Minoan Link to Proto-Sumerian

[Etelfrido]

Sumer, regarded as the first known civilization, was comprised of a mysterious non-Semitic speaking population in Mesopotamia. Interestingly, there’s a theory that connects them to the Minoan Culture, Europe’s first civilization which arose in Crete and that contrary to their Mycenaean successors gave rise to two hitherto undeciphered scripts, Cretan hieroglyphs and Linear A (and possibly Eteocretan, their likely descendant).

In Possible connection between the cultures of Ancient Sumer and Minoan Crete (https://mmtaylor.net/Holiday2000/Leg...mer-Crete.html), one association made is related to their arts and myths:

The bull was important in the Minoan religion and culture, as it was in Sumer. Gilgamesh (who, according to Rohl, ruled in Uruk around 2487 BC) is shown as half-bull, half-man, as is the Cretan Minotaur in the much later Greek legend. The picture on the seal looks remarkably like depictions of the Minotaur, and it is possible that the Greeks knew of such depictions as well as of the bull cult in Minoan Crete.



Beyond these, there were other similarities between pre-literate Sumerian religious elements and those of Minoan Crete. According to Georges Roux (Ancient Iraq, Penguin 1992), the primary religious symbols in the Halaf and Ubaid periods of Sumer (covering about 5000 BC to 3300 BC) were the double-axe, the bull-head, doves, and women. According to Castleden (Minoans: Life in Bronze Age Crete, London: Routledge, 1990), the double-axe and the bull-head were the primary religious symbols for the Minoans, and doves were associated with goddesses to the extent that sometimes the dove was taken to represent the goddess. In both Sumer and Minoan Crete, a priestess would "become" the goddess in some ceremonies.

Some architectural similarities were also given.

A more thorough study was done in THOUGHTS OF THE ORIGIN OF MINOAN CIVILIZATION (https://www.academia.edu/es/45088004...N_CIVILIZATION).

The article, in preparation for paleographic research, reviews the already encyclopedically accepted and recent results of several relevant scientific disciplines to delimit the temporal, geographic, and civilizational relationships of the formation of Minoan civilization from the assumptions of the Sumerian Origin Theory. He concludes that the archaic Sumerian population that flourished civilization c. 3100 BC moved to South, Southwest Anatolia, where they lived with the Luwi people for c. 900years, then around 2200 BC they settled on the Cyclades, Thera, and Crete, forming a palace farming system, transforming the social system of the neolithic natives, bringing in more advanced agriculture, crafts, and extensive maritime trade. He states that the Minoan writing systems are the descendants of a proto-writing created as a result of a coevolution took place in a Luwi environment, conveying an archaic Sumerian language.

[…] Marija Gimbutas introduced the idea of "ancient European" in her books, published first in 1974 (The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe), then in 1989 (The Language of the Goddess) and 1991 (The Civilization of the Goddess), which caused very heated professional debates 1 . According to her, around7000 BC an early agriculture population of Anatolian origin settled in what is now Europe, where they were mixed with an already there living Neolithic hunter-gathering indigenous population, so forming the "old European" (eteo european) population, whose groups have for thousands of years (i.e. 6500-3500) scattered, but similar and unified culture and they lived in non-organized, relatively peaceful rural communities. These cultures of at the end the Bronze Age and at the beginning of the Iron Age were destroyed by the Indo-European, steppe, warlike "kurgan cultures" and acquired dominance over them.Inspired by this, later David Rohl (among others) in his book (Legend: The Genesis of Civilization, London, Arrow Books 1998), suggested that Minoan civilization may have been influenced or derived from the Sumerian / Mesopotamian civilization a thousand years earlier. In parallel with these antecedents, the ‘ Sumerian Origin’ / origin hypothesis for the origin of the Cretan hieroglyphs (CH) and protolinear (CP) scripts (Haarmann - 1996, Filippou - 2014, Papakitsos, Kenanidis - 2016) is supported by archeogenetic results, and the "Sumer Origin Theory" (SOT 2 ), the origin theory of Minoan civilization is also developed.

[…] From the early researches of the 2000s, the first major press releases were published in 2013. The authors (Jeffery R. Hughey et al) of article [2] immediately decided a debate between two old competing theories, based on 4800-3700 year old samples:

- The first Cretan immigrants from Anatolia came 9,000 years ago during the time of the "agricultural explosion", which simultaneously refutes the hypothesis of North African origin and all other origins.

