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Updated: 2021.12.20 

Φυλιστῖνοι 

Minoan-Mycenean Greek Linear A tablets fm Akrotiri BCE1800-eruption
Click to enlargeMinoan-Mycenean Greek Linear A tablets fm Akrotiri c. BCE 1800-

Also Παλαιστίνη, Φιλισταίος & Φιλισταία,פלישתים,פלישתין,פלשת,Pelishtim,Pelishtin,Peleshet,Paleban a Greek term transliterated into Hebrew as פְּלִשְׁתִּי.

Πύλος-tine” (Philis-tine/​Pales-tine) — the premier Aegean-Mediterranean Hellenist Greek “Sea People” Thalassocracy; of the ancient era, named the principle city of several of their colonies along the eastern Mediterranean coastlands, from the Sinai to Phoenicia, after their Hellenic Mycenaean-Greek home-city of “Πύλος”—which morphed, via transliterations (and oc­ca­sion­al reinterpretation) into Hebrew and other languages, as “Philistine”, and their Levant Greek, Hellenist, colony as “Palestine”.

The (Philistine) Πύλος-ite Hellenic Mycenaean-Greek pottery has long evi­denc­ed some previously unknown Philistine connection to Minoan-Greeks. Only recently, however, genetic re­search,    com­plemented by humanities-archaeologists’ recent excavations,  has surpassed pottery-based conjectures to clarify the Mycenaean (not Arab) roots of the Philistine’s previously “mysterious” origins.

These scientific findings have been occulted by the unprecedentedly audacious wave of contra-reality political claims of modern Arab-​”Palestinians” (a now-proven oxymoron).

Originally Greek Names – Not Hebrew

Hammond Map of Ancient Eastern Mediterranean
Click to enlargeLocation names edited in by Pâ•qid Yi•rᵊmᵊyâhu Ben-David, www.netzarim.co.il

Aside from modern politically claims, however, there remains another implication that can no longer continue to be ignored: the etymology of the name Philistine and their Palestine colonies, must, finally, be understood from their own Greek language, no longer citing a foreign Semitic (i.e. Hebrew) root. This has long been obvious by the absence of the Greek Παλαιστῖνη & Φυλιστῖνοι to describe פּלִישְׁתִּים in LXX (which deflects to a generalized ἀλλόφυλοι).

We find such an etymological error, for example, in the Egyptian name (conferred by a Pharaonic Princess): -M•s•z (“□-incarnate”). Hebrew-speakers adopted and transliterated this name into their own alephbeit, slightly altering its pronunciation (to Mōsh•ëh, which means “drawn from water”); thenceforth misunderstanding the name according to their own Hebrew language. The altered name was then further transliterated into other languages; orphaned from its original connections and meaning (e.g. Μωϋσῆς to English “Moses”). In the case of Παλαιστῖνη & Φυλιστῖνοι, while they were originally transliterated from spoken Mycenean-Greek, in a later era it was transliterated—differently—back into Classical Greek, having lost its original Greek association and meaning.

It’s always been conspicuously discrepant that a people would name themselves with a national name that means burrowers, rollers-in-dirt, intruders, (homeless) emigrant-refugees, intruders or invaders (Hebrew פּלִישְׁתִּי, from the shōrësh פָּלַשׁ). That’s a Semitic moniker more likely assigned by foreign enemies of the Philistines (like native Kᵊna•an•im, Ugaritic-Phoenicians of modern Lebanon and adopted by Mi•tzᵊrayim) labeling Aegean Mycenaen-Minoan Greek “Sea People” colonizers. (Colonizing land migrants from the northeast, via the Fertile Crescent, were called •vᵊr•u.)

Timeline: Mini-Chronology

When And Where Does Herodotus’ Syrian-Palestine Fit?

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Click to enlargeAncient Caravan Routes Of The Near East


The Mycenaean-Greek Minoan Philistines & Palestine

Minoan-Mycenaeans were an Aegean Islands based, Mediterranean-wide, maritime (pre-Alexandrian Hellenist) Greek—not Arab!—nation. They were originally from ancient Mycenaea, Greece, and migrated to the island of Minoa c. B.C.E. 2,700—more than half a millennium before the first 2 Arabs (Yi•shᵊm•â•eil and Ei•sau-Ë•dōm) were even born!

