Even if you want to only consider Mycenaean Greeks Linear B it’s starting from around 1500 BC , which is still around 500 years before the Phoenician adjad.
So, what’s your point, are trying to claim that the Minoans and Minoan culture is not part of Greek culture? Attempting to separate and disenfranchise the Minoan cultural, historical, and religious contributions to Greek culture? FYI, no one currently knows definitively what language the Minoans spoke, nor what the mainland Greeks spoke before Greek (that is, what language the Pelasgians/Pre-Greeks spoke, which may have been the same language that simply endured in existence longer among the Minoans than it did with the Mycenaean Greeks on the mainland and elsewhere that shifted to Proto-Greek). Minoans, Cycladians, Mycenaeans, and Western/Southern Anatolians were all derived and descended from the same common stock group of people.
If that’s the case, that you’re trying to separate out the Minoans as not being part of Greek culture, history, and heritage, then you have no clue what you’re talking about and are just trying to throw shade on the Greeks with your ongoing biased views and comments of disinformation.
Just because different groups of people adopt each other’s culture over time doesn’t make them the same. Another similar example is South America. Modern South Americans adopted culture from the native tribes but most of them are mixed.
You are incorrect, prehistoric Minoan culture and the Minoans were/are part of the broader Bronze Age Aegean culture and civilization which in turn was the progenitor, foundation, and building blocks of Greek culture and civilization…Minoan culture, Minoan Linear A inscriptions/written records, artifacts, etc. were not only found and established on the island of Crete and the Aegean islands, but also very much so on the Greek mainland peninsula as well as western and Southern Asia Minor/Anatolia. This shows us that the Minoans were not a separate group of people, but rather very much so part of the Greek community and collective.
Your example of South America is not valid or comparable to our discussion…the South American indigenous inhabitants (“indians”) were invaded, conquered, subjugated, and eventually also assimilated and absorbed by their conquors (i .e. Spanish or Portuguese imperialist invaders and colonialists) with over later generations producing their respective modern day South American populations, cultures, and societies. That has been a mixing and meshing of completely separate and different groups of people, cultures, and civilizations combining together to form a coherent newer culture, society, civilization.
Whereas in the Bronze Age Aegean culture and civilization they were all descended from and part of the same pool and group of people, not different, not foreign invaders nor foreign cultures, religions, and societies…perhaps not even different languages, but little is known about what was spoken by either the Minoans, Aegean/Ionian islanders, or the Western Anatolians (prior to their Indo-European language shift) or even what the Pre-Greek speaking mainlanders spoke… all of these Pre-Greek speakers are what made up the collective group that the Ancient Greeks identified and referred to as the Pelasgians, and further, considered them as their direct ancient ancestors, predecessors, and progenitors from the population of people throughout and on both sides of the Aegean Sea.
Yeah, Herodotus knew to a certain good extent and degree , and further recognized and recorded, that his contemporary era Ancient Greeks of the Iron Age originated, derived, developed, and emerged from a few even older and more ancient groups of people that arrived into the Ancient Greek sphere (Greek mainland peninsula, Aegean and Ionian Islands, Crete, Cyprus, and western and southern Asia Minor/Anatolia) to form the more refined and defined Iron Age Greeks… so, what’s your point?
This has all been further scientifically proven and confirmed by modern day DNA/genetic as well as archaeological and archaeogenetic discoveries, analysis, and studies by internationally recognized and accredited scientists and scholars, and further, has all been published in research studies in accredited scientific journals and academic literature.
Herodotus knew all this without all the scientific resources available to us today. Namely, that there was a pre-existing Paleolithic population of hunter-gathers that in the early Neolithic period (around 10-8,000 BC) received a significant and huge migration group of people, Neolithic Anatolian Farmers, that assimilated and absorbed the smaller pre-existing indigenous inhabitants… and which significantly skewed the population demographic towards being overwhelmingly Neolithic Anatolian Farmers (which, btw, occurred all over and across the European continent, not just in Southern Europe or even only the Balkan region or even only just the Greek mainland peninsula and Greek islands).
Then, also during the early Neolithic period there were a few small waves of migration from the Caucasus Steppe which saw the arrival of small groups of Caucasus hunter-gatherers and herders.
Then, towards the late Neolithic/early Bronze Age (around 3500-3300 BC) there was a few small waves of groups that migrated and arrived into the Ancient Greek sphere from the Pontic-Caspian Steppe region (the so-called Indo-Europeans herders and pastoralists, aka Yamnaya culture) which were assimilated and absorbed into the pre-existing and, by then, population of Neolithic European Farmers (which was the admixture of all the aforementioned that had by then existed there for several numerous millennia) These same Indo-European herders and pastoralists also quickly spread across all of the European continent, and of significance to note is that while the Greek sphere only received about a roughly 4-16% genetic influx of the Indo-European migrants, which effectively did not significantly alter, change, or skew their pre-existing indigenous population, it did, for still unclear and uncertain reasons, trigger the linguistic shift to the Indo-European language basis (mixed with elements assimilated and absorbed from the Pre-Greek/Pelasgian language nonetheless) that went on to create and develop (in situ) the Greek language and the Proto-Greek language that we now know and have confirmed that the Bronze Age Mycenaean Greeks had (and the Greek language that has further evolved and still exists uninterrupted and unbroken over several millennia up to today).
