The name of Cyprus being of semitic origin is probably easy to hand-wave away as the result of trade.
I'd like to offer some evidence that the people of Crete were of Greek origin and therefore Indo-European rather than semitic, unfortunately all the scholarship I can find on the subject is from Greek scholars and since it confirms that the Minoans are genetically related to modern Greeks, the more I hear of that evidence the less I am convinced by it. Because it's exactly consistent with confirmation bias. So I would not be surprised if the Minoans turned out to be one of the lost tribes of Israel.
Except of course we know those turned up in the Americas so they can't be the Minoans.
The serious bit is that as soon as you make claims about who is from where and connected to what ancient people, you lose. It's impossible to disentangle peoples' nationalism and identity politics from whatever facts. I'm speaking in this as a Greek myself. Did you know that the Greek language is not, actually, an Indo-European language, but predates it by severeral hundreds of thousands of years, and has influenced every language you can find on every continent, including but not limited to the languages of the pre-Columbian civilisations? True story. Evidence: plenty! Consider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xochicalco Obviously that is the temple of the Goddess Kali in the country side ("Ο ναός της Θεάς Κάλι στην Εξοχή". Εξοχή-Κάλι-κο, Ξοχικάλκο!). I have actually read that in a book someone handed to me when I was a teenager. I had to put the book down after that.
tl;dr people get really crazy when it comes to their ancient history and lose the ability to think straight and derive sound conclusions from facts.
I'd like to offer some evidence that the people of Crete were of Greek origin and therefore Indo-European rather than semitic, unfortunately all the scholarship I can find on the subject is from Greek scholars and since it confirms that the Minoans are genetically related to modern Greeks, the more I hear of that evidence the less I am convinced by it. Because it's exactly consistent with confirmation bias. So I would not be surprised if the Minoans turned out to be one of the lost tribes of Israel.
Except of course we know those turned up in the Americas so they can't be the Minoans.
Yeah it's a joke. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Indian_theory
The serious bit is that as soon as you make claims about who is from where and connected to what ancient people, you lose. It's impossible to disentangle peoples' nationalism and identity politics from whatever facts. I'm speaking in this as a Greek myself. Did you know that the Greek language is not, actually, an Indo-European language, but predates it by severeral hundreds of thousands of years, and has influenced every language you can find on every continent, including but not limited to the languages of the pre-Columbian civilisations? True story. Evidence: plenty! Consider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xochicalco Obviously that is the temple of the Goddess Kali in the country side ("Ο ναός της Θεάς Κάλι στην Εξοχή". Εξοχή-Κάλι-κο, Ξοχικάλκο!). I have actually read that in a book someone handed to me when I was a teenager. I had to put the book down after that.
tl;dr people get really crazy when it comes to their ancient history and lose the ability to think straight and derive sound conclusions from facts.