CRITICAL Links to KEY PERSEUS/Tufts ancient Greek pages for persons knowledgeable in ancient Greek: 1. Homer, Iliad, Book II, The Catalogue of Ships:If you are wondering why I have deliberately zeroed in on Book II, the Catalogue of Ships of Homer’s Iliad, as I am sure you are, wonder no more. Only Book II alone, the Catalogue of Ships of Homer’s Iliad, can provide us with sufficient examples of Homeric grammar with distinctly Mycenaean characteristics, from which we can thereby retrogressively extrapolate numerous examples of grammatical forms in many of the major categories of Homeric Greek to their putative, and in fact, actual, Mycenaean ancestral roots. 2. Jeffrey A. Rydberg-Cox, Overview of Greek Syntax:
is a superb source for the study of ancient Greek grammar. The link is parsed into the major sub-categories of ancient Greek grammar, i.e. nouns, verbs, participles etc. etc., and is thus an extremely valuable and highly practical source for ancient Greek grammar, all but eliminating the necessity of having to buy a hard-copy or e-book publication on ancient Greek grammar. In short, it is a perfectly sound source for ancient Greek grammar aficionados.
Tag Archive: Catalog of Ships
Just added to my academia.edu page, Translation of the Introduction to Book II of the Iliad, and its Profound Implications in the Regressive-Progressive Reconstruction of Unattested, Derived (D) Mycenaean Greek Vocabulary and Grammar, here:This is the first of a series of several papers I shall be publishing this year and next (2016) on my hypothesis underpinning the theoretical and proposed actual links between the archaic Greek of Book II of the Iliad by Homer, and in particular of the Catalogue of Ships (lines 459-815). These papers are of extreme significance to the methodology, process and procedure of regressive extrapolation of Mycenaean Greek vocabulary or grammatical constructs derived from the most archaic Greek in the Iliad, considered by many researchers to be an in)direct offshoot of Mycenaean Greek itself. Vocabulary or grammatical constructs thus derived are then progressively applied to reconstruct parallel elements missing from any attested Linear B sources regardless. I cannot stress too much the extreme significance of this particular line of research I am pursuing in the reconstruction of numerous elements (possibly even into the hundreds) of Mycenaean Greek derived from these sections alone of the Iliad. Richard
The Archangel Michael in Mycenaean Linear B, Ancient Greek, English & French: Click to ENLARGEI found this stunning painting of The Archangel Michael on the Internet, and I could not resist posting it here on our blog, with his name emblazoned in in Mycenaean Linear B, ancient New Testament or Koine Greek, English & French. The problem with the Mycenaean Linear B text is that you cannot say Archangel, and so I wrote his name as Mikaro akero ouranoyo, which literally means, “Michael, the messenger of the sky” or “Michael, the messenger of heaven”, where akero = messenger (nominative sing.) & ouranoyo = of heaven (archaic Greek genitive sing., also often found in Homer, the Iliad, especially in Iliad II, The Catalogue of Ships). After all, the Mycenaean Linear B meaning of akero was “messenger”. And when you come right down to it, that is what it literally means in the New Testament as well. The word “Michael” is not Greek at all, but Hebrew, here translated into Greek. “Michael” in Hebrew means, “who is like God”, and who is referred to only three times in the Old Testament, always in the Book of Daniel, where he is called “Prince of the First Rank” as follows: 10:21 ... but first I will tell you what is written in the Book of Truth. No one supports me against them except Michael, your prince. 12:1 At that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then. But at that time your people--everyone whose name is found written in the book--will be delivered. How beautiful are the feet of those who walk with God. Perhaps you can guess who my angel, or more to the point, my patron saint is. Yes, you are right. He is none other than Michael Ventris. How strange & wonderful that his name is the same as that of the Archangel!
