Senators Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) are today jointly advocating the withdrawal of U.S. recognition of FYROM as ‘Macedonia’, in a published newspaper Op-Ed. The Washington Times Op-Ed talks about the events of the 1940's and also talks about irredentist policies in FYRoM like schools teaching that northern Greece is FYROM territory occupied by Greece.
A snippet of the article below:
In 1944, Secretary of State Edward Stettinius expressed concerns about Yugoslavian communist leader Josip Broz Tito creating a "Macedonian" province and consciousness among his people. Stettinius saw the destructive potential in Tito's choice of a name describing an ancient geographical area, 52 percent of which is located in modern Greece, 9 percent in Bulgaria and 39 percent in Yugoslavia. His description of Tito's actions as "a possible cloak for aggressive intentions against Greece" manifested years later when Tito's "Macedonians" crossed into Greece as participants in Greece's anti-communist civil war (1946-49).
Nearly half a century later, that Yugoslavian province became an independent nation in 1991 identified by the United Nations and internationally as the "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" or "FYROM." Yet Tito's furtive aims live on in many ways, including the nation's pursuit of the name "Macedonia." Its new constitution called on all "Macedonians" in neighboring countries to rise up and unite. In addition, FYROM printed currency featuring the White Tower of Salonika (Thessaloniki), Greece, and created a flag featuring the Macedonian symbol from the dynasty of Philip of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great, which was located in Greece.
Years of productive U.S. and U.N. diplomacy moved FYROM to drop the offending language from its constitution and symbols from its currency and flag. Many believed FYROM was moving toward adopting a name such as "North Macedonia" or "Upper Macedonia" which appropriately describes its own geography.
Here is another great article that talks about FYRoM nationalism from the Spiegel website.
Snippet below:
Nationalist forces in the Macedonian capital Skopje, like the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), have stoked such fears by reviving the dream, pursued by former Yugoslav dictator Josip Tito and former Russian dictator Joseph Stalin, of a Communist-controlled Greater Macedonia.
It was in 1947 that the Truman Doctrine/Marshal Plan was adopted, according to which support would be offered to Greece by the USA to defeat the Communist movement that was spreading in the Greek peninsula. The Truman Administration, by means of the above mentioned Doctrine and the help of the American monetary aid, along with the sacrifices of the Greek people, the blood of hundreds of thousands of Greek dead and wounded, saved Greek Macedonia from the Communist threat.
Here is an interesting read from the Public Papers of President Harry S. Truman:
Clearly, Phillip did not CONQUER Greece, he UNIFIED Greece, made the city-states one, and created a strong sense of nationalism among the Greek peoples. The video clip also made clear (if it wasn't already) that Alexander did indeed spread Greek culture to the far depths of the known world.
Here is an article from Time Magazine that was published Monday, Jul. 23, 1945. It talks about the Macedonia issue of the 1940s, Marshal Tito, and the Soviets. Great read.
A State Department report that explains the situation back in 1944 when all this propaganda emanating from the FYRoM was in full swing:
U.S STATE DEPARTMENT Foreign Relations Vol. VIII Washington D.C. Circular Airgram (868.014/26 Dec. 1944)
The Secretary of State to Certain Diplomatic and Consular Officers*
The following is for your information and general guidance, but not for any positive action at this time.
The Department has noted with considerable apprehension increasing propaganda rumors and semi-official statements in favor of an autonomous Macedonia, emanating principally from Bulgaria, but also from Yugoslav Partisan and other sources, with the implication that Greek territory would be included in the projected state. "This Government considers talk of Macedonian "nation", Macedonian "Fatherland", or Macedonia "national consiousness" to be unjustified demagoguery representing no ethnic nor political reality, and sees in its present revival a possible cloak for aggressive intentions against Greece".
The approved policy of this Government is to oppose any revival of the Macedonian issue as related to Greece. The Greek section of Macedonia is largery inhabited by Greeks, and the Greek people are almost unanimously opposed to the creation of a Macodonian state. Allegations of serious Greek participation in any such agitation can be assumed to be false. This Government would regard as responsible any Government or group of Governments tolerating or encouraging menacing or aggressive acts of "Macedonian Forces" against Greece.
The Department would appreciate any information pertiment to this subject which may come to your attention.
Here is a great read (in adobe pdf format) on the name dispute between FYRoM and Greece:
A snippet of the Introductory below....
I. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS The entanglement between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), over the issue of the recognition of the latter and the name under which this recognition would take place, has served as a potent reminder of the considerable influence that nationalistic divides have always exerted in the Balkan region. For Greece, this dispute animated passions and stimulated a nationalist fervor that had been unseen for decades and, remaining a not fully resolved issue, it may contain a number of elements that could serve as a focus of regional conflict in the future. For the fledgling FYROM, the entanglement constituted a matter of paramount importance not merely in defining its external policy but it was also perceived as a matter influencing both its existence as a nation and its future status in Southeastern Europe. This article will attempt an analysis of the dispute between Greece and FYROM, from its beginnings up until the present day. In the first instance, it will trace the origins of the controversy and portray the current dispute as the latest stage in evolution of the Macedonian Question of the past. Furthermore, the diplomatic strategies of the two countries involved will be examined for the 1991-1995 period. In addition, the content and significance of the contentious issues of this debate will be scrutinized. Finally, the factors which contributed to the diplomatic exacerbation of the issue and caused a failure of both countries involved to secure a resolution to the dispute that they would consider "positive" will be analyzed and the repercussions for the Balkan region's short- and long-term geopolitical status quo will be outlined. The focus of the article is the dissection and analysis of the Foreign Policy of Athens regarding the Macedonian question in the post-war period, with particular attention to the years 1991-1995. As such, its ultimate objective is to provide a contribution to the scholarly investigation of the factors influencing Greek Foreign Affairs in the 1990s.
Here is an article by Dora Bakoyannis that was published by the International Herold Tribune a few days before the NATO summit where Athens issued a veto on FYRoM's bid. It is from a Greek perspective fully explaining the problem as Greeks see this dispute.
The mainstream established viewpoint about Macedonia is given below. You can easily verify that by looking at the collection of links (the majority of which are at the bottom of this post) from mainstream sources like e.g. Time Magazine, New York Times, etc.
Ancient Macedonia or Macedon for short was a Greek kingdom around Pella in modern day Greece’s territory. Macedon was much smaller than today's geographical area of Macedonia. Their military success against the Persian Empire marked the beginning of the Hellenistic era in antiquity, during which the Hellenic civilization and language spread to the whole of the then known world.
Since the end of the Roman times, and for well over 2,000 years, Macedonia was never identified with specific and constant adminstrative or geographical borders. It was only late in the 19th century that the name “Macedonia” was used conventionally to denote the region of three Ottoman vilayets (provinces) namely of Thessaloniki, Monastir (present Bitola) and Uskub (present Skopje). By that time the region had become the bone of contention among various Balkan nationalities. By the dawn of the 20th century, the name “Macedonia” was widely accepted as the geographical denomination for the region which more or less included the above three Ottoman provinces; not the region of the ancient Kingdom of Macedonia. It is worth remembering that at that time the name “Macedonia” had a geographical—not an ethnic nor administrative—connotation.
As a result of the Balkan wars of 1912-13, the region was liberated from Ottoman rule. The initial three allies—Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia—who had fought together to overthrow the Ottomans from their European possessions, shared parts of the region. In the end, Greece acquired the southern part, which included the entire Aegean littoral region, which approximately amounted to 51% of “geographical Macedonia”, and close to 90% of the ancient kingdom. About 38% reverted to Serbia (later Yugoslavia), while Bulgaria was limited to only 9%. A small strip of land west of the Prespa lake was later joined to the Albanian state.
Of the three parts of “geographical Macedonia”, only the Greek part was given, after its liberation, the administrative name of Macedonia, namely “Geniki Dioikisi Macedonias" (General Administration of Macedonia).
Now let's come to the hot issue of ethnicities. The modern-day geographical Macedonian ethnicities include Greeks, Albanians, Bulgarians, a Slavic population identifying themselves as Makedonci and some smaller fractions of Serbs, Turks, Vlachs etc.
The Slav Makedonci are ethnically, or at least linguistically, very close to Bulgarians. For example, all mainstream sources state that the language of the Slav Makedonci, the so-called Makedonski, are mutually intelligible with standard Bulgarian.
It is worth mentioning that the above account of Macedonian ethnicities does not mention anything for an 'ethnic Macedonian' group.
One only needs to examine the following mainstream articles below to find out that the part of Macedonia that today constitutes Greek Macedonia has been inhabited by ethnic Greeks in the beginning of the 20th century. That's why the Greeks fought a prolonged, hard, bloody and for many years undercover war to liberate Macedonia from both the Turkish and Bulgarian rule:
New York Times article: Published October 2, 1902 Titled: NO TITLE *Please note that the article mentions Monastir which is in present day FYRoM. There were a large presence of Greeks in Southern FYRoM.
