Chronicle 8. A HYBRID’S HYBRIS…

Chronicle 8. A HYBRID’S HYBRIS…

/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ Χρονικό 8. ΥΒΡΙΔΙΩΝ ΥΒΡΙΣ…

● “Mosaic” of Andalusia ● Cultural “Crossroads” and “Purity” ● Natural
and Artificial Hybrids ● “Creative” Commercialization ● Paco de Lucía

Michales Loukovikas

THE PARABLE OF FLAMENCO

THE CULTURAL “IMPORT” OF THE ORIENT may have far-reaching effects in a land of the Occident, as we have already seen in Spain, and especially in Andalusia: locals, Iberians and Celts, Phoenicians and Hellenes, Punics and Romans, Berbers and barbarians, Arabs and Moors, Jews and Gypsies (or Roma), along with many others, who had been the fruit of other intermarriages, created a complex and diversified racial and cultural blend, full of vitality and dynamism.

It goes without saying that Andalusia, Iberia as a whole, is not a unique case: there are similar ethno-cultural mosaics in each and every crossroad of space and time, of geography and history. If Iberia is the bridge between Europe and Africa, the Balkans and Asia Minor form an infinitely more important passage connecting the “old” world of Europe with the even “older” and “wiser” Asia. It is as clear as a sunny day, “brighter than the sun”, as the Greeks used to say, that a “passage” between Scandinavia and Greenland, e.g. Iceland, would be of interest to almost no-one – except the Vikings. It is the destiny of those areas where, among other things, the sun is anything but bright!

If Iberia is the bridge between Europe and Africa, the Balkans and
Asia Minor form an infinitely more important passage connecting
the “old” world of Europe with the even “older” and “wiser” Asia.

“The lack of racial purity” in ethno-cultural crossroads, “has had crucially beneficial resonances”, Béla Bartók has already made clear. “A complete separation from foreign influence means stagnation; well-assimilated foreign impulses offer possibilities of enrichment.”

Yet, a positive process ends up as negative, and everyone is in a hurry to secure exclusive rights on common, undivided heritage. Rebetiko e.g. is “authentically Hellenic, free from outside influence”; flamenco, too, is “purely and absolutely Andalusian”. If we had politicians verbalizing, we would pay no attention; but we have musicologists, the “experts”. The flamencologist Donn Pohren, however, as an American, is not obsessed to see everything… pure as the driven snow:

“There are few pure gypsies left in Andalusia, and as for pure
andaluces; just what is a pure andaluz?” (Donn Pohren)

“In their patriotic insistence on regional purity of expression I cannot help but think that these Andalusian musicologists have overlooked one thing: that Andalusia is a fabulous blend of races and cultures, and as such has only relatively recently developed a culture it can call its own. If they would only permit themselves to think of their blood mixture: Phoenician, Greek, Celtic, Roman, Vandal,⁽¹⁾ Visigothic, Moorish, Negro (Negroes were first introduced into Spain as Moorish slaves and soldiers), Jewish, Syrian, Indian, and so forth. And as much as both sides might wish to deny the fact, there has certainly been a strong intermixing of gypsy and andaluz blood in Andalusia. There are few pure gypsies left in Andalusia, and as for pure andaluces; just what is a pure andaluz?” (Lives and Legends of Flamenco, A Biographical History, The Dance Introduction).

• ⁽¹⁾ The Vandals: Andalusia’s “godfathers”, as it was initially called Vandalusia. Etymology is quite strange, indeed: it links – at least etymologically – a highly cultured land to vandalisms…

Artistic creation at these crossroads of the Mediterranean is highly attractive – for the additional reason that during the last centuries, it is strongly influenced by external factors: mainly by developments in northern Europe and across the Atlantic. Nevertheless, the components of such hybrids, born through a natural process, are anything but stable: they may vary depending on circumstances. The fragile equilibrium of these heterogeneous elements that imbues them with irresistible charm is sometimes in danger of being upset. Their advantage may well turn into a disadvantage.

Hence, we can see that conditions similar to those which made all these hybrids be born, can now wipe them out. When new political conditions emerge and frontiers are surpassed or redrawn, the situation changes most radically. Such a radical change has been the creation of the European Union, or of the so-called “global village” – as it was equally radical on Iberian scale centuries ago when the Castilians became dominant throughout the peninsula except Portugal, with the expulsion of the Arabs, Moors or Berbers, that brought about the end of Muslim rule in Iberia.

Alhambra, Granada: the Moors’ last stronghold in Andalusia

Flamenco began to take shape in those new circumstances, in the midst of the persecutions the Castilians unleashed against all non-Catholics, spearheaded by the odious “Holy” Inquisition. Therefore, flamenco is only indirectly related to the Andalusian music that flourished during the preceding centuries on both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar, being restricted later just in the Maghreb: the two arts never coexisted.

This fact, however, does not seem to bother those who, either in search of their cultural identity (a romantic quest), or commercial gain (a cynical quest), try to create new hybrids, either cloned or not, hoping that under the new “globalized” conditions, they will be sustainable and – even more important – profitable. Unfortunately (or, rather, fortunately), viable hybrids are born in real life rather than in a test tube, bottom-up and not top-down, through a long coexistence of ordinary people from different ethnicities, not through some initiatives, noble or not, by individual artists, however distinguished and talented they are.

Viable hybrids are born in real life rather than in a test tube, bottom-up
and not top-down, through a long coexistence of ordinary people from
different ethnicities, not through some initiatives by individual artists…

Reunion: Indian dancer accompanied by flamencos

According to their own genealogical trees, those “romantics” highlight either the Arabic or the Indian elements of flamenco, having related collaborations.⁽²⁾ There are, however, some… “realistically romantic” musicians, suffused with “romantic realism”, whose work, although not commercial, lies on a firm and sound basis. Their aim is not to combine two different – albeit akin – genres with an eye to… sex or marriage (i.e. mating or pairing them), but merely to revive a once live tradition, such as the Andalusian, in Spain. The simplest and most reasonable quest is often the most marginal.

• ⁽²⁾ These collaborations are already bilateral. Anoushka Shankar e.g., playing with flamencos, is on the road that her father, Ravi, inaugurated working together with Yehudi Menuhin or the Beatles – a road which is no more one way to the Orient…

Whatever the case, the conditions favour such ventures: the Arab world is a next-door neighbour, and the revival of Arab-Spanish relations is a very positive perspective – both economically and politically. The Indies, on the other hand, appear not only distant but also exotic. Even if the political motive is absent, such collaborations satisfy the public’s thirst for exoticism. This is one of the reasons that such hybrids proliferate – and are… sold out! The aficionados may turn their backs on such projects and thus the musicians alienate themselves from their best allies, but this hardly seems to bother them. Perhaps because they no longer depend on the aficionados; they depend on the venues and the companies distributing music and organizing concerts. Living under a “market economy”, it is also natural for them to have “market mentality and behaviour”. The corrupting money…

Anoushka Shankar with the flamenco guitarist Melón Jiménez

“Money, not afición,⁽³⁾ is today’s God, overwhelming both purity of expression and the flamenco way of life”,⁽⁴⁾ Pohren comments in the Foreword of his Lives and Legends of Flamenco. And in The Song Introduction, under the heading Creation, he explains:

• ⁽³⁾ Let’s consult Pohren’s Glossary: afición: enthusiasm; aficionado: fan, enthusiast; cantaor: male flamenco singer; cante: singing, song; copla: verse of a cante.

• ⁽⁴⁾ Pohren thinks that flamenco’s “golden era” was the café cantante period – that Spanish “19th century café-bar with flamenco entertainment”. Such an establishment, as a term, corresponded to a café chantant, but essentially it was equivalent to an Oriental café aman. Café chantant: a French café, originally outdoors, especially between the 19th and 20th centuries, where small ensembles performed lighthearted, sometimes risqué, even bawdy, songs, but not particularly political, as opposed to the cabaret tradition. This type of entertainment spread to the Orient, as well, but with Occidental-style music. Café aman: born in the Ottoman Empire in the 17th century, it received its name from a type of Oriental song performed there, namely amanés, a kind of long improvisational lament (from the exclamation of despair aman).

“In recent years there have been various attempts at creativity within the cante.⁽³⁾ One has been the movement to take flamenco back to its Arabic roots, the result being called Andalusí. Lole and Manuel started the movement when she began singing Moorish-sounding love songs to a bulerías beat. The result was interesting, but not considered flamenco by the serious aficionado.⁽³⁾ Along the same lines Juan el Lebrijano and his guitar accompanist got together with a group of Moorish musicians, including an excellent Moorish singer, Mohamed Chkara, and alternated coplas.⁽³⁾ The effect was much more Moorish than flamenco, exotic and catchy and a good seller of records… But el Lebrijano was tame compared to Enrique Morente, many of whose innovations were so unusual as to be nearly unrecognizable as flamenco. Some of Camarón de la Isla’s innovations carried more flamenco punch – others were based on crowd pleasing pop songs…

Monica Saucedo of Ensemble Español in Bolero

“I have tolerated El Turronero’s renditions of la caña and el polo to the accompaniment of a punk rock group and two sexy go-go girls.(*) I have witnessed La Bernarda de Utrera on stage in Madrid sing only cuplés por bulerías.⁽⁵⁾ This is truly sacrilege, for La Bernarda is capable of excellent, meaningful cante. I have watched such excellent flamenco dancers as El Güito and Merche Esmeralda merge flamenco with modern dancing to Emilio de Diego’s abstract guitar composition (taped) and the equally as abstract singing of a young cantaor.⁽³⁾ The guitar composition was interesting if overly repetitious, but the dancing was simply dull and might be crossed off as a not-so-dazzling experiment. What was really maddening is that Güito and Merche, two of the finest flamenco dancers, were each permitted to dance only one authentic flamenco dance during the entire show. More subtly distressing was a performance of Enrique de Melchor, son of the late, great Melchor de Marchena. Enrique, in an accompanying role, proceeded to prove to the audience that he is without doubt one of flamenco’s top guitar virtuosos; he was simply bubbling over with technique… In the process, of course, he completely overshadowed the singers he accompanied, which used to be a major sin for accompanists. Oddly enough, if the singers realized what was happening (they must have) they didn’t seem to mind, for Enrique is much in demand as an accompanist. Perhaps the singers are getting used to it… Lastly, there are the many groups who have incorporated a variety of instruments into their pseudo-flamenco efforts…”

• ^(e) The cuplé was a popular risqué Spanish theatre song style in the late years of the 19th century. The songs were a feature of the ”género ínfimo” (lowest type), sung by female singers, or men in drag (women’s clothes), and attended mainly by men. But in the beginning of the 20th century, the cuplé, in a more respectable form, became more family-friendly, associated with stars of the Spanish theatre. The cuplé prefigured the copla of the 1930s.

● The copla, or canción andaluza or española or folklórica, or the tonadilla, is a form of popular song that flourished in Spain in the 1930s and 1940s, and is epitomized by songwriters such as Antonio Quintero, Rafael de León and Manuel Quiroga. One of the first singers was Raquel Meller, who initially sang cuplé, which later evolved into the copla, as it is known today. Other famous singers of coplas are Imperio Argentina, Estrellita Castro, Lola Flores, Marifé de Triana, Concha Piquer, Manolo Escobar, Sara Montiel, and Juanito Valderrama. Recent singers of coplas include Rocío Jurado, Isabel Pantoja, and Miguel Poveda; more lately, Pastora Soler, Concha Buika, and even opera singer Plácido Domingo. Certain artists have bent and stretched the genre into directions that have come to be known as Nueva Copla. The lyrics often feature marginalized characters, such as escaped convicts, prostitutes, sailors, gypsies and so on, and have themes based on the “illegitimacy of relationships outside the heterosexual marriage” (i.e. mistreated women, abandoned children, extramarital affairs, and so on).

Exuberance, by Penny Warden

● The definition por bulerías means the song is played in the fast 12-beat rhythm of bulerías.

(*) Let’s consult The Encyclopedia of Flamenco in the first book of Pohren’s trilogy, The Art of Flamenco, to realize how grave El Turronero’s sacrilege was:

“The caña and polo have become known as the most pure and ancient forms of flamenco still in existence… [They] say that they are the first outcroppings of gypsy cante. [Nevertheless], they are much too formal in structure, and greatly lacking in primitive emotion, signifying that they had a more literate background, very likely religious, probably the Gregorian chant…⁽⁶⁾

• ⁽⁶⁾ Or even the Byzantine chant, as Felip Pedrell, Manuel de Falla, and Federico García Lorca said in Chronicle 6, especially about siguiriyas.

“Far more flamenco than theorists like to think had its origins in the
Oriental music of Spain’s neighbors to the South.” (Donn Pohren)

“Two early literary references to the caña cast light on its naming and pre-flamenco origin. The earliest was written by the Englishman Richard Ford in 1830. He wrote that the caña, ‘is actually the guannia, or Arabic song’… Another early writer, Estébanez Calderón, wrote in 1847 much the same information about the caña having derived its name from the ‘guannia’, which signifies ‘song’ in Arabic. He goes on to describe the singing of the caña in much the same way as Ford. What does this signify, if these gentlemen are correct? For one thing, that the name ‘caña’ came from ‘guannia’, and that before becoming flamenco it was an Arabic song. It follows that the polo had much the same birth. And something else, more important: that no doubt far more flamenco than theorists like to think had its origins in the Oriental music of Spain’s neighbors to the South.”

It is in such cases that those who consider a hybrid to be a bastard are justified. And it’s sad because, behind such characterizations and arguments, racist views perhaps underlie. Alas, it is true: Although appealing with an irresistible charm, a hybrid may occasionally end up as ὕβρις-hybris (or hubris)…

Soledad Barrio

Paco de Lucía’s case

SACRILEGE is… a two-way avenue: the ones who commit it, unfortunately, are not only the artists, engaging in various “market creations”, but also the public, who push the artists in the same direction, in order to… get their “dose”! Referring to Paco de Lucía the Great, Pohren explains (Lives and Legends of Flamenco):

“Paco de Lucía, born Francisco Sánchez Gómez in December of 1947, adopted his mother’s name for artistic purposes after beginning as Paco de Algeciras…⁽⁷⁾ His father, a guitarist, had early discovered Paco’s enormous natural talent for the guitar and had determined that Paco was to become flamenco’s greatest guitarist ever. Thus, Paco’s childhood consisted of the guitar and flamenco, flamenco and the guitar… under his father’s tutelage and watchful eye… But the many years of hard work and little play (his lack of childhood, as he puts it) had taken their toll. Paco had done it all too early. He became restless, and began dabbling elsewhere; an early collaboration on a jazz record, a fascination with bossa nova and other musical forms, all of which began creeping into his flamenco, taking him away from tradition and more and more into the world of international music…

• ⁽⁷⁾ Paco died in February of 2014. His birthplace was Algeciras, next to Gibraltar, opposite Tangier.

“With his solo LP that included the rumba Entre Dos Águas the seemingly impossible occurred: Paco passed over the line from flamenco hero to national hero, the first time in history this has happened to a Spanish guitarist, flamenco or otherwise. He was recognized in the streets, hounded for his autograph, lionized by society, played standing-room-only concerts in Madrid’s Royal Theater, was news throughout the media.⁽⁸⁾ Against his wishes he became too big for an accompanying role. In the last festival in which I saw Paco accompany, he was attempting to hold back and accompany like the Paco of old, but the public would not hear of it, drowning out the singer with demands for Paco to do something sensational. Finally, to shut them up, he was forced to open up with an extraordinary chord progression followed by an incredible picado run,⁽⁹⁾ all in countertime. The crowd screamed its approval, the singer was forgotten, Paco was helplessly embarrassed.”

• ⁽⁸⁾ “It got so bad that Paco even became a political issue. On one occasion he innocently made some remark to a reporter that was printed out of context, and Paco was beaten up on the streets of Madrid by a gang of far-right thugs.” (D.P.)

• ⁽⁹⁾ Picado: “a guitar-playing technique; the alternate striking of a string by the index and middle fingers, or, less commonly, by the middle and ring fingers, the index and ring fingers, or, rarest of all, the index and little fingers. When developed well, the picado can be lightening fast.” (D.P.)

• >> Chronicle 9. THE CELEBRATED TRÍCHORDON
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Next Chronicle 9. THE CELEBRATED TRÍCHORDON ● Flamenco and Rebétiko, Guitar and Bouzouki ● Modal and Tempered Music ● Ross Daly ● Tanburs ● Ashiks ● Iován Tsaoús and Foustalieris ● Entertainment and Edutainment

A Café Cantante in Seville (ca 1885-88)

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Chronicle 6. INDO-IBERIAN ARC (Jondo)

Chronicle 6. INDO-IBERIAN ARC (Jondo)

/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ Χρονικό 6. ΙΝΔΟΪΒΗΡΙΚΟ ΤΟΞΟ (Jondo)

● Roma, Bartók, Pohren and Flamenco
● Lorca, Falla, Pedrell and Cante Jondo

Michales Loukovikas

IT’S A PLEASANT SURPRISE whenever you meet the familiar figures of ancient Hellenes emerging from the pages of books about other peoples’ ways of life and expression – such as fado and flamenco – and also playing leading roles in legends that are probably unknown to modern Greeks.

No doubt “casting” those heroic Hellenes in the mythological dramatis personae of the world is not so strange a phenomenon. It is a measure of the splendour of ancient Grecian civilization. But what’s quite unexpected is to find such legends in books dealing with music (see the previous Chronicle).

Indeed, there are so many myths, stories, and tales, about Heracles, Odysseus and, even more, Alexander! And it’s no coincidence at all. It’s them that have defined our common historical background: the westward voyages of Heracles and Odysseus, and the eastward drive of Alexander, outline this wider area, the one that, schematically more or less, I described as the historical space of the Mediterranean.

Alexander’s exploits in the Orient are still widely acclaimed and echo in so many legends about Iskandar. In the western Mediterranean, on the contrary, the whole picture is rather obscure; it lacks clarity. It was quite natural for me to focus my attention there for an extra reason: until recently almost everyone in Greece referred to the Eastern Mediterranean, not just as the “gravitational” centre of this historical space, but as though it constituted an area apart from both the western half of mare nostrum, and also the eastern extension of the Mediterranean space into continental Asia.⁽¹⁾

• ⁽¹⁾ Now everybody’s talking of the one, unified Mediterranean. Well, that is something! Once upon a time – not so long ago – the cliché and catch phrase (overused ad nauseam) was “ἡ καθ’ ἡμᾶς Ἀνατολή”, meaning something like “our own Orient”, and referring to the long gone Hellenistic East. The exact meaning differed widely depending on the person using it. The best description of the phrase I know is Cavafy’s poem In the Year 200 B.C. (see Chronicle 2). The worst ones are found in the speeches of politicians who, in the past, combined it with the so-called “Megale Idea” (“Great Idea”, about an even “Greater Hellas”), which proved to be not a “great idea” at all, and has since become a national nightmare…

The Rock of Gibraltar, the European Pillar of Heracles (1850)

Andalusia, the western end of our historical space, has received
so many cultural elements from its eastern end, India, that
the wide scope of exchange becomes more than evident.

Well, I searched for evidence to the contrary; and I arrived to the conclusion that there’s no better and more convincing example than music – or rather, culture – of Andalusia: the western end of our historical space has received – and indeed repeatedly – so many cultural elements from its eastern end, India, that the wide scope of exchange becomes more than evident.

If the Hellenes have also been involved in this give and take, so much the better. But apart from les enfants terribles de l’antiquité, there are some others, as well, that delineate our historical space; a quite humble people who, without having bequeathed to mankind splendid monuments of art and literature, were able to leave their indelible mark wherever they passed through, despite the relentless persecution they suffered. I’m talking about the Gypsies, the Roma who, in their own way, remind us that civilization is not only sublime art and culture; it is also the primitive but authentic way of human expression – which, we need never to forget, was the starting point of every art form.

So, let’s go and meet them remaining on Iberian soil: from the world of fado in Portugal, we cross into that of flamenco in Andalusia – and what we hear first of all is… a passionate dispute about the origin of flamenco! It’s an old controversy still going on strong between the advocates of an Andalusian birth certificate and those who see the genre as a Romani creation.

Gypsy dance in the gardens of the Alcázar, in front of Charles V Pavilion, by Alfred Dehodencq (1851)

Even prejudiced persons are obliged to recognize that the Gypsies – or at least some of their tribes – have an innate talent for music. They are quick though to assert that the Roma are not distinguished for their creative inspiration, but just for their skill in the execution of music. Although self-contradictory, this view was expressed, in all seriousness, even from authoritative personalities, perhaps with good intentions. It’s true such controversies erupted in countries, like those in Eastern Europe, with a strong gypsy presence, during the formation of the so-called “national schools” in music. But the root of the problem goes far back:

Music was not a lucrative – and hence respectable – occupation for
centuries, when the only professional musicians around were Gypsies.
After the economic conditions had changed and many locals became
musicians, it was almost impossible to “purify” the local musical idioms…

Music as a profession was not a lucrative – and hence respectable – occupation for centuries, when the only professional musicians around were Gypsies. After the economic conditions had changed and many locals had become musicians, it was almost impossible to identify and set apart the indigenous musical elements from gypsy additions – or with a different phraseology, to “purify” local musical idioms. Still, we cannot blame the Gypsies for this “problem” (if, indeed, there was one)…

Béla Bartók

“Contact with foreign material,” according to Béla Bartók, the celebrated Hungarian composer and ethnomusicologist, “does not merely imply the exchange of melodies, but – and this is even more important – is also a stimulus for new styles to arise… The current situation of Eastern European folk music can be summarized as follows: As a result of the continuous interaction of several peoples’ folk music, a tremendous wealth of melodies and melody types has emerged… Therefore, the lack of racial purity that has appeared as a final result has had crucially beneficial resonances. A complete separation from foreign influence means stagnation; well-assimilated foreign impulses offer possibilities of enrichment.”

“Contact with foreign material is a stimulus for new styles. Racial purity means stagnation; well-assimilated foreign impulses offer possibilities of enrichment.” (Béla Bartók)

Only racists would reject such important conclusions. But nationalism is also a problem, especially in an area like Eastern Europe as it was already described. Even Bartók was not immune to such “national sentiments”. When he realized that Hungarian folk songs traditionally employed by “classical” composers were not autochthonous, he decided to make a research. So, in 1908, he and Zoltán Kodály, his colleague and compatriot, travelled into the countryside to collect old Magyar folk melodies, which had previously been categorized as “gypsy music”. In contrast, they discovered that these folk melodies were based on pentatonic scales, similar to those in Asian folk traditions, as those of Anatolia, Central Asia and Siberia.

Gypsy Girl with a Mandolin,
by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

● First of all, the Magyars themselves are anything but autochthonous: they came from the Urals to what is now Hungary rather recently: in the 10th century CE. The Roma perhaps arrived there somehow later but without plundering the area around, as the Magyars did. (Alas, this is the reason why there’s no Roma state today…) Why, then, should the Magyars care so much about indigenity? What Bartók and Kodály proved after all was that old Magyar folk melodies originated in Asia, and therefore, were not autochthonous either!

● Concerning the other melodic treasures of this area, Bartók said: “As a result of the continuous interaction of several peoples’ folk music, a tremendous wealth of melodies and melody types has emerged.” All of these melodies and melody types have been neither Austro-Hungarian, nor Czecho-Slovakian, nor Serbo-Croatian, nor Romanian or even Romani (since the Gypsies have also participated in this give and take). They belong to all without exception – and this is quite annoying to all nationalists!

● As regards the erudite compositions implied above, the “classic” example is Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies, which he based on popular tunes and melodies performed by Romani bands of the time. Another famous work (by a non-Magyar composer) is Brahms’ Hungarian Dances – his most profitable, although only three out of the 21 dances (11, 14, and 16) are his own compositions.

In a land of “gypsy violins” famous worldwide, playing mainly heptatonic scales, a heated controversy broke out in 1933 regarding the point at issue. When Bartók intervened, he claimed that:

“If we want to be precise, the term ‘gypsy music’ is incorrect, and what is described as ‘gypsy music’ is in fact nothing but Hungarian music played by Gypsies”…

Alas, this “contact with foreign material” seems rather a “great idea” as long as it excludes Romani contributions! Nota bene, any “pure”, “autochthonous”, melody anywhere in the world would be tantamount to a chimerical “Holy Grail”!

Gypsy school (of violin and other strings in Hungary), by Janos Valentiny (1896)

Gypsies in Andalusia and Flamenco

LET’S RETURN to Andalusia and flamenco to delve into the substance of this point at issue. The cultural substratum here is far richer in finds, with the successive layers of several civilizations. It is obvious how misleading the dilemma “Gypsies or locals?”, “black or white?” is – and if you don’t suffer from colour blindness, you realize very soon that this can be nowhere true.

“In flamenco music”, says Christian Scholze, “there are elements of Arab, Indian, North African, Greek and Jewish influence, and the respective proportions of these are hotly debated by flamencologists. What they do agree on is that the roots of flamenco lie in the suppression of the Gypsies. Wherever Gypsies found refuge and shelter over the centuries are today’s centres of flamenco.”

Voilà! There is Greek influence detected in flamenco! Most important, though seemingly paradoxical: among all those cultures referred to by Scholze, the only one that did not have “bearers” actually present in Andalusia, when flamenco’s formation began during the 16th century, was Hellenic culture. Additionally, at that time, both Greece and the Byzantine Empire were not “on the map”, having already lost their independence.

What I mean to say is that, apart from the local andaluces, there were at that time in Andalusia Arabs and North African Moors; there were also Gypsies (as “bearers” of North Indian culture), and Jews. They were all the heterodox people that the decrees of Ferdinand and Isabella had declared personae non grata in the name of religious “purity”, a kind of racism, in order to consolidate the “new (Catholic Castilian) order”. That was the end result of the Crusades: a sanctified ethnic cleansing!

