Macedonia:Ethnographic map of Heinrich Kiepert (1878)

 

Rare ethnographic map  by the  German cartographer,Heinrich Kiepert depicting Balkans

 

(a) The ethnographic maps of the  famous cartographer who was distinguished for the scientific value of his maps,  depicts the region of Macedonia. as being inhabited primarily by Greeks and secondly by Bulgarians.  

(b) neither Kiepert in his time knew any fictitious “Macedonian” nationality. On the contrary the Slavs of his time were Bulgarians and Serbs.

Geographer Heinrich Kiepert (1818-1899) is generally reckoned one of the more important scholarly cartographers of the second half of the 19th century. The fame attached to the name of this renowned German geographer and cartographer, H dates from the appearance of his distinguished Atlas von Hellas (1846).

Kiepert acquired one of his interests-the historical geography of the classical world-in his student days at the University of Berlin, where he worked with Carl Ritter (1779-1859). Ritter and Kiepert produced what appears to have been one of the first modern atlases of the ancient Greek world, Topographisch-historischer Atlas von Hellas und den hellenischen Colonien in 24 Blättern (1840-1846). Several additional compilations of maps of the classical world followed: Bibel-Atlas (1847); Historisch-geographischer Atlas der alten Welt (1848); Atlas antiquus (1854); Formae orbis antiqui (1893); and Formae urbis Romae antiquae (1896). Many of these works were reissued in numerous editions, including translations.

Another major interest was the Ottoman Empire, where Kiepert travelled numerous times, gathering enough data to produce several major maps of the Ottoman world between the 1840s and 1890s.

 

More Infos about Heinrich Kiepert’s life are found in the University of Chicago Library  (The Maps of Heinrich Kiepert )

Βιβλιοπαρουσίαση:Η Κληρονομιά του Αλέξανδρου

 

Οι Εναλλακτικές Εκδόσεις παρουσίασαν στις  20/11/2014 το βιβλίο του Κώστα Παπαϊωάννου Η Κληρονομιά του Αλέξανδρου.

Για το βιβλίο μίλησαν οι:

Αλέξανδρος Ασωνίτης, συγγραφέας,

Γιώργος Καραμπελιάς, συγγραφέας – εκδότης,

Σαράντος Καργάκος, συγγραφέας,

και συζήτησαν με το κοινό.

Συντόνισε ο Κωνσταντίνος Ντίνος (Άρδην).

Η παρουσίαση πραγματοποιήθηκε στον χώρο πολιτικής και πολιτισμού “Ρήγας Βελεστινλής”, Ξενοφώντος 4, πλ. Συντάγματος  

« Η ελληνική γλώσσα αποτέλεσε το όχημα αυτού του μοναδικού κοσμοπολίτικου πολιτισμού. Ήδη από τη δεύτερη γενεά μετά τον Αλέξανδρο εμφανίζονται επιφανείς Ανατολίτες, τόσο απόλυτα εξελληνισμένοι που θεωρούνται σήμερα Έλληνες συγγραφείς,όπως για παράδειγμα ο Βηρωσσός, ιερέας του Μαρδούχ στη Βαβυλώνα, που αφιέρωσε στον Αντίοχο Α΄ ένα βιβλίο γραμμένο στα ελληνικά, πάνω στην ιστορία των σουμεριανών αρχαιοτήτων, ή ο Μανέθων, Αιγύπτιος ιερέας που συνέθεσε στα ελληνικά μια ιστορία των Φαραώ, με τη βοήθεια των παραδόσεων που είχαν διατηρηθεί στους ναούς.

