The Greeks really do have near-mythical origins, ancient DNA reveals.

 

A Mycenaean woman depicted on a fresco at Mycenae on mainland Greece.

© Yann Forget/Wikimedia Commons.

Ever since the days of Homer, Greeks have long idealized their Mycenaean “ancestors” in epic poems and classic tragedies that glorify the exploits of Odysseus, King Agamemnon, and other heroes who went in and out of favor with the Greek gods. Although these Mycenaeans were fictitious, scholars have debated whether today’s Greeks descend from the actual Mycenaeans, who created a famous civilization that dominated mainland Greece and the Aegean Sea from about 1600 B.C.E. to 1200 B.C.E., or whether the ancient Mycenaeans simply vanished from the region.

Now, ancient DNA suggests that living Greeks are indeed the descendants of Mycenaeans, with only a small proportion of DNA from later migrations to Greece. And the Mycenaeans themselves were closely related to the earlier Minoans, the study reveals, another great civilization that flourished on the island of Crete from 2600 B.C.E. to 1400 B.C.E. (named for the mythical King Minos).

The Lion Gate was the main entrance to the Bronze Age citadel of Mycenae, the center of the Mycenaean civilization. RnDmS/iStockphoto.

The ancient DNA comes from the teeth of 19 people, including 10 Minoans from Crete dating to 2900 B.C.E. to 1700 BCE, four Mycenaeans from the archaeological site at Mycenae and other cemeteries on the Greek mainland dating from 1700 B.C.E. to 1200 B.C.E., and five people from other early farming or Bronze Age (5400 B.C.E. to 1340 B.C.E.) cultures in Greece and Turkey. By comparing 1.2 million letters of genetic code across these genomes to those of 334 other ancient people from around the world and 30 modern Greeks, the researchers were able to plot how the individuals were related to each other.

The ancient Mycenaeans and Minoans were most closely related to each other, and they both got three-quarters of their DNA from early farmers who lived in Greece and southwestern Anatolia, which is now part of Turkey, the team reports today in Nature. Both cultures additionally inherited DNA from people from the eastern Caucasus, near modern-day Iran, suggesting an early migration of people from the east after the early farmers settled there but before Mycenaeans split from Minoans.

The Mycenaeans did have an important difference: They had some DNA—4% to 16%—from northern ancestors who came from Eastern Europe or Siberia. This suggests that a second wave of people from the Eurasian steppe came to mainland Greece by way of Eastern Europe or Armenia, but didn’t reach Crete, says Iosif Lazaridis, a population geneticist at Harvard University who co-led the study.

Not surprisingly, the Minoans and Mycenaeans looked alike, both carrying genes for brown hair and brown eyes. Artists in both cultures painted dark-haired, dark-eyed people on frescoes and pottery who resemble each other, although the two cultures spoke and wrote different languages. The Mycenaeans were more militaristic, with art replete with spears and images of war, whereas Minoan art showed few signs of warfare, Lazaridis says. Because the Minoans script used hieroglyphics, some archaeologists thought they were partly Egyptian, which turns out to be false.

When the researchers compared the DNA of modern Greeks to that of ancient Mycenaeans, they found a lot of genetic overlap. Modern Greeks share similar proportions of DNA from the same ancestral sources as Mycenaeans, although they have inherited a little less DNA from ancient Anatolian farmers and a bit more DNA from later migrations to Greece. 

The continuity between the Mycenaeans and living people is “particularly striking given that the Aegean has been a crossroads of civilizations for thousands of years,” says co-author George Stamatoyannopoulos of the University of Washington in Seattle. This suggests that the major components of the Greeks’ ancestry were already in place in the Bronze Age, after the migration of the earliest farmers from Anatolia set the template for the genetic makeup of Greeks and, in fact, most Europeans. “The spread of farming populations was the decisive moment when the major elements of the Greek population were already provided,” says archaeologist Colin Renfrew of the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, who was not involved in the work.

The results also show it is possible to get ancient DNA from the hot, dry landscape of the eastern Mediterranean, Renfrew says. He and others now have hope for getting DNA from groups such as the mysterious Hittites who came to ancient Anatolia sometime before 2000 B.C.E. and who may have been the source of Caucasian ancestry in Mycenaeans and early Indo-European languages in the region. Archaeologist Kristian Kristiansen of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, who was not involved in the work, agrees. “The results have now opened up the next chapter in the genetic history of western Eurasia—that of the Bronze Age Mediterranean.” (By Ann Gibbons).