Death and Apocalypse, by Hieronymus Bosch

The dilemma was clear-cut: convert to Catholicism or get the hell out of here! And “for fear – even terror – of the Jews” and the rest of the heterodox people, the infamous “Holy” Inquisition began a persecution spree “in the name of God”. Most Arabs and Jews (the Gypsies had no… address and it was difficult to track them down) were forced out of their homes, finding refuge mainly in Morocco and hoping that they would soon return – a hope shared by all refugees such as those from Asia Minor. Others (mainly Jews, not Moors who found themselves in a familiar environment in the Maghreb) chose to emigrate and ended up in the lands that until recently were Byzantine, but had already passed under the control of the Ottomans – inter alia, in Thessalonica.

All those who stayed without changing their religion, or some others, who were judged as insincere in their “repentance”, went underground, lived together and closed ranks out of necessity, despite all their differences, in order to confront the common enemy. Very soon this unlikely mixture of people was “enriched” with “new blood”: the Andalusians, who passed in turn to the other side due to various problems with the new authorities. The conquest of America, you see, started then, and the necessary “manpower” was recruited mainly in Andalusia.

Flamenco was born in such circumstances from these fugitives. But where were the Greeks? And how did they manage – being absent and from afar – to exert their influence? There can be only one answer: thanks to the splendour of their civilization – even though it was already a relic of the past.

El jaleo, by John Singer Sargent (1882)

An eristic could possibly dismiss scornfully Christian Scholze. His view, however, is not new-fangled. It is shared by most musicologists who say more or less the same. The editors of the Classic CD magazine e.g., publishing an interview with the guitarist Paco Peña, epitomized the origins of flamenco as follows:

“A synthesis of several styles, the music of the Gypsies at the base of the Iberian Peninsula comes from Moorish, Byzantine and Jewish sounds, and at a certain point of its evolution it acquired the name flamenco.” (These editors forgot a most important parameter: India).

If that is not enough for you, here’s the American flamencologist and guitarist Donn E. Pohren, author of a trilogy on flamenco (The Art of Flamenco, Lives and Legends of Flamenco, A Way of Life) translated into many languages, and teacher of the Andalusians, in Jerez de la Frontera’s Cátedra de Flamencología – without “lecturing” at all, as he has experienced flamenco’s way of life side by side with Gypsy and local performers of this music before it became fashionable:

“Contrary to a widespread belief, the Spanish gypsies were not the sole creators of the mysterious art called flamenco. Rather, it is generally agreed that flamenco is a mixture of the music of the many cultures that have played important roles, directly or indirectly, throughout the centuries in Andalusia, the most important of these being the Muslim, Jewish, Indo-Pakistani and Byzantine.”

It’s the very first paragraph in the main part of his book dealing with The Art of Flamenco when he sets out to examine it. This chapter, Origin and Background, ends up with the etymology of flamenco: “Where did the term flamenco come from?”, Pohren wonders. “Again, no one knows, but theories abound”… We have already met the fugitives who probably created flamenco. Dismissing several theories about the origin of the word, rather picturesque (e.g. Flemish, flamingo, flame, etc),⁽²⁾ Pohren presents the most credible:

• ⁽²⁾ Flemish, due to the Spanish Jews who found refuge in Flanders; flamingo, because of the supposed similarities in posture between the bird and a flamenco bailaor(!); and flame, as a graphic metaphor of flamenco’s essence.

“Possibly the most likely theory states that the word ‘flamenco’ is a mispronunciation of the Arabic words ‘felag’ and ‘mengu’ (felagmengu), which means ‘fugitive peasant’. It is likely that this term was borrowed from the Arabs (Arabic was a common language in Andalusia at that time) and applied to all the persecuted people who fled to the mountains. Through usage in Spanish ‘felagmengu’ was transformed into ‘flamenco’, until eventually the term flamenco was adopted by the fugitives themselves and in turn applied to their music.”

Cante jondo (Lorca, Falla, Pedrell)

If all the above are again not enough for you, I need to resort to… indisputable sages – meaning in other words to invoke the views of acclaimed Spaniards who surely know what they’re talking about. Well, how about Federico García Lorca, his friend and tutor, Manuel de Falla, or his mentor’s mentor, Felip(e) Pedrell?⁽³⁾

• ⁽³⁾ The composer, guitarist and musicologist Felip Pedrell has been the instructor of almost every outstanding composer of Spain’s “National School”: not only Manuel de Falla, but also Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Granados and Joaquín Turina.

García Lorca used the title Poema del Cante Jondo for a collection of poems in 1921. The next year he helped Falla in the organization of the Concurso de Cante Jondo, held in Granada on 13 and 14 of June 1922, with a memorable series of performances held at the Alhambra. Cante jondo or grande (deep, great song) is the most breathtaking of the flamenco forms, the most authentic or pure and, in the interwar period, the most marginalized. That’s why the two friends tried to support it. The other two forms – cante (inter)medio and chico (intermediate and small) – were considered as rather vulgarized forms, a point of view perhaps corresponding to the realities of the interwar period; Lorca will soon present his own well-grounded explanation.

Federico García Lorca, by Emily Tarleton

To promote the Concurso, Falla wrote the essay El cante jondo (canto primitivo andaluz), in which he presented the results of his own research indicating that the primary foreign influences contributing to the origins of jondo were three: Byzantine ecclesiastical music coming from the eastern Mediterranean; Moorish music from North Africa and Arabia; and especially that distinct music of India and its rhythms, brought by gitanos, who began arriving in Spain more than five hundred years ago. Lorca on his part gave a lecture on February 19, 1922. Citing Falla, he also put forward these three historical events that shaped jondo:

• “a) the Spanish Church’s adoption of [Byzantine] liturgical chant;
• “b) the Saracen invasion; and
• “c) the arrival in Spain of numerous bands of Gypsies.⁽⁴⁾

• ⁽⁴⁾ Lorca’s English texts on Cante jondo and Duende are based on A. S. Kline’s translations.

“This mysterious migrant folk”, Lorca went on, “arriving in Andalusia, united ancient indigenous elements to what they themselves had brought, and gave cante jondo its definitive form. That is shown by the qualifying term ‘gitana’ which the siguiriya retains. This is not to say, of course, that cante jondo is purely gypsy, since Gypsies exist throughout Europe and elsewhere in our peninsula, while these songs are only nurtured in Andalusia. It is a cante purely andaluz, the seeds of which existed in this region before the Gypsies arrived.”

Except local elements, there are Graeco-Byzantine, Arabo-Moorish,
Indo-Romani, perhaps even Jewish influences detected in flamenco
(García Lorca, Falla, Pedrell, Pohren, Scholze, et al.)

Flamenco guitar

In Falla’s conclusions, as well as in Lorca’s lecture, we find the same contributing factors in the formation of flamenco; with only one exception: Jewish influence is conspicuously absent… Regarding the Romani contribution, Lorca evaluated it in its proper dimensions, avoiding to speak neither in favour of an Andalusian parthenogenesis – for the Gypsies “gave cante jondo its definitive form” – nor of a Romani birth: despite the many similarities he cited among key elements of cante jondo and some Indian songs, mostly love songs (he will deal about that later, as well), Lorca persistently insisted that “jondo is a cante purely andaluz”.

Indeed, flamenco was impossible to be born in India; but, without the Roma, not even in Andalusia; just like rebetiko: it was impossible to be born in Asia Minor; but, without the Anatolian refugees, not even in Greece; or just like the blues: it was impossible to be born in Africa; but, without the black slaves, not even in America. If this is true about the blues, an almost exclusively black music, you can imagine how much more relevant it is in the cases of flamenco and rebétiko where two locals became leading figures: Paco de Lucía and Basiles Tsitsanes.

Flamenco was impossible to be born in India; without the Roma not
even in Andalusia. Rebetiko was impossible to be born in Asia Minor;
without the Anatolians not even in Greece. Blues was impossible
to be born in Africa; without the blacks not even in America.

Rebet, etching by Tassos

“Every cloud has a silver lining”: the truth of the apophthegm is revealed in these diamonds of musical culture. We can now enjoy their sparkling beauty thanks to the Roma, the Anatolians and the black Africans – those that played the role of a catalyst in processing and refinement of these diamonds of the Orphean art – who, nevertheless, suffered tremendously. Of course, some people had to play the role of the villains. For the Gypsies, among others, the villain was Timur. For the Anatolians, it was Kemal. For the blacks? Here we lose count…

Lorca also analyzed the difference between cante jondo and flamenco in general – “an essential distinction based on antiquity, structure and spirit”:

“The essential difference is that the origin of cante jondo must be sought in the primitive musical systems of India, that is, in the first manifestations of song… It is cante imbued with the mysterious colour of primordial ages; flamenco is relatively modern and it cannot be said to acquire its definitive form until the 18th century…

“Spiritual colour versus local colour: that is the profound difference. Cante jondo is, then, the rarest specimen of primitive song, the oldest in Europe, bearing in its notes the naked shiver of emotion of the first oriental races. Manuel de Falla affirms that the Gypsy siguiriya is the only genre on our continent that preserves in all its purity the primary qualities of the primitive songs of the oriental peoples.”

Let’s have a closer look at this siguiriya gitana, an appropriate song to express sorrow, deep pain, despair. According to Falla, it is the archetype of cante jondo, as Lorca defined it in another lecture entitled Architecture of Cante Jondo (1931). Whether the siguiriya is “gitana” or “purely andaluz” we better leave it to the Spaniards. For us outsiders, far more interesting is the common position of the three musicians mentioned above, namely Pedrell, Falla, and Lorca (he was also a musician, let’s not forget). I quote from his lecture of 1922:

Felip Pedrell

“The great master Felipe Pedrell, one of the first Spaniards to treat questions of folklore scientifically, writes, in his magnificent Cancionero popular español:

“‘Musical orientalism survives in various popular songs and is deeply rooted in our nation through the influence of ancient Byzantine civilization on the ritual used in the Spanish Church, from the conversion of our country to Christianity until the 11th century when the Roman liturgy [i.e. Gregorian chant] can be said to have been fully introduced.’⁽⁵⁾

• ⁽⁵⁾ So, we can also speak of siguiriya griega, or bizantina, not only of indiana, gitana or andaluza!

“Falla adds to this statement of his old master, specifying the elements of Byzantine liturgical chant revealed in siguiriya, which are: the tonal modes of primitive systems (not be confused with those known as Greek modes), the enharmony inherent in those modes, and the lack of metric rhythm in the melodic line.

“‘These same properties characterize certain Andalusian songs which appeared long after the Spanish Church’s adoption of Byzantine liturgical music, songs which have a close affinity with the music which in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia is still called… «the music of the Moors of Granada».’ [The siguiriya gitana has] ‘specific forms and characteristics distinct from its relationship to sacred chant and the music of the Moors of Granada’.”

Falla, concludes Lorca, “has found an extraordinary agglutinative Gypsy element… of Indic origin.”

“Chanting is the earliest form of language”. (Falla, García Lorca)

Nevertheless, the findings of this triad (Pedrell, Falla and Lorca) go far beyond the relatively recent past, to prehistoric times. Lorca explains:

Manuel de Falla: “El… músico brujo”

“The essential similarities that Manuel de Falla notes between cante jondo and certain songs of India are:

“‘Enharmonics, as in intermediate modulation; a restricted melodic line, rarely exceeding the compass of a sixth; and the reiterative almost obsessive use of a single note, a process proper to certain forms of incantation, including recitations which might be termed prehistoric, and have led many to suppose that chanting is the earliest form of language.’⁽⁶⁾

• ⁽⁶⁾ Chanting: a short, simple series of syllables or words sung on or intoned to the same note or a limited range of notes; a monotonous rhythmic call; a primitive “recitative”, vocalism; prosody (“melos of speech”, according to Aristoxenus), i.e. the “melody” produced during ancient Hellenic speech (see Chronicle 12, footnote 7, and Chronicle 14, Music as the Mother of Speech).

“In this manner cante jondo, especially siguiriya, creates the impression of sung prose, destroying all sense of rhythmic metre, although in fact its literary texts are assonant tercets and quatrains.”

Going way back into history, we can parallel this incantation-recitation with the so-called paracatalogē (παρακαταλογή) of ancient Hellenic tragedy, “a kind of melodramatic recitation of tragic and pathetic parts”, as Giorgos Iohannou says, “something intermediate between the catalogē, i.e. the usual recitation of chants, and the proper song, the ode.” Note that Iohannou defines as a “chant” even the catalogē. Let us not forget that the ancient drama was all in verse. That is why the modern Grecian word for song, tragoudi (τραγούδι), comes from tragedy, while out of paracatalogē the word paralogē (παραλογή, ballad) was coined. Besides, the above quotation comes from an Iohannou’s collection of ballads.

The paracatalogē was accompanied – usually by aulos; in this sense it differed from the catalogē; as a melodramatic recitation, it was not a sung recitative; it also differed from the ode, because there was no melos (melody), other than a certain rhythmic emphasis, and the tonal or pitch accent of the ancient Hellenic language, which was musical, not dynamic like modern Greek. The tragic and pathetic effect was achieved by inserting paracatalogē within sung parts (ἐν ταῖς ᾠδαῖς). This technique enhanced the dramatic appeal of the text.

In Hellenic tragedy, “paracatalogē, a kind of melodramatic recitation
of tragic and pathetic parts, was something intermediate between the catalogē, the usual recitation of chants, and the proper song, the ode.” (Giorgos Iohannou)

• >> Chronicle 7. INDO-IBERIAN ARC (Duende)
• << Chronicle 5. IBERIA’S ODYSSEY

Next Chronicle 7. INDO-IBERIAN ARC (Duende) ● Lorca and Duende ● Pohren and Flamenco: Dance and Guitar ● Cithara and Pandura

Roman sarcophagus with scenes of Bacchus depicting various ancient instruments:
tympanum, aulos and cymbala (210-220 CE)

Chronicle 5. IBERIA’S ODYSSEY

Chronicle 5. IBERIA’S ODYSSEY

/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ Χρονικό 5. ΙΒΗΡΟΥ ΟΔΥΣΣΕΙΑ

● Hellenes in Portugal ● Fado and Fate ● Odysseus
and Calypso in Lisbon; Their Son in Santarém
● Creto-Iberian Ties: Bull Worship and Bullfight

“Mosaic of a Phoenician trading ship” was the caption. Almost every word is a lie: the ship is neither Phoenician, nor trading; we also see in BIG, Hellenic letters: ΟΔΥΣΣΕΙΑ (ODYSSEY)… Inopportune comments of someone unable to read Greek!

Michales Loukovikas

“IN REMOTE TIMES, even prior to the 6th century BC, the Greeks colonised what is now Portuguese territory, exploiting mines, founding and fortifying towns, especially along the coast and in the basins of the larger rivers.”

Fado has been proclaimed as Intangible Cultural Heritage. Rebetiko, too: better late than never!

This historical flashback is Augusto Mascarenhas Barreto’s starting point in his bilingual (in Portuguese and English) book on Fado / Origens Líricas e Motivação Poética (Lyrical Origins and Poetic Motivation). It is the first chapter (Identity and Origins), following the preliminaries about fado: Portugal’s urban folk song was born in two of its oldest cities, Lisbon and Coimbra (with a distinct form in each); it is Provençal in origin, with Arabic melodic and poetic influence; it is a way of life (like rebetiko, flamenco, blues, tango, or any other authentic folk mode of expression, however “humble”, or even “marginal”, it is considered in origin); it’s dominated by nostalgia, by saudade, a keyword in fado coming from the Arabs, as well, and found corrupt elsewhere: it is Cape Verde’s sodade characterizing its nostalgic song, morna.

The Hellenes, says the Portuguese author, “mingled with the aboriginal inhabitants and the Iberians, who inherited from them certain ethnic and cultural characteristics. It is presumed that the Iberians were a people originating in the East of Europe. Iberus was the ancient name of the River Ebro, in Spain.”

Such homonymous toponyms are quite strange. It’s not only the Ἕβρος (Hebrus or… Maritsa) in Thrace, the river dividing Greece and Turkey; it is also Caucasian Iberia, west of Caucasian… Albania (a part of Azerbaijan), i.e. Caucasian Georgia, in the hinterland of Medea’s homeland, the ancient Colchis, where Jason sailed with the Argonauts for the Golden Fleece. Logic says the Iberians’ cradle should have been there – but most scholars, on the contrary, show to the direction of North Africa or the eastern Mediterranean.

North of the Greater Armenia, between the Black and Caspian Seas:
Colchis, Iberia and Albania. The Amazons were further north.

Among the cultural characteristics the Greeks bequeathed to Iberia (the Iberian Peninsula), Mascarenhas Barreto singles out the Moerae:

“The Hellenic Moira is to be found in the spirit of Fado… The word fado, derived from the Latin fatum, means fate, destiny – what has been foretold by the Oracle and which nothing can alter… Later, Moira became allied to Arab Fatalism.”

The foreigners, you see, attribute to the Hellenes cultural characteristics that the latter claim they are due to the 400-year-long Ottoman yoke…

Odysseus and Calypso in Odyssey-Lisbon

Odysseus blinding Polyphemus, Attic black
figured amphora (ca 7th century BCE)

MUCH MORE IMPRESSIVE is what Portuguese mythology says about the Iberian adventures of that “man of many ways”, “man for wisdom”, “of many wiles”, “of many turns”, “of twists and turns”, “of much resource”, the “skilled”, “ingenious” and “very resourceful” man,⁽¹⁾ Odysseus. He was the one who founded and walled Lisbon (see Chronicle 21: Iberian “El Dorado”):

• ⁽¹⁾ The… “polytropic” versions of Homer’s word “πολύτροπος” (polytropos) rendered into English by Richmond Lattimore, George Chapman, Alexander Pope, Allen Mandelbaum, Martin Hammond, Albert Cook, Robert Fagles, Robert Fitzgerald, Samuel Butler, Emil V. and D.C.H. Rieu.

“Legend”, says Barreto, “attributes the building of the ancient walls of the city [Lisbon] to the great Greek hero of antiquity, Ulysses, king of Ithaca and conqueror of Troy, who is supposed to have given the place the name of Ulissea – whence the word Ulissipo.⁽²⁾ Anyway, what is certain is that Lisbon was inhabited by the Phoenicians about 600 BC, and they named it Alis Ubbo, meaning ‘Calm Bay’. It was certainly visited by Greeks and Carthaginians, who established trade relations with the primitive peoples inhabiting the country. These tribes, who had mingled with the Celts and the Iberians, formed an ethnic sub-group: the Celtiberians.”

• ⁽²⁾ Ulissea, that is, Odyssey, from the Latin version of the hero’s name, Ulysses or Ulisses, hence Ulissipolis (Odysseupolis) > Ulissipo(na) or Olisipo(na).

“Legend attributes the building of the ancient walls of Lisbon to
the great Greek hero of antiquity, Ulysses”, i.e. Odysseus (Barretο)

The “Snake God” found in Tavira – the only Portuguese town, next to Huelva, where the Phoenicians actually settled.

● Ulysses’ Ulissipo is a “legend”, according to Barreto, but the Phoenicians’ Alis Ubbo is a “certainty”: it is the “classic” historical… science fiction. How can he really combine this conclusion with his starting point that “in remote times, even prior to the 6th century BC, the Greeks colonised what is now Portuguese territory”? Well, “what is certain is that”… if we are based on facts, neither the Hellenes, nor the Phoenicians or also the Punics ever settled in Portugal. This land could not compare with Andalusia that magnetized all the above due to its mineral wealth and strategic importance. The only area of Portuguese interest that drew their attention was the also mineral-rich Galicia. (By the way, I mean Galicia of Iberia and not that of Eastern Europe). Generally, Alis (Allis) Ubbo (Ubo) is also interpreted as “Safe” (or “Pleasant”, “Enchanting”, “Serene”, “Delightful”) “Harbour” (or “Port”, “Haven”, “Gulf”, “Cove”, “Shore”, “Inlet”): all versions describe a good anchorage and, therefore, all have something to do with the sea. In an article about the presence of Mycenaeans in Sardinia, Demetris Michalópoulos wrote inter alia:

“In ancient times, Cagliari, the current capital of Sardinia, was called Caralis. In all likelihood, the toponym derives from the Semitic word car, which means ‘white rock’”.

We assume that Caralis meant Bay (or Harbour, etc.) with a white rock, a toponym that was probably given by the omnipresent Phoenicians. Can we associate the Semitic alis with the Indo-European root sal-, e.g. the English salt, and Grecian ἅλς (hals), meaning both salt and sea? If so, Indo-European and Semitic languages should have had some common ground (at least on matters shared in common, such as navigation), with loan words probably derived from Mediterranean tongues, e.g. the Minoan Cretan.

“During the Punic Wars – between Rome and Carthage – the Iberian Peninsula was invaded by the Romans and, in 205 BC the town – then called Olissipo – was raised to the category of a Roman municipium. In 100 AD it was named Felicitas Julia, in honour of Julius Caesar, and the name was a promise of good fortune. In the year 376, the Visigoths invaded the peninsula. In 404 the territory was still occupied by Romans and barbarians, but in 522, after the departure of the Romans, a single Visigoth kingdom was formed, and the town came to be known as Olissipona. In 711 the Arabs invaded the peninsula from North Africa and occupied the town, to which they gave the name Lissibona… In 1147 Lisbon was re-conquered by Dom Afonso Henriques.”

An English frigate in choppy waters in the Tagus passing the Belém Tower,
by John Thomas Serres (1823)

That’s how we ended up to Lisboa, the current capital of Portugal, adds Barreto. But this is not the end of his story. There’s more to it:

“Santarém is believed to have been founded in the 10th century BC
by Abidis, of Greek origin,” son of Ulysses and Calypso. (Barretο)

“Santarém, [which] stands looking over the River Tagus… is believed to have been founded in the 10th century BC by Abidis [or Habis],⁽³⁾ of Greek origin, who gave it the name of Esca-Abidis. This prince, grandson of Gregoris [Gárgoris], king of the Iberian Peninsula, is also said to have founded towns… in Spain. According to legend, he was the son of Ulysses. Betraying the trust of Gregoris after having been given Alis-Ubbo (Lisbon), Ulysses secretly espoused Calypso, daughter of the peninsular king, who rushed with his army on Lisbon. Ulysses fled by sea, abandoning his spouse”…

• ⁽³⁾ Or Habido, Abido, Abidas, Αbidis, Gabis, Gabid: his name’s versions in various variations of the legend.

Odysseus and Calypso (with… Habis?), by Gerard de Lairesse

Consequently, Calypso was not a nymph on the Isle of Ogygia, as Homer says. Deviating from the greatest of the rhapsodes, the Lusitanians adopted Calypso as a princess of Iberia and daughter of Gregoris/Gárgoris, not of Atlas. Note that we remain in the same places that Heracles had earlier toured for the golden apples of the Hesperides and Geryon’s cattle. It is assumed that Ogygia must have been nearby the Pillars of Heracles, since Odysseus had to travel for 18 days in an easterly direction to reach Scheria, the Phaeacian Island, which many identify with Corfu. There’s a chance that Ogygia was one of the Pillars, today’s Spanish Ceuta on Moroccan soil, opposite the other Pillar, the Rock of Gibraltar. Although it is not an island now, it may have been one in the days of Homer.

According to Hesiod, the conqueror of Troy – and also of numerous… women (for he was so “skilled”, “ingenious” and “resourceful”) – had in total 16 sons and a daughter from six women. But in his long list, he includes no Abidis, Habis, or what. Odysseus had three sons from Penelope, one from the daughter of Thoas the Aetolian, eight sons and a daughter from Circe, two sons from Calypso, one from Callidice, the queen of Thesprotia, whom he later married, and another from Euippe, daughter of Tyrimmas, king of Dodona in Epirus. Note that, if we accept Hesiod’s genealogy of Odysseus, with nine children from Circe and two from Calypso, we must reverse the time he lived beside these two nymphs, according to Homer: one year with Circe and seven with Calypso.

Circe, by Charles Gumery

With such a “proliferation”, of course, Odysseus was in danger of falling by the hand of some… close relative – something that did happen in the sequel of the Odyssey, in the Telegony, or Thesprotis, the Epic Cycle’s final episode, attributed to Eugammon of Cyrene or Cinaethon of Sparta. Circe’s son, Telegonus, so the story goes, while searching for his father, landed on Ithaca where – according to the custom of the era – started plundering and slaughtering, among others, also his genitor. Overwhelmed with remorse, as he realized he became a patricide, he collected Odysseus’ body and, accompanied by his half-brother, Telemachus, and Penelope, returned to the island of his mother, who turned them immortal. This “saga” ends merrily there with a happy end worthy of… a Greek film of the ’60s: with the marriages of Circe with Telemachus and Penelope with Telegonus! Finally, only poor Odysseus was enveloped by murky darkness!

A similar end awaits our hero in Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. The father of Italian poetry presents a traditional variation of the Homeric version, in which Odysseus himself says that he never returned to Ithaca. From Circe’s island, Aea, Aeaea, or Aeaeë,⁽⁴⁾ he passed through the Pillars of Heracles into the Atlantic, crossed the Equator, sailing in the southern hemisphere for five months, until he reached a big mountain. Then a tornado had the ship spin three times and sink. They all drowned there. But where? In the “underworld”, or in the “new world”, in America? Logic, based on today’s geographical knowledge, makes us draw wrong conclusions. Moreover, the narrative takes place in Dante’s Inferno (see also Chronicle 15. Sailing to Rio de Janeiro!, Homer’s Odyssey is a poetic periplus).

