Felix (POL)
06-01-03, 07:57
Sicilians are no doubt a mixed race
Author: John Arnold
Filed: 9/19/2002
Source: Best of Sicily
A human skull found near Agrigento some years ago is 500,000 years old. At the time of its discovery, the skull of the "girl of Mandrascava" was the oldest complete human skull ever found in Europe.Further evidence indicates an organised human presence in Sicily durng the Mesolithic Age (circa 10,000 BC). Drawings found in the Addaura Cavern, beneath the slopes of Mount Pellegrino near Palermo, have been dated to 8000 BC and imply that the neolithic culture that eventually emerged was quite similar to those present in central and western Europe. Yet, we are uncertain whether the first people arrived in Sicily from the North or the South.
The culture of the Siculi (Siculians) and Sicani (Sicanians), from whom the island takes its name, began its development around 5000 BC. By about 2000 BC, three principal languages had developed: Sican (Sicanian) in the western part of the island, Elymian in the north-west, and Sicel (Siculian) in the east. Some evidence of these cultures exists. For example, the megalithic temple of "Diana" at Cefalù is probably Sicanian in origin.
The Phoenicians began to colonize the area around 900 BC, founding Carthage in North Africa and Mozia, Solunto and Palermo in Sicily.
Recent discoveries indicate that the languages spoken by the native Sicilians were quite similar to both Phoenician and Greek. With the arrival of the Greeks, the three Sicilian civilizations were eventually amalgamated with Hellenic culture.
The Sicilians of today are said to be a "mixed race" descended from early Sicilians (Sicani, Siculi, Elymi), and the peoples who subsequently conquered or colonized Sicily: Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Byzantine Greeks, Saracen Arabs, Normans, and to some extent Longobards, Goths, Angevin French, Aragonese and Spanish. A number of Sicilians are descended from Albanians who settled in several communities in the sixteenth century.
This polyglot heritage has had some interesting results. The Sicilian language (dialect), for example, has various foreign elements, and the dialect spoken in several towns has some Longobardic phrases and syntax. There are several communities settled by Albanians in the fifteenth century where an old form of Albanian is still spoken by some residents. The comparatively large number of redheaded Sicilians is attributed to the island's Norman heritage, and the Normans themselves were at once Scandinavian and French. Compared to Tunisians, quite a few Sicilians have blue eyes, a trait inherited from Norman and Longobard forebears. The Inquisition suppressed Islam and Judaism, but many Sicilian surnames are onomastically Arabic and Hebrew in origin. The Byzantine Rite churches of the Albanian communities, though Roman Catholic today, are rooted in the Orthodox tradition of Albania.
Who were these various colonizers and conquerors? To call them "Indo-European" would be an abstract generality. They were European, Asian and African. There is evidence to suggest that the Sicani were of western European origin, possibily Iberian, while the Siculi may have arrived from mainland Italy, having some of the same roots as certain mainland Italic groups such as the Lucanians. Alternatively, both the Sicani and the Siculi may have been indigenous peoples whose art and culture were influenced by an influx of settlers from these other regions. The Elymi probably arrived in Sicily from the Eastern Mediterranean, and certainly had an early cultural affinity to the Phoenicians and Egyptians. As we've mentioned, the languages of Sicily's three "native" peoples were similar in many ways to Phoenician and Greek. The Phoenicians themselves were a seafaring Semitic people from what is now Lebanon. The Carthaginians were a residual Phoenician civilization in what is now northern Tunisia, and in their travels may have ventured as far as South America. Certain archaeological discoveries in Sicily reflect an Egyptian artistic influence, not surprising since the Phoenicians often called at Egyptian ports. The Greeks, whose alphabet was influenced by that of the Phoenicians, colonized southern Italy to the extent that at one point there were more Greeks (and possibly more Greek temples) in Sicily and the areas south of Rome than in Greece itself. The Sicilians have a rich Mediterranean ethnology.
