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alatismeni-theitsa · 2 years

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Hii,

I was wondering if you could tell me (if you know, of course) what the ancient Greeks of the Mycenaean times called themselves.

I was trying to look it up myself for a project but all the info I got was so inconclusive and one article went against the other and I'm honestly so confused.

I really wanted to answer this because I remember we talked about it in A' class in Gymnasio!! (Our History book also wrote a bit about that). We are almost sure, as we have very strong historical elements for speculation.

If you've read the Iliad and Odyssey in English, the Greeks (who came from the Mycenean culture at the time) are called "Achaeans" (Αχαιοί) and the region "Achaea" (Αχαΐα). So, that's probably how they called themselves as well.

The Hettites called the Myceneans "Ahiyawa" (Acheans) and wrote that they were a strong seafaring power. The Egyptians called them "Aqwavasa" or "Eqwesh". You might read the Indoeuropean "aqw-" sound/root hidden somewhere there, which means "water" (see the latin "aqua", the greek "acheron" etc). It is possible that the name "Achaeans" meant "those who come from the sea places". I don't have the time to research more on that but you can do some more reading on that if you want to see if it checks out.

In the Epics other collective names were also used, the most common being Danaans ("Δαναοί" is the Greek term) and Argeans / Argites / Argives / Argeioi. ("Αργείοι" is the Greek term).

Danaans were an earlier, different tribe than Achaeans, and when Achaeans came to the Peloponnese circa 2.000 BCE, they mixed. Danaans came to the region - possible Argos on the mainland the islands - after the "Pelasgoi" (Πελασγοί) the first inhabitants of the region. "Pelasgos" means "one from the open sea" so it's possible the Danaans had mostly gathered in the islands and other places near the sea. Danaans built Argos. But after their mix, Danaans and Achaeans were mostly the same, so the identifications came to be synonyms and used interchangeably by foreigners.

Egyptians called the Danaans "Denyen" and "Tanaju". Moreover, a list of the cities and regions of the Tanaju is also mentioned in this inscription; among the cities listed are Mycenae, Nauplion, Kythera, Messenia, and the Thebaid (region of Thebes).

Argos was a great power at the time and that's why you also see the Argeioi in the ancient texts. Before the Trojan war, they all gathered in Argos and sailed from there. It's possible the city was so powerful back then that it also became representative of the Greeks sometimes in the eyes of foreigners.

For the names of Achaeans these are two prominent sources: 1) Beckman Gary Michael, Cline Eric H., Bryce, R Trevor. (2012). «The Ahhiyawa Texts». Writings from the ancient world / Society of Biblical Literature, (28): 5. ISSN 1570-7008. 2) Jorrit Kelder. Ahhiyawa and the World of the Great Kings. A Re-evaluation of Mycenaean Political Structures, Talanta XLVI, 2012, X-X, σελ. 1.

Of course not all Achaeans lived in Argos, so they didn't have to self-identify as Argeioi. They could remember their Danaan origin and identify with that + the name of their town. Or they were just living in a smaller town and they self-identified with their Achaean origin + the name of their town. And it's possible that many Danaans lived in Argos. I don't recall any ancient texts talking about tensions between Danaans and Achaeans, or any discrimination like "Their family is Danaan and we are Achaeans so our children shouldn't marry." I think they just co-existed and merged without much fuss :P

For the origin story of Danaans in the region, you can read more by seeing the myth of Danaos. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danaus

Greek "nations" and genera across the ages, the origins of the Danaans

This entry in wikipedia has very well concentrated all the genealogies and how the Greeks saw the creation of nations and lines across the ages.

**"Ethne" ("Ethnoi") are what I call in English "tribes" for better understanding. ("Ethnos" is singular.) It could also be translated as "ethnicities" (yes "ethnicity" comes from Greek) but in English this shows a bigger difference in cultural backgrounds than a "tribe". The ancient "ethnos" between the Greeks is more akin to the relationship different tribes of the same nation and ethnicity have. In modern times we call them "phylles" lit. "leaves" from different branches of the same tree or "genoi" (you'll know the English word genealogy from Greek). We rarely use the "ethnoi" word today but the ancients saw more differences between them than we see in them today so they kept a wider distinction.

In Greek mythology, the perceived cultural divisions among the Hellenes were represented as legendary lines of descent that identified kinship groups, with each line being derived from an eponymous ancestor. Each of the Greek ethne were said to be named in honor of their respective ancestors: Achaeus of the Achaeans, Danaus of the Danaans, Cadmus of the Cadmeans (the Thebans), Hellen of the Hellenes (not to be confused with Helen of Troy), Aeolus of the Aeolians, Ion of the Ionians, and Dorus of the Dorians.