- The current population of Crete has a close genetic proximity to ancient samples, meaning that the genetic features of the population has hardly changed in 4800-3700 years, meaning that later settlers were either small in number or represented near haplotypes.

Considering that the first Neolithic population reached Crete c. 9,000 years ago, coinciding with the migration of Neolithic agricultural culture from Anatolia, it is very likely that the same ancient population that settled in Europe spread to Crete and contributed to the early Minoan civilization. This result seems to confirm M. Gimbutas's earlier theory.

The author (Stephanie Seiler) of article [3] notes that Neolithic European and Cretan immigration came from the eastern Anatolian regions, and even from the Middle East.
The author (Ewen Callaway) of article [4], referring to Wolfgang Haak, a molecular archaeologist at the University of Adelaide in Australia, thinks that Crete's early history is likely to be more complex, as several Neolithic populations may have arrived at different times.

In 2014, the authors (Peristera Paschou et al) of the study [5] made several important statements:

- The Neolithic populations that colonized Europe about 9000 years ago were believed to have migrated from the Middle East to Anatolia and thence to Central Europe via Thrace and the Balkans, but they believed that the alternative route was the "island hopping" technique along the southern European coastline not including crossing the Bosporus.

- They exclude the Levant route, which was also a widespread alternative hypothesis.

- From the Mediterranean, sailing men bring their genes and agricultural knowledge first, while in other regions of Europe the entire population migrates and mixes with glacial gathering-fishing-hunting populations.

[…] In the early settlement of Europe, two major waves can be distinguished from the Middle East, Anatolia. During the Late Glacial Period (c. 18000-11000 BP), there was an influx into the Aegean and the Eastern Central Mediterranean, which may have been primarily a gathering-fishing-hunter group, but in the latter period their initial agricultural knowledge was not excluded. The Iberian, Central, North, and Western European settlement (c. 9000-8000 BP) is connect to clearly a Neolithic "agricultural explosion", which coincide with previous results. Assimilation of the glacial and Neolithic populations shows geographically different genetic ratios.

- Importantly, their further observation is that c. 5,000 BP the influx of tribes from the steppe and Caucasian regions gradually suppresses the glacial-neolithic genetic heritage on varying degrees. Thus, climatic influences, overpopulation, and the immigration of militant, primarily Indo-European peoples, trigger conflicts over the possession of resources, and the peaceful "original Europe" of Gimbutas for3000-4000 years is eradicated by history. Fortified settlements appear, traces of weapons and armed conflicts are found, and fertility cults and goddesses are replaced by warring gods.

In article [7], I. Lazaridis et al., confirm that Minoans and Mycenaeans are genetically approx. 75%identical. Both populations are from Southeastern Anatolia. The Minoans reached the Aegean through Southwestern Anatolia, and the Mycenaeans through a more northerly route (see above). The remainder of the genome is 25% Caucasian (Armenian) and Iranian. Mycenaeans, however, also have Siberian (Western Eurasia) and Eastern European descent. Modern Greeks and Cretans are clearly descendants of their ancestors, of course, with the "dilution" that has occurred in modern history. Other key issues are: -the relationship of this two groups and the Caucasian, - the explanation of the Indo-European character of the Mycenaeans, - the date of the genetic branching points.

It's also noted that the emergence of writing in Crete in 2200 BC is considered as a sudden event by some, therefore possibly brought from elsewhere and not a local innovation. They cite an important issue with their theory:

The language (s) conveyed by the LA writing system is an agglutinating, certainly non-Indo-European language, such as old-Greek, so despite of the genetic and cultural proximity, the language(s) spoken by the Minoan, was (were) other than Mycenaean.

[…] We have already stated that the ruling population had to settle, until 2200 BC, however, there is no answer as to when they had to leave the Sumerian land at the latest. An important fact in this regard is that they did not bring the cuneiform with them. Such a clever people would not have left such effective innovation at home.

On whence Eruopean Neolithic Farmers came, it’s proposed that:

The first Neolithic farmers in Europe could probably came from the Halaf and Hassuna-Samarra cultures. (Figure 1).
Typically in this culture, e.g. in Çatal Höyük, female gods, cult bull representations refer to the cult of fertility, and women and men have equal social status. This attitude would be typical of the Early Neolithic Aegean and Europe cultures (M. Gimbutas - "original European").

