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βασιλεύς
''Basileus'' ( el, ) is a Greek term and title that has signified various types of monarchs in history. In the English-speaking world it is perhaps most widely understood to mean "monarch", referring to either a "king" or an "emperor" and also by bishops of the Eastern orthodox church and Eastern Catholic Churches. The title was used by sovereigns and other persons of authority in ancient Greece, the Byzantine emperors, and the kings of modern Greece. The feminine forms are ''basileia'' (), ''basilis'' (), ''basilissa'' (), or the archaic '' basilinna'' (), meaning "queen" or "empress". Etymology The etymology of ''basileus'' is uncertain. The Mycenaean form was *''gʷasileus'' (Linear B: , ''qa-si-re-u''), denoting some sort of court official or local chieftain, but not an actual king. Its hypothetical earlier Proto-Greek form would be *''gʷatileus''. Some linguists assume that it is a non-Greek word that was adopted by Bronze Age Greeks from a pre-existing linguistic Pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mycenean Greek
Mycenaean Greek is the most ancient attested form of the Greek language, on the Greek mainland and Crete in Mycenaean Greece (16th to 12th centuries BC), before the hypothesised Dorian invasion, often cited as the ''terminus ad quem'' for the introduction of the Greek language to Greece. The language is preserved in inscriptions in Linear B, a script first attested on Crete before the 14th century BC. Most inscriptions are on clay tablets found in Knossos, in central Crete, as well as in Pylos, in the southwest of the Peloponnese. Other tablets have been found at Mycenae itself, Tiryns and Thebes and at Chania, in Western Crete. The language is named after Mycenae, one of the major centres of Mycenaean Greece. The tablets long remained undeciphered, and many languages were suggested for them, until Michael Ventris, building on the extensive work of Alice Kober, deciphered the script in 1952. The texts on the tablets are mostly lists and inventories. No prose narrative surviv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
