Ever wonder which Greek gods are found as far back as in Mycenaean inscriptions? A footnote in Wikipedia brought me here. Notable is Dionysus (DI-WO-NI-SO-YO) who before Linear B was cracked was widely believed to be a foreign deity, brought only recently into Greek culture — not back in Mycenaean times, that is, the 12th-16th centuries BC, before the Greek Dark Ages! These Greeks were the stuff of myth and legend to even the most ancient of what are usually understood as ancient Greeks — Homer and Hesiod. They didn’t write in Greek letters; those wouldn’t be invented for centuries after their own script (Linear B) was forgotten. That’s how old these folks are. And yes, they worshipped Dionysus, the god thought “new,” “foreign,” “non-Greek,” “Asiatic” by Classicists before Chadwick deciphered.

You just never know.

BTW, as you can see from the link, they are not known to have worshipped the uber-Hellenic Apollo, unless you identify him with Paean, which only much later Greeks did and not always consistently. (Paean was a physician-god to Homer, and was not clearly the same god as Apollo, the plague-bringer, though they would eventually be unambiguously united; one who brings the plague can heal the plague, after all!)

This post brought to you again from the ease of blogging with Ecto, where I drop a link onto the task bar icon and I’ve got a new post started.