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Here is a good article about the cyclopean walls that are found in Kefalonia:
https://www.greekboston.com/travel/cyclopean-walls-kefalonia/
https://www.greekboston.com/travel/cyclopean-walls-kefalonia/
k_tsoukalas
Administrator
Fun fact - these walls got their name in Ancient Greeks because some believed that the "Cyclops" (the one-eyed giants from Greek mythology) built them. Regardless of who you believe built them, they really are interesting to visit.
I agree. However, I think that this type of masonry (now also called Megalithic) was misnamed, because the wall that a cyclope, Polyphemus (in the Odyssey) built consisted of accumulated stones between trees. (This is intercalary m., which we evince as the walls between some columns of temples, while other columns are "free-standing". // Megalithic masonry is found also and in Italy and on the American continent (Peru`, etc.) Examples in southern Italy: Alatri, where some stones have carved words that use classical Greek and Etruscan alphabetical letters; Campana (in Calabria, near my native town), which contains the megalithic statue of an elephant. // I think megalithic constructions are prehistoric, from an era before our B.C. era. {We need a new "androgony".}
kosta_karapinotis
Active member
Wow so interesting! How do you know all of this?
Long ago, while still in high school, I read and analyzed the Odyssey in translation. After reading a book about Odysseus' homecoming journey, I prepared an article, which I still have, on the same subject but, as I think, with a more accurate geography, and I identified Cephallonia/Kephalonia as his homeland -- which I mentioned to a Greek colleague of mine in a Staten Island, NY, college. // One among my many private studies has been anthropology, especially cultural, and now I have come to the point where I see the need of a new/adequate Androgony or Anthropogony -- words I coin after Hesiod's Theogony [Theogoneia], wherefore they mean "the generation or genealogy of men" . It has to include the Age of megaliths, which exist in Greece, Italy, Peru`, Japan, etc.
Cheers. // I see a thread about Mount Ainos in Kefalonia... Is the mount frightening?? [I'll look for pictures] Do you have any idea as to when it was named thus? What does it mean to the Kefalonians?
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nadellii
Active member
That’s amazing, do you feel like cultural anthropology does an accurate representation of other cultures? I’ve heard a lot of debate
As you know, what we call "anthropology" (rather than Philosophy of man) was originally concerned with primitive cultures. Unfortunately, I have not checked lately whether an anthropology book or encyclopaedia deals with all world cultures, or, to be sure, whether it contains a a satisfactory anthropogony; I have been busy doing etymologies of indo-european and some other languages. My yesterday finding: "Ainu", the name of one aboriginal Japanese people (before hybridations with the Chinese), is likely based on the classical Greek word "Ainos", which means "terrible, frightening" according to the Bailly grec-francais dictionnaire. (A lady has written an article with correspondances between Jap. and Greek words.) These are new works in cultural anthropology. //Interested?Search, as the URL does not work:
Japanese Concordances with Indo-European (IE) Languages-Knosos
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nadellii
Active member
Hmmm...that was the debate I've come across, about anthropology focusing on "primitive cultures" and how its a negative perspective. I never expected that a Japanese word could have Greek origins, I am shocked. Thanks