Παρομοίως, ο πρώτος Ρωμαίος ο οποίος, προς τα τέλη του 3ου αιώνα, δοκίμασε να συγγράψει μια ρωμαϊκή Ιστορία, ο Κόιντος Φάβιος Πίκτορ, έγραψε τα Χρονικά του στα ελληνικά, και το ίδιο έκαναν και οι πρώτοι μαθητές του. Χρειάζεται, άραγε, να προσθέσουμε πως το πρώτο θεατρικό έργο που γράφτηκε στα λατινικά υπήρξε έργο του Έλληνα απελεύθερου, Λίβιου Ανδρόνικου, από τον Τάραντα;

 

Την ίδια εποχή, οι Εβραίοι της Διασποράς υιοθέτησαν σχεδόν αμέσως την ελληνική γλώσσα, έτσι ώστε, ήδη από τον 3ο αιώνα, οι Εβραίοι της Αλεξάνδρειας υποχρεώθηκαν να μεταφράσουν τη Βίβλο στα ελληνικά, γιατί, κατά τη Θεία Λειτουργία, οι κοινότητες δεν την καταλάβαιναν πλέον ικανοποιητικά στην πρωτότυπη γλώσσα. Και έτσι είδε το φως η ελληνική μετάφραση των Εβδομήκοντα »

Εναλλακτικές Εκδόσεις

Modern Historians about Macedonia – Katja Mueller

 

Quote:

If the Ptolemies did not found cities in Egypt the way the Seleukids did in Asia and Asia Minor, they did settle tens of thousands of Greco-Macedonians and other settlers.

page 3

Quote:

Mainly it was Greek Macedonians who were settled.

page 3

Quote:

An important feature of Ptolemaic history and historiography has been the dichotomy  between Greek and Egyptian cultures.

Modern scholarship has intimately linked Hellenistic colonization with the Greek side, with Greek culture. We might then expect new settlements to reflect this greekness. The city of Alexandria provides a good example. It was a settlement with a Greek-Macedonian origin.

Its founder, Alexander the Great, was a Greek-speaking Macedonian, its second founder Ptolemy I, a Greek Macedonian general; its architects Deinokrates and Sostratos of Knidos were both Greeks.

The city’s grid plan was Greek Hippodamian. Ptolemaic colonization which followed might thus be viewed as a Greek phenomenon owning its origin and structure to Greek town planning.

page 106

 

Settlementsof the Ptolemies:City Foundations and New Settlement in the Hellenistic World, Katja Mueller (2006)

Modern Historians about Macedonia – Peter Tsouras

 

Quote:

Alexander III was born on 20 July 356 B.C as heir of the Argead dynasty of the kingdom of Macedonia in northeastern Greece. His father, Philip II, was probably the most remarkable Greek military and political figure between Pericles and Alexander himself.

Alexander: Invincible King of Macedonia by Peter G. Tsouras, page 3

Quote:

Philip transformed Macedonia from a minor and constantly beleaguered state into the mistress of Hellas and created the magnificent weapon of war – the Macedonian army.

Alexander:Invincible King of Macedonia by Peter G. Tsouras, page 3

 

Quote:

The macedonians were Greek in language and blood but did not share the city-state culture of the southern greeks who were quick to lump their cruder kinsmen with barbarians.

“Alexander:Invincible King of Macedonia” by Peter G Tsouras, page 3

Quote:

Alexander’s royal ancestors hosted the artistic genious of Greece.

Alexander:Invincible King of Macedonia By Peter G. Tsouras, page 4

Quote:

Younger than he,her beauty was already apparent and intoxicating. She was not the typical Greek woman whose glory was never to be spoken of. Red-haired and fiery by nature, she was a woman for whom power was an all-consuming pursuit

Alexander:Invincible King of Macedonia by Peter G. Tsouras,page 19

 

Alexander:Invincible King of Macedonia (Military Profiles) 

Publisher‏:University of Nebraska Press (1 May 2004)

Alexander the Great and His Time - Agnes Savill

 

Quote:

Looking round in vain, for a strong Greek leader, he believed that the suitable man was Philip, king of Macedonia, who combined the high qualities of both warrior and statesman.

“Alexander the Great and His Time” By Agnes Savill, page 4

 

Quote:

With Philip as Head, the Greek cities became united under a treaty known as the League of Corinth. Only Sparta stood out for independence;

“Alexander the Great and His Time” By Agnes Savill,page 5

Dr Mikhail A. Vedeškin:The Macedonians were a Greek People

 

Mikhail A.Vedeškin,Ph.D.