It is worth mentioning AGAIN that the above accounts of Macedonian ethnicities does not mention anything for an 'ethnic Macedonian' group. Let us now take a look at the Yugoslav "artificial Macedonian nation-building":
Macedonians Stressing the Arts To Build Slavic Cohesiveness By DAVID BINDER Special to The New York Times February 16, 1965, Tuesday Page 6, 637 words SKOPLJE, Yugoslavia -- What began 20 years ago as a highly self-conscious and rather artificial Macedonian nation-building campaign has now developed into a calm evolution. Involved are about one million people whose sense of identity and cohesiveness grows with every passing year. Perhaps the most important single act in the campaign was the codifying of a written Macedonian language, a once obscure tongue of Slavic origin, in the spring of 1945. The purifying of the tongue has been going on since then with periodic purges of “un-Macedonian” borrowings from the Bulgarian, Turkish, Serbian and Greek; the incorporation of hitherto obscure words from Macedonian dialects and the creation of new words. According to Prof. Blaze Koneski, who teaches linguistics at Skoplje University, the language is expanding rapidly. The fist dictionary published a few years ago had about 30,000 words. The second, now under preparation, will have more than 70,000 words. Two journals, Makedonski Jazik and Literaturen Zbor, keep watch over the language. The leading newspaper, Nova Makedonija, employs a reader to keep its columns clear of alien usages.
(To read the rest of this article, you must purchase the full issue.)
The most important act of this artificial campaign was the "creation" of a written language. Let us now take a look at articles from Time Magazine and where we see Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito's aggressive intentions against Greece:
Experience a thrilling journey as ancient Greek Macedonian history comes to life. This post presents a comprehensive collection of Museum links throughout the world. You are invited to wander, discover, and perhaps get lost among a maze of Museums. Have fun exploring ancient Macedonia!!!
The following abridged list of rulers for the ancient Greek world is primarily for the rulers of the Hellenistic age (323–31 B.C.), after the time of Alexander the Great. In the preceding centuries, the dominant geopolitical unit was the polis or city-state. Greek city-states were governed by a variety of entities, including kings, oligarchies, tyrants, and, as in the case of Athens, a democracy.
During the mid-fourth century B.C., Macedonia (in northern Greece) became a formidable power under Philip II (r. 360/59–336 B.C.), and the Macedonian royal court became the leading center of Greek culture. Philip's military and political achievements ably served the conquests of his son, Alexander the Great (r. 336–323 B.C.).
Stater with head of Alexander the Great, 286–281 B.C.; Hellenistic Greek; Lysimachos, Pella Gold; Diam. 3/4 in. (1.9 cm) Gift of Edmund Kerper, Esq., 1952 (52.127.4)
From the beginning of his reign, Alexander the Great envisioned himself as the champion of the Greeks against the Persians and their other enemies, and his choice of coin types and the image chosen by subsequent Macedonian rulers were apparently influenced by the concept. On the obverse of this gold stater is the head of the deified ruler wearing a diadem with ram's horns; on the reverse is an image of a seated Athena crested with a Corinthian helmet, and a flying Nike carrying a victory wreath.
In the end, he was defeated by his own army, which insisted on returning to Greece. On the way back, he died of fever in Babylon at the age of thirty-three. All the lands that he had conquered were divided up among his generals (52.127.4), and it was these political divisions that comprised the many kingdoms of the Hellenistic period (323–31 B.C.).
Likewise, well-established maritime trade routes around the Mediterranean basin enabled foreigners to travel to Greece. In the seventh century B.C., contacts with itinerant eastern craftsmen, notably on Crete and Cyprus, inspired Greek artists to work in techniques as diverse as gem cutting, ivory carving, jewelry making, and metalworking. After the unprecedented military campaign of Alexander the Great (r. 336–323 B.C.), more extensive trade routes were opened across Asia, extending as far as Afghanistan and the Indus River Valley. These new trade routes introduced Greek art to cultures in the East, and also exposed Greek artists to a host of artistic styles and techniques, as well as precious stones. Garnets, emeralds, rubies, and amethysts were incorporated into new types of Hellenistic jewelry, more stunning than ever before. In the ensuing centuries, the Greeks continued to live in these eastern regions, but always maintained contact with the Greek mainland.
