GREEK HABITS But the Bronze Age Mycenaean and Minoan skeletons revealed ancestry from populations originating in either the Caucasus mountains or Iran. Between 9 percent and 17 percent of their genetic make-up came from this source.
In addition, the team’s paper in the journal, *Nature,* <https://www.nature.com/articles/nature23310.epdf?referrer_access_token=HaoYrIHMzBZdCkzJYtaZuNRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0OwLzzqUmCLV4d2G6bjGa7kxcy6QTBBq44UX1JakD_rgL4V4ukAhw5IvsYet-FGmumgY3OQV8q_gBExRjR8JIyF145EupQt7QWZNCb-8fhGY6vUeH8ddLgYPLBwLGTNDQDyEDAf19m25__56Qwv4xfdxStCMBqE6NpXO6FMAQo7Fw%3D%3D&tracking_referrer=www.bbc.com>reports, the Mycenaeans—but not the Minoans—show evidence of genetic input from people who lived further north on the flat grasslands that stretch from eastern Europe to Central Asia. Between four percent and sixteen percent of their ancestry came from this northern source. While the Mycenaeans are known to have spoken an early form of Greek, the earliest recorded language spoken by the Minoan people on Crete, known as Linear A <https://greekreporter.com/2021/09/04/decoding-linear-a-the-writing-system-of-the-ancient-minoans/>, can be read but not translated, implying that it belongs to a distinct but unknown group of languages. https://youtu.be/0LIEA7oZBJI After genetic analysis, the Mycenaeans have also been linked to modern Greek people <https://greekreporter.com/2021/03/09/new-evidence-supports-modern-greeks-having-dna-of-ancient-mycenaeans/> . New emerging DNA evidence suggests that living Greeks are indeed descendants of the ancient Mycenaeans, who ruled mainland Greece and the Aegean Sea from 1,600 BC to 1,200 BC. The evidence comes from a study in which scientists analyzed the genes from the teeth of nineteen people across various archaeological sites within mainland Greece and Mycenae. A total of 1.2 million letters of genetic code were compared to those of 334 people across the world. Genetic information was also compiled from a group of thirty modern Greek individuals in order to compare it to the ancient genomes. This allowed researchers to effectively plot how individuals were related to one another. After comparing the DNA of modern Greeks to ancient Mycenaeans, a genetic overlap was discovered that suggests that these ancient Bronze Age civilizations laid the genetic groundwork for the contemporary Greek people. Mycenae, the kingdom of the mythical king Agamemnon, is the most important <https://greekreporter.com/2021/09/10/griffin-warrior-ancient-greece/>and richest palatial center of the Late Bronze Age in Greece. Myths related to its history have inspired poets and writers over many centuries since the Homeric epics and the great tragedies of the Classical period. Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Legends, myths, mystical creatures, and now-forgotten customs all lend a spectacular context to Greek mythology <https://greekreporter.com/tag/greek-mythology/>. History and mythology have always walked similar and common paths. Legends were, in fact, always born where myth was colored by actual events. So today we take a plunge into a distant past. A journey to a time when, according to ancient writings, the territories of Mount Athos in Greece were inhabited by viper-eaters. The Handbook of Pliny the Elder Pliny the Elder, the Roman writer and naturalist, published the encyclopedia “Naturalis Historia” in 77 AD, a masterpiece that still represents the most important scientific record of antiquity. The viper-eaters The reference to viper-eaters is found in Book XII, that is, the one devoted to human anthropology and physiology. In paragraph 27 it lists various tribes that, according to Isigonus, would be the longest-lived, reaching up to one hundred and forty years of age. *“Cyrnos indorum genus isigonus annis centenis quadragenis vivere, item aethiopas macrobios et seras existimat et qui athon montem incolant, hos quidem, quia viperinis carnibus alantur; itaque nec capiti nec vestibus eorum noxia corpori inesse animalia.”* *Isigonus, a line of Indians of Cirno, thinks that they live a hundred and forty years, similarly the Ethiopians Macrobioi and Seras, and those who inhabit Mount Athos, these, indeed, because they feed on the flesh of vipers; therefore neither their heads nor their clothes contained animals injurious to the body.* The ancient inhabitants of Mount Athos Mount Athos is located in what the Greeks call the “third finger” of the Chalkidiki Peninsula. To this day it has a very important religious value, being an autonomous region as well as a monastic state. <https://greekreporter.com/2022/12/20/mount-athos-monastic-community/> Its history, however, is very ancient, and it is estimated that the earliest organized territories date back some 6,000,000 years. As to who inhabited those sacred territories, there is quite a bit of confusion, especially since it concerns a period where pre-Hellenistic civilizations were making their journeys of expansion into the Mediterranean Sea. According to Thucydides, a very important Athenian historian and military man, Mount Athos was inhabited by descendants of the Pelasgians <https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pelasgi>. We see, then, that well before the expansion of the Macedonians, the Chalkidiki region, and more specifically the Mount Athos area, were inhabited by peoples with little historical importance to scholars of the time. This is probably also the main problem when looking for more specific information about these cultures. It would be very nice to have some certainty about what the diet of the Pelasgians of Chalcidice was, so that we could agree with Pliny, and identify them as the mysterious “viper-eaters.” We can do more, however: we can search for a deeper truth about this strange eating habit. The viper diet As bizarre and absurd as it may seem, the viper diet was an actual reality in ancient times. One of the most important uses of the viper and its flesh was in antidotes <https://greekreporter.com/2023/04/11/odyssey-homer-ancient-lsd/>. This was because physicians believed that the snake’s venom was contained throughout the body. Therefore the animal had the antidote to its bite in its own body. Later, however, many physicians, inspired by Pliny’s stories of long-lived peoples who practiced the viperine diet (Pelasgians and Ethiopians), began to use the animal’s flesh to cure rather than prevent. For example, Galen, among the most important doctors in history, used wine infused with viper meat to treat diseases such as leprosy and elephantiasis. Dioscorides Pedanius, a Greek physician and botanist, also used viper cooked with vinegar and wine to treat kidney diseases. In short, the viper was really widely used in ancient medicine. So much so that it was also among the main ingredients of Theriaca. Theriaca This medicine takes its name from the ancient Greek <https://greekreporter.com/ancient-greece/> word “θηριον” (thirìon), which meant poisonous beast. The name was given precisely because of the presence of viper meat within the recipe. It was administered to cure many diseases <https://greekreporter.com/2022/06/09/how-was-cancer-treated-in-ancient-greece-2/> and contained more than 40 ingredients, including opium, which came from the city of Thebes. It was created by the Cretan physician Andromachus, who introduced viper meat within an existing curative mixture. Nero, the Roman emperor, commissioned the creation of this antidote. This was because he had lost many men during a naval battle against Hannibal. In fact, the latter had ordered his men to throw jars containing vipers into Roman ships, which killed the soldiers, thanks to their venom. We see, therefore, how intertwined the story of the “viper-eaters” is. We cannot be certain that the ancient inhabitants of Mount Athos were profound connoisseurs of the healing properties of viper meat. Nor that it was precisely the viper diet that made these populations so long-lived. Nevertheless, this apparent legend reported by Pliny the Elder finds correspondences in other ancient writings. KR IRS 21 7 23 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/CAL5XZoq18Vxw9YGHn5Eho2dnxp%3D7VAntJzboP8VitYOt-8%2BjFQ%40mail.gmail.com.
