish Golden age Lit at Polyversity, so I am jumping back to an earlier age in my Celtic interests, and in honour of my Fathers' memories.
basic error of imputing that the 'Celts', at least in the Iberian Peninsula, were somehow an 'offshoot' racially of the Phoenicians.听
Thank you. So that is an error.
the Celts (and the term itself is one under drastic review since it tends to impose too great a commonality on Bronze Age pan-European society) must be seen rather as 'latecomers' to the island. The Irish legends that you alluded too, and indeed a plethora of archaeological evidence, indicate that the island had been inhabited long before their arrival, and that these people - about whom little is known - operated a rather sophisticated, integrable, and economically developed society by the standards of the day.听
OK but if little is known about them, then how is it that more is known about previous people?
"Too great a commonality" certainly seems an appropriate explanation!
missing out on a much more fertile source of astonishing and revelatory material.听
Is it impractical to concentrate on a time span of
say 150 years 808-970AD, and all the things that were known to have happened in the world at that time, but particularly the context of Books of Law
and evolving kingship? I doubt it!
How many books of law were there at that time in Europe?! What a question! Four in the island of Britain! -
Message 25
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Tuesday, 2nd January 2007
Normann (happy new year again in this post!), thank you for commenting my post - I also always read with interest your contribution.
Well, I simply wanted to correct one or two misunderstandings on my sayings:
I have never tried to equated Minoans and Phoenicians. The one was an early S.E. European culture the other clearly a Middle Eastern. I just said that for some writers, Phoenicians remain the odd-kid of Middle East since for the first time a middle eastern culture wrote in linear forms (rather than cuneiform they did for 4 or more millenia!) and took it to the sea (while earlier we had little knowledge of their performances in the open sea).
I commented that there are valid hints for the Minoan origins of Philistines as the term is niterchanged with Cretans in the Bible (not a proof perhaps for you but a strong hint then).
On the other hand it is known that Cyprus (just next to Palestine) was habitated by Greek talking people since the early 14th century (i.e. that implies that it could be habitated at least 1-2 centuries earlier as we have no proof of 'first contact' on 14th century but proof of already built cities!).
Of course, you take for granted that Minoans are a non-Greek talking people. Hence, those Cypriots of 14th and earlier were of course Mycenaeans and not Minoans but then it seems that Myceneans strangely run behind every place in the Mediterranean that Minoans went (naturally one may sya that this was due to the fact that they had conquered their kingdom). Hence in bible the term Cretan was briefly exchanged later for Greek. Of course the Bible will not constitute a proof but can be sometimes a hint of how foreigners saw these populations.
But then do not forget that the same thing was said for the Mycenaeans: it was almost established that Mycenaeans were non-Greek people only because they looked too "royal" and "autocratic" to be the democratic Greeks most people like ins't it? Ahhhh those terrible western notions on ethnicity! They tend to brand the term state with nation (since most European nations derived from the formation of states rather than due to an evolving culture).
Mycenaeans were of course nothing else than Greeks, and had nothing else but Greek culture and given the similarity of their culture to the Minoan one (centuries before the conquest of Crete) permit me to have doubts on the substantially different ethnic origins of Cretans that some like to emphasise. The existence of Eteocretans says little as even their language is not proven of being of any particular origin (it could be anything as the few words we kept could be as well as a code). There were also other small tribes even in classical Greece that had substiantially differentiated dialects (even the major ones were substantially differentiated), while we have found many ancient texts of known origin but of unknown content since these were codified words.
My view is that the most natural thing was happening there: you had simply a rainbow of cousin tribes and languages from crete to Minor Asia and from Peloponesus to Macedonia and Thrace and that meant that you had the same effect as among Portuguese, Castilliano and Catalan - most probably Achaians and Trojans could communicate in battle without much need of translation, and not only the swearings! We know that Phrygians that lived a bit in the inland of Minor Asia had a language in classical times that had basic similarities with the Greek sharing a lot. Hence, no magical tribes, no unique nations, no parachutists in Crete (oh yes from where did they come from? And on what?). What I am saying is 100% rational and it is hinted by the similarities and differences of the various Greek dialects... what became Greek and what was deemed as barbarian was simply an accident of history rather than due to precise ethnic-linguistic origins hunted down to distant Caucausus to be opposed to the Minoans of as-if Egypto-middle eastern or parachute-like ancestry of Cretans. That is also an explananation of the blatant failure of archeologists to define what was "Thraecian" (another vague term) when they naively brand together the most unlikely tribes from central Europe and Ukraine down to the south.
