Valley of the Kings
The Valley of the Kings known as the Valley of the Gates of the Kings, is a valley in Egypt where, for a period of nearly 500 years from the 16th to 11th century BC, rock cut tombs were excavated for the pharaohs and powerful nobles of the New Kingdom. The valley stands on the west bank of the Nile, opposite Thebes, within the heart of the Theban Necropolis; the wadi consists of East Valley and West Valley. With the 2005 discovery of a new chamber and the 2008 discovery of two further tomb entrances, the valley is known to contain 63 tombs and chambers, it was the principal burial place of the major royal figures of the Egyptian New Kingdom, as well as a number of privileged nobles. The royal tombs are decorated with scenes from Egyptian mythology and give clues as to the beliefs and funerary rituals of the period. All of the tombs seem to have been opened and robbed in antiquity, but they still give an idea of the opulence and power of the pharaohs; this area has been a focus of archaeological and egyptological exploration since the end of the eighteenth century, its tombs and burials continue to stimulate research and interest.
In modern times the valley has become famous for the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun, is one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world. In 1979, it became a World Heritage Site, along with the rest of the Theban Necropolis. Exploration and conservation continues in the valley, a new tourist centre has been opened; the Valley of the Kings is situated over 1,000 feet of limestone and other sedimentary rock, which form the cliffs in the valley and the nearby Deir el-Bahri, interspersed with soft layers of marl. The sedimentary rock was deposited between 35–56 million years ago during a time when the Mediterranean Sea sometimes extended as far south as Aswan. During the Pleistocene the valley was carved out of the plateau by steady rains. There is little year-round rain in this part of Egypt, but there are occasional flash floods that hit the valley, dumping tons of debris into the open tombs; the quality of the rock in the Valley is inconsistent, ranging from finely-grained to coarse stone, the latter with the potential to be structurally unsound.
The occasional layer of shale caused construction and conservation difficulties, as this rock expands in the presence of water, forcing apart the stone surrounding it. It is thought that some tombs were altered in shape and size depending on the types of rock the builders encountered. Builders took advantage of available geological features; some tombs were quarried out of existing limestone clefts, others behind slopes of scree, or were at the edge of rock spurs created by ancient flood channels. The problems of tomb construction can be seen with tombs of his father Setnakhte. Setnakhte started to excavate KV11 but broke into the tomb of Amenmesse, so construction was abandoned and he instead usurped the tomb of Twosret, KV14; when looking for a tomb, Ramesses III extended. The tomb of Ramesses II returned to an early style, with a bent axis due to the quality of the rock being excavated. Between 1998 and 2002 the Amarna Royal Tombs Project investigated the valley floor using ground-penetrating radar and found that, below the modern surface, the Valley's cliffs descend beneath the scree in a series of abrupt, natural "shelves", arranged one below the other, descending several metres down to the bedrock in the valley floor.
The area of the Theban hills is subject to infrequent violent thunderstorms, causing flash floods in the valley. Recent studies have shown that there are at least seven active flood stream beds leading down into the central area of the valley; this central area appears to have been flooded at the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty, with several tombs buried under metres of debris. The tombs KV63, KV62, KV55 are dug into the actual wadi bedrock rather than the debris, showing that the level of the valley was five meters below its present level. After this event dynasties leveled the floor of the valley, making the floods deposit their load further down the valley, the buried tombs were forgotten and only discovered in the early 20th century; this was the area, the subject of the Amarna Royal Tombs Project ground scanning radar investigation, which showed several anomalies, one of, proved to be KV63. The Theban Hills are dominated by the peak of al-Qurn, known to the Ancient Egyptians as ta dehent, or "The Peak".
It has a pyramid-shaped appearance, it is probable that this echoed the pyramids of the Old Kingdom, more than a thousand years prior to the first royal burials carved here. Its isolated position resulted in reduced access, special tomb police were able to guard the necropolis. While the iconic pyramid complexes of the Giza plateau have come to symbolize ancient Egypt, the majority of tombs were cut into rock. Most pyramids and mastabas contain sections which are cut into ground level, there are full rock-cut tombs in Egypt that date back to the Old Kingdom. After the defeat of the Hyksos and the reunification of Egypt under Ahmose I, the Theban rulers began to construct elaborate tombs that reflected their newfound power; the tombs of Ahmose and his son Amenhotep I were in the Seventeenth Dyna
Nile Delta
The Nile Delta is the delta formed in Northern Egypt where the Nile River spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the world's largest river deltas—from Alexandria in the west to Port Said in the east, it covers 240 km of Mediterranean coastline and is a rich agricultural region. From north to south the delta is 160 km in length; the Delta begins down-river from Cairo. The Nile Delta is an area of the world that lacks detailed ground truth data and monitoring stations. Despite the economic importance of the Nile Delta, it could be considered as one of the most data-poor regions with respect to sea level rise. From north to south, the delta is 160 km in length. From west to east, it covers some 240 km of coastline; the delta is sometimes divided into sections, with the Nile dividing into two main distributaries, the Damietta and the Rosetta, flowing into the Mediterranean at port cities with the same name. In the past, the delta had several distributaries, but these have been lost due to flood control and changing relief.
