Homer mentions the term Curetes both as a
common noun, κούρητες (koyrētes) translated as young men, especially
young warriors, and as a proper name, Κουρῆτες (Koyrētes), an indigenous
tribe of Aetolia. They fought against the Aetolians but were eventually expelled from
their land. The common noun may be related to Attic κόρος or Ionian κοῦρος (koros
or koyros), boy, lad, and imply youth and absence of a beard. Because of the
general confusion in this semantic area, both koyrētes and Koyrētes
are also interpreted as armed dancers who celebrated orgiastic rites. It is
unlikely that Curetes and Korybantes are etymologically related at all. One
would have to explain the transposition of Y and the appearance of B and N,
along with the different endings.
Following the same rationale and method as
for Korybantes (see section Korybantes), I found that the starting trigram KOY is followed by R 60% of
the time, or Phi, 23%. Five other letters are found at minor frequencies
totaling only 17% of all words starting with koy- (transliterated as kou-
or cou-). The second larger category, the koyph-words, are almost
always about lightness (including light mind and light talk), nimbleness, alleviation,
relief, or remission. The koyr-words are about haircuts. For example, the
most frequently attested koyr-word is κουρά (koyra), which
means cropping of the hair, shearing of sheep, lock of hair, wool shorn,
fleece, cut-off end, from κείρω (keirō), to cut short, shear, clip, especially
of hair, to crop a person, shear sheep, cut down, clear, sweep clean, hew,
carve, or cut through transversely – as opposed σχίζειν (schizein; slit
longitudinally). Among the koyr-words, we find the sememes of cropping, curator
(care; who manages, administers, organizes), painting on a ceiling (see Rhea
mytheme below), scrotum (hairy), arm (hairy armpit), little knives (razors), gossiping
(activity culturally associated with the hairdresser's), barber's shop, take
the tonsure, have the haircut, barber,
hair-cutter, for cutting hair, youth (hairless, hair beauty), armed
dancing (repetitive movement of sharp tools), one who wears his hair short,
need clipping, wear rough, untrimmed hair (κουριάω; koyriaō),
by the hair, wedded (beauty care at its maximum), for cutting hair, shears (κουρίς; koyris), and cursor (κούρσωρ; koyrsōr; movement back and forth, from row to
row, uniform iteration), suiting, fitting. We may add French court
(short) and English cure, curt, curtail,
curate, curious, accuracy, curl,
manicure, pedicure.
The odds are that Koyrētes belongs
to the same class of words and refers either to the hairdresser's and barbers'
tools, the professionals themselves, or their clients. The mythemes told
about the Curetes derive directly from the sememes associated with the various
cognates. The Curetes curated (took care of, managed, administered) Zeus, the
rainwater (see section Zeus – the
rain), and they danced with their arms (moved back and forth like cursors). This is an example of mythology devised to guide the reader to the correct
interpretation of a term.
Archemachus of Euboea says that the Curetes, being continually at war and finding that the enemy used to seize and drag them by the hair of the forehead, wore their hair long behind and cut the hair short in front. They were called Curetes (shorn) from κουρά (koura; hair cropping) or the tonsure they had undergone. The Curetes were removed to Aetolia and occupied places about Pleuron (rib, side). Others who lived on the other side of Achelous were called Acarnanians, Archemachus explains, because they kept their heads unshorn[3]. Similar to the term Achelous, the word ἀχέλιον (achelion) is glossed as λεπτομερές (neuter of λεπτομερής; leptomerēs), meaning treated in detail or minutely, refined or meticulous. It is important to note that Acarnanians were not named after the Acarnania region. Instead, Acarnania was named when the term's meaning had been forgotten.
From this passage, I gather that Archemachus is trying to define the term Curetes and the related 'toponyms' neither as a historian nor a geographer, but as a mythological lexicographer; nobody would believe his reason for the Curetes style of haircut. Those who lived on the other side of Ἀχελώος (Achelōos; Achelous) were those who were not refined or meticulous, those that did not pay attention to detail, compared to the Curetes who did so. Because Ἀχελώος is who likes, desires, wishes (λῶ; lō; wish, desire) to be refined or meticulous (ἀχέλ-; from ἀχέλιον, achelion; treated in detail or minutely; of persons, refined or meticulous). Well, those who were on the other side of desire for refinement left their heads unshorn and full of mites and lice. They called them Ἀκαρνᾶνας (Akarnanas; Acarnanians) because akari (ἀκαρί) is the mite and karnos (κάρνος) is the louse. The others, who were more refined, made a ponytail after [their hair] had occupied the area around the ribs. Pleuron (πλευρόν; pleyron) is a rib. The phrase Πλευρῶνα χωρία[4] uses the plural genitive πλευρῶν (pleyrōn; of the ribs) to define the region of the ribs, on which long hair usually falls. Αἰτωλία (Aitōlia; ai-tōl-ia; aitō-lia; Aetolia) is admittedly a difficult term. I can only guess, from the mytheme, that it may mean a ponytail. The word displays symmetry, starting with ai- and finishing in -ia. It makes me think of the English phonetic inversion at all/a lot (Aitōl-ia [etol] / ailōt-iA [elot]). The word λίαξ (liax) means a beardless boy, and it might be related to Latin and English axil and axilla (armpit) by some awkward inversion. If these are not a mere coincidence, Aitōlia might be about hair removal.
