Prehistory - Central Balkans Cradle of Aegean culture By Antonije Shkokljev Slave Nikolovski – Katin Translated from Macedonian to English and edited By Risto Stefov Prehistory - Central Balkans Cradle of Aegean culture Published by: Risto Stefov Publications [email protected] Toronto, Canada All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written consent from the author, except for the inclusion of brief and documented quotations in a review. Copyright 2013 by Antonije Shkokljev, Slave Nikolovski – Katin & Risto Stefov e-book edition 2 Index Index........................................................................................................3 COMMON HISTORY AND FUTURE ..................................................5 I - GEOGRAPHICAL CONFIGURATION OF THE BALKANS.........8 II - ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES .........................................10 III - EPISTEMOLOGY OF THE PANNONIAN ONOMASTICS.......11 IV - DEVELOPMENT OF PALEOGRAPHY IN THE BALKANS....33 V – THRACE ........................................................................................37 VI – PREHISTORIC MACEDONIA....................................................41 VII - THESSALY - PREHISTORIC AEOLIA.....................................62 VIII – EPIRUS – PELASGIAN TESPROTIA......................................69 IX – BOEOTIA – A COLONY OF THE MINI AND THE FLEGI .....71 X – COLONIZATION OF THEBES BY THE PHOENICIANS .........78 XI – AEOLIAN MYTHS ABOUT THE ARGONAUT EXPEDITIONS ...............................................................................................................87 XII – PELASGIAN - AEOLIAN ATHENS........................................102 XIII – PREHISTORIC CRETE AND THE CYCLADIC ISLANDS .113 XIV – PREHISTORIC PELOPONNESUS - COLONIZATION .......120 XV – COLONIZATION ON NORTHERN PELOPONNESUS – EGIALA BY THE ACHAEANS ........................................................137 XVI – THESSALIAN-PELOPONNESIAN MYTHOLOGY OF HERCULES – HERCULES’S TRAVELS IN HYPERBOREA AND ALONG THE DANUBE.....................................................................143 XVII – RELIGIONS OF PREHISTORIC AEGEA ............................158 XVIII – AEGEAN EAST COAST – ASIA MINOR ..........................160 XIX – TROJAN WAR ........................................................................176 XX – RESHAPING THE AEGEAN WORLD - PASSING DARK TIMES.................................................................................................179 XXI – HELLENE MIGRATIONS – THE DORIANS OF GREECE.185 XXII – GREAT SCYTHIAN MIGRATIONS – PROTO SLAVS IN THE BALKANS – RESHAPING PREHISTORIC AEGEA..............200 XXIII – SCYTHIAN – PROTO-SLAVS IN THE BALKANS – BEARERS OF THE PANNONIAN CULTURE ................................214 XXIV – SCYTHIAN – PROTO-SLAV ORIGIN OF ALEXANDER THE GREATS’ ARGAID DYNASTY...............................................220 XXV – MEANING OF THE TERMS “HELLENISM” AND “MACEDONISM” ..............................................................................235 XXVI – PHOENICIAN AND CAUCASIAN KOLHIGIANS COLONIZE THE WEST BALKAN COAST.....................................244 XXVII – ETHNOGENESIS OF THE TSINTSARI - AROMANI .....255 XXVIII – ORIGINALITY OF BALKAN MYTHOLOGY – BIRTH OF THE EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION ...................................................263 CONCLUSION ...................................................................................269 3 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...............................................................................272 4 COMMON HISTORY AND FUTURE Foreword Many historiographers would like to call the “Aegean culture” a “Hellenic Historic Miracle”, which, according to most, began in the eighth century BC. The oldest so-called “Greek-language” articles that have served as written sources were dated to this “archaic period”. Of particular importance are the works of ancient historians who have given us a more or less connected display of events from the ancient history of that region. Among those ancient historians are Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius, Diodorus Siculus, Pausanias, Strabo, Eratosthenes, Posidonius and Plutarch. Among the contemporary writers and Hellenists who followed in their footsteps are Thomsen, Thomson, Wilcken, Blegen, Ventris, Chadwick, Roberts, Borza, Hammond, Papastavrou, Papazoglou and others. Looking outside and beyond “mainstream” history, we have also found many inexplicable events and treasures described as myths and legends of heroic epics such as that of the “Iliad” and “Odyssey”, authored by Homer. In this category we have also found the works of Hesiod from Askra, Boeotia, author of “Works