Institute of World History, Russian Academy of Sciences 

Modern Historians about Macedonia – Henri Daniel-Rops

 

“Alexander was Greek,profoundly Greek,product of the greater Greece that he envisaged”

“Sacred History” by Henri Daniel-Rops,page 336

Longmans,1949 

“Occupation -The policies and practices of Military Conquerors” by Eric Carlton

 

Quote:

The literary evidence for these early years is sparse, but what there is seems to accord with archaeological opinion that the Macedonian tribes ousted the indigenous peoples of the area and established themselves at Aegae near the Thermaic Gulf where they coalesced into an identifiable nation. Scholarship has long been divided on the question of whether these people were really Greeks-certainly the Greeks at the time were reluctant to give them status as true Hellenes.

 The Macedonian language has not survived in any extant text, but their personal and place names, and the names of their gods strongly suggest a Greek dialect. Scholars are now more or less agreed that they were one group of many Dorian tribes that had made their way into Greece from the Balkans in successive waves probably from as early as the eleventh century BC.

Occupation:The Policies and Practices of Military Conquerors,page 54- 55

Book by Eric Carlton,Routledge,1992

Μακεδονικός Τάφος των Ανθεμίων - Mieza,the so-called Macedonian Tomb of the Palmettes

 

Από τα λαμπρότερα και καλύτερα διατηρημένα μνημεία της αρχαίας Μίεζας είναι ο μακεδονικός τάφος ''των Ανθεμίων''. Κατασκευάσθηκε στην πορεία του αρχαίου δρόμου που ένωνε τη Μίεζα με την πρωτεύουσα του μακεδονικού βασιλείου, την Πέλλα, όπως και άλλοι, παρόμοιοι τάφοι, από τους οποίους ο πιο κοντινός του είναι αυτός της Κρίσεως, 150 μ. ανατολικά. Ο τάφος των Ανθεμίων χρονολογείται στο α΄ μισό του 3ου αι. π.Χ., δηλαδή είναι σύγχρονος με το μακεδονικό τάφο του Kinch, που επίσης βρίσκεται στην ίδια περιοχή.

 

Πρόκειται για υπόγειο ταφικό κτίσμα, το οποίο μετά την ολοκλήρωση της ταφής του νεκρού και των καθιερωμένων τελετουργιών προς τιμήν του, καλύφθηκε από τύμβο που είχε ύψος τουλάχιστον 2,50 μ. και διάμετρο 15-17 μ. Ο τάφος είναι διθάλαμος, καμαροσκεπής και είχε ναόσχημη πρόσοψη με τέσσερις ημικίονες ιωνικού ρυθμού και με διακόσμηση από πολύχρωμα ιωνικά και δωρικά κυμάτια. Η είσοδός του είχε κλειστεί με έξι δόμους από πωρόλιθο. Στο αέτωμα (ύψος τυμπάνου 1 μ.) σώζεται ωραία ζωγραφική παράσταση, που εικονίζει ζευγάρι ώριμης ηλικίας καθισμένο σε ανάκλιντρο συμποσίου. Και οι δύο μορφές είναι ντυμένες με χιτώνα και ιμάτιο, που ο καλλιτέχνης έχει αποδώσει με εντυπωσιακές και πλούσιες πτυχές. Την επίστεψη του αετώματος αποτελούν τρία ανάγλυφα ανθέμια με έντονες φωτοσκιάσεις. Ο στενός προθάλαμος του τάφου ήταν επιχρισμένος με ανοιχτό κίτρινο χρώμα στο ανώτερο μέρος των τοίχων και με μαύρο στο κατώτερο, ενώ τα δύο τμήματα χωρίζονταν με ταινίες μαύρου και λευκού χρώματος. Μια εντυπωσιακή παράσταση διακοσμεί την οροφή του προθαλάμου: έξι ανθέμια εναλλάσσονται με νερολούλουδα πάνω σε γαλαζοπράσινο βάθος, που θυμίζει λουλούδια να πλέουν στην επιφάνεια λίμνης. Ο προθάλαμος χωριζόταν από τον κυρίως νεκρικό θάλαμο με μαρμάρινη δίφυλλη θύρα ύψους 3,50 μ. και πλάτους 0,90 μ., διακοσμημένη με ανάγλυφα μοτίβα. Στο εσωτερικό του θαλάμου σώζεται τετράπλευρη λίθινη βάση, που θα περιείχε το αγγείο ή τη λάρνακα με τα οστά του νεκρού. Η καμαρωτή οροφή του θαλάμου είναι καλυμμένη με ανοιχτό κίτρινο κονίαμα, ενώ οι τοίχοι είναι μονόχρωμοι και μιμούνται ορθομαρμάρωση: το κάτω τμήμα τους έχει χρώμα μαύρο, το επάνω έχει χρώμα βαθυκόκκινο και χωρίζονται με λευκή ταινία. Η λεπτομέρεια στο σχέδιο και η πολυχρωμία της ιωνικής διακόσμησης χαρακτηρίζουν το μνημείο και δίνουν πολύτιμες πληροφορίες για τη χρονολόγησή του αλλά και για τη μεγάλη ζωγραφική στον ελληνικό χώρο. Ο τάφος των Ανθεμίων είχε συληθεί πολλές φορές, ιδιαίτερα στην αρχαιότητα, και ελάχιστα αντικείμενα βρέθηκαν στο εσωτερικό του, αλλά αρκετά για να δώσουν μια εικόνα από τα πλούσια κτερίσματα που περιείχε. Το σημαντικότερο από αυτά ήταν τμήματα ελεφαντόδοντου από την ανάγλυφη διακόσμηση της νεκρικής κλίνης.