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/08/greeks-really-do-have-near-mythical-origins-ancient-dna-reveals?utm_content=buffer79754&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

 

 

OCCULT CHECKLIST - THINGS NOT TO BE INVOLVED WITH!

 

[ ] Abstract art (under hallucinogenic stimulus)

 

[ ] Acupressure / Acupuncture.

 

[ ] Amulets (tigers claw, sharks tooth, horseshoe over door, mascots, talisman (magic picture)

 

[ ] Ankh (a cross with a ring top used in satanic rites)

 

[ ] Apparitions - occultic

 

[ ] Astral travel

 

[ ] Astrology

 

[ ] Augury (interpreting omens)

 

[ ] Automatic writing

 

[ ] Birth signs

 

[ ] Black arts

 

[ ] Black magic (involving hidden powers for bad ends)

 

[ ] Black mass

 

[ ] Blood subscriptions (pacts)

 

[ ] Cartomancy (using playing cards)

 

[ ] Chain letters.

 

[ ] Charming or enchanting (attempts to use spirit power)

 

[ ] Charms and charming for wart removal / Chinese astrology.

 

[ ] Clairaudience (ability to hear voices and sounds super-normally - spirited voices alleging to be those of dead people giving advice or warnings).

 

[ ] Clairsentience (supernormal sense perception)

 

[ ] Clairvoyance (ability to see objects or events spontaneously or super-normally above their normal range of vision - second sight)

 

[ ] Colour therapy

 

[ ] Concept therapy

 

[ ] Conjuration (summoning up a spirit by incantation)

 

[ ] Coven (a community of witches).

 

[ ] Crystal ball gazing

 

[ ] Crystals

 

[ ] Death magic (where the name of the sickness plus a written spell is cast into coffin or grave)

 

[ ] Demon worship / Disembodied spirits

 

[ ] Divining rod or twig or pendulum (Hosea 4:12)

 

[ ] Dowsing or witching for water, minerals, under-ground cables, finding out the sex of unborn child using divining rod, pendulum, twig or planchette.

 

[ ] Dream interpretation (as with Edgar Cayce books)

 

[ ] Drugs (Pharmikaea)

 

[ ] Dungeons and dragons

 

[ ] Eastern meditation/religious - Gurus, Mantras, Yoga, Temples etc.

 

[ ] Ectoplasm (unknown substance from body of a medium)

 

[ ] Enchanting

 

[ ] E.S.P. (extra sensory perception)

 

[ ] Feng Shui (Yes, it´s forbidden!).

 

[ ] Findhorn Community

 

[ ] Floating trumpets

 

[ ] Fortune telling.

 

( ) Free Masonry Regalia (clothing, jewelry, pictures etc)

 

[ ] Gothic rock music.

 

[ ] Gurus.

 

[ ] Gypsy curses (Romneys).

 

[ ] Hallucinogenic drugs (cocaine, heroin, marijuana, sniffing glue etc)

 

[ ] Handwriting analysis (for fortune telling)

 

[ ] Hepatoscopy (examination of liver for interpretation)

 

[ ] Hex signs (hexagrams).

 

[ ] Horoscopes.

 

[ ] Hydromancy (divination by viewing images in water)

 

[ ] Hypnosis

 

[ ] Idols

 

[ ] Incantations

 

[ ] Iridology (eye diagnosis)

 

[ ] Japanese flower arranging (sun worship)

 

[ ] Jonathan Livingstone Seagull (Reincarnation, Hinduism)

 

[ ] Kabbalah (Occult Lore).

 

[ ] Karma

 

[ ] Levitation.

 

[ ] Lucky charms or signs of the Zodiac or birthstones

 

[ ] Magic (not sleight of hand but use of supernatural power)

 

[ ] Mantras

 

[ ] Mediums.

 

[ ] Mental suggestion / Mental telepathy / Mental therapy.

 

[ ] Mesmerism.