In the case of Phoenicians, my view is that it was largely a middle eastern culture that came in close contact in Palestine with Minoans and Myceneans and took it to the sea like them for mainly commercial reasons. When Mycenaean kingdoms fell in recession they took the role of the major shipping force in the Mediterranean and they streched their commercial stations all over the place from east to west and hence they had passed the Hercules Columns (as most probably had done Minoans and/or Mycenaeans) and coast to coast they followed their way up to England - coast to coast, a commercial way that must had been already used by the local Celtics and Iberians of Western Europe.
If Phoenicians reached the British isles, they did so occasionally and not in a mass number. It has been mentioned by Cambrensis that it coul be just some families, on the total 1000 people. Well, if it was 1000 people that is a very small village, hence yes it could had happened that some Phoenician families established there as others could had been established elsewhere in western Europe - however the weight of the Phoenician colonisation feel in North Africa (Carthage of course!), in Spain then in Sardenia (sharing it with Greek colonists) and some in western Sicily on the corner (restricted by the mass of Greek settlers). In general as Phoenicians were much less in number than Greeks, had the habit of establishing commercial port-villages rather than founding whole cities. Hence most of their colonies were actually small villages at best towns. -
Message 26
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Tuesday, 2nd January 2007
Ευτυχισμένο το Νέο Ετος, also Nik!
The Greekness or otherwise of the Keftiu makes for a whole new thread, I feel. I'll gladly join you on one! -
Message 27
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Tuesday, 2nd January 2007
All that gobbledygook above is the 麻豆约拍's way of saying "Eutukhismeno to Neo Etos" in Greek characters! Have a good one anyway.
-
Message 28
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Tuesday, 2nd January 2007
Nordmann,
I tried to download a converter for the Greek alphabet with my azerty keyboard, but it didn't work. The only purpose was to tease you in this thread...I don't know what happened to that otherwise so peaceful person at this start of the New Year and even having to end my "drivel" in some half an hour for early sleep because tomorrow early up for the flight to the warmer regions...
Warm regards and with esteem as always,
Paul. -
Message 29
Posted by Mick_mac (U2874010) on Tuesday, 2nd January 2007
Cambrensis Rex said:
I spent an excellently creative Xmas day studying the origins of the Irish who came from Lebanon, the Phonoecians from Tyre. .. I am actually searching the Welsh connection with
those ancient kings of Tara, the Milesians.听
I'm afraid the notion that the Irish came ultimately from the Lebanon is rubbish! Nordmann is right to warn you off websites like the one you have cited.
The problem with the ancient history, mythology and archaeology of Ireland is that there is enough evidence of one sort or another to posit various theories but not enough to clinch it for any one theory over its rivals.
There are many reasons for believing in ancient links between Iberia and Ireland and the movement of people between the two: Mediterranean and Atlantic seaboard distribution of megalithic tomb-builders, recent DNA studies that confirm the very high correlation between the genetic make-up of the people of the British Isles and those of Iberia, the known trade in metals between the two regions, and so on.
Irish origin myths (much maligned in the past) attest to migration from Iberia to Ireland. The detail in much of what has come down to us may be erroneous or even fictitious but it may also contain a kernel of truth. However, none of the evidence supports the idea that Middle Eastern people migrated directly from their original homeland to the British Isles or that there was direct trade between the two regions under the Phoenicians.
Prof. FJ Byrne argued that few of the native Irish in the early historical period claimed to be indigenous but were fully aware that their ancestors came to Ireland from abroad. Folk memory, especially in Gaelic culture, is long and often essentially reliable. Although Byrne acknowledges what is widely known 鈥 that the genealogies and eponymous ancestors of Irish tribal groups are largely a fiction of medieval pseudo-historians 鈥 they do, and must, contain genuine memories of previous invasions and settlements. The problem is that internal evidence alone is not enough to decide what is reliable or to what extent it can be relied upon. Another point is that neither the Welsh nor the Irish mythologies recognise any commonality each with the other.
TF O鈥橰ahilly was a brilliant man but opinionated and tendentious. Much of what he said has been strongly disputed and sometimes proven wrong. For example, he is certainly wrong in his view that Old Irish, a Q-Celtic language, was the last language to be taken to Ireland by immigrants.
The simplistic correlation between T脥R, TYRE and TARA is purely superficial. Whereas T铆r and Tara are Indo-European (IE), Tyre is most likely semitic. The Irish 鈥榯铆r鈥 derives from IE *ters- which also gave rise to Latin 鈥榯erra鈥, land. Tara is an anglicisation of the original Irish name 鈥楾eamhair鈥 (somewhat related to the English words 鈥榯ower鈥 and 鈥榯our鈥) which is derived from Old Irish 鈥楾em(a)ir鈥, meaning an elevated place nor height.