Cadmus from Phoenicia, Danaus from Egypt, and Pelops from Anatolia each gained a foothold in mainland Greece and were assimilated and Hellenized. Hellen, Graikos, Magnes, and Macedon were sons of Deucalion and Pyrrha, the only people who survived the Great Flood; the ethne were said to have originally been named Graikoi after the elder son but later renamed Hellenes after Hellen who was proved to be the strongest. Sons of Hellen and the nymph Orseis were Dorus, Xuthos, and Aeolus. Sons of Xuthos and Kreousa, daughter of Erechthea, were Ion and Achaeus.

Obviously, one nation cannot come just from one man, and we don't have evidence that Danaans came from Egypt (only some vague linguistic traces because of their name). But it's not impossible. It's very likely that other ethne came from different regions (Egypt, Phoenicia, Anatolia) and slowly mixed with each other to create a more homogenized identity, as people settled more and more in agricultural environments. This early Hellenic identity of "Achaeans" we see for the first time in the Iliad when people from all these kingdoms with similar cultures united under a common cause.

It's important to not call "Danaans" Egyptians, though. At the point we see the peoples called "Danaans", they have developed the early Hellenized culture, distinct from the Egyptian culture of the time. They could potentially have been "Egyptians" a hundred generations back (if we believe their mythological origin story) but when we see them they are interchangeable with Achaeans. They didn't consider themselves Egyptians, and other locals didn't consider them Egyptians (or foreigners) either.

Egyptians don't "claim" the "Danaans" either. I think I should comment on that before any Americans go "Greeks came from Egypt, actually!" In fact, as I mentioned above, Egyptians named them "Denyen" or "Tanaju", like separate peoples from them, and mentioned the Greek cities they lived in.

Achaeans themselves were said to come from the north in 2.000 BCE, Dorians came from the North as well. (We don't know what North™ exactly 😂) Peloponnesians were Dorians but Macedonians were partly Dorians, too.

Achaea (Ἀχαΐα) still exists, btw! I mean... most of our ancient regions and cities still exist but it's nice to see the region kept such an old, really old name! Locator map of Achaia prefecture (Νομός Αχαΐας) in Hellas:

#ethne #ethnoi #tribes #Achaeans #mycenean #trojan war #the iliad #the odyssey #answered #hellenes #hellenismos #ancient greece #academia #classics #history

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un-enfant-immature · 4 years

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KlearNow raises $16 million to bring customs clearance industry into the digital age

Customs is the sieve of international supply chains. And yet despite its critical role, clearing customs for freight brokers can be a slow and opaque process reliant on manual data entry and prone to errors.

Silicon Valley-based KlearView has developed a platform that aims to bring customs clearance into the digital age. Now, with $16 million new funding, Klearview aims to expand its geographic reach and to improve its product to cover increasingly complex export-import verticals and time-sensitive shipments.

The company is has certification to handle any import into the U.S., no matter what the commodity is. Klearview is close to getting certified in Canada and UK, and plans to expand to Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and Germany. Klearview has about two dozen customers.

The Series A funding round was led by GreatPoint Ventures with additional participation from Autotech Ventures, Argean Capital and Monta Vista Capital . Ashok Krishnamurthi, managing partner at GreatPoint Ventures, will join KlearNow’s board. Daniel Hoffer from Autotech Ventures joining as a board observer.

“This is a significant opportunity to transform an archaic industry that is key to global commerce,” Krishnamurthi said in a statement.

The freight ecosystem is filled with different players from the factories and port authorities to the ship lingers and the last-mile delivery companies. Each of them have their own systems.

“There’s no one system that you can transmit the data to,” KlearView founder and CEO Sam Tyagi said in a recent interview. “So everybody dumps technology down to a PDF or a PNG or some sort of format that everybody can read. The broker gets those documents, and then they print it out — so now they become non-digital.”

If you go to any customs brokers office they look like the old doctor’s office where all those folders are there with nicely arranged, really organized but very manual process,” he added. From here, Tyagi said, a broker will read off from those printed out documents and type the information into another system that is communicated to Customs and Border Patrol’s system.

“It is very manual, it’s very small, and they work in a siloed system,” Tyagi said. “There is no visibility for the customer, or the importer and it’s very costly because of the manual intervention.”

KlearNow developed a digital customs clearance platform that aims to be agnostic. This allows importers, customs brokers and freight forwarders to integrate with local customs authorities and conduct business on a single digital platform remotely and in real time. The platform automates this process to eliminate errors and reduces the time to clear customs. KlearView says it can slash customs clearance times from hours to minutes.

The startup is also betting that its platform will find new customers in this remote work era that was caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Custom brokers, who might normally travel into central offices and manage physical paperwork, are now faced with completing that task from home.

“Remote work is impossible for these people,” because they often need to access large format printers, Tyagi said.

The company said its digital platform can funnel new clients, like these newly remote workers, directly to brokers for global customs clearance.

Tyagi said the company has also added new capabilities in response to COVId-19, such as expediting their FDA module to clear much-needed medical supplies and is temporarily offering free clearance for non-profit organizations that are importing masks, hand sanitizers, and ventilators.

#TechCrunch

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