One such defunct distributary is Wadi Tumilat. The Suez Canal is east of the delta and enters the coastal Lake Manzala in the north-east of the delta. To the north-west are three other coastal lakes or lagoons: Lake Burullus, Lake Idku and Lake Mariout; the Nile is considered to be an "arcuate" delta, as it resembles a triangle or flower when seen from above. Some scholars such as Aristotle have written that the delta was constructed for agricultural purposes due to the drying of the region of Egypt. Although such an engineering feat would be considered equivalent to a wonder of the ancient world, there is insufficient evidence to determine conclusively whether the delta is man-made or was formed naturally. In modern day, the outer edges of the delta are eroding, some coastal lagoons have seen increasing salinity levels as their connection to the Mediterranean Sea increases. Since the delta no longer receives an annual supply of nutrients and sediments from upstream due to the construction of the Aswan Dam, the soils of the floodplains have become poorer, large amounts of fertilizers are now used.
Topsoil in the delta can be as much as 21 m in depth. People have lived in the Delta region for thousands of years, it has been intensively farmed for at least the last five thousand years; the Delta used to flood annually. Records from ancient times show that the delta had seven distributaries or branches,: the Pelusiac, the Tanitic, the Mendesian, the Phatnitic, the Sebennytic, the Bolbitine, the Canopic There are now only two main branches, due to flood control and changing relief: the Damietta to the east, the Rosetta in the western part of the Delta; the Rosetta Stone was found in the Nile Delta in 1799 in the port city of Rosetta. The delta was a major constituent of Lower Egypt. There are many archaeological sites around the Nile Delta. About 39 million people live in the Delta region. Outside of major cities, population density in the delta averages 1,000/km2 or more. Alexandria is the largest city in the delta with an estimated population of more than 4.5 million. Other large cities in the delta include Shubra El Kheima, Port Said, El Mahalla El Kubra, Mansura and Zagazig.
During autumn, parts of the Nile River are red with lotus flowers. The Lower Nile and the Upper Nile have plants; the Upper Nile plant is the Egyptian lotus, the Lower Nile plant is the Papyrus Sedge, although it is not nearly as plentiful as it once was, is becoming quite rare. Several hundred thousand water birds winter in the delta, including the world’s largest concentrations of little gulls and whiskered terns. Other birds making their homes in the delta include grey herons, Kentish plovers, cormorants and ibises. Other animals found in the delta include frogs, tortoises and the Nile monitor. Nile crocodiles and hippopotamus, two animals which were widespread in the delta during antiquity, are no longer found there. Fish found in the delta soles; the Delta has a hot desert climate as the rest of Egypt, but its northernmost part, as is the case with the rest of the northern coast of Egypt, the wettest region in the country, has moderate temperatures, with highs not surpassing 31 °C in the summer.
Only 100–200 mm of rain falls on the delta area during an average year, most of this falls in the winter months. The delta experiences its hottest temperatures in July and August, with a maximum average of 34 °C. Winter temperatures are in the range of 9 °C at nights to 19 °C in the daytime. With cooler temperatures and some rain, the Nile Delta region becomes quite humid during the winter months. Furthermore, Egypt’s Mediterranean coastline is being swallowed up by the sea because of global warming and the rise of the sea level, the lack of sediments being deposited since the construction of the Aswan Dam, in some places as much as 90 m a year; as the polar ice caps melt, much of the northern delta, including the ancient port city of Alexandria, will disappear under the Mediterranean. A 30 cm rise in sea level will affect about 6.6% of the total land cover area in the Nile Delta region.