Head of a Ptolemaic queen, Hellenistic, ca. 270–250 B.C. Greek Marble; H. 15 in. (38.1 cm) Purchase, Lila Acheson Wallace Gift, The Bothmer Purchase Fund, Malcolm Hewitt Wiener, The Concordia Foundation and Christo G. Bastis Gifts and Marguerite and Frank Cosgrove Jr. Fund, 2002 (2002.66)
This monumental head gives an impression of sovereign calm and power, even though the veil that once covered the top and back of the head is missing. Although the features are cast in a classical style typical of the late fourth century B.C., the face is sufficiently individualized to identify it as a portrait. The head is almost perfectly preserved. It was originally prepared as a separate piece for insertion in a statue. Marble at the summit and back of the head is roughly worked and would have been concealed by a veil constructed of marble or stucco.
It probably represents a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty—the succession of Macedonian Greeks who ruled Egypt from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. until the annexation of Egypt by Rome and the suicide of Cleopatra in 30 B.C.
In the exhibition, you can explore Cleopatra’s family tree. Her lineage is traced back to Ptolemy I, a Macedonian Greek general who served under the conqueror Alexander the Great in the 4th century B.C.E.
Ancient authors record that Alexander the Great was so pleased with portraits of himself created by Lysippos that he decreed no other sculptor would make his image.
This scene represents a divine counterpart to the everyday closeness between a mortal mother and her son. During the Hellenistic era, gods and goddesses were often portrayed in a more personal way. This method of representation was a dramatic departure from the earlier Classical style, when the gods were represented more formally as gods, rather than as lighthearted--and humanlike--creatures.
Identified by his mass of leonine hair, his young idealized face, and his deep-set, upturned eyes, Alexander the Great was the first Greek ruler to understand and exploit the propagandistic powers of portraiture.
Serapis was a creation of the Ptolemies, the Greek rulers of Egypt from 323 to 30 B.C. They needed a deity to help unify the mixed population of native Egyptians and Greek colonists.
Although known in earlier periods, gold wreaths became much more frequent in the Hellenistic age, probably due in large part to the greatly increased availability of gold in the Greek world following the eastern conquests of Alexander the Great.
The Greeks, however, used strainers to filter out bits of grape skin and other sediment when serving wine. The form and decoration of this strainer were popular in the 300s B.C., especially in Macedonia in northern Greece.
An inscription in Greek over the altar reads, "To the good fortune of Queen Berenike." She was the wife of Ptolemy III who ruled from 246 to 221 B.C. as part of the Greek Ptolemaic dynasty that controlled Egypt in the Hellenistic period.
When the Greeks, led by Alexander the Great, expanded into Persia in the fourth century B.C., Greek artisans began producing this type of bowl in glass, clay, and silver.
By the 300s B.C., however, the shape was popular in Greece, especially in the northern area of Macedonia, where archaeologists have excavated several similar silver examples. Other areas of Greece imitated the shape in pottery.
Greek inscriptions, royal portraits, and images of Greek deities were standard features on coins issued by the Indo-Greek rulers of Central Asia and northern Afghanistan during the centuries just before the Common Era. Many Indo-Greek coins contained translations of the Greek into a local script and language on their reverse sides, indicating the great cultural diversity in this area of the ancient world.
The end of the royal Greek city of Aï Khanum (meaning "Lady Moon") came suddenly around 145 B.C. at the hands of nomads from the northeast, who set fire to the palace and robbed the treasury.
During the Ptolemaic Period the Faiyum was doubtless the most fertile region in the entire country of Egypt. Greek mercenaries, after their term of service had ended, settled here in retirement, and the entire region was stamped with the signs of Greek culture.
A Hellenizing influence, a result of Alexander the Great’s extension of the Greek empire into Asia, has been perceived in Gandharan sculpture, not least in the extraordinarily skilled rendering of high relief figures that recall those from the Parthenon reliefs.
Moreover, many ethnic groups influenced Egyptian life throughout the period covered by this exhibition (c. 3100 BCE-700 CE). The most conspicuous were the Macedonian Greeks and Romans who successively ruled Egypt after 332 BCE
Following the conquest of the Persian Empire by Alexander, Greek culture spread across Egypt, the Near East, and northern India, interacting with local traditions.
Greek culture was introduced to Central Asia following the conquests of Alexander the Great around 330 B.C.E. Although made many centuries later, this object testifies to the continued vitality of Greek art and culture in Central Asia.
