Where do the Greeks live? What race did the ancient Greeks and Romans belong to? New explanatory and word-formative dictionary of the Russian language, T

Emigration is quite common for Greeks and is not something unusual. Over its centuries-old history, the country has experienced many periods when the inhabitants of Hellas left their homeland in search of a better life.

Based on the latest GGAE estimates, today there are more than five million citizens of Greek origin living outside Greece, scattered in 140 countries, with the largest communities dispersed Map: How many Greeks live abroad

• USA - 3 million,
• Europe - 1 million (mainly Germany - Germany (estimated between 400,000 and 450,000 and Great Britain about 400,000. Most of them belong to immigrants from Cyprus),
• Australia - 700 thousand,
• Canada - 350 thousand,
• Asia and Africa - 100 thousand,
• Russia - 98 thousand,
• Ukraine - 90 thousand,
• South America - 60 thousand, etc.

Canada: According to data published by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, between 2010 and the first quarter of 2016, the Ottawa Embassy provided Greek citizens with 1616 residence permits with permanent resident status. In addition, between 2010 and 2014, 687 temporary work permits were issued to Greek citizens. As you can see, the number of Greeks who emigrated to Canada is not very large, but there is a clear upward trend in recent years. The ministry estimates that the actual number of Greeks who live in Canada is noticeably higher, since there is a possibility that there are Greeks who work in Canada either illegally or have dual citizenship and are therefore counted as Canadian citizens.

Australia: According to data from Greek diplomatic structures for 2015, there has been a new wave of migration to this country since 2010, amounting to approximately 9,000 per year. But most of them are not registered as new immigrants, since they often have dual citizenship. These are mainly ethnic Greeks who previously left for their historical homeland and then returned to Australia due to the crisis.

Netherlands: The Greek Consulate in the Netherlands does not keep special records of the number of Greeks living in this country. However, in recent years there has been a noticeable increase in traffic to the consular section in The Hague. Statistics from the Federation of Greek Communities of the Netherlands show an increase in the number of Greek migrants. In 2010, the number of Greeks living in this country increased from 16,000 to 24,000 and this is without 2,500 students studying at universities in the Netherlands.

Austria: According to the Statistics Authority, between 2010-2015 a total of 6,165 Greeks settled in the country. Of these, 3,235 returned after repatriation to Greece.

Denmark: The total number of Greeks living in the country at the beginning of 2016 was 2,360 people. In 2010, this figure was 941 people. This mainly affected the age group of 25-29 years.

Great Britain: According to the UK Department of Work and Pensions, the number of Greeks receiving a National Insurance Number (NIN) has increased significantly in recent years. A social security number required to enter the UK labor market is the most accurate indicator of the number of Greeks who come to work in the UK.

The vast majority of registrants (about 90% of the total) belong to the 18-44 age group, while the most noticeable percentage increase is in the 45-59 age group. By gender, among those registered in 2015, the distribution was approximately 45% among women and 55% among men.

Germany: According to the German Statistical Office DESTATIS, the number of Greeks who emigrated to Germany in the years 2010-2015 is as follows:

Belgium: does not have exact statistics, however, according to estimates by the Greek communities and the Metropolitan of Belgium, the number of Greeks who have settled in this country from 2010 to the present day is estimated at 5,000 people.

Finland: According to official data from the Finnish authorities, from 2010 to 2015, 430 people came to Finland: 250 men and 180 women. In total, a total of 1239 Greeks live in this country.

Luxembourg: According to the migration service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Luxembourg, the number of Greek citizens in Luxembourg has increased from 2,108 since 2014 to 2,572 in 2015.

Cuba: According to the Cuban State Statistical Office, 29 Greek citizens resettled in Cuba between 2010 and 2015.

Switzerland: The Greeks who have settled in recent years in the jurisdiction of the Consulate General in Geneva (the cantons of Geneva, Vaud and Valais) are estimated at approximately 5,000. Most of them are employed in high technology, working in hospitals, multinational companies, universities, scientific research centers, financial institutions and other private companies.

Norway: According to Statistics Norway, the number of Greeks who migrated to Norway in 2010-2016 is:

United Arab Emirates: After 2010, there has been an increasing trend in the number of migrants. In 2010 this figure was 1,850 people, in 2011, 2,600 in 2012 and 3,352 in 2013. Mostly Greeks work in the construction industry, trade, shipping and tourism.

Qatar: From 450 in 2008, the number of Greeks reached 1,000 in 2014 and continues to grow. Most of them are employed in construction.

Historical reference
Emigration is quite common for Greeks and is not something unusual. Over its centuries-old history, the country has experienced many periods when the inhabitants of Hellas left their homeland in search of a better life. In ancient times, brave Hellenes, outside the Aegean basin, settled small trading cities-policies (Olbia, Massilia, Chersonese, Tomy, etc.), located in sea bays and surrounded by foreign-speaking peoples. As a result of the conquests of Alexander the Great, there was a partial Hellenization of the major cities of the empire, including those founded by Alexander himself. For example, the Greek diaspora in Egypt has grown greatly and lasted until the mid-twentieth century. The total number of Hellenes made it possible to classify them as one of the most numerous ethnic peoples of Antiquity. Within the Oikumene (explored by the Hellenes of the World), the Thracians, Scythians and ancient Indians were more numerous. Percentage of the current population of the Earth in the 5th century BC e. - every 10th inhabitant of the planet was Hellenic. Moreover, already in ancient times, most Hellenes lived outside of Greece proper (Syracuse in Sicily, Alexandria in Egypt, as well as Byzantium, Ephesus, and Sardis in modern Turkey, surpassed in population any Greek cities proper - Thebes, Athens, Corinth or Sparta) .

Everything flows and changes, and hundreds of years later, yielding to the pressure of the Ottoman conquerors, the Hellenes, with tears in their eyes, left the territories that had become their homeland, to which their ancestors had once come. One of the first historically recorded emigrations from Greece occurred in the 15th century, when the Ottoman Turks captured the territory of the Byzantine Empire and their troops poured into the territory of what is now Greece. Then many Greek families left for other countries, mainly to the north, to Austria, Venice, and other countries. The exodus was so significant that entire regions were deserted.

