"dennis poulter" wrote:
> 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.
Sounds good to me. If the Tyrsenoi-Trojans later moved to Italy, this
is the myth that could underly Virgil's Aenead...
> 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.
If this is true, then the North-East Anatolian culture that extended
from Beycultestan to Troy, through the northern Aegean and across the
Bosphrous through Thrace to the Vardar-gap would have been the Tyrsenoi.
Crete and the Cyclades would have had a language of an earlier
neolithic peoples, coming west from Catal Huyuk and Halicar, linked to
the Aegean prepottery neolithic and the eventual Sesklo culture. Since
there is a complete cultural continuity there, it would indicate that
Minoan (Etocretian) could have been (by Glen's terminology) another
language in the Hattic-Hurro-U family. No wonder it is proving so
opaque to translation.
> 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?
Yes they could have been Trojans that were invaded.
> 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".
It is usually the case that the invaders have been identified as
incoming Anatolian Indo-Europeans. There is a wave of destruction
spreading south and east of Troy (Tortan and Beycultestan were also
burned). More interestingly this wave of destruction seems to have
started on the Pontic steppe area of the Ochre Grave culture, with
related Usatova warrior chieftains pushing down through Tripolyte B/C
cultures of the Western Ukraine, burning the Gumelnitza sites of
Rumania and sites of the Veselinovc culture on the Black Sea coast of
Bulgaria before crossing into the Bosphorus.
This movement is associated with a major movement of refugees from the
south west of Anatolia across the Aegean and into Greece. The
direction of the movement seems to have been out of Caria, through
Miletus and Samos, through the Cyclades (Naxos and Melos) to Lefkani in
Eoboia, through Attica as far as Megara, through the Troizen to
Peloponessian Achaea, to Lerna in Argos and into Sparta. This would
have been the movement of -nd-, -ss-, -tt- peoples (possibly Caucasian
relations of the Khattic) into Greece. The movement may not have led
to any other major linguistic changes, as they may have been distant
linguistic relatives of the neolithic indigenes of the area (See Times
Atlas of World History - the Early Mediterranean World 3000-1200 BCE).
These are the Carians/Leleges of Thomson.
> 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.
This wave seems to have originated from the Capadocian region and been
associated with the expansion of the Kaneshan kingdom of Anitta the
King. Two generations later (after Anitta's shorlived kingdom had
collapsed) it was the expansion of the Hittite Old Kingdom under
Labarnas that pushed the Azarwan Kingdom from the East. This 1900 BCE
wave seems to have occurred at the same time as the arrival of the
Greeks, settling first at Dimini in Thessaly, pushed southwards by the
massive expansion of the Thraco-Cimmerian cultures in the Balkans.
Whether they were Luwians, or Pelasgians who moved into Greece as the
pre-cursors of the Helenes is questionable. I tend to feel they were
Pelasgians (speaking Etruscan) rather than Lewians (speaking Anatolian
IE).
> 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?
This was due to a major push from the Ukrainian Steppes of the cultures
that eventually were recognised as Thraco-Cimmerian. It led to the
push of the Greeks south (1900 BCE) and across the steppe in the
oposite direction, of the first wave of the Indo-Iranians south through
Transoxania circa 1800-1600 BCE). The Oxus culture of fortified quala
settlements surrounded by Kurgan nomadic cultures showed what was going
on. Direct evidence with steppe sharmanism has been found in the
religious use of halucenagenic substances (the origin of the Veddic
soma and the Iranian haoma, used in temples practicing fire worship).
> 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.
This could be the appearance of Illyrian Venetics into the area.
Certainly the area settled is also the same area into which Venetics
were eventually found, and there are clear Yugoslavian connections in
the Terremare cultures.
>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.
There was clear evidence of an independent Metalurgical province from
3,500 BCE to 2,500 BCE in southern Spain. This school shows enough
unique features to appear to have been completely independent of the
earlier Chacolithic of the Balkans (Gambutas's Old Europe) or Anatolia.