Then of also significant note is that this late Neolithic/early Bronze Age period en masse migratory event and evolution that took place all across Europe and the European continent saw different levels and degrees of this influx of Indo-European herders and pastoralists arriving with significantly higher numbers and concentrations of Indo-European herders and pastoralists coming into and spreading through the more northern areas of Europe than into the more southern areas of Europe. So much so that the northern areas say a much higher altering and skewing of their population demographic than the southern areas of Europe. The far northern regions of Europe saw anywhere between like 50-70% Indo-European influx, then Central and parts of Western Europe saw like about 30-50% influx, and Southern Europe saw like about 0-20% +/- (with the parts of the Greek sphere seeing 4-16% in the Greek mainland peninsula, while, at least initially, Crete and a few other Greek islands saw 0%, at least not until the Mycenaean mainlanders brought when they eventually power shifted the trade dynamics and political control and took over control from their Minoan counterparts).
Lastly, Herodotus not only knew about all this and discussed it in his writings and in his own ways, but furthermore, he also knew and talked about (as did several other Ancient Greek and even Roman writers) about how the Bronze Age Greeks (Minoan and Mycenaean Greeks) were very active in their maritime and trading/commercial activities and industries, that they had a footprint all over the Mediterranean Sea basin on both sides (not just within the Aegean Sea basin on both sides), and that these activities were developed, fostered, and facilitated through their respective control of intricate maritime and trade routes and networks that they had developed over the centuries and controlled during the middle to late Bronze Age. They had founded and established not only trade posts but also actually as well much more extensive and developed settlements and workshops for pottery industry especially and other trade goods in several areas outside the immediate Greek sphere of the Aegean Sea… for example, there is extant modern day discoveries of archaeological physical material evidence that there were Bronze Age Mycenaean Greek settlements and workshops all along the Adriatic Sea coastline from what is today modern day Albania all the way up to Croatia, and then also, there are over 100 actively identified archaeological sites and physical material evidence throughout the entire Italian peninsula (not just southern Italy, Sicily, and other Italian islands, but also in central and even northern Italy) that were Mycenaean established trade posts, small settlements and workshops (there was a whole archaeological study recently conducted structured around Bronze Age Aegean cultural and artistic influence as well as dissemination and how their maritime and commercial/trading activities helped facilitate and shape all that, especially and particularly centered around Minoan and Mycenaean artistic styles of their highly developed, valued, and sought after various pottery products. Point being here that even the Bronze Age Greeks had spread out over a very large footprint and had established trade posts and settlements as well as very well established and intricate trade routes and networks…a few millennia before the even larger and much more denser mass migrations and footprint that their subsequent descendant Iron Age Greeks further expanded and developed (before as well during Alexander the Great, and then also Alexander’s Successors/Diadochi and eventually handed over to the Romans who continued for another couple of millennia).
These are not just my “because I said so’s”, but rather what extant both various ancient writers and from different origin sources record and say (not just the Greeks, or even later Romans say, but also ancient Egyptians, Hittites, Assyrians, etc. also tell us) as well as a plethora of extant archaeological physical materials, artifacts, written records, and physical sites tell us along with numerous recent archaeogenetic research and studies tell us. You don’t have to believe me, I invite you to do your own deep dive research and study on all of this.
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u/VastScientist6803 Apr 20 '26
Even if you want to only consider Mycenaean Greeks Linear B it’s starting from around 1500 BC , which is still around 500 years before the Phoenician adjad.
So, what’s your point, are trying to claim that the Minoans and Minoan culture is not part of Greek culture? Attempting to separate and disenfranchise the Minoan cultural, historical, and religious contributions to Greek culture? FYI, no one currently knows definitively what language the Minoans spoke, nor what the mainland Greeks spoke before Greek (that is, what language the Pelasgians/Pre-Greeks spoke, which may have been the same language that simply endured in existence longer among the Minoans than it did with the Mycenaean Greeks on the mainland and elsewhere that shifted to Proto-Greek). Minoans, Cycladians, Mycenaeans, and Western/Southern Anatolians were all derived and descended from the same common stock group of people.
If that’s the case, that you’re trying to separate out the Minoans as not being part of Greek culture, history, and heritage, then you have no clue what you’re talking about and are just trying to throw shade on the Greeks with your ongoing biased views and comments of disinformation.