Greek Discovery of Iceland Supported by Linguistic Evidence

The glacier lagoon Jökulsárlón successful confederate Iceland brings to caput Pytheas’ statement of the “island with crystal floes adjacent to it.” Credit: Martin Peeks/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 3.0

The Greek find of Iceland much than 1 1000 years anterior to the Vikings is supported by grounds published successful The Housman Society Journal.

Based connected an fundamentally linguistic proposal of his ain inspiration, Dr. Andrew Charles Breeze pens the latest effort to shed airy connected the enigma that surrounds the nonstop determination of the legendary Thule, the world’s northernmost onshore discovered by ancient Greek geographer, astronomer, and explorer Pytheas of Massalia around 300 BC.

The philology prof astatine the University of Pamplona, Spain, known for his expertise successful historical linguistics, appears convinced that the “island with crystal floes adjacent to it” which took Pytheas six days to scope by sailing from the northbound of Britain, tin present yet beryllium acknowledged.

“Greeks not lone reached India with Alexander but besides discovered Iceland with Pytheas,” helium told Greek Reporter arsenic helium relates his theory.

The statement implicit the Greek find of Iceland

Dr. Breeze compared the aged fable of Thule to those of Atlantis oregon El Dorado.

Pytheas’ archetypal relationship details his voyages from his hometown of Massalia (today’s Marseille) successful confederate France to Britain and beyond. Although well-known to past scholars, it was wholly lost—most apt during the fires that destroyed the Library of Alexandria successful Egypt.

This is wherefore the technological assemblage has been struggling for centuries to lucifer the northernmost destination of the celebrated traveler with an nonstop location, guided by the uncommon surviving quotations of his enactment successful aboriginal writers specified arsenic Strabo, Plinius, and Diodorus of Sicily.

“They telephone this land Thule, and writers similar Vergil and Tacitus and Juvenal usage Thule alternatively vaguely, for determination astatine the extremity of the known world,” Breeze said.

“There person been centuries of statement connected wherever Thule was,” Breeze explains. “Most radical accidental Iceland; some, the Faroes; others, Norway, yet others, the Shetland Isles.”

He argues, however, that the cardinal to solving the enigma is simply a linguistic attack to the substance and contends that the past sanction fixed to the land by Pytheas suffered scribal corruption done the centuries to the constituent that it became unintelligible.

“The occupation is that Thule—or Thyle—means nothing,” helium points out. “Emend to Greek Thymele, by adding 2 letters betwixt the 2 syllables of the word, and it makes sense. Thymele means ‘altar slab; altar’, and is simply a communal connection successful past Greek.”

Mystery solved

In his paper, the prof supports the thought that “the word Thymele was suggested by the island’s southbound coast, with precocious and level cliffs of volcanic rock, seen arsenic resembling a Greek temple’s thymele oregon altar…perhaps the 1 successful the temple excavated aft World War II astatine Marseille, wherever Pytheas came from.”

“His sanction Thymele, aboriginal on, mislaid a syllable done scribal error, and by the clip of Vergil (d. 19 BC) and Strabo (active aft 21 AD) had go Thyle oregon Thule,” helium explains.

Mist and clouds implicit the steep cliffs, achromatic volcanic soil beach, and the oversea adjacent Mælifell, Iceland. Credit: Alexander Grebenkov / Wikimedia Commons

Did Greek Pytheas observe Iceland?

As helium envisages Pytheas connected his archetypal sighting of Iceland, Breeze believes that “when Pytheas and his men saw the large wide of Iceland arising connected the horizon, with clouds and mists rising from it, and possibly columns of fume and ash from Hekla and different volcanoes, helium thought of the altar successful a Greek temple, with occurrence connected apical and vapors rising from animals sacrificed there.”

“The scribes who copied his enactment past made mistakes,” Breeze says. “Letters were lost. The meaningless ‘Thule’ was the result.”

The insubstantial besides indicates that the lawsuit is strengthened upon learning that “ancient altars could beryllium immense. The 1 astatine Pergamum was forty feet high; others astatine Parium (near the Hellespont) and Syracuse were said to beryllium 2 100 yards long.”

The glacier Jökulsárlón bears a striking resemblance to a Greek altar slab, oregon “Thymele.” Could Pytheas person seen a akin enactment arsenic helium approached Iceland 2,300 years ago? Credit: Christian Bickel / Wikimedia Commons

Breeze says helium has already discussed the insubstantial with different classicists and academics astatine English universities, who surely thought the proposition plausible.

“If the proposal is right, aft much than 20 centuries, the Greeks tin beryllium recognized arsenic Iceland’s archetypal discoverers, a 1000 years earlier the Vikings,” helium concludes.

“The voyage of Pytheas for six days crossed the North Atlantic was rather arsenic heroic arsenic thing by Columbus,” helium maintains. “Greeks tin consciousness arrogant that it was they, and not the Vikings, who were the archetypal to acceptable ft connected the ungraded of Iceland.”