However, they argue the Proto-Sumerian culture checks many prerequisites for the origins of Minoans:

As stated previously, immigrants defining Minoan civilization were members of a population having advanced agricultural, craftsmanship, commercial, architectural, and nautical knowledge, but did not yet know / apply cuneiform, only the preceding hieroglyphic / pictographic writing system. These conditions are fulfilled by the Uruk culture [13]:

- In the 4th millennium the irrigation agriculture with plow use was formed in the lower part of Tigris – Euphrates river system.

- The first walled cities were built and the first forms of palace-economy and church-state were formed.

- Metal craftsmanship appears which generates commerce due to the lack of local raw materials and necessitates the use of writing.

- The towns of Eridu, Uruk, Ur are situated on the Euphrates coast, near the Persian Gulf, which has much higher water level and less well-filled at that time (Figure 2). In addition to inland trade, they maintain maritime links with the Indus Valley and the northern coast of East Africa, and even their traders reach the Mediterranean. This includes nautical experience and geographic knowledge. Uruk products can also be found in Anatolia, Iran, Indus Valley, Levant and Egypt.

- Uruk began to decline during the Jemdet Nasr Period (about 3100-2900 BC) of the Northern Mesopotamian origin, and in this time the archaeological strata suggest significant depopulation.

- The early c. 3600 BC formed pictographic writings (Uruk, Kis archaic texts) conveyed some kind of Protosumer language, while the first writing that is sure to convey Sumerian language is from the Jemdet Nasr Period, approx. 31st century BC, which language probably was not spoken by these migrants. It is also probable that the emigrants were not yet influenced by later Sumerian or Akkadian cultural influences, but represented a Protosumer culture. Assuming the Sumerian is a descendant of the Protosumer, there are some things that may have been true:
-> It was probably an agglutinating “ island language ”.
-> Its case system is ergative, which is the language represents the subject of the unbiased verb and the subject in the same case, and the subject of the objective verb in the same case.
-> The northern boundary of the Protosumer language area was at the height of the city of Nippurand stretched south to the then Persian Gulf.

- The temple of Kulaba city was dedicated to the goddess An, while the temple of the city of Eanna wasthe residence of the goddess of love and fertility. Signs of the Uruk seal rolls attest to the bull cult. Thebull, the symbol of the god An and then Enlil, is the bearer of fertility. This is the Neolithic Anatolianheritage.

The author elaborates Proto-Sumerians migrated to Anatolia and mixed with Luwi peoples and gives explanations of how and when the events happened and also presents many archeological, historical, cultural, and linguistic evidences. I recommend reading it and present a very brief summary of what was proposed:

Around 3100 BC, depopulation of the areas of the Uruk civilization occurs and a population of high agricultural, commercial, artisanal, and nautical culture settles on the coast of southern Anatolia. Their language is proto-Sumerian, their writing system may have been pictographic, and they have not yet used cuneiform. In their commercial activities they reach Crete, Thera and the Cyclades islands as their culture and writing system evolve with neighboring Luwi peoples, but the nature of their language does not change.

[…] Because there are very few archaeological finds and scripts from time Minoan-Luwi coexistence before 2200 BC, only the joint evaluation of a later set of Arzawa, Lukka and Minoan scripts can be used to distinguish a CP signal group, which is the archive of an archaic Sumerian writing system. This writing system is carried by the proto Sumer settlers, who flourished Thera, Crete and built up the Minoan empire.

The Neolithic migration from the Near East to Europe isn’t something groundbreaking, as it’s already been suggested by other studies. One of them is Maritime route of colonization of Europe (https://sci-hub.hkvisa.net/10.1073/pnas.1320811111), briefly cited by the previous paper. Its highest merit was asserting that its route was primarily from Anatolia to Southern Europe by “island hopping” through Crete and the Dodecanese. It also states that no apparent gene flow from Northern Africa to the Southern coast of Europe was observed.

We observe a striking structure correlating genes with geography around the Mediterranean Sea with characteristic east to west clines of gene flow. Using population network analysis, we also find that the gene flow from Anatolia to Europe was through Dodecanese, Crete, and the Southern European coast, compatible with the hypothesis that a maritime coastal route was mainly used for the migration of Neolithic farmers to Europe.

[…]In fact, the closest populations to Anatolia are those of Crete and Dodecanese rather than the populations of the Balkans or Northern Greece.