• ⁽⁴⁾ It’s another homonymous toponym with the capital of Colchis, Aea (today’s Kutaisi). But there’s an explanation now: Circe was the sister of Aeëtes, the king of Colchis, and aunt of Medea, with whom she shared magic powers – and also temperament: they say that Circe was exiled to the solitary island of Aeaea by her subjects and father because she had killed her husband…

The Lusitanians, however, didn’t bother to… “set out for Ithaca” with Cavafy, nor cared about Odysseus, after he escaped, leaving Calypso behind. Naturally, they were more concerned about what happened “at home”; hence they paid much more attention to Abidis/Habis:

Olissipo-Lisboa with the port on the Tagus (16th century)

“When Abidis was born,” says Barreto, “Gregoris ordered him to be thrown in a cave to be devoured by wild beasts. In answer, however, to the entreaties of his daughter, he consented that the child should be delivered to Fate, according to primitive custom, and the boy was put in a basket and taken away by the current of the river.⁽⁵⁾ A hind adopted him and when the child was later found in a wild state by some huntsmen, his mother recognised him by a mark. Gregoris forgot his former anger and gave him schooling, so that he could succeed him in the government of the peninsula. The name Esca-Abidis (Escalabis) in Greek means ‘food of Abidis’,⁽⁶⁾ in memory of the place where he was reared by the hind.

• ⁽⁵⁾ Quite biblical the image, recalling “Moses baby” on the waters of the Nile… Conclusion: there’s no originality in the Judaic mythology, although it has since acquired “dogmatic authority”… (See also Chronicles 18, footnote 2, and 21, footnote 4).

Roman mosaic in Pedrosa de la Vega (Castile and León). The only known evidence of transparency.

• ⁽⁶⁾ Ἐσχάρα (eschara): hearth, fire-place (like ἑστία); pan of coals, brazier; (the camp’s) watch-fires; sacrificial hearth; fire-stick.

Ἑστία (hestia): hearth of a house; the house itself, home; household, family; altar; the hearth goddess Hestia, or Vesta in Latin. Hestiatórion is the Greek word for restaurant.

“As regards history, the Romans rebuilt the town in 153 AD and called it Scalabis-castrum. Julius Caesar raised it to the status of a capital – one of the four in Lusitania… In the year 500 when the Visigoths came to Lusitania, the barbarians and Lusitanians formed in that region a single people. In 632 the town of Tomar was the scene of the martyrdom of Irene… a nun. Her body, thrown into the river, was carried down as far as Scalabis… Nineteen years later, King Recceswinth, who was Catholic,⁽⁷⁾ changed the name of Scalabis to Santa Irene. When… the Arabs occupied the town (715), they called it Chantireyn” – and that’s how we ended up to Santarém.

• ⁽⁷⁾ Force of habit: “Catholic” is what Barreto wrote, instead of “Christian”, as he should, because the Schism was still to come…

Creto-Iberian ties due to Mediterranean Minoan Thalassocracy.
A common cultural characteristic was bull worship and bullfight.

GRAECO-IBERIAN TIES, clearly suggested by Portuguese mythology, date back to much earlier times than the Trojan War, to the pre-Hellenic era of Minoan Thalassocracy in the Mediterranean: they were Creto-Iberian. A common cultural characteristic of the Cretans and the peoples of Iberia was bull worship and bullfight, or rather bull-leaping (taurocathapsia; see Chronicle 17. Minoan Cretan Thalassocracy, conclusion).

In his Memoriae Historicae, Strabo, a geographer-historian of Roman times, who was born in Amaseia of Pontus (64-63 BCE) and died probably in Rome (24 CE), referred to the Lusitanian equestrian bullfight (“… the peoples of the coastline, who are fond of meeting, on horseback, the fierce Hispanian bulls”, he wrote).⁽⁸⁾

Reconstruction of a relief fresco of a bull by Arthur Evans
at the northern Propylaea of Knossos

• ⁽⁸⁾ The ancestor of the Iberian bull, aurochs, was described by Julius Caesar as “somewhat smaller than an elephant, swift and powerful; attacks both men and animals.” Charlemagne hunted a similar animal, known as bubalo. It is likely that the savage creature killed by St. George was an aurochs, and not a dragon, as the plastic artists present him. The aurochs (aur = wild + ochs = ox), or urus, is the bos primogenius that is now extinct. It survived until 1627 in a forest of Poland.

Apart from bullfighting on horseback, there was also the pega – from the verb pegar, which means catch, seize… the bull by the horns! In one kind of pegas, the so-called forcado was not only completely unarmed, but had nothing to fool the bull (e.g. cape). He should withstand the initial impact (the tremendous weight of the attacking animal plus speed), and the subsequent shaking of his head so as to get rid of an unwelcome rider on his neck…

There were more forcados, usually eight, as assistants in the pega to master the bull. It is the picture we have from the Minoan bull-leaping in an extant fresco of Taurocathapsia dating back to the 15th century BCE. Isn’t it impressive? Even more so if we take into account that these Cretan “forcados” included women!

Taurocathapsia (bull-leaping), Minoan fresco

Arriving at the other side of the Mediterranean, we can find the earliest known description of such a bullfight in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the legendary hero of Mesopotamia, whose name became associated with his futile struggle to obtain immortality. The epic, dating back to c. 2100 BCE, describes how the hero and his companion, Enkidu, kill the Celestial Bull that the goddess Ishtar has sent to punish Gilgamesh for spurning her advances:

“Enkidu seizes the celestial bull by the horns”, while Gilgamesh “approaches it slowly and jumps on its back; then grabs it by the tail”…

“The pegas”, Barreto concludes, “probably originated in the Neolithic ritual hunts. We may wonder whether the peoples of the Iberian Peninsula learnt this from the Cretans of the 3rd millennium BC, or if they themselves may have been the teachers, since the bulls were taken from their natural habitat in the peninsula to the island of Crete.”

But still, if you talk about so extensive exchange going on five millennia ago – whether it is bull-leaping, or even bull shipments from Iberia to Crete – how is it possible to be concerned about trivial “problems”, as to who were the initiators of this practice?

● Bull-leaping was a Minoan ritual connected with bull worship, where the bull was not killed, contrary to bullfight. When it passed to the Mycenaeans, it was called in Greek ταυροκαθάψια; from ταῦρος (“bull”) and κάθαψις, a rare noun composed of the words κατά- (“across”) and ἅπτομαι (“touch, reach”); thus, literally, “touching of the bull”. Representations (frescoes, statuettes, seals, etc.) of the ritual, outside Crete or Hellas, have been found in Asia Minor (Smyrna, Hattusa), Canaan, Egypt, Bactria, and the Indus Valley.

Juanito Apinani‘s speed and bravery in the bullring of Madrid,
from the etchings “La Tauromaquia” by Francisco Goya (1815-16)

● Non-violent taurocathapsia (bull-leaping), practiced in Spain, were called recortes. The recortadores competed at dodging and leaping over bulls without a cape or sword. Some used a long pole to literally pole-vault over the charging animal, which was not restrained by any guiding rope or similar safety device. The recortes were common in the 19th century. Etchings by painter Francisco Goya depict these events.

● In neighbouring Portugal, the bullfight’s second stage, called pega (“holding”), was the one referred to by Barreto. The so-called forcados challenged the animal directly without protection or weapon of defense. The front man provoked the bull into a charge to perform a pega de cara (face grab), secured its head and was aided by his fellows who surrounded and subdued the animal. The bull was not killed in the ring, in the audience’s sight, but by a butcher. After an exceptional performance, some bulls were healed, released to pasture until their end days and used for breeding.

● A “safer” style of this ritual, practiced in French Gascony, used young cows instead of bulls, which were furthermore guided by long ropes attached to their horns, so that they ran directly towards the sauteurs (“leapers”) and écarteurs (“dodgers”), and were restrained from trampling or goring them should they miss a trick.

● In faraway South India, in Tamil Nadu, there was a related ritual, the jallikattu, as part of the harvest celebration. The participants tried to leap onto a bull, reaching for the money packets tied to its horns as a prize. The event has been depicted in rock art dated at least to the 3rd century BCE.

• >> Chronicle 6. INDO-IBERIAN ARC (Jondo)
• << Chronicle 4. ON DEMOCRACY

Next Chronicle 6. INDO-IBERIAN ARC (Jondo) ● Roma, Bartók, Pohren and Flamenco ● Lorca, Falla, Pedrell and Cante Jondo

“PERIPLUS”: an interview to a Hellenic newspaper

“PERIPLUS”: an interview to a Hellenic newspaper

/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ “ΠΕΡΙΠΛΟΥΣ”: συνέντευξη στην εφημερίδα “Η ΑΥΓΗ”

“THE DAWN” (SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 2013)

LETTERS & ARTS / MUSIC

Interview: THANOS MANDJANAS

“The Dawn”: a daily of the Coalition of the Radical Left (SyRizA)

 

“THE CULTURAL BRIDGES ARE NOT THE END BUT THE MEANS…”

 

Thanos Mandjanas: Do you perceive music as an inner need for soulful expression, a precious hobby perhaps, or an additional (professional) occupation?

Michales Loukovikas: Dealing with music is or should be an inner need for soulful expression for everyone, even for amateur hobbyists. For me, moreover, it is a professional vocation one should serve faithfully and consistently. That’s why I have also become a journalist…

Periplus / deambulações luso-gregas

TM: Do you consider the music of “Periplus” to be world/ethnic, just Mediterranean popular music, or you give it some other name? Do you really believe there are also some elements of new age – albeit with the wider meaning of the term – or not?

ML: I was never interested in these terms. Besides, they were coined by merchants. In “The Gold in the Sky”, based on Ares Alexandrou’s poetry, released bilingual also in Portugal, I attempted a West-to-East voyage. “Periplus” is a voyage, as well: Voyaging music…

TM: Concerning the CD, you wrote that you tried to create “bridges” among countries, peoples and cultures. Does it mean, therefore, that this work has a scope that goes beyond pure music? Could it also be that this intercultural parameter reduced even partially the musical nature of the project?

ML: When artists coming from different cultures decide to work together, if they do not use some international “dialect”, of western origin as a rule, they are obliged to create “channels” of communication. These “bridges” are not the end but the means. Our aim is to create a work of art.

TM: Are you satisfied with the sales of the CD so far, both abroad and in Hellas? What is the commercial potential of this and any other similar Greek project in the globalized disc market?

ML: Commercialism that deifies the mainstream killing creativity? Is “Periplus” incomprehensible, indeed? The problem, therefore, lies in the mass media of promotion… Fortunately, there are alternative markets and distribution networks. In Portugal we are doing well! We are now getting ready for Brazil! In Hellas? We are working on it…

Periplus / Luso-Hellenic Wanderings

TM: This disc was produced while the economic and general crisis afflicting our country since 2010 had begun. Has this conjuncture, its circumstances and consequences, affected in any way the creative process and, if so, in what way?
Would the release of this material be possible without the support of exclusively Portuguese institutions? By the way, what can you say about the cultural policy of the official Hellenic state in the era of Memoranda and especially in the field of funding such projects?

ML: “Periplus” would be unthinkable without the support of the Society of Portuguese Authors (SPA) and the European Capital of Culture of Guimarães. Portugal observed some procedures (but not anymore); unlike what’s been happening here where we even rejoice singing that “the Hellenes make circuits and the groups of friends history”… It’s the natural consequence of the absence of cultural (or any other) policy. We are promoting the culture of Hellas abroad and, instead of “thanks”, she is trying to turn us into some kind of modern “(Josef) K.”s waiting outside “The Castle” to be received by some hot-shot executive…

TM: What are your plans concerning “Periplus” and beyond?

ML: “Periplus” was chosen as one of the best albums of the year in most Portuguese media and was nominated for the SPA prize as the best disc of 2012. I was lucky enough to work with a great artist and human being: Amélia Muge. So, no difficulty is insurmountable. The voyage goes on…

●

Ο “Περίπλους” στο Festival Músicas do Mundo τού Sines

TM: What was the most important element that attracted you to Michales Loukovikas’ work and made you work with him?

Amélia Muge: The music Michales Loukovikas makes is of the future. He combines the Occident with the Orient, the traditional with the erudite, time and space, in a unique way; and with an irreprehensible choice of poetry he sets to music, like that e.g. by Ares Alexandrou.

TM: Do you think that this project goes beyond the reach of a disc and acquires a wider cultural scope? Would you say it belongs to the music of both Portugal and Hellas, or is it something else, different, born with the union of these two cultures or even more?

AM: “Periplus” has been a process of creation and initiation. We are dealing with musics and cultures older than our countries; or sailing to other seas, as with the morna of Cape Verde. The horizon of this work surpasses the horizon of both our civilizations.

TM: Finally, is the sea the most important element that links the civilizations and cultures of Greece and Portugal or is there something else which is more important?

AM: More important is the way we navigate in the “sea of mind” and the “ocean of sounds”, with the compass pointing to “Ithaca”, combining imagination and knowledge, creation and vision, focused on our artistic work – but always in touch with reality.

●

>> Critical remarks on “PERIPLUS” in the Press

Navegando para o Rio de Janeiro!

Navegando para o Rio de Janeiro!

/ENGLISH/ Sailing to Rio de Janeiro!
/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ Πλώρη για Rio de Janeiro!

Museu Afro-Brasileiro

ΙΙΙ Festival

TÃO LONGE, TÃO PERTO

Música e Poesia em Língua Portuguesa

(Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Maio de 2013)*

Testemunho para debate de Michales Loukovikas

* O Festival Tão Longe Tão Perto foi organizado em colaboração com o grupo Música Surda: Andréia Pedroso, Antônio Jardim, Artur Gouvêa e Eduardo Gatto.
 
 

Quando Amélia Muge e eu começámos a trocar e pesquisar material relacionado com as nossas tradições, a lusitana-portuguesa e a helénica-grega, muitas pessoas ergueram as sobrancelhas com ironia e descrença:

“Ah, eles são loucos”, pensaram, outros até disseram: “Portugal e Grécia são tão distantes, é impossível encontrar uma base comum”…

Imaginem o que dirão estas pessoas de “sobrancelha erguida” agora que estamos falando num triângulo, não o das… Bermudas, mas de Portugal, Brasil e Grécia. Bom, Portugal e Brasil, tudo bem, a relação é evidente: antiga colónia e metrópole. Mas… a Grécia?!!

Flamenco (de Hyatt Moore):
uma arte ligando a Iberia e a India

Posso dizer que os resultados de nossa colaboração até a nós surpreenderam! Devo acrescentar que mesmo a alguém que como eu tem vindo a pesquisar neste campo há muitos anos, concluindo que civilização e cultura são o
resultado do dar e receber, de trocas. Também provei nos meus programas de rádio que lugares tão distantes como Índia e Ibéria por exemplo têm estado interconectados faz milhares de anos, desde os tempos antigos… Bem, quando nós, gregos, dizemos “antigos” significa AEC (antes da era comum) ou AC (antes de Cristo), se preferirem.

Todas essas ideias foram ainda mais reforçadas quando Amélia e eu começamos a trabalhar no Periplus. Claro que mesmo agora ainda há alguns “pontos obscuros”; questões que permanecem sem resposta. É por exemplo uma questão intrigante para mim: como pode a Amélia, uma portuguesa nascida em Moçambique, compor em estilo antigo? Isto porque todos os três temas gregos antigos que temos no Periplus (o Epitáfio de Seikilos, o Primeiro Hino Délfico dedicado a Apolo e o Hino a Némesis de Mesomedes) foram incluídos por causa das composições dela, que me lembraram as canções gregas antigas supra mencionadas. É muito estranho.

Pyxis (Píxis): uma pequena caixa cilíndrica andalusa, de marfim, para cosméticos ou joalharia (séc. X)

 

Mas fora esses “pontos obscuros”, que sempre nos irão desafiar a encontrar respostas satisfatórias, fomos capazes de organizar o resto do puzzle com algum conforto. E quando o nosso Periplus foi lançado, eu pude dizer:

“As conexões estão aí, esperando por nós para serem descobertas. Só é necessário pesquisar metodicamente, é claro, e com uma bússola adequada” – como vocês dizem, bússula, como nós dizemos.

• ^(a) Temos a mesma palavra vinda do grego (pyxos > pyxis-pyxida > buxis-buxida > box, boîte, e bussola), com o nome dado à planta pyxos (> buxo) como ponto de partida; é um arbusto de madeira muito dura, compacta e durável que tem sido usada desde a antiguidade para construir recipientes, tais como pyxides (pequenas caixas), e instrumentos musicais de corda e sopro. As suas sementes estão dentro de uma cápsula que também se chama pixídio. De facto, quem dentro dos não-especialistas poderia imaginar que a inglesa box (caixa) tinha tido uma origem grega?

●

Mecanismo de Anticítera

A península grega e o seu arquipélago não foram um começo da história da civilização. Os gregos receberam a sabedoria do Oriente (Ásia Menor, Egipto e Mesopotâmia) e transformaram-na em ciência;^(b) foi um grande feito! E deixaram uma literatura maravilhosa! A civilização helênica tornou-se por isso a base fundadora das culturas ocidentais.

• ^(b) Não pode existir uma grande civilização sem a tecnologia equivalente. Uma maravilha neste domínio é o Mecanismo de Anticítera, o mais antigo computador analógico, concebido para calcular as posições dos astros. Datado de 100 AC, foi recuperado em 1901 de um navio naufragado perto da Anticítera entre o Peloponeso e Creta, mas o seu significado e complexidade só foram compreendidos um século depois. Dispositivos de um nível correspondente reaparecerão na Europa no séc.14, com a construção dos relógios astronómicos. O professor Michael Edmunds da Universidade de Cardiff, que dirigiu em 2006 um estudo sobre este mecanismo, refere:
  “Este mecanismo é simplesmente extraordinário, único dentro deste género. O design é maravilhoso, a astronomia exacta. A forma como foi concebido deixa-nos de queixo caído… Em termos de valor histórico e raridade, sou obrigado a olhar para este mecanismo como sendo mais valioso que a Mona Lisa.”

Victória, a única nau da frota de F. Magalhães que completou o periplus ou circum-navegação à volta da terra (detalhe de um mapa de Ortelius, 1590)

Os periploi (plural de periplus) que chegaram até nós ocorreram no mar Mediterrânico e nos oceanos Índico e Atlântico. Heródoto também escreveu sobre um périplo por África feito pelos fenícios em nome de um faraó egípcio. Um grego de Alexandria (Egipto) descreveu as costas do Oceano Índico na África do leste e Índia. Píteas, da colónia grega de Massália (moderna Marselha, França) viajou pelo norte até às Ilhas Britânicas e Escandinávia e concluiu um periplus europeu navegando através dos rios da Europa do Báltico ao Mar Negro, voltando ao Mediterrâneo. Há também quem acredite que os minoicos cretenses, os gregos, os egípcios, os púnicos e outros povos da antiguidade navegaram até ás Américas antes dos vikings ou de Colombo – ou, é claro, de Fernão de Magalhães que tentou um periplus à volta da terra mas não teve a sorte de concluí-lo.

Mas essas viagens começaram na Idade do Bronze, muito antes dos registos históricos. Há muitos indícios de que os minóicos na época do seu domínio marítimo (talassocracia) viajaram até á Cornualha (Bretanha) à procura de estanho, ou obtinham-no no sul da Gália. O estanho é um componente necessário ao fabrico do bronze (10% de estanho com 90% de cobre). Havia naquela época muito cobre no Mediterrâneo. Chipre por exemplo estava cheio de cobre e o nome desta ilha tem origem nesta palavra. Mas estanho? Não havia muitos lugares no Mediterrâneo que o tivessem e os que o tinham era em pouca quantidade.

Andaluzia com Tartessos e Gadir-Gadeira-Gades-Cádis, uma colónia fenícia em três ilhas com nomes gregos: Erytheia, Kotinoussa e Antipolis, enquanto Melcarte, o deus tutelar, se assemelha a Héracles, o fundador da cidade segundo um mito grego…

Os minoicos e mais tarde os gregos e os fenícios, navegaram até á Ibéria que era rica em minerais. Muito provavelmente teriam sido os andaluzes a levar os cretenses até à Galiza, Bretanha e Cornualha: eles sabiam o caminho… Todos esses lugares, especialmente a Cornualha, possuíam grandes depósitos de estanho. Lá, perto da Galiza, ou talvez da Cornualha, estariam as chamadas Cassitérides Nesoi, as Ilhas de Estanho (cassiteros significa estanho em grego). Heródoto e outros historiadores escreveram também sobre as ligações dos gregos e fenícios com Tartessos na Andaluzia, na foz do Guadalquivir, e há quem nos dias de hoje correlacione Tartessos com a misteriosa Atlântida…

●

Uma das duas famosas estátuas gregas de tamanho inteiro de guerreiros barbudos despidos, as chamadas Bronzes de Riace, fundidas em cerca de 460-450 AC, redescobertas em 1972 e consideradas como um dos símbolos da Calábria

A minha investigação começou com algumas perguntas muito simples:

• Aonde é que a Idade do Bronze Mediterrânica encontrou estanho para produzir o bronze?

• Quem foram os comerciantes marítimos desse tempo a trazer este metal crucial para o Mediterrâneo e onde é que o encontraram?^(c)

• ^(c) Podem consultar detalhes desta saga no blogue de Periplus, na categoria Once Upon a… Wave, nas Crónicas de 1 a 10: tendo como ponto de partida um Périplo mediterrânico; deambula-se pela Creta minóica, pela Grécia micénica, pela Fenícia; desvenda-se o Enigma dos Povos do Mar; descobre-se o “El Dorado” na Ibéria; Revivendo um Périplo ibérico; e observa-se os esforços para Restringir a liberdade de pensamento, bem como a catástrofe de Tartesso e Cartago (“Carthago Delenda Est”), enquanto se vê a Ibéria com olhos imparciais, e se tiram conclusões a partir de um Waterloo arquelógico.

A conclusão é que certas necessidades levam as pessoas a viver em conjunto, a comunicar, a fazer trocas entre elas. Foi assim que a sociedade nasceu, as cidades foram criadas, apareceram as classes e a divisão social do trabalho, e a escrita foi inventada. A interacção embora ligada a necessidades materiais transformou os que trabalharam em conjunto também pela troca de ideias e ideais, processo que está na base do nascimento da civilização e da cultura.

Safo e Alcaeu, de Lawrence Alma-Tadema

Não é assim tão óbvio, mas temos também coisas como um “periplus” noutros empreendimentos humanos. A música nasceu em conjunto com a fala. Num estado mais avançado, na Grécia antiga, música significava quer o instrumental quer a canção. A poesia na Grécia clássica era inconcebível sem música. As duas artes acabaram… por divorciar-se mais tarde, no séc. 4 AC. Contudo, quer antes, quer depois, foi necessário (e ainda é) um “periplus” para combinar sons e palavras, e para expressar o significado das palavras através dos sons. Algo parecido acontece na tradução: neste caso, o “periplus” diz respeito a duas linguagens. É a viagem do texto, o seu sentido e estilo, conteúdo e forma, ao ser adaptado para que comece a respirar num outro ambiente linguístico…

●

A Odisseia é uma espécie de “periplus” poético. De acordo com os Lusitanos, as deambulações de Odisseu( Ulisses) foram também luso-gregas: ele fundou Lisboa e teve um filho de uma princesa Ibérica: Calipso. Homero descreveu a descida de Odisseu ao Hades, o mundo dos mortos, que estava para lá dos Pilares de Hércules, quer dizer, o Estreito de Gilbraltar. Os gregos localizaram na mesma área o Jardim das Hespérides e as Ilhas Afortunadas (Makaron Nesoi), as Ilhas Bem Aventuradas ou o Elísio, onde hoje se pensa ser a Macaronésia (Açores, Madeira, as Canárias e Cabo Verde).

Dante, no seu Inferno, cita outra versão da descida sem retorno de Odisseu ao mundo dos mortos. Segundo ele, o rei de Ítaca passou os Pilares de Hércules e velejando para sul, atravessou o Equador e continuou a viajar durante meses, até chegar a uma baía com uma grande montanha. Nessa altura, um tornado afundou o seu barco…

Não sei porquê, mas acho que essa baía com uma grande montanha é… o Rio de Janeiro! Eu gostaria de poder confirmá-lo…

GIORGOS ANDREOU sobre “PERIPLUS”

GIORGOS ANDREOU sobre “PERIPLUS”

Amélia Muge | Michales Loukovikas

/ENGLISH/ GIORGOS ANDREOU on “PERIPLUS”
/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ Ο ΓΙΩΡΓΟΣ ΑΝΔΡΕΟΥ για τον “ΠΕΡΙΠΛΟΥ”

Giorgos Andreou, um importante compositor e pianista grego

O que torna “Periplus” particularmente interessante é o facto de não ser um registo de música tradicional, seja de Portugal ou da Grécia. Quer dizer, não é um álbum que tenta simplemente agregar, de algum modo, uma parte da tradição e a sua sonoridade. Em qualquer caso, isso seria mais uma questão de folclore e não de criação. É claro que faz uso de elementos de ambas as tradições em quantidade considerável.

Mas o característico do “Periplus” é o seu dinamismo emanado destes dois cantoautores, Amélia Muge e Michales Loukovikas, que compuseram música original e trabalharam a sua matéria musical usando vários recursos na linguagem poética da canção: versos de poetas quer gregos quer portugueses, versos da antiga literatura helénica, ou da sua própria linguagem moderna, ou ainda, em menor grau, algumas canções populares de cada tradição, portuguesa ou grega, sem grandes alterações, onde, é claro, o objectivo é demonstrar as analogias que existem nesta grande bacia chamada Mediterrâneo.