 

Ο τάφος ανασκάφηκε το 1971 από την τότε Έφορο Αρχαιοτήτων Κατερίνα Ρωμιοπούλου μετά από απόπειρα λαθρανασκαφής. Σήμερα προστατεύεται με στέγαστρο, που καλύπτει τμήμα του μνημείου, ενώ η είσοδός του έχει διαμορφωθεί κατάλληλα για την πρόσβαση των επισκεπτών.

 

Συντάκτης

Ειρ. Ψαρρά,αρχαιολόγος

 

 

The Tomb of the Flowers, one of the most magnificent and best preserved monuments of ancient Mieza, lies together with other similar tombs, like the Tomb of Judgement only a hundred and fifty metres to the east, along the ancient road connecting Mieza with Pella, the capital of the kingdom of Macedon. The Tomb of the Flowers dates to the first half of the third century BC, and so is contemporary with the 'Kinch' Tomb in the same area.

 

After the burial of the deceased and the completion of the customary funerary rites this subterranean funerary monument was covered by a tumulus over 2.50 metres high and 15-17 metres in diameter. The tomb consists of two barrel-vaulted chambers and a temple-shaped fa?ade with four engaged Ionic columns and polychrome Ionic and Doric kymatia. The entrance to the tomb was sealed with six poros blocks. The one metre high tympanon of the pediment was decorated with a beautiful painted scene depicting an elderly couple reclining on a symposium couch. Both figures wear a chiton and himation with opulent folds. The pediment is crowned by three palmettes painted in chiaroscuro. The walls in the narrow ante-chamber were painted black in the lower part and white in the upper part, the two colours being divided by bands of black and white. A beautiful painting of six flowers alternating with water-lilies on a blue-green background, as if floating on the surface of a pond, adorns the ceiling. A double door of marble, 3.50 metres high and 0.90 metres wide, with relief motifs separates the ante-chamber from the burial chamber. The latter preserves a rectangular stone base, upon which stood the box or larnax containing the bones of the deceased. The vaulted ceiling is covered with pale yellow plaster, and the walls were painted in imitation of marble revetment, black in their lower part and red in their upper part, the two colours being divided by a white band. The monument's characteric Ionic decoration, with its detailed design and polychromy, provides useful information for both its dating and for large-scale painting in Greece. Although the tomb was looted several times in antiquity enough furnishings remain to offer a glimpse of the opulent grave gifts it once contained. Especially important are the ivory plaques from the revetment of a bed.

 

The tomb was excavated in 1971 by the then Ephor of Antiquities Katerina Romiopoulou after an attempted illicit excavation. Today it is covered by a shelter and is accessible to visitors. Soon, the shelter will be extended and the earthen tumulus, which once covered the monument, will be restored.

