posted
This forum is filled with Afrocentric crackpots and liars, especially on the ancient Greeks.
The fact of the matter is, i'm sure there are many innocent clickers on this forum who are fed up with the Afrocentric nonsense and lies posted on the ancient Greeks.
The following research and essays are from my blog aryanarchaeology.blogspot.
Anyone interested in the truth regarding the racial type of the ancient Greeks should read the following two essays.
The ancient Greeks were not black. Quite the opposite, they were predominately Meditteranid of the old Pelasgic racial type, ruled over by a blonde haired aristoi or upper class who were Nordic in phenotype. In contrast the mass lower classes belonged to the Meditteranid Gracile-Mediterranoid or Alpinized-Med type.
Indo-Europeans in Greece
Although the Indo-Europeans invaded many lands and imposed onto the natives there their own religion, language and customs their own population was incredibly small. John V. Day (Indo-European Origins: the Anthropological Evidence, 2000) for example notes that:
''Indo-Europeans often seem to have been small minorities in the countries they penetrated: the Celtic warrior-class in Ireland; the Roman patricians; the few Homeric heroes and the so-called pure Greeks; of later years; and the Aryans battling against the many natives in India''.
In regards to ancient Greece, the Indo-Europeans only were a small fraction compared the indigenous Pelagian population. [1] The mass lower classes were Pelasgic, of the Old European Meditteranid racial stock (Huxley's melanochroi 'dark white' race) some of whom were Alphinized or had Dinaric admixture. The indigenous population was short and Gracile Meditteranoid (Coon's 'short Mediterranean's'), according to the anthropologist Sir Edward Burnett Tylor the Pelasgians had: ''dusky or brownish-white skin, black or deep-brown eyes, black hair, mostly wavy or curly'' [2]
J. Lawrence Angel (1945) who studied Neolithic skulls in Greece concluded they were of the Gracile Mediterranid type, some of which had Alpine and Dinaric mixture. [3] Sergi, Ripley and Coon also all classified the Pelasgians as belonging to the Mediterranid family, Sergi placed their origins in North Africa. In sharp contrast the Mycenean Indo-Europeans (the Hellenes) were fair haired and light skinned and came from the Black Sea region, though later waves probably came from other areas. In myth they claimed descent from Pyrrha, the wife of Hellen, a Deucalionid who was flavum religas comam golden-red haired (Hor. Carm. i. 5). Coon (Races of Europe, 1939) notes of ''The Olympian gods, ancestors of the semi-heroes, were for the most part blond, with ivory shins and golden hair''.
Indeed in my previous essays i have shown that the Hellenic Gods are xanthos, fair haired and blue or gray eyed. In sharp contrast the Pelasgians appear in myth as swarthy and dark haired, representing the lower racial stock. Coon (1939) further notes: ''Villains, comical characters, satyrs, centaurs, giants, and all unpleasant people and those not to be admired, are often shown in sculpture and in vase painting as broad-faced, snub-nosed, and heavily bearded. Socrates, who belonged to this type, was maliciously compared to a satyr. This type may still be found its Greece, and is an ordinary Alpine. In the early skeletal, remains it is represented by some of the brachycephalic crania.''
This Pelagic type (with Alpine admixture) is most clearly represented in the busts of Socrates, the son of a lower class stonecutter and a midwife. In sharp contrast the Greek aristoi or upper class who claimed descent from the Gods are depicted in art of the Nordic type. This higher class however was of course only the minority. Angel who studied Mycenean royal burials concluded that they were of the Nordic type and anthropologists who have studied the hair or pigmentation of the ancient Greeks have concluded only around 7% were blonde. [4] The Indo-Europeans in Greece therefore only reflected the physique of the higher classes, who claimed descent from the fair Gods. The Pelasgic type however in Greek myth appears in the form of satyr's, the titans and other primordial beings. The classicist William Ridgeway first proposed these beings of Greek mythology represent the pre-Indo-European Pelasgic racial type and that the invading Mycenaean's clashed first with the matriarchal Pelasgian 'earth-mother' cult at Dodona. [5]
The Pelasgians who vastly outnumbered their invaders were defeated because they were not a warlike race. In contrast the Mycenaean Indo-Europeans were patriarchal and gained strength through conquest. That the Titans of Greek myth through euhemerism equate to the native Pelasgians and their earth-mother cult (Gaia) has been most developed in the literature of Marija Gimbutas. Contrary to the misconception the Titans of Greek mythology were not gaints in size, but were known to be giants because of their enormous impeity towards the Greek Gods (Ephorus, fragment 27a; Macrobius, Saturnalia. i. 20). The Pelasgians originally refused to convert to the Gods imposed on them by the Indo-Europeans and classical sources contain a description of this impeity (e.g. Hesiod's Work & Days). Thus mythology serves as a very useful piece of evidence in regards to the history of Greece if it is interpeted rationally through euhemerism.
Although the fair type of the Greek Gods is most prevelant in the classical literatre, as opposed to the darker pelasgic racial tpe, in reality it was the opposite as the Mediterranid Pelasgians vastly outnumbered their conquerors but since they had Indo-European religion imposed onto them, the standard Gods of Greek mythology were of the Aryan or blonde morphological type.
Below - An example of the different racial types in Greece, Socrates of the Alphinid-Med type (since he was from the lower class) while Phocian, the aristocratic statesman is clearly of the Nordic type.
[2] Quoted in Proceedings, Volumes 9-15, West Virginia Academy of Science, 1925, p. 142.
[3] Neolithic Ancestors of the Greeks, Lawrence Angel, American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 49, No. 3, Jul. - Sep., 1945, p. 256.
