Saturday, February 26, 2011

The Danaans



"... let your arrows make the Danaans pay for my tears shed." -- Homer, poet, Iliad, Book I, 42, 8th century B.C.

"Gilead abode beyond Jordan: and why did Dan remain in ships? Asher continued on the sea shore, and abode in his breaches." -- Judges 5:17

"... Cadmus, was about sixteen hundred years before my time" -- Herodotus, historian, The History, Book II, 145, 440 B.C.

"Now the Gephyraean clan, of which the slayers of Hipparchus were members, claim to have come at first from Eretria, but my own enquiry shows that they were among the Phoenicians who came with Cadmus to the country now called Boeotia. In that country the lands of Tanagra were allotted to them, and this is where they settled. The Cadmeans had first been expelled from there by the Argives, and these Gephyraeans were forced to go to Athens after being expelled in turn by the Boeotians. The Athenians received them as citizens of their own on set terms, debarring them from many practices not deserving of mention here." -- Herodotus, historian, The History, Book V, 57, 440 B.C.

"These Phoenicians who came with Cadmus and of whom the Gephyraeans were a part brought with them to Hellas, among many other kinds of learning, the alphabet, which had been unknown before this, I think, to the Greeks. As time went on the sound and the form of the letters were changed. At this time the Greeks who were settled around them were for the most part Ionians, and after being taught the letters by the Phoenicians, they used them with a few changes of form. In so doing, they gave to these characters the name of Phoenician, as was quite fair seeing that the Phoenicians had brought them into Greece." -- Herodotus, historian, The History, Book V, 58, 440 B.C.

"It is found in writing, that the Lacedemonians and Jews are brethren, and that they are of the stock of Abraham:" -- 1 Maccabees 12:21

"... Cadmus brought letters out of Phoenicia, and was the first who taught the Grecians to pronounce them, and gave them their several names, and formed their distinct characters: hence these letters are all generally called Phoenician letters, because they were brought over out of Phoenicia into Greece: but afterwards they were called Pelasgian characters, because the Pelasgians were the first that understood them after they were brought over." -- Diodorus Siculus, historian, Library of History, 1st century B.C.

"... Danaus likewise took from thence another colony, and planted them in Argos, the most antient city almost of all Greece. And that the people of Colchos, in Pontus, and the Jews lying between Arabia and Syria, were colonies out of Egypt; and that therefore it is an antient custom among these nations to circumcise all their male children after the rites and customs received from the Egyptians." -- Diodorus Siculus, historian, Library of History, 1st century B.C.

"... it had an inscription upon it in Phoenecian letters, which were therefore called Phoenician, because, they say, they were first brought out of Phoenicia into Greece." -- Diodorus Siculus, historian, Library of History, 1st century B.C.

"But there are some who attribute the invention of letters to the Syrians [Jews], from whom the Phoenicians learned them, and communicated them to the Grecians when they came with Cadmus into Europe: whence the Grecians called them Phoenician letters." -- Diodorus Siculus, historian, Library of History, 1st century B.C.

"The Greek letters Mercury is said to have brought to Egypt, and from Egypt Cadmus took them to Greece." -- Gaius J. Hyginus, librarian, Fable 277, 1st century B.C.

"Minerva [Athena] first built a two-prowed ship for Danaus in which he fled from Aegyptus his brother." -- Gaius J. Hyginus, librarian, Fable 277, 1st century B.C.

"And Euripides too, in his Archelaus, says: 'Danaus, the father of fifty daughters, on coming into Argos, took up his abode in the city of Inachus, and throughout Greece he laid down a law that all people hitherto named Pelasgians were to be called Danaans.'" -- Strabo, geographer, The Geography, Book V, Chapter 2, 7

"This myth [of Danaus] records the arrival in Greece of Helladic colonists from Palestine, by way of Rhodes, and their introduction of agriculture to the Peloponnese" -- Robert Graves, poet, The Greek Myths, Volume 1, 1955

"Corinthian mythology has many close affinities with Palestinian." -- Robert Graves, poet, The Greek Myths, Volume 2, 1955

"In this instance, Herodotus seems correct in his general attribution." -- John W. humphrey, historian, Ancient Technology, 2006

"The Thebans honored him [Kadmos] as their founder, called the citadel the Kadmea, and were referred to as Kadmeans (Document 40). Thus it was that Kadmos and his Phoenician comrades introduced the Greeks of Thebes to their alphabetic script, while his brothers and the followers who accompanied them on the quest for Europa would found other eponymous places: Cilix established Cilicia, and Phoenix Phoenicia." -- John W. Humphrey, historian, Ancient Technology, 2006

"Some of the Phoenecian traders and settlers who brought the alphabet to Greece must have been from the tribe of Dan." -- Emmet J. Sweeney, historian, The Pyramid Age, 2007

"I would suggest therefore that the Cadmus mythus relates to a Phoenician settlement in Greece in one of the great population movements which followed the Israelite Exodus." -- Emmet J. Sweeney, historian, Gods, Heroes, and Tyrants: Greek Chronology In Chaos, 2009

1 comment:

Fungus the Photo! said...

About time you got around to this!

Judea for the Jews and Israel for the other tribes!

De Danaan turn up in Ireland but are said to hail from the north. They had red hair and were skilled in strange arts.

Their ships had trade routes all around the world, recorded and otherwise. To allow anyone else to see a trade route was to destroy the worth of it, with all the risks taken. So all were kept secret for as long as possible.

The colonization of Greece was after the destruction by Thira aka Santorini.

The Aleph Bet was reversed by the Greeks and is left to right, not right to left!