During the more than 400 years of Ottoman slavery, Greeks also continued to migrate to other Christian countries, in noticeably smaller numbers, but nevertheless the outflow of population was quite noticeable. This trend was most noticeable in territory of North America.

It is believed that the first Greek to reach the territory of the state known today as the USA was Don Teodoro Greco (Spanish. Don Teodoro Griego- Don Theodoros the Greek), a navigator originally from an island in the Aegean Sea and an explorer of America, who landed on the west coast of Florida in 1528 during the Narvaez expedition. Panfilo de Narvaez, like almost his entire squad, including Don Teodoro Greco, died during the hurricane. Only four managed to escape and get to Mexico, among whom was Cabeza de Vaca, who later described Narvaez’s entire journey in the book “The Shipwreck of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca.” Today in the city of Tampa in Florida there is a monument to Don Theodoros the Greek.

At this time, Greek immigrants were over 90% male, in contrast to other European immigrants to the United States, such as the Italians and Irish, who averaged between 50% and 60% male. Many Greeks hoped that after working and accumulating capital for their families, they would be able to return to their homeland. However, this was not destined to materialize due to the occurrence of the Greek genocide initiated by the Ottoman government, as well as the subsequent forced population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923, which resulted in 1,500,000 Greeks from Anatolia, Eastern Thrace and Ponta left their homes. The Greeks, who had originally arrived in the United States as economic immigrants, were now forced to permanently stay here. They were legally deprived of citizenship in their homeland and lost the right of return, and their family members became refugees. Additionally, the first widely implemented restrictions on US immigration against non-Western European aliens (the Immigration Act of 1924) encouraged them to apply for citizenship, bring their families, and live in the US permanently. Fewer than 30,000 Greeks arrived in the United States between and , most of whom were “photo brides” for single Greek men, as well as visiting family members. to Central Asia by order of Stalin led to the formation of the Greek diaspora in Kazakhstan. After Kazakhstan gained independence in the early 1990s, up to 3/4 of all Greeks in the country went to Greece, among whom Pontians predominated. There is a gradual reduction in the diaspora in other countries, which is associated with some improvement in the economic situation in Greece itself. Many overseas Greeks and even their descendants have returned to the country in recent decades; others assimilated, fully or partially, into a foreign language environment.

Events of the early 1920s. also served as an incentive for the Greeks to create the first permanent national Greek-American religious and social organizations. Greeks began arriving again in large numbers in the United States after 1945, fleeing the economic devastation caused by World War II and the Greek Civil War. From 1946 to 1982 About 211,000 Greeks migrated to the United States. These later immigrants were not subject to the strong assimilation pressures of the 1920s and 1930s and revived Greek-American identity, especially in areas such as Greek-language media.

In the 1950-1970s. The Greeks opened more than 600 diners in the New York metropolitan area. It was during this period that immigration to the United States from Greece reached its peak. After Greece joined the European Union in 1981, the annual number of immigrants from Greece to the United States fell to less than 2,000. In recent years, Greek immigration to the United States has been minimal; in fact, Greece has positive net migration, that is, the influx of immigrants into the country is greater than the outflow (see List of countries by migration ranking). More than 72,000 US citizens currently live in Greece (in the process

From 1961 to 1966, about 70,000 Greeks moved to Australia en masse: this was a period when the Greeks, in search of a better life, scattered across the globe, when families were separated for many years and without any “pedom-zom”, the mass removal of children .
Today, half a century later, there is a second wave of Greek emigration to Australia: only this time the ground for new settlers was well prepared by the Greek communities in Australia.

Let us remind you. that today, the Greek diaspora in Australia numbers about 700,000 people and is the second largest Greek diaspora in the world after the United States.

While reading ancient books, I constantly came across the phrase - our faith is Greek, in relation to Orthodoxy. And every time I was surprised at what god Greece was to our faith. It turns out none.
Book. Russian Chronicle according to Nikon's list / Published under the supervision of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. - St. Petersburg: Under the Imp. Academician Sciences, 1767-1792. - 4°.

Part 1: Until 1094. - 1767. By the way, one of the fundamental monuments of our history. literally holy text.
And there, almost at the very beginning, I saw a familiar plot to everyone, how the prophetic Oleg was now getting ready to go and fight Tsar-grad. And he is going precisely against the Greeks. Together with the rest of the Slavic tribes, which the Greeks themselves call Great Scythia. Yes, we are like that, Scythians, with slanted and greedy eyes!

And the Greeks were afraid and began to ask for mercy. Moreover, the name of the Greek king was very interesting - Leon. Although modern historians for some reason stubbornly call him Leo. Well, they know better, they always know better what was there 1000 years ago.

In general, they agreed on peace. And Oleg nailed the shield to the gates of the Greek capital Tsar-Grad. It’s just that at the end of the first paragraph some Vlasie is mentioned. And he seems to even be God. And he even seems Russian. There is something we clearly don’t know about the system of gods in ancient Rus'.

Actually, there, almost all of our princes are constantly at war with the Greeks. And they send ambassadors to Tsar-Grad and go themselves. In general, the Greeks were our closest trading partners at that time.
And the Greeks decided to bring us the Christian faith. (By the way, in the text it is also called Peasant. I have often seen this in manuscripts.) And they sent the Philosopher to Vladimir. Oh, most likely, this is a name that later became a household name. I have already encountered similar things. By the way, the Greeks did have a King Leo the Philosopher. This is the same one who was called Leon above. So it's most likely a first or last name.

There are further descriptions of several dozen pages. In particular, the Philosopher briefly quotes to Vladimir the New and Old Testaments. And it’s terribly non-canonical. There, in the Book of Genesis, Satan is present and God constantly communicates with everyone and what not. In general, if I were the Russian Orthodox Church, I would burn this book out of harm’s way.

In general, the boyars and Vladimir decided to accept the Greek faith. The question arose: where to be baptized?

And for some reason this baptism took place in Korsun. And Rus' accepted the Greek law from Tsar-Grad.

