Help to Translate Greek on Ancient Building (2 Viewers)

PolarBear said:
Benjamin
Absolutely Great Find:salute:::salute:::salute:::salute::
I see you are an academic in Anthropology & Archaeology.
I guessed that when you cited the Journal of Anatolian Studies
I am a retired Fine Arts Academic Librarian and Art Historian with a Ph.D. in Humanities from Syracuse University.
My specialty is 19th C American Art with a focus on Winslow Homer
Randy
Click to expand...

Hi Randy,
You are correct. My area of specialization is pastoral nomads in the Bronze Age and then much later in the Late Ottoman and British Mandate periods in the southern Levant.

On a lark I just tried Hesperia and came up with nothing.
Best wishes,
Benjamin
 
Warrior said:
Mike,
I'm DYING from laughter over this, so 1000% correct.

A Greek couple that were friends of my parents when I was a kid were trying to fix me up with their daughter, they gave a picture of her to my parents for me to see, she was in the old country holding a donkey with a rope, when I looked at the picture and YIKES, she would make a freight train take a dirt road, I told my Mother "I'd rather go out with the donkey"...………………..:wink2:

Yeah, we went to the Greek festivals all the time when I was a kid, my Mother could dance up a storm, those Greek line dances were something else, her and my uncle Harry used to lead the way, she still is a good dancer at 86, my Mom looks great for her age, no cane, hearing aid, glasses, nothing, she still drives, cooks, cleans the house, she's a little dynamo...………..she's not your typical Greek lady all dressed in black, very Americanized, but speaks Greek...……………..no accent, you'd never know she's Greek...……………….
Click to expand...

George...

hehehe...man...that's so old school...typical Greeks...trying to set you up with "a Greek girl"...

my father's parents wouldn't even come to my Dad's wedding cause he married a "white girl"...
they got over it in time...everything worked out...
Greek parents can't stay mad at their children...

my Dad used to dance at the festivals too...
the folk dances...
I think they were called horos...
I never did...
he looked really cool...
really cool...very dignified...
really masculine for such a silly dance...
"Kool Moe Dee" for sure...
arms outstretched...hands on each other's shoulders...

after my mom passed away...
those old Greek women wanted some Pete Miller...

he was old school too...
smart guy...
summa cum laude SMU...
really sharp...
a CPA...
wore his wedding long ring after my mother passed away...
til that old mafia nut (Maceo) shot him and his fingers swelled up so bad they had to cut it off...
I think I told you about that before...

he finally started dating again...
and I was glad he had a companion...
but in the beginning...
when I would ask him about getting a girlfriend or remarrying...
he would look at me real serious...
like I was crazy...
and say he's still married...
his wife is in the cemetery on 61st street...

kind of like a penguin...
he mated for life...

real cool guy...
like you and your Dad...
MY VERY BEST FRIEND!
 
mikemiller1955 said:
George...

hehehe...man...that's so old school...typical Greeks...trying to set you up with "a Greek girl"...

my father's parents wouldn't even come to my Dad's wedding cause he married a "white girl"...
they got over it in time...everything worked out...
Greek parents can't stay mad at their children...

my Dad used to dance at the festivals too...
the folk dances...
I think they were called horos...
I never did...
he looked really cool...
really cool...very dignified...
really masculine for such a silly dance...
"Kool Moe Dee" for sure...
arms outstretched...hands on each other's shoulders...

after my mom passed away...
those old Greek women wanted some Pete Miller...

he was old school too...
smart guy...
summa cum laude SMU...
really sharp...
a CPA...
wore his wedding long ring after my mother passed away...
til that old mafia nut (Maceo) shot him and his fingers swelled up so bad they had to cut it off...
I think I told you about that before...

he finally started dating again...
and I was glad he had a companion...
but in the beginning...
when I would ask him about getting a girlfriend or remarrying...
he would look at me real serious...
like I was crazy...
and say he's still married...
his wife is in the cemetery on 61st street...

kind of like a penguin...
he mated for life...

real cool guy...
like you and your Dad...
MY VERY BEST FRIEND!
Click to expand...

That's great stuff, the room is getting dusty reading it, either that or my eyes are sweating...……………;)……………….
 
Ben and Randy — it’s nice to see two academics with similar interests on here. I am currently applying for PhD programs and want to go into academia.

As to the inscription, I was once fluent (not kidding) in Ancient (Attic) Greek, so I will give this a look tomorrow.
 
After reading this thread I had to have Greek food tonight! Just came back from my favorite Greek restaurant on Long Island.....fresh fish, lots of Feta and tomatoes, Hummus and Tahiki.
And a little Baklava for desert.
 
Napoleon1er said:
Ben and Randy — it’s nice to see two academics with similar interests on here. I am currently applying for PhD programs and want to go into academia.

As to the inscription, I was once fluent (not kidding) in Ancient (Attic) Greek, so I will give this a look tomorrow.
Click to expand...

Thanks that would be great!

