A Forestry Professor who apparently loves to pseydo-analyses the origins of ancient statues based on podiatric criteria sent an e-mail to the press woman in charge for the communication of the excavations in ancient tomb of Amphipolis; Yes, we have such a position here: press office of Amphipolis tomb excavations… In an laughable effort to solve the mystery of the Amphipolis tomb origin the professor sat down and developed a theory of his own.
In his e-mail Professor Pavlos Eythimiou claimed that “the tomb of Amphipolis is definitely Greek because the feet of Caryatids are Greek.”
His theory was that a “Greek foot has a longer second toe” and therefore “any foot with longer second toe has Greek genes.”
Furthermore he claimed that “Greek feet” are a matter of genetics and that there have been attempts to hide this …breathtaking reality and replace the patriotic “Greek foot” term by some scientific word from osteology.
The press officer of Amphipolis is Anna Panagiotarea, a professor of journalism, apparently warmly accepted the not so scientifically documented approach and published the email on her Facebook page.
Eythimiou’s theory:
“The Caryatids of Amphipolis reveal their origin and shut mouths*!
In medicine it is called the Morton’s toe, in sculpture it is called the Greek foot.”
It is the situation in which the second toe if longer than the first one. Normal feet are … are 3 types: the Egyptian foot, in which the big toe is the longer of all toes and there is a diagonal line from big to small toe.. The Roman Foot or “square”, where all toes are in one horizontal line and the Greek Foot as I described above.
The large (70-80%) majority of the world’s population has the Egyptian foot, as it is the “normal” foot in osteology terms, that is this is what every human has to have according to the bones structure of our species. There is a whole movement even among the medical communities worldwide to abolish the term “Egyptian” as it is the scientifically correct term.
However there is not question whatsoever about the term “Greek foot” apart form the silent replacement of the term by “Morton’s toe” which in fact describes a bone deformity.
But what is its difference with the other species other than the length of the metatarsal toe bones? The Greek Foot is hereditary!
Unbelievable? If it was just this, probably not. The incredible thing is that the “deformity” of Greek Foot is genetically associated with Greeks.
Does this mean that anyone who has a longer second toe has necessarily Greek genes?
YES !!!
And this IS incredible and it is probably why they try to make the issue be “forgotten” transforming this genetic feature into bone deformity.
In sculpture, there is countless evidence of the knowledge of the existence of this attribute to the Greeks since the ancient times. ALL the statues of ancient Greek figures that illustrate Greeks bear this characteristic very clear. It is not coincidence that our ancestors portrayed it in their works. They knew their difference and displayed it. “
in Greek as posted by Panagiotarea
To make the long and rather confusing theory and writing style short:
while the Egyptian Feet were a matter of bone structure of the human species, the Greek Feet were a matter of genetics and heredity and that the genes passed the second longer toe to millions of Greek legs and Greek sculptures from the very ancient times onwards.
Reactions
I do not need to stress in particularly how the Greek internet community reacted to Eythimiou’s racist claim interspersed with conspiracy theory nuggets. especially because it was accepted and promoted by a public official.
Holding their bellies from laughter many urged that from now on everyone in Greece should expose his toes and wear sandals or go barefoot.
But apart from kidding and joking, the majority of Greeks were stunned and lashed out at Panagiotarea as a public official and “tomb spokeswoman” promoting a racist theory.
A couple of hours later Anna Panagiotarea deleted the post and wrote on her FB page:
“I don’t know professor Eythimiou.. I do not know if he is an expert or not. But because we regularly hear the same about toes, I thought that many would be interested in the issue. Some have shown that they can not hear the “other” view apart from their own and consider that this theory is racist. So I delete it… Nevertheless, 9,000 people saw it and dozens of opinions were posted, that’s good.” (ethnos.gr, Facebook & others)
Toes and Ancestry
I wonder whether Eythimiou’s claim was based on the criteria below as they have been circulating on internet for quite some time. The following diagram from KuvatON.com suggests that the length of people’s toes denotes people’s ancestry.
“Apparently the alignment of your feet’s digits reveals whether you hail from Greek, Egyptian, Roman, Germanic or Celtic heritage.
However I fail to see any scientific evidence in this claim too.
Greek foot or Morton’s toe? That is here the question!
I surfed through internet and got a big Surprise! Many Roman sculptures have Greek toes !
*hint to those claiming the tomb may be of Roman origin or even worse “of Former Republic of Macedonia (Skopje) origin”.
PS See? If 80% of world population has Egyptian feet then “We are all Greeks NOT”, after all :p