This metalurgical culture had two centres of disribution. One El
Argar on the East Coast (Possibly Iberian) and the second to the south
west, in the area that later was to emerge as Tartessos/Tarshish (note
the -ss- elemt again!). There appears to have been no Early Bronze Age
movements into this area. In fact the movement seems to have been out
of the area.
Here we have the vexed question of the origin of the Bell Beakers.
Various origins have been put forward for the origins of this culture.
Some claim west Central Europe and argue that this was the first spread
of Celto-Ligurians. Others show that chronologically beakers were
first found in Spain and argue that Ibero-Hispanics introduced
metalwork north and east of the Pyranees. In the region of the Rhine
to the Elbe they fused with IE Battle-axe cultures and moved forwards
into the Netherlands and across the North Sea into Britain.
More recently, following Renfrew's systems archaeology, they have been
seen as an element that is found in a number of cultures, indicative of
a greater degree of social stratification, and the presence of beer and
mead drinking local aristocracies. Certainly everywhere Bell Beakers
were found, pollen analysis shows an increase in barley and hop growing.
> 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.
There is a third explanation here Denis. The Earthquake of 1300 may
have been associated with an incursion of Thraco-Phrygians across the
Dardanelles. This would have cut the old trade route from the Aegean
into the Caucasas (as told by the story of the Argonauts). Certainly
if one looks at the allies of the "Trojans" in the Illiad, Thracians,
Myrsi and other people associated with Phrgians are conspicuously
measured. Paris/Alexander was originally expelled from his kingdom and
came to his Achaian relatives in the house of Atreus seeking help to
recover Troy, before he absconded with Helen. It is interesting that
an Alaksandrush has been found mentioned as a troublemaker in the
Hittite anals of Tudhalias IV, just before the incursion of the Peoples
of the Sea, and the collpase of the Hittite Empire.
> 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?).
Iron using Villanovans of the early 1100-1000 BCE wave are closely
associated with the Urn Field cultures of Central Europe. Although the
spread of Villanova ware coincides with the later Etruscan culture,
(and some have seen them as Etruscan speakers), I suspect that they
were Italics. There was certainly a movement from the Urnfield areas
down the spine of Italy, with Sicels pushing the aboriginal Sicans into
western Sicily by about 1000 BCE. Serivatives of the Po Terramarre
cultures seem to have been pushed south and confined to the eastern
"heel" of Italy, in which later Illyrian languages were also found.
> The Phoenicians had been trading throughout the Mediterranean since
at least the beginning of the 2nd millennium, if not earlier.
Hmm.. news to me. Phoenicians are only found from about 1,000 BCE.
Before that they were confined to the Gubla(Byblos)-Egypt run by the
thalassocracies of the Minoans and Mycenaeans.
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.
The story of Dido and Aeneas suggests that the tale preserved in
Herodotus that the Eruscans left Lydia in the 8th century, not earlier,
is possibly true. There is evidence of an intrusive element in Tuscany
(over the top of the Villanovan culture) from 800 BCE. Certainly
Etruscans ruled over Italics in Rome, they may have ruled over Italics
in Tuscany too.
> 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.
It was the Classical Greeks who reported Pelasgians in Magna Grecia,
not the Romans, who copied what they had read from Greek authors.
> 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.
Possibly. Or maybe remnant Villanovan Italics, or maybe
Celto-Ligurians (Some have found connections between Ligurian and
Rhaetic), or maybe Venetics related to Illyrians. Or maybe a mixture
of all of the above. Who can now say? As mountainous areas tend to be
places of survival of ancient languages, they may even have been
remnants of neolithic T group Vasco-Caucasians?
> 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.
Dennis wrote that the Tyrsenoi/Pelasgians had not penetrated far into
the Aegean. If Thomson is right then they were in fact the Hellenic
substratum in the northern Aegean. Certainly the Athenian Pelasgians
when they were expelled by the Ionian Hellenes, returned to Lemnos!
Hope this helps
John