People at all times tried to preserve the memory of the past, retelling it to each other, descendants. But when passing from generation to generation, legends about less important events were lost, about more important ones - they lost specific details, adapted to the traditions of folklore and turned into fairy tales, legends, myths. Nevertheless, even the mythological information is in very good agreement with the data of archeology.
For example, the ancient Greeks remembered that the tribes that inhabited their country received the first foundations of civilization with the arrival of the Pelasgians, the descendants of the Trypillians. As stated in myths, King Pelasgus founded the first state on the territory of Greece, disaccustomed local residents to eat all kinds of nasty things, taught them to sew and wear clothes, and build houses. And his son Lycaon built the first city, and others began to be built on its model.
The settlement of Crete was associated with the beautiful Europe, to which the god Zeus appeared in the guise of a bull, and the Cretan kings came from their marriage. There was also talk about Queen Pasiphae, who had a relationship with a bull. These legends reflected the beliefs of the Pelasgians, sacred rituals. The Greeks did not understand their meaning, but similar stories, like a bull deity and a goddess, gave birth to life on earth, are known in the religions of many Aryan peoples, and the Philistines brought them to the Middle East.
In Greek myths, the god Dionysus-Bacchus made a victorious campaign in India - in this form, the memory of its conquest by the Aryans has been preserved. And after India, Dionysus visited somewhere in the Kuban or the North Caucasus and from there invaded the Balkans with hordes of Scythians, Thracians and Amazons, which corresponds to the conquest of Greece by the Achaeans. The Achaeans later maintained ties with the northern countries. Hercules repeatedly went there, performing his feats. Greek woman Iphigenia became a priestess in the Crimea. Jason with the Argonauts sailed for the Golden Fleece to Colchis (Western Georgia). Archeology confirms that such travels have taken place. A treasure of Achaean items was found at the mouth of the Dniester. And in Colchis and other places along the shores of the Black Sea, developed states did exist.
The Trojan War took a significant place in the ancient Greek epic. Famous poems of Homer "Iliad" and "Odyssey", dozens of other works were dedicated to her. She really was an important point in ancient history. This was the highest rise, but at the same time the threshold of the death of the Achaean civilization. In the XIII century. BC e. the Greek city-states, united in a union, opposed Phrygia (which also owned the city of Troy, aka Ilion). On one side or the other, the peoples of the Northern Balkans, Asia Minor, and the Aegean islands were involved in the war. The tribes of the Black Sea region also took part in it.
So, there were several versions about the origin of Achilles, one of the most popular heroes of Greek legends. According to Homer, he reigned in Thessaly (Northern Greece), died and was buried near Troy. But Lycophron, Alcaeus and a number of other authors reported that Achilles "ruled over the Scythian land" and brought his soldiers from the northern shores of the Black Sea. There were graves where he was allegedly buried on two islands - the Serpent at the mouth of the Danube and the White at the mouth of the Dnieper (now it has turned into the Kinburn Spit). And the Tendrovskaya Spit between the Dnieper and the Crimea was called "Achilles core" ("run" or "arena for running"). According to legend, on this long and narrow braid, he practiced or played some games. The grave and sanctuary of Achilles on about. White described Dionysius Periegetus, Philostratus the Younger, Pliny, Strabo, Pausanias, Arrian, Pseudo-Skimn. And excavations on the Kinburn Spit actually revealed the remains of an altar, several inscriptions and marble slabs with dedications to Achilles. Perhaps, in his image, the legends united several northern leaders.
The Iliad presents the main episode of the war, the siege of Troy. But the hostilities dragged on for a long time and were conducted over a wide area, on different fronts. In the archives of the Hittite kingdom, it was noted that the Achaeans captured a significant part of the coast of Asia Minor. Troy also fell. Archaeologists have established that the so-called "Troy - 7a" (both before it and after it, there were other buildings in the same place) was destroyed and burned in 1250–1200. BC e. The Achaeans and their allies destroyed the captured cities, killed and enslaved the inhabitants. The defeated fled in all directions. Scattered throughout the Mediterranean, attacked Egypt - the Egyptians called them "Sea Peoples." Refugees moved to Italy, Spain, Sicily, North Africa.