Minoan Rea Knossos palace fresco  abstract-fish sacred-loop
Click to enlargea — Minoan “Goddess Of The Heavens” (c BCE
While it’s accepted that Rea was the Chief Hellenic (Mycenaean) Minoan-PhilistineMother-goddess of the Heavens”; what is less known is that it was a moon goddessattended by the merman-fish Dâg•ōn—that ruled the heavens (comparable to the Egyptian precursors, Isis and Hât-Hōr—”examples which may have exercised influence on [Minoan-Philistine] Crete”). In fact, the original name of the island of Thera/Santorini was Kal•lis—“moon goddess”, their Minoan sequel to Hât-Hōr!

Not coincidentally, modern historians take first notice of this previously-unidentified “Sea People” when they intrude into Southeastern Mediterranean / Middle-Eastern history, streaming ashore in the Egyptian Delta and the southern shores of Kᵊna•an. (While they also colonized Lebanon, there they blended-in with the •vᵊr•u, appearing, until these recent genetic discoveries, to be yet another distinct, mysterious, Atlantian-like “Phoenician”, people.) Their colonizing of their ports-of-call around the southeastern rim of the Mediterranean likely mushroomed following the greatest cataclysm in recorded history, in which the Kal•lis eruption (c. BCE ) orphaned these maritime Minoans (“Sea Peoples”) from their Aegean island-capital home.

Prior to the eruption, the Minoan Παλαιστῖνη & Φυλιστῖνοι colonies were certainly reinforced by those from the Mycenaean-Greek capital on the island of (then) Kal•lis.

Archeology of the city of Akrotiri, on Kal•lis island, has shown that, while the eruption blew away ⅔ of the Atlantis-shaped island (which is now sea), killing all life on the island, there were no human remains at Akrotiri when archeologists first excavated the city in 1967. As the island's volcano became increasingly volatile, issuing rumblings, precursor tremors and perhaps gas vents popping-up unpredictably from the ground prior to its ca. B.C.E. eruption, archeology has demonstrated that the Minoans evacuated Akrotiri and their island-capital of Kal•lis, and escaped the eruption.

Thus, the Minoan Φυλιστῖνοι “Sea People” refugees from the impending eruption streamed ashore, crowding into Crete and colonizing not only Παλαιστῖνη on the southern Mediterranean coast of Kᵊna•an, but also ballooning their πυλών port-colony of Πύλος, on the northern Sinai shore adjacent to the Egyptian Delta. Moreover, they streamed directly onto the shores of the Egyptian Delta itself—where they mixed with Egyptians and still-captive Yi•sᵊr•â•eil•im! Thus, Yi•sᵊr•â•eil also had advance warning that an unprecedented eruption was impending; giving them time to prepare accordingly to use the event as the opportunity to escape the grasp of the Egyptian Par•ōh.

Now knowing to search for the root meaning in Greek (rather than Hebrew), we know to recognize the similarity of the name of the people to the name of the Mycenaean city of their origin; also the name of at least two of their colonies, “Πύλος.

Akrotiri, Minoan 2-story home with indoor-plumbing toilet cBCE1700
Click to enlargecBCE 1700 Minoan 2-​story home in Akrotiri with indoor toilet & plumbing (archeological excavation)
Mycenaean-Greek—second migration—"Sea People" were originally from Πύλος, in Mycenaea, Peloponnese, Greece; the name of their colonies on the northwestern shore of the Sin•ai and the southwestern coast of the Levant (Philistia, in Gaza)—hence "Pilos-tines"! Their name derived from their native Greek Πύλος, which was transliterated into Hebrew as פְּלִשְׁתִּים; not the reverse as nearly unanimously assumed. The Greek root was likely the cognate: πυλών—i.e. extended “seaport vestibules” (i.e. colonies); the ports-of-call, maritime “porches” of the Minoan ”Sea Peoples” Mediterranean-Aegean trade empire.

