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The Greeks—A Norman Parallel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Extract

To one student whose early training was concerned with the study of the tangible remains of the Greek past the proof that the Linear B script concealed the Greek language came as a great shock. Nothing to my mind was more certain than that a great gulf separated the later Greek world from the Mycenaean world. In my view those who would trace through a hypothetical Bauernstil a kinship between the Geometric ware of early Helladic times and the post-Mycenaean pottery were wishful thinkers of the softest kind. In my eyes they held their views against all evidence because they wanted to hold it. The Greeks who held this view, urged by patriotism and the wish to show the world that the glories of Mycenae were Greek, I could forgive; but for the foreigner, spurred only by the love of the theory that he had invented, I could feel nothing but contempt; so perverse did the view seem. And now this perverse view is buttressed by the new linguistic evidence, so convincing in its nature to the layman, the man in the street.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1961

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