 

Author

I. Psarra, archaeologist  

Modern Historians about Macedonia – Francois Chamoux

Quote:

“Such a glorious ancestry was in the eyes of Greeks the hallmark of the Hellenic persona of the king of Macedon, who could, on the other hand, rely on fidelity of the people from which he had sprung. The greek cities did not feel that they were allying with a barbarian, since for generations the Macedonian dynasty had been allowed, as Greeks, to take part in the Olympic games, where they won prizes.“

Hellenistic Civilization” by Francois Chamoux, page 8

 

Quote:

“In Greece proper nevertheless, there remained a number of people like Demosthenes, who had in no way renounce their hatred of Macedon. They did not lack the means to take action: the new king of Persia, Darius III Codomannus, whose reign started in 336, anxious to war off the threat of a Macedonian invasion,liberally distributed among the Greeks funds that were to buy consciences and cover the expenses of war against Alexander.“

“Hellenistic Civilization” by Francois Chamoux,page 9

 

Modern historians about ancient Macedonia - Richard Billows

Macedon was a region which had lagged behind the rest of the Greek world socially, economically, and culturally, failing to develop the polis or city-state institutions characteristic of the most advanced regions of Greece, but remaining instead a tribal society ruled by kings and dominated by a land-owning aristocracy.Indeed,there is some question as to whether Macedon should at this time be counted as part of the Greek world at all, for it has been doubted whether the Macedonians were a Greek-speaking people, on the basis of a few passages in ancient sources that appear to speak of a Macedonian “language”.These passages can equally well be understood to refer to a Macedonian “dialect,” however, and though it cannot at present be formally proved that the Macedonians were Hellenic in race and language, I think it highly likely that they were, for three reasons: the overwhelming majority of personal names known to have been used by Macedonians were good Greek names; the names of the months in the Macedonian calendar were basically Greek in form; and the religion of the Macedonians was largely the same as that of the Greeks, with Zeus, Herakles, and Dionysos being particularly prominent.

The Macedonians, then, were probably a Greek people (though certainly with an admixture of Illyrians and Thracians) akin in language and culture to their neighbors to the south and west, the Thessalians and Epeirots.Like the Epeirots, they were divided into several tribes and ruled over by a tribal monarchy. The main division in Macedon was between the lowland Macedonians, living in the plains of Pieria, Bottiaia, and the Amphaxitis, and the highland Macedonians, who were themselves divided into a number of “cantons”: from south to north, Tymphaia, Elimiotis, Orestis, Eordaia, Lynkos, and Pelagonia .The kings came from a royal family known as the Argeadai, who claimed descent from Herakles, but the Argead house was rooted in lower Macedon and the cantons of upper Macedon had dynastic families of their own who frequently claimed to rule as independent kings over their own regions.Like the Thessalians, the Macedonians never developed beyond the aristocratic form of society typical of early Greece and probably depicted in Homer’s epics.

The Homeric appearance of certain elements of Macedonian society has been widely noted; the chief of these elements is the so-called hetaireia, an institution which bound together the king and the nobility: it was the privilege and duty of the nobles to attend the king as his hetairoi (companions) both in war and peace, as cavalry fighters and officers, or as councillors and boon companions.That this institution was deeply rooted in Macedon is shown by the existence of a religious festival named the Hetairidia, and it is clear that the hetairoi formed a noble class of major importance in the state.Although as chief priest, chief judge, commander in chief, and political leader, the king embodied the state, he was constrained in practice to function in consultation with his hetairoi.

 

 Thus the chief organ of state policy was the synedrion or council of the king and his friends, in which the king took the lead and made the decisions, but would find it hard to decide against a consensus of his nobles.In particular, actions against the lives of leading members of the hetairos class could normally be risked by a king only with strong backing from his friends, and at times the king might prefer to hand over the decision on a capital charge against a great noble to the synedrion of his friends.The basis of the social and economic standing of the hetairos class was clearly landed wealth: Theopompos tells us that the 800 hetairoi of Philip II, for example, owned as much land as the 10,000 wealthiest men of the rest of Greece put together (FGrH, no. 115 F 225b). Being proprietors of great estates gave them an inherited status within their regions, and hence in the kingdom as a whole. In particular,like the Thessalian nobility, the Macedonian hetairoi raised horses on their estates, and provided the cavalry forces of the Macedonian state, riding in to support the king in time of war, each noble with a mounted following of his own.

