How are we to then explain how Ptolemaios, his Naval Admiral / General, had, not only traveled to Oceania, New Zealand, Antarktika, and had mapped the entire area, and, with the maps of Ptolemaios, the Portuguese traveled to Oceania – Australia, about 800 years before the English set foot in Oceanic to fish tuna.! It always boggles the mind, why the “so called historians whenever they discuss the Greek discovery / enlightenment of the entire world, they “always stay within the bounds of the so called “known boarders” – meaning, as an example that Alexander The Great only traveled to India and stopped. On the other hand, luxurious ex-votos from the extended Greek world were set up in the panhellenic sanctuaries of the motherland (metropolis), such as of Delphi and Olympia… Their influence extended beyond the narrow local bounds and the cults were spread to new regions.įor the sanctuary of Delphi in particular, its active participation in the colonies’ founding established it in the people’s mindset as “cosmos” center. This is explained by the awareness of the many dangers the colonists would have to confront.Ĭoncurrently the sanctuaries too, reaped significant benefits from the colonies’ founding. Many of the oracles pertaining to colonies were ambivalent, that is, in the form of a riddle which the “oikistes” had to uncode and solve. The “oikistes” (ΟΙΚΙΣΤΗΣ=leader of the “advance party” of colonists) was a person of high social status who undertook to implement whatever the god prophesied, establishing not only the political istitutions but also the cults of the colony. These oracles were a guarantee of the safe outcome of the operation and boosted the colonists’ moral. Oracles on the founding of colonies are known to have been delivered by the sanctuaries of Dodone, Zeus-Ammon in Libya and of Apollo at Delphi, which undoubtedly held precedence. The sanctuaries, to which bypassing seafarers and merchants came as pilgrims, were centres where such information was collected and exchanged. The founding of a colonie presupposed knowledge of the topography and the resources of the regions earmarked to receive the colonists. Italy, Crimea, Marseille), reflect the important role of the major panhellenic sanctuaries in the colonisation process. The foundation myths of the Greek colonies around the Mediterranean and Black sea (especialy in modern day S. The “cultural diffusion” experienced at the end of the Mycenaean Age actually helped Greece transition from the Archaic to the Classical period, when they emerged as a polycentric seafaring civilization – one with a rich Pan-Hellenic religion that included Egyptian, Semitic, Iranian and Indian influences. Greece actually emerged from this tumultuous period a more advanced civilization – in fact, they enjoyed the most rapid advancement of any civilization in history, accelerating their developments in arts, sciences, language and maritime rule. But despite their political defeat, much of Hellenic culture persisted. Greece experienced a massive population shift and a decline in arts and craft. The Mycenaean Age was abandoned, its palatial cities burned, and its literacy lost. Initially, contact with the more advanced culture of the Phoenician raiders decimated Greek rule, destroyed their cities and plunged them into a Dark Ages for nearly five hundred years. The Invasion of the Sea Peoples, as it is sometimes called, had both positive and negative effects on Greek culture.
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