The dance at your wedding starts on Achilles' shield

The Word Wheel

Seven stops, from Cucuteni clay to today's circle. Press play or pick a stop; each shows its year, form and place, with a link to the chapter.

1. c. 4200 BCE

   ○

   before the word · Frumușica, Neamț county

   Cucuteni A stand-vessels with 4, 6 or 8 feminine figures in a round dance. Archaeologists call them the “Hora” type; what links them to today's hora is the shape, not a document.

   I. The clay circle

2. c. 750 BCE

   ΧΟΡΟΣ

   choros: the floor and the band · Cnossus / Troy (in the poem)

   Hephaestus forges on the shield a choros “like unto that which in wide Cnosus Daedalus fashioned of old for fair-tressed Ariadne”. Youths and maidens hold “their hands upon the wrists one of the other”.

   II. The shield of Achilles

3. c. 1100

   ΧΟΡΟΣ

   the same circle, nearly two thousand years on · Constantinople

   The “hand on wrist” step repeats in the Byzantine and post-Byzantine age; ring dances are danced in the narthex too. The one who begins the song and keeps the circle is the chorolektes.

   III. Hand on wrist

4. c. 1400

   HORO · ORO · HORĂ

   the word branches · The Balkans

   From choros: Bulgarian horo, Macedonian oro, Romanian horă (via Bulgarian, says DEX), Turkish hora. The first sense may have been “circle”.

   IV. The parting of the word

5. 1856 → 1859

   HORA UNIRII

   the poem becomes an anthem · Iași

   Alecsandri publishes the poem in 1856; Flechtenmacher writes the music. The song becomes the “unofficial anthem” of the Union, danced every 24 January.

   V. Hora Unirii

6. 1919–1923

   הורה · HORAH

   the Third Aliyah · Tel Aviv

   The horah grows out of the Romanian hora, says Encyclopaedia Judaica: running steps to the right, slow at first, then ever faster.

   IV. The parting of the word

7. 1989 → today

   HORA

   the living circle · Timișoara → Iași

   In December 1989 the crowds of Timișoara sing Hora Unirii. Every January the circle joins hands again.

   VI. The living circle

Chapters

Six slow stops, each with its sources.

Chapter I · c. 4200 BCE

I. The clay circle

Millennia before Homer, clay vessels already carry a round dance. Archaeologists call it “Hora”; what links it to our hora is the shape, not a document.

4, 6, 8

figures on the stand-vessels

Cucuteni A

white-red bichrome

Frumușica

first find, Neamț county

“Hora”-type stand-vessels come from the Cucuteni A phase: on them, 4, 6 or 8 stylised feminine figures hold a round dance. The first came to light on Cetățuia Frumușica, at Bodești in Neamț county — hence the nickname “Hora of Frumușica”.

The Cucuteni-5000 symposium abstract (2018) calls the hora “the most ancient dance in Europe”. The title belongs to the archaeologists; no chain of records runs from their clay to today's hora. The shape is plain to see; the records between it and today are missing.

On the wheel: stop 1, Frumușica.

Chapter II · c. 750 BCE

II. The shield of Achilles

The oldest record of the word is a whole scene: a dancing-floor forged in metal, the steps described move by move.

18.590–606

Iliad, the dancing-floor lines

17

lines, counted on Murray's text

1924

Murray's translation, public domain

Hephaestus forges the scene on Achilles' shield at Thetis' bidding: a whole choros, with garments, with golden daggers, with the crowd around and two tumblers in the middle, “leaders in the dance”.

Choros here means the dancing-floor; the same word also names the dancers. The English etymological dictionary gives both senses in one breath: “round dance; dancing-place; band of dancers”.

[590] Therein furthermore the famed god of the two strong arms cunningly wrought a dancing-floor like unto that which in wide Cnosus Daedalus fashioned of old for fair-tressed Ariadne. There were youths dancing and maidens of the price of many cattle, holding their hands upon the wrists one of the other. [595] Of these the maidens were clad in fine linen, while the youths wore well-woven tunics faintly glistening with oil; and the maidens had fair chaplets, and the youths had daggers of gold hanging from silver baldrics. Now would they run round with cunning feet [600] exceeding lightly, as when a potter sitteth by his wheel that is fitted between his hands and maketh trial of it whether it will run; and now again would they run in rows toward each other. And a great company stood around the lovely dance, taking joy therein; [605] and two tumblers whirled up and down through the midst of them as leaders in the dance.

