The Encyclopaedic Meaning of Erythros in Koine Greek Toponyms. A Cognitive Approach to the Definition of the Ancient Colour Cardinal Points System

Abstract

Summary The cartographic and historiographic traditions interpreting the Greek toponym Erythra Thalassa indicate this expression could designate several water basins in classical historiography, though it is usually rendered univocally as the Red Sea. This research applies cognitive semantics to the history of geography to retrieve the encyclopaedic meaning of the term erythros in relation to its dictionary meaning “red”. Computationally generated lists of frequency from about 50 ancient Greek and Latin oeuvres denote a predominant toponymic use of the term and a fixed collocation in conjunction with thalassa “sea”. Additional statistical data extrapolated from the Septuagint and the Greek New Testament reveal the tendency in the biblical tradition to use exclusively the inflected form erythra in fully fixed collocations with the term thalassa. The paper finds out that the specific shade of red denoted by erythors has been used since the seventh century BCE in a number of other toponyms and ethnonyms to convey the conceptual meaning of “southern”. To comparatively verify this hypothesis, several Greek toponyms incorporating the term leukos – “white” or “western” – are discussed in relation to their relative position in the oikumene. Based on comparative chronologies and diatopic attestations of the phenomenon, the hypothesis that the Turkic colour cardinal points system and the linguistic means to convey it was introduced to Greece during the period of contact with the Scythe people is proposed.

Perspective Chapter: Bάλτοi – The Reception of Western Asian Colors-Cardinal Points System along the Boundaries of the Hellenic Oikumene

“…Likewise, the region of Acarnania was described already in Homer's Odyssey, but it was Strabo to call it Leucas, recurring to the root λευκ-"white". Similarly, in front of the coast of the Ionian Sea, the island of Λευκάδα (modern Greek Lefkada) reinforces the impression of a northwestern border of the Greek oikumene rich in "white toponyms" [9]. Furthermore, the same attribute appears in the naming of the western region of Λευκανία, the Lucania of modern southern Italy, a region part of the western colonies of the Magna Grecia founded during the fifth century BCE.…”

“…A review of existing literature reflecting on the ancient Greek perception of boundaries was preliminarily necessary to reaffirm the concept that the conceiving and representation of vast spaces was not a purely Hellenic endeavor but rather the result of long-period and wide-range interactions with Western Asia. Namely, the topos of a civilized world surrounded by four seas -which is incompatible with the geographical position and borders of classical Greece -was explored by systematically surveying Greek peripli from a corpus that had been already defined in my previous studies on the topic [9].…”

“…Of particular interest in the latter is the representation of Scythe people as a link between the Rus' people and the Byzantine world. 'In this book, the Red Sea to the south, the White Sea north-west of Black Russia and the Black Sea to the south-west delimit the civilization besieged by the barbarians of inner Asia, until the defeat of the Blue and Golden Hordes' [9].…”

“…Accordingly, this specific term for "red" was used in Greek to name places more often than to refer to reflections of light. Precisely, the toponymic use of red was not attested before the eighth century BCE; it emerged in Assyrian sources in the seventh century BCE; it was more frequent in Greek oeuvres of the fourth and early third centuries BCE, while it was extensively attested in the period between the third century BCE and the first century CE, especially in the Pontus [9]. Such a chronological and territorial spread permitted to formulate the hypothesis that it was the nomadic Scythe people of the Eurasian steppe who lend the cognitive nexus "red equal south" to the people of the eastern Mediterranean, especially considering the undisputed attestation of the color-cardinal points system in Turkic, Mongol, Slavic, and Chinese cultures, that is, in the territories inhabited by the Scythians ( § 2.…”

“…In the Baltic region, it is highly debated and often refused due to identity-related issues [10]. In the Hellenic world, several historians perceived the same color-cardinal points system was linguistically and cognitively productive, but -to my knowledge -there are no systematic studies beside my recent publication, which, however, focused specifically on the "red-south" connection [9]. Summing up, this manner of naming cardinal directions by color names is generally considered in the "western world" a phenomenon related to inner Asia and inherited from Turkic people.…”