The culture of the Romans owed much to that of the Etruscans they had assimilated (and whose origins are debated), with generous borrowings from the Greeks to the south of Latium. There were brief occupations of Sicily by the Germanic Vandals and Visigoths following the fall of the Empire, and many of the Byzantine Greeks who arrived with Belisarius were from Asia Minor. The Muslim Saracens from Tunisia and the northern part of present-day Libya are sometimes described as "Moors," but the Moors who invaded Spain are more closely identified with the territories which today are Morocco and northern Algeria. At least a few of Sicily's "Saracens" were certainly Egyptians and Persians, and had close contact with Baghdad, the model for their Sicilian city of Bahl'harm (Palermo). The Aghlabid dynasty ruled at first; the subsequent Kalbite Emirs of Sicily were loyal to the Caliph of Egypt.
The Longobards who occasionally visited Sicily were descended from a Christianized Germanic people (somewhat more advanced than the Goths) who invaded northern Italy in the sixth century and ruled most of the peninsula for several hundred years, establishing feudal law in those regions that were not controlled by the Byzantine Empire, especially remote rural areas. Their residual civilization in Italy, the Lombards, gave its name to a region around Milan (Lombardy). The Normans were the residual Norse (Viking) civilization of northwestern France. Their unique ethnic heritage was Celtic and Nordic, and their language was similar to French. Whereas the Norsemen who settled in Normandy in the tenth century had their own mythology and language, their "French" grandchildren were thoroughly Christianized. The ancestral dominion of the Hohenstaufen dynasty was Swabia in what is now southwestern Germany, but many of the "Swabian" knights in Sicily were from the other Germanic territories ruled by Frederick II as Holy Roman Emperor. The so-called "Angevin" knights were actually from various parts of France; Anjou itself was simply the chief dominion of the French royal family, the "House of Anjou." The Aragonese were thoroughly Spanish (even if the Spanish nation itself was yet to be constituted). The Albanians who settled in Sicily were essentially Slavic (and Christian), compared to their modern Albanian cousins, whose heritage is largely Turkic (and Muslim).
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Some Italians have responded to this article, posted by John Arnold, in a negative way. I have been asked to remove it from the site. Since the site believes in free speech and the article has been "backed" by the source[http://www.bestofsicily.com], I won't be "removing" it. Instead, I'm attaching a copy of the email from Guido Abate, who wised to respond to Arnold's article.
Dear webmaster,
My name is Guido Abate, I am Italian (from Lombardy) and I like your
site. But I've read this page: "Sicilians are no doubt a mixed race"
and I've to say that it is full of mistakes! Now I explain why.
It's pretty clear that ancient Sicilians were a mix of a single
pre-Aryan people (probably linked to the Iberians of Spain) called
Sicani and 2 Aryan peoples (the Elymi and the Siculi). Mr. Arnold
claims that the Siculi and Elymi might be non-Aryans, but we
know their inscriptions and they are clearly Indo-European. Then the Greeks (Aryans) and the Phoenicians (Semites) founded some colonies on the coast. But the Greeks had many colonies and, as told even by Mr. Arnold, had a great influence on the local culture; the Dores founded (I have to use modern Italian names): Mazzara, Selinunte, Eraclea Minoa, Agrigento, Gela, Camarina, Casmene, Acre, Siracusa, Megara Iblea; the Calcydians founded: Imera, Tindari, Zancle (now Messina), Nasso, Catania, Leontini. Instead the Phoenicians (and then the Carthaginians) had only 3 cities: Mozia (Phoenician name: unknown!; Greek name: Motye), Palermo (Phoenician name: unknown, but probably Ziz; Greek name: Panormos; Latin: Panormus) and Solunto (Phoenician
name: Kfra; Greek name Soleis; Latin: Solus or Soluntum). But, when the Romans conquered the Carthaginian cities, most of the inhabitants were often enslaved and deported and were replaced by Roman colonists.