[4] See Day, 2000.
[5] The Early Age of Greece, Vol. 1, 1901.
Ancient Literature Evidence of Blonde Greeks
Pyrrha the mother of Hellen (the eponymous founder of the Hellenes) had red-golden hair (flavam religas comam) as described by Horace (Carm. i. 5) while her son Xuthus also derived his name from his fair hair (xanthe or xanthos). The ancient Greek lyric poet Pindar wrote that the hair of the Achaeans (Danaoi) was blonde (Nem. ix. 18). [1] [2] According to the renowned scholar Henry Liddell in his A Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1940) xanthos is defined as a yellow, of various shades, freq. with a tinge of red, brown, auburn. The extent of ''the shade of'' depends on the ancient Greek region or locality, since different shades of fair or yellow were known. An ancient fragment from Theophastrus for example reveals that the Spartans knew xanthon to be a whitish-yellow (e.g. fair or platinum blonde). [3] Homer however applied xanthos to a range of non-dark hair colours: auburn to blonde, chestnut (reddish-brown) and fulvious (dull yellow) shades. [4] Cambridge Ancient History (1928, vol. 2, pp. 22-23) thus defines the term xanthos as any fair shade short of a dark colour (e.g. blonde to auburn).
Classicists however have easily demonstrated that in most instances the word xanthos is applied in ancient Greek literature to standard yellow or blonde. [5]
Bacchylides wrote that the hair of the Spartans was blonde (Dith. xx. 2) while also noting of the golden hair of athletes at the Nemean Games (Ep. ix. 23). The Spartans were the Dorians (Heracleidae) who claimed descent from Heracles. According to Euripides, Heracles was yellow haired (Her. 234, 360 ff) while Pausanias (ix. 34. 5) describes his eyes as ''bright'' e.g. light blue (charops). Baccylides also describes the hair of the Athenian foot race champion Aglaos as blonde (Ep. x. 16). [6]
The poet Euripides himself is described of the fair type with freckles (Vita Eurip. 25f).
The 7th century BC Spartan poet Alcman describes his cousin Hegesichora as golden (khrusos) haired (fragment 13. 54-55 Bergk) while the Spartan poetess Megalostrata as a ''blonde-haired maiden'' (fragment 37. Bergk). Menelaus, the legendary ruler of pre-Dorian Sparta is called xanthos throughout Homer's texts (Il. ii. 284; iii. 434; Od. i. 280; iii. 168) and this was a tradition that continued into late antiquity as Tatian in the 2nd century AD described Menelaus' hair as flaxen yellow (Address to the Greeks, 10). Eustathius (c. 1115) in his commentary on the Odyssey wrote that: ''Rhadamanthys is golden haired, out of compliment to Menelaos, for Menelaos had golden hair'' (Eustath. ad Hom. iv. 564).
Sappho (who was of aristocratic origin) was dark haired (Alcaeus. fragment 55 Bergk) but her daughter Cleis is described as ''a girl whose hair is yellower than torchlight'' (Sappho. fragment 98a). [7] Furthermore Sappho's eldest brother Charaxus is found described in Ovid as golden (flava) haired (Met. xii. 210). It seems then that although Sappho herself was brunette, most members of her family were in fact blonde which confirms the dominant blonde strain of the Greek aristoi. Critias, a noble Athenian oligarch and the uncle of Plato is also described as having blonde hair (Arist. Rh. i. 15. 1375b33; Proclus. On the Timaeus. i. 81. 27 Diehl). Aleuas the eponymous founder of the royal Thessalian Aleuadae family was as well fair haired (Schol. Apollon. Argon. iii. 1190). [8] Ptolemy II Philadelphus was another blonde (Theoc. Id. xvii). [9]
The Greek tryrant ruler Dionysius I of Syracuse (d. 367 BC) had yellow hair and freckles (Val. Max. i. 7. 6). Aspasia (fl. 415 BC) a priestess [10] from Phocaea and the favourite concubine of the Persian prince Cyrus the Younger was blonde haired, the ancient writer Aelian describes her as thus: ''Of hair yellow, locks a little curling... skin delicate, complexion like roses'' (Varia Historia, xii. 1).
Professor of Ethnography Wilhelm Sieglin (1855 - 1935) in his Die blonden Haare der indogermanischen Völker des Altertums compiled many more classical references to blonde haired Greek individuals. For references to fair haired Greek Gods see my collection of these sources. [11]
Notes & References
[1] The Odes of Pindar, Penguin Classics, 1969, p. 118.
[2] Who were the Greeks? John Linton Myres, University of California Press, 1967, p. 195.
[3] Ibid, see footnote 62 quoting from Theophastrus.
[4] Horses in the Iliad are called xanthe or xanthos and so as the scholar Cyrus Herzl Gordon has noted ''The colour xanthos as applied to heroes like Achilles probably means reddish brown (rather than "fair" or "blond") because it is also applied to horses where it seems to designate "sorrel" (Before the Bible, 1973, p. 231).
[5] The ancient Greeks called the herb xanthium strumarium, a hair dye which turned dark hair light yellow, certianly not any shade or auburn, brown or red (see Myres, 1967, p. 194).
[6] Die blonden Haare der indogermanischen Völker des Altertums,Wilhelm Sieglin, 1935.
[7] Vv. 1-12: (Papyrus Hauniensis), Sappho: A New Translation, University of California Press, 1958.
[8] A Classical Dictionary, Charles Anthon, Vol. ii, 1888, p. 1431.
[9] Quoted in A History of Ancient Greece, Claude Orrieux, 1999, p. 340.
[10] Though Aspasia's family was poor, she was from a well educated priestly class.
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