On the wheel: stop 2, Cnossus / Troy.

Chapter III · c. 1100

III. Hand on wrist

Nearly two thousand years after Homer, the same step is danced around churches and inside them.

chorolektes

the one who begins the song and keeps the circle

narthex

ring dances danced in church too

“hand on wrist”

the Homeric step, repeated past Byzantium

“The so-called ‘hand on wrist’ dance step … is repeated in the Byzantine and post-Byzantine period”, summarises Archaeology Wiki. The pairing with Homer's line is this chapter's whole point.

The leader of the dance was called koryphaios or chorolektes: he began the song and made sure the circle was maintained. Eustathius of Thessalonica mentions a dance that began in a circle and ended with the dancers facing one another.

On the wheel: stop 3, Constantinople.

Chapter IV · c. 1300–1650

IV. The parting of the word

In the East the word stayed on its feet, in a circle. In the West it sat down in the choir stalls. Both fates start from the same syllable.

horo · oro · horă

the branch that dances

chorus → cuer → choir

the branch that sings

*kolo “wheel”

the same circle, another word

The first sense of choros may have been “circle”. Where the Greek word itself comes from, nobody knows: perhaps *gher- “to grasp, enclose”, perhaps *gher- “to like, want” — both guesses stand.

The sârba and the perinița are Romanian dances under other names, with other histories; they do not belong in the line of choros.

The two branches

The branch that dances

• HORO Bulgarian — through it the word enters Romanian (DEX)
• ORO Macedonian
• HORĂ Romanian, from Bulgarian (DEX: “Bg. horo”)
• HORA Turkish
• HORAH Hebrew, chiefly from the Romanian hora (Judaica)
• KHOROVOD Russian — “commonly analysed as” choros + vod “to lead”; one weak source

The branch that sings

• CHORUS Latin: “ring dance” (Merriam-Webster)
• CUER · QUER Old French: the stalls and the band of singers
• QUEOR · QUYRE English, c. 1300–1400
• CHOIR re-spelt c. 1650 after the classical form; “organized company of singers”

The bridge from dance to voice: Attic drama “arose from tales inserted in the intervals of the dance”; the tragic khoros held 12 or 15 people, the comic 24. That is where the chorus that comments on the play begins — and, much later, the stalls.

The same circle, another word

• KOLO Serbian, from Proto-Slavic *kolo “wheel”. Proof that the same circle can have another name. In UNESCO since 2017 — which hora is not.
• HALAY disputed: a Pontic song-refrain, per Wikipedia; outside choros either way.

On the wheel: stop 4, The Balkans.

Chapter V · 1856–1859

V. Hora Unirii

A magazine poem becomes, in three years, the song a whole country joins.

1856

Alecsandri's poem

Flechtenmacher

the music

24 January

Union day, hora day

Vasile Alecsandri publishes the poem in 1856; Alexandru Flechtenmacher writes the music. The song is sung and danced above all on 24 January, the day of the 1859 Union — the “unofficial anthem” of the Principalities' merging.

An 1857 lithograph shows the hora on Spirii Hill in Bucharest: two years later the same dance had new words.

The anthem's historic recordings hold no free licence; this chapter reads in silence.

On the wheel: stop 5, Iași.

Chapter VI · 1989 → today

VI. The living circle

In December 1989, Timișoara sings Hora Unirii. The circle has held ever since.

16 December

Timișoara takes to the streets

“Libertate!”

the chant, then the song

24 January

the hora is danced every year

“The crowds began chanting ‘Libertate!’ and singing Hora Unirii and Deșteaptă-te, române”, notes a course text on the Revolution, of Timișoara. The singing is on record; the hora danced in Bucharest in those days belongs to memory, still unverified on paper.

Every 24 January, on Union Day, the hora joins in squares from Iași to Bucharest. Aman painted it at Aninoasa in 1890; today's photographer catches it the same way, shoulder to shoulder.

On the wheel: stop 7, Timișoara → Iași.