”Philistines”, then, were the “Sea-Peoples of the Minoan Port-Colonies”; its meaning simply “Minoan Colonists”; the most intellectual, artistic, sophisticated and technologically-advanced people of their era—including the earliest extant toilets connected to indoor-plumbing and municipal sewage system); diametrically opposite to its modern pejorative connotation. (Similar applies to Minoan Cretans.)

Rainbow Rule Modern era — Arab “Palestinians”, An Oxymoron

Yi•sᵊr•â•eil is recorded ca. B.C.E. 1600 in stone glyphs in the Egyptian Sinai and documented in the stele of Egyptian Par•ōh Meren-Ptah recounting his victory over Yi•sᵊr•â•eil ca. B.C.E. 1231. “The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III claims that an Israeli king named Jehu was forced to pay tribute to Assyrian King Shalmaneser III (reign [B.C.E.] 859-824), the obelisk is now in the British Museum.” The Tanakh itself document Yi•sᵊr•â•eil in the Dead Sea Scrolls as early as B.C.E. the 4th century.

As documented earlier in this glossary entry, Arab claims to be “Palestinians” (Philistines, Peleset or Pelishtin) is directly disproven by scientific DNA-proofs that Philistines were of Greek ancestry, not Arabs. See further 

The term “Palestine”, referring to a region of Syria and the eastern Mediterranean coast and Levant generally (not Canaan particularly!) colonized by Philistines, isn’t recorded at all until B.C.E. 5th century; and then it is only a toll road on major caravan routes (i.e. a tax district) to a foreign ruler, irrespective of countries and nationalities. The term never referred to a country or nationality.

Even in 135 C.E., when Israelis (Jews) were expelled from Judea (Jew-dea), the Romans reverted to the previously defined caravan-route tolls (i.e. taxable region) irrespective of any nationality of its resulting Arab squatters.

Yet, the first Muslim Arab doesn’t come into existence until 6 centuries after this!!!

Thus it remained until 1948. From 1948 to 1967, “Palestinian” referred to Jews of the Holy Land; (e/g/, The Jerusalem Post, before then, was the “Palestinian Post”).

Only since the 1967 war have modern Arabs, with no connection ethnically, linguistically or historically to ancient Palestine or Greek Philistines, who squatted in the vacated Levant after the Roman Expulsion of Jews in 135 CE, baselessly arrogated this term to themselves.

Prior to the 1960s, Arabs of the Holy Land insisted they were not “Palestinians” but, rather, "One Unified, Pan-Arab Tribe" that included all Arabs. Arabs of the Holy Land, even by their own insistence until the latter part of the 20th century, are no different from the Arabs in Israel’s 22 neighboring Arab countries.

In fact, in the modern era until 1967, “Palestinian” referred not to Arabs (who were insisting they were no different from their one Pan-Arab tribe) but to Jews returning to their homeland! E.g. The Jewish newspaper “The Palestinian Post” is now known as “The Jerusalem Post”.

There is no connection between modern Middle-Eastern Semitic Arabs who claim to be “Palestinians” and the ancient European Greek Philistines. The only connection Arabs of the Holy Land have to "Palestine" is that the Arab neighbors of the Levant exploited, squatted and occupied the forcibly-vacated Holy Land after the Romans renamed Judaea to “Palestine” and expelled the Jews in 135 C.E. Before that time, the Hellenist Roman—goy•im— name, "Palestine", referred only to two, non-contiguous regions: one in Syria and the other along the southern coast of the Levant, עַזָּה (occupied by the Greek Philistines). The name “Palestine” had never referred to Israel or Yᵊhūd•âh located in-between, which had been occupied exclusively by the Israelis/​Jews who conquered the Kᵊna•an•im and absorbed all of their survivors to become the aggregate indigenous people of the Levant. Ever since, only the ignorant, Hellenists and idolatrous miso-Judaics, call it “Palestine”.

So, if these local non-Jews are Philistines, then they aren't Arabs; they're just foreign Greeks with no claim to Israel – fake Arabs!

Modern Arabs occupying parts of Israel are almost entirely Muslim Jihadists implacably determined to annihilate Jews of Israel. Accordingly, they are more accurately designated not by a Roman name having no etymological connection whatsoever to Arabs, and misinforms who they really are, but by a name that truthfully expresses their Arab and Muslim fealty: “Palestanis”.

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