During the Roman Empire the island was colonized by the Romans; it was occupied by the Ostrogoths (late V century) in and then by the Byzantines (535). The Goths colonized the areas around Palermo and Lilibeo (the most western part of Sicily, this one occupied also by the Vandals untill 533), and mixed with the local population. The mixture with Byzantines was certainly quite low, because their control was only political: they didn't send colonists. Mr. Arnold says that the Byzantine soldiers were mostly from Anatolia, I don't know what are his sources, but even if it's like he says, we should remember that Anatolia was still inhabited by Indo-European peoples and that it's not proved that those soldiers settled in Sicily and got married with Sicilian women.
In the year 827 the Arabs started the occupation of Sicily, but it was extremely difficult because of the fierce resistance of Sicilians and Byzantines: the island was completely conquered only in 902 (and the Byzantine fortress of Rametta, near Messina, was occupied only in 962).
Some Arabs settled in the island, but the Sicilians were still Catholics and so, because of the religious, cultural and linguistic differences intermarriage was almost un-existing. In Mr. Arnold's text there is a passage that may be a bit unclear, he says: "[the Arabs] had close contact with Baghdad, themodel for their Sicilian city of Bahl'harm (Palermo)."
But Phoenicians had founded the city of Palermo more than 1,500 years before the Arab occupation of Sicily and its name is from the ancient Greek "Panormos" (Latin "Panormus"), it wasn't founded by Arabs, and their name (Bahl'harm) is only a deformation of the Italian name Palermo.
In 1091 (the war had started in 1061) the Normans (Vikings) conquered the island hailed as liberators (in Sicilian folklore the Normans are always considered as the good christian knights who fight against the "evil Moors"); the Muslim were all killed or expelled. After the Normans, no other peoples made large settlements in Sicily: the island came under the rule of European dinasties (like the Hohenstaufen and the Angevins) and kingdoms
(Aragon, Spain, Austria, etc.), but the presence of foreign peoples was very low and limited to the nobles and mercenaries, very often Spanish. The only immigration with a bit of importance was the one of the Albanians (an Indo-European people) fled from the Turks from the half of the XV century to the 1530's. They were nobles, like Demetrio Reres and his sons, with their knights and servants; they founded some colonies in Southern Italy. Their
villages in Sicily are: Sant'Angelo Muxaro, Biancavilla, Bronte, San Michele di Ganzeria, Contessa Entellina, Mezzoiuso, Palazzo Adriano, Piana degli Albanesi, Santa Cristina Gela. The total number of Albanians in Sicily is still extremely low (only a few thousands); they speak also Italian and are
Catholics, although often of Greek rite
Mr Arnold exagerates the non-European influence on the genes of Sicilians: as I've demonstrated only some Sicilians living in the West of the island may have a few ancient Phoenician ancestors, and the Arab influence was really very low.
The Sicani were simply one of the pre-Aryan European peoples, certainly not Africans or Asians. On a cultural point of view, the Greeks had a huge impact on Sicily, and also the Romans: we shall remember that Sicilian dialect is part of Italian language, and derives from Latin. Instead the Arab words are a few, the most important are "sciurta" (night-watchman) and "favara" (water spring), and the presence of "many Sicilian surnames [that] are onomastically Arabic and Hebrew in origin", as told by Mr. Arnold, is false; there are some of Arab origin (although the onomastic origin of surnames is very debatable), but often are of Spanish people who settled in Sicily in the XVI-XVIII centuries (like the surname Cuximano, that is from the Spanish Guzman, probably from the Arab); instead the presence of Hebrew
surnames is un-existing (and the Jews have been expelled from Sicily in 1492).
So we cannot say that Sicilians are of "mixed race", because, except the few Semites (Phoenicians and Arabs) and the ancient pre-Aryan European Sicani, all the peoples that settled in Sicily were Indo-European. According to Mr. Arnold, we should say that English nation is of "mixed race" because is formed by pre-Aryan peoples (like all the Europeans), Britons, Romans, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, some Danes and some Normans.
PS Here you may find the photos of Sicilian Euro-Parliament members:
http://www.geocities.com/racial_myths/italians.html , as you can see they are clearly European, like all the people of Sicily.