Actually there is nothing new here. Greeks have lived in Crimea and the Black Sea region since time immemorial. It was then that the Tatars conquered them and established their state of Little Tartary there. But we always called those places Taurida. And even in the title of Nicholas II it was stated - Tsar of Tauride Chersonese. You can also recall the title given to Potemkin for the conquest of Crimea - Tauride. Those. The Tatars did not live there for long.
And then the Turks captured (by the way, the Turks and Tatars are relatives, as stated in the History of the Tatars, published at the end of the 18th century) Tsar Grad and its environs, and the Greek kingdom came to an end. Gradually the Turks exterminated all its inhabitants. There is a lot left from that kingdom there. Ancient Christian churches in Istanbul, ruins which I somehow found, Mount Olympus. Also the city of Olympos is next to the city of Chimera, near Antalya. There, if you dig around, you can find a lot of Greek things.
And then history was rewritten to suit the specific current political situation. Olympus and the gods were moved to the west, to places where there were no Turks. And the name itself was assigned to a completely different country and another people. This, unfortunately, often happens in history. The same modern Lithuania received the name of a large country (and part of history), in which it was only a small province. Something similar probably happened with the Greeks.
I read somewhere that the Greeks were made Greeks somewhere in the 19th century in literally two generations. Moreover, at first they did not really want to take on the burden of Hellenism. But they persuaded me. And the old Greek Empire was renamed Constantinople and Byzantine. And even to Rome. Although no matter how many books I read from the 17th century that mentioned Turkey, there wasn’t a word about Rome. Well, they didn’t know the true history of Turkey back then, so what can you do? Only modern historians know it.

WHERE DID THE GREEKS COME FROM?

It is known that the ancient Greeks were not the original inhabitants of Ancient Greece. They moved here in two waves. The Achaean tribes came first, the second wave of settlers was the Dorians. It is unknown with whom and where they lived before. The Greeks themselves forgot, but modern scientists have this question causes lively debate to this day day.
But for some reason these debates bypass language. And in vain. But the Greeks brought with them both the language they spoke in their homeland and the myths of those with whom they lived.

Let's take the bull by the horns, as they say, and immediately ask ourselves the question: what does the ethnonym Greeks mean?

Through the Arabic language it is easier to answer this question. This is Arabic for “drowned people”, as in fire victims. Those. victims of the flood. The name Dorians has the same idea: from Ar. d orr "to suffer damage"

It is known that the primary source of myths about the flood is the Mesopotamia Valley. It did suffer from devastating floods from time to time. And the biblical myth, in particular, is borrowed from there. In the local legend, the “ark” sails not to Mount Ararat, but to the Island of Bliss, in Arabic jazirat ut - Tuba , where Utopia is from. Of course, the mountainous terrain seemed like an ideal refuge, a utopia, to those who had suffered from the floods. Yes, no matter how deep we go into history, we will always find traces of the Russian language. Utopia is a place where you won't drown.

The ancient name of Greece is Hellas. Knowing the place of exodus, it is not difficult to guess that this is Chaldea, the class of Babylonian sorcerers. And it will immediately become clear where both astrology and witchcraft were so developed in Greece. Medicine man in Greek pharmakos from the reverse reading of ar. Mary f (A) "knowledge". Those. medicine man The Academy is a garden where academicians, formerly Akkadians, a Semitic people who came out of Arabia, argued.

Against the background of this information, we can return to the Achaeans, the settlers of the first wave. This is Arabic for "brotherhood". From ar. A heh "my brother". Some spiritual movements still call themselves brotherhood. We also have white achaeism.

One can guess that the Achaeans were not “victims” of the flood, but a priestly sect that could not prevent destructive floods, for which they were expelled. It was they who brought with them myths and that world of gods and heroes that we still admire today.

MYTHOLOGY

Greek Gods and heroes entirely bear Arabic (Arabian) names. Zeus, the main god of the Greeks, if you remove the Greek ending, means “light” in Arabic. And theos "god" from the reverse reading of Russian. light. The Arabic letter waw denotes the semivowel w, or the vowel y (o).

Aphrodite, “born from the foam of the sea,” consists of two parts. The first part from ar. at fr "comb, mane, lamb of the wave." The second part from Russian. r ode. Where else?

The name of the god of the sea element Poseidon must be read with Arabic eyes, i.e. vice versa. It will turn out to be “causing a storm” ( nodia esof).

Hephaestus, the god of blacksmithing, must also be read in Arabic. Then it will work out tasfi :X "armoring", the original occupation of the blacksmith. But the Arabic word has motivation. This is a masdar (verbal name) of the so-called second breed (causative), derived from safha“leaf (of iron)” In our language this is ARMOR. Our “famous” “etymologists” - neither Vasmer nor Chernykh - did not even include this word in their dictionaries. And it has never been the subject of consideration of this “science”. Why? Because they think he is motivated. Indeed, do is a prefix, hash is a root. This logic can easily make you go crazy, which is often what happens in our schools.
WITH pseudo-Greek You can continue to amuse yourself with the gods, but when the principle of the solution is known, it becomes a boring task.

Let's take care of the heroes. Of the main characters, the most glorious and important is Hercules. Many kings included him in their genealogy. Let's take this short plot from the myth: Jealous Hera sends a mental illness to Hercules, and he, in a fit of madness, kills his children born to his beloved wife Megara.

Hera, the wife of Zeus, was so jealous that without this epithet her name was almost never used. And in vain. Hera just means “jealous” in Arabic. Hercules is just Arabic ger yakel"insane". We sing a song to the madness of the brave. A real hero. 12 labors is no joke. Well, Megara is an object of jealousy.

And who came up with all this? Homer (Omer). A typical Arabic name, of which there are hundreds of thousands.

SCIENCE

Greek sciences, of course, are all from Chaldea. Let's take the “queen of sciences”. MATHEMATICS in Ancient Greece still retained its original meaning in accordance with its Arabic roots. This was not a science of numbers. It was just science. Because matma this is the same in Arabic as talab"requirement, search", talab al-'ilm"demand for knowledge", "study". The word knowledge is often omitted in context and therefore tolab(and its synonym matma, plural number mat :m e ) themselves mean study. Our journalists translate the well-known religious movement Toliban as “disciples”, “students”. Toliban has a different meaning. These are seekers (of truth), and not students of educational institutions, as our journalists believe.

NumerologicalMathematics was apparently made a science by Pythagoras, the creator of numerology. What could he do if the numbers in his name just glow? Even now in English there is a word "figures". This word is from Arabic fagarat"vertebrae", including the knuckles on the abacus. From Arabic fagara“to make a hole, to perforate” (to string on a wire).

