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I had read about the Hittites but never heard that they came to Turkey from the Balkans. Do you have any references for this? I wonder if there were known climate changes that would have prompted such a migration.
Thanks
The itinerary of the Hittites (who were an Indo-European speaking people) from today Ukraine (where their homeland is presssumed with higher probability, as homeland of Indo-European peoples that migrated toward Europe and Anatolia in Bronze Age) to Anatolia was either through Balkans or through Caucasus:
In archaeological terms, relationships of the Hittites to the Ezero culture of the Balkans and Maikop culture of the Caucasus have been considered within the migration framework. (Mallory, J. (1989), In Search of the Indo-Europeans, New York: Thames and Hudson.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hittites#Origins
Some interesting, though interpretable hint about a possible temporary settling in the Balkans of the Hittites is a text passage from a prayer of king Muwatallis (cca 1,300 BCE) that says:
If Hittites came to Anatolia through Caucasus, their prayer speaking must have mentioned the Sun setting down into, not rising from the sea, as the Caucasus is situated east of the (Black) Sea, as is too the Anatolia to the Mediterranean.
The only place where the sun could be seen rising from the sea in the area was on the Balkan shores of Black Sea, like Romania and Bulgaria.
Ofcourse, the existence of that prayer verse might have other explanation, like refering to the Sea of Azov, the original homeland of the Indo-European peoples, or to the Caspian Sea.
The problem with the Vinca script is that they don't know if it is an alphabet or merely pictograms. Either is impressive, but true writing would make a better point for this being a "civilization."
Also, we don't know how many of the other elements were there, such as an accurate calendar and the like.
Still, this absolutely amazed me when I first heard it.
The prevailing theory is that the symbols were used for religious purposes in a traditional agricultural society. If so, the fact that the same symbols were used for centuries with little change suggests that the ritual meaning and culture represented by the symbols likewise remained constant for a very long time, with no need for further development.
...
Some of the "comb" or "brush" symbols, which collectively compose as much as a sixth of all the symbols so far discovered, may represent numbers. Some scholars have pointed out that over a quarter of the inscriptions are located on the bottom of a pot, an ostensibly unlikely place for a religious inscription.
...
Other symbols (principally those restricted to the base of pots) are wholly unique. Such signs may denote the contents, provenance/destination or manufacturer/owner of the pot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vin%C4%8Da_symbols
Surely, they were not an alphabet, didn't represent sounds, not even concepts (words). But as the similarity between the rest of the material culture of Turdaș-Vinča (like the art of figurines, pottery etc) is similar to Ubaid Sumerian material culture (the oldest material culture of the Sumerians) is uite probable that the Vinča people brought their signs in Mesopotamia where they developed them further into a real writing system, the Cuneiforms.
Another interesting bit of information I found after reading about this was that this same culture may have been the first or at least one of the first to smelt copper. Smelting and trading copper would have been a major advantage to a culture in that time period.
I hope the archeology research into this area uncovers more evidence of this culture.
Another interesting bit of information I found after reading about this was that this same culture may have been the first or at least one of the first to smelt copper. Smelting and trading copper would have been a major advantage to a culture in that time period.
I hope the archeology research into this area uncovers more evidence of this culture.
According to Wikipedia:
The first evidence of this extractive metallurgy dates from the 5th and 6th millennium BC and was found in the archaeological sites of Majdanpek, Yarmovac and Plocnik, all three in Serbia. To date, the earliest evidence of copper smelting is found at the Belovode site, including a copper axe from 5500 BC belonging to the Vinča culture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallurgy
The archaeological site of Belovode on the Rudnik mountain in Serbia contains the world's oldest securely dated evidence of copper making at high temperature, from 5,000 BC.
...
An archaeological site in southeastern Europe (Serbia) contains the oldest securely dated evidence of copper making at high temperature, from 7,000 years ago. The find in June 2010 extends the known record of copper smelting by about 500 years, and suggests that copper smelting may have been invented in separate parts of Asia and Europe at that time rather than spreading from a single source. In Serbia, a copper axe was found at Prokuplje, which indicates that humans were using metals in Europe by 7,500 years ago (~5,500 BC), many years earlier than previously believed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalcolithic
I wonder what influences this culture had on the later Minoan and Mycenaean cultures. There is evidence of farming at least on Crete as early as 5000 bc but bronze did not really make an impact until somewhere around 3000 bc or later (early bronze age). The relative geographic nearness of the two cultures makes some influence seem likely.
Two questions.
1) Is there any link seen between the symbols of the Vinca script and later Greek?
and
2) Has any of the copper from the Vinca area mines every been shown to have made it to Greece?
I wonder what influences this culture had on the later Minoan and Mycenaean cultures. There is evidence of farming at least on Crete as early as 5000 bc but bronze did not really make an impact until somewhere around 3000 bc or later (early bronze age). The relative geographic nearness of the two cultures makes some influence seem likely.
Two questions.
1) Is there any link seen between the symbols of the Vinca script and later Greek?
and
2) Has any of the copper from the Vinca area mines every been shown to have made it to Greece?
I was just reading up on this today. It does seem, that most consider Vinca script to be at best pictographic or proto-writing, but there are apparently those that disagree, and at least one does connect it to linear A and linear B.
This is from Wiki, so I cant vouch for the accuracy. Since I think Wiki is public domain and I will not be running afoul of the copyright rules, I will just go ahead and cut and paste it.