Nome (Egypt)
A nome was a territorial division in ancient Egypt. Each nome was ruled by a nomarch; the number of nomes changed through the various periods of the history of ancient Egypt. Through French nome, the word comes from Ancient Greek νομός, nomós, meaning "district". Today's use of the Ancient Greek rather than the Ancient Egyptian term came about during the Ptolemaic period, when the use of Greek was widespread in Egypt; the availability of Greek records on Egypt influenced the adoption of Greek terms by historians. The division of ancient Egypt into nomes can be traced back to prehistoric Egypt; these nomes existed as autonomous city-states, but began to unify. According to ancient tradition, the ruler Menes completed the final unification. Not only did the division into nomes remain in place for more than three millennia, the areas of the individual nomes and their ordering remained remarkably stable. Some, like Xois in the Nile Delta or Khent in Upper Egypt, were first mentioned on the Palermo Stone, inscribed in the Fifth Dynasty.
The names of a few, like the nome of Bubastis, appeared no earlier than the New Kingdom. Under the system that prevailed for most of pharaonic Egypt's history, the country was divided into 42 nomes. Lower Egypt, from the Old Kingdom capital Memphis to the Mediterranean Sea, comprised 20 nomes; the first was based around Memphis and Giza, in the area occupied by modern-day Cairo. The nomes were numbered in a more or less orderly fashion south to north through the Nile Delta, first covering the territory on the west before continuing with the higher numbers to the east. Thus, Alexandria was in the Third Nome. Nome 1 of Lower Egypt Nome 2 of Lower Egypt Nome 3 of Lower Egypt Nome 4 of Lower Egypt Nome 5 of Lower Egypt Nome 6 of Lower Egypt Nome 7 of Lower Egypt Nome 8 of Lower Egypt Nome 9 of Lower Egypt Nome 10 of Lower Egypt Nome 11 of Lower Egypt Nome 12 of Lower Egypt Nome 13 of Lower Egypt Nome 14 of Lower Egypt Nome 15 of Lower Egypt Nome 16 of Lower Egypt Nome 17 of Lower Egypt Nome 18 of Lower Egypt Nome 19 of Lower Egypt Nome 20 of Lower Egypt Upper Egypt was divided into 22 nomes.
The first of these was centered on Elephantine close to Egypt's border with Nubia at the First Cataract – the area of modern-day Aswan. From there the numbering progressed downriver in an orderly fashion along the narrow fertile strip of land, the Nile valley. Waset was in the Fourth Nome, Amarna in the Fourteenth, Meidum in the Twenty-first. Nome 1 of Upper Egypt Nome 2 of Upper Egypt Nome 3 of Upper Egypt Nome 4 of Upper Egypt Nome 5 of Upper Egypt Nome 6 of Upper Egypt Nome 7 of Upper Egypt Nome 8 of Upper Egypt Nome 9 of Upper Egypt Nome 10 of Upper Egypt Nome 11 of Upper Egypt Nome 12 of Upper Egypt Nome 13 of Upper Egypt Nome 14 of Upper Egypt Nome 15 of Upper Egypt Nome 16 of Upper Egypt Nome 17 of Upper Egypt Nome 18 of Upper Egypt Nome 19 of Upper Egypt Nome 20 of Upper Egypt Nome 21 of Upper Egypt Nome 22 of Upper Egypt Some nomes were added or renamed during the Graeco-Roman occupation of Egypt. For example, the Ptolemies renamed the Crocodilopolitan nome to Arsinoe. Hadrian created a new nome, for which Antinopolis was the capital.
The nomes survived into Roman times. Under Roman rule, individual nomes minted their own coinage, the so-called "nome coins," which still reflect individual local associations and traditions; the nomes of Egypt retained their primary importance as administrative units until the fundamental rearrangement of the bureaucracy during the reigns of Diocletian and Constantine the Great. From AD 307/8, their place was taken by smaller units called pagi. Powerful local officials arose who were called pagarchs, through whom all patronage flowed; the pagarch's essential role was as an organizer of tax-collection. The pagarch assumed some military functions as well; the pagarchs were wealthy landowners who reigned over the pagi from which they originated. For most of the history, each nome was headed by a nomarch; the position of the nomarch was at times hereditary, while at others they were appointed by the pharaoh. When the national government was stronger, nomarchs were the king's appointed governors; when the central government was weaker, however—such as during foreign invasions or civil wars—individual nomes would assert themselves and establish hereditary lines of succession.
