The Ethnicity of the Sea Peoples - RePub - Erasmus Universiteit ...

first part of the name of the goddess from Samothrace, her
cult was exported to the north-Aegean region in the Middle
Minoan II or III period. 714 If we realize, then, that for the
Luwian population of Crete the form of address for this
foremost Cretan goddess was Kapupi, a local dialectal
variant of Luwian Kupapa, 715 it seems not farfetched to
assume that the Kybela (= Phrygian form of Luwian Kupapa)
cult at the Trojan mount Ida was introduced from
Crete in this particular period. If so, our connection of the
double-axe with the “Idaian Mother” is substantially enhanced.
The question remains to be answered to which linguistic
layer on Crete Linear A i-da-ma-te “Idaian Mother”
should be ascribed. To this aim, it is important to determine
the date of the inscribed double-axes. This can be
achieved by their association with pottery from the same
cave, which according to Pierce Blegen runs on from Early
Minoan to Late Minoan IA or perhaps even Late Minoan
IB and Late Minoan II. 716 If the latest possible date applies,
the two Linear A legends may well be assumed to
have been produced in consigment of a Greek customer,
because, as we have seen in section 8, the Mycenaean
Greeks have earned themselves a foothold in Crete after
the desastrous Santorini-eruption at the end of Late Minoan
IB (c. 1450 BC). If, however, the double-axes belong
to an earlier period, an attribution to the Pelasgian layer or
group in Cretan society, which we have just seen to be responsible
for the divine name Demeter, seems preferable.
At any rate, to suggest that for the presence of the divine
name “Idaian Mother” in two Linear A inscriptions this
script in its entirety notates an Indo-European language of
the Greek or Thraco-Phrygian type bears testimony of a
grave methodological error and a reductio ad absurdum of
the complexities of Cretan society during the Middle and
Late Bronze Age. 717
714 Olivier & Godart 1996: 192, # 135-7.
715 Woudhuizen 1992a: 4-5; see also appendix III.
716 Vandenabeele 1985: 5 “and the decoration of the double axes
belongs to the type which furnished the inspiration for the second
period of the Palace Style pottery ca. 1450-1400 BC”.
717 Owens 1996: 174-5; Owens 1999: 34; 49 (claims that Minoan
[in casu Linear A] is the oldest example of Indo-European);
Owens 2000: 249.
145
Additional note 2: Poseidon “consort
of Da”
In his stimulating monograph on the Greek deity Poseidon,
Fritz Schachermeyr followed the linguistic analysis of this
divine name by Paul Kretschmer as a compound of Greek
potis or posis “consort” of PIE nature (cf. Latin potis, Sanskrit
pátih) with a form of address of mother earth, Da,
hence leading to the interpretation of the entire form as
“consort of Da”. 718 Now, the second element da-, which is
also present in the divine name Damatr or Dmtr (< da-
+ PIE *méh2tr), may well come into consideration as the
Pelasgian indication of “earth”, related to Greek ga or g
and originating from the common proto-form *gda- as attested
for the Phrygian place name Gdanmaa, 719 Demeter
being the earth-mother par excellence. If so, the divine
name Poseidon, just like Demeter, is likely to be attributed
with Pelasgian antecedents.
The latter inference gains weight by the fact that according
to literary tradition Poseidon, together with Demeter,
was venerated in Arkadian Thelpusa and some other
locations in horse shape720 – a feature which Schachermeyr
plausibly explains as ultimately rooted in the time of
the introduction of the horse in Greece, 721 which, as we
have seen in section 7, took place in two distinct phases
during the Early Helladic III (horse-like animal) and Middle
Helladic (true horse) periods. Interesting to note in this
connection is that the prominent position of the horse in
Middle Helladic times clearly appears from the horse burial
associated with a royal tumulus at Marathon. 722 Contrary
to Schachermeyr, however, and in line with a
suggestion by Joost Crouwel, I think it is unlikely that this
prominent position of the horse in Middle Helladic times is
solely based on its function as food provider (milk and
718 Schachermeyr 1950: 13-4; cf. Gamkrelidze & Ivanov 1995:
26, etc.
719 Haas 1966: 215 (ascribes this name to Pisidian influence, but
unlikely so as Pisidian belongs to the Luwian language group).
720 Pausanias, Guide to Greece 8, 25, 5 f.
721 Schachermeyr 1950: 64; 143.
722 Marinaotos 1973: Pls. 13-4; Papadimitriou 2001: figs. 44-7.
Doubts have been raised about the Middle Helladic date of this
horse burial, and it is considered by some an intrusive element
from the Turkish period, but it should be noted in this context that
single horse burial is paralleled for the Middle Bronze Age at Lapithos
in Cyprus, see Gjerstad 1926 : 81 (Politiko tomb 3) and cf.
Herscher 1978 : 793.