Another great mathematician, Euclid, also has a non-Greek part in his name. Ev is good, but klid is from Russian masonry, folding. He put his geometry together very well. This, of course, is not land surveying, as we were taught at school. This is “universal geometry” in Arabic: gami+ metric. She, geometry, doesn’t care what to measure - the earth or air space, or clay pots, the art of making which the Achaeans and Dorians brought from Babylonia, where clay was sacred. It was this that the local priests burned to preserve their clay libraries forever. Eternity in Arabic hulud, A chaladon"soul", hence the sorcerers and Chaldeans.

Greece was famous for its developed MECHANICS.

Mechanics is also not a Greek word, but is Arabic in origin: mokin it is literally "creator". A mokan“construction”, “made”, “erected”. And if you put the vowel and, you get an instrument, i.e. mikan - ika. The world's greatest mechanic, Archimedes, had a name that spelled out "loose support" in Arabic ( archa Imad). Give me, he says, a point of support, and I will turn the world around. You have to have your own, they would tell him now.

ASTRONOMY

ASTRONOMY - from the addition of ar .at stura "description" and noyom , nugum, "stars". The Greeks forgot which parts of the word are called what, as well as their homeland, and the first part was associated with stars, asters, and the second was understood as “law”. Almost all astronomy terms and star names are of Arabic origin. This is widely known. Therefore, let's avoid details. But the ALMAGEST, an ancient catalog of stars, is attributed either to Greek or to Latin. Although you can see with the naked eye that the word is Arabic. And he is well motivated. Al is an article, and magest– derivative from ar. Lagola hess“strain your eyes to discern.” We can't think of anything better for astronomers.

PHILOSOPHY

Most of all, Ancient Greece is famous for philosophy. By all accounts, this is where it originated. But no. All terms are again Arabic. Philosophy is actually not “philosophy,” but FSL F “separation, distinction, analysis.” Dialectics is not a dispute, but in the reverse reading of CT CLT, “dismemberment of the complex.” Of the entire huge army of philosophers, only Plato defined dialectics exactly word for word. Cognition is carried out through analysis and synthesis, the Greeks said. But no. If we translate this formula into Arabic (FSL - VSL), we get something rhymed and completely different in meaning. Namely: DISCOVER and COMPREHENS. Synthesis of the comprehending brain with a piece of Truth revealed as a result of discrimination. Here is an elementary step of knowledge. The Greeks and the string of philosophers behind them did not understand this formula at all.

MUSIC

Music is a Greek word. The Arabs themselves think so. Haha. If you take the Russian word ZVUK and form a participle of the so-called fourth type according to the rules of Arabic grammar, you get music that “makes sounds.” In general, modern musical terminology is considered fundamentally Italian. The fact that she is not entirely motivated in Italian is not given any importance. In fact, the supposedly Italian terminology is mostly Russian. Compare MELODY, which is a series of sounds ordered by scale. Here M is ar. and the affix of the participle, as in the words music or Muhammad (glorified). We will not discuss the word LAD due to its obvious Russian origins. TONE from Russian to pull, The more you tighten the string, the higher its tone. Who doesn't know this? And the exchange of vowels is again a trace of Arabic grammar. O is an indicator of suffering. And NOTES are from the reverse reading of TONE. Each note has its own degree of string tension. Who doesn't know this?

But no one it's not known why the notes are called as they are called. Simiya will help you figure this out. Delov then. Let's put their names into one scale, and we get the Arabic phrase: period ( dore), divided ( mifassol) + echo, echo ( garden). A good friend of mine, a PhD candidate in his field and a playing pianist, told me: this is the scientific definition of an octave.

There are only seven notes. But why is octave formed from octo (eight). Yes, it's not Octo, it's Arabic uktuba"notation (music)".

The ancient lyre (seven-stringed) had a tortoise shell as its lower resonator, and two goat horns as its upper resonator. Why goats? Many ungulates have horns. Because goat in Arabic is MЪZA. Aramaic ayin is written like Russian U. Let us now read it “in Russian” and we get MUSE. Yes, the muses, along with goats, were the companions of Dionysius, the god of wine. The name of this god is also Arabic, from the root DNS - “to stamp with feet”, as well as “to trample on”. This is how it happens. Hence the dances and ar. given :s a "trampling". Dionysus, like a real drunk, had a nickname: Bacchus. The Greeks didn't know what this meant. Over time, they have forgotten, just like their homeland. In Arabic it means “shameless, insolent.” Correct nickname. Easy to check. By the way, his mother's name was Semele. "Earth" - say scientists. No. This is Arabic for "hops". And here’s another newfangled word, supposedly French: sommelier.

ALPHABET

It is believed that the Greek alphabet was created on the basis of the Phoenician with the addition of some letters. Basically, letters denoting vowels that were not written in these alphabets. But it is not a fact that the Phoenician script is the basis of Greek. The fact is that practically the same alphabet of 22 letters was used in the same sequence by the Phoenicians, Arameans, ancient Jews, and other peoples.

But the names of some Greek letters may only apply to Arabic. The fact is that in all the so-called Semitic languages, glottal articulations, which were preserved in Arabic, have fallen. And the liberated signs began to be used by some peoples to indicate vowels, which the “Semitic” peoples, like the Arabs, did not do, retaining the vowels.

And some of these letters sometimes retain Arabic names when they were guttural. For example, O micron, sort of like O small. The same letter, which has two options, one without dots, the other with two dots at the top (ه ة ) to ar . In language it is called "connected" if it is accompanied by two dots on top. Related in Arabic - marbut or makrun. This last one turned into a micron. Understood as small, it necessitated calling its variant mega (large), although it is not at all larger than “small”.

Here's another Greek letter. E_psilon. Nobody knows what psilon is. In fact, this is the name of a letter, a "glottal plosive", when it does not fall in the flow of speech, as opposed to another glottal plosive, which can fall according to special grammatical rules. Those. facilon, if it doesn't fall, Basilon if subject to a fall. In Semitic languages, gutturals fell, and the terms describing them became meaningless, but, as it turns out, they were partially preserved, their presence indicating the true source.

THE HOMELAND OF ANCIENT GREECE

There were many sevens in Ancient Greece: seven notes, “the campaign of the Seven against Thebes,” seven wisdoms, seven wise men, seven strings on the lyre, seven luminaries in the sky.