Nesta grande bacia chamada Mediterrâneo, o grande viajante – infelizmente para os portugueses e para o resto dos povos do planeta – foi um grego antigo (mas também moderno no meu ponto de vista) chamado Odisseu (Ulisses). Neste caso, Odisseu é um arquétipo universal. Fundou, entre outras coisas, Lisboa, como o embaixador de Portugal acabou de dizer. Assim, ele até foi capaz de realizar este feito, para lá do seu envolvimento com os Lestrigões, os Ciclopes, Circe, Nausícaa, etc.

Ludwig van Beethoven de Francesco Jerace (1895)

Contudo, o que é importante quer na tradição portuguesa quer na grega – e gostaria de o dizer muito seriamente – é o facto de ela ter emergido como música popular urbana precisamente porque não houve como antecendente um profundo desenvolvimento de uma música clássica, “académica”. É claro que há importantes compositores de música académica na Grécia; é claro que os há em Portugal; mas nem a Grécia nem Portugal têm Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Vivaldi, Corelli, Scarlatti, Bellini, Puccini, etc. Constatou-se que onde, por várias razões históricas e culturais, não houve um desenvolvimento da linguagem académica musical, o que chamamos música clássica, há espaço para uma maior energética memória da tradição e ainda mais espaço para o desenvolvimento e apropriação desta tradição na sua transição para um meio urbano. É assim o fado, o rebétiko e é assim o blues, o tango… E todo o tipo de música que agora consideramos como emanação da tradição, e que é essencialmente popular, cresceu sobretudo num ambiente onde o peso da grande música sinfónica académica era inexistente.

Guitarra portuguesa, o instrumento preponderante do fado, acompanhado por uma espécie de guitarra espanhola, a que os portugueses chamam de “viola”…

Existem, é claro, grandes diferenças entre o fado e o rebétiko, como também um grande número de analogias. As analogias são exactamente as implícitas pelo ambiente geográfico e cultural que mencionei anteriormente, denominado Mediterrâneo, que determina uma atitude face á vida, uma postura existencial, á gente de culturas vivendo à volta dele. E o que é isso? É, no meu ponto de vista, a possibilidade de valorizar e dar uma grande importância à dôr individual.

Bouzouki: um instrumento com nome turco, que os turcos não tocam; apenas os gregos, os libaneses e ainda os irlandeses!

Se concordamos, como os nossos amigos portugueses, que existe na nossa música algo que nos liga, isso está na forma como lidamos com o âmago emocional da música; quer nas palavras – a aventura individual, existencial, de cada um – quer na música. Quer dizer a nossa faculdade musical, isto é, a nossa forma de entender o que é a canção. Porque falamos do fado como uma canção, falamos da nossa música de tradição popular como uma canção. E a canção necessita de um herói e de um companheiro do herói. O herói é o cantor e o companheiro, o instrumento que o acompanha. A guitarra portuguesa, no caso de Portugal, o bouzouki no nosso caso, têm este papel. É um duo, um duo de silêncio, um duo longe das grandes formas sinfónicas ‘fechadas’, um duo convincente, um duo de profunda e comovente emoção.

Eu gosto do “Periplus” porque é o esforço, a atenção, o testemunho dinâmico de dois autores, um português outro grego, que compõem originais, tendo em conta ao mesmo tempo de onde vêm e para onde vão. Para mim isto é a quintessência da criação, de toda a criação musical: respeitar as origens, de onde se vem, e ao mesmo tempo ser-se capaz de entrar em diálogo com elas e redefini-las. Porque uma tradição que não é redefinida e que não progride, morre e transforma-se numa mera atitude passadista e pitoresca.

Epitáfio de Seikilos (depois de 200 AC), a composição completa mais antiga do mundo (incluída no “Periplus”)

Outra coisa que me impressionou no trabalho da Amélia e do Michales: a existencia de alguns títulos, algumas sequências. O carácter destas sequências não é tanto investigativo, musicológico ou classificativo, mas antes emotivo e artístico. Sinto-me compelido a mencioná-las porque elas mesmas fazem nascer pensamentos e sentimentos. A primeira é “Das Ausências” e a segunda “Dos Caminhos”. É de notar que para nós, gregos, o sentido de “caminho” aplica-se também ás escalas musicais populares.

A terceira sequencia é “Dos Cantos”. A palavra “canto” em grego (tragoudi) deriva da antiga tragédia helénica; é melos, que é melodia; é a selecção de uma parte de um todo maior, mas uma parte de grande importância emotiva, ética, conceptual e musical. Segue-se “Das Ilhas”. A ilha transporta um especial simbolismo. É uma parte de terra rodeada por uma parte do mar. É uma parte da razão rodeada pelo mar do subconsciente.

Depois temos “Das Vozes”. A voz, como disse anteriormente, é o instrumento da canção. Não é por acaso que nesta sequência estão canções com antigos textos gregos, poesia grega antiga, em conjunto com alguns elementos tradicionais. Temos, portanto, tradições que se relacionam. Depois vem a sequencia “Dos Embalos”. Uma canção de embalar é o que dedicamos ao pilar que se segue na existência humana quando alguém não lembra nem sente, o sono-morte. Há muita literatura e discursos filosóficos na civilização helénica antiga sobre a conexão entre o sono e a morte.

A sequencia que se segue é “Dos Amores” com a variação de uma nossa deslumbrante canção tradicional “A folha da rosa” que foi encontrada também na música portuguesa numa similar, quase idêntica forma e atitude emotiva. A sequencia seguinte “De Profundis”, é, evidentemente, uma confissão em matéria de existencia, amor, emoção. O excelente “Os meus ditames” está aqui incluído, com versos de Ares Alexandrou e música de Michales Loukovikas, do seu trabalho prévio, “O Ouro do Céu”, dedicado ao grande pensador, poeta e autor grego.

Panaiotes (Panos) Tountas

 
Segue-se “Das Tascas e Tavernas”, com a supra-citada similitude na atitude dos povos de ambas as culturas. Evidentemente, que, uma vez que estamos a falar da relação da tradição com a criação pessoal, a canção que Michales e Amélia escolheram, “Os mangas da taverna”, não é de um grego desconhecido, mas do grande compositor Panaiotes Tountas. Tountas, um dos mais eruditos e importantes compositores de canções populares, tendo estudado música, foi, durante seu período esmirnaico, quase um músico académico e, ao mesmo tempo, popular.

Eleni Tsaligopoulou

Finalmente, há a sequência “Tão longe tão perto”, um registo poético de semelhanças e diferenças, com o momento alto e, quanto a mim, o ponto mais alto do CD, na paralela interpretação da mesma canção com Eleni Tsaligopoulou em grego e Amélia Muge em português. É, emocionalmente, um momento muito importante, eu considero-o um climax; na verdade fiquei sem fala. O CD acaba com a canção que se justifica ter alguma subjectividade por parte da Amélia, uma canção dedicada a uma prévia importante presença, a de Violeta Parra, de quem uma composição foi de algum modo referência e fonte de inspiração para a Amélia.

Gostava de concluir dizendo que há composições muito importantes em “Periplus”, quer de Amélia Muge quer de Michales Loukovikas, e este é para mim, o mérito do CD. Para lá das conexões, para lá das analogias entre culturas, para lá da intenção de mostrar, demonstrar de novo e redefinir fronteiras e contactos de muitos géneros, o que é importante, para mim, é se se consegue produzir uma obra de arte. Quando, em qualquer situação, é produzida uma obra de arte, todas as intenções prévias se justificam. Se não houver obra de arte, tudo o resto são apenas slogans que não se concretizaram.

Muito bem, meus amigos, e continuem!

Discurso durante a apresentação do “Periplus” na
livraria “Jano” em Atenas a 23 de Outubro de 2012

● Ver também MARIA DO ROSÁRIO PESTANA sobre “PERIPLUS”

TROUPE MUSICAL do PERIPLUS: Amélia Muge: voz, guitarra braguesa, coros, fala, sons de ambiente. | Michales Loukovikas: voz, coros, fala, amostras de vozes e sons, estalos, percussão, acordeão, palmas.
António Quintino: contrabaixo. | Filipe Raposo: piano, teclados, acordeão. | Harris Lambrakis: ney (flauta oriental), flauta de bisel. | José Martins: percussão, kalimba, sintetizador, sons, palmas. | José Salgueiro: percussão, palmas. | Kyriakos Gouventas: violin, viola, bandolim. | Manos Achalinotopoulos: clarino (clarinete folk), voz, coros. | Ricardo Parreira: guitarra portuguesa.

CONVIDADOS ESPECIAIS: Eleni Tsaligopoulou, cantora: lengalengas, risos, coros, voz. | Hélia Correia, escritora: voz. | Outra Voz, coro dos cidadãos de Guimarães: sons de água, de vento, de mar, de ambiente, coros, lengalengas, respirações, falas.

OUTROS PARTICIPANTES: André Maia: fala. | Catarina Anacleto: violoncelo, coros. | Cristina Benedita: coros. | Dimitris Mystakidis: bouzouki, djurá, guitarra de rebético. | Eduardo Salgueiro: palmas. | Francisco e Sofia Van Epps: lengalengas, risos. | Irene Bakalopoulou: harpa. | José Barros: bandolim, cavaquinho, guitarra braguesa, coros. | José Manuel David: kalimba, voz, trompa, gaita, coros. | Kostas Theodorou: contrabaixo, percussão. | Mariana Abrunheiro: coros. | Margarida Guerreiro: pragas. | Pedro Pinhal: viola de fado. | Rui Vaz: fala, coros. | Teresa Muge: voz, pragas. | Ziad Rajab: oud. | Zoe Tiganouria: acordeão.

PERIPLUS: Deambulações luso-gregas

PERIPLUS: Deambulações luso-gregas

/ENGLISH/ PERIPLUS: Luso-Hellenic Wanderings
/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ ΠΕΡΙΠΛΟΥΣ: Ελληνοπορτογαλικές περιηγήσεις

PERIPLUS, significando circum-navegação, refere-se ás antigas viagens no Mediterrâneo e para lá dele, no oceano Atlântico e Índico. Escolhemos este termo para representar a nossa própria viagem no tempo e no espaço à volta da cultura mediterrânica e de todas as outras que floresceram através do contacto com este berço civilizacional.

Focalizámo-nos na ligação entre a música e a poesia, especialmente a dos nossos países, Portugal e Grécia. É por isso que os que vêm a bordo do Periplus são principalmente portugueses e gregos, embora sejamos tudo menos exclusivistas: construir pontes, abrir janelas, é o que fazemos melhor, trabalhando em conjunto, sobretudo via internet.

 
O nosso objectivo foi o de trabalhar a música e poesia numa contemporaneidade inspirada no riquíssimo comum património artístico, não apenas erudito mas também popular. Assim, para lá das músicas de nossa autoria incluímos, recuando até à música e poesia grega antiga e adaptando, de acordo com a nossa sensibilidade, o Primeiro Hino délfico dedicado a Apolo, composto provavelmente por Athenaeus, o Hino a Némesis de Mesomedes e o Epitáfio de Seikilos.

Kisanji (Calimba)

Dentro do mesmo espírito trabalhámos temas tradicionais como o português Cantiga de rega, o grego Syrtós cretense, o igualmente cretense Pesado como ferro, o epirótico Meu pássaro emigrado e o rebético Os mangas da taverna que aqui dialoga com o equivalente canto urbano português, o fado. Partindo ainda da morna de Cabo Verde aportamos nas escalas pentatónicas de África e do Épiro. Também encontrámos proximidades e referencias comuns nas canções de embalar e lenga-lengas de ambos os países, e uma quase identica lírica entre Da folhinha de uma rosa portuguesa e galega, e A folha da rosa, uma canção grega oriunda da Ásia Menor.

Hélia Correia e “A Terceira Miséria”
com o Pártenon na capa

Estão presentes poetas de que muito gostamos: Ares Alexandrou com Nota ilegal, Canção de embalar e Os meus ditames; Fernando Pessoa com Calma; Constantino Cavafy com Ítaca; Natália Correia com Cântico do país emerso; e Hélia Correia com a sua adaptação do Epitáfio de Seikilos, que ela aqui canta no original grego antigo.

Além de Hélia Correia temos mais convidados especiais: a cantora grega Eleni Tsaligopoulou e também a Outra Voz, Coro de Cidadãos, criado no âmbito do Área da Comunidade, de Guimarães Capital Europeia da Cultura. Esta participação da sociedade civil é para nós crucial, no esforço de ligação entre o popular e o erudito, a tradição e a inovação, o antigo e o moderno, a grecofonia e a lusofonia, o longe e o perto.

Amélia Muge & Michales Loukovikas

PERIPLUS: Luso-Hellenic Wanderings

PERIPLUS: Luso-Hellenic Wanderings

/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ ΠΕΡΙΠΛΟΥΣ: Ελληνοπορτογαλικές περιηγήσεις
/PORTUGUÊS/ PERIPLUS: Deambulações luso-gregas

PERIPLUS, meaning “sailing around”, refers to the ancient voyages around the Mediterranean and beyond, in the Atlantic and the Indian oceans. We have chosen this term to signify our own voyage in time and space around the Mediterranean culture and all the others that blossomed coming into contact with this cradle of civilization.

Our focus is the union of music and poetry, especially those of our countries, Portugal and Hellas. That is why most of those aboard Periplus are Portuguese and Greeks, although we are anything but an exclusive club: building bridges, opening windows, is our specialty, working together mainly via the internet.

 

 

Our aim is to create new music and poetry, inspired by the great arts of the past, our rich, common heritage, not only erudite but also folk. Thus, except our own original songs, we have gone as far back as the ancient Hellenic music and poetry, adapting according to our sensibilities the First Delphic Hymn, dedicated to Apollo, probably composed by Athenaeos (circa 138-128 BCE), the Epitaph by Seikilos (sometime between 2nd century BCE and 1st century CE), and the Hymn to Nemesis by Mesomedes of Crete (early 2nd century CE).

Kalimba or thumb piano

In the same spirit, we have worked on folk themes, such as the Portuguese Watering Song, the Greek Cretan Syrtos, the equally Cretan Heavy As Iron, the Epirotic My Immigrant Bird, and the Rebetiko The Manges of the Tavern, which we combine with its Portuguese equivalent, the Fado, while from the Cape-Verdian Morna we land to the pentatone of Africa and Epirus. We have also found common grounds and references in lullabies and children’s rhymes of both countries and also in the love song The Foliage of a Rose as sung by Greeks, Portuguese and Galicians with almost identical lyrics.

Hélia Correia and “A Terceira Miséria”
with Parthenon on the cover

 

Some of the poets we have loved are present here: Ares Alexandrou with his Illegal Note, Lullaby, and The Inner Dictates; Fernando Pessoa with his Calm, Constantine Cavafy with his Ithaca; Natália Correia with her Ode to an Emersed Land; and Hélia Correia with her adaptation of the Epitaph by Seikilos, which she sings in the original ancient Greek.

Except Hélia Correia, we have more special guests: the Greek singer Eleni Tsaligopoulou, and also Outra Voz, a choir of Guimarães citizens, created after their city had been designated as a European Capital of Culture. This participation of the civil society is crucial for us in our effort to link the folk with the erudite, the traditional with the innovative, the ancient with the modern, the Graecophone with the Lusophone, the nearby with the distant.

Amélia Muge & Michales Loukovikas

Comentários sobre o “PERIPLUS” na imprensa

Comentários sobre o “PERIPLUS” na imprensa

/ENGLISH/ Critical remarks on “PERIPLUS” in the Press
/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ Σχόλια για τον “ΠΕΡΙΠΛΟΥ” στον πορτογαλικό Τύπο

 

A GRÉCIA JÁ CÁ CANTA

Nuno Pacheco, “Público” – 20 Fevereiro 2012

Amélia e Michales completaram a primeira viagem intermusical da era moderna entre Portugal e a Grécia, fazendo o que até aqui ninguém tinha feito: estreitando laços, entrelaçando notas (as musicais, que as outras rareiam), compondo novos itinerários a partir de antigas rotas…
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CIRCUM-NAVEGAÇÃO ÀS RAÍZES DO FUTURO

Maria Ramos Silva, “i” – 21 Fevereiro 2012

Um entendimento inato em afinidades musicais, generosidade e contagiante sentido de humor. Amélia e Michales, um Portugal-Grécia na liderança do campeonato das pontes entre os povos…

Um caldeirão de sons onde se cozinham afinidades culturais além-fronteiras da crise…
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EPOPEIA LUSO-GREGA

Nuno Pacheco, “Público/Ípsilon” – 24 Fevereiro 2012

Amélia Muge fez com Michales Loukovikas o disco que ainda ninguém tinha feito. Une Portugal e a Grécia, Ocidente e Oriente, passado e futuro…

Amélia Muge e Michales Loukovikas, num tempo em que a crise varre Portugal e a Grécia, põem em “Periplus” a força das antigas epopeias, propondo uma viagem musical luso-grega que abarca, na mesma aventura, outras culturas vizinhas, da Ásia à África…

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“Periplus”, uma ideia cara a Amélia Muge, era desde o início uma aposta arriscada. Unir culturas do Mediterrâneo às vizinhas do Atlântico e do Índico, misturando Ocidente e Oriente sem cair em “pastiches” multiculturais de duvidoso gosto, exigia uma enorme dose de dedicação, empenho e sabedoria. A pedra de toque encontrou-a Amélia na ligação entre Portugal e a Grécia, ao trabalhar com Michales Loukovikas (excelente descoberta) e dividir com ele e mais um lote de músicos de grande talento, portugueses e gregos, tal aventura. O resultado é um diamante polido até quase à perfeição…

Isto numa abordagem contemporânea onde as linhas melódicas e rítmicas dos dois países se aproximam, interligam e desafiam de forma natural e fluída, como se sempre tivessem sido vizinhas e conversado assim…
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SOMOS TODOS GREGOS

João Lisboa, “Expresso/Atual” – 25 Fevereiro 2012

Uma cimeira de poetas e músicos portugueses e gregos, presidida por Amélia Muge e Michales Loukovikas, para confirmar a ideia de que muito daquilo que somos também existe do outro lado…

Mediterrâneo, portanto. Que teve como porto de partida para a sua exploração o interesse pela obra do poeta grego Ares Alexandrou… e se prolongou através de uma busca intuitiva de pontos de contacto e traços de identidade comuns que… basta descobrir…
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PORTUGAL E GRÉCIA UNIDOS POR UMA NOITE EM LISBOA

João Moço, “Diário de Notícias” – 25 Fevereiro 2012

“Periplus”… muito mais do que um mero conjunto de canções, é uma viagem musical pelas tradições portuguesas e gregas, evocando-se também as antigas epopeias enquanto se olha para o futuro…

Este encontro musical entre Portugal e Grécia ganha também um redobrado simbolismo numa altura em que ambos os países enfrentam intensos problemas sociais…
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DÉDALOS E OUTRAS CONTAS

Nuno Rogeiro, “Sábado” – 1 Março 2012

Sigo com interesse, há décadas, o caminho singular de Amélia Muge, entre a tradição mítica e os temas “sociais”. Mas “Periplus, deambulações luso-gregas” é ainda mais belo. Músicos e instrumentos de cá, e da península arquipelágica helénica, a Odisseia em sons, o Mediterrâneo real e imaginário, o Ocidente onde Portugal repousa, sonha e sofre, com duas grandes baladas: “Pesado como ferro” e “Zum Zum”.
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AMÉLIA MUGE + MICHALES LOUKOVIKAS

João Miguel Tavares, “Time Out” – 21 Março 2012

… Há uma imensa ironia no facto de “Periplus”, que tem como subtítulo “deambulações luso-gregas”, celebrar essa espécie de cordão umbilical mediterrânico que une a Grécia a Portugal pelo menos desde o mito da fundação de Lisboa, atribuída a Ulisses. Irmãos na falência económica, eis que os dois países se unem aqui para celebrar a sua riqueza cultural ao abrigo de qualquer austeridade – os discos de Amélia Muge são uma luxuosa filigrana de sons, instrumentos e versos, e “Periplus” não foge à regra.

Mais do que isso: são sempre tudo menos óbvios. Se ela aqui se une ao músico e compositor grego Michales Loukovikas, não é para criar um europudim, com guitarra braguesa e bouzouki. Sim, há uma guitarra braguesa, e sim, há bouzouki, tal como há traços de rebétiko e de fado, há versos de Pessoa e hinos délficos. Mas nada é abordado de uma forma convencional – bem pelo contrário, cada faixa é um acumular de surpresas, seja em “Deixa Brilhar”,^(*) onde Hélia Correia canta (sim, canta) em grego, seja por exemplo, em “Da folhinha de uma Rosa”, um tema magnífico que resume na perfeição a forma como é possível fazer um patchwork luso-galaico-grego sem deixar uma única costura à mostra…

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^(*) É o “Epitáfio” composto por Seikilos, algures depois do 2º século AC; um epigrama gravado numa pedra tumular cilíndrica contendo o texto e a música (nos símbolos da antiga notação grega): temos portanto uma canção, a canção completa mais antiga que existe. A pedra tumular foi encontrada em Aydin, a antiga Trales, na Ásia Menor, perto de Éfeso. O nosso título decorre da primeira frase (segundo adaptação de Hélia Correia): Ó mortal, deixa brilhar…

Quando um dia nos encontrámos com a Hélia, dissémos-lhe, entre outras coisas, que o “Epitáfio” iria ser incluído no “Periplus”. Para nossa grande surpresa, ela não só conhecia a composição de Seikilos (coisa que grande parte dos gregos ignora), como começou imediatamente a cantá-la em grego antigo! Quem melhor do que ela poderia cantá-la no disco? E assim surgiu o convite…

●

Critical remarks on “PERIPLUS” in the Press

Critical remarks on “PERIPLUS” in the Press

/PORTUGUÊS/ Comentários sobre o “PERIPLUS” na imprensa
/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ Σχόλια για τον “ΠΕΡΙΠΛΟΥ” στον πορτογαλικό Τύπο

 

GREECE IS HERE TO SING

Nuno Pacheco, “Público” – February 20, 2012

Amélia and Michales have completed the first intermusical voyage of the modern era between Portugal and Greece, doing what no-one else has done until now: strengthening links, interconnecting notes (the musical ones, because the others are rare), creating new itineraries with ancient routes as starting points…
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CIRCUM-NAVIGATION TOWARDS THE ROOTS OF THE FUTURE

Maria Ramos Silva, “i” – February 21, 2012

An innate understanding of musical affinities, generosity and contagious sense of humour. Amélia and Michales, a Portugal-Greece in the leadership of the championship of building bridges among peoples…

A cauldron of sounds where cultural affinities are cooked beyond the frontiers of crisis…
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LUSO-HELLENIC EPIC

Nuno Pacheco, “Público/Ípsilon” – February 24, 2012

Amélia Muge has made, together with Michales Loukovikas, the disc that no-one else has produced yet, uniting Portugal and Greece, Occident and Orient, past and future…

Amélia Muge and Michales Loukovikas, in a time that the crisis sweeps Portugal and Greece, put in “Periplus” the vigour of the ancient epics, proposing a Luso-Hellenic musical voyage that encompasses, within the same adventure, other neighbouring cultures, from Asia to Africa…

●

“Periplus”, an idea so dear to Amélia Muge, has been a risky bet since the beginning. Uniting cultures of the Mediterranean with neighbouring ones of the Atlantic and of the Indian oceans, mixing the Occident and the Orient without giving in to multicultural “pastiches” of dubious taste, demands an enormous dose of dedication, determination and knowledge. The touchstone came across Amélia in the link of Portugal and Greece, working with Michales Loukovikas (an excellent discovery) and sharing with him and a lot of musicians of great talent, Portuguese and Greeks, such an adventure. The result is a diamond polished to the point of almost perfection…

All this in a contemporary approach where the melodic and rhythmic lines of the two countries approximate, interconnect and challenge each other in a natural and fluid form, as if they have always been neighbours and conversed like that…
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WE ARE ALL GREEKS

João Lisboa, “Expresso/Atual” – February 25, 2012

A summit of Portuguese and Greek poets and musicians, presided by Amélia Muge and Michales Loukovikas, in order to confirm the idea that much of what we are exists on the other side, as well…

Mediterranean, of course. Which had as a port of departure for its exploration the interest about the work of the Greek poet Ares Alexandrou… and was prolonged through an intuitive search of points of contact and common identity features that… one needs only to discover…
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PORTUGAL AND GREECE UNITED FOR ONE NIGHT IN LISBON

João Moço, “Diário de Notícias” – February 25, 2012

“Periplus”… much more than a mere collection of songs, is a musical voyage through Portuguese and Greek traditions, evoking also the ancient epics while the future is being gazed on…

This musical meeting between Portugal and Greece gains a double symbolism, as well, in a moment that both countries face intense social problems…
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DAEDALUS AND OTHER ACCOUNTS

Nuno Rogeiro, “Sábado” – March 1, 2012

For decades now, I have been following with interest the singular path of Amélia Muge between a mythical tradition and the “social” themes. But “Periplus, Luso-Hellenic Wanderings” is even more beautiful. Musicians and instruments, from here and from the Hellenic archipelagic peninsula, an Odyssey in sounds, the Mediterranean, real and imaginary, the Occident where Portugal reposes, dreams and suffers, with two grand ballads: “Heavy as Iron” and “Zum Zum”.
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AMÉLIA MUGE + MICHALES LOUKOVIKAS

João Miguel Tavares, “Time Out” – March 21, 2012

… There is an immense irony in the fact that “Periplus”, which has as a subtitle “Luso-Hellenic Wanderings”, celebrates that sort of Mediterranean umbilical cord linking Greece with Portugal at least since the myth of the foundation of Lisbon, that is attributed to Ulysses. Brothers in the economic bankruptcy, the two countries join forces here to celebrate their cultural wealth on the face of any austerity – Amélia Muge’s discs are a luxurious filigree of sounds, instruments and verses, and “Periplus” is no exception.

