Friesland is one of the twelve provinces in the Netherlands, distinguished by its centuries-old terps (man-made mounds or hills, used as a refuge from flooding for people and their livestock), its windy climate, its lake district, the Frisian Islands, and most especially by its language, Frisian, which is still spoken by a majority of the Frisian people. But only a minority of historians and those engaged in Frisian studies know that Frisians should celebrate a special anniversary in 1988.
In 1987, the historian Oebele Vries discovered that the following year represented a Frisian jubilee: two thousand years since Frisians made their debut on the stage of world history. The Greek historian Cassius Dio (A.D. 160-235) recorded that in the year 12 B.C. the Roman general Drusus undertook fleet expedition against the Chauci, the neighbors of the Frisians, and in doing so, Drusus traversed the country of the Frisians (Cassius Dio, Book 54, 32-33). Tacitus also mentions the Frisians: in his Germania (chapter 34), written about A.D. 100.
These citations are the first recorded evidence of the Frisian people's two-thousand-year history. Their jubilee, however, is not commemorated officially anywhere. Only the Frisian Academy (which, incidentally, celebrates its fiftieth anniversary in 1988), has paid attention to the theme—by calling its philology conference "Two Thousand Years of Frisians."
The Frisian people and language are demonstrably older than the Dutch people and their language. But are present-day Frisians really the same ethnic peoples as the Frisians who lived two thousand years ago? And does the present Frisian language descend directly from the language spoken then? The romantics among us would like to answer in the affirmative, but history gives a more complex answer.
Between 1000 and 700 B.C., a landscape of saltings, interrupted by creeks and larger sea arms, came into existence on the North Sea shore, between Vlieland and the Eems in present-day Holland. The lowest parts of the area were under water at high tide, but little by little habitation became possible on higher ground. The first inhabitants established themselves between 700 and 300 B.C., and to protect themselves from periodic flooding, made the highest areas even higher. It is possible these stockbreeders, who called themselves Frisians, came from the nearby sandy grounds of Drenthe, where life had been rendered impossible by sanddrifts. Another theory postulates that they came from among southern German tribes and from non-German peoples, whose point of origin is unknown. Their language could have been Germanic, possibly mingled with words from an older language. It is not known what the name Frisian means: Belgian onomatologist M. Gysseling speculates that it means "the friends" or "the freemen."
Archaeological remains from the Roman period, recovered largely from excavations of terps, indicate a comparatively high standard of living, a result of stockbreeding and intensive commercial relations with the Romans. Although many terps have been dug up over the course of the centuries, many still exist most crowned with a simple village church. The terp of Hogebeintum is the highest (8.8 meters) in Friesland. Hogebeintum's twelfth-century church, with a rich collection of mourning plates for the gentry, is one of the most valuable monuments of Frisian history, especially when one realizes his terp has been inhabited since 600 B.C. In the last
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