But the winners also quarreled over production and political ambitions. A period of violent civil strife and coups began. In addition, the war brought an epidemic of plague, it devastated entire cities. And a third force took advantage of the weakening of both fighting coalitions. From the north, the Dorian tribes moved to the Balkans. They captured the Achaean fortresses, occupied a large part of Greece. As a result, many of the victors of the Trojan War had to flee after the vanquished - to the same Italy, to Sicily, to move to Asia Minor. At the same time, the settlers spread their culture. The Etruscans, allies of the Trojans, became teachers of the Romans, passed on to them scientific, technical, and religious knowledge. The legends of the Irish call the ancestral homeland "Scythia" and say that during the Trojan War, their ancestors moved in search of a new homeland through the Middle East, Egypt, Spain - in general,the roads of the "peoples of the sea" are indicated.
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Mythology confirms the fact that many cultural achievements are of northern origin. As already noted, from there Dionysus came to Greece - and viticulture, winemaking, theater were associated with his cult. According to legend, the goddess of fertility, Demeter, brought the skills of arable farming from the north, from Scythia. From the far north, from the "country of the Hyperboreans", came the solar Apollo. And he was responsible for science, art, medicine, beekeeping. Together with him came his mother, the goddess Leto, and Eilithia, the patroness of married life (the name Leto is quite Slavic, like the name of Dionysus's mother, Semele - Earth). For a long time, gifts from the northern countries were transferred to the main sanctuary of Apollo in Delphi, and northern priestesses came to serve.
From there, from the "country of the Hyperboreans", Hercules brought the sprouts of the first olive. From somewhere in the north came the cult of Pallas Athena, the patroness of crafts. The Greeks adopted the cult of the Muses from Thrace, again from the north. Songs, dances, poetry, history, astronomy were associated with the Muses. The titan Prometheus also lived in the north, whom the gods chained to the mountains of the Caucasus for disobedience. And Prometheus gave people fire, taught them to count, harness oxen and horses to carts, build ships, look for ore and smelt metals. The supreme god of the Etruscans, Tin, also lived in the far north. And in Celtic legends, the north appears as the focus of wisdom and secret knowledge.
Iron production also came from the north to the Mediterranean. Neither Egypt nor Mesopotamia knew how to make it yet, it was a great jewel. Among the things of the Egyptian pharaohs, iron objects in a gold frame are found. The Dorian conquerors brought new metal to Greece, iron weapons helped them to defeat the Achaeans. And Greek legends called Scythia and the Caucasus "the land of iron ores". Archeology / shows that in the forest and forest-steppe zone of Eurasia, the use of iron began much earlier than in the Middle East, China, Korea. Moreover, in some northern regions there was no "Bronze Age" at all, the culture jumped from the Neolithic directly to iron. And this is quite logical. Deposits of copper ore are quite rare, tin is even rarer, and swamp iron ore is found everywhere in this area. Another question,that iron is not enough to melt, it will turn out to be useless for anything. For the manufacture of weapons and tools from it, forging, heat treatment, alloying are required. And such technologies were discovered.
In the north, on the territory of our country, several world religions were born. One of them is the Vedic religion of the Aryans, on its basis later Hinduism developed. Researchers believe that the most ancient hymns of the Rig Veda date back to the 3rd or even the 4th millennia BC. e. This religion was close to the pagan beliefs of the Slavs. The very word "Veda" - "knowledge", akin to the Slavic "know", the name of the god Agni is easily read as "fire". Other Vedic deities left traces in the names of Russian rivers: Kama is the god of love, Oka is his son. The Rigveda also mentions “the river Ra - the great mother”, this is the ancient Aryan name for the Volga. Many ancient and medieval authors called the Volga with similar names Ra, Ranha, Race. In Russian epics, the "Irai River" also appears. In the "Mahabharata" more than 200 sacred "krinits" are listed - in the interfluve of the Volga and Oka rivers there are rivers with exactly the same names: Aksha, Vamna, Kumara, Plava, Lama, Sit, etc.
And in the II millennium BC. e. on the Volga or in the Urals there lived a priest Zoroaster, who reformed the religion. Former gods - deva, he declared devas - demons. He taught that there is only one God-Creator, Ahuramazda, and the younger deities are only his manifestations. But he is opposed by an evil inclination, Angra Manyu, there is a constant struggle between them, and the role of man in the world is to help Ahuramazda defeat the enemy. Zoroaster canceled the sacrifices of people and animals, introduced the worship of fire and a number of other rituals.