Here, artists created styles of Buddhist art that combined local traditions with Greek (and later Roman) influences, which had initially been introduced with the conquests of Alexander the Great (died 323 B.C.E) in the late fourth century B.C.E.
The western nature of the art of Gandhara can be understood in the context of the many Greek outposts founded across Asia by Alexander the Great (reigned 336–323 B.C.E.), who reached India in 327 B.C.E.
Well before 326 B.C., when Alexander the Great's Greek army conquered areas north and west of India (parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan), cultural and commercial ties had been established between the Gandhara region of Pakistan-Afghanistan and the ancient Mediterranean world.
This under-lifesize marble head represents a female member of the Ptolemaic dynasty that ruled over Egypt from the death of Alexander in 323 B.C. through the suicide of Cleopatra in 30 B.C. This portrait is highly idealized, with softly modeled and rather generic facial features. The loss of much of the coiffure, which in antiquity would have been completed in stucco and attached to the marble head, creates further difficulties in identifying the portrait's historical subject. The favorite candidate among scholars is Arsinoe III, who served as queen alongside her husband (who was also her brother), Ptolemy IV, from 217 to 205 B.C. This was a tumultuous period in the history of Hellenistic Egypt; both king and queen were murdered during a palace coup.
29 bracelets and armlets (or anklets), with flattened or squared terminals: one is fragmentary (1/3 preserved; no terminals). Diam. range from 9.3 cm. to 6.9 cm. Northern Greek in style, from Thessaly or Macedonia.
In 336 BC Alexander the Great embarked on a programme of territorial expansion, which would eventually extend the boundaries of the Greek world to Egypt in the south and to India in the East. In 334 BC Alexander crossed the Hellespont, the narrow strait separating Europe and Asia, and went first to Troy. There he dedicated his armour to Athena and laid a wreath at the tomb of Achilles, the legendary hero and champion of the Greeks in the Trojan War. This act prefigured Alexander's role as a new Achilles liberating the Greek cities of Asia Minor from Asiatic rule.
Following the death of Alexander and the division of his empire, the Hellenistic period (323-31 BC) saw Greek power and culture extended across the Middle East and as far as the Indus Valley.
Fabled for her sexual allure and cunning intelligence, Cleopatra VII of Egypt has fascinated generations of admirers and detractors since her life ended in suicide in 30 BC. This intriguing exhibition at The British Museum focused on Cleopatra, last of the Ptolemaic monarchs, Macedonian Greeks who had ruled Egypt since the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC. The exhibition traced Cleopatra's life as queen of Egypt and her liaisons with the two great Roman leaders of the day, Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. The myth and iconic status of Cleopatra is also examined, largely through the representation of the queen in European art from the Renaissance to today.
These form three distinct bands of writing. The top band consists of fourteen lines of hieroglyphs: symbols such as an eye, a seated man, a reed and a basket. The middle band is made up of thirty-two lines of a curvilinear script called demotic, the everyday language used in ancient Egypt. At the bottom are over fifty lines of tightly compressed Greek writing.
The inscriptions are three translations of the same decree, passed by a council of priests, that affirms the royal cult of the thirteen-year-old Ptolemy V on the first anniversary of his coronation. In the early years of the nineteenth century, scholars were able to use the Greek inscription on this stone as the key to deciphering the others.
Alexander the Great (356-323 BC) inherited the Macedonian kingdom from his father Philip II in 336 BC. After regaining Philip’s position of hegemony within Greece, Alexander embarked on a great campaign against the Persian empire in 334 BC.
Among the Hellenistic royal families only the Ptolemies in Egypt depicted a substantial number of their non-ruling queens on coins and gems, sometimes assimilated to a goddess. A general or family Ptolomaic portrait type seems recognizable in the features of many gems.
Early in his reign, Louis XIV wished to become a new Alexander, but all he retained of the life of the Greek was his great military accomplishments and his generosity. The large paintings commissioned from the painter Le Brun in 1665 were the vehicles for this propaganda. Le Brun was able to recreate the tumult and ferocity of battle through facial expressions. He carefully described an imagined Antiquity, set up carefully centered compositions, and selected colors that emphasized the action of the hero across the vast surface of the canvas. Crossing the Granicus and The Battle of Arbela illustrate the famous battles between the Greeks and the Persians, while The entry of Alexander the Great into Babylon evokes the triumph of Alexander entering this eastern city, in which we can make out the city's famous hanging gardens.