How astonishing! I just realized that I am posting this beautiful image of the Archangel Michael on the 23rd. anniversary of my recovery from alcoholism, March 25, 1992. Although I have not attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings for 18 years now, I credit AA for bringing me around to my first real experiences with God, though it has been a slow and slogging path towards his grace, at least until this year, when He suddenly burst in on my soul, and has illuminated me with His Light since then. Matthew 5:14-16 14: You are the light of the world - like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. 15: No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a light is put on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. 16: In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father. (NLT: New Living Translation) Richard
The Famous “Dolphin Fresco” at Knossos on Papyrus! Minoan Literature? Did any Exist? Click to ENLARGEHere you see a magnificent reproduction of the famous “Dolphin Fresco” at Knossos reprinted on Papyrus, which I purchased for the astonishing price of 10 euros while I was visiting the site on May 2, 2012. The colours on this papyrus version are so vibrant no photograph can fully do justice to them. Nevertheless, the photo turned out wonderfully, and if you would like to use it yourself, please feel free to do so. I even framed it to enhance it. Papyrus in Minoan/Mycenaean Crete? The very idea of reprinting one of the amazing Knossos frescoes onto papyrus may seem blasphemous to some, but certainly not to me. It raises the very astute question: did the Minoans, writing in Linear A or in Linear B, ever produce any literature as such? Consent is almost unanimous on the Internet and in print – No! They did not write any literature. But not so fast! It strikes me as peculiar - indeed very peculiar – that a civilization as advanced and sophisticated as that of Knossos, in both the Minoan Linear A eras (Middle Minoan – early Late Minoan) and in the Mycenaean Linear B era (Late Minoan), may very well have had a literature of its own, for these reasons, if none other: (a) Creation Myths: Ancient Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, the Hittites and other proto-literate civilizations, at least had a religious literature, whether or not it was composed on papyrus (as with Egypt), here at Wikipedia: The sun rises over the circular mound of creation as goddesses pour out the primeval waters around it
or on baked clay tablets, as with the Babylonians, here: The Enûma_Eliš Epic (Creation Myth) ca. 1,000 lines long on 7 tablets:
Proemium: When on high the heaven had not been named, Firm ground below had not been called by name, When primordial Apsu, their begetter, And Mummu-Tiamat, she who bore them all, Their waters mingled as a single body, No reed hut had sprung forth, no marshland had appeared, None of the gods had been brought into being, And none bore a name, and no destinies determined-- Then it was that the gods were formed in the midst of heaven. Lahmu and Lahamu were brought forth, by name they were called. the famous Sumerian Myth of Gilgamesh on 7 Tablets here:
and the Sumerian & Akkadian Myths, including that of Gilgamesh, here: Akkadian Gilgamesh:
(b) The implications of the astounding achievements of the highly advanced Minoan Civilization for a putative literature of their own: Just because the Minoans, writing in Linear A or in Linear B, left behind no literature as such on their administrative inventory tablets, does not necessarily mean that they never wrote any literature at all. That strikes me as bordering on nonsensical, since Knossos always had the closest economic and cultural ties with Egypt and with all of the other great civilizations contemporaneous with her. Egypt, above all, set great store on the inestimable value of Knossian, Minoan and Mycenaean artifacts such as gold, in which the Mycenaean artisans were especially gifted, lapis lazuli, of which the finest quality in the entire known world issued from Knossos; Minoan & Mycenaean pottery and wares, which again were of the most splendid designs; Minoan textiles and dyes, again the finest to be found, and on and on. In fact, the Minoans were rightly renowned as the among the very best dyers in the entire known world. But why stop there? Why should such an obviously advanced civilization as the Minoan, with its understanding of the basic principles of hydraulics, quite beyond the ken of any other contemporary civilization, and with its utterly unique airy architecture, based on the the most elegant geometric principles, again quite unlike anything else to found in the then-known world, not have a literature of its own? To me, the idea seems almost preposterous. (c) If the Minoans & Mycenaeans did write any literature, what medium would they most likely have used for it? The question remains, if they did have a literature of their own, it too was most likely religious in nature. But on what medium would they have written it down? - certainly not on their minuscule tablets, as these were so tiny as to virtually exclude the composition of any religious literature such as that of the origin of mankind (very much in currency at that era in the other civilizations mentioned above). Again, the Minoan scribes writing in Linear B used their tiny tablets solely for ephemeral annual accounting and inventories. Still, I can hear some of you objecting, “But the Babylonians and other civilizations wrote down their creation myths on tablets!” Fair enough. Yet those tablets were larger, and they were deliberately