Conflicts among these different hereditary nomarchies were common, most notably during the First Intermediate Period, a time that saw a breakdown in central authority lasting from the 7th–11th dynasties which ended when one of the local rulers became strong enough to again assert control over the entire country as pharaoh. The nomes are listed in separate tables for "Isti" - "the two Egypts"
Bubastis
Bubastis known in Arabic as Tell-Basta or in Egyptian as Per-Bast, was an Ancient Egyptian city. Bubastis is identified with the biblical Pi-Beseth, it was the capital of its own nome, located along the River Nile in the Delta region of Lower Egypt, notable as a center of worship for the feline goddess Bast, therefore the principal depository in Egypt of mummies of cats. Its ruins are located in the suburbs of the modern city of Zagazig; the name of Bubastis in Egyptian is Pr-Bȝśt.t transcribed Per-Bast. PR means the second word is the name of the goddess Bast or Bastet; the phrase means "House of Bast". In Bohairic Coptic, the name is rendered Ⲡⲟⲩⲃⲁⲥϯ, Ⲡⲟⲩⲁⲥϯ or Ⲃⲟⲩⲁⲥϯ. Bubastis served as the capital of the nome of Am-Khent, the Bubastite nome, the 18th nome of Lower Egypt. Bubastis was situated southwest of Tanis, upon the eastern side of the Pelusiac branch of the Nile; the nome and city of Bubastis were allotted to the Calasirian division of the Egyptian war-caste. It became a royal residence after Shoshenq I, the first ruler and founder of the 22nd dynasty, became pharaoh in 943 BC.
Bubastis was its height during the 23rd. It declined after the conquest by Cambyses II in 525 BC, which heralded the end of the Saite 26th dynasty and the start of the Achaemenid Empire; the Twenty Second Dynasty of Egyptian monarchs consisted of nine, or, according to Eusebius of three Bubastite kings, during their reigns the city was one of the most considerable places in the Delta. To the south of Bubastis were the allotments of land with which Psamtik I rewarded the services of his Ionian and Carian mercenaries. After Bubastis was taken by the Persians, its walls were dismantled. From this period it declined, although it appears in ecclesiastical annals among the episcopal sees of the province Augustamnica Secunda. Bubastite coins of the age of Hadrian exist; the following is the description which Herodotus gives of Bubastis, as it appeared shortly after the period of the Persian invasion, 525 BC, Hamilton remarks that the plan of the ruins remarkably warrants the accuracy of this historical eye-witness.
Temples there are more spacious and costlier than that of Bubastis. It is after the following fashion. Except at the entrance, it is surrounded by water: for two canals branch off from the river, run as far as the entrance to the temple: yet neither canal mingles with the other, but one runs on this side, the other on that; each canal is a hundred feet wide, its banks are lined with trees. The propylaea are sixty feet in height, are adorned with sculptures nine feet high, of excellent workmanship; the Temple being in the middle of the city is looked down upon from all sides. Quite round the temple there goes a wall, adorned with sculptures. Within the inclosure is a grove of fair tall trees, planted around a large building in, the effigy; the form of that temple is each side being a stadium in length. In a line with the entrance is a road built of stone about three stadia long, leading eastwards through the public market; the road is about 400 feet broad, is flanked by exceeding tall trees. It leads to the temple of Hermes.
Bubastis was a center of worship for the feline goddess Bastet, sometimes called Bubastis after the city, who the Greeks identified with Artemis. The cat was the sacred and peculiar animal of Bast, represented with the head of a cat or a lioness and accompanies the deity Ptah in monumental inscriptions; the tombs at Bubastis were accordingly the principal depository in Egypt of the mummies of the cat. The most distinguished features of the city and nome of Bubastis were its oracle of Bast, the splendid temple of that goddess and the annual procession in honor of her; the oracle gained in popularity and importance after the influx of Greek settlers into the Delta, since the identification of Bast with Artemis attracted to her shrine both native Egyptians and foreigners. The festival of Bubastis was the most joyous and gorgeous of all in the Egyptian calendar as described by Herodotus: Barges and river craft of every description, filled with men and women, floated leisurely down the Nile; the men played on pipes of lotus.