Randy
 

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This is way more challenging than I thought. First, this is neither Attic nor Koine Greek. It appears to be a Unical script, which could be either some form of Byzantine Greek or Latin or some mix of the two. It is also hard to te where word breaks are — there may be abbreviations and omitted letters. It may have something to do with Demas, a friend of Paul of Tarsus. I would greatly appreciate more information.
 
nysoldiers said:
After reading this thread I had to have Greek food tonight! Just came back from my favorite Greek restaurant on Long Island.....fresh fish, lots of Feta and tomatoes, Hummus and Tahiki.
And a little Baklava for desert.
Click to expand...

That sounds great!
 
Very interesting for me to see how different people perceive us Greeks 😊.
Things have changed a lot...Greeks are more modern now...the food...and the women are still the same😊
 
Hi Randy,
You could ask Professor John Stevens at ECU if he could translate it, he is a good guy. His email is STEVENSJ@ecu.edu. Alternatively, if you know a classicist at Dartmouth that could be an option too.
Benjamin
 
jomartvr said:
Hi Randy,
You could ask Professor John Stevens at ECU if he could translate it, he is a good guy. His email is STEVENSJ@ecu.edu. Alternatively, if you know a classicist at Dartmouth that could be an option too.
Benjamin
Click to expand...

Hahaha! I just emailed the picture to one of my classics professors from my undergrad years at Dartmouth.
 
So, I have consulted with some of my former professors at Dartmouth, some of my former peers, and even a Greek Orthodox monk I found walking around the Old City of Jerusalem. Before I get to my conclusions, I should first explain the difficulties with this translation:
  • The alphabet used is not an Ancient Greek alphabet. It is a Byzantine alphabet, likely Unical, but has yet to be conclusively identified.
  • Perhaps must frustratingly, there are a few letters which no one I spoke to can conclusively identify.
  • The language is likely not a pure Greek dialect, and may have influence from Latin or other languages.
  • The first and last words are not complete (this is certain).
  • The delineation between words is unclear.

WITH THAT SAID, my own research and the opinions of everyone I consulted concur on these things:
  • Whatever alphabet it is, the letters represent the following standard Greek letters: EΓIΣT(Θ?) ΔHMΑΡ ΙΚΗΣΕ(Ξ?). These roughly transliterate to EGIST(TH?) DEHMAR IKEHSE(X?).
  • The first word is likely missing a "M" (mu) at the beginning and is likely a superlative form of MEΓΑΣ, meaning great. It is possible that it is MEΓIΣTΑ, meaning Magistrate/Noble/Chief.
  • The next word could be a name, possible Demarchos (abbreviated).
  • It could also be an abbreviated form of "demarchus," a Latinised form of "demarch," which means the ruler/magistrate of a deme/demos, which was (in a general sense) a suburban township or region. This position is similar to a Roman Tribune of the Plebs.
  • The third word stumped many, but my former professor said it could be a form of the word NΙΚΑΩ, meaning to be victorious. The form might be ENΙΚΗΣΕN, meaning "has overcome/been victorious."

Given these things, I think two translations are likely:

"[The] Magistrate Demarchos has been victorious"

"[The] chief man Demarch has been victorious"

It is also possible that we are wrong on the form of the first word, and that the superlative form of great refers not to the person in question but to the building itself, which means the following two translations are possible:

"The great [house/hall] of Demarchos, [who] has been victorious"

"The great [house/hall] of [the] Demarch, [who] has been victorious"

All in all, it is fair to conclude one of -- if not THE -- foremost political leaders of the town in question lived in this building.
 
Cool, I had tried OCR (Optical Character Recognition) translation on the picture for Greek but it didn't come up with anything...
 
Napoleon1er said:
...The alphabet used is not an Ancient Greek alphabet. It is a Byzantine alphabet, likely Unical, but has yet to be conclusively identified...
Click to expand...

That makes sense. No one noticed that the inscription contains what appears to be a "C", which the Greek alphabet did not and does not have. For me, that ruled out a purely Greek translation at the start of the puzzle. I'm interested if the script is uncial, which I knew of for writing but I never knew it was used for inscriptions on monuments and other buildings.

Prosit! (which is Latin)
Brad
 
theBaron said:
That makes sense. No one noticed that the inscription contains what appears to be a "C", which the Greek alphabet did not and does not have. For me, that ruled out a purely Greek translation at the start of the puzzle. I'm interested if the script is uncial, which I knew of for writing but I never knew it was used for inscriptions on monuments and other buildings.

Prosit! (which is Latin)
Brad
Click to expand...

Unsure about the script, but the "C" is almost certainly a later form of "Σ" (sigma).
 
Or is it just the Latin "C" borrowed or applied by the "Eastern Romans", and standing in for the "S" sound that sigma stood for? I suspect that's why St. Cyril used that shape for "S" when he devised his alphabet, because it was in common use. Or did sigma evolve eventually to drop the lower bend, leaving the upper half?

Prost!
Brad
 
Hey Randy

I'm a little late to the dance but you could try WWW.ROMANARMYTALK.COM

they do Ancient Greek there- sounds NAPOLEON1ER gave you as good an explanation as you are going to get but they might have some additional insight.
 
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