The ‘Hellenization’ argument contradiction about ancient macedonians

in ancient macedonian ethnicity, Ancient Macedonian History, Articles / by Admin / on February 19, 2007 at 3:27 pm /

Whenever the issue of ancient Macedonian greekness arises,we notice the same contradiction over and over. Until now as we are all aware, the archaeological inscriptions found – specifically the Pella’s curse tablet of 4th cent. BC which is the oldest ancient ‘Macedonian’ text we have – are proving that Macedonians spoke a dialect related to North-West Greek. This is a conclusion which the entirety of the scientific community agrees on.

Now, if archaeologists discover eg. an inscription written in a different language, and its older than the existing ones, this is obviously evidence that Macedonians spoke a language/dialect which was not greek. But if they dont, as they havent found all these decades, this is only taken as evidence, that ancient Macedonians were simply ‘Hellenized’.

In other words, according to what people claim, if they find archaeological discoveries, older than the existing in a different language that’s proof Macedonians were not greek and if they dont, its proof Macedonians were ‘hellenized’ therefore they were not greek again.

Same contradiction exists with other arguments i read every now and then about Alexander declaring in every chance he was given that he was greek. The explanation of some is usually that Alexander was spreading “propaganda”. All these examples, mean exactly, nothing at all could be accepted as evidence that Macedonians were of greek origin since only evidence that they were not is counted.

It is logical that in order to perform a genuine discussion of a theory people must permit the possibility of evidence that would count against it. If you do not, the discussion cannot be genuine or constructive, because a discussion that is run with the presumption that nothing could count as a failure of a point is no real discussion at all, but rather its a joke.