Of particular interest is the mytheme that
the Curetes assisted Rhea to give birth to Zeus, Rhea being Cybele's counterpart in Crete
according to this myth. If my analysis is correct, Zeus is the rain and the
rainwater, and Crete is any extremity, especially the roof, the ceiling (see sections Zeus – the rain and Crete). Rhea is the mother of Zeus. Therefore, the evaporation, the clouds, and the
steam. Rhea is associated with Cybele, the fireplace, cooking stove, goddess of
cuisine, and the kitchen (Phrygia; see sections
Cybele and Phrygia). The mytheme of Rhea being the
counterpart of Cybele in Crete means that where there is a cooker (Cybele),
there is steam condensation (Rhea) on the ceiling (Crete). This is why modern
cookers always have their counterpart kitchen hood. The Curetes, as hairdressers
and priests (users) of the stove (Cybele), boiled water and kept it warm on the Cybele stove. They used it for shampooing and for making lather. Warm water
produces steam (Rhea). Steam travels upward. When it meets a cold surface, it
condenses. Where? On the ceiling, in Crete. The Curetes, thus, as worshipers of
steaming water (Rhea), helped her give birth to Zeus (condensation droplets) on
the ceiling (in Crete). Persistent condensation of moisture caused the ceiling
to be painted by that mold-like color, κουράς (koyras; painting of
the ceiling), characteristic of humid walls such as baths and barber's
shops. In the noisy atmosphere the Curetes created by dancing with their sharp
arms, and all this gossiping κουρεακός (koyreakos) going on in the premises,
nobody noticed the birth of raindrops (Zeus) on the ceiling (Crete); not even
their father, the cropper barber (Cronus; see
section Cronus and Rhea) who created them by boiling water
but was supposed to absorb (devour) them.
One of the Greek versions of the common name of Rhea (Greek Ῥέα; 'Rea; Epic Ῥείη; 'Reiē) is ῥήα ('rēa; RHA)[5]. In its common-noun version, the word means easily, readily. It may also derive from ῥαίνω ('rainō) and mean sprinkle, besprinkle, scatter, sprinkle water, drop, dripping, droplet. Incidentally, mainstream dictionaries do not recognize the stem 'rain- (/ren/) as a source or cognate of English rain but trace the latter up to Proto-Germanic *regna-, or pre-Germanic *Hréǵ-no, with 'no certain cognates outside Germanic', unless it is from a presumed PIE *reg-, moist, wet, or *Hreǵ-, to flow, drip. Proto-Germanic is supposed to have developed from pre-Proto-Germanic vaguely after the 5th century BC, i.e., after 'rainō was attested in Euripides (Eur. Rh. 73), and before the 5th century AD; that is one-millennium error margin. In other words, Germanic peoples did not read or tried to pronounce ‘rain’ from Euripides centuries after it was first written. They came up with various solutions on their own based on stories perpetuated by their PIE ancestors. Some of these solutions may look or sound identical to Euripides' word because Euripides also had PIE ancestors. This argument would not be accepted, today, by any copyright authority. I cannot use the name of a registered (written) brand claiming that it is PIE and, therefore, I have heard it from my ancestors.
By inverting RHA, we get AHR. In Greek, ἀήρ (AHR; aēr; /air/), genitive ἀέρος (aeros), means air. The genitive stem forms the Ancient Greek ἀέριος (aerios), meaning misty, in the air, high in the air, of the air, aerial, vast as air, infinite, as well as the Modern Greek neuter version ἀέριο (aerio) meaning gas. If 'rēa also meant steam (like Rhea) before drifting toward the ease by which we can do things with steaming water instead of cold water, then the inversion RHA/AHR, or REA/AER- creates antonymy between steam and air, steam and gas. Rhea associates with Cybele like the steam associates with the cooker. The fact that both the Curetes (hairdressers) and the Korybantes (sculptors) used and valued (venerated, worshiped) a stove does not make them identical entities.