But not as much as in Mesopotamia. The Sumerians even wrote on clay with wedges in the shape of sevens. There is a verb in Arabic Sammar“to drive nails”, “to write in cuneiform”. And how they built seven-story towers!!! One was erected almost to the very sky, which in Arabic is called herself:. Sumerians, in Arabic sumeyri means seven students. What are the Sumerians, if even the Tigris and Euphrates rivers came together like a wedge or seven? The Tigris River is a tiger, and the Euphrates is a distorted Arabic yafrus"lion" (lit. r ridged head). These animals belong to the same species and can even mate. In Arabic this species is called saba. Also called seven.

Even sacred palms exactly remind us of the Sumerian seven-wedge.

So the ancient Greeks came from Mesopotamia, the seventh region, and brought with them its language and number.

Vashkevich N.N.

It may seem that the question “Who lived in Ancient Greece?” the correct answer would be: “Ancient Greeks.” But, firstly, the ancient Greeks were different. They were divided into several tribes. Secondly, other peoples lived in Ancient Greece.

Ancient Greeks
The ancient Greeks called themselves Hellenes. Originally it was the name of a tribe originally from Thessaly. Mention of it can already be found in Homer. It became a common name for all Greeks only in the era of classical Greek civilization, that is, in the first millennium BC. The origin of the name “Hellenes” causes heated debate among modern linguists, but for the Greeks themselves there was nothing mysterious about it. They believed that the names of peoples come from a common ancestor. Accordingly, all Hellenes descended from a king named Hellene.
The Greeks distinguished themselves from other peoples by language and customs. They called everyone who was not Greek barbarians. The word "barbarian" had a clear negative connotation, although it did not mean savages. For example, the Greeks knew that the Pelasgians, who will be discussed below, the Egyptians or the Phoenicians, were more ancient and cultured peoples, but they still called them barbarians.
The ancient Greeks were not a single people. They were divided into several tribes, each of which spoke its own dialect. Let's look at what kind of tribes these are.

Achaeans, also known as Danaans
The first known tribe of the ancient Greeks were the Achaeans. It was they who besieged Ancient Troy, which is why in Homer’s Iliad they called all the Greeks that way. Homer also used the name "Danaans" because the Achaeans traced their origins to Danaus, the mythical king of Egypt who fled his relatives to the Peloponnesian Peninsula.
In fact, the ancestors of the Achaeans came to the Peloponnese not from Egypt, but from somewhere in the north at the beginning of the second millennium BC. Here they created the Mycenaean civilization, discovered and named so in the nineteenth century by Heinrich Schliemann. The Achaeans carried on extensive trade throughout the Mediterranean, so that their colonies are found in Cyprus, the western coast of Asia Minor, Sicily and the Aeolian Islands. When the Minoan civilization died on Crete in the middle of the second millennium BC, the Achaeans moved to this island.
But at the end of the second millennium BC, the warlike Achaeans themselves became victims of newcomers from the north. The Mycenaean civilization died. In the era of classical Ancient Greece, an independent Achaean dialect no longer existed. Achaean origin was attributed only to the inhabitants of Arcadia, a small mountainous region in the Peloponnese, and the Greeks of Cyprus.

Dorians
Already on clay disks from the era of the Mycenaean civilization the personal name Doria is found. However, ancient Greek tradition linked the origins of the Dorians to the small region of Doris near Mount Eta in northern Ancient Greece. The Dorians were believed to be descended from Dor, the son of Hellen. At the end of the second millennium BC, the Heraclides, descendants of the mythical hero Hercules, led the Dorians to the south of Greece, where they settled the Peloponnese, Crete, and a number of islands in the Aegean Sea. Dorian colonies were found in Sicily, near the Bosphorus and in Asia Minor.
The myth of the migration of the Dorians to the south gave rise to the concept of the “Dorian conquest” among nineteenth-century historians. It was first introduced into circulation by the British historian William Mitford (1744 - 1827). He believed that it was the Dorians who crushed the Achaean city-states. The concept of the "Dorian conquest" wandered from one book to another and is still found in some history textbooks. Meanwhile, modern archaeologists believe that the destruction of the Mycenaean civilization was the work of other, much more formidable opponents. Those whom the ancient Egyptians called “the peoples of the sea.” If the Dorians really originated from Doris, then they appeared in the Peloponnese a little later.
In our time, Sparta can be considered the most famous Dorian state. Following the reforms of Lycurgus in 884 BC, Sparta transformed from an ordinary Greek polis into a militarized community that eventually defeated the wealthier and more populous Athens. The Dorians also owned the city of Corinth. It was even richer and more populous than Athens. The creator of history as a genre of literature, the writer Herodotus, came from the Dorian city of Halicarnassus in Asia Minor. In the Dorian city of Syracuse in Sicily lived the famous inventor Archimedes.

Ionians
The Ionians were perhaps the most numerous and culturally developed tribe of classical Ancient Greece. The ancient Greeks considered the common ancestor of the Ionians to be Ion, the grandson of Hellenes. Their name appears for the first time on the Mycenaean tablet Xd. Until the end of the second millennium they lived together with the Achaeans in the Peloponnese, from where they were driven out by the Dorians. Strabo wrote that a pillar was erected on the Isthmus of Corinth. On one side it was written: “This is no longer the Peloponnese, but Ionia,” and on the other side, “This is no longer Ionia, but the Peloponnese.” The only Ionian tribe that remained in the Peloponnese were the Kynurians, who lived in the Argos region. Already in the time of Herodotus, that is, by the middle of the first millennium BC, the Kynuria spoke a Dorian dialect and differed little from their Dorian neighbors.
After leaving the Peloponnese, the Ionians occupied several areas of central Ancient Greece, including Attica, and then began colonizing the islands of the Aegean Sea. On the western coast of Asia Minor they founded seven cities, the largest of which was Miletus. The region of seven cities was called Ionia. It was in Asia Minor Ionia that the art of classical Ancient Greece originated. Miletus became the center of the first school of natural philosophy; the mathematician Thales, the writer Anaximander, and the materialist physicist Anaximenes lived and worked there.
The Ionians were a true colonizing people. Pliny the Elder wrote that the inhabitants of Miletus alone founded 90 colonies. In 546 BC, the northernmost Ionian city of Phocea was conquered by the Persians. But the Phocians did not submit to the invaders. Having collected their property, they boarded ships and left the city. The Phocian Greeks discovered the coast of Spain and created many colonies in the western Mediterranean.
I think there is no need to talk much about the golden age of another city inhabited by Ionians - Athens. Athens is the birthplace of democracy, an important political and cultural center. The Athenian Ionian dialect became the basis of the common Greek literary language Koine. It was written in the classical era, during Hellenism, and even Byzantine writers tried to use the ancient Athenian dialect.

