Piotr had writen:
Brent,
Does your "Indo-Aryan" (in the Hyksos context) mean Indo-European or
specifically Indo-Iranian? Technically, (Indo-)Aryan is an alternative
name for the latter, but that would exclude Hittite- or
Luwian-speakers. The Hurrian elites were even more specifically
(Proto-)Indic rather that Iranian, judging from the terminology cited
in Kikkuli's treatise on horses.
Piotr
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Piotr
Went surfing again today, looking for a pharaohs list for the 13, 14
and 16th Dynasties which I didn't find. But ran into something else
that throws a new slant on the question of Hyksos = Canaanite Vs
Proto-Indic/Hurrians Vs Hittite/Luwian. Source is:
THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF EGYPT AND CANAAN IN ANCIENT TIMES -BRANDEIS
UNIVERSITY
http://staff.feldberg.brandeis.edu/~jacka/ANEP/ANEP.html
Dr. John R. Abercrombie
>Class Notes On The Second Intermdiate Period And MBII Culture
>Outline For The Discussion Of Archaeological And Literary Evidence For
MB II Culture
>Review Of MB II Culture
>Historical Overview Of The Middle Bronze Age (Anep, 382-386) In which
he says:
ORIGIN OF THE CANAANITES (ANEP, 3 - Tomb of Khnum-hotep III)
The biblical term, Canaanite, identifies the people who lived in the
land of Israel before the Israelites. Torah and the historical books
present the idea that the Canaanites were not one ethnic group, but
composed of a variety of different groups: the Perizzites, the
Hittites, and the Hivites. Generally archaeologists and biblical
scholars mean the Bronze culture of Palestine when they use the term
Canaanite. This culture of the Middle and Late Bronze Ages is viewed as
stratified with individual city-states ruled by a monarch and warrior
class who governed a large free serf class. MOST SCHOLARS CONCLUDE, ON
SOME MINIMAL EVIDENCE, THAT THE UPPER CLASSES WERE HURRIAN, AN
INDO-EUROPEAN CULTURE WHICH INVADED IN MIDDLE BRONZE II. The lower
classes are thought to be Amorite, an earlier invader in the Middle
Bronze I.
What he seems to be proposing is that the Canaanites were an amalgam of
different ethnic groups. And while they may have been layered within
the society, there was a certain regional homogeneity. I don't know if
I can buy into this completely. It obviously wasn't true for the
groups in the Hill Country at the later time of the Jewish Invasion.
The Jews were successful, because they could take on single cities, or
small regions one at a time, and they met no large scale organized
resistance, until they ran up against the Philistines. Also the Jews
are clearly indicating individual territory and character in their
bible and the Armana letters and other documents indicate the same.
And finally, while the term Canaan is sometimes used ambiguously for
what we now call the Levant, or Palestine it also clearly meant the
specific people the Greeks were to later call the Phoenicians.
On the other hand, it does fit with picture that Tommy painted of the
region, post Hyksos. Also there is the possibility that the Egyptians
simply wiped out most of the ruling class when they ran them out of
Egypt. (The ruling Hyksos retreated and made a 3 year stand off, I
think at Ascalon or Ashrad, at the end of which the Egyptian captured
the town, killed every man, women and child, burned everything down,
stomped on it, buried it and probably did other unmentionable acts.
Salting the ground hadn't been invented yet or I'm sure they would
have done that too. As I said, they REALLY didn't like the Hyksos). So
maybe this changed the social structure of region at that time. I
can't say.
What I do like about the proposal though, is that it is possible that
the invading "Canaanites" were one and same as the
Indo-Aryans/Proto-Indics that we have been talking about and that they
were liberally sprinkled with Hittites. It might not be Hittite OR
Proto-Indic, but Hittite AND Proto-Indic.
Long windedly yours
Brent