Eteocretans

Whitley, Anthony James ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9645-0505 2022. Eteocretans. Whitmarsh, T. and Goldberg, S.M., eds. The Oxford Classical Dictionary, Oxford University Press, online. (10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.013.8717)

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Abstract

Eteocretan refers both to a people (the Eteocretans) and to a language (Eteocretan). The Eteocretans (etymologically the “true Cretans”) are one of the five peoples of Crete mentioned in the Odyssey (Hom. Od. 19.175–177) whom Diodorus (5.64.1) calls autochthonous. Other sources (implicitly, Hdt 7.169–171; explicitly, Strabo 10.4.6 = Staphylus of Naukratis, FrGrHist 269 F12) locate these people in eastern Crete around Praisos; their curious customs form a minor trope of the Graeco-Roman antiquarian tradition (POxy. 1241, col. 5, 22–30; Ath. 9.375f–376a = Agothocles of Cyzicus, FrGrHist 472 F1) long after Praisos’s destruction around 140 bce. From 1884 onward, public inscriptions (IC 3.6.1–4) dating from the 6th to 4th centuries bce and written in Greek letters but not in the Greek language were found near the principal sanctuary (Altar Hill) of Praisos.1 Some scholars have detected material expressions of an Eteocretan ethnic identity in the distinctive style of Geometric and Orientalizing East Cretan painted pottery,2 in East Cretan mortuary practices,3 in the iconography of votive terracottas,4 and in the retention of the Eteocretan language for public inscriptions,5 though most acknowledge that there is no automatic connection between group identity and its expression in material culture.

Item Type:	Book Section
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Published
Schools:	History, Archaeology and Religion
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
ISBN:	9780199381135
Last Modified:	18 Jul 2024 15:20
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/159511

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