Re: Goliath and Uriah the Hittite as IE -

Brent:
<<But there are a couple of possible glitches with this tidy scenario:
Numbers 13:22 states: "They ....came to HEBRON, where Aihman, Sheshai
and Talmai, the descendants of Anak lived. Hebron had been built 7
years before ZOAN". Zoan is usually understood to be Avaris in the
delta in Egypt. Avaris is understood to be the site of Pi-Ramesses, or
possibly adjacent to it. Avaris was the capital of 14th Egyptian
dynasty, which was circa1650BCE, and the city may have predated this
date. (Avaris is currently being excavated, and there may be more
precise information.) But since Abraham/Isaac found no city there and
Abraham's journey to the Levant is usually set somewhere around 1900
-1700 BCE, its most likely that the city was built 1750-1650BCE,
perhaps a little bit later. Of coarse, the Anak could have been in the
area, just not at Hebron, before that time. But they were there by
then. The timing seems early for Hittite expansion. This period does
tie in perfectly with the Hyksos invasion of Egypt and the vacuum they
left in their retreat from the Levant, and suggests that the Anak were
related to the Hyksos invaders. On the other hand, maybe those vacuum
and unsettled times drew in a mixed bag of settlers, including the
Anak/Luwians.>>
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If the presence of Anatolians (or other IE) in 19th cent.BC in the Levant were
proved it would explain a lot. The horse appeared for the first time in the Near
East right in 19th cent.BC (+- 1 cent.), simultaneously with the spoked wheels
chariots. Before there were there only solid wheels chariots drawn by onagers or
other equids. 1900 BC is too early for appearing there Aryans (16-17th cent.BC)
what was accompanied by the new light kind of the chariot corpus, the bridle and
the belt under the horse belly. Only thereafter using of war chariots became of
really large scale (hundreds and thousands in a single battle).

If we believe that the horse and the spoked wheel are IE peculiarities we have
to explain where from Hyksos and Kassites of 19-18th cent. BC took these
attributes. It could be Hittite or Luwian avant-garde which had reached the
Levant before the Hittite state in Anatolia was established.

Alexander

P.S. What is etymology of "Levant"?