More than that: they are always anything but obvious. If she joins here forces with the Greek musician and composer Michales Loukovikas, it is not to create an euro-pudding with a braguesa guitar and a bouzouki. Yes, there is a braguesa guitar, and yes, there is a bouzouki, as there are traces of rebetiko and fado, there are Pessoa’s verses and Delphic hymns. But nothing is approached in a conventional way – quite the contrary, each track is an accumulation of surprises, as in “Shine”,^(*) where Hélia Correia sings (yes, sings) in Greek, as for example in “The Foliage of a Rose”, a magnificent theme that sums up perfectly how it is possible to make a Luso-Galician-Greek patchwork without leaving a single seam on display…

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^(*) It is the “Epitaph” composed by Seikilos sometime after the 2nd century BC; an epigram engraved on a cylindrical tombstone with lyrics and music (the symbols of the ancient Greek notation): that is, we have a song, the oldest extant complete song in the world. The tombstone was found in Aydin, ancient Tralles, nearby Ephesus, in Asia Minor. Our title derives from the first verse: While you live, shine…

One day we met Hélia Correia and, among other things, we told her that this “Epitaph” will be included in “Periplus”. To our great surprise, Hélia not only knew Seikilos’ composition (which most Greek musicians ignore), but she immediately began to sing it in ancient Greek! We then decided that Hélia was entitled to sing the “Epitaph” in the disc, as well…

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>> “PERIPLUS”: an interview to a Hellenic newspaper

GIORGOS ANDREOU on “PERIPLUS”

GIORGOS ANDREOU on “PERIPLUS”

Amélia Muge | Michales Loukovikas

/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ Ο ΓΙΩΡΓΟΣ ΑΝΔΡΕΟΥ για τον “ΠΕΡΙΠΛΟΥ”
/PORTUGUÊS/ GIORGOS ANDREOU sobre “PERIPLUS”

Giorgos Andreou, a distinguished
Greek composer and pianist

THE CD “PERIPLUS” is a very interesting endeavour because it’s not just a recording of traditional music of either Portugal or Greece; that is, it is not a disc that simply attempts to somehow compose in part the traditions and sounds of the two cultures. Because, in such a case, it would be more a project of folklore and not of artistic creation. Of course, elements of both these related traditions are used in a considerable extent; but this is not the central “theme” of the disc.

The characteristic of “Periplus” is its dynamism emanating from two songwriters, Amélia Muge and Michales Loukovikas, who have composed original music and worked on their musical material using several sources in the poetic language of song: verses of poets (Greeks or Portuguese), lyrics from the ancient Hellenic literature, or of their own modern language, even quoting some folk or popular songs of the Greek or Portuguese traditions. A noble purpose and essential pursuit was to demonstrate the analogies that exist in this great womb called the Mediterranean.

The most famous voyager in this great womb called the Mediterranean has been an ancient (as well as modern – in my view) Hellene, called Odysseus, representing a universal archetype. Apart from all other things, as they say, he also founded Lisbon, the capital of Portugal.

Ludwig van Beethoven, by Francesco Jerace (1895)

What is important in the tradition of either Portugal or Hellas is that it has sprung out as a Folk and (gradually) Urban music precisely because it doesn’t have behind it to a great extent a background of Classical, academic music. There are certainly important composers of academic music in both countries – but neither Greece nor Portugal has produced anyone like Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Vivaldi, Corelli, Scarlatti, Bellini, Puccini, and so forth. It’s been observed that where, for various historical and cultural reasons, the academic language of music, what we call Classical music, has not developed, the active memory of Tradition survives, and more space is created to develop and take over this Tradition in its transition to an urban environment. This is Fado, this is Rebetiko, this is the Blues, Tango… Every kind of Music that we believe it derives from Tradition, and is essentially Folk Music, has predominantly flourished in an environment where the burden of the great academic, symphonic musical tradition has not existed.

Guitarra portuguesa, fado’s lead instrument, accompanied by a king of Spanish guitar that the Portuguese call “viola”…

There are, of course, great differences between Fado and Rebetiko, as there are many analogies, as well. The analogies are exactly those implied by the geographic and cultural environment I have already mentioned, called the Mediterranean, dictating an attitude to life to the people of the several cultures living around her. And what is that? It is in my view its potential to highlight and give major importance to personal yearning.

Bouzouki: a Greek, Lebanese, and… Irish instrument!

Something that we can agree on, associating ourselves with our Portuguese friends in our music, is the way we deal with the emotional core of music; both in lyrics (the personal, existential adventure of each one), and also in music – the way we perceive the Song. Because we speak of Fado as a song, we speak of our own Traditional Folk Music as a song. The song needs a hero, and the hero’s companion. The hero is the singer, and his/her companion is the accompanying instrument: the guitarra portuguesa in Portugal, the bouzouki here, play this very role. It is a duo, a duo of silence, a duo far from the grand, “closed”, symphonic forms, a convincing duo, a duo of profound and moving emotion.

I like “Periplus”, it moves me: it’s a dynamic testimony by two authors, a Portuguese and a Greek, willing to compose original stuff and taking into account where they come from and where they go. For me this is the quintessence of musical creation: to respect your origin, and at the same time to be able to converse with it and redefine it. Because a tradition that is not redefined, that doesn’t move forward, perishes and becomes a dead, picturesque attitude.

Seikilos Epitaph (after 200 BCE), the oldest complete composition in the world (included in “Periplus”)

Another thing that impressed me in the work by Michales and Amélia is that all sequences, all “chapters”, give rise to thoughts and emotions. The first one is called “Absences”, the second “Routes”. (Note that we, Greek musicians, describe the folk musical scales with the term “route”).

The third sequence is called “Songs”. The word “song” (“tragoudi” in Greek) originates from the ancient Hellenic tragedy, it is “melos”, i.e. melody; it’s a selection of a short segment from a greater Whole, a segment of great importance for its emotional, ethical, conceptual, and musical-melodic content. There follow the “Islands”. The island has a special symbolism. It is a part of earth surrounded by the sea; a part of reason surrounded by the ocean of the subconscious.

Then we “hear” the “Voices”. The voice is the instrument of the Song. It is no coincidence that this sequence includes melodies and songs on ancient Hellenic texts, on ancient Greek poetry, along with some traditional elements – therefore we have traditions connected. There comes the sequence of “Lullabies”. A lullaby is what we dedicate to that paradoxical dimension of human existence when someone neither “remembers” (exactly) nor “feels”, a Sleep-Death: the literature and philosophic discourse on the relationship between sleep and death is extensive in the ancient Hellenic civilization.

Next is the sequence of “Loves”, essentially Eros, with a breathtaking traditional song of ours, “The Foliage of a Rose”, which is found in a similar, almost identical, form and emotional attitude in the Portuguese music, as well. The following sequence, “De Profundis”, is certainly a confession – existential, erotic, emotional. Included here is an extraordinary song, “The Inner Dictates”, on poetry by Ares Alexandrou and music by Michales Loukovikas, from a previous work of his, “The Gold in the Sky”, dedicated to the great Greek thinker, poet and author.

Panaiotis (Panos) Tountas

Then we enter some “Fado and Rebetiko Taverns”, with another comment on the similarity of the popular reflexes in both cultures. Of course (since we speak about the relationship between tradition and personal creation), the song that Michales and Amélia have chosen, “The Manges of the Tavern”, is not a piece by some unknown Hellene, but by the great composer Panaiotis Tountas. Tountas was one of the most important composers of Popular Song, essentially “erudite”, an author who had studied music, worked during his Smyrnaic period as a quasi-academic musician (of the “Hellenistic Orient”) and all his life as a first rate popular composer.

Eleni Tsaligopoulou

Finally, in the sequence “So Distant, So Near”, there’s a poetic recording of differences and similarities between the two vocal and cultural Traditions. A prime moment emotionally for me (which I consider to be the climax of the CD), is the parallel interpretation of the same song, “How Far Can Your Eyes Reach?”, by Eleni Tsaligopoulou in Greek and Amélia Muge in Portuguese. “Periplus” ends with a song that justifiably has a subjective tone on the part of Amélia, dedicated to a previous important presence, Violeta Parra, a song of whom was a kind of guide and source of inspiration for Amélia.

I’d like to conclude saying that there are very important musical compositions in “Periplus” by both, Amélia Muge and Michales Loukovikas, and this is for me another merit of the CD. Beyond aesthetic connections, beyond cultural analogies, beyond any intentions to delineate and redefine borders and “contacts” of every kind, what ultimately remains is the essential question if “all this” produces a work of authentic Art. When there is a work of Art produced, then all previous intentions are justified. If there is no work of Art, all the rest are nothing but just slogans that are not being realized.

Well done, my friends, and keep it up!

Speech during the presentation of “Periplus”
“Janus” Bookstores, Athens, October 23, 2012

● See also GIORGOS ANDREOU on “ARCHiPELAGOS”
● As well as MARIA DO ROSÁRIO PESTANA on “PERIPLUS”

PERIPLUS MUSICAL TROUPE: Amélia Muge: voice, vocals, guitarra braguesa, talk, sound-effects. | Michales Loukovikas: voice, vocals, accordion, finger-snaps, hand-claps, percussion, drone, talk, samples of voices and sounds.
Manos Achalinotopoulos: clarino (folk clarinet), voice, vocals. | Kyriakos Gouventas: violin, viola, mandolin. | Harris Lambrakis: ney (oriental flute), recorder. | José Martins: percussion, synthesizer, hand-claps, kalimba, sound-effects. | Ricardo Parreira: guitarra portuguesa. | António Quintino: double bass. | Filipe Raposo: piano, keyboards, accordion. | José Salgueiro: percussion, hand-claps.

SPECIAL GUESTS: Hélia Correia, writer: voice. | Eleni Tsaligopoulou, singer: voice, vocals, children’s songs, laughs. | Outra Voz, a Guimarães citizens’ choir: sounds of the sea, water, wind, space, vocals, children’s songs, respirations, talk.

OTHER PARTICIPANTS: Mariana Abrunheiro: vocals. | Catarina Anacleto: vocals, cello. | Irene Bakalopoulou: harp. | José Barros: vocals, mandolin, cavaquinho, guitarra braguesa. | Cristina Benedita: vocals. | José Manuel David: voice, vocals, drone, kalimba, bagpipe, horn. | Margarida Guerreiro: anathemas. | André Maia: talk. | Teresa Muge: voice, anathemas. | Dimitris Mystakidis: bouzouki, djura, rebetiko guitar. | Pedro Pinhal: fado viola (guitar). | Ziad Rajab: oud. | Eduardo Salgueiro: hand-claps. | Kostas Theodorou: percussion, double bass. | Zoe Tiganouria: accordion. | Francisco & Sofia Van Epps: children’s songs, laughs. | Rui Vaz: vocals, talk.

Chronicle 26. IBERIAN CROSS-CHECK

Chronicle 26. IBERIAN CROSS-CHECK

/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ Χρονικό 26. ΙΒΗΡΙΚΗ ΔΙΑΣΤΑΥΡΩΣΗ (ΣΤΟΙΧΕΙΩΝ)

● Naucratis ● Adolf Schulten and Dan Stanislawski ● The Trojan War Odysseys ● Metal Attraction ● Cassiterides ● Balearics ● Arganthonios ● Graeco-Tartessian Friendship Against Phoenicians and Punics

Michales Loukovikas

ALTHOUGH DAN STANISLAWSKI accepted there were Contacts Between the Ancient Civilizations of the Eastern Mediterranean and Iberia,⁽¹⁾ he was against the idea of any Aegean presence in the peninsula, and remained faithful to the mainstream scholarly favouritism towards Phoenicia. Commenting on the “claims that there was contact” between Iberia and Crete, he conceded it is “a seductive idea… a reasonable hypothesis”, but “as yet there is no convincing evidence that the Mediterranean island route to the west was used” by Minoans.

• ⁽¹⁾ See the beginning of Chronicle 21 with the first paragraph of Chapter 7 from Dan Stanislawski’s Study in Historical-Political Geography: The Individuality of Portugal (1959). His other studies on Portugal are: Portugal’s Other Kingdom: The Algarve (1963), and Landscapes of Bacchus: The Vine in Portugal (1970).

The Minoan international trade: colonies and emporia

Such tangible, “convincing evidence” in the hands of archaeologists, i.e. a load of Egyptian trade items found in Spain, is of “a somewhat later period”, after the fall of the Minoans, c. 1400-1200 BCE. Although we cannot rule out the possibility of “Phoenician intermediaries”, we must have in mind that in this “somewhat later period” (late Bronze Age), especially in Occidental Mediterranean, sea trade was in the hands of those who brought about the fall of the Minoans, meaning the Mycenaeans – who, strangely enough, are not even mentioned by the American professor! Therefore, his assertion that the Egyptian trade items found in Spain “almost surely may [!] be associated with Phoenician intermediaries”, is anything but scientific.

Besides, the Aegean presence in Egypt, i.e. the origin of these trade items, dates back to at least the Mycenaean times, and possibly further back into the Minoan age, when a trade settlement was founded in the Nile Delta under the aegis of the pharaohs, namely Naucratis (Ναύκρατις). It was the first and, for much of its early history, the only permanent Hellenic colony in Egypt, acting as a symbiotic nexus for the interchange of Egyptian and Grecian trade items, art and culture. When a historian “forgets” the Mycenaeans and Naucratis, it means he’s wearing “Phoenician myopic glasses”!

The Calydonian [Boar] Hunt, from a Laconian black-figure cup by the Naucratis Painter (ca 555 BCE)

● Naucratis is located in the Nile Delta, on its westernmost branch, c. 70 km southeast of its mouth, where Alexandria later rose; it was not only the first Greek settlement in Egypt, but also its most important harbour in antiquity until the rise of Alexander’s city. Its first period is obscure, due to the collapse of Mycenaean civilization and the ensuing “Dark ages” (1100-750 BCE). A cultural “renaissance” during the 8th century brought about renewed Hellenic contacts with the Orient and its two important river civilizations of the Nile and Mesopotamia. Herodotus writes that a shrine known as Hellenion was a co-operative enterprise financed by nine Greek poleis: four Ionian (Chios, Clazomenae, Teos and Phocaea), four Dorian (Rhodes, Halicarnassus, Cnidus and Phaselis), and one Aeolian (Mytilene). Miletus, Samos, and Aegina had their own separate sanctuaries. This means that the natives of at least twelve cities of Hellas worked in a collaboration that was not only rare but proved to be lasting.

● The sister port of Naucratis was the harbour town of Heracleion or Thonis, Egypt’s main seaport to Greece, which was only discovered in 2000 by a French underwater archaeologist, Franck Goddio. Its ruins are located 2.5 km off the modern coast. The city was built on some adjoining islands connected with bridges and intersected by canals. It submerged into the sea in the 6th or 7th century CE, probably due to major earthquakes and floods. The “Stele of Naucratis”, with a pharaonic decree, describes Heracleion as a “harbour in the Sea of Hellenes”, referring to the Mediterranean.⁽²⁾ Its twin “Stele of Heracleion” was recovered in 2000. The city’s Grecian name is linked to a large temple of Khonsu, whom the Greeks identified with Heracles. It is believed the city was visited by the great hero, or even by Paris and Helen on their flight from the jealous Menelaus, before the Trojan war. Heracleion’s mythic wealth was lauded by Homer, as well.

• ⁽²⁾ The Egyptian pharaohs, let’s remind each “spectacled” historian, described the Mediterranean as “the Sea of Hellenes”, not as “the Sea of Phoenicians”!

The hetaera Phryne Removing Her Veils, by James Pradier (bronze, 1845)

● A celebrated Thracian hetaera, who lived in Naucratis in the 6th century BCE, was Rhodōpis. According to Herodotus, she was a fellow-slave of the fable teller Aesop, with whom she had a secret love affair. Charaxus, Sappho’s brother, who had gone to Naucratis as a merchant, fell in love with her, and ransomed her from slavery with a large sum of money. Sappho accused Rhodōpis in a poem of robbing her brother of his property. Other lovers – insist Diodorus and Pliny – erected… even a pyramid for her! Rhodōpis (rosy-cheeked), or Doricha, was the model for the original version of the Cinderella story recorded later by Strabo.

● Athenaeus, born in Naucratis, flourishing in the late 2nd – early 3rd centuries CE, was a Greek rhetorician, grammarian and gastronomist. His books have been lost, but a 15-volume synopsis of his 30-volume Deipnosophistae (Banquet Connoisseurs) mostly survives. It is an immense store-house of information, on matters linked to dining, music, songs and dances, games, courtesans, and luxury. Guests included wealthy persons, patrons of art, and scholars, jurists, musicians, and others, as well, who described the lifestyle, the arts and scientific knowledge of the Greeks. In the course of discussing classic authors, they made quotations from nearly 800 writers and 2,500 works, many of them unrecorded. Thus we are entrusted much valuable information about the ancient world and many authors that would be otherwise unknown. (We have consulted Deipnosophistae repeatedly in our Chronicles).

Campaspe, Alexander’s courtesan, a prominent
citizen of Larissa, by John William Godward (1896)

● An Athenaeus’ contemporary, a bit older, was Julius Pollux (Ἰούλιος Πολυδεύκης), also born in Naucratis, flourishing in the late 2nd century CE and living a long life of more than 80 years. He was a grammarian, sophist, scholar and rhetorician, whom Commodus appointed a professor-chair of rhetoric in the Athenian Academy – due to his melodious voice, according to Lives of the Sophists by Philostratus. No work of his rhetoric has survived. His valuable extant work is Onomasticón (Ὀνομαστικόν), a thesaurus, or a dictionary, of Attic synonyms and phrases in ten books, arranged not alphabetically but according to subject-matter. It supplies in passing plenty of rare information on many points of classical antiquity – objects in daily life, the theatre, music, politics – and quotes numerous fragments of lost works. Thus, Pollux became invaluable for William Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1842). (We have repeatedly consulted Pollux in our Chronicles, as well).

● Under the circumstances, Stanislawski, an expert on Portugal, a scholar whom we described as wearing “Phoenician myopic glasses”, cannot be suspected of pro-Hellenic bias in his narrative about those fateful events in Iberia, related in three Chronicles (21, 22, and 25). At the same time, we’ll be able to cross-check the accuracy of our own testimony. But before that, let us give the floor to the German historian and archaeologist Adolf Schulten, who will give an answer to the question concerning the contacts between Iberia and the Aegean. Schulten (1870–1960), who also studied in Greece, dedicated his life to Spain, where he conducted extensive research and excavations; therefore, he is considered a key influence on Spanish archaeological studies. Among others, he searched – but, unfortunately, with no success – to find Tartessos in 1924 and Maenaca in 1948. Very popular in Portugal and Spain are his biographies on two great figures of the struggle of the Lusitanians against the Romans: Viriathus (1927) and Quintus Sertorius (1926).

Statue of Viriathus in Zamora

● The great Lusitanian hero, Viriathus, started fighting after a massacre committed by the Romans in Lusitania with 30,000 victims. He was assassinated in his sleep, in 139 BCE, by the three men he had sent for peace talks with the Romans, who bribed them instead. When the conspirators asked for their prize, the Romans said: “Rome does not pay traitors who kill their chief”! Big talk to avoid payment, since the same tactic was used again in the next century to get rid of Sertorius, whose aim was to create an independent Iberian Republic. He was a Roman statesman and general, opponent of the dictator Sulla during the Roman civil wars. His popular, pro-Iberian policy had displeased many Roman aristocrats, and was eventually assassinated, also by traitors, during a feast, in 72 BCE. When his will was read, they saw he named as his chief beneficiary the… chief conspirator! The next year, the “victorious” Pompey, returning from Iberia to Italy, helped in the suppression of the gladiators’ insurgency led by Spartacus, with whom Sertorius was in contact.

Schulten made a thorough examination of the Mediterranean Spanish coast in 1919, preparing a critical edition of Ora Maritima (Sea Coast), by Avienus (hence of the Massaliote Periplus, as well), a study that led him to Tartessos.⁽³⁾ Excavating in the current Doñana National Park, close to the mouth of the Guadalquivir, he found a Roman town in Cerro del Trigo, which he believed was located on the remains of the legendary city. But, despite all his efforts, he found no trace of it. The result of his excavations, among others, was the publication of a study in 1924. A second edition, greatly improved and expanded, followed in 1945, and reissued in 2006. It was entitled: Tartessos – Contribution to the Oldest History in the Occident:

• ⁽³⁾ We followed the same route in Chronicle 22: An Iberian Periplus Revival.

The Palace of Minos at Knossos

TARTESSOS: CONTRIBUTION TO THE OLDEST HISTORY IN THE OCCIDENT

THE MOST ANCIENT REFERENCES

“BY ALL ACCOUNTS, AN ORIENTAL PEOPLE that, before the Phoenicians, sailed along the coast of Spain were the Cretans, the people of Minos, the oldest maritime power in the Mediterranean… Cretan toponyms are found even in Corsica. In Sardinia we encounter Cretan copper bars. In the Balearics, Aegean vases and bull heads similar to those of Crete have been discovered. Oriental ornaments of ivory, turquoise, or amethyst, have been found on the southeastern coasts of Spain… It seems that the Iberian alphabet contains eight Cretan graphemes… According to Egyptian monuments, the Keftiu, i.e. the Cretans, had large amounts of silver. This silver could have come from Spain… In Falmouth of Cornwall a tin bar has been found with the characteristic shape of Cretan copper bars, i.e. the double swallowtail. This fact could be an indication of exchange between Crete and Tartessos, as the Tartessians traded with the Oestrimni [see Chronicle 21, Legendary Odyssean Lisbon], who sailed to England… Further proof that the Cretans were sailing to Spain can be found in the name of Tartessos itself. The termination in -essos is primitive pre-Hellenic of Asia Minor, mainly of southern Asia Minor. It is very widespread in the regions of Caria and Crete. Thus, perhaps the name of Tartessos does not come from the Phocaeans, but from the Cretans and the Carians. The toponyms ending in ‘-essos’ spread to the Occident, as is evidenced by their appearance in Sicily (Herbessos, Telmessos). If the name of Tartessos is Cretan, then we need to examine whether the Phoenician ‘Tarshish’ is derived from ‘Tartessos’, rather than the indigenous toponym”…

The Statuette of Geryon (6th century BCE), bronze sculpture, showing the 3-headed giant, probably found in Chiusi in Italy, one of the towns of the Etruscan dodecapolis.

THE PRE-TARTESSIANS

“Hispanic [Iberian] daggers of copper and silver of the 3rd millennium have been found in Crete… Where did the silver and tin that the ancient 3rd-millennium-BC Oriental empires used come from?… It is reasonable to suppose that in the 3rd millennium BC, the Orient extracted silver and, above all, tin, from Andalusia and that the Cretans or Carians were probably the agents of this trade, as were later the Phoenicians”…

TARTESSOS AND THE PHOENICIANS

“Geryon, considered as the personification of the Tartessos [Guadalquivir] River, does not pertain to Gades, as later ignorance would have it, but to Tartessos. And the island Erytheia, his dwelling, which took his daughter’s name (Pausanias), could not have been the island of Gades, but the island formed by the Tartessos Delta, in front of which his castle rose. But when Tartessos disappeared, confusion made the figures of Geryon and Erytheia to be mistakenly transferred to Gades. However, the most ancient mythographers clearly place Erytheia on the Delta of the Tartessos River. Stesichorus says that Erytheia ‘faces’ the sources of the river, i.e. its mouth. Pherecydes asserts that Heracles went to Tartessos, and, therefore, places Erytheia here and not at Gades”…

TARTESSOS AND THE PHOCAEANS

“There is another testimony on the Phocaean trips to Tartessos: the Ionian names of islands and coastal sites that are found all along the way, on the Italian coast, in Sardinia and Spain, way down to Tartessos. These are several toponyms ending in –οῦσα [-ussa], widespread in Ionian regions on the coast of Asia Minor, and their presence in the Occident undoubtedly reveals the passage of the Ionians, of the Phocaeans. On the Italian coast we can find: Πιθηκοῦσα [Pithecussa] (Ischia), Ἀνθεμοῦσα [Anthemussa], Σειρηνοῦσα [Seirenussa, Sirenuse] (islands in the Gulf of Salerno). In Sardinia: Ἰχνοῦσα [Ichnussa] (the Ionian name of the island). On the eastern Spanish coast: Μηλοῦσα, Kρoηοῦσα [Melussa, Croeussa] (Mallorca and Minorca?), Πιτυοῦσα, Ὀφιοῦσα [Pityussa, Ophiussa] (Ibiza, Formentera). On the southern coast: Πιτυοῦσα [Pityussa] (Cape Sabinal), Καλαθοῦσα [Calathussa] (in the Bay of Huelva?), Κοτινοῦσα [Cotinussa], old name of the island of Gades. On the southwestern coast: ἄκρα Ὀφιούσης (prominens Ophiussae, Avienus), Cape Roca – the extreme toponym indicating the limit of the Phocaean sphere. We know from this old [Massaliote] Periplus that the neighbouring estuary of the Tagus was linked to Tartessos through a Phocaean commercial road”…

Harvester Vase: a Minoan stone vessel from Hagia Triada, Crete (1500-1450 BCE), originally covered in gold leaf. The relief depicts a sowing festival: a central figure shaking rattle leads the others singing and carrying pitchforks. Notice the diminishing of figures in one of the oldest examples of perspective.