Aeolians
The ancient Greeks believed that the Aeolians descended from Aeolus, the son of Hellenes, and their original settlement was the northern agricultural region of Thessaly. Later they appeared in Boeotia. On the western coast of Asia Minor, north of Asia Minor Ionia, the region of Aeolia, colonized by the Aeolians, arose. It included the island of Lesvos.
In Ancient Greece, the contribution of the Aeolians to pan-Greek culture was somehow not particularly appreciated. Plato even called the Aeolian dialect barbaric. Meanwhile, it was the Aeolians who reported and retold most of the ancient Greek myths. The Aeolians included the ancient Greek poets Hesiod and Alcaeus, the prose writer Hellanicus, and the first known female poet Sappho.
The most famous Aeolian city was Thebes. They pursued a very independent policy from Athens and Sparta. In 378 BC, Thebes inflicted a brutal defeat on Sparta and, until the Macedonian conquest, remained the hegemonic city of all Balkan Greece.

Strange people Macedonians
On the map of modern Europe there is a small country called Macedonia. Its inhabitants speak a Macedonian Slavic language, very similar to Bulgarian. But modern Macedonians have nothing in common with the ancient Macedonians, the conquerors of Ancient Greece, and then the Persian Empire, Central Asia and even parts of India. Who were the ancient Macedonians?
The Macedonians or Macedonians lived to the north of the areas we usually include in Balkan Ancient Greece. The ancient Greeks did not consider the Macedonians to be Greeks, and the famous Athenian orator Demosthenes openly called them barbarians. But the Macedonians themselves thought differently. They believed that they were related to the Dorians and came from the region of Argos in the Peloponnese. Herodotus told the story of the Macedonian king Alexander (a distant ancestor of another king, Alexander the Great), who wished to participate in the Olympic Games. The Greeks didn't like it. “These games,” they said, “are for the Hellenes, and not for the barbarians.” Alexander had to prove that he was an Argive by birth. In the end, he was admitted.
Many modern researchers consider the Macedonians to be relatives of the Thracians, a more northern people who lived on the Balkan Peninsula. The Athenian historian Thucydides could object to them. He himself was half Thracian and after his expulsion from Athens he lived in Thrace. He clearly separated the Macedonians from the Thracians, but did not separate them from the Greeks. The problem of the origin of the Macedonians is complex because Macedonia, as a close region of Greece, was already Hellenized by the middle of the first millennium BC. The inscriptions in the real Macedonian language have not reached us. We also do not know the names of the gods of Macedonian origin.
Archaeologists have discovered that there are inscriptions in Greek on Macedonian tombstones. But this is not a common literary Koine language, but an independent dialect. If the Macedonians accepted the foreign Greek language, they should have accepted the literary one. For example, Belarusians speak literary Russian, and not some dialect of Russian. The Irish speak literary English, not a dialect of English. What is sometimes called the Irish dialect is a mixture of English and Irish proper. Greek Macedonian was not a mixture. There were no separate Macedonian words in it. Therefore, it can be assumed that there was no adoption of the Greek language and religion either. The Macedonians were originally Greeks. But why the rest of the Greeks considered them barbarians is a question that is very difficult to answer.

Athamantes
The small Athamante people lived in the north-west of Ancient Greece. Authors of the Hellenistic era considered the Athamantes to be barbarians, or at least descendants of barbarians, but the Athamantes themselves considered themselves Greeks. In 272 BC they were conquered by the Epirus king Pyrrhus, about a century later they were freed and even had their own kings. The independence of the Athamantes was put to an end by the Romans, who destroyed their fortresses in 168 BC. Many Athamantes left their habitat and merged with other Greeks.

Non-Greeks in Greece
The ancestors of the ancient Greeks appeared in the south of the Balkan Peninsula only at the beginning of the second millennium BC. Other peoples lived here before them, and the ancient Greeks remembered this very well. Expanding their possessions, the Greeks colonized the islands of the Aegean Sea and Asia Minor. Someone also lived there before the ancient Greeks and even together with the ancient Greeks.

Minoans
The Minoans are the ancient inhabitants of the island of Crete, the creators of the most ancient European civilization. They did not call themselves Minoans. This name was coined in the nineteenth century by Heinrich Schliemann, and came into scientific use thanks to Sir Arthur Evans (). All we know about the Minoans is that they were not related to the ancient Greeks. Unfortunately, the disks with type A inscriptions at the excavation site of the Minoan “palaces” have not yet been deciphered, and their real language has not been determined.
In classical Ancient Greece, very little was remembered about the times of the Minoans. Basically, the legends about King Minos and his ugly son the Minotaur. In the first millennium BC, the inhabitants of Crete spoke a Dorian dialect. But in the works of Homer certain Eteocritans were mentioned, that is, the true inhabitants of Crete. In the west of the island lived another people - the Kidons, and on the outskirts - the mysterious Kuretes. Some inhabitants of the western part of Ancient Greece and Cholkis, an area just north of Athens, were also classified as Kuretes. They came to Cholkis from the west, and differed from the Greeks in the custom of shaving the front of their heads. In Greek, "kouret" literally means "tonsured." This custom was borrowed by the Abantes, the Ionians from the island of Euboea. In Greek mythology, curetes were also the name given to the servants of Rhea, the mother of Zeus, and the companions of the god of wine Dionysus. On the island of Samothrace in the north of the Aegean Sea, the cult of Dionysus has long existed, and mysteries dedicated to the Kouretes were practiced there.