According to the world leading specialist of ancient scripts and languages Harald Haarmann and others as Christoph Türcke and Christa Dürscheid the script are the oldest writing in the world, although it is widely accepted that the oldest writing system in the world are Sumerian cuneiforms. According to Dürscheid the Danube script constitutes Principle of writing, Logographic with occasional marking of phonetic elements. She claims the following Writing systems were inspired by the Danube script: Linear A in ancient Crete; Linear B for writing Mycenaean Greek; the scripts of ancient Cyprus, i.e., Cypro-Minoan. Of the approximately 120 characters used in linear A, about half strongly resemble characters in the Danube script of the old European civilization. [SIZE=2][[/SIZE]
The prevailing theory is that the symbols were used for religious purposes in a traditional agricultural society. If so, the fact that the same symbols were used for centuries with little change suggests that the ritual meaning and culture represented by the symbols likewise remained constant for a very long time, with no need for further development.
...
Some of the "comb" or "brush" symbols, which collectively compose as much as a sixth of all the symbols so far discovered, may represent numbers. Some scholars have pointed out that over a quarter of the inscriptions are located on the bottom of a pot, an ostensibly unlikely place for a religious inscription.
...
Other symbols (principally those restricted to the base of pots) are wholly unique. Such signs may denote the contents, provenance/destination or manufacturer/owner of the pot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vin%C4%8Da_symbols
Surely, they were not an alphabet, didn't represent sounds, not even concepts (words). But as the similarity between the rest of the material culture of Turdaș-Vinča (like the art of figurines, pottery etc) is similar to Ubaid Sumerian material culture (the oldest material culture of the Sumerians) is uite probable that the Vinča people brought their signs in Mesopotamia where they developed them further into a real writing system, the Cuneiforms.
One feature of neolithic cultures was a surprisingly sophisticated astronomy. Some of the monuments display astronomical accuracy that would have required generations of observations. It is not out of the question that the Balkan script was not a trade script like cuneiform, but rather astronomical notations. That would also do much to explain the paucity of examples.
Of course, without translation this must remain mere speculation, just like any other comments on the Balkan script.
One feature of neolithic cultures was a surprisingly sophisticated astronomy. Some of the monuments display astronomical accuracy that would have required generations of observations. It is not out of the question that the Balkan script was not a trade script like cuneiform, but rather astronomical notations. That would also do much to explain the paucity of examples.
Of course, without translation this must remain mere speculation, just like any other comments on the Balkan script.
Excellent comments.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CARPATHIAN
Anyway, right now when writing these things, an idea came to my mind: the end of Vinca-Turdas culture (5500–4500 BCE) roughly corresponded with the beginning os the Sumerian civilisation who was founded by people who migrated in Mesopotamia coming from som other area, so, is not excluded that people of the Vinca-Turdaș culture to have migrated back in the lands where their ancestors came from and brought there the discovery of writing, which was later developed in the Cuneiform script.
Such Europe-to-Asia direction of migration was frequent in history, for example, the Hittites came in Anatolia from Balkans (or just passing through Balkans), so did the Phrygians (relatives to later Thracians), the Galatians (Celts) etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CARPATHIAN
Apparently, I was right:
The Vinca pottery (above) is almost indistinguishable from Ubaid Sumerian (Ubaid is the oldest, initial phase o the Sumerian material culture, corresponding temporarily with the end of Vinca-Turdas culture).
That there is a relationship between Sumer and the Balkans, I have absolutely no doubt.
My view has always been that the Sumerians migrated to the Balkans.
Circa 2200 BCE, the Gutians invade Sumer & Akkad. For about a century you have "Barracks Emperors" until the Akkadians overthrow the Gutians, drive them out and regain control.
So now it's circa 2000 BCE and some bizarre event occurs that results in the Sumerians literally dropping everything and running away, never to come back. What ever it was, it was a singular event. The Sumerians fled leaving their jewelry behind, their art, their clothes, their money, they even left food cooking in clay pots on the hearth.
That's what freaks out archaeologists and anthropologists. The Sumerians literally dropped everything and fled.
Where did they go? Best evidence is they migrated up the Eurphrates to present-day Turkey, then around the Black Sea, with a group splitting off to the Tatra Ranges, and then the group splitting again --- Dacians and Thracians, and perhaps even another group heading to Albania.
Look at Sarmizegetusa.
Assume for a moment standard laws of linguistics like Grimm's Law with fricatives and voiceless stops and such, plus transliteration errors....
Sarmizegetusa then becomes Sarmizegeduza.
Which is really written as sar.me.ze.ge.du.za
sar = circle
me = knowledge
ze = Heaven
ge = Earth
du = complete
a = genitive case
And that would be Sumerian meaning "The Complete Circle of Knowledge of Heaven and Earth"
And what is Sarmizegetusa? It is a circular Solunar Observatory made of earth and wood, that was used to predict the Moon's Phases, Lunar Eclipses, Solar Eclipses and the rising and setting of certain Planets, as well as the Equinoxes and Solstices.
Assume for a moment, the people of Sumer are the Vinca culture, then it makes sense to me that in a crisis situation, the people of Sumer would flee back to the one place they know best....the Balkans.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CARPATHIAN
Some interesting, though interpretable hint about a possible temporary settling in the Balkans of the Hittites is a text passage from a prayer of king Muwatallis (cca 1,300 BCE) that says:
If Hittites came to Anatolia through Caucasus, their prayer speaking must have mentioned the Sun setting down into, not rising from the sea, as the Caucasus is situated east of the (Black) Sea, as is too the Anatolia to the Mediterranean.
The only place where the sun could be seen rising from the sea in the area was on the Balkan shores of Black Sea, like Romania and Bulgaria.
Good thinking, but what about the Caspian Sea? Suppose they migrated West? The Aral Sea? Another candidate. Just something to think about.
Sunt de accord...
Any examples of enduring architecture? I have read that they made two and three story building or wood and mud, but nothing like a megalith or even a hill fortress that is still extant.
Anything I am missing?
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Metal working