The drum symbol shared by Rhea and Cybele
is one of the leading causes of confusion between the two deities. Worshipers may
use a ceremonial percussive musical drum reminding the drum of either goddess
if they ever did. However, the drums of Cybele and Rhea were not musical
instruments and were not the same type of objects. In English, a drum is any
hollow, cylindrical object. It may be a barrel or sizeable cylindrical container
for liquid transport and storage. In architecture, a drum may be the encircling
wall that supports a dome or cupola or any cylindrical blocks that make
up the shaft of a pillar. There are also cable drums, printer drums,
washing-machine drums, etc. As a verb, to drum may refer to any
repetitive beating movement, metaphorically and literally, if the
beaten object can be called a drum. Likewise, the Ancient Greek equivalent τύμπανον
(tympanon) meant kettledrum, drum of a machine (e.g., the spool of a
winch), roller, wagon-wheel made of a solid piece of wood, wheel of an
irrigating machine, the sunken triangular space enclosed by the cornice of the
pediment, or the square panel of a door. Like the wagon's
wheels, turning drums tend to make repetitive friction noises.
If Cybele was a stone of pediment and the
Korybantes were its sculptors, of course, the latter worshipers were hitting a
drum (the pediment). Cybele, the stove with its black stones, had its kettle in
the form of a kettledrum. Even today, traditional cooking pots have a round
bottom (kettledrum shape) with a superior heat transfer efficiency
than flat bottom vessels
For this reason, it is difficult for the
modern reader to pin down the exact meaning of each term, as difficult as for the ancient speakers. Is Rhea the steam, the kettle, or the stove? They all
give birth to raindrops (Zeus), directly or indirectly, since they work in
concert. Literal semantics, that is, the meaning suggested by the shape and
order of letters in a word, may help us understand the original intention of
the wordmaker.
Figure 1. Drums: (A) Nagara, a percussion drum instrument from Rajasthan. Artwork Judith from London. Creative Commons license. (B) Mysore woman balancing basket. Artwork by Wen-Yan King. Creative Commons license. (C) Head-carrying in Dakar. Artwork by Vysotsky Creative Commons license. (D) Women carrying drums, Pakistan. Artwork by Zaferauf. Creative Commons license.
Although the singular nominative form of Koyrētes
(KOYR-HTHS; *koyrētēs) is unattested in Ancient Greek literature, the
ending morpheme of -HTHS forms some 370 Ancient Greek nouns. It provides a case
study for advancing our perception of literal semantics towards a more general
theory of iconicity of the letters and other graphemes. The two H's maybe two
long lines or, better, one long line cut at a point marked with X. In archaic
alphabets (e.g., the so-called Phoenician), the Semitic letter X (Taw) was called
'mark' and represented a point. The final S represents the end of the long
H-line (|–|). Thus, -HTHS looks like a long |--|S sequence cut at the X-point
into |-| X |-|S. The hypothesis is that the ending of the word KOYR-HTHS was
iconic. It was designed to suggest the cut sememe of a haircut, where the hairline is shown as HHS (meaning longline-longline-stop) and the
cut-point is drawn as X. When the Greek alphabet was eventually fixed with the cross sign (+, later T) replacing X, -HXHS became -HTHS.
In KOYR-, K suggests a
narrowing )(. The OY digraph is a determinant that specifies the
K-stenosis as a round (O) hollow (Y) object. In French, KOY is transliterated
and understood as (OU = cou, neck. KOYR- finishes with R to suggest the
top or the surface of the KOY object. Had the R been omitted, *KOY-HTHS would
mean neck-cut. But KOYR-HTHS means a cut at the surface or the top of the neck. Once these original meanings are understood by many and established, subsequent
writers may use the word in other contexts. For example, to designate a haircut, a haircutter, the shears, or
the barber, any shortcut, even the proportional reduction of debt will be
paid to a creditor in case of bankruptcy. For any metaphorical use,
authors must phrase a mytheme to further define the metaphor. Different authors
phrase different mythemes. If a *koyrētēs is a worshiper of Rhea (uses
steaming water), he is probably the barber, but if he dances at the music of
shearing weapon sounds, he is probably the scissors. Other authors may use only
part of the established term alone or combined with other words. For example, if KOYRHTHS is established as a short-haircut or shortcut, then KOYRT may be used for short (French court).
