Greeks & Phoenicians (was: Fw: Kassi Script)

On Sunday, June 13, 2004, at 06:57 , Steg Belsky wrote:

> On Jun 13, 2004, at 7:44 AM, Ray Brown wrote:
>> On Saturday, June 12, 2004, at 12:14 , Barbara Barrett wrote:
>>> Soory bout this; it got shuffled and I didn't notice till now. BB
>> [snip]
>>>> IIRC the Greeks had it both ways - attributing letters both to the
>>>> god
>>>> Hermes/Thoth and to an historical personage who's name escapes me
>>>> for the
>>>> moment ;-).
>>
>> Kadmos, king of Thebes (i.e. the Thebes in Boiotia, Grrece, not the
>> Thebes
>> in Egypt) - he was credited with introducing Phoenician letters to
>> Greece.
>>
>> Ray
>
> Hmm... coincidence that the Semitic root /qdm/ can mean "ancient, east,
> forward"?
Quite possibly not a coincidence. Kadmos (Latinized as 'Cadmus') was
supposed to be a Phoenician, one of the sons of Agenor, King of Tyre, and
brother of Europe (final -e pronounced!) who Zeus, disguised as a bull
abducted and carried off to Crete where he raped her. According to legend,
  Kadmos went in search of his sister but, being unable to find her,
consulted the Deplhic oracle and was told to give up the search and
establish a new city in Boiotia.
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On Sunday, June 13, 2004, at 08:30 , Andreas Johansson wrote:

[snip]
> Was Kadmos an actual historical figure?
AFAIK there is no evidence that he was. As king of Thebes, he married a
young lady called Harmonia - this looks a tad like a bit of allegory.

The Greeks, however, were well aware that their alphabets (each city
orginally had its own version) were derived from the Phoenician alphabet.
This alphabet appears to have been first used for writing Greek in the 8th
cent. BCE and this almost certainly occurred in a bilingual trading
community. Indeed, I have argued on this list and elsewhere that it was
probably Phoenician scribes who first wrote Greek in Phoenician letters.
The most probable places for such trading communities are on Cyprus and
Crete. For various reasons, I think Crete is the more likely.

The legendary Kadmos was possibly 'invented' to explain why the citadel at
Thebes was called the Kadmeia. It may well be that there were early
trading contacts between Boiotian Thebes and Phoenicia with some
Phoenicians ('ancient ones', 'easterners') settling there. We just don't
know.

Ray
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