Voordrachten: 'Grieken en de ander: Griekse identiteitsvorming doorheen de eeuwen'

U zei “Grieken”? Veel namen voor één volk, of veel volkeren met één taal?

---

Abstract

Homer uses the names ‘Achaeans’, ‘Danaäns’ and ‘Argives’ indiscriminately when he wants to refer to the Greeks collectively, but these names must originally have designated different peoples. The discovery and subsequent decipherment of the ‘Aegean List’ of Kom-el-Hetan in Egypt has established beyond doubt that the ancient Egyptians knew Mycenae and its reign, which Homer himself calls ‘Argos’, while they called it ‘Danaia’. The link with the ‘Danaäns’, and with the mythological role of King Danaos, is obvious. On the other hand, there is a consensus now that the land ‘Ahhiawa’ in Hittite sources refers to a powerful state on the Greek mainland. The discovery of Linear-B tablets in Thebes, in 1993, and, again, the role this town and its dynasty plays in Greek mythology, lends support to the hypothesis that ‘Ahhiawa’ refers in fact to the kingdom of Thebes. The Greeks’ new name in the first millennium B.C., ‘Hellenes’, on the other hand, originated in Achilles’ country, in southern Thessaly, not very far from the panHellenic sanctuary of Delphi. The refounding of this sanctuary, about 800 B.C., and the establishment of the Olympic Games, in 776 B.C., must have given an important impetus to the use of a common name for all the Greeks. The name used in Italy to designate the Greeks, finally, retains much of its mystery. Aristotle’s explanation of its origin by the otherwise unknown tribe of Epirote ‘Graikoi’ is still commonly preferred to Busolt’s old explanation, which sought to link this name to the Greek city of Graia. A new analysis of an Etruscan inscription might however shed new light on this link.

How to Cite:

De Boel, G., (2017) “U zei “Grieken”? Veel namen voor één volk, of veel volkeren met één taal?”, Tetradio 26(1): 1, 13–39. doi: https://doi.org/10.21825/tetradio.91861