Tag: #greek

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Ethiopian History

“Ethiopia” is not a Greek name

In the list of Ethiopian Kings given by Haile Selassie I, we find the name of King Etyopis, buried under the obelisks of Axum, which is the same of Ethiopia as country. It is dated 1800 years before the birth of Christ.
King Etyopis came about 1000 years before the birth of the Greek archaic literature. Why Ethiopia should be a Greek name, if Greek civilization never ruled Ethiopia and it is clearly younger ?
This is just an absurd dogma of the euro-centric colonial academic system, trying to inculcate some form of western historical or cultural domination. Indeed, the rational historical path should be the inverse, so the Greek have taken this word from Africa and built their notions around it.
In fact, in ancient Greek, the word “topos” τόπος means “place”: as Homer said, Ethiopia was the perfect place where the gods loved to stay, and then the Greek people adopted the name of Ethiopia as archetypical idea of place.
Categories
Ethiopia in Western Culture

Homer – The Iliad – 1

The divine glory of Ethiopia is clearly expressed in the “Iliad” of the greatest greek poet, Homer.
In Iliad Book 1 verses 423-425 Tethis speaks with Achilles her son, and suggests him to not join the war, and to wait few days the return of Zeus, that was not available at that time and could not help him:
Ζεὺς γὰρ ἐς Ὠκεανὸν μετ᾽ἀμύμονας Αἰθιοπῆας
χθιζὸς ἔβη κατὰ δαῖτα, θεοὶ δ᾽ἅμα πάντες ἕποντο
δωδεκάτῃ δέ τοι αὖτις ἐλεύσεται Οὔλυμπον δέ
“Zeus went yesterday to Oceanus, to the blameless Ethiopians for a feast, and all the gods followed with him; but on the twelfth day he will come back again to Olympus”.
Zeus, the head of all the greek gods, had the habit to spend his holydays in Ethiopia, to join Ethiopian banquets and feasts and cut off the rest of the world business for 12 days.
The coming down of Zeus in Ethiopia is an image of incarnation and coming of Christ.
Oceanus was also a Greek Divinity, he was traditionally represented with dark complexion and recognized as an Ethiopian (attached picture), and in the same Iliad (XIV, 201), Homer said about him:
Ὠκεανόν τε θεῶν γένεσιν / Okeanòn te Teòn Gènesin
“Oceanus the Genesis of the Gods”. Therefore, Ethiopia was declared as the original motherland of life.
The Ethiopians were “blameless”, and the Gods especially loved their sacrifices, their celebrations, their company. Therefore, they were declared by Homer as Chosen People of holiness.
That’s why the goddess Iris, again in the Iliad (XXIII, 205-207), is invited to join a greek feast, but she prefers the Ethiopians:
ἣ δ᾽αὖθ᾽ ἕζεσθαι μὲν ἀνήνατο, εἶπε δὲ μῦθον:
οὐχ ἕδος: εἶμι γὰρ αὖτις ἐπ᾽ Ὠκεανοῖο ῥέεθρα
Αἰθιόπων ἐς γαῖαν, ὅθι ῥέζουσ᾽ ἑκατόμβας
ἀθανάτοις, ἵνα δὴ καὶ ἐγὼ μεταδαίσομαι ἱρῶν.
“But she refused to sit, and spake saying: ‘I may not sit, for I must go back unto the streams of Oceanus, unto the land of the Ethiopians, where they are sacrificing hecatombs to the immortals, that I too may share in the sacred feast.’ “