THE TARTESSIAN CULTURE

“Could perhaps Tartessos be a colony founded by some Oriental people of those that were part of the Aegean civilization, e.g. of Crete?… There are reasons to support this hypothesis: the ancient culture of the pre-Tartessians, the numerous coincidences with the Orient and the older oriental nations, the possibility that primitive navigators have founded a colony in Andalusia, as later the Tyrians founded Gades. And besides all this, the name itself of Tartessos alludes to the Orient. If Tartessos were a colony of Aegean navigators, e.g. of Cretans or Carians, this would at once explain its ancient and high culture, as well as the coincidences with Crete in metallurgy, writing, the bull cult, etc. As an Aegean colony, Tartessos would have been founded around the 3rd or 2nd millennium BC, and certainly before the Tyrian voyages. Thus the Tyrians would have invaded the maritime domain of the old Aegean navigators, both in the Occident and in the Orient. A Cretan Tartessos could only be founded before the fall of Cretan power (in 1200). Thence, the ruin of Crete would have influenced the Occidental colony, explaining thus the scarce resistance of the Tartessians against the Tyrians. The possibility that Tartessos is an ancient Aegean colony must therefore be studied.”

All the more so, because the Minoans apparently imported tin from Tartessos at the mouth of the Guadalquivir. At any rate, what strikes me is that in Schulten’s text, too, the Mycenaeans are… conspicuously absent! “The fall of Cretan power” did not take place “in 1200”, when the Bronze Age collapsed, together with the Mycenaean power, but c. 1450 BCE, when the Mycenaeans took over Crete. Then they inherited not only the Minoan Thalassocracy, but the network of the Cretan colonies and emporia, too. The Bronze Age collapse coincided with the Trojan War that was followed by a westward “exodus” of Trojans and Hellenes:

The Arrival of Aeneas at Pallanteum, by Claude Lorrain

Odysseys in the Aftermath of the Trojan War: Colonization of Iberia

THE TROJAN WAR, in the time when it was fought, was not a heroic war. It was accompanied by the eastward movement of the Sea Peoples, and the westward “exodus” of both Hellenes and Trojans. For sure, the latter were in search of a new homeland. As for the Greeks who managed to survive, after a long, ten-year absence, with the spoils not rewarding enough, as Strabo says, were not welcome back home (see Chronicle 20, The Luwian Civilization: The Missing Link in the Aegean Bronze Age), and either had a tragic end (e.g. Agamemnon), or were forced to follow the life of pirates. Such fate awaited “heroes” such as Aeneas, Antenor and Opsicella; or Diomedes, Menelaus, Menestheus, Odysseus and Teucer – for whom “later poets sang”…

Breogán and the Tower of Heracles, A Coruña

Aeneas is linked to Rome, while Antenor and Opsicella founded cities in the Italian North, with the latter ending up in Biscay. Among the Greeks, Diomedes, son of Tydeus, arrived in Lusitania and Galicia, where he founded Tyde (today’s Tui), an Aetolian city, as Silius Italicus writes. Menestheus, the leader of the Athenians in the Trojan War, was expelled from Athens by Theseus’ sons, and set ashore with his entourage in Andalusia, at the mouth of the river Criso (Guadalete), where he founded a colony and an oracle in his name: it was Portus Menesthei, today’s El Puerto de Santa María (see Chronicle 22). Odysseus founded and walled Lisbon (see Chronicle 5, Odysseus and Calypso in Odyssey-Lisbon and Chronicle 21, Legendary Odyssean Lisbon), while Teucer arrived in Lusitania and Galicia, where he founded Pontevedra (see Chronicle 20, Teucer-Teucrus of the Troad and Salamis), having previously passed from Mastia (or Massia, the later Carthago Nova, today’s Cartagena in Murcia). Some include Aveiro among the cities supposedly founded by Greeks in Lusitania. That’s why, they add, the women there are so beautiful!

Silius distinguishes the Aetolians from the Grovii (or Gravii in Latin), who lived in the coastal northern Lusitania, spreading also into Galicia.⁽⁴⁾ However, Pliny states “Helleni, Gravii, Castellum Tyde, graecorum sobolis omnia” (Hellenes, Grovii, the Castle of Tyde, they are all Greeks).

• ⁽⁴⁾ Pomponius Mela stated that all the tribes were Celtic, except for the Grovii, who worshipped gods different from the Celts. Pliny also rejected that the Grovii were Celts; he considered them to be of Greek stock. They cooperated with the local Gallaeci tribes in the aftermath of Viriathus’ death, in order to take revenge for his assassination. So, they attacked the Roman settlements in Lusitania, gaining momentum with the support of other tribes along the way, and reaching the south of the Peninsula, near Andalusia, thus endangering Roman rule in Hispania (Iberia).

Greeks in Iberia: Athena, Atlas, and Heracles with the golden apples of the Hesperides; marble relief, 5th century BCE

Teucer and his companions, says Strabo, founded some peoples in Galicia such as the Hellenes and Amphilochians. Something similar happened in Cantabria with certain Spartans. Relevant information is given by Pompeius Trogus, who translated into Latin the stories of the world from Hellenic literature. Justin, who compended Trogus’ work, points out that the Galicians claim they are of Greek descent (Gallaeci graecam sibi originem asserunt). This may be explained by the origin of the Celts who, according to Herodotus, might have come from Thrace, speaking perhaps also Hellenic (see Chronicle 20, Thracian and Celtic Coincidences).

Isidore of Seville (Híspalis), citing Latin writers, stated that, due to their Hellenic origin, “the Galicians are endowed with great ingenuity”. While Jerome couldn’t agree more: “… almost all islands, rivers, lands of the entire orb neighbouring the sea, are occupied by Greek inhabitants, who, as we have already said, owned all the maritime places from the Amanus [Nur] and Taurus Mountains [Asia Minor] to the British Ocean.”

According to Strabo, all the Northern highlanders in general – Galicians, Astures, Cantabrians, Basques – made hecatombs ritu graeco and married more graeco. In Cantabria, one could also meet Messenians and even Trojans, except for the Spartans, who expanded as far as the Douro’s mouth, leading a Laconic life.

Homer’s Odyssey is unique, but the Trojan War’s Odysseys were too many, from both belligerents, eventually enriching the Western Mediterranean – mainly Italy and Iberia – with “new blood”.

Celts in Europe

● When scholars like Stanislawski “forget” the Mycenaeans (not to mention the Minoans), they end up… uttering bubbles, such as: “Greek colonization to the West was very late, especially if we compare it with the Phoenician.” In fact, the Phoenicians were last in line, and their western colonization came even later. Let’s move now to Stanislawski’s text, Contacts Between the Ancient Civilizations of the Eastern Mediterranean and Iberia:

CONTACTS BETWEEN THE ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS
OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN AND IBERIA

Celts lived mainly in Galicia; Celtiberians in Portugal
and half of Spain; Iberians in the other half (Andalusia
to Catalonia); Basques in NE Spain (and SW France).

A WESTWARD MOVEMENT

“THE EARLIEST PASSAGE of Phoenician ships through the Straits of Gibraltar was probably made during the general period of time when the Central European farmers and pastoralists were first entering the Cantabrian region. These events preceded the 1st millennium BC. Later, Greek exploration and trade grew, following the example given by Phoenicia, perhaps as early as the 9th century and certainly by the end of the 7th century BC. Such contacts can be equated in time with the acceleration of the East-West movement of peoples and cultures which took place in the North with the advent of the Celts, who may have appeared in Iberia as early as 900 BC, and the main force of which was felt by the 6th century. Between the 6th and the 3rd centuries BC, while the lands of the western Mediterranean were developing under the influence of active and aggressive Greeks and Carthaginians [Punics], northern Iberia was changing under the influence of Celts of later arrival from beyond the Pyrenees. However, there was a difference between the early contacts along the Mediterranean coasts and those of the Central Europeans with northern Iberia. It was not opportunity for settlement that drew men along the southern coasts, but trade… It was the attraction of metals that drew the early Greeks beyond the Straits of Gibraltar and along the western coasts of Spain.”

CONTACTS WITH THE WEST COAST OF IBERIA

Celtic art in Spain

“It is possible that the early merchant wayfarers sailed up the west coast to trade directly with Galicia. But if they did, the coast of present Portugal represented a gap in their interest, for there is almost no record of them there.⁽⁵⁾ It would seem that Portugal was then, as through so many periods of time before and after, apart from the main stream of events. It possessed no great source of silver such as the mines of Andalusia, nor of copper or tin (with slight exceptions in both cases).⁽⁶⁾ With her metals, Spain was a magnet for the early traders, whereas Portugal attracted casual traders at most”…

• ⁽⁵⁾ There are slight exceptions; e.g., there is the Egyptian scarab of the 7th century BC that was found in a pre-Celtic level at Alcácer do Sal. (D. Stanislawski)

• ⁽⁶⁾ There is no record e.g. of Carthaginian exploitation of the copper of the Alentejo, which Romans later mined at Aljustrel. As all of southern Portugal is poor in tin, silver, and gold, there was little there to distract them from their preoccupation with such places as Andalusia and Murcia. (D.S.)

HOMOGENEITY OF THE IBERIAN MEDITERRANEAN REGION

“At the time of their first contacts with the west, the earliest Phoenicians and Greeks encountered a culture area with fundamentally similar characteristics throughout. It extended along the Mediterranean coasts, slopes, and adjacent interior valleys, from the Pyrenees to the Guadiana River… With their usual perspicacity, the Greeks recognized this area as being essentially homogeneous and sharply different in culture from the Celtic territories of the interior and of the north and west peripheries”…

EARLY POLITICAL GROUPS AND CONFUSION OF NAMES

Winged griffin of Tartessos (700-575 BCE)

“Indisputably, one of the important Iberian groups was that of the Tartessians, wealthy farmers and traders in metals. It was their knowledge of the sources of metals that first brought them in touch with the Phoenicians and Greeks. They knew the coasts to the west and northwest of their home, for the tin and gold that they traded came from Galicia. They were also able to furnish silver, copper, and lead, which came to them from the Guadalquivir River basin. It appears that tin was the product of greatest importance at the time. The early centuries of the pre-Christian millennium were times of great opulence along the coast of Galicia. That this wealth was due to tin may be inferred from the fact that the Greeks used the term Cassiterides to identify the area. However, the question as to the ultimate source of tin is moot. In spite of the lack of archaeological evidence it seems likely that, in the earliest years of trading, it came from alluvial deposits along the river banks of Galicia. There is a possibility, however, that Bronze Age connections with French Brittany and with the British Isles had continued and that the Galicians were merely purveyors of tin from those places. This basic necessity of bronze-users was scarce in the other parts of the Phoenician and Greek world. There was no tin in all of North Africa, Asia Minor, Caucasia, Cyprus, mainland Greece, and the Greek islands. The mines of Tuscany were small. It is no wonder that both Galicia and the Tartessians were prosperous and that the Phoenicians and Greeks were attracted to the area.”

“Tin was the product of greater importance. This basic necessity of bronze-users was scarce in the Phoenician and Greek world.” (Dan Stanislawski)

According to Pomponius Mela (1st century CE),
the Makárōn nēsoe (Fortunate Isles) are the Canaries; the Hesperides are at Cape Verde;
and the Cassiterides are the Azores

● “The Cassiterides are ten in number, and lie near each other in the ocean toward the north from the haven of the Artabri [A Coruña, Galicia].⁽⁷⁾ One of them is desert, but the others are inhabited… Of the metals, they have tin and lead, which, with skins, they barter with the merchants for earthenware, salt, and brazen vessels. Anciently the Phoenicians alone, from Gades, engrossed this market, hiding the navigation from all others. When [other navigators] followed a certain [Phoenician] shipmaster, that they might discover the market, the jealous shipmaster willfully stranded his vessel on a shoal, misleading those who were tracking him, to the same destruction. Escaping from the shipwreck by means of a fragment of the ship, he was indemnified for his losses out of the public treasury.” (Strabo)

• ⁽⁷⁾ According to Strabo, the Artabri (or Arrotrebae) were an ancient Gallaecian Celtic tribe, living in the extreme NW of modern Galicia, about Cape Nerium (Cabo Prior), outskirts of the harbour city of Ferrol. In Magnus Portus Artabrorum during Roman times (1st century BCE, even before), they traded in metals (like silver, gold, tin and iron), or even wild horses. The port was located on a turbulent, unpredictable sea, in the bay of Ferrol, and the rias of Ferrol, Betanzos and Coruña, with the Tower (lighthouse) of Heracles. Ptolemy refers to the Galaeci Lucenses and their capital town, Lucus Augusti (now Lugo).

● “The islands called Cassiterides, situated in the open sea approximately in the latitude of Britain, lie opposite to, and north of, the Artabrians… They that inhabit the British promontory of Belerium,⁽⁸⁾ by reason of their converse with the merchants, are more civilized and courteous to strangers than the rest. These are the people that make the tin… They beat it into four-square pieces the size of dice, and cart it to a British island, near at hand, called Ictis…⁽⁹⁾ For at low tide, all being dry between them and the island, they convey over in carts an abundance of tin in the mean time. But there is one thing peculiar to those islands, which lie between Britain and Europe; for at full sea they appear to be islands, but at low water for a long way they look like so many peninsulas… Hence the merchants transport the tin they buy of the inhabitants to France, and for thirty days’ journey they carry it in packs on horses’ backs through France to the mouth of the river Rhône.” (Diodorus Siculus)

The Cassiterides and Bolerium (depicted
here as an islet) south of Britain

• ⁽⁸⁾ Belerium, or Bolerium, now Land’s End: a headland on the western tip of Cornwall, the most westerly point of England. Diodorus’ text is very often connected with St. Michael’s Mount.

• ⁽⁹⁾ Ictis, or Iktin: an island described by Diodorus as a tin trading centre, somewhere off the coast of southern England, with its exact location unknown; candidates include St. Michael’s Mount, or Looe Island, off the Cornish coast, also known as St. Michael’s Island, or St. George’s Island.

● “There are two kinds of lead, the white (plumbum album) and the black (plumbum nigrum). The white is the most valuable; it was called by the Greeks cassíteros; and there is a fabulous story of their going in quest of it to the islands of the Atlantic, and of its being brought in barks made of osiers, and covered with hides. It is now known that it is the production of Lusitania and Gallaecia… White lead was held in esteem in the days even of the Trojan War – a fact attested by Homer, who called it ‘cassíteros’… It is extracted with great labour in Hispania [Iberia] and throughout all the Gallic provinces, but in Britannia it is found in the upper stratum of the earth in such abundance, that a law has been spontaneously made prohibiting anyone from working more than a certain quantity of it.” (Pliny)

Hellenic ship, mocaic (ca 1st century BCE-CE)

GREEK EXPLORATION AND SETTLEMENT

“The earliest Greek ventures may perhaps be dated as of the 9th or the 8th century BC. Possibly Rhodian and Chalcidian sailors were in the western Mediterranean at this time… The line of Ionian names stretching along the islands and coasts of the western Mediterranean and to the Atlantic coast of Portugal – the names with the –ussa termination – can probably be ascribed to this early period. These names are important in dating the arrival of the Greeks in western waters. They mark the island route of the early Greek navigators. Starting from Syrakoussai [Syracusae] in eastern Sicily, they may be followed through Ichnussa (Sardinia), Melussa (Menorca), Rornyussa (Mallorca) and Pityussa (Ibiza). The latter three, even now, are identified on maps as the Balearics or Pityusas. The -ussa names extend westward to the Straits of Gibraltar and up the Atlantic coast of Portugal to Ophiussa, in the region of Lisbon, and the general area of Portugal plus Galicia may have been vaguely termed Ophiussa.”

The “Balearides” (Gymnesian) and the “Pityusae” Isles on an old map

● The Balearics comprise two island groups: the Gymnesians (Mallorca and Minorca) and the Pityuses (Eivissa or Ibiza and Formentera). The term “Balearic” derives from the Grecian Βαλλιαρεῖς or Βαλεαρεῖς (from βάλλω, meaning “to launch”), referring to the islanders who were skilled slingers and served as mercenaries for the Hellenes, Punics, and Romans. However, Strabo regarded the word as of Phoenician origin, as similar to lightly armoured soldiers the Hellenes called γυμνήτας, hence Gymnesiae (from γυμνός, meaning naked). This does not mean they fought naked, but that they used much lighter armament than the hoplites. Anyhow, according to Lycophron’s poem Alexandra, the toponym refers to shipwrecked Boeotians who were cast nude on the islands (a story obviously invented); or to the islanders themselves who were often nude (because of the year-round benevolent climate). In the Gymnesian Isles there are megalithic stone monuments (naveta, taula and talaiot) which speak of a very early prehistoric human activity. They are similar, but not necessarily related, to the nuraghe of Sardinia and torri of Corsica. One of the earliest cultures on Minorca was influenced by other Mediterranean civilizations, including the Minoan. Those islanders e.g. may have imitated those inverted plastered timber columns found at Knossos (such evidence is probably not “convincing” enough for Stanislawski). There is also a tradition that the Balearics were colonized by Rhodes after the Trojan War. The Pityusic Islands (from Grecian πιτύα, pine tree) are sometimes informally called in English as the Pine Islands, which is identical to the Hellenic name Πιτυοῦσαι, i.e. “pine-covered islands”. In antiquity they were listed in Claudius Ptolemy’s Geography under the names Ophiussis and Ebyssus, which had a town of the same name. It is the port Ibossim founded by Phoenicians in 654 BCE, later known to Romans as Ebusus, hence Eivissa (in Catalan) or Ibiza (in Castilian). The population of the two largest islands (Gymnesians) is stated by Diodorus at 30,000.

Herodotus, by Jean-Guillaume Moitte (1806)

THE PHOCAEAN GREEKS

“Herodotus said that it was Greeks from the city of Phocaea in Asia Minor who were first to navigate in the western Mediterranean waters. It may seem temerous to question the facts of the father of history, but Antonio García (A. G. y Bellido, Hispania Graeca [Hellenic Iberia]) does so convincingly. The Phocaeans, says he, arrived late upon the scene, profiting by earlier maritime contacts. Nor does he accept the statement that the important voyage of Colaeus, the Samian, was a voyage of discovery of Tartessos for the Greeks. This widely heralded 7th century journey was, to him, merely one – although perhaps the most profitable and spectacular up to that time – of many such voyages that had been made by Rhodians, Chalcidians, Samians, and others.⁽¹⁰⁾

• ⁽¹⁰⁾ Another point of view is expressed by H. R. W. Smith in his review of García’s Hispania Graeca. Smith does not deny the thesis of García but says that he can find no reason to believe that the Phocaeans reached Tartessos prior to the time of Arganthonios, the Tartessian king friendly to the Greeks, or before the voyage of Colaeus. (D.S.)

A Satyr on pottery found at Alalia

“Whatever the dating may be – and the archaeological inquiry has far to go – the Phocaeans certainly became the most active and effective Greeks in the area. Their colonization had energy and breadth and was the only one in the western Mediterranean with lasting results… There is no specific evidence that this activity was connected with the decay of Tyre, but there is such a coincidence in time. Tyrian decline had begun by the end of the 8th century BC and was notable during the following century. This was the time of the voyage of Colaeus, the Samian (650 BC), the founding of the Phocaean colony of Massalia, present Marseille (600 BC, or approximately then), and the founding of Alalia in Corsica (640 BC, or approximately 40 years prior to Massalia). Some time before the end of the century, Mainake [Maenaca], the most westerly of Phocaean colonies, was founded near Málaga.⁽¹¹⁾

• ⁽¹¹⁾ Within 20 miles to the east, says García; Smith suggests that it might even be at approximately the outskirts of present Málaga. (D.S.)

● Some dates are different here. The difference in Colaeus’ voyage is not important (650, not c. 640 BCE); but the dating of the founding of Alalia is almost one century earlier (650 instead of 566 BCE). Was it initially a temporary seasonal settlement?

Following the Mediterranean island route, the
Phocaeans arrived from Asia Minor to Iberia.

“This century was one of intimacy between Phocaeans and Tartessians. The reign of Arganthonios of Tartessos began in the 7th century BC. The ancient sources spoke of his 80-year reign but probably, in typical Greek fashion, they dramatized a dynasty or a period by creating a mythical longevity for a single ruler. Whether this represented one ruler or several does not alter the fact that there was frequent and close contact between Tartessos and Phocaea. This was the period of the Phocaean maritime dominance during which the Tartessian king lent money to the Phocaeans to build their fortifications against the threat of the Persians.”

● Arganthonios is a name apparently based on the Indo-European word for silver, hence money. Tartessos was very rich in silver. Similar names appear in inscriptions of the Roman period and on silver coinage in Gaul. Arganthonios, the “Silver Man” (c. 670–550 BCE), ruled Tartessos for 80 years (c. 630–550) and lived to be 120 years old. The idea of great age and length of reign may result from a succession of kings using the same name or title. Nevertheless, one could retort he died… quite young, if we take under consideration that, as the Bible says, “all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine [969!] years”: he supposedly lived almost one thousand years and became a symbol of longevity…

The Tower of Babel, by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

● The weird thing is that no one dares to say: fairy tales! Even more funny is that so many well-intentioned (and a few… bad-intentioned) people try hard to interpret the uninterpretable, although it is well-known that “you better stay away from the Bible’s dates”! It’s weird, so let’s have fun: “such mistakes are made by copyists or translators; are mistaken attempts to correct mistakes; deliberate extensions of the patriarchs’ ages by the ‘Seventy’ [Jews who translated the Old Testament into Greek], multiplying by 5 or 10, for the patriarchs to ‘fit’ with the Flood ‘myth’; confusion between ‘months’ and ‘years’; or between solar and lunar years; or between Sumerian and new numbers; the names do not refer to individuals, but to ‘dynasties’,” as in the case of Arganthonios. We also have fundamentalist interpretations: “a water vapour canopy protected the earth from radiation before the Flood; early humans had a better diet; or the more we sin, the less we live: the humans were originally to have everlasting life, but sin was introduced into the world by Adam and Eve, its influence became greater with each generation, and God progressively shortened human life, particularly after the Flood”… Amen!

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN GREEKS AND PUNIC
PEOPLES IN THEIR RELATIONS WITH IBERIA

The island and bay of Gadir: the Phoenicians’
springboard for attacks against Tartessos

“The period of the decline of Tyre was not only important for the Ionian Greeks, but also for the Tyrian colony of Carthage. During the time of Phocaean colonization, Carthage too was expanding. As early as 653 BC, it had established the colony on Ibiza of the Balearics, which lay athwart the Greek island route to the west. After 573 BC, when Tyre fell to the Babylonians, Carthage showed increasing independence. Competition for western metals was growing between the two great rivals, Carthage and Greece. It is reasonable to assume that the friendship of Arganthonios (or that of his dynasty), through almost a century of time, was more than mere affection and amiability. It probably represented a form of alliance in which the Tartessians aided the Phocaeans in their struggle against the threat to their mother city. In return, Greeks supported the Westerners against the growing aggressiveness of Carthage and the Punic colony of Gadir, which threatened the area of Tartessos. Almost from the time of their founding of Gadir the Phoenicians showed their expansionist tendencies. It was not long before they were using the island as a base of attack against the mainland and the Tartessians.

“Graeco-Iberian friendship: an alliance against Carthage and Gadir’s aggressiveness. From the beginning the Phoenicians used the island as a base of attack against the Tartessians… Graeco-Iberian contacts: history of amity; the Iberian hospitality toward Greeks was proverbial… Friendship and mutual support against the common enemy served both.” (Dan Stanislawski)

Dionysus (the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking
and wine), by Exekias (cylix, c. 530 BCE)

“The Greeks were usually neither pacific nor friendly neighbors when the prospect of gain was apparent. In this they differed little from the Phoenicians. However, in their relations with the Tartessians they had no desire, it would seem, for control of land or people, but merely wanted to trade their products, especially olive oil and wine,⁽¹²⁾ for Tartessian metals. In fact, the history of Greek contacts with Iberians is one of amity, and the hospitality of the Iberians toward Greeks was proverbial. The purposes of both peoples were served by friendly intercourse and mutual support against the common enemy, especially after the increased importance and the expanded ambition of Carthage. A major clash for complete dominance of the area was inevitable. This was speeded by events in the eastern Mediterranean area”…

• ⁽¹²⁾ Pierson Dixon, The Iberians of Spain, and Rhys Carpenter, The Greeks in Spain, state that the olive tree and the vine were introduced into Spain by the Greeks. Olive oil was exported from Greek Akragas [Agrigento] to Carthage in the first half of the 1st millennium BC. No doubt the Greeks traded in wine with Iberia. Wine made from grapes is very old in the countries of the eastern Mediterranean, and the Phoenicians were famous merchants of wine… (D.S.)

Artemis, Phocaea’s patron goddess; Massaliote “heavy” silver drachma (ca 390-220 BCE)

THE ALALIA COLONY AND ITS EFFECTS

DAN STANISLAWSKI, IN THIS PART of his story, turns his attention to the historic developments in Asia Minor: in 546 BCE, Cyrus conquered Lydia and Ionia, causing “a mass migration of perhaps half of the population of Phocaea to their Corsican colony of Alalia… All the men in this city of probably 5,000 to 7,000 people had gone. This population figure suggests the large number of available vessels, and points to the commercial importance of the city at that time”. The Battle of Alalia took place “sometime between 540 and 535 BC”, with its disastrous impact on the Hellenes and, even more, on the Tartessians.