Those who adopted Zoroastrianism made up the people of the Persians, but among many tribes the new religion did not take root, it changed, and another one arose - Mithraism. She adopted some features of Zoroastrianism: the idea of the One God, the eternal struggle between the forces of good and evil. But God the Creator became a distant and abstract concept in Mithraism. It was believed that He is present in all natural phenomena. He was rarely remembered, and the god of the sky, the goddess of the earth and their son, the deity of the sun and war, Mithra (his names were different for different peoples) came to the fore.
As you can see, the beliefs of the northern peoples were by no means primitive, they were associated with a very complex and developed religious philosophy. By the way, it is worth noting that the concept of the Trinity was known in the Vedic beliefs - among the Indians of Trimurti, among the Slavs of Triglav. And Zoroaster predicted that the Savior would come into the world. How could the ancient peoples know this? Only from God. The Lord has already spoken with people, and not only with Jews. But people have not heard Him yet. The truths that came from God were hammered and mixed in their minds with their own speculations, archaic customs, magic, cults of the forces of nature.
Well, as for human culture, it is necessary to turn to writing. Where did it come from? The oldest writings on earth were found in the Carpathians. They have not yet been deciphered, but radiocarbon analysis shows that they belong to the 5th millennium BC. e., long before writing was born in Egypt or Mesopotamia. And in ancient Greece, there were three types of writing, replacing each other. This is the so-called "Linear A", which was used in the Minoan civilization. It was also not deciphered, it was only possible to establish that it was syllabic. Behind it appeared the syllabic "Linear B" characteristic of the Achaean civilization, they were able to read it. And then the alphabet appeared.
Three versions of the origin of writing were also reflected in Greek myths. The first is that Prometheus gave it to people. Obviously, this refers to the oldest, Minoan writing. The second-time teacher was Cadmus, who moved to Greece from Phenicia. And during the excavations of Thebes, where Cadmus lived, actually found samples of Phoenician cuneiform, as well as the Achaean "Linear B". The hero Palamed was called the third inventor. He was a participant in the Trojan War, lived in the XIII century. BC e. Legends said that he also developed a calendar, introduced systems for measuring weight, length, time. And he comprehended his knowledge somewhere in the north, studied with the wise centaur Chiron. This centaur was the tutor of other prominent characters. Chiron passed the martial art to Achilles, taught medicine to the god of healing Asclepius himself. Note that in the form of centaurs,half-people, half-horses, myths reflected the riders of the Black Sea steppes. The Greeks themselves did not know how to ride a horse yet, they used chariots, and in their legends the horse and rider were united into one.
Thus, we have reason to believe that the idea of the alphabet, letter writing, was born among the northern peoples. There is strong evidence of this. For the non-Aryan cultures of the Mediterranean and Western Asia, the principle of the alphabet was alien, had no historical roots. In Egypt, ideographic rebus writing (hieroglyphs) was used. In Mesopotamia and the Middle East, cuneiform was used. Only one alphabet appeared here - the Phoenician one. But its earliest examples date back to the 13th century. BC e., by the time the northern "Sea Peoples" poured into the Middle East. Before that, the Phoenicians, like all their neighbors, used cuneiform.
But all the Aryan peoples have alphabets. In the Balkans, the alphabets are Greek, Thracian, Lemnos in the Aegean, Phrygian in Asia Minor. In Italy and Sicily - Latin, Etruscan, Umbrian, Oscan, Venetian, Rethian, Elim. Ancient sources mention that the local tribes of the Lucans and Brettians also had their own writing, which they brought from somewhere from the north. And Diodorus Siculus called the Pelasgians and Etruscans the inventors of writing. Several types of alphabet existed among the Celts, Spanish Celtiberians. The Germans and Slavs had runic writing. In addition, the Germanic runes are similar to the signs of the ancient Indian letter "brahmi". True, it was not alphabetical, but syllabic, but it is easy to see the similarities between the letters. Tochars in Western China also used a kind of Brahmi script. Runes very reminiscent of Germanic ones were found in rock paintings in Khakassia.
In a word, we see that various types of alphabets were characteristic precisely for the area of settlement of the Aryan peoples. They also began to be used by the Turkic tribes who contacted the Aryans. Another question is that few monuments of writing have survived in the northern regions. For this, wood was used, birch bark - short-lived materials. It was absurd for the local residents to carve inscriptions on the stone: why unnecessary work, if there is a more pliable and comfortable tree? But in the Middle East, on the contrary, wood was a rarity, was expensive, only the richest nobles could afford wooden houses. Therefore, stones and clay tablets were used for writing, many of which have survived to this day. But if it has not survived, this does not mean that it did not exist …