Editing Cabeiri (section)

==Etymology and origin==

=== Etymology ===
In the past, the [[Semitic languages|Semitic]] word ''kabir'' ("great") has been compared to Κάβειροι since at least [[Joseph Justus Scaliger]] in the sixteenth century, but nothing else seemed to point to a Semitic origin, until the idea of "great" gods expressed by the Semitic root ''kbr'' was definitively attested for North Syria in the thirteenth century BCE, in texts from [[Emar]] published by D.&nbsp;Arnaud in 1985–87. [[Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling]] connected the Greek word to  the Hebrew חבר (''khaver'' "friend, associate") and via this to several priest names as one attached to the Persians ("Chaverim"), linking them to the [[Dioskouri]] or priestly blacksmiths alternatively.<ref>Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling: ''Ueber die Gottheiten von Samothrace''. Stuttgart and Tübingen (Cotta) 1815, p.&nbsp;110 sqq. ([https://archive.org/stream/ueberdiegottheit01sche#page/110/mode/2up online text]).</ref> T.&nbsp;J. Wackernagel in 1907 proposed a connection with the [[Sanskrit|Sanskrit God]] ''[[Kubera|Kubera/Kuvera]]'' which means "the ill-shaped one".<ref>Noted by Walter Burkert, ''The Orientalizing revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age'' (1992, p 2 note 3).</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Dasen |first=Veronique |url= |title=Dwarfs in Ancient Egypt and Greece |date=2013 |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=195 |language=en}}</ref> in 1925 [[A. H. Sayce]] had suggested a connection to [[Hittite language|Hittite]] ''[[Habiru|habiri]]'' ("looters", "outlaws"), but subsequent discoveries have made this implausible on phonological grounds. Dossein compares Κάβειροι to the [[Sumerian language|Sumerian]] word ''kabar'', "[[copper]]."<ref>Buckert, ''Greek Religion'' (1985), p. 282 and notes on page 457.</ref> A connection with the Greek word ''Kaio'' ({{Langx|el|Καίω|lit=burn}}) has also been suggested, considering the nature of the Cabeiri as [[Demon|demons]] of volcanic fire;<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Decharme |first=Paul |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nU9msl7p2vMC&pg=PA263 |title=Mythologie de la Grèce antique |date=1884 |publisher=Garnier Frères |pages=263 |language=fr}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Psilopoulos |first=Dionysious |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p1GqEAAAQBAJ |title=Goddess Mystery Cults and the Miracle of Minyan Prehistoric Greece: The Path of the Serpent |date=2023 |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing |isbn=978-1-5275-9119-6 |pages=126 |language=en}}</ref> this was suggested by [[Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker]] and [[Louis Ferdinand Alfred Maury]].<ref name=":1" /> [[Strabo]] wrote that the Cabeiri were named "after the mountain Kabeiros in Berekynthia".<ref name=":0" /> [[Robert S. P. Beekes|R. S. P. Beekes]] believes that their name is of non-Indo-European, [[pre-Greek]] origin.<ref>[[Robert S. P. Beekes|R. S. P. Beekes]]. "The Origin of the Kabeiroi" ''Mnemosyne''. Vol. 57, Fasc. 4 (2004: 465–477); ''Etymological Dictionary of Greek'', Brill, 2009, p. 612.</ref> 

The name of the ''Cabeiri'' recalls Mount Kabeiros, a mountain in the region of Berekyntia in Asia Minor, closely associated with the [[Phrygia]]n [[mother goddess|Mother Goddess]]. The name of Kadmilus (Καδμῖλος), or ''Kasmilos'', one of the Cabeiri who was usually depicted as a young boy, was linked even in [[classical antiquity|antiquity]] to ''Camillus'', an old [[Latin]] word for a boy-attendant in a cult, likely a loan from the [[Etruscan language]],{{Citation needed|date=October 2007}} which may be related to Lemnian.<ref>The Aegean relations of the Etruscan language are denied  at some length by [[Massimo Pallottino]], in ''The Etruscans'' (tr. 1975) and elsewhere.</ref> However, according to Beekes, the name ''Kadmilus'' may be of pre-Greek origin, as seems to be the case with the name ''[[Cadmus]]''.<ref>R. S. P. Beekes, ''Etymological Dictionary of Greek'', Brill, 2009, pp. 613–4.</ref>

=== Origin ===
The origins of the Cabeiri are unknown. [[Jacob Wackernagel]] posited that they were possibly originally [[Phrygians|Phrygian]] or [[Thracians|Thracian]] deities and protectors of [[sailor]]s, who were imported into Greek ritual.<ref>[[Jacob Wackernagel|Wackernagel, Jacob]]. (1907) ''Zeitschrift fir vergleichende Sprrachforschung'', XLI, 1907, pp. 317f</ref><ref>"The secret of the mysteries is rendered more enigmatic by the addition of a non-Greek, pre-Greek element" (Burkert 1985:281). Burkert does not intend to suggest that the pre-Greek component was ''added''.</ref> According to ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica|Encyclopedia Britannica]]'', the deities may have been [[Pelasgians|Pelasgian]] or [[Phrygian mythology|Phrygian]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Cabeiri |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Cabeiri |access-date=2024-01-28 |website=Encyclopedia Britannica |language=en}}</ref> It is not known who brought these deities to Greece, but it was probably a group of [[Greeks]], perhaps only a family which settled on the countryside of Thebes.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Schachter |first=Albert |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=de6CAgAAQBAJ |title=Greek Mysteries: The Archaeology of Ancient Greek Secret Cults |date=2005 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-134-53616-0 |editor-last=Cosmopoulos |editor-first=Michael B. |editor-link=Michael Cosmopoulos |edition= |pages=112 |language=en |chapter=Evolution of a Mystery Cult: The Theban Kabiroi}}</ref>