“Carthage may then have sealed the Straits of Gibraltar, as Carpenter suggests. More likely, the Straits had been largely sealed for a long time, but after the battle the land route between Mainake and Tartessos was also blocked. Mainake itself was destroyed by the Carthaginians toward the end of the century, to end its traffic and its competition with the Carthaginian settlement in the location of present Málaga”…

Phocaean electrum coin with playing seals

ECONOMIC CHANGES IN THE WEST

“As Carthage had inherited the western empire of Tyre, so did Massalia fall heir to that of her mother city, Phocaea. Greek trade became centered here, with the end of Phocaean maritime enterprise in the West of the Mediterranean. Trade through France to Brittany and beyond had been undoubtedly important to the Massaliotes previous to this time, but the record had been obscured by the greater drama of the struggle on the Mediterranean. During the last half of the 6th century BC, during which time Carthaginians grasped complete power in the West, the prosperity of Galicia – presumably based upon tin – declined. This decline may have been due to the change from the sea route, by way of the Straits, to that from Massalia, via the French rivers, to the northwest and ultimately to Britain”…

“Galicia’s decline due to the change from the sea route, via the Straits, to that from Massalia, via the French rivers, and ultimately to Britain.” (Stanislawski)

Stanislawski offers four possible explanations for the Galician decline; probably the second one is the most important:

Armor of a Punic officer

“More likely, the Galicians had for some time been not producers, but purveyors, of tin from French Armorica or the British Isles. If this were true, the direct land route from Massalia would have skirted the Carthaginian barrier and eliminated Galician middlemen… At approximately the same period of time there was an increased interest in silver… by the avidity with which the Greeks of Asia Minor sought it for coinage… Perhaps the richest of ancient silver mines was that of Mastia (or Massia), a region second only to Tartessos in commercial importance. The ancient prosperity of the region and of its most important city, also named Mastia (or Massia), the later Cartago Nova, and probably the site of the present Cartagena, was based upon silver mining through several centuries. Great amounts were mined under the direction of Hannibal in the 3rd century BC, and it was still a large operation at the time of Polybius in the succeeding century.”

CARTHAGINIAN DOMINATION OF THE WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN

Bronze Age gold helmet found in Leiro, Galicia

After the battle of Alalia, “Greek commercial activity in Iberia was ended and Carthage was less inhibited in the spread of its control. Tartessos, which had feared the Carthaginians and had allied itself with the Greeks, was left without support and was destroyed.⁽¹³⁾ In the following century, probably 20,000 Iberian mercenaries were fighting in Sicily for the Carthaginians… Celts were also serving as mercenaries in the Carthaginian forces.

• ⁽¹³⁾ If there was no city of that name, it is not important to the larger fact that the area as a whole was put under the control of the Carthaginians of Gadir (Carpenter, The Greeks in Spain). (D.S.)

Dido (or Elissa, founder of Carthage), attributed to Christophe Cochet

“There was an increasing reliance upon mercenaries from the peninsula, not only from the fringes but from deep within the interior as well. In the late 3rd century BC, Hannibal’s army included Celtiberians from the northern interior, Galicians from the extreme northwest, Lusitanians from Middle Portugal, Vettones from the middle Tagus drainage – and these do not complete the list. Such troops, however, were something other than pure mercenaries; many had been forcibly impressed into service… During earlier centuries no general antagonism in Iberia seems to have been engendered by the Carthaginians. Locally there may have been antagonism, such as probably existed between the Carthaginians and the Tartessians, but for the tribes of the interior the Carthaginians may have had a friendly appeal. They offered an opportunity to fight with pay. It was later, when the Carthaginians had expanded their power and increased their need for troops that their tactics changed with regard to these tribes of the interior, which had long served as a source of manpower. When Hannibal, in desperate need for troops and under economic pressure, forcibly impressed some of them into his armies, the others reacted in bitter opposition. The tribes of the interior were a bellicose lot. An opportunity to fight for pay was not distasteful to them but a demand that they submit to enslavement was another matter. According to Strabo they resisted Hannibal as they later did the Romans for somewhat the same reasons.

“Nevertheless, tens of thousands of mercenaries were introduced to new lands and cultures of the middle and eastern Mediterranean. Since this process had been going on from as early as the 6th century BC and many men had returned to the peninsula, the effect upon attitudes of the peoples of the Meseta [‘Plateau’, in the heart of Iberia] and even some of the remote western coasts may have been considerable.”

The harbour of Carthage

● In relation with her mercenaries, Carthage had already had a war in her… liabilities: the Mercenary or Libyan War (240-237 BCE), immediately after the First Punic War. It was a rebellion of her mercenaries, with Libyan support, due to her inability to pay them, since she had to pay first the huge war indemnities to Rome. She confronted a “Foreign Legion”, consisted of Iberians and Celt-Iberians, Celts, Baleares, Greeks and others. Bilateral negotiations were fruitless due to lack of confidence, but also to the multilingualism of the mercenaries, making it impossible to find a compromise. Very soon, hostilities broke out and the mercenaries captured Tunis. Threatened directly, Carthage had no choice but to capitulate to the demands of the mercenaries. The latter, with their strengthened bargaining position, started asking more and more, as e.g. that the Libyans, who were neither mercenaries (they were recruited), nor citizens of Carthage, should be paid, together with the Numidians, or the escaped slaves who were fighting on their side. Once again the Punics had no choice but to agree…

Salammbô, by Alfons Mucha (1896), based on Gustave Flaubert’s same-titled historical novel (1862) that was in turn based on Polybius. The heroine is Hamilcar’s daughter and priestess loved passionately by Mathos…

The conflict would have ended there if two of the mercenary commanders, Spendius, a Campanian slave, and Mathos, a Libyan Berber, had not persuaded the Libyans of the army that Carthage would take revenge for their part in the revolt as soon as the foreign mercenaries were paid and sent home. They were joined by many towns and villages of Libya, as the people there were fed up with the Punic yoke, and finally, by all the mercenaries. What had started as a simple “labour dispute”, exploded into a full-scale revolt threatening an empire… Outmatched in every aspect – men, money, and supplies – and unprepared, Carthage “staggered” as long as Hanno the “Great” was in charge. The generalship was eventually given to Hamilcar Barca, Hannibal’s father, who managed to defeat, in 237 BCE, those who he once commanded in Sicily, fighting against the Romans. He cleverly used the “psychological war”, won over a part of his opponents, and annihilated the rest in the decisive “Battle of the Saw” – that was not even a battle: he blockaded the mercenaries in a steep ravine, until they starved to death. The barbarities and atrocities were far too many in this “relentless”, “truceless war”, according to Polybius, with no rules of conduct – the “most impious war in history”. Mutilations and crucifixions on both sides shocked everyone then.

Silver coin of Hamilcar Barca

A smaller mercenary revolt in Sardinia was put down with Roman help. Rome, in this war, was an ally of Carthage, so she could continue paying the indemnities! Besides, the Romans would soon occupy both Sardinia and Corsica. Losing the two islands, the Punics had only Iberia to “milk” in order to get back on track. If Thucydides were alive, he would have much to write about… We can act accordingly; drawing parallels between the Carthage-and-her-mercenaries relation and that of the USA with their own mercenaries (Osama, Taliban, the Islamic State, etc.). Or about Carthage’s racist disadvantage, as Punic citizenship was an exclusive privilege; so, they refused to give political rights e.g. to the Libyans, and consequently were obliged to rely more and more on mercenaries. That was Rome’s advantage in the second Punic War, when Hannibal, despite his victories in Italy, was unable to break the ties of Rome with her allies. Or even about how many “Great” men, like Hanno, the “pacifist” – because of his personal interests, i.e. money – are finally so small. The only ones from all those I mention in these Chronicles, who really deserve this epithet, must be Alexander and Cyrus.

Centaur: bronze figurine from Campo de Caravaca (Murcia), probably made in Greece (6th century BCE)

In conclusion…

DAN STANISLAWSKI, I REMIND YOU, was the one who had rejected the possibility of a Minoan presence in Iberia; the one who had “forgotten” the Mycenaeans, attributing the role of the transporters of the Egyptian archaeological finds in Spain to the Phoenicians – and, indeed, during a time of Mycenaean domination in the Mediterranean (1400-1200 BCE); he was the one, in addition, who had “ignored” the Hellenic emporia in Egypt, mainly Naucratis; the one I accused he was “spectacled”, wearing “Phoenician myopic glasses”!

For all the above we can appreciate even more his own personal “view” of Iberia, since it’s anything but biased in favour of the Greeks. All the more so, when we realize that his story is almost identical with the historical panorama in our three “Iberian” Chronicles (21, 22, 25): Ὅπερ ἔδει δεῖξαι, as Euclid would say, or quod erat demonstrandum (Q.E.D), or “what had to be demonstrated”. There is just one last Chronicle left: we shall be dropping anchor at emporia or touring palaces in the Near East, to come full circle back to our starting point, in a voyage full of surprises, as on the way we’ll be meeting itinerant artisans, artists, and masters, “members of the Architects’ and Painters’ Guilds”, whose writing, nevertheless, in Linear A, would puzzle the renowned archaeologist Leonard Woolley…

• >> Chronicle 27. AN ARCHAEOLOGIST’S WATERLOO
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Next Chronicle 27. AN ARCHAEOLOGIST’S WATERLOO ● Emporia in Egypt and the Levant ● Leonard Woolley’s Waterloo ● Itinerant Minoan Artists ● Creto-Egyptian Ties ● Differences Between Minoan
and Pharaonic Society and Art

Left: a clay tablet from Knossos; the Linear A script that puzzled Leonard Woolley.
Right: an inscription in the Greek alphabet by Massaliotes in Catalonia:
“Hail, Thespis Massaliote, son of Aristoteles”.

Chronicle 21. IBERIAN “EL DORADO”

Chronicle 21. IBERIAN “EL DORADO”

/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ Χρονικό 21. ΙΒΗΡΙΚΟ “EL DORADO”

● Minoans, Mycenaeans, Phoenicians
in Iberia ● Fortunate Isles, Hesperides
● Sardinia ● Odysseus, Calypso,
Ophiussa ● Tartessos

Michales Loukovikas

“ONE FREQUENTLY MEETS CLAIMS that there was contact between the far western coasts of present Spain and Portugal, and Crete of Minoan times”, comments Dan Stanislawski in his Study in Historical-Political Geography: The Individuality of Portugal, and specifically in Chapter 7 about Contacts Βetween the Ancient Civilizations of the Eastern Mediterranean and Iberia.

“It is not only a seductive idea but it makes a reasonable hypothesis, for the Minoans were good navigators, traders, and seekers of metals. Had they known anything of the Iberian Peninsula they might well have been attracted; however, while it is quite possible that the Mediterranean island route to the west was used by them (Rhys Carpenter, The Greeks in Spain), as yet there is no convincing evidence that it was. The excavations of Almerían culture at Los Millares, which may be dated as of 2000–1800 BC, presented certain items reminiscent of Aegean cultures, but there is no evidence that would clearly demonstrate connection. Such items may represent nothing more than casual parallelism. Other finds of a somewhat later period in Spain make better evidence of contact with the eastern Mediterranean lands, for they can be neatly equated with materials of the Egyptian Tell-el-Amarna of 1400–1200 BC. The Egyptian trade items of this period of time are well known to Spanish archaeology and almost surely may be associated with Phoenician intermediaries. As of the present date, such items may be taken as the earliest evidence of direct contact between Iberia and the eastern Mediterranean navigators.”

Where did the Bronze Age Mediterranean find tin to produce bronze?
Who transported this rare and precious metal to the Mediterranean?

A model of Los Millares with its walls

Voilà! Here is a “neat” example of the established historians’ “classic” mentality: reserved if they write or talk about Minoans, even Hellenes, but garrulous when they lecture about Phoenicians. Indeed, why was it so difficult for the peoples of the Aegean to reach Iberia? They were certainly not inferior to the Phoenicians in seamanship and, furthermore, the Aegean was far closer to Iberia in comparison to Phoenicia. Besides, who controlled then (“1400–1200 BC”) the Mediterranean trade? The Phoenicians, or the Mycenaeans – whom Stanislawski “fails to bring in mind”?(!) Why should the Egyptian trade items of this period found in Spain “almost surely may be associated with Phoenician intermediaries”? The crucial question, however, this mentality does not answer is: Where did the Bronze Age Mediterranean obtain tin to produce bronze? Who were established then as sea traders to transport this profitable metal to the Mediterranean? Most obviously, the Mycenaeans. That is why the evidence about the Aegean peoples’ presence in Iberia is anything but “convincing”… Regarding the “opposite point of view”, there are detailed descriptions of Minoans extracting metals from the area of the Lake Superior and carrying them through the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico destined for the Mediterranean! Although we cannot exclude this, we do not intend to take you that far. It is better to remain on Iberian soil…

Los Millares, by Marianne Weil, cast bronze (2008)

Some “non-established” historians link the distinctive culture of Los Millares in Almería with The Early Minoan Colonization of Spain (W. Sheppard Baird). Far more interesting is the following El Argar culture, which flourished in Almería, as well, in today’s eastern Andalusia, between 1800 and 1300 BCE. This Argaric culture was characterized by the early adoption of bronze, which allowed local dominance over “copper age” (chalcolithic) neighbours. That people’s mining and metallurgy were quite advanced, with silver, gold, and bronze being mined or worked for weapons and jewelry. They developed sophisticated techniques, and traded with other tribes.

Argaric gold sword

The ancient collective burial tradition, typical of European Megalithic Culture, was abandoned in favour of individual burials; the tholos or “beehive” tombs in favour of small cists. This innovative trend seems to have come from the eastern Mediterranean, most likely the Mycenaeans – skipping Sicily and Italy, where the collective burial tradition remained for some time yet. In the next phase of this culture, beginning c. 1500 BCE, burial in pithoi (large jars) became most frequent. Again this custom – that never reached beyond the Argarians’ circle – must have come from Hellas, where it was used after c. 2000 BCE. During the Mycenaean era, cultural exchanges are very clear in the Mediterranean, with the Argarians adopting Grecian funerary customs, while the Hellenes also imported the Iberian tholos for the same purpose.

Note that whoever arrived at Iberia could easily find the way to the tin ores of Brittany and Cornwall, through the Western Iberian Bronze cultures that had some degree of interaction, not just among them, but also with other Atlantic cultures in Britain, France, etc. It is the so-called Atlantic Bronze Age complex of c. 1300–700 BCE that consisted of different civilizations in Andalusia, Portugal, Galicia, Armorica (the part of Gaul that included Brittany), and the British Isles. The Atlantic Bronze Age was marked by economic and cultural exchange, which led to a high degree of cultural affinity manifested in the coastal communities from Galicia to Scotland, while commercial contacts extended from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean.

Heracles fighting Geryon, ca 540 BCE

Next notable culture was that of Tartessos, a harbour city and the surrounding region in southern Iberia (in Andalusia). It was the first organized polity of the peninsula, developed culturally and politically by the end of the 2nd millennium BCE. The area is mentioned in the Greek mythology of this era as a reminder of the Mycenaean campaigns and presence in Iberia. Heracles went to perform two labours there: to kill Geryon and obtain his cattle; and to steal the golden apples of the Hesperides. Geryon dwelt in the “Far West” of antiquity, on an island of the Hesperides, Erytheia (Erytheis); that was the name of one of the Hesperides, and also the fearsome giant’s daughter. The Occident, and more precisely Iberia, was called Hesperia. “Geryon was killed by the great strength of Heracles at sea-circled Erytheis”, sang Hesiod in his Theogony. Heracles set up two massive stone spires to stabilize all this area and ensure the safety of ships sailing through the Gibraltar Strait, called the Pillars of Heracles. He also founded colonies; among others, Gádeira, on Geryon’s island, where the Phoenicians would later establish their headquarters: Gadir (now Cádiz). A tumulus nearby Gádeira was associated with Geryon’s final resting-place; and there are legends about Heracles as being buried in Spain, as well.

Geryon is also mentioned among the mythical kings of Tartessos. His grandson, Norax (Norace), conquered the south of Sardinia, founding the city of Nora, and becoming a hero of the Nuragic mythology. He dictated the first laws, divided the society into “seven classes” and forced the aristocrats to work. Later Gárgoris introduced commerce, beekeeping, and new agricultural tools such as the plow. The agricultural innovations are also credited to his (grand)son, Habis (Habido, Abido, Abidas, Abidis, Gabis, or Gabid, as he is mentioned in various variations of the legend), who succeeded him on the throne. Later generations of Hellenes linked the area to Tartessos. They thought the Garden of the Hesperides and the Fortunate Isles, i.e. Isles of the Blessed, or Elysium, could be found somewhere outside the Pillars of Heracles.

Heracles, Hesperides, Fortunate Isles, Sardinia

Medusa Bronze Plaque

● Heracles was great-grandson of Perseus, the legendary founder of Mycenae, who killed the Gorgon Medusa. To achieve that, he had to find the Hesperides who would give him the necessary weapons. Finally, cutting off her head, from her neck sprang Pegasus and Chrysaor (gold + sword), the result of her meeting with Poseidon. Later Chrysaor became king of Iberia. Geryon, his son and heir, dwelt on the Hesperides island of Erytheia, the “red island” of the Vesper, so called because it lay under the sunrays in the sunset. It was identified with Gadir, there were also alternatives, such as one of the Balearics, or even the Delta in the estuary of the Tartessos river (Guadalquivir; see Chronicle 26, Tartessos and the Phoenicians). Heracles, on his way to this area, according to Herodotus, crossed the desert of “Libya” (Maghreb) and became so frustrated at the heat that he shot an arrow at Helios, i.e. the Sun. The god, “in admiration of his courage”, gave Heracles the golden cup (boat) he used to sail across the sea from West to East each night. Heracles reaching Erytheia on it was a favourite motif of the vase-painters. Diodorus Siculus, on the contrary, claimed that Heracles raised a large fleet in Crete to sail against Chrysaor, the wealthy king of Iberia, and his three sons. Stesichorus, in the 6th century BCE, composed a Song of Geryon (Γηρυονηΐς), where he made the first reference to Tartessos, with the Hesperides nearby. Later Strabo reported the same location in his Geographica.

Heracles with nymphs, a satyr, and Pan in the Garden of the Hesperides, by Hesperides Painter, hydria (water jar),
ca early 4th century BCE

Heracles’ way back home with the cattle was eventful. He crossed the Pyrenees that he himself had created when his beloved Pyrene bore a serpent and was so terrified that she fled to the woods where she died. Heracles created a tomb for her by piling up rocks, thus forming the mountain range. Arriving at Gaul, in the Monaco area, he turned away the previous gods. As a result, the temple of Heracles Mónoecos (single + house) was constructed on a promontory – called thus as it was the sole temple in what is now the Côte d’Azur. The Phocaeans built the colony Mónoecos there in the 6th century BCE. The only deep-water port in Monaco is dedicated to the great hero: Port Hercule. Heracles also founded the cities Alesia and Nemausus and became the father of the Celts. Reaching Liguria, two giants, Al(e)bion and Bergion, Poseidon’s sons, attempted to carry off his oxen, but the hero killed them. In this fight, he was assisted by Zeus with a shower of stones. The Italian route was rather uneventful as far as the tip of the peninsula, near Rhegium, where an ox jumped into the sea and swam to Sicily. Eryx, another son of Poseidon, king of the homonymous city and also excellent boxer, appropriated it. Heracles fought with him and killed him in order to take the animal back. The only problem afterwards was when Hera made the cattle mad in Thrace. Heracles was obliged to go as far as the Hellespont to recover the oxen, and take them to king Eurystheus, who sacrificed them to Zeus’ sister-wife.

● The Hesperides (Ἑσπερίδες) in Hellenic mythology were nymphs, aficionadas of singing, who tended a blissful garden in a far western corner of the world, near the Atlas Mountains in northwestern Africa, at the edge of the Oceanus encircling the Oecumene. They were three daughters of Hesperus, the Evening Star of the planet Venus or Vesper (just like other Greek triads, such as the Graces and Moerae, Fates): Aegle (“dazzling light”), Arethusa (“waterer”), Erytheia (“red one”). The Garden of the Hesperides was Hera’s orchard in the Occident, where either a single tree or a grove of immortality-giving “golden apples” grew. In later years, it was thought that they might have actually been oranges, a fruit unknown to Europe and the Mediterranean before the Middle Ages. Under this assumption, the Hellenic botanical name for all citrus species is ἑσπεριδοειδῆ (“hesperidoids”) – implying that they have come from the Occident, while in reality their origin is in the Orient (Southeast Asia).⁽¹⁾

A traditional Rabelo boat in the Douro used for centuries
to transport people and goods, mainly wine

• ⁽¹⁾ In some languages, the orange is named after Portugal, the former main source of imports: Greek portokali (πορτοκάλι), Bulgarian and Slav-Macedonian portokal, Romanian portocală, Georgian phortokhali, South Italian dialectic portogallo or purtualle. Related names are found in non-European languages, as well: Turkish portakal, Arabic al-burtuqal, Persian porteghal, and Amharic (the Ethiopian language) birtukan.

Portugal’s name derives from the Roman Portus Cale that evolved into Portugale during the 7th and 8th centuries. Cale was an early settlement located at the mouth of the Douro River, in the north of what is now Portugal. The etymology of the name Cale is mysterious, as is the identity of the town’s founders. Some historians have argued that Hellenes were the first to settle Cale and the name derives from the Hellenic word callos (κάλλος, beauty), referring to the beauty of the Douro valley. However, the mainstream explanation is that it is an ethnonym derived from the Callaeci, or Gallaeci, who lived there. The same applies to the names Galicia and Gaia, the twin city of Porto, at the Douro mouth. (On Greek colonies there, see Chronicle 26, Odysseys in the Aftermath of the Trojan War: Colonization of Iberia).

Macaronesia: the Azores, Madeira,
the Canaries and Cape Verde

● In the Fortunate Isles, or Isles of the Blessed, heroes and other favoured mortals in the Greek and Celtic mythologies were received into a winterless blissful paradise. These islands were thought to lie in the “Western Ocean”, near the “Oceanus River” encircling the earth. Strabo located them opposite “Maurusia” (Mauritania, Western Sahara and Morocco), beyond the end of the world, where neither snow nor heavy rains ever fell, with the beneficially invigorating cool breath of Zephyrus constantly blowing. Plutarch, referring to these isles several times in his writings, located them firmly in the Atlantic a few days’ sail from Iberia:

“The islands are said to be two in number separated by a very narrow strait and lie [2,000 kilometers] from Africa… A firm belief has made its way even to the barbarians that here are the Elysian Fields and the abode of the Blessed of which Homer sang.”

Geography now names these islands as Macaronesia (from the Greek name Makárōn nēsoe (Μακάρων νῆσοι, Isles of the Blessed): the Azores and Madeira (Portugal), the Canaries (Spain) and Cape Verde.

Metallic model of a Nuragic ship

● Close relations between Iberia and Sardinia implied by mythology are confirmed by archaeological, architectural, linguistic, cultural and historical finds. The Sardinians had also contacts with the Mycenaeans, who traded in the western Mediterranean, and the Cretans, e.g. with Cydonia, modern Chaniá, as shown from pottery recovered in excavations in Sardinia. But influences may have been even wider. The stepped pyramid of Monte d’Accoddi, near Sassari, is somehow similar to the monumental complex of Los Millares in Andalusia and some later edifices in the Balearics. Certain scholars see similarities even with Mesopotamian structures and attribute them to migrations, particularly of Sumerians, to the Occident. Ancient Greek historians and geographers described the mysterious megalithic nuraghe as daedaleia, implying there was a connection with Daedalus who, after working in Crete, where he built the Labyrinth, settled in Sicily and then in Sardinia.

During the Chalcolithic period, in the dawn of the Nuragic civilization of the 18th century BCE, copper was used to make weapons and other items. Soon the island, rich in mines, notably copper and lead, saw the construction of numerous furnaces for the production of alloys traded across the Mediterranean, possibly by Minoans, later on by Mycenaeans, and perhaps even Sardinians. The Nuragic culture acquired skilled metal workers who were among the main metal producers in Europe. Passing to the Bronze Age, they used this new alloy to make a wide variety of products, such as weapons, tools, even votive offerings, e.g. bronze vessels that indicate their close relationship with the sea. Sardinia was not on the vital map of tin sources and trade in ancient times (Cornwall-Devon, Brittany, Iberia, Bohemia–Saxony). But because of its other mineral wealth, it served as a centre for metals trade at that time and likely actively imported tin from Iberia for export to the rest of the Mediterranean. Traders from the Aegean, therefore, and other areas where tin was scarce, went there very often. This fact explains cultural influences on the Nuragic civilization from Mycenae, Crete and Cyprus, as well as the presence of late Bronze Age Mycenaean, Cretan and Cypriot ceramics, and locally made replicas, in half a dozen findspots that seem to have functioned as “gateway” communities.

Sardinian and Corsican tribes

The late Bronze Age (15th–13th centuries BCE; see also previous Chronicles) saw vast population migrations, e.g. those of the Sea Peoples, who destroyed the Mycenaean and Hittite worlds and also attacked Egypt. Some scholars connect the Sherden, one of the Sea People tribes, with the Nuragic Sardinians, who might have settled on the island before or after the failed invasion of Egypt. These theories are controversial to most archaeologists and historians. But Simonides of Ceos, in a lost work reported by Zenobius, spoke of Sardinian attacks against Crete during the Sea Peoples’ raids in Egypt. This would at least confirm that Nuragic Sardinians frequented the eastern Mediterranean at the time. Further proof comes from 13th century Nuragic ceramics found at Tiryns and at the Sicilian Agrigento (Acragas) area, along the sea route that linked the Occidental to the Oriental part of mare nostrum.