Author: John Arnold
Filed: 9/19/2002
Source: Best of Sicily
A human skull found near Agrigento some years ago is 500,000 years old. At the time of its discovery, the skull of the "girl of Mandrascava" was the oldest complete human skull ever found in Europe.Further evidence indicates an organised human presence in Sicily durng the Mesolithic Age (circa 10,000 BC). Drawings found in the Addaura Cavern, beneath the slopes of Mount Pellegrino near Palermo, have been dated to 8000 BC and imply that the neolithic culture that eventually emerged was quite similar to those present in central and western Europe. Yet, we are uncertain whether the first people arrived in Sicily from the North or the South.
The culture of the Siculi (Siculians) and Sicani (Sicanians), from whom the island takes its name, began its development around 5000 BC. By about 2000 BC, three principal languages had developed: Sican (Sicanian) in the western part of the island, Elymian in the north-west, and Sicel (Siculian) in the east. Some evidence of these cultures exists. For example, the megalithic temple of "Diana" at Cefalù is probably Sicanian in origin.
The Phoenicians began to colonize the area around 900 BC, founding Carthage in North Africa and Mozia, Solunto and Palermo in Sicily.
Recent discoveries indicate that the languages spoken by the native Sicilians were quite similar to both Phoenician and Greek. With the arrival of the Greeks, the three Sicilian civilizations were eventually amalgamated with Hellenic culture.
The Sicilians of today are said to be a "mixed race" descended from early Sicilians (Sicani, Siculi, Elymi), and the peoples who subsequently conquered or colonized Sicily: Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Byzantine Greeks, Saracen Arabs, Normans, and to some extent Longobards, Goths, Angevin French, Aragonese and Spanish. A number of Sicilians are descended from Albanians who settled in several communities in the sixteenth century.
This polyglot heritage has had some interesting results. The Sicilian language (dialect), for example, has various foreign elements, and the dialect spoken in several towns has some Longobardic phrases and syntax. There are several communities settled by Albanians in the fifteenth century where an old form of Albanian is still spoken by some residents. The comparatively large number of redheaded Sicilians is attributed to the island's Norman heritage, and the Normans themselves were at once Scandinavian and French. Compared to Tunisians, quite a few Sicilians have blue eyes, a trait inherited from Norman and Longobard forebears. The Inquisition suppressed Islam and Judaism, but many Sicilian surnames are onomastically Arabic and Hebrew in origin. The Byzantine Rite churches of the Albanian communities, though Roman Catholic today, are rooted in the Orthodox tradition of Albania.
Who were these various colonizers and conquerors? To call them "Indo-European" would be an abstract generality. They were European, Asian and African. There is evidence to suggest that the Sicani were of western European origin, possibily Iberian, while the Siculi may have arrived from mainland Italy, having some of the same roots as certain mainland Italic groups such as the Lucanians. Alternatively, both the Sicani and the Siculi may have been indigenous peoples whose art and culture were influenced by an influx of settlers from these other regions. The Elymi probably arrived in Sicily from the Eastern Mediterranean, and certainly had an early cultural affinity to the Phoenicians and Egyptians. As we've mentioned, the languages of Sicily's three "native" peoples were similar in many ways to Phoenician and Greek. The Phoenicians themselves were a seafaring Semitic people from what is now Lebanon. The Carthaginians were a residual Phoenician civilization in what is now northern Tunisia, and in their travels may have ventured as far as South America. Certain archaeological discoveries in Sicily reflect an Egyptian artistic influence, not surprising since the Phoenicians often called at Egyptian ports. The Greeks, whose alphabet was influenced by that of the Phoenicians, colonized southern Italy to the extent that at one point there were more Greeks (and possibly more Greek temples) in Sicily and the areas south of Rome than in Greece itself. The Sicilians have a rich Mediterranean ethnology.