The women on cymbals and tambourines, such as had no instruments accompanied the music with clapping of hands and dances, other joyous gestures. Thus did they while on the river: but when they came to a town on its banks, the barges were made fast, the pilgrims disembarked, the women sang, playfully mocked the women of that town and threw their clothes over their head; when they reached Bubastis held they a wondrously solemn feast: and more wine of the grape was drank in those days than in all the rest of the year. Such was the manner of this festival: and, it is said, that as many as seven hundred thousand pilgrims have been known to celebrate the Feast of Bast at the same time. Extant documents mention the names of three Christian bishops of Bubastis of the 4th and 5th centuries: Harpocration, one of the bishops ordained by Meletius of Lycopolis listed in 325 Hermon, a contemporary of Athanasius of Alexandria, in about 362 Iulianus at the Second Council of Ephesus in 449 The tomb of the late New Kingdom vizier Iuty was discovered in December 1964 in the "Cemetery of the Nobles" of Bubastis by the Egypti
Demotic (Egyptian)
Demotic is the ancient Egyptian script derived from northern forms of hieratic used in the Nile Delta, the stage of the Egyptian language written in this script, following Late Egyptian and preceding Coptic. The term was first used by the Greek historian Herodotus to distinguish it from hieratic and hieroglyphic scripts. By convention, the word "Demotic" is capitalized; the Demotic script was referred to by the Egyptians as sš n šꜥ.t "document writing", which the second-century scholar Clement of Alexandria called ἐπιστολογραφική "letter-writing", while early Western scholars, notably Thomas Young referred to it as "Enchorial Egyptian". The script was used for more than a thousand years, during that time a number of developmental stages occurred, it is written and read from right to left, while earlier hieroglyphs could be written from top to bottom, left to right, or right to left. Parts of the demotic Greek Magical Papyri were written with a cypher script. Early Demotic developed in Lower Egypt during the part of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty found on steles from the Serapeum at Saqqara.
It is dated between 650 and 400 BCE, as most texts written in Early Demotic are dated to the Twenty-sixth Dynasty and the subsequent rule as a satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire, known as the Twenty-seventh Dynasty. After the reunification of Egypt under Psamtik I, Demotic replaced Abnormal Hieratic in Upper Egypt during the reign of Amasis II, when it became the official administrative and legal script. During this period, Demotic was used only for administrative and commercial texts, while hieroglyphs and hieratic were reserved for religious texts and literature. Middle Demotic is the stage of writing used during the Ptolemaic Kingdom. From the 4th century BC onwards, Demotic held a higher status, as may be seen from its increasing use for literary and religious texts. By the end of the 3rd century BC, Koine Greek was more important, as it was the administrative language of the country. From the beginning of Roman rule of Egypt, Demotic was progressively less used in public life. There are, however, a number of literary texts written in Late Demotic from the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, though the quantity of all Demotic texts decreased towards the end of the second century.
In contrast to the way Latin eliminated minority languages in the western part of the Empire and the expansion of Koine Greek led to the extinction of Egyptian, it did not replace Demotic entirely. After that, Demotic was only used for a few ostraca, subscriptions to Greek texts, mummy labels, graffiti; the last dated example of the Demotic script is dated to December 11, 452 and consists of a graffito on the walls of the temple of Isis at Philae. Demotic is a development of the Late Egyptian language and shares much with the Coptic phase of the Egyptian language. In the earlier stages of Demotic, such as those texts written in the Early Demotic script, it represented the spoken idiom of the time. But, as it was used for only literary and religious purposes, the written language diverged more and more from the spoken form, leading to significant diglossia between the Late Demotic texts and the spoken language of the time, similar to the use of classical Middle Egyptian during the Ptolemaic Period.
The Rosetta Stone was discovered in 1799. It is inscribed with three scripts: the Greek alphabet and Egyptian hieroglyphs. There are 32 lines of Demotic, the middle of the three scripts on the stone; the Demotic was deciphered before the hieroglyphs, starting with the efforts of Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy. Scholars were able to translate the hieroglyphs by comparing the Greek words, which could be translated, the hieroglyphs, in addition to their existing knowledge of Coptic. Egyptologists and papyrologists who specialize in the study of the Demotic stage of Egyptian script are known as Demotists; the table below shows some derivative similarities from hieroglyphs to Demotic to the surviving Coptic alphabet. Transliteration of Ancient Egyptian Tale of Setne Khamwas and Si-Osire Betrò, Maria Carmela. Hieroglyphics: The Writings of Ancient Egypt. New York. Pp. 34–239. ISBN 978-0-7892-0232-1. Johnson, Janet H.. Thus Wrote'Onchsheshonqy: An Introductory Grammar of Demotic. Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization, No. 45.