baked to last as long as possible (and they have!), quite unlike the Minoan & Mycenaean ephemeral administrative tablets, which were never baked. And, as if it isn’t obvious, one civilization is not necessary like another, not even in the same historical era. This is especially so when it comes to the Minoan civilization – and to a very large extent to its cousin, the Mycenaean, versus all others at the time, since clearly the socio-cultural, architectural and artistic defining characteristics of the former (Minoan/Mycenaean) were largely very much at odds with those of the latter, (Egypt, Babylon, Assyria etc.), much more ostentatious than the Minoans... except for one thing... We are still left with the question of medium. If the Minoans, writing in Linear A and later in Linear B, did have a literature, and let us assume for the sake of argument that they did, which medium would they have used? Before I get right down to that, allow me to point out the Knossos was, as it were, the New York City of the Bronze Age, the metropolis at the very hub of all international trade and commerce on the Mediterranean Sea. All you need to do is look at any map of the Mediterranean, and you can see at a glance that Knossos was located smack dab in the centre of all trade routes to all other great civilizations of her day and age, as we quite clearly see on this composite map: Click to ENLARGE
Is it any wonder that no-one was particularly bent on attacking her, or any other city on the island of Crete, such as Phaistos, since after all everyone everywhere strictly depended on Knossos as the very nexus of international trade? No wonder the city was never fortified. This pretty much how Knossos looked at her height: Click to ENLARGE
No walls or fortifications of any kind in evidence! That alone is a very powerful indicator of the critical commercial value of Knossos as the very hub of international commerce in her era. But more than anywhere else, the archaeological evidence powerfully evinces a very close trade relationship between Knossos and Egypt, since Minoan jewelry, textiles, pottery and wares have shown up in considerable amounts – sometimes even hordes - in Egyptian archaeological sites. The Egyptians clearly placed extreme value on Minoan goods, as exquisitely crafted as they were. So what? - I hear you exclaim. So what indeed. These major trading partners each must have had something to trade with the other that the other was in desperate need of. And in the case of Knossos and the Minoans, the Egyptian commodity they would probably have needed most of all would be, you have it, papyrus. The Cretan climate was not dry enough for them to produce it themselves. So they would have had to rely exclusively on Egypt for what was, after all, one of the most precious commodities of the entire Bronze Age. If we accept this hypothesis – and I see no reason why we should not at least seriously entertain it – then the Minoans may very well have used papyrus and ink to record their religious literature. There is some evidence, however second-hand and circumstantial, that they may have composed religious texts, and possibly even a religious epic, on papyrus. This evidence, although only secondary, if we are inclined to accept it as such – is the high incidence of the names of Minoan and Mycenaean deities and priestesses, and even of religious rites, on the Linear B accounting and inventory tablets from Pylos, over all other Minoan/Mycenaean sites. Why on earth even bother mentioning the names of so many gods so frequently on minuscule tablets otherwise dealing almost exclusively with anything as boring – yet naturally economically vital - as statistics and inventories of livestock, crops, military equipment, vases and pottery, and the like? There was nothing economically useful about religious rites or babbling on about deities. So why bother, unless it was a matter of real significance to the Minoans and Mycenaeans? But ostensibly, it was. Chuck economics, at least where religion is concerned, they apparently believed. This cannot come as any surprise in the ancient world, and of course, in the Bronze Age itself, where religions and superstitious beliefs were rampant, playing an enormous and absolutely essential rôle in virtually every civilization, every society, great or small. This composite of Minoan/Mycenaean deities, which were were found in droves on every single Minoan/Mycenaean site, makes this blatantly obvious: Click to ENLARGE
(d) The implications of a putative Minoan & Mycenaean military literature in The Catalogue of Ships in Book II of the Iliad: Given this scenario, I am seriously inclined to believe that not only did the Minoan and Mycenaean scribes writing in Linear B (leaving Minoan Linear A aside for the time being) keep track of religious rites, and possibly even compose a creation myth of their own on papyrus, but that they may very well have also written down a stripped down written version of their oral military epic, their own story of the Trojan War, and if so, the most accurate version of the events of that war. Their original history of the Trojan war would have almost certainly been much more factual than the version of The Catalogue of Ships in Book II of The Iliad, which must have been derived from it, had it existed. This would go a long way to explaining why the Greek of The Catalogue of Ships in Book II of The Iliad is written in the most archaic, and the most-Mycenaean like Greek in the entire Iliad – not to say that Mycenaean Greek does not appear elsewhere in both the Iliad and the Odyssey, because, surprise, surprise, it most certainly does. There is one passage in The Catalogue of Ships which really brings this sort of scenario to the fore. I refer specifically to lines 645-652, which read as follows in the original Greek and in my translation: Click to ENLARGE
