Given what we starting to know about ancient DNA thanks to Reich, @iosif_lazaridis & colleagues, we should start downgrading these verbose, confused, accounts & fabrications by classicists & historians. Greeks then were very, very similar to Greeks (& Western Turks) todayhttps://twitter.com/Twhittermarsh/status/994190192251633664 …
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The other problem with
@Twhittermarsh is that Greeks had a very primitive color vocabulary to generate reliable spectral conclusions. No color blue until late. Look at family names: in Levant Aswad/Asmar/Ash2ar, or in France Lenoir, Lebrun, Leblanc, Leblond, etc.8 replies 12 retweets 79 likesShow this thread -
Replying to @nntaleb @Twhittermarsh
The Greek vocabulary is extremely complex, and colors in Ancient Greek (especially in Homer & Pindar) often carry an extremely rich field of significations, using metaphor and metonymy. It seems primitive because it seems meaningless due to its complexity.
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Xanthos, for example, would be translated as "yellow" when it in facts describes a golden shimmer and is thus used of rivers, blonde hair, gold, etc. Porphuros is translated as red, but Homer uses it for the rainbow: the Greek understanding of color is emotional and connotative.
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More on porphuros: being re-semantized through its use in royal and priestly clothing, the term had acquired by Homer's time a connotation of divinity & royalty, so that the dreadful rainbow, sent by the gods to warn of terrible things to come, could be described as "porphuros".
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