Chicago: The Oriental Institute. Demotic and Abnormal Hieratic Texts List of all Demotic texts in Trismegistos Chicago Demotic Dictionary The American Society of Papyrologists Directory of Institutions and Scholars Involved in Demotic Studies Demotic Texts on the Internet Thus Wrote'Onchsheshonqy: An Introductory Grammar of Demotic by Janet H. Johnson Demotische Grammatik by Wilhelm Spiegelberg
Twenty-first Dynasty of Egypt
The Twenty-first Dynasty of Egypt is classified as the first Dynasty of the Ancient Egyptian Third Intermediate Period, lasting from 1069 BC to 945 BC. After the reign of Ramesses III, a long, slow decline of royal power in Egypt followed; the pharaohs of the Twenty-first Dynasty ruled from Tanis, but were active only in Lower Egypt, which they controlled. This dynasty is described as ` Tanite'. Meanwhile, the High Priests of Amun at Thebes ruled Middle and Upper Egypt in all but name; the Egyptian Priest Manetho of Sebennytos states in his Epitome on Egyptian royal history that "the 21st Dynasty of Egypt lasted for 130 years". Jaroslav Černý, Studies in the Chronology of the Twenty-First Dynasty, JEA 32, 24-30 Family tree of the Twenty-first, Twenty-second, Twenty-third Dynasties of Egypt Theban High Priests of Amun
Ancient Greek
The Ancient Greek language includes the forms of Greek used in Ancient Greece and the ancient world from around the 9th century BCE to the 6th century CE. It is roughly divided into the Archaic period, Classical period, Hellenistic period, it is succeeded by medieval Greek. Koine is regarded as a separate historical stage of its own, although in its earliest form it resembled Attic Greek and in its latest form it approaches Medieval Greek. Prior to the Koine period, Greek of the classic and earlier periods included several regional dialects. Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians and philosophers, it has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a standard subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article contains information about the Epic and Classical periods of the language. Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language, divided into many dialects; the main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic, Aeolic and Doric, many of them with several subdivisions.
Some dialects are found in standardized literary forms used in literature, while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are several historical forms. Homeric Greek is a literary form of Archaic Greek used in the epic poems, the "Iliad" and "Odyssey", in poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic and other Classical-era dialects; the origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of a lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period, they differ in some of the detail. The only attested dialect from this period is Mycenaean Greek, but its relationship to the historical dialects and the historical circumstances of the times imply that the overall groups existed in some form. Scholars assume that major Ancient Greek period dialect groups developed not than 1120 BCE, at the time of the Dorian invasion—and that their first appearances as precise alphabetic writing began in the 8th century BCE.
The invasion would not be "Dorian" unless the invaders had some cultural relationship to the historical Dorians. The invasion is known to have displaced population to the Attic-Ionic regions, who regarded themselves as descendants of the population displaced by or contending with the Dorians; the Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people—Dorians and Ionians, each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Allowing for their oversight of Arcadian, an obscure mountain dialect, Cypriot, far from the center of Greek scholarship, this division of people and language is quite similar to the results of modern archaeological-linguistic investigation. One standard formulation for the dialects is: West vs. non-west Greek is the strongest marked and earliest division, with non-west in subsets of Ionic-Attic and Aeolic vs. Arcadocypriot, or Aeolic and Arcado-Cypriot vs. Ionic-Attic. Non-west is called East Greek. Arcadocypriot descended more from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age.
Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect. Thessalian had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to a lesser degree. Pamphylian Greek, spoken in a small area on the southwestern coast of Anatolia and little preserved in inscriptions, may be either a fifth major dialect group, or it is Mycenaean Greek overlaid by Doric, with a non-Greek native influence. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, or to an island. Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric, Southern Peloponnesus Doric, Northern Peloponnesus Doric; the Lesbian dialect was Aeolic Greek. All the groups were represented by colonies beyond Greece proper as well, these colonies developed local characteristics under the influence of settlers or neighbors speaking different Greek dialects; the dialects outside the Ionic group are known from inscriptions, notable exceptions being: fragments of the works of the poet Sappho from the island of Lesbos, in Aeolian, the poems of the Boeotian poet Pindar and other lyric poets in Doric.
After the conquests of Alexander the Great in the late 4th century BCE, a new international dialect known as Koine or Common Greek developed based on Attic Greek, but with influence from other dialects. This dialect replaced most of the older dialects, although Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language, spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek. By about the 6th century CE, the Koine had metamorphosized into Medieval Greek. Ancient Macedonian was an Indo-European language at least related to Greek, but its exact relationship is unclear because of insufficient data: a dialect of Greek; the Macedonian dialect (or l