Pelasgians
Pelasgians is the collective name for all the inhabitants of Ancient Greece who inhabited this country before the arrival of the Greeks. The Greeks believed that the mythical Pelasgus, the progenitor of all Pelasgians, once ruled in Arcadia. He was credited with the invention of huts and clothing. The main center of the Balkan Pelasgians was the city of Larissa in the north. The region of Argos in the Peloponnese was considered another important center of residence for the Pelasgians. For a long time, the Pelasgians made up a significant part of the inhabitants of ancient Athens. But in Athens they were newcomers, they moved from the island of Samothrace. Geographical names associated with the Pelasgians are found throughout ancient Greece. At the beginning of the classical period, the Pelasgians even took part in the colonization of the Aegean islands, northwestern Asia Minor and Sicily.
Herodotus, talking about the events of the end of the second millennium, noted: “At that time Hellas was also called Pelasgia.” But already in his time there were no Pelasgians in Balkan Greece. He believed that they had disappeared among the Greeks. The remnants of the Pelasgians lived only in Italy, somewhere just north of the Etruscans. Writers of the Hellenistic era were completely confused when trying to deduce the genealogy of this ancient people.
Most modern scholars believe that the Pelasgians were not an Indo-European people. At the end of the second - beginning of the first millennium BC, only remnants of the local population of the pre-Greek era remained in different parts of Greece. Most likely, Herodotus was right. They gradually disappeared among the Greeks.

Molossians
The inhabitants of the northwestern region of Epirus, who lived there before the Greek conquest, were called Molossians. The Molossians were often confused with the Pelasgians or the achievements of the Molossians were attributed to the latter. There is nothing surprising about this. After all, as mentioned above, Pelasgians are a collective name. Consequently, the Molossians could be considered one of the Pelasgians.
In the Epirus city of Dodona there was a temple of Zeus with its own oracle. The ancient Greeks believed that the temple and cult of Zeus of Dodon was founded by the Molossians.

Caucons
Strabo called the people who lived on the Asia Minor coast of the Black Sea Caucones. Homer mentioned them as allies of the Trojans in the war with the Greeks. Some scientists believe that the Caucons originated from the Caucasus and were distant relatives of the modern Adyghe and Abkhaz. The Caucons were also mentioned along with the Pelasgians who lived in Greek Arcadia. However, for the Greeks of the classical era, the Balkan Caucons were a people of hoary antiquity.

Lelegi
The Leleges are another pre-Greek people who are named among or next to the Pelasgians. Herodotus believed that they originated from the Cyclades islands in the southern Aegean Sea. In ancient times, the lelegs obeyed the kings of Crete and paid them tribute by rowers. The Cretans resettled part of the Leleges to Asia Minor, where they settled among the Carians. The Lelegs were also mentioned among the inhabitants of ancient Boeotia.
The Hittite tablets of the second millennium BC mention the inhabitants of the west of Asia Minor - the Lulahs. It is quite possible that the Greek Lelegs and the Hittite Lulakhs are one and the same people.

Carians
In the Aegean Sea there is the island of Delos. It occupies only three and a half square kilometers, but according to ancient Greek myths, the gods Apollo and Artemis were born on Delos. During the classical era, Delos became an important religious center. Many Greeks considered it a matter of honor not only to visit the sanctuary on Delos, but also to die there. Gradually, the small island turned into a huge cemetery. In 425 BC, the Athenians took patronage of the sanctuary and forbade anyone to die or be born on Delos. Moreover, they arranged for the existing graves to be cleaned and reburied. To their surprise, more than half of the burials belonged not to the Greeks, but to the Carians. “They were identified by the weapons buried with them, and by the method of burial that exists among them to this day,” explains Thucydides.
Thucydides considered the Carians to be the indigenous inhabitants of the Cyclades islands, from where they were expelled by the Cretan king Minos. They settled in Asia Minor, in a coastal region called Caria. Herodotus, with reference to the Carians themselves, argued that they had always lived on the mainland. Part of Caria was captured by the Ionians and Dorians. Herodotus just came from the city of Halicarnassus, built by the Dorians on the Carian lands. Moreover, Herodotus's father had a Carian name.
By the middle of the second millennium, the Carians had adopted many of the customs of the Hellenes, but continued to preserve their native language and religion. They developed their own letter alphabet based on the Phoenician. The natural conditions of Caria did not allow living solely on agriculture, so many local residents engaged in sailing, piracy, or served as mercenaries in other countries. Monuments in the Carian language were found even in Egypt and Iran. The language of the Carians allows them to be classified as Indo-Europeans. Obviously, they appeared in Asia Minor around the same time as the Greeks in Greece, but they came not from the Cyclades Islands, but from the Bosporus.
The heyday of ancient Caria occurred in the fourth century BC, when all of Asia Minor was conquered by the Persians. The Persians created the autonomous satrapy of Caria, ruled by the Hecatomnid dynasty of local origin. Its most famous representative was the satrap Mausolus, the builder of the first mausoleum. In 325 BC, Caria was conquered by the Macedonians, and its population gradually adopted the Greek language and religion.

Phoenicians
Do you know the Semitic people from the Middle East who were the first to leave their homeland and settle throughout the world? If you think these are Jews, you are very mistaken. The first great travelers were their close relatives - the Phoenicians. They lived on a narrow strip of land between the Lebanese Mountains and the Mediterranean Sea. The heyday of the Phoenician city-states occurred at the end of the second - beginning of the first millennium BC. Having learned to build huge ships with a closed deck, they began to colonize the Mediterranean Sea, sailed to the Atlantic and, according to Herodotus, circumnavigated Africa. The most famous Phoenician colony is Carthage.
The Phoenicians encountered the Greeks already in the second millennium BC, since at the same time as the Achaeans they began colonizing Cyprus. The decline of the Mycenaean civilization made the Greeks uncompetitive for a time, and the Phoenicians took advantage of this to seize trade routes. They actively traded with the Greeks themselves, as Homer wrote about. However, matters were not limited to trade. The Phoenicians settled in Greece.
First of all, the Phoenicians were interested in the islands of the Aegean Sea. They colonized Santorini, Samothrace, Serifos, Rhodes, and founded the city of Ethan on Crete. From here the Phoenicians exported rare metal ores and semi-precious stones. Phoenician settlements also arose on the mainland. The legendary founder of the city of Thebes was Cadmus, the son of the Phoenician king Agenor. The name of his sister Europa, abducted by Zeus, is now borne by the entire continent of Europe.
By the seventh century BC, traces of the Phoenician presence gradually disappeared from Greece. But the Greeks managed to borrow a lot from the eastern colonists. First of all, the alphabet. After all, it was the Phoenicians who were the first inventors of the alphabet alphabet.