The culture of the Romans owed much to that of the Etruscans they had assimilated (and whose origins are debated), with generous borrowings from the Greeks to the south of Latium. There were brief occupations of Sicily by the Germanic Vandals and Visigoths following the fall of the Empire, and many of the Byzantine Greeks who arrived with Belisarius were from Asia Minor. The Muslim Saracens from Tunisia and the northern part of present-day Libya are sometimes described as "Moors," but the Moors who invaded Spain are more closely identified with the territories which today are Morocco and northern Algeria. At least a few of Sicily's "Saracens" were certainly Egyptians and Persians, and had close contact with Baghdad, the model for their Sicilian city of Bahl'harm (Palermo). The Aghlabid dynasty ruled at first; the subsequent Kalbite Emirs of Sicily were loyal to the Caliph of Egypt.
The Longobards who occasionally visited Sicily were descended from a Christianized Germanic people (somewhat more advanced than the Goths) who invaded northern Italy in the sixth century and ruled most of the peninsula for several hundred years, establishing feudal law in those regions that were not controlled by the Byzantine Empire, especially remote rural areas. Their residual civilization in Italy, the Lombards, gave its name to a region around Milan (Lombardy). The Normans were the residual Norse (Viking) civilization of northwestern France. Their unique ethnic heritage was Celtic and Nordic, and their language was similar to French. Whereas the Norsemen who settled in Normandy in the tenth century had their own mythology and language, their "French" grandchildren were thoroughly Christianized. The ancestral dominion of the Hohenstaufen dynasty was Swabia in what is now southwestern Germany, but many of the "Swabian" knights in Sicily were from the other Germanic territories ruled by Frederick II as Holy Roman Emperor. The so-called "Angevin" knights were actually from various parts of France; Anjou itself was simply the chief dominion of the French royal family, the "House of Anjou." The Aragonese were thoroughly Spanish (even if the Spanish nation itself was yet to be constituted). The Albanians who settled in Sicily were essentially Slavic (and Christian), compared to their modern Albanian cousins, whose heritage is largely Turkic (and Muslim).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some Italians have responded to this article, posted by John Arnold, in a negative way. I have been asked to remove it from the site. Since the site believes in free speech and the article has been "backed" by the source[http://www.bestofsicily.com], I won't be "removing" it. Instead, I'm attaching a copy of the email from Guido Abate, who wised to respond to Arnold's article.
Dear webmaster,
My name is Guido Abate, I am Italian (from Lombardy) and I like your
site. But I've read this page: "Sicilians are no doubt a mixed race"
and I've to say that it is full of mistakes! Now I explain why.
It's pretty clear that ancient Sicilians were a mix of a single
pre-Aryan people (probably linked to the Iberians of Spain) called
Sicani and 2 Aryan peoples (the Elymi and the Siculi). Mr. Arnold
claims that the Siculi and Elymi might be non-Aryans, but we
know their inscriptions and they are clearly Indo-European. Then the Greeks (Aryans) and the Phoenicians (Semites) founded some colonies on the coast. But the Greeks had many colonies and, as told even by Mr. Arnold, had a great influence on the local culture; the Dores founded (I have to use modern Italian names): Mazzara, Selinunte, Eraclea Minoa, Agrigento, Gela, Camarina, Casmene, Acre, Siracusa, Megara Iblea; the Calcydians founded: Imera, Tindari, Zancle (now Messina), Nasso, Catania, Leontini. Instead the Phoenicians (and then the Carthaginians) had only 3 cities: Mozia (Phoenician name: unknown!; Greek name: Motye), Palermo (Phoenician name: unknown, but probably Ziz; Greek name: Panormos; Latin: Panormus) and Solunto (Phoenician
name: Kfra; Greek name Soleis; Latin: Solus or Soluntum). But, when the Romans conquered the Carthaginian cities, most of the inhabitants were often enslaved and deported and were replaced by Roman colonists.