My more general point is that the last word has not been spoken on Ireland鈥檚 ancient history and prehistory, nobody has a monopoly on the true version of events and we who are interested in the past are not justified in maintaining too closed a mind on the issue. This, of course, opens the door to the lunatic fringe who happily inhabit the internet on sites like the one you quote and peddle a populist view of history that in its superficiality makes a mockery of serious research and honest study.
A popular book in this vein is Bob Quinn's 'The Atlantean Irish' which argues for a very strong Middle Eastern and North African influence in Irish culture and traces, in a less than rigorous manner, innumerable 鈥榗onnections鈥 between the two regions. The book is graced with a preface by Barry Cunliffe in which he says:
鈥楾here is still, I believe, far too much chronological and regional blinkering in the approach [of specialists] 鈥 [The Atlantic Ocean] has provided a corridor along which commodities, people, ideas and beliefs have flowed 鈥 these contacts鈥re the raw materials from which archaeologists, historians, linguists, ethnomusicologists and biomolecular scientists attempt to build models of the past. Each specialist will have a viewpoint 鈥 their own cognitive model of the past conditioned by the traditions of their discipline. 鈥 only when the compartments between us have been swept away will new, and perhaps unfamiliar, pictures begin to emerge鈥
So, although I reject the Lebanese origin of the Irish, the apparent identification of the Prophet Jeremiah with Ollam Fodhla and any connection between Tyre and Tara, I do not think you wasted your time on Christmas Day. There just might be something, somewhere in the ravings of the lunatic fringe for which more persuasive evidence may turn up tomorrow! History is an ongoing project. Nothing is black and white, or cast in stone. Today鈥檚 heresy may be tomorrow鈥檚 orthodoxy. Keep an open mind, be informed and always be critical. -
Message 30
Posted by Dai Bath (U2444609) on Tuesday, 2nd January 2007
Another point is that neither the Welsh nor the Irish mythologies recognise any commonality each with the other. 听
I am not so sure that the mere existence of Irishmen
in Wales over the centuries does not vouch for the links between the West of Wales particularly Carmarthenshire which I am studying. Deheubarth
and Demetae tribe before that.
Tyrny the prince of West Wales migrated back to Ireland in the 10thC.
Is there any link for that DNA comparison between Galicia and Ireland /Wales?
I've got the Tyre fallacy.
My Hy- contention of "Hy-Well" may be right from the phonological point. O'Banks in modern Irish names Ui- in mediaeval Irish. -
Message 31
Posted by thegoodbadugly (U2942713) on Saturday, 6th January 2007
the irish came from lebanon,what rubbish you can belive if you are slight of mind or soft in the head,
i have to agree with nordmann as he knows more about this than i do and you for that matter,it is highly unlikley that irish peole came from the middle east, we probably came from europe or from the north ,ie norway,
happy new year. -
Message 32
Posted by Dai Bath (U2444609) on Saturday, 6th January 2007
In the World Music nominations for 2007 to be found on Radio 3 website, there are two very interesitng singers, both of whom take their songs from the
mythical folk music of the 10thC (AD) one Ladino,
an Israeli woman,(Jewish-Flamenco Sephardi music) and the other a professor of Medieval history, who is Lebanese and takes her song from the Arab-Andalus tradition of the 10thC too.
They are both well worth listening to, and most enjoyable.
The possibility of interactions between Irish isles/British isles and Islamic Spain of Arab golden age would only be found in the Universities of Alexandria and Tunis. Even Fez would not have much to offer.
People like Nikolaos (who I think has some Arabic too) are the only ones capable of doing such research, unless I renew my friendship with my Maghrebi wife whose name is Ghoarabi. I am unlikely to do that. The Lebanese professor singer has similar skills.
There are a number of ancestors in my family called Lewis, (family name Hywell coat of arms 1600) and the theory is, and was, that the Book of Leviticus/Levis was the book of Law from which Hywel, his book of Law, got his inspiration from.
That was the theory 300 years ago within the family and my own father often gave it some thought.
Looking at the other two Law books of the age
Alfred and Ine of Wessex and Aethlered of Kent, all three (and Offa too no doubt) were similar in their Laws.
If Alfred translated Orosius at that time in the Scriptorium it is highly likely that he ALSO got quite a lot of Law from southern Spain too.
It is only comparative Law, I guess.
Is it not called the Mosaic tradition?
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