 

[ ] Metaphysics (study of spirit world)

 

[ ] Mind control / Mind Dynamics

 

[ ] Mind mediumship.

 

[ ] Mind reading

 

[ ] Moon-mancy

 

[ ] Motorskopua (mechanical pendulum for diagnosing illness)

 

[ ] Mysticism

 

[ ] Necromancy (conjuring up spirits of the dead)

 

[ ] Numerical symbolism / Numerology.

 

[ ] Occultic games / Occult letters of protection.

 

[ ] Occult literature, eg The Greater World, The 6th & 7th Book of Moses, The Other side, The book of Venus, Pseudo-Christian works of Jacob Lorber, works by Edgar Cayce, Aleister Crowley, Jean Dixon, Levi Dowling, Arthur Ford (The Overt Worship of Spirit Beings), Johann Greber, Andrew Jackson Davis, Anton Le Vay, Ruth Montgomery, John Newborough, Eric Von Daniken, Dennis Wheatley. * Such books should be burned, regardless of cost.

 

[ ] Omens

 

[ ] Ouija boards

 

[ ] Pagan fetishes / Pagan religious objects, artifacts and relics.

 

[ ] Pagan rites (Voodoo, Sing sings, Corroborees, Fire walking, Umbahda, Macumba)

 

[ ] Palmistry

 

[ ] PK (parakineses - control of objects by the power of the mind and will)

 

[ ] Parapsychology (PS) - especially study of demonic activity

 

[ ] Pendulum diagnosis

 

[ ] Phrenology (divining/analysis from the skull)

 

[ ] Planchette (divining)

 

[ ] Precognition (foreknowledge of the occurrence of events)

 

[ ] Psychic healing / Psychic sight.

 

[ ] Psychography (use of heart shaped board)

 

[ ] Psychometry (telling fortunes by lifting or holding object belonging to the enquirer)

 

[ ] Pyramidology (mystic powers associated with models of pyramids)

 

[ ] Rebirthing

 

[ ] Reiki / Reincarnation.

 

[ ] Rhabdomancy (casting sticks into the air for interpreting omens)

 

[ ] Satanism / Seances / Self-hypnosis / Shamanism

 

[ ] Significant pagan days (Xmas, Halloween).

 

[ ] Silva Mind Control (SMC - Psychorientology)

 

[ ] Sorcery / Spells.

 

[ ] Spirit knockings or rapping.

 

[ ] Star signs

 

[ ] Superstitions (self or parents or grandparents)

 

[ ] Table tipping

 

[ ] Tarot cards (22 picture cards for fortune telling)

 

[ ] Tea-leaf reading

 

[ ] Thought transference

 

[ ] TK (telekineses - objects move around room, instruments play, engines start...)

 

[ ] TM (Transcendental Meditation

 

[ ] Trances / Transmigration

 

[ ] Travel of the soul

 

[ ] UFO fixation

 

[ ] Uri Geller

 

[ ] White magic (invoking hid-den powers for `good ends').

 

[ ] Witchcraft

 

[ ] Yoga (involves Eastern demon worship)

 

[ ] Zodiac charms, birthdates, signs.

 

Scripture references:

 

"Also, many of those who had practiced magic brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted up the value of them, and it totaled fifty thousand pieces of silver." - Acts 19:19

 

"You must burn their idols in fire, and you must not covet the silver or gold that covers them. You must not take it or it will become a trap to you, for it is detestable to Elohim your God. Do not bring any detestable objects into your home, for then you will be destroyed, just like them. You must utterly detest such things, for they are set apart for destruction." - Deuteronomy 7:25-26.

Demons attach to them and give Satan LEGAL RIGHT to come into your house and play havoc! They are OPEN DOORS to the demonic! Bind and cast out the demons attached to them according to Math 18:18 that says "Whatsoever you bind on earth is bound in heaven and whatsoever you loose on earth is loosed in heaven! Close those doors, seal them with the blood and send these demons to Jesus Christ of Nazareth for judgment and forbid them to come back or to touch anyone on the way! Loose the Holy spirit in to your house, on your life!

Loose love, joy, peace, unity where there is dis-unity, prosperity where there is poverty, life instead of death etc… (By Jenny Perez-Monto in Bible Prophecy Study Group).