or “snake"; koriandron="round seed" and more new breakthroughs (original) (raw)

After considering various scenarios, I have come to the conclusion that the name of the Ancient Greek island of Σαλαμίς (Salamis) referred/refers to the curved shape of the island, which is similar to that of a lizard in a doubled over position, a curled position (e.g. a lizard that is in a fetal position) or to a short snake in such a position. Σαλαμίς was also the name of a nymph in Greek mythology 1 : she was the daughter of the river-god Asopus and of Metope, daughter of Ladon, another river-god. Snakes were often associated with bodies of water in Greek myth and in the mythologies of all human cultures, and Salamis may have originally been a nymph that appeared as both human and water-snake. This similarity of the shape of the island to the shape of a doubled over lizard is reportedly referenced in Culuris/Κούλουρη (Koulouri), a name for the island which is first attested in the year 1204 AD. A scholar named William Miller, in his 1908 book The Latins in the Levant, a history of Frankish Greece (1204-1566), says that Culuris meant "Lizard" (see page 18 of his book 2), and this name was given to the island/was used for the island because of the island's shape: which is like that of a short-tailed lizard that has curled itself/doubled itself over into a fetal position. From at least the 13th century until the 19th century, the town, the island, and the bay of Salamis were called Koulouri (Κούλουρη). The ancient name Salamis was revived in the 19 th century. The name Koulouri is still used informally for the town. The island is known in Arvanitika as Κȣλλȣρι ("Kulluri").