Many of the words ending in -HTHS convey
this notion of line division, measurement, and calculation in units. Among the
most iconic and abundant in literature, we have ποιητής (poiētēs),
for any maker, workman, composer, primarily the poet who is preoccupied with
splitting lines at suitable lengths and keeping metron (meter, poetic
measure). We have also μαθητής (mathētēs), learner, pupil, who
learns to identify and put together syllables, geometrical shapes, and numbers; ἀθλητής
(athlētēs), sportsman, who measures performance in space and time
units; αὐλητής (athlētēs), flute player, who plays with the
length of the sound-producing tube; κυβερνήτης (kybernētēs), steersman,
pilot, governor; αἰσθητής (aisthētēs), who perceives; διαιτητής (dietētēs),
arbitrator, umpire; τιμητής (timētēs), valuer; μετρητής (metrētēs),
measurer; ἀσκητής (askētēs), one who practices any art; ὁμιλητής
('omilētēs), disciple, scholar; ὠνητής (ōnētēs), buyer,
purchaser; πωλητής (pōlētēs), seller; ἑψητής ('epsētēs),
one who smelts; κοσμητής (kosmētēs), who places an order,
director; and so on.
Note that a tonic accent placed on the last
H implies accurate measurement. Instead, an accent placed on the first H of the
morpheme implies approximate estimation. For example, a κυβερνήτης (kybernētēs),
the steersman, pilot, governor, do not accurately measure their movements but
estimate the outcome and correct if necessary. A προφήτης (prophētēs),
prophet, one who foretells god's will and speaks about the future, does so on
pure estimation. A κομήτης (comētēs) wears long hair,
we do not know precisely how long, hence a comet with a long tail ('long-haired' star). A
*Κουρήτης (*Kourētēs; *Curete) cuts (his) hair but does not
measure it before, or after.
This is the first and, perhaps, the last
time I consider the tonic accent herein. I do not claim that tonic accents do
not have iconic semantic values – these examples demonstrate quite the opposite
– but I have decided to leave them out for simplicity. I will occasionally
deal, however, with other Greek diacritics.
As I have tried to show so far, if there
are any foreign words in Ancient Greek literature, these are extremely, extremely rare. All the words proposed to be of
pre-Greek or another origin are composed with stems shared with other, perfectly
recognizable Greek words. Initially, Greek had neither theonyms nor toponyms
nor proper names of any kind. These were invented later. Toponyms were
systematically attributed at some point in history by authors ('geographers')
who literally interpreted the Greek mythological 'dictionaries', poems, and
everything they had read or heard. Thus, pottery decoration and writing
(Phoenicia) was placed in modern-day Lebanon (although it was a Jewish affair);
the kitchen and the cuisine (Phrygia), in modern-day Turkey, as if nobody else
cooked; education (Samothrace) was placed in Northern Aegean; and so on. The geographical subdivision of the Greek world based on ancient texts is also
irrelevant. In Athens, Macedonia, or Crete, samothrace (education) existed everywhere. The Kouretes and the Korybantes were not geographical variants of the
same object but different objects existing everywhere where Greek was
spoken.
The misinterpretation of the word theos
(profession, professional, service, commodity) as a spiritual god
instead of a material good led to a massive misunderstanding of what
ancient authors said in their own language. That current mythological and
religious interpretations do not fit common sense did not seem to bother
anyone, not even today. Some amateur archeologists may have found it convenient
to attract interest by attributing irrelevant mythological names to the
archeological sites they found. Others did so by ignorance and trend. Nobody
checked the validity of these attributions anyway. A sound linguistic theory is
required to put some order in this chaos. But taking language as an arbitrary,
random, and unpredictable construct won't help.
Claims
Curetes = curators, hairdressers, barbers, scissors
Rhea = humidity, steam, cloud, spray, condensation
Akarnanas = mite and louse bearers
Achelous (river) = love being meticulous
Aetolia = ponytail
Cognates
Curetes: cure, curt, curtail, curate, curious, accuracy, curl, manicure, pedicure
Rhea: rain (from rainō, to sprinkle water)
Oppositions
liax/axil; RHA/AHR
References
Krämer, Paul, and Innocent Balagizi Karhagomba. 2009. "The Form of the Cooking Vessel and the Energetic Efficiency of Cooking." Journal of Engineering Science and Technology 4 (3): 282–91.
[1] Korybantes
in Wikipedia; accessed 1 February 2021.
[3] Strab.
10.3.6 translated by H C Hamilton and W Falconer.
[4] Strab.
10.3.6 original Greek.
[5] Alc.Supp.12.7.