Author of the text: Dmitry Samokhvalov

Did you like the material? I would be grateful for a repost on social networks
If you have anything to add on the topic, feel free to comment

What are the peculiarities of a nation that has an ancient history and deep roots? Many believe that the Greeks are the most insecure nation. Is it so? What is strange about the Greeks, among whom there were many great people?

In order to answer the questions posed, let’s try to figure out how they see themselves and what is the attitude of representatives of other nationalities towards the Greeks.

How do the Greeks see themselves?

When discussing a third party among themselves, the Greeks will make caustic remarks, but woe to those who dare to doubt their compatriots or speak disparagingly about them. A Greek will be able to defend the interests of even someone with whom he has never had friendly relations. This does not mean that the Greeks do not admit their imperfections - they simply do not want their shortcomings pointed out to them.

Modern Greeks have a lot to be proud of. They were able to survive many years of Turkish occupation while maintaining their religion, identity, customs and language. They managed to prepare fertile soil for the creation of a powerful state. And even if industrial and social revolutions and great scientific discoveries did not touch them, today they are trying to catch up with the West.

Having lost a significant part of their territory, being on the verge of bankruptcy, the Greeks were never able to revive what was lost during the years of colonization.

How others see the Greeks

Greeks often associate themselves with their forefathers. This can be explained by the fact that Europe and America have long recognized the superiority of the ancient Greek civilization. It’s a pity that this is where the associations most often end. Many people think that the Greeks are an intelligent and nice people, energetic and humorous, but disorganized, impatient and full of prejudices. Today they can fight for the truth, and tomorrow they will fiercely hate the one who refused to lie in the name of a common idea.

Many Greeks living in other countries have their own characteristics. For example, one American Greek handed out business cards to everyone on which it was written: “I would rather deal with a thousand Turks than with one Greek.” For many, this inscription caused bewilderment, which disappeared after they saw the name of the company: “Mike's Funeral Home.” This attitude towards the Turks is understandable: even today the Greeks blame their insecurity on the Turkish occupation.

How do Greeks see other people?

In fact, apart from Turkish subjects, Greeks do not show ill feelings towards representatives of other peoples and nationalities. Yes, they may not like the Slavs and Bulgarians who live north of the Greek border, but only because they showed intentions to expand their possessions south to the Aegean Sea. They also do not have any special friendly feelings towards the Albanians, since they profited from the Greek civil war and dragged millions of Greeks living in the region of Northern Epirus under the red flags of the Communist Party.

Sometimes you can hear the Greeks calling the Franks stupid Europeans. Perhaps this attitude has been preserved since the colonization of Greek territory during the Fourth Crusade in the 13th century. This can be called a clash of civilizations.

For each nationality, the Greeks have their own nicknames - several volumes would not be enough to describe them. But this is their personal attitude, which in no way affects their attitude towards a particular person. As strange as it may sound, Greeks do not make representatives of other nationalities the butt of jokes. Nevertheless, they love to sneer at representatives of other nations, for example, at the inhabitants of Crete or the Peloponnese.

Greeks and character

The Greek character is educated by the views and customs in which it is formed. You can meet noble people with broad views on life, sincere and warm-hearted, like Alexander the Great, and vain, talkative, cynical people, like Karagöz. As in all countries, there are pure individualists, fighters for justice, temperamental - and, conversely, balanced people. The Greek character is diverse, as are the inhabitants of this amazing country on the shores of the Aegean Sea.

Along with their temperament, many note the special attitude of the Greeks towards social development, including what is associated with the improvement of all aspects of life. Greeks do not like to be active in relation to social goals and everything related to society.

Some people consider Greeks to be insecure. Perhaps this uncertainty is associated with those tragic moments in the life of the nation that created the external façade and determined the internal virtues. Some try to hide their insecurities in various ways, while others are indifferent.

The values ​​of the average Greek come down to the ability to fully enjoy what life gives. Pleasure here and now is the principle they follow. Many people dream of wealth - preferably without having to do anything for it. The Greeks need money in order to have superiority over others: ostentatious wealth,

fur coats and clothes from famous fashion designers, country houses and villas by the sea. Family and marriage are in second place for a Greek.

The Greeks place self-esteem at the forefront. They love themselves, value integrity, respect other people, are honest in games and always repay debts. The Greeks have very strong roots and family ties. Most relatives live close to each other or even in the same house. They respect food prepared by their mother's hands and look for girls like her. Greeks respect the older generation and take care of their parents.

The Greeks understand the word freedom in their own way. They believe that politeness is for slaves and often do not accept discipline, which in one way or another affects the formation of their political views and moral values. In the country, titles are prohibited by the constitution, which is why different manners of behavior can be found everywhere - both in public transport and in the cabinet of ministers.

Greek society is something of a good test case, with intellectuals and artists, scientists and managers, politicians and civil servants.

The Greeks are a people who are difficult to understand and appreciate. They have their own principles and ideals, which sometimes differ from the generally accepted ones. But these are strong natures with their own culture and traditions.

Healthy holidays in Greece are one of the areas of tourism in the country of the Hellenes.

The excellent climate, the presence of many healing springs, sea air and bright sun turn Greece into a natural sanatorium that can cure many ailments. A wellness holiday in Greece is the best method of improving your health. Even ordinary spending time in a country with Mediterranean climatic conditions has a positive effect on the human body, and during a treatment course in a local sanatorium, recovery occurs at the fastest pace.

Kriopigi. Cassandra. Halkidiki

Kriopigi is located on the Kassandra peninsula in Halkidiki, at a distance of 90 km from the city of Thessaloniki. It is built on the slope of a green hill overlooking Kassandra Bay. The old name of the village before the 20th century was "Pazarakia", which translated into Russian means "Market".

Capital of Athos Karea

Karea (Slavic name Karen) is the capital of the Athos monastic state. Founded in the 9th century, it is a settlement consisting of monastic dwellings located in the center of the Athos Peninsula. Historically referred to under various names, such as “Karean Lavra”, “Karean Skete”, “Royal Monastery of the Most Holy Theotokos of Karey”, etc.

National clothing in Greece.

Greek feta cheese