‘Archaeopoetics’ helps reconstruct prehistoric Eurasian culture
Many ancient and modern Eurasian languages belong to the Indo-European linguistic family, comprising Germanic languages such as Old Norse and today’s English, alongside others including Hittite, Ancient Greek, Latin and Sanskrit. By comparing features of these languages, comparative linguists have reconstructed elements of Proto-Indo-European – their common prehistoric ancestor. “Formulaic expressions – poetic combinations similar to idioms – give us clues about inherited concepts and so also about communities and their culture,” explains Riccardo Ginevra, Marie Skłodowska-Curie researcher from the SunSHINE project at the University of Copenhagen, the project host. Despite the sudden offer of a university position in Italy, Ginevra managed to complete a comparison of several old Germanic poetic expressions – related to the sky, sun and sunlight – with those of other Indo-European traditions. “Combining comparative poetics with archaeolinguistics, a mix of linguistics and archaeology, I developed an approach I call ‘archaeopoetics’, which attempts a more complete reconstruction of Indo-European symbolic culture,” adds Ginevra. Ginevra co-organised an interdisciplinary conference on the reconstruction of Indo-European society, from linguistic and archaeological perspectives, with publication of proceedings pending.
Inherited symbols and expressions
It is known from linguistics, archaeology and genomics that Proto-Indo-European, the ancestor of today’s Indo-European languages, was spoken by nomadic pastoralists over 5 000 years ago in the Pontic steppe (between Ukraine and Russia today). While some migrated south and east, some migrated west, where contact with Neolithic agricultural populations helped create central and northern European Bronze Age cultures. Several archaeological objects attest to the creation of common religious and cosmological conceptions of the sun and the sky, such as the Trundholm sun chariot, a small model of a horse pulling a wheel decorated with gold, representing the sun. “I investigated the day-lit sky, the sun, sunlight and associated deities, being amongst the most persistent symbols of Indo-European religious traditions. These share similar formulaic expressions across several languages. Thanks to this background, after chariots were invented around 2100 BCE, images of sun chariots appeared independently within several Indo-European traditions,” says Ginevra. Scholars have noted that within several ancient Indo-European formulaic expressions, sunlight was closely associated with life: for instance, “to see the sunlight” was a poetic expression for ‘live’ in Greek, Vedic Sanskrit and Hittite. Ginevra’s research supports the reconstruction of such formulaic expressions. For example, a prehistoric myth in Old Norse, Sanskrit, Old Irish and Ancient Greek texts of a crime (likely sexual) by a god of sunlight (Father Sky or the Sun) committed against his daughter (Dawn), who is then killed as punishment by a fire god. This threatens catastrophe – recalling the sunlight and life link – averted only by a hero. Ginevra has several publications forthcoming, including a comparative study of the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, the Ancient Greek Prometheus myth in Hesiod’s Theogony and the Old Norse myth of Thjalfi making Thor’s goats lame in Snorri Sturluson’s Gylfaginning. “These tales of sacrificial livestock and a ritual meal, where humans receive the edible parts and the gods, the bones, reflect a common Indo-European heritage. This also matches findings of so-called ‘head-and-hoof deposits’ – ritual practices uncovered by archaeology in the prehistoric steppe,” adds Ginevra.
Strength in diversity
“Similarities and differences are not random, but the result of specific historical processes, alongside inherent human tendencies, like the need to express difficult concepts such as life and death,” concludes Ginevra. Alongside Copenhagen colleagues, Birgit Olsen and Thomas Olander, Ginevra continues to explore Eurasian prehistory within the LAMP project.
Keywords
SunSHINE, linguistics, archaeology, Trundholm, Indo-European, Norse, Germanic, languages, poetic, formulaic expressions
