The Pre-history of the Armenian People
In the middle of the 13th century B.C. Egyptian sources begin to refer to the so-called "Peoples of the Sea," who were troubling the Mediterranean coast. They apparently included some inhabitants of the shores of Asia Minor and, as many scholars suggest, Achaean Greeks ('kwsh, 'kywsh) (62).
The invasion of the Peoples of the Sea during the reign of Ramesses III (beginning of the 12th century B.C.) had the nature of a catastrophe. An inscription of this pharaoh states (63): "Not a single (country) remained standing before their right hand; beginning with Hatti, Qede (64), Carchemish, Arzawa (65), and Alasia (66), were destroyed. They pitched camp in the middle of Amurru (67) they wiped [59] out its people as though they (never) had existed. They ...moved on to Egypt. Their main support were the prst, chkr, shkrsh, dyny (?), and wsh. They laid hands on the countries to the ends of the earth, their hearts were full of hope and (they said): our plans will succeed." Among the tribes or nations mentioned here are dyny (a variant of dynyn), probably the Danai, i.e., the Achaean Greeks, and the prst--the Philistines, whom biblical tradition considered to have originated from the island of Crete (Caphtor) (68). Actually, their homeland could have been any of the various islands of the Aegean Sea or the coastlands of the mainland of Greece and Asia Minor. They might have been the Pelasgi of the Greek tradition. The shkrsh are called Shikulai in a text from Ugarit in Northern Syria, and it has long been suspected that they are identical with the Siculi, later known to classical tradition as the predecessors of the Greeks in Sicily. In the text the native land (or town) of the Shikulai is called Shikila. The other Peoples of the Sea are unidentified (*4).
As is clear from the Egyptian sources, the Peoples of the Sea destroyed the Hittite Empire and then moved, with women and children and a great number of carts, on land across Syria and Phoenicia to the south. At the same time their naval units, acting in conjunction with the Libyans, made raids on the shores of Palestine and Egypt. Thus their confederation involved all the shores of the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea (69).
The Egyptian army of Ramesses III succeeded in halting the invasion. The Philistines and the chkr settled on the coast of Palestine (a name which preserves their tribal appellation to this day); the Danai(?)--dynyn--in all probability settled in Cilicia, on the southeastern coast of Asia Minor (70), while the fate of the others is unknown.
It is about this time (the first quarter of the 12th century B.C.) that Greek epic tradition dated the great seaborne campaign of the warriors from the city-states of mainland Greece against Troy (otherwise known as Ilion), in the northwestern corner of Asia Minor near the entrance to the Hellespont, today known as the Strait of the Dardanelles. After the destruction of Troy some of the Greeks were said to have settled in a number of places on the coast of Asia Minor, the island of Cyprus (71), etc.
The main role in the west of Asia Minor belonged to a group or confederation of Luwian states, called Arzawa, which at certain periods seems to have been a unified state and at others was divided into four or five autonomous parts: Hapalla, Mira, Arzawa proper, the Land of the river Seha, and Wilusa. The culture of these areas was akin to that of the Hittites; thus both the Luwian hieroglyphics and the cuneiform script were well known here and so was the Akkadan language. The exact localization of all these countries remains debatable (72). The relations of Arzawa with the Hittite Empire were sometimes hostile, but more often the states of Arzawa were allied to it as vassals.
The Hittites were only temporarily and partially successful in subjugating the coastal country of Lukka, which was evidently a mountainous area inhabited by the classical Lycians, although at that time they seem to have lived somewhat farther to the west of the later Lycia, opposite the island of Rhodes and up to the city of Miletus.
