The Greekness of the Dexari/Dessaretes

[Cadmus]

Just came back from a 2 month during vacation in Ohrid the ancient Lychnidos.

Having studied the regional inhabitants history from 300 B.C thru 200/400 A.D.
i have found many proof of old tablets/funeral inscriptions of thombs in the city's museum where all the inscriptions from that age were in Greek and written by the Dessaretes peoples who surely lived in that area for many years.

As seen in other proof on this web the Dexari were a branch of the Chaones and thus were Epirotes inhabiting the farest boundaries of the Epirote territory.allthough heavily Illyrinised and having received influences from the Macedonians from the 2nd B.C. empire, the later texts still clearly mentioned the Dessaretes as the stationary inhabitants of the Lychnidos area.

[Istor]

it would be an excellent name for SlavoSkopians, but they are blind.

[Spartan]

Welcome back Cadmus! It would be very interesting to see some of your finds while visiting the region!

[Cadmus]

Hi Spartan!

You are planning to visit the area?

[Cadmus]

Image of Epirus - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Here is proof on this map Dessaretes were Greeks and inhabited the area as a strong group even after Roman times...what happened after the Slavic invasions with them no one knows...most likely they got assimilited with Slavic and Illyrians...but the remnants should be still retraceable within the recent population as offspring , allthough heavily mixed thru all the years with Illyrian and Slavs..

[Spartan]

Originally Posted by Cadmus

Hi Spartan!

You are planning to visit the area?

Hopefully next year. I really want to explore all of Ancient Macedonia.
Sorry about the mix-up on my previous post. What I meant to say is while YOU were there and the evidence you uncovered.

It definitely appears that there would have been mixing between the neighboring tribes of Greeks and Illyrians. Of course that is common place throughout the world and history. What other information have you found out about them? I am always interested in learning something new about the Ancient history of the area.

[Cadmus]

Hi Spartan!

All the evidence was found in the museum , where all the slab stones and texts on tombstones were written in Greek by the Desaretes inhabitants , the stones found varied from 3-2nd c.B.C. up to 3/4th c.A.D. when in the year 400 a.d. a devastating earthquake took place and destroyed all the beautiful early christian basilicas and temples..the temples of the Greek gods were destroyed in a religious euphoria and the same location was used to erect great polychonchal basilicas in the 3/4th c.A.D. with beautifull ornaments such as much gold and silver..

The excavated early christian basilicas have many building blocks from the old Greek temples and shrines, as also much of the roman temples...The Lychnidos area had many such temples and churches from Greek and Roman times,so after the great earthquake the area was looted and destroyed by marauding clans of Slavs that enetered the area around 5/6th c.A.D. after the earthquake the area was deserted by the inhabitants so one might truly call the aftermath of the earthquake the end of civilisation and the beginning of the dark ages for Lychnidos areas...what really happened with the original inhabitants i dear not to say,maybe they deserted the city's acropolis and headed out to the villages around the area ,mixing perhaps in the oncoming years with the Slavs who did had several tribes in the Lychnidos area such as the Slavic Brsajec tribe that inhabited the same regions..

Interesting also is to mention that there were 2 great citys one on the Lychnidos hill the actual Lychnidos from 4/5 c.B.C. but there was another strong civilisation on another hill next to the Ohrid airport which might had been a Paonian one or even perhaps rumors say it was a stronghold and acropolis build by Philip 2nd but i doubt that since the famous Trebenishte necropolis was the necropolis from that particulair town next to the Ohrid airport..since the excavated graves/tombs contained many great artefacts from even way before Philip 2nd era , they were from the 5/6th c.B.C.

Because there hasn't been any proper exacavations done by Fyrom scientists on that particulair town...the question still remains what powerfull mysterious settlement was there , and most importantly who inhabited it???

The Encheleans?/the Paones? or Greek tribes or even Epirotes like the Dessaretes? many questions as you can see stil remain here on Lychnidos it's mysterious lands..

[Flipper]

Amazing!
What the Chaonians really were (Epirotes or a dinstinct hellenized people) is uncertain. According to Skylax they do not appear to be Illyrians nor Epirotes. But since a Hellenized colony existed in Paionia, that means they received heavy influence by Macedonia as well.

Do you have any pictures from the trip? It would be interesting to see in what dialect of Greek the inscriptions are!

[Cadmus]

Hi !,sorry no pictures of the tombstones..it was prohibited to take pictures in the museum....i thought the Chaones were one of the 3 big Epirote tribes :Molossians/Chaones and Threspotians...

The amazing thing is that i believe several groupes inhabited the area ..at least Paones but the citadel near the Ohrids airport the Trebenishte necropolis certainly carried the mark of the Hellenic key..

But anayway the Desarets were the main culprits in the area for many centuries.

[Demetrius Doukas]

This is an excellent link for Hellenic and Macedonian History.
[url=http://www.krassanakis.gr]