During the Roman Empire the island was colonized by the Romans; it was occupied by the Ostrogoths (late V century) in and then by the Byzantines (535). The Goths colonized the areas around Palermo and Lilibeo (the most western part of Sicily, this one occupied also by the Vandals untill 533), and mixed with the local population. The mixture with Byzantines was certainly quite low, because their control was only political: they didn't send colonists. Mr. Arnold says that the Byzantine soldiers were mostly from Anatolia, I don't know what are his sources, but even if it's like he says, we should remember that Anatolia was still inhabited by Indo-European peoples and that it's not proved that those soldiers settled in Sicily and got married with Sicilian women.
In the year 827 the Arabs started the occupation of Sicily, but it was extremely difficult because of the fierce resistance of Sicilians and Byzantines: the island was completely conquered only in 902 (and the Byzantine fortress of Rametta, near Messina, was occupied only in 962).
Some Arabs settled in the island, but the Sicilians were still Catholics and so, because of the religious, cultural and linguistic differences intermarriage was almost un-existing. In Mr. Arnold's text there is a passage that may be a bit unclear, he says: "[the Arabs] had close contact with Baghdad, themodel for their Sicilian city of Bahl'harm (Palermo)."
But Phoenicians had founded the city of Palermo more than 1,500 years before the Arab occupation of Sicily and its name is from the ancient Greek "Panormos" (Latin "Panormus"), it wasn't founded by Arabs, and their name (Bahl'harm) is only a deformation of the Italian name Palermo.
In 1091 (the war had started in 1061) the Normans (Vikings) conquered the island hailed as liberators (in Sicilian folklore the Normans are always considered as the good christian knights who fight against the "evil Moors"); the Muslim were all killed or expelled. After the Normans, no other peoples made large settlements in Sicily: the island came under the rule of European dinasties (like the Hohenstaufen and the Angevins) and kingdoms
(Aragon, Spain, Austria, etc.), but the presence of foreign peoples was very low and limited to the nobles and mercenaries, very often Spanish. The only immigration with a bit of importance was the one of the Albanians (an Indo-European people) fled from the Turks from the half of the XV century to the 1530's. They were nobles, like Demetrio Reres and his sons, with their knights and servants; they founded some colonies in Southern Italy. Their
villages in Sicily are: Sant'Angelo Muxaro, Biancavilla, Bronte, San Michele di Ganzeria, Contessa Entellina, Mezzoiuso, Palazzo Adriano, Piana degli Albanesi, Santa Cristina Gela. The total number of Albanians in Sicily is still extremely low (only a few thousands); they speak also Italian and are
Catholics, although often of Greek rite
Mr Arnold exagerates the non-European influence on the genes of Sicilians: as I've demonstrated only some Sicilians living in the West of the island may have a few ancient Phoenician ancestors, and the Arab influence was really very low.
The Sicani were simply one of the pre-Aryan European peoples, certainly not Africans or Asians. On a cultural point of view, the Greeks had a huge impact on Sicily, and also the Romans: we shall remember that Sicilian dialect is part of Italian language, and derives from Latin. Instead the Arab words are a few, the most important are "sciurta" (night-watchman) and "favara" (water spring), and the presence of "many Sicilian surnames [that] are onomastically Arabic and Hebrew in origin", as told by Mr. Arnold, is false; there are some of Arab origin (although the onomastic origin of surnames is very debatable), but often are of Spanish people who settled in Sicily in the XVI-XVIII centuries (like the surname Cuximano, that is from the Spanish Guzman, probably from the Arab); instead the presence of Hebrew
surnames is un-existing (and the Jews have been expelled from Sicily in 1492).
So we cannot say that Sicilians are of "mixed race", because, except the few Semites (Phoenicians and Arabs) and the ancient pre-Aryan European Sicani, all the peoples that settled in Sicily were Indo-European. According to Mr. Arnold, we should say that English nation is of "mixed race" because is formed by pre-Aryan peoples (like all the Europeans), Britons, Romans, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, some Danes and some Normans.
PS Here you may find the photos of Sicilian Euro-Parliament members:
http://www.geocities.com/racial_myths/italians.html , as you can see they are clearly European, like all the people of Sicily.