We know that the Hittites communicated with Ahhiawa proper through Arzawa and Lukka, perhaps by a sea route, except for the period when the contacts were via Milawatas, at that time belonging to Ahhiawa, and the periods of direct Ahhiawan attacks on Asia Minor. We know that Ahhiawa was somehow connected with the country of Lazpas, which perhaps is the island of Lesbos, and that, according to the archeological data, in the 14th and 13th centuries there were few real Achaean settlements in Asia Minor, except perhaps Miletus (76) (although certainly Troy was also strongly [61] Achaeanized in its culture). On the grounds of the archeological and written data it is not easy to imagine a state in Asia Minor at that time which could have approached the Hittite Empire in power. Note that it is very difficult to interpret the proper names which have come down to us from Ahhiawa as Greek ones (77).
Nevertheless it seems rather plausible that Ahhiawa is simply the Achaean Mycenaean kingdom in Greece, although this can by no means be considered as proven (78) Among the Mycenaeans, especially those who were active in Asia Minor, there would quite likely have been any number of non-Greeks (79).
Greek tradition considered Troy in Asia Minor to be the chief rival of Mycenae; this city was long ago identified with the modern site of Hissarlik which had certain archeologically confirmed ties with the Mycenaean culture (the culture of 'Troy VI' and 'Troy VIla'). It seems improbable that the Hittites should not have had contacts with the Mycenaeans, and it is completely improbable that that they did not have contacts with Troy. Moreover a contemporary Egyptian source actually names the Dardani (the edinonym of the inhabitants of Troy in Homer's poems; Egyptian drdny) among the allies of the Hittites in the battle of Kades against the forces of Pharaoh Ramesses Il (in the beginning of the 13th century B.C.) (80). And in Homer's Odyssey, among the allies of the Trojans are named the Keteioi (Cetii), who could hardly be anyone else but the Hittites (actually k is the common reflex of Hittite h in Anatolian languages of the 1st millennium B.C.). But nevertheless neither the name Troy (or Ilion, or Ilios--the most ancient form must have sounded like *Wilios), nor the names of the Dardanians have been identified in the Hittite sources. We can only presume that the Hittites called the kingdom of Ilion by some other name, which we have not yet identified. It is quite probable that this name was Wilusa (81), and that it corresponds to the drdny of the Egyptian texts, although this identification has been contested.
From a treaty with the Hittite king Muwattallis (82) (or Muttallis, c. 1306-1282 B.C..) we know the names of two kings of Wilusa-- Kukkunnis and his adopted (?) son, Alaksandus. The latter name can, with a great degree of probability, be identified with the Greek name Alexandros (83). According to the Homeric epic this was another name of the Trojan prince Paris, the one who was to blame for the Trojan war. In Greek legend Paris-Alexandros, when returning to Troy from Sparta, where he had abducted King Menelaus's wife Helen, was at one point the guest of king Motylos (84). One scholar (85) has suggested that this is a reminiscence of the name Muwattallis, who actually received Alaksandus when he fled from Wilusa (86). However there is no doubt that it is quite impossible to [62] identify Alaksandus, king of Wilusa, with Paris. The Homeric epic, which was created in the 8th century B.C., might have preserved certain typical genuine names of famous Trojans who had lived some four hundred years before, but by this time the memory of the true royal line of Troy could hardly have been preserved (except for the last king, the one with whom the Greeks fought, i.e., Priam), nor could the memory of the sequence of the kings have been preserved. In addition, according to the epic, Paris was never king at all, and he lived, not at the beginning of the 13th century, but at the end of the 13th century B.C.
At any rate there is no doubt that Troy was an important center ('Troy VI' according to archeological nomenclature, but 'Troy VIIa' after the destruction of the city as a result of an earthquake around 1350 B.C.). The city blocked the entrance to the Hellespont and the Black Sea and connected the Balkans and the Aegean Sea with northern Asia Minor. It certainly had close cultural, commercial, and perhaps political contacts with Achaean (Mycenaean) Greece. According to archeological data, 'Troy VI-VIIa' was a city of local Anatolian culture, but in the course of the 14th-13th centuries it was exposed to strong Mycenaean cultural influence. There can hardly be any doubt that Troy had some sort of ties, possibly political, with the Hittite Empire as well. 'Troy VIIa' was destroyed by a conflagration, apparