FOREWORD

Many historiographers would like to call the “Aegean culture” a “Hellenic Historic Miracle”, which, according to most, began in the eighth century BC. The oldest so-called “Greek-language” articles that have served as written sources were dated to this “archaic period”. Of particular importance are the works of ancient historians who have given us a more or less connected display of events from the ancient history of that region. Among those ancient historians are Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius, Diodorus Siculus, Pausanias, Strabo, Eratosthenes, Posidonius and Plutarch. Among the contemporary writers and Hellenists who followed in their footsteps are Thomsen, Thomson, Wilcken, Blegen, Ventris, Chadwick, Roberts, Borza, Hammond, Papastavrou, Papazoglou and others.

Looking outside and beyond “mainstream” history, we have also found many inexplicable events and treasures described as myths and legends of heroic epics such as that of the “Iliad” and “Odyssey”, authored by Homer. In this category we have also found the works of Hesiod from Askra, Boeotia, author of “Works and Days” and “Theogony”.

For centuries World Science has concerned itself with the enigma of the so-called “Hellenic Historical Miracle” but has yet to find an adequate explanation for the origin of this phenomenon. There have been many conflicting views on this issue mainly because those who controlled the past wanted to dictate the future. But since we no longer live in totalitarian times in Europe, we will try and address this famous so called “Hellenic Miracle” with facts and arguments using modern sciences, especially linguistics and archeology, with access to epistemology.

In geographical terms when we refer to Greece we usually include the territory south of Olympus along the Greek Peninsula down to Crete. Again, while the ethnogenesis of the so-called “ancient Greeks” is based on the composition of the participants in the Trojan War such as the Dannans, Achaeans, Argaeds etc., who were mentioned by Homer in his “Iliad” were presumed by modern Hellenists to be all “Greek people” or “Hellenic people”, but they were wrong - because according to history, the “Hellenes” did not colonize the Peloponnesus until 80 years after the Trojan War. (Тукидид, Повијест Пелопонеског рата, I, 12., Дерета, Београд, 1991)

The next enigma is the origin of the gods of Olympus. Herodotus (Херодот, Историја, II, 53, Матица Српска, Београд, 1988) says that the poets Homer and Hesiod were the first people to introduce the gods to the Hellenes and to have created stories about their origin and about the world. They gave them names, explained their divine honours and powers and specified the regions they ruled. The stories were a gift from the Muses of Pieria in Macedonia, the “eloquent daughters” of Mnemosyne (Memory).

After religion, the next enigma is the language of the socalled “ancient Greeks” as well as the origin of their alphabet and the myths attributed to them.

In an attempt to clarify these ancient historic Balkan puzzles, in this study we will make use of the assumptions made by Jung’s vocabulary (Carl Gustav Jung, 1875-1961). Here we are talking about an archetypal unconscious. This model-entity of the founder of complex psychology of “archetypal collective unconscious” will serve as a paradigm and will reveal the overall program of the archetypal collective unconscious on the subject of archeology, linguistics, prehistory, mythology and religion in paleo-Balkanology.

Even though historical information about the ancient people of the Balkans is very scarce and that their languages, dialects, letter writing and paleo-graphysms have not been preserved, they possessed fascinating civilizations. Imagine how fascinating the Lepenski Vir, the Sredno Podunavie and the Central Balkans in the VII millennium BC must have been. These people surely left traces of themselves in the geographical place names and in the epistemological and semantic names of these sites in which they lived. It is possible that these traces can be “translated” out of the Ancient Greek language.

The path of scientific research can be traced through archaeological findings in the Balkans – spanning from the Danube to Crete and to the Peloponnesus. Maria Gimbutas, an archaeologist from California, says that in historic and cultural terms, the Balkan Peninsula is “Old Europe” and the home of the European civilization. Chronologically, the oldest archaeological findings belong to the Lepenski Vir civilization from the VII millennium BC. After that comes the Neolithic culture of the Central Balkans (6500-5500), the Halkolic Culture (5500-3100), which includes the Dimini culture of Thessaly and the proto-Minoan culture of Crete (2800-2000) and finally the Mycenaean culture which existed around 1600 BC. (Thomson, “I Arhaia Eilliniki Koinonia-to Prоistoriko Algaio”, 265, Athina, 1954.)

The chronology of archaeological achievements accompanied i.e. followed the migrations of prehistoric tribes in the Balkans from north to south in accordance with geographic processes and environmental and cultural conditions.

Many researchers claim that the ancient language spoken in the southern Balkans, in Greece, arrived there from north of the Danube. But no geographical specifics were given since the river is over 2800 kilometres long.

Within the epistemological, linguistic, etymological and semantic research of geographical onomastics in Sredno Podunavie in Serbia, in a period of about thirty years, it was determined that Pannonia and the Central Balkans were the cradle of Aegean culture.  It was also determined that the onomastics of the Danube hydrological system and its tributaries represented the allegory of the entire mythological system and the theogony and Olympic pantheon of gods established by Homer and Hesiod. The creators of that culture were also identified. They were the Danunites, Boreans, Hyperboreans, in ancient Greece known as Aeolians (Macedonians Lapits, Minits etc.). Their migration in the Aegean region and beyond was also identified and so was their participation in the Trojan War as well as their contribution and tribal etnogenesis since the Pediclean “golden age”.

In this book we will try to explain how the creators of the “Hellenic miracle” shaped the past in order to affect the future. The results will provide the reader with elements of a rich ancient legacy which will bring the peoples of Southeast Europe, especially of the Balkans, much closer than it would separate them, hoping to remove the distorted hierarchical picture of the original European spiritual culture. The Balkan people share a common and complimentary history with a future in the European Community.