From: Dennis Poulter
Message: 1681
Date: 2000-02-25
Rex,
I've been reading up on your Pelasgian scenario and came across this snippet. It appears that Troy was never the name of the city, but was derived from an adjective "troies". The city itself was called Ilion/Ilias/Wilusa. It struck me that here could be some more of your "Tyrrhenians". I don't know how plausible this is - Troies, Tyrsenoi, Tyrrhenoi.
Nonetheless, I looked through the archaeological history at devlab.cs.dartmouth.edu and based on this I offer the following scenario. To avoid confusion I'll call the people Trojans and the city Ilias.
Ilias was founded around 3000BCE, but was not the earliest Trojan settlement. There are older settlements elsewhere on the Anatolian coast, especially at Limantepe where a mole has been found under the sea, and on Lemnos (Poliochni) and Lesbos (Thermi) and possibly also Chios. From its very beginning, Ilias had sophisticated fortifications and large free-standing houses and halls known as "megaron". There are also indications of the use of metal (copper and bronze) from the very earliest stratum.
The city grew in size and wealth, and its range of influence extended across the Bosporus into Thrace and northern Greece but not as far as Attica, the Argive and Peloponnesus. The contemporaneous Eutresis culture (EHI) appears to develop out of late Greek neolithic culture and has been described as Final Neolithic Stage. Likewise in the Aegean their influence did not extend as far as Crete, whose main external contacts were with the Cyclades, and less so with the Levant and Egypt.
By the time of Ilias' destruction around 2250BCE, there were large amounts of gold, silver, bronze and copper and enormous monumental buildings and gateways through the massive walls etc. etc. The question that comes now is, where did all this gold, silver, copper and tin come from? I think, given the orientation of Ilias at this time (characterised at Troia Maritima), that it is more likely to be the Balkans than the interior of Anatolia or the Caucasus. Do you have any idea of who were the people of the Danubian Bronze cultures of this period? Could they have been Trojans?
Following the destruction of 2250BCE, possibly by incoming Anatolians, the site was reduced to relative poverty. Houses are smaller and communal, metal becomes very scarce, and there is an increase in animal bones (hunting for food perhaps), deer at first, later pigs and cows. This phase (Troy III, IV and V) lasted until about 1900BCE, and although there seems to be a slight improvement in living standards, it remains relatively poor, especially in metals. This phase also has been characterised as "Anatolian".
About 1900BCE Troy V was demolished and Troy VI was built. This seems to coincide with a general wave of destruction right across Anatolia. James Mellaart has ascribed the cultural change in Troy VI and the introduction of horses and grey "Minyan" ware with the arrival of the Luwians, who also took their ceramic style on into Greece. These Luwians are seen as the precursors of the Greeks into Greece, mainly on the grounds of place-name elements. From this point, we come to my earlier posting on Hyksos etc.
Summary
Following the destruction of Ilias of 2250BCE, the Trojans were a dispossessed people. Some continued their lives on the islands of Lemnos, Lesbos, and the survivors in Anatolia perhaps formed the bedrock population of Anatolian Troy.
The Danubian bronze cultures were destroyed around 2000BCE. Who were they and what happened to them?
Around this same time (2000BCE) the bronze-using "Terramare" people appear in northern Italy from the north, but do not penetrate any further than the Po valley. This is the first attestation of bronze in Italy, which up to now had remained neolithic. Do you have evidence for your assertions of EBA penetrations into the western Mediterranean in the 3rd millennium? I haven't found any reference to this. Further west in Spain, where there is evidence (El Argar) of gold, silver and bronze metallurgy from the early 2nd millennium (only), the trading links appear to have been with the Levant and Egypt.
Meanwhile, back in the Aegean, we have the Ahhiyawa making a nuisance of themselves. I believe the Ahhiyawa are the Achaeans. I also believe that prior to their invasion(s) of Mycenean Greece (early 14th century) that they were not Greek-speaking, or we would have to postulate a movement from Greece to Anatolia. I originally thought they were Anatolians, but it would make more sense if they were Trojans. Otherwise, why would the Achaeans mount a massive expedition against Troy, which was now in ruins following a (probable) earthquake around 1300, when their own cities must have been coming under pressure from the Dorians? If they thought that Ilias was their stolen patrimony, it would make more sense. Either way, Ilias was finally destroyed, first by earthquake around 1300BCE and finally by Achilles and co. But neither side really won, and in the general ensuing mayhem of the Sea Peoples, a group of Trojans sailed off into the west to find a new home.
In Italy, they found the iron-using Villanovans moving southwards from their earlier location(s) north of the Alps. Were they linguistic cousins? Who knows, but they appear to have fused, although it seems to have taken a long time for the (now) Etruscans to establish themselves in central Italy (they reached Bologna only in the early 6th century). Along the way, they had met and been deeply influenced by the Phoenicians (Dido and Aeneas?).
The Phoenicians had been trading throughout the Mediterranean since at least the beginning of the 2nd millennium, if not earlier. Early in the first millennium, they had started establishing colonies, first at Utica (Tunisia), perhaps in the 10th century, and later of course Carthage (814BCE). From Carthage, the Phoenicians extended their control until it included western Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, and coastal Spain and North Africa. From the mid-8th century Greeks also started establishing colonies, principally in Italy (Magna Graecia). I have not found any reference to colonies in the western Mediterranean before this, so I'd like to know where you got your ideas from.
Pelagians in Italy? Perhaps Tyrrhenian/Etruscan contacts with the Pelasgians in the Sea Peoples, in conjunction with the Sicels' apparent involvement, produced this idea of Pelasgians in Italy. Or the Roman habit of appropriating wholesale Greek antiquity.
As for the Rhaetians, they were either what Livy said, Etruscan outposts cut off by the Celts, or the remnants of (my postulated) European Trojans. In any case, they have absolutely nothing to do with Rhaeto-Romance. The "Rhaeto-" is purely a geographic term like "Gallo-Romance.
Oscans? Where do they fit in? Are you talking about the same Oscans who left graffiti on the walls of Pompeii? If so, these are IE Italic speakers, who appear to have arrived in Italy via the Adriatic, and have been influenced by the Thraco-Cimmerian culture of the Balkans. In other words, latecomers to the scene.
Conclusion
Herodotos, on coming across the non-Greek speaking relic peoples of Thrace and Lemnos, and seeing their extreme antiquity (Poliochni was perhaps 3000 years old in his time), saw them as autochthonous. As the Greeks also saw themselves as autochthonous (except the Dorians), he assumed that these people must be the last remnants of the Pelasgians who had been "Hellenised" by Danaos and Kadmos, and further that their language must have been the original language of the Pelasgians.
So, nothing in the posts or my rummaging around, has changed my opinion that the Pelasgians were the original proto-Greeks and nothing more. The Lemnian and Thracian "Pelasgians" were the remnants of the "Troies/Tyrsenoi/Tyrrhenoi". Although powerful and wealthy for a while, they had not penetrated very far into the Aegean, not as far as the Peloponnese or Crete, and certainly not into the western Mediterranean before their power was (forever) destroyed with the destruction of Troy II about 2250BCE.
Cheers
Dennis