Re: Piotr: Goliath and Uriah the Hittite as IE -

Piotr writes:

The name is Arba, not Abar! By the bye, Avaris would have a beautiful
Anatolian etymology if it were a Hyksos name and if the Hyksos had had
anything to do with the southern Luwians. (I suppose Brent could
comment on those "ifs".) Hittite awaris means 'watchtower, border
sentry', and is derived from the verb au-/aus- 'see'.
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Hi Piotr:

The short answer is Avaris is very much a Hyksos city, but with
Egyptian roots.
And the Hyksos had a strong IE connection, but it appears that
connection was Indo-Aryan, and the identity of the Hyksos as a whole is
another one of those "Great Mysteries in Archaeology" things.

The long answer: First my information is 6-7 years old, at least.
There is ongoing excevation going on there and new things may have been
uncovered, I haven't kept up. I'll give you what I got. Anybody got
any newer "two cents" to throw in, please do.

There are archaeological foundations found where Avaris is located that
have been identified back to 1850-1800BCE, by either pharaoh Amenehat I
or Senuseret III. (12th Dynasty). This is before the Hyksos invasion,
so the founding of the location was by Egyptians. But I haven't seen
anything that indicate that we know the Egyptians called it Avaris AND
the city was apparently abandoned for 140 years, shortly after its
building. At the end of this time there may have been some minor
building.

But the time it is heard of again, its heard of in a big way for the
Hyksos make the site their capital and is definitely being called
Avaris by that time. It is also the only FORTIFIED city in Egypt, at
that time I know of, (oexcept some border forts, that were only small
forts not cities, that the Egyptians previously constructed at their
borders with the Sinai and Nubia). So this description seems to be a
reasonable fit to the meaning you stated. It was their fortified base
of operations. It location was such, that they could reasonably stay in
contact with (monitor?) both Lower Egypt and the Sinai.

As to the Hyksos (simply meaning foreign ruler) – no one knows for sure
who they were, other than they weren't Egyptian or African (Libyans,
Nubians etc) and that they were composed of mostly Semites with some
IE. (Most archaeologists assume that they were a mix of groups). And
that the invasion was probably not organized (another case of climate
change driving an invasion). There is some evidence for at least two
waves of invaders.

The first wave was probably the Semites living in the Levant/Sinai who
may have been pushed into Egypt by (a) group(s) behind them. The
Egyptian found them to be a particularly brutal and barbaric people,
and Negev/Sinai tribes have been suggested. The second wave has the IE
connection. Two schools of thought were bantered about when I looked
into it.

Since the rulers of the Hyksos had names and gods that were apparently
Indo-Aryan, and since the Hyksos brought the horse and chariot to Egypt
for the first time, as a military weapon (some Egyptian nobles MAY have
chariots before that), it was postulated that the Hyksos were
Hurrians.(who it is believed were also ruled by an Indo-Aryan class).
Hence the source group for the Jew's "Horites" moving into the Levant.
The other school said they were simply Canaanites, possibly northern
Syrian (getting close to your Luwians), who were taking advantage of
Egypts chaos due to the droughts.

I was always of the Hurrian school, because I couldn't see much
Indo-Aryan influence in northern Syria, nor use of the Chariots until
the IE brought them in. But I assumed that they gathered in, and
included Semites from the Levant as they invaded. (I had heard
somewhere, that this was a typical IE tactic.)
But the picture is not clear.

I hadn't thought about it before, but if the Anakites were
Luwian/Lycians they may have been part of a remnant that pushed through
the Levant with the Hyksos. And the "SOUTHERN" part of your groups is
encouraging. As I said in my last posting – the timing of the Anakite
cities, as inferred from the bible annotations – is perfect for this
event. I don't know anything about the names and gods of the Luwians
to know if they might have been mistaken for Indo-Aryan. I do recall
that when I saw those names originally I was struck on how Indian they
did sound, and the gods were obviously Indian. If so, possibly the
Luwians were still part of the mix.

Hope this synopsis helps. Probably much better information by now.

Best Wishes
Brent