The second largest island in the Mediterranean after Sicily was called Ichnussa by the Hellenes. It was most probably named Sardinia after a legendary hero of the Nuragic pantheon, Sardus, who colonized the island from Libya. His father was Makeris, who might be connected with the Phoenician Melqart, also identifiable with the Libyan Heracles. So, Sardus is also associated with the Heracleidae that settled there led by Iolaus, a nephew of Heracles, according to Diodorus Siculus. Iolaus may have given rise to the tribe of Iolei, Iolaensi, or Iliensi,⁽²⁾ who were repeatedly checked by Punics and Romans, but they were never subdued. He also founded many cities from the Black Sea area to Sicily and Sardinia, requesting the assistance of Daedalus. Some of the latter’s edifices were still standing in Diodorus’ time (1st century BCE). Finally, the Phoenicians appeared in this area for the very first time around 1000 BCE, and began visiting Sardinia with increasing frequency. Later, from the 8th century onwards, they started founding (or appropriating) strongholds and cities primarily on the strategic southwestern coast of the island. Common ports of call, where they dropped anchor, were Caralis, Nora, Bithia, Sulcis, Tharros, and Olbia (mostly Hellenic toponyms).⁽³⁾

• ⁽²⁾ Sardinian and Corsican tribes: the Corsi (perhaps from Liguria) moved to Corsica from North Sardinia; the Balearic Balares (from Iberia or South France, perhaps related with the Basques), settled in the north-central of Sardinia; the Iolei (from North Africa, East Mediterranean, or West Sicily) settled in the central-south area. The Gallurese, Logudorese and Campidanese dialects may correspond to these tribes.

Launeddas

• ⁽³⁾ Sardinia and neighbouring Corsica constitute a special case in terms of music, too, cultivating one of the oldest forms of vocal polyphony, as ancient as the polyphony of Epirus and Albania. Unesco classed this kind of song, called cantu a tenore, as intangible world heritage in 2005. A similar style, cantu a cuncordu, corresponds to the Corsican paghjella and is liturgic in nature.

The polyphonic tradition extends to the musical instruments. A typical polyphonic woodwind instrument made of three pipes is the launeddas (also called “triple clarinet” or “triplepipe”). The pipes are played with circular breathing and the sound may be continuous. One of the pipes functions as a drone and the other two play the melody in thirds and sixths. Predecessors of the launeddas can be traced back to approximately 2700 BCE in Egypt, where reed pipes, depicted on tomb reliefs and pyramids, were called memet. The launeddas date back to at least the 8th century BCE and are still played in religious ceremonies and dances (su ballu). The musicians use extensive variations on a few melodic phrases, and a single tune can last over an hour, creating some of the “most elemental and resonant sounds in European music”, as Alessio Surian said.

Legendary Odyssean Lisbon

Cynetic writing with a human figure (8th century BCE)

GÁRGORIS IS MENTIONED AS A LEGENDARY KING of one of the peoples of Tartessos, who lived in today’s Algarve and Low Alentejo of southern Portugal. They were called Cynetes, Cynesioi, or Conii, the westernmost dwellers of Europe, according to Herodotus, who distinguished them from the Celts. Gárgoris, as the legend goes, had incestuous relations with his daughter, whose name has not survived. The… “fateful act” happened one day when a bee strung her; Gárgoris, wishing to heal the wound, massaged her with his mouth, and thus they were overwhelmed by passion (it’s unclear exactly where the bite was)! After she had got pregnant, he ordered that she should be locked up and the child be killed. The boy was abandoned on a hill very close to a lair of wild beasts, which instead breast-fed and protected him. When Gárgoris learned that his (grand)son was still alive, he ordered that he should be taken away from the cave and put to death in another way: in a stampede of cows, devoured by dogs or hungry pigs, or thrown to the sea. Protected by Fortune, Habis managed to survive against all adversities: the animals nursed him, or a sea wave carried him ashore. Raised by a hind (Habis in the Cynete language means fawn), and grown up like a savage, he became a skilful bandit, but was captured by peasants who led him to the king. The boy’s birthmarks made Gárgoris realize that he was his (grand)son. Impressed by his miraculous survival of all ordeals, he named him heir to the throne. Recorded by the Gallo-Roman historian Pompeius Trogus (1st century BCE), the legend was narrated in verse by Jerónimo de Arbolanche in his poem Abidas (1566).

Perseus and Andromeda (1870), by Gustave Moreau

According to Justin, a Latin historian who wrote the Epitome of Pompeius Trogus Philippic Histories, Habis, as a king, made revolutionary social reforms, “dividing the citizens among seven cities”, and forbidding slavery because of debt, which was a common phenomenon in ancient times. Justin also commented on some parallels of the legend with similar stories on other progenitors, such as Perseus, Moses, Romulus and Remus, expressing the view that Habis was superior to the founders of Rome, who were just obliged to milk a she-wolf, without passing all those adversities to demonstrate a similar or superior ability to survive.⁽⁴⁾ With so charismatic a king, the area between the Guadalquivir and the Sado estuary, in Setúbal, was spectacularly transformed, for Habis introduced agriculture, with cereals and cattle farming, thus improving the nutrition of his subjects. The land was ruled by his descendants for centuries. His legislative work was also great, with the laws in rhyme he introduced, which, in the years of Tartessian acme, numbered “six thousand verses”, according to Strabo. This tradition of laws in verse seems to have begun in archaic times, when writing was not widespread, so that people could memorize and observe the laws.⁽⁵⁾ Such laws were obviously written in the Southwest, or Tartessian script,⁽⁶⁾ the oldest of the Paleohispanic scripts (7th – 5th century BCE). It extended between the Guadalquivir and Sado estuaries, even in the interior of Iberia, reaching Alicante and Murcia in the East, where a Graeco-Iberian alphabet was used. There is no agreement about how these scripts originated; some researchers claim their origin is linked only to the Phoenician abjad, while others believe that the Greek alphabet contributed, too. It seems that no one gives priority to the Hellenic script. Alas! All these “Philo-Phoenicians” were unable to find any “Phoenico-Iberian” script!

Odysseus and Calypso, by Max Beckmann

• ⁽⁴⁾ I have commented on the parallels with “baby Moses” (see Chronicle 5, footnote 5): Habis’ stamina was supreme! As regards Perseus, when he was a baby, his grandfather, Acrisius, cast his mother, Danaë, and him into the sea, in a wooden chest, fearful of an oracle that his grandson would kill him. During his trials when he grew up (he beheaded Medusa and saved the Aethiopian princess Andromeda from Cetus), he could not be victorious if he was not the son of Zeus – hence, he was the foremost of all!

• ⁽⁵⁾ More about the ancient Greek musical nomoi, i.e. the age-old tradition of laws in verse meant to be sung in order to be memorized and observed, see Chronicle 11, footnote 1, and Chronicle 16, footnote 10.

• ⁽⁶⁾ Or South Lusitanian, or Bastulo–Turdetanian, or escrita conia (script of the Conii or Cynetes).

There are also other versions of this legend. Gárgoris is identified with Cronus eating his children, while Habis-Abidas is presented as persecuted because he introduced agriculture in pastoral Tartessos. Another version, which found quite unexpectedly its way into a book about fado, is a later adaptation to make the story morally acceptable by covering up the incest factor. Thus it combines the legend with the myth of Lisbon foundation, and the Odyssey, embellishing the story with our cherished Homeric heroes. In this version, as related by Augusto Mascarenhas Barreto in his numerous mythological and historical digressions in the book Fado – Lyrical Origins and Poetic Motivation, Gárgoris is renamed as Gregoris, the Iberian king, while his daughter is none other than Calypso; in this way, her son’s father is, of course, Odysseus, and Ogygia is no longer an island but a location at the estuary of Tagus, the future Lisbon. According to Barreto, the Ithacan king walled the settlement and named it Ulissea (Odyssey) – whence the word Olisipo(na) – while the son he had from Calypso, named Abidis, after passing the aforementioned ordeals, founded Scalabis (Santarém), and some other cities (e.g. Astorga, Astigi; see also Chronicle 5. Iberia’s Odyssey).

Map of the Lisbon area: Olisipo, Sintra, Scalabis, and Salacia, present-day Alcácer do Sal

There are many versions of the Lisbon foundation myth, as well. In one of them, a thunderbolt lit the skies and exploded into flame in an unknown land. Then Odysseus was instructed by Zeus (the great god of Thunder and Lightning) to build a city on the point of impact. This land, says another version, was ruled by charming Ophiussa, who had a huge snake tail instead of legs. The queen fell madly in love with Odysseus and, in order to keep him there, offered him the throne. Our cunning hero pretended to accept the proposal, fearing for his life; but all the while, he was secretly filling up his boat with supplies; and one night, while the queen was asleep, he and his crew fled into the darkness. Outraged the next morning, Ophiussa hit her tail so hard on the ground that she created the seven hills where Lisbon is built. This story introduces us to Ophiussa, the Land of Serpents, a name given by the ancient Greeks to Atlantic Iberia, what is now Portugal and Galicia, and specifically the area around the Tagus estuary.

A female Uraeus Serpent, one of the forms in which Isis is depicted (Ophiussa’s sister perhaps?)

● The land the Hellenes called Ophiussa was the Oestriminis (Extreme or Far West) for the Romans, something like Finis terrae (“end of the earth”, from a Mediterranean perspective). Rufus Avienus Festus, a Roman poet of the 4th century CE, in his Ora Maritima (Sea Coast), inspired by the Massaliote Periplus (6th century BCE), a Greek mariner’s log, wrote that the Oestrimni, a people who had been living in this area for a long time, had to flee after an invasion of serpents. In fact, these serpents were not snakes but people linked to the Saephes, or Ophis (People of the Serpents), and the Dragani (People of the Dragons), who came to colonize this land. The Saephes were neighbours of the Cynetes, living in an upland region near the Tagus estuary, close to an island Avienus called Poetanion; along with another tribe, the Cempsi, they had taken that territory by force from the Oestrimni. The newcomers were most probably proto-Celts or Celtiberians, while the Oestrimni were the Paleolithic inhabitants of Atlantic Iberia.

The Ophis, who worshiped serpents, lived mainly on inland mountains of northern Portugal and Galicia, or by the mouths of the rivers Douro, Cávado, Tagus and Sado. The Saephes lived in Cynetic land (in the Algarve and Low Alentejo, where Gárgoris reigned), together with the Cempsi. The latter, perhaps with strong Germanic and Ligurian influences, entered Iberia c. 650 BCE and finally settled in the Tagus valley and in the peninsula of Setúbal, where Avienus located the lugum cempsicum, the current Cabo Espichel. Finally, the Dragani, who settled in the north-western Iberia (Cantabria, Asturias, Galicia, Beira), must have come from Liguria, a region of north-western Italy, with strong Celtic influences, that is, they were Celto-Ligurians. Their name shows that they may have introduced the dragons into Iberia, where the locals must have already had their own griffins in their cults.

Another supernatural being in the Portuguese and Galician mythical tales is Moura Encantada (Enchanted Moura). A legend relates that on the summer solstice a maiden-serpent, a chthonic goddess, revealed hidden treasures to people journeying through forests. This maiden lived, as they said, in the area of Porto. Festivities related to this goddess occurred during the solstice. She would change into a snake during the rest of the year, living under rocks, and shepherds would set aside some milk from their flocks as an offering to her.

Calypso and Odysseus, by William Russell Flint

Calypso, according to Greek mythology, was not a princess but a nymph on the island of Ogygia, daughter of Atlas, hence she was also called Atlantis (Homer), or an Oceanid, that is, a daughter of Oceanus (Hesiod). However, both versions are linked with either the Pillars of Heracles area or the Atlantic Ocean. Atlas, the Titan who held up the celestial sphere, was identified with the Atlas Mountains in northwest Africa. Scholars who have examined Homer’s work and geography, among them Strabo and Plutarch, have suggested that Ogygia and/or Scheria, the Phaeacians’ island, were located in the Atlantic,⁽⁷⁾ and some have identified either or both with Atlantis. Besides he makes clear that

“an Ogygian isle lies far out at sea, distant five days’ sail from Britain, going westwards”.⁽⁸⁾

Deucalion and Pyrrha, by Andrea del Minga, throwing stones behind to recreate mankind

• ⁽⁷⁾ On the geography of the Odyssey, see Chronicle 15. Sailing to Rio de Janeiro!, Appendix: An Atlantic Odyssey

• ⁽⁸⁾ Ogygia is linked to the Ogygian deluge and the mythical king of Attica and/or Boeotia, called Ogyges, in the sense that Ogygian means “primeval, primal, at earliest dawn”. This means that Calypso’s island was very ancient. So, when Aeschylus calls the Nile Ogygian, he doesn’t suggest that the island was in Egypt, as some thoughtlessly thought.

● The Hellenic mythology mentions three deluges: those of Ogyges, Deucalion, and Dardanus.

Plutarch additionally mentions “the great continent”, which was interpreted as a reference to either America, or an allusion to Plato’s Atlantis. Many traits of the Phaeacians, including their seamanship, are suggestive of either Minoan Crete or Atlantis. The description of their palace is that of a very advanced civilization. Above all, their ships were superb, quite different from the galleys of the Trojan War, and… steered by thought!⁽⁹⁾ Hence the view that it was Homer before Plato who first spoke of Atlantis.

• ⁽⁹⁾ Computerized ships: the best a “Periplus in the Archipelagos” can have! Of course, with this technology in mind among other things, the idea that Scheria-Phaeacia could be Corcyra-Corfu must be ruled out. It appears far more plausible that the Phaeacians were after all the Minoans with the palace of Knossos and their amazing ships!

Homer

● Homer described the ships as faster than falcons, while King Alcinous explained to Odysseus what sort of information the ships required in order to take him home:

“Tell me your country, nation, and city, so that our ships may shape their purpose accordingly and take you there. For the Phaeacians have no pilots; their vessels have no rudders as those of other nations have, but the ships themselves understand what it is that we are thinking about and want; they know all the cities and countries in the whole world, and can traverse the sea just as well even when it is covered with mist and cloud, so that there is no danger of being wrecked or coming to any harm.”

“Fairy tales”… As with the foundation of Lisbon, the refrain we can hear in chorus over and over again after all these stories is that they are myths; it’s not reality. Again and again, traditions about Hellenes are “legends”, those concerning the Phoenicians “history”… Possibly true, there were no Grecian settlements west of the Pillars of Heracles; only voyages of discovery. Olisipo’s foundation myth by Odysseus is nothing but a myth. On the other hand, there is not the slightest evidence to support the “history” of a Phoenician foundation of Lisbon “around 600 BC”, or as far back as 1200, under the name of Alis Ubbo (“Safe Harbour”), even if there were some organized settlements in Ulissea-Olissipona with clear Mediterranean influence, either at that distant time or later; it’s nothing but a myth, as well.⁽¹⁰⁾ Likewise, except the voyages of discovery, there is no record of Phoenician or Punic colonies beyond the Algarve, namely Balsa–Tavira, close to the Portuguese-Spanish border,⁽¹¹⁾ with substantial Phoenician settlement and influence since the 8th century BCE. Essentially, Phoenician influence in today’s Portugal was due to cultural and commercial exchange with Tartessos.

• ⁽¹⁰⁾ Such a Copper Age settlement is the Castro Zambujal, the most important in the peninsula of Lisbon. The locals, probably together with Eastern Mediterranean settlers, based their economy on intensive farming, and were also part of an economic network importing minerals like gold, copper, amphibolit stone, and ivory, between 3000 and 1700 BCE. It is a site with relatively good conservation – some walls still exist up to a height of 4 meters, as the community constructed a wall around to protect itself from attacks.

Balsa: a coin depicting a horse and a fish (50 BCE)

• ⁽¹¹⁾ Tavira’s origins date back to the late Bronze Age (1000-800 BCE). The Phoenicians took hold of the town in the 8th century BCE, when it became one of their first settlements in the Iberian West, creating “a colonial urban centre, with massive walls, two harbours, at least two temples, and a regular urban structure”. This last characteristic, however, reminds ancient Hellenic city planning, and not that of Phoenician or other Semitic settlements (see in Chronicle 22, in the beginning, a comparison made by Strabo between the Greek Maenaca and Phoenician Malaca, in the area of today’s Málaga). The original Phoenician name of the town was perhaps Baal Saphon, or Baal Shamin, after the NW Semitic and Mesopotamian Thunder and Sky gods. It was later shortened to Balsa. Others, on the contrary, insist that the term Balsa is of Iberian, perhaps Basque, origin. It can be found now in other parts of the world.

The town was violently destroyed by conflict, at the end of 6th century BCE and was deserted for a century. This probably happened while Tartessos was devastated by the Punics. During the post-Tartessian, or Turdetanian period, the Iberian colonies seceded from Punic hegemony (410 BCE). As a result, Tavira recovered, during the urban bloom of the area, and became bigger than ever. But this renaissance did not last long: the city was destroyed and abandoned again by the end of the 4th century BCE. After Carthage was razed to the ground, in the mid-1st century BCE, the Romans created a new port, some 7 kilometres from Tavira, which inherited the name Balsa.

“The Tartessian fortunate city.” (Herodotus)

Arganthonios

RETURN TO TARTESSOS. The legendary polity appears, circa the middle of the 1st millennium BCE, in Greek and Near Eastern sources. Homer must have been again the first one to sing in the Iliad of a gold-bearing land in the western limits of the world (Iberia), before the Great (Atlantic) Ocean, where people lived happily for many years. The “Tartessian fortunate city”, according to Herodotus, was just outside the Pillars of Heracles, at the estuary, or precisely οn the Delta, of the homonymous river, and governed by a centenarian king named Arganthonios – a name that certainly referred to his great wealth.

Another historian, Ephorus, described in the 4th century BCE

“a very prosperous market called Tartessos, with much tin carried by river, as well as gold and copper from Celtic lands.”

Around the end of the millennium, however, there are indications that the name fell out of use creating the impression that the city might have been lost due to natural or other causes. Apart from Thera, Tartessos is a strong candidate for the site of Atlantis. They must have had more in common due to Minoan influence. The Andalusians, just like the Hellenes, may have benefited from the Cretans not only economically, but culturally, as well. Archaeological finds in Tartessos have built up a picture of a widespread culture, with the core area extending from the Guadalquivir valley to Huelva, but also covering the entire southern Iberia, from the Tagus estuary to the southern land of Valencia. Pausanias, writing in the 2nd century CE, identified the river and gave details on the location of the city:

“They say that Tartessos is a river in the land of the Iberians, running down into the sea by two mouths,⁽¹²⁾ and that between these two mouths lies a city of the same name. The river is the largest in Iberia, and tidal, that of a later day called Baetis” – named Guadalquivir (“Great River”) even later by the Moors.⁽¹³⁾

View of the river Guadalquivir (1854), by Manuel Barrón y Carrillo

• ⁽¹²⁾ Strabo also spoke of two mouths, creating a Delta at the river’s estuary, while describing the region and estimating its size. In this passage, which is like a periplus of the Pillars of Heracles area, he doesn’t refer to Tartessos city (non-existent in his time) – though it is mentioned by the later Pausanias. The land, says Strabo, has its “natural borders” drawn by the riverbeds of Ana (Guadiana) and Baetis (Guadalquivir), eloquently nicknamed “the silver river”. Tartessis was the toponym referring to the land, while the capital was called Tartessos, like the river.

• ⁽¹³⁾ Aristotle’s idea about the river was even grander, as he thought it rose from the Pyrenees! You see, even a genius can fail miserably! But Pausanias also erred, because the Guadalquivir is just the fifth longest river of Iberia, after the Tagus, Ebro, Douro and Guadiana. According to Livy, the local (Tartessian and Turdetanian) names for the Guadalquivir were Kertis and Rerkes.

The eastern mouth of the river, the only one existing now, was much wider at that time. The western mouth does not exist anymore, but it is thought that it was located near Huelva. In this area we now find only a number of lakes. At that time, between these two river arms, there was a large lagoon with at least one island in it where the legendary city was probably located. The landscape is completely different now. Some findings lead to the conclusion that there must have been two natural disasters (tsunamis) that caused the islands and the dry areas to sink, one that happened around 1500 BCE, and the other in 200 CE.⁽¹⁴⁾ Therefore, none of them is linked with the demise of Tartessos, between the late 6th and early 5th centuries BCE, when most sites were inexplicably abandoned…

Geography of Tartessos and Iberia; 7th-5th century BCE. N to S: Dragani, Oestrimni, Ophiussa, Saephes, Cempsi, Cynetes.

• ⁽¹⁴⁾ These natural disasters are significant, as they give us some clues about the city of Tartessos – its founding and disappearance. The first catastrophe, around 1500 BCE, implies that the city was apparently founded in the following period, i.e. at some point during the second half of the 2nd millennium BCE. As for the second disaster, ca 200 CE, it must have changed so dramatically the topography of the area that it has not been possible to locate the city until now. Moreover, we do not know the extent of the destruction caused by the Punics when they set out to raze the Tartessian civilization from the face of the earth. That is why Tartessos remains a legendary city to this day.

The Tartessians were excellent in engineering and had created a sophisticated system to regulate the water flow of a tidal river. Strabo described an advanced, urbanized society with many flourishing, wealthy cities along the banks of the Tartessos-Baetis-Guadalquivir River:

“They are considered to be the most educated of the Iberians, they have a scripture, even historical chronicles, poems, and laws in 6,000 verses”, he wrote.

Treasure of Tartessos, El Carambolo

Tartessian culture is divided mainly into two periods: The first is characterized as “geometric” and coincides with the late Bronze Age ranging from 1200 to 750 BCE – corresponding somehow to the Greek geometric art (Parallel Lives in art? Who knows)… The second is termed “oriental”, influenced by Phoenicians and Hellenes alike, ranging from 750 to 550 BCE, when it was gradually superseded by the classic Iberian culture. A similar shift to the Lusitanian culture occurred in the southern Portuguese territory, mainly in the Algarve and Low Alentejo, with littoral extensions up to the Tagus mouth. Significant elements of the period were the introduction of the potter’s wheel, and several other major advances in craftsmanship, e.g. architecture, and also in agriculture. Another noticeable and notable element was the increase in specialization and stratification. Writing was a very important development. With the arrival of the Hellenes, whose influence extended far beyond their colonies,⁽¹⁵⁾ this “orientalism” began to transform itself into the Iberian culture, especially in the South East. Greek influence is visible in the gradual change of the style of the monuments approaching more and more the architectural models of the Hellenic world. The Iberian script evolved from the Tartessian with noticeable Greek influence. A variant of the Hellenic alphabet (Ibero-Ionian script) was also used to write Iberian texts.

• ⁽¹⁵⁾ There are maps showing only one Greek colony in the entire Iberia: Emporion. All other cities
  are shown as local or Phoenician. Even Acra Leucá (a toponym made up of two Hellenic words) is shown as a Phoenician colony! By what magic wand did the Greek cultural influence spread? How could it penetrate even the Phoenician sphere of influence?

Culture (from Cicero’s “cultura animi”) is also material, denoting the artifacts a society creates and their connection to social relations. Civilization is certainly inconceivable without division of labour and technology. Culture and civilization necessitate an economic base in order to thrive. In the case of Iberia, it was the metals that opened the way to the dawn of the Bronze Age, sped up later when some Easterners arrived there. But mining and smelting preceded the coming of Minoans, Greeks, or Phoenicians. Alluvial tin was panned in the Iberian streams from an early date. The Río Tinto mines, along the river that flows into the Gulf of Cádiz at Huelva, are estimated at 8,000 to 10,000 years old. They have been mined for copper, silver, gold, and many other minerals, by Iberians, Tartessians, Phoenicians, Hellenes, Romans, Visigoths, Moors and Spaniards, for such a long time that the place has turned into an environmental disaster zone.⁽¹⁶⁾

Río Tinto: beautiful colours but… poisonous!

• ⁽¹⁶⁾ After its exploitation for ten millennia, the Tínto area looks like a “lunar landscape”, or even worse. Recently it has gained scientific interest due to the presence of so-called extremophile aerobic bacteria that dwell in the water. The extreme conditions there may be analogous to other locations in the solar system thought to contain liquid water, such as subterranean Mars, or Jupiter’s moon Europa, where an acidic ocean of water is theorized to exist under its frozen ice surface.

El Corazón de la Tierra: the Heart of the Earth (uprooted…)

Thus the river is of interest to astrobiologists. Based partially on research done near the Río Tinto, two NASA scientists reported in 2005 they had found strong evidence of present life on Mars! They may have been obliged to retract, but who knows? The Americans may one day employ… Martians as slaves! That is the reason why Europe, eternally in the role of a satellite, is being transmuted into… Europa, moving inexorably towards the gates of El Dorado vigilantly guarded by Cerberus!

Giant geysers of water vapour are thought to eject off the frigid, icy surface of the Jovian moon Europa.

The invention of coinage intensified the search for bronze and silver in the 7th century BCE. Consequently, trade links, formerly largely in elite goods, assumed a broader economic role. By that time, silver extraction in Huelva Province had reached industrial proportions. Huelva city was certainly connected to Tartessos; it contains the largest accumulation of imported elite goods and should have been an important centre. Excavations in the heart of the town revealed a great industrial and commercial emporium that lasted several centuries. Some 90,000 ostraca (ceramic fragments), indigenous and imported (Phoenician and Greek), were exhumed. All these vessels, dated from the 10th to the 8th centuries BCE, precede finds from other Phoenician emporia. The existence of foreign produce and materials together with local ones permits us to imagine its old harbour as a major hub for the reception, manufacture and shipping of diverse products of various and distant origins and destinations. Finds in other parts of the city help us estimate its habitat in some 20 hectares, which constitutes a sizable extension for a site in Iberia during that period. The analysis of written sources and the products exhumed, including thousands of Hellenic ceramics, some of which are works of excellent quality by known potters and painters, tends to identify this habitat with the lost city of Tartessos.

• >> Chronicle 22. AN IBERIAN PERIPLUS REVIVAL
• << Chronicle 20. THE ENIGMATIC SEA PEOPLES

Next Chronicle 22. AN IBERIAN PERIPLUS REVIVAL ● Tartessos (B) ● Colonies in Provence, Iberia, Maurusia ● Tin and Silver Routes ● Democritus and Plato ● Topography of the Area Beyond the Pillars of Heracles

Oceanus, Roman mosaic at Ossonoba, modern Faro, Algarve, Portugal.