Alexander was born in 356 BC, the son of Olympias, a Molossian princess, and Philip II, the king of Macedonia. The kingdom, which was located in the north of Greece, was prosperous and possessed a powerful army. Philip was able to impose his will over the other Greek tribes and city-states, but was assassinated in 336 while he was preparing to invade the neighboring Persian Empire.
In the countries of the Levant, the peace that had lasted since the founding of the Persian empire and the arrival of the Greeks under Alexander and his successors, was a source of enduring prosperity.
The Egyptians knew nothing and cared little about the appearance of their Greek sovereigns, and continued to depict them according to the prescribed Pharaonic models. The relief's composition and iconography are purely Egyptian, but the text is written in Greek, the language of the conquerors.
Sarcophagus of Dioscorides, a Greek Egyptian Dioscorides was a general under Ptolemy VI, and is well known from a number of Greek papyri. Despite being a member of the Greek élite that governed Egypt at the time, he chose to be buried according to local Egyptian custom. He had his dark stone sarcophagus finely engraved, at appropriate places on the body, with religious inscriptions taken from the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead.
A Greek, buried Egyptian-style
This sarcophagus is remarkable evidence of an Egyptian-style burial deliberately chosen by a Greek. Its owner has now been identified with certainty as the general Dioscorides, who held a high rank at the court of Ptolemy VI Philometor.
The Greek world penetrated deep into Central Asia in the centuries after the invasion of Alexander the Great. The coins of the Greek kings of Bactria and north-western India illustrate the mingling of Greek and native cultures. This coin shows a Greek king wearing a local headdress on the obverse and the Greek god Poseidon, representing the Indian trident-bearing god Siva, on the reverse.
Alexander the Great conquered by 330 BC the Persian empire. This was the Greek art of the ancient world. The Hellenistic sculpture plays with the emotions of the beholder. Against the ideal beauty of the previous era put the artists also aspects of horror, violence and the ugly.
The exhibition “Towards the birth of cities …” presents the material remains from settlements and cemeteries dating to the Iron Age (1100-700 BC) in the region extending between Mt. Athos and Olympus. At Kastana, Philadelpheia, Assiros, Toumba-Thessaloniki and elsewhere, settlements which are characterized by self-sufficiency and which controlled the sources of the region’s wealth were founded or re-founded.
The museum is near the archaeological site. It was built in 1960 to house the excavated finds, and has operated as an archaeological museum since 1973. It has information panels and exhibits.
During the reign of Ptolemy I, successor of Alexander the Great to the throne of Egypt, Alexandria received a great number of Greek artists who admired the calm and cheerful atmosphere of Alexandria. Gradually, with the mingling of these Greek artists with Egyptians and adopting some of their traditions and beliefs, a hybrid mixture of Greek and Egyptian art emerged.
The Hellenistic culture was the result of the cultural interaction between the Greek civilization and the civilization of the ancient Near East. This took place after the conquest of Alexander in the Near East. Here in the Arabian Gulf, traces of this culture were evident in the 3rd century BC.
This post is dedicated to the "sunburst" symbol that was universally adopted and used by all the ancient Greek tribes (the Macedonians being one of them of course) in all the different regions and eras of the Greek world.
From the collection of links below, you can see the symbol being depicted on ancient Greek coins, vases, jewelery, mosaics, etc. Move your cursor over the links below to get a snap shot of content for that link.
Below is a collection of links that you can use to better acquaint yourself with Hellenic Macedonia.
Archaeolink.com is a website dedicated to the amazing worlds of archaeology, anthropology, & ancient civilizations - history, social studies and more. Take a look at their Ancient Greek Civilization page. While this is a web page introducing a course on ancient Greece, the "relevant facts" section is a tiny little goldmine. "Ancient Greece" was not really a "country" or "nation," as we ordinarily think of these terms (and certainly not a centralized kingdom, as you might guess from the depiction of the heroic age in the Iliad). Rather, it was a cultural constellation..." It certainly was and you will find a few additional facts here. Now this is certainly a long review for such a little website. Oh, by the way, the complete text of the Odyssey is there too.- From Harvard University -
The Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents (CSAD)--Established in 1995 under the auspices of Oxford University's Faculty of Literae Humaniores to provide a focus for the study of ancient documents within Oxford: Greek Papyri and Oxyrhynchus