Since Macedon before the time of Philip II had no significant infantry force, but relied almost exclusively on cavalry for its defense, their domination of the cavalry gave the Macedonian nobility great political influence.This was especially true when a weak king was on the throne, when factions of nobles often coalesced around other members of the royal house claiming the throne and reduced the state to near anarchy.

 

“Antigonus the One-Eyed” By Richard Billows,pages 18-20

Modern Historians about Macedonia – Carl J. Richard

 

1. Homer: Founder of Western Literature

2. Thales: Founder of Western Science

3. Themistocles: Defender of Greek civilization

4. Pericles: Democratic Reformer

5. Plato: Founder of Western Philosophy

6.Alexander the Great:Disseminator of Greek culture

“Twelve Greeks and Romans Who Changed the World” By Carl J. Richard 

Prof. Jodi Magness: Alexander the Great a Greek King

 

Modern Historians about Macedonia – Hermann Bengtson

 

 In the cultural gulf between Greeks and Macedonians the question of Macedonian national origin was never more than of secondary importance in antiquity. For modern scholars the evidence from names – there is not a single sentence extant from the language of the Old Macedonians – tilts the scales in favour of the view that includes the Macedonians among the Greeks. The theory, therefore, advocated by the student of Indo-European linguistics, P.Kretschner,that the Macedonians were of Graeco-Illyrian hybrid stock, is not to be regarded as very probable. So the majority of modern historians, admittedly with the noteworthy exception of Julius Kaerst , have argued  correctly for the Hellenic origin of the Macedonians. They should be included in the group of the North-West Greek tribes .

Griechische Geschichte-Hermann Bengtson 

 

This does not, however, discount the statement of Thucydides (II 99) that the Macedonians were related to the Epirotes from possibly having an element of truth. From the point of view of history it is more important that a century of isolation in the country which bears their name moulded the Macedonians into a distinctive social, political and anthropological unit, developing their essential features from within, and without domination by Hellenic influence. Thus the character of the Macedonian people had long since been moulded when, in the great power struggle between Athens and Philip, the hate-filled orations of Demosthenes repeatedly emphasised the divisive features between Greeks and Macedonians.”

 

Chapter 10, Philip of Macedonia, pgs. 185-186

Hermann Bengtson, ‘History of Greece’

Translated and updated by Edmund F. Bloedow,University of Ottawa Press,1988

 

 

 

 

 

Modern historians about Macedonia – Richard Stoneman

 

Quote:

The world he [Alexander] left behind him, split as it quickly was between several successor-kings, retained the Greek language as its medium of communication and Greek culture as its frame of reference.

“Alexander the Great” By Richard Stoneman,page 1

 

Quote:

When, as a young, ambitious and romantic youth with a genius for military strategy and tactics, he embarked on the conquest of the Persian empire, he may have had no more in mid than the setting to rights of the perceived age-old wrong inflicted by the Persians on the Greeks.

“Alexander the Great” By Richard Stoneman, page 2

 

Quote

In favour of the Greek identity of the Macedonians is what we know of their language: the place-names, names of the months and many of the personal names, especially royal names, which are Greek in roots and form.This suggests that they did not merely use Greek as a lingua franca, but spoke it as natives (though with a local accent which turned Philip into Bilip, for example).

The Macedonians’ own traditions derived their royal house from one Argeas, son of Macedon, son of Zeus, and asserted that a new dynasty, the Temenids, had its origin in the sixth century from emigrants from Argos in Greece, the first of these kings being Perdiccas. This tradition became a most important part of the cultural identity of Macedon.

It enabled Alexander I (d.452) to compete at the Olympic Games (which only true Hellenes were allowed to do); and it was embedded in the policy of Archelaus (d.399) who invited Euripides from Athens to his court, where Euripides wrote not only the Bacchae but also a lost play called Archelaus. (Socrates was also invited, but declined.)

 

“Alexander the Great” By Richard Stoneman, page 14