It is passingly strange that Homer bluntly states, in no uncertain terms, that Knossos and Crete were major contributors to the Achaean fleet in the Trojan War, since everyone these days, archaeologists and literati alike, assume without question that Knossos fell long before the Trojan War (ca. 1450-1425 BCE). So who is right? Homer? - us? -anyone? How on earth can we resolve the blatant discrepancy? We cannot, nor shall we ever. But the fact remains that this extremely important passage in The Catalogue of Ships in Book II of The Iliad leaves me quite unsettled. Since Homer is obviously convinced that Knossos and some 100(!) Cretan cities did figure prominently in the Trojan War, where on earth did he get his information from? I for one believe it is quite conceivable that rewrites on papyrus of some Minoan documents from Knossos and possibly even Phaistos may still have been in existence when Homer wrote the Iliad, or that at least stories of their prior existence were still in circulation. If you think correlatively as I always do, this hypothesis cannot simply be dismissed out of hand. For my in-depth discussion of this very important question, please refer to this post:
(e) If the Minoans and Mycenaeans wrote some sort of religious and/military literature of their own on papyrus, there is absolutely no evidence that they did! This leaves us with only one final consideration. If the Minoans and Mycenaeans actually did compose documents on papyrus, where are they all? The answer to that stares us in the face. While the scribes would have taken great pains to assiduously preserve documents on papyrus in dry storage while the city of Knossos was still flourishing, these same documents would all have rotted away entirely and in no time flat, once Knossos and the Minoan civilization had collapsed. Crete was not Egypt. Egypt’s climate was bone dry; the climate of Crete was, and still is, Mediterranean. Ergo, the whole argument against the Minoans and Mycenaeans ever having had a literature of their own, composed on papyrus scrolls is de natura sua tautological, as is the argument they did. 50/50. Take your choice. But since I am never one to leave no stone unturned, I much prefer the latter scenario. NOTE: This post took me over 8 (!) hours to compile. So I would appreciate if at least some of you would tag it LIKE, comment on it, or better still, reblog it! For all the intense work Rita and I put into this great blog of ours, it often shocks me that so few people seem to take much interest in some of our most compelling posts. I am merely letting you know how I feel. Thanks so much. Richard
My translation of Homer. Iliad, Book II, “The Catalogue of Ships”, Lines 546-580 in Modern English: Click to ENLARGECompare my translation in twenty-first century English with that of A.T. Murray 90 years ago (1924): Click to ENLARGE:
and you can instantly see the glaring discrepancies in the English of these two completely alien translations. Murray's translation from 1924 sounds uncannily like something Alexander Pope might have dryly penned in the eighteenth century! There really was no excuse for this, even in 1924, when people spoke an English very little removed from that we speak today. We can be pretty sure that the poor school children who were obliged to read the Iliad and Odyssey in that translation would probably not want to have anything more to do with either masterpiece for the rest of their lives. And who could have blamed them? But the Georgian mores of that era, still grudgingly hanging on in spite of the roaring twenties, prevailed, and to this day, far too many readers, young and old alike, end up in the ghastly grips of translations such as that one. God forbid! The most galling thing about it all is that The Perseus Digital Library
should know better. They have such a wealth of choice from modern translations, which they could easily have availed themselves of. In the next post, we will be recommending some quality twenty-first century translations of the Iliad. Richard
Table 3B: Syllables ending with Consonants in (early) Alphabetical Greek, which Linear B Syllabograms Cannot Account for: Click to ENLARGE:NOTE! This is the most important post I have ever posted on our Blog to date. So if you are really serious about learning Mycenaean Grammar, you cannot afford not to read it and digest it thoroughly. With this table (Table 3B), we have finally come to the end of our (occasionally exasperating) adventure in cross-correlating orthographic or spelling “conventions” in Linear B with those of (early) alphabetical Greek, by which I mean preferentially the spelling conventions in The Catalogue of Ships of Book II of the Iliad; failing that, the orthography of Book II of the Iliad; failing that, the orthographic conventions of the Iliad; failing that, of the Odyssey; failing that, of the Arcado-Cypriot dialect, the most ancient Greek dialect (ca. 1100-400 BCE) second only to the Mycenaean (ca. 1500-1200 BCE); and finally, failing that, of early Ionic Greek. The cross-correlation of Linear B spelling conventions with those of early Greek should and indeed, to my mind, must strictly follow the order of precedence I have set out here, for various reasons, not the least of which are: 1. The orthographic conventions of (The Catalogue of Ships in) Book II of the Iliad mirror