and Days” and “Theogony”. For centuries World Science has concerned itself with the enigma of the so-called “Hellenic Historical Miracle” but has yet to find an adequate explanation for the origin of this phenomenon. There have been many conflicting views on this issue mainly because those who controlled the past wanted to dictate the future. But since we no longer live in totalitarian times in Europe, we will try and address this famous so called “Hellenic Miracle” with facts and arguments using modern sciences, especially linguistics and archeology, with access to epistemology. In geographical terms when we refer to Greece we usually include the territory south of Olympus along the Greek Peninsula down to Crete. Again, while the ethnogenesis of the so-called “ancient Greeks” is based on the composition of the participants in the Trojan War such as the Dannans, Achaeans, Argaeds etc., who were mentioned by Homer in his “Iliad” were presumed by modern Hellenists to be all “Greek people” or “Hellenic people”, but they were wrong - because according to history, the “Hellenes” did not colonize the Peloponnesus until 80 years after the Trojan War. (Тукидид, Повијест Пелопонеског рата, I, 12., Дерета, Београд, 1991) 5 The next enigma is the origin of the gods of Olympus. Herodotus (Херодот, Историја, II, 53, Матица Српска, Београд, 1988) says that the poets Homer and Hesiod were the first people to introduce the gods to the Hellenes and to have created stories about their origin and about the world. They gave them names, explained their divine honours and powers and specified the regions they ruled. The stories were a gift from the Muses of Pieria in Macedonia, the “eloquent daughters” of Mnemosyne (Memory). After religion, the next enigma is the language of the so-called “ancient Greeks” as well as the origin of their alphabet and the myths attributed to them. In an attempt to clarify these ancient historic Balkan puzzles, in this study we will make use of the assumptions made by Jung’s vocabulary (Carl Gustav Jung, 1875-1961). Here we are talking about an archetypal unconscious. This model-entity of the founder of complex psychology of “archetypal collective unconscious” will serve as a paradigm and will reveal the overall program of the archetypal collective unconscious on the subject of archeology, linguistics, prehistory, mythology and religion in paleo-Balkan-ology. Even though historical information about the ancient people of the Balkans is very scarce and that their languages, dialects, letter writing and paleo- graphysms have not been preserved, they possessed fascinating civilizations. Imagine how fascinating the Lipinski Vir, the Sredno Podunavie and the Central Balkans in the VII millennium BC must have been. These people surely left traces of themselves in the geographical place names and in the epistemological and semantic names of these sites in which they lived. It is possible that these traces can be “translated” out of the Ancient Greek language. The path of scientific research can be traced through archaeological findings in the Balkans – spanning from the Danube to Crete and to the Peloponnesus. Maria Gimbutas, an archaeologist from California, says that in historic and cultural terms, the Balkan Peninsula is “Old Europe” and the home of the European civilization. Chronologically, the oldest archaeological findings belong to the Lipinski Vir civilization from the VII millennium BC. After that comes the Neolithic culture of the Central Balkans (6500-5500), the Halkolic Culture (5500-3100), which includes the Dimini culture of Thessaly and the proto-Minoan culture of Crete (2800-2000) and finally the Mycenaean culture which existed around 1600 BC. (Thomson, “I Arhaia Eilliniki Koinonia-to Prоistoriko Algaio”, 265, Athina, 1954.) 6 The chronology of archaeological achievements accompanied i.e. followed the migrations of prehistoric tribes in the Balkans from north to south in accordance with geographic processes and environmental and cultural conditions. Many researchers claim that the ancient language spoken in the southern Balkans, in Greece, arrived there from north of the Danube. But no geographical specifics were given since the river is over 2800 kilometres long. Within the epistemological, linguistic, etymological and semantic research of geographical onomastics in Sredno Podunavie in Serbia, in a period of about thirty years, it was determined that Pannonia and the Central Balkans were the cradle of Aegean culture. It was also determined that the onomastics of the Danube hydrological system and its tributaries represented the allegory of the entire mythological system and the theogony and Olympic pantheon of gods established by Homer and Hesiod. The creators of that