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APPENDIX IV: PELASGIAN DEMETER AND ZEUS
The earliest attestation of the divine name Demeter is on a
stone laddle inscribed with the Linear A legend da-ma-te
from a peak-sanctuary at Kythera, dated to the transition
from Middle Minoan III to Late Minoan I, c. 1600 BC. 690
According to Herodotos, the cult of Demeter originated
from Egypt, and the rites were taught by the daughters of
Danaos to Pelasgian women. 691 As the arrival in Greece of
Danaos with his daughters from Egypt can be situated in
the period of the shaft-graves at Mycenae c. 1600 BC, this
tallies well with the afore-mentioned date of the earliest
epigraphical evidence for the divine name Demeter. In the
variant of the myth by Pausanias, however, Demeter is
welcomed in his home by Pelasgos, the mythical ancestor
of the Pelasgians who ruled the Argolid before the arrival
of Danaos and his daughters and thus brings us back to
sometime in the Middle Bronze Age. 692
The name Demeter or Damater is variously analyzed
by linguists, but all agree that the second element consists
of a reflex of PIE *méh2tr “mother”. 693 Generally, this is
taken for evidence of the Greek language, but the interpretation
of Linear B ma-ka as Ma Ga “Mother Earth” militates
against a Greek solution along the line of da- in
Damater being a reflex of Greek ga or g “earth”. 694 To
this comes that the Phrygian language, which, as we have
seen in section 7 above, was presumably spoken by pre-
Greek population groups of mainland Greece, is likewise
characterized by a reflex of PIE *méh2tr as exemplified
by the Old Phrygian expression matar Kubileya or matar
Kubeleya “mother Kybele”. 695 Hence, the divine name
Demeter may well date back to the time before the Greek
language came into being and be of Pelasgian origin as
Pausanias’ version of the myth suggests. 696
690 Sakellarakis & Olivier 1994 (= KY Za 2); Duhoux 1994-5:
290-1; Suter 2002: 164.
691 Histories II, 171.
692 Guide to Greece 1, 14, 2.
693 Suter 2002: 160-1.
694 Aravantinos, Godart & Sacconi 2001: 184; 358; cf. Douhoux
1994-5: 290.
695 Brixhe & Lejeune 1984: W-04; B-01.
696 Cf. Pausanias, Guide to Greece 2, 22, 1: Dmtr Pelasgis
143
Another deity attributed with a Pelasgian origin is
Zeus. Thus already in Homeros’ Iliad, which, as we have
seen in section 2 above, basically reflects Late Bronze Age
history, Zeus of Dodona – at that time still the one near
Skotussa in Thessaly – is referred to by Akhilleus in a
prayer as “Pelasgian” (Zeu Ddnaie Pelasgike). 697 Now,
the linguistic analysis of the divine name Zeus is undisputed,
all specialists tracing it back to the PIE root *Dyws
for the sky-god. 698 If, then, Zeus’ mythical Pelasgian origin
applies, we are confronted with a second pre-Greek divine
name based on a PIE root.
The Pelasgian nature of Demeter and Zeus may well
account for their incorporation in the Lydian pantheon as
Lametru- and Lev or Lef, respectively. 699 As we have
seen in section 12 above, namely, Pelasgians were living in
the region of Larisa Phrikonis at the time of the Trojan war
and for this reason may be assumed to have been in close
contact with the ancestors of the historical Lydians, in
which process they evidently radiated their cult of Demeter
and Zeus.
The identification of Demeter and Zeus as Pelasgian
gods does not exclude their ultimate Cretan origin as suggested
by the Homeric hymn to Demeter700 and Hesiodos’
Theogony, 701 which squares with the earliest attestation of
Demeter in a Linear A inscription from a Minoan peaksanctuary
at Kythera, and the myth of Zeus being born in
the cave of Dikte: 702 as we have already noted with respect
to Demeter, the cult of these gods may have radiated to the
Greek mainland already in Middle Helladic times! From a
“Pelasgian Demeter”.
697 Homeros, Iliad XVI, 233; cf. Strabo, Geography V, 2, 4.
698 Sihler 1995: 58; cf. Beekes 1990: 96.
699 Gusmani 1964, s.v.
700 Homeric Hymn to Demeter 123; cf. Nilsson 1927: 506.
701 Theogony 969-74, with Iasin as parhedros; for the Minyan
nature of the root of the latter name, cf. the royal names Iasos as
attested for Orkhomenos and Iason as reported for Iolkos, on
which see Sakellariou 1977: 116-7.
702 Apollonios of Rhodes, Argonautika I, 605-6; for the association
of his birth with mount Ida, see ibid., II, 1559-61; cf. Nilsson
1927: 393-4. Note in this connection that in Homeros’ Iliad Zeus
is frequently associated with the Trojan mount Ida.