those of Mycenaean Linear B so closely that at times the correlation is almost uncanny, as for instance, in the ancient Greek genitive singular, which is “oyo” in Linear B and “oio” in Book II of the Iliad – in other words, identical. Other examples of such intimate orthographic correspondences include, but are not limited to, the ancient masculine nouns, whose nominative ending is “eu” in Linear B and “eus” in Book II of the Iliad, leading us to more than reasonably speculate that the Mycenaean Linear B declension of all such nouns must have been all but identical in Mycenaean and early alphabetical Greek (See the entries in Table 3B tagged [7]. Or yet again, we notice that entries [6], namely, the masculine singular nominal and adjectival ending “os”, already prevalent in early alphabetical Greek is represented in Linear B, but with this important distinction: the final S in the alphabetical Greek is missing in the Linear B equivalents, for the obvious reason that Linear B syllabograms cannot end with consonants. And what is true of the masculine is also true of the neuter. The Linear B ending “o” must correspond to the Greek ending “on”. Getting messy, eh? 2.1 IN PRINCIPLE: Restated in general terms and in principle, the nominative singular any and all (early) alphabetical adjectives & nouns, regardless of gender, (almost) always ends with a consonant, whereas naturally in Linear B, this consonant is always missing: See Table 3B [4-7 inclusive]. It is crucial that you master this principle, if you are to truly grasp the several (mostly apparent) distinctions that obtain between nominal and adjectival declensions in Mycenaean Linear B versus early alphabetical Greek. 2.2 IN PRINCIPLE: As we shall soon discover, this principle is universal, and applies to all adjectival and nominal declensions in both the singular and plural in both Mycenaean Linear B and early alphabetical Greek. Failure to fully grasp this principle in its essence will lead to all sorts of misunderstandings and (often egregious) misinterpretations in all nominal and adjectival declensions, regardless of gender and number, in so far as these can be logically and practically reconstructed, either in whole or in part – and, as it unfortunately turns out, almost always in part. 3 NOTE that this scenario, whereby we shall endeavour to the best of our ability, and under severe constraints, to regressively-progressively reconstruct nominal and adjectival declensions for nouns in at least most their cases (rarely all of them) is very much at odds with the conjugations of verbs, both thematic and athematic, with which I have encountered striking success in the reconstruction of the active voice of all of these tenses: present, future, imperfect, aorist and perfect. STEP 1: The Reconstruction of Mycenaean grammar in Linear B: Conjugations of Verbs: As a prelude to our gainful attempts to reconstruction adjectival and nominal declensions, I shall first post the complete table of our successful reconstruction of both thematic and athematic verbs in the active voice of all of these tenses: present, future, imperfect, aorist and perfect. The conjugations of participles in Mycenaean Linear B are relatively straight-forward, because we have many examples of these (for good reasons, as we shall eventualy see). We will, however, run into some difficulties with middle and passive verbs, Step 2: The Reconstruction of Mycenaean grammar in Linear B: Nominal-Adjectival Declensions: before we move onto the second step in the reconstruction of Mycenaean grammar, nominal-adjectival declensions. I shall thoroughly explain why I have (a) deliberately omitted the other active tenses & (b) why the reconstruction of verbs has proven to be a much greater success than I can ever reasonably expect from my future attempts at reconstructing nominal-adjectival declensions. And that is still only scratching the surface! Step 3: The Reconstruction of Mycenaean grammar in Linear B: Prepositions and the Cases they “Govern”: Wait until we have to deal with prepositions (originally always adverbs) and the cases they “govern”, a misnomer if I ever heard one. FOR THE REST OF THIS YEAR AND WELL INTO 2015, IT IS MY INTENTION TO RECONSTRUCT AS MUCH OF THE CORPUS OF MYCENAEAN GRAMMAR IN LINEAR B AS IS FEASIBLE, GIVEN THE THEORETICAL, CIRCUMSTANTIAL AND EVIDENTIARY CONSTRAINTS WHICH I HAVE ALREADY STRICTLY IMPOSED UPON MYSELF ACCORDING TO MY NEW THEORY OF THE REGRESSIVE-PROGRESSIVE RECONSTRUCTION OF MYCENEAN GRAMMAR. The same theory is as equally and as totally applicable to the regressive-progressive reconstruction of Mycenaean Linear B vocabulary, but that is another (big!) kettle of fish to fry. Richard
The Extreme Significance of the Syllabograms JO and SI in Mycenaean Greek (Click to ENLARGE):This table is pretty much self-explanatory. About the only thing I wish to call to your attention is this: the syllabogram SI is not only highly flexible in its usages (5), but in its adaptability to expressing several alternative combinations of word endings: sij si ci. Much more on this later. I will soon explain how the Mycenaeans managed to adapt the Linear A morphed to Linear B syllabary to express the phonetic values of ancient Greek, which they actually did quite well, considering the serious restraints the Linear B script imposed on them. Richard
Again, thanks to Rogue Classicism for reblogging.
Linear B, Knossos & Mycenae
The Extreme Significance of the Archaic Greek of the Catalogue of Ships in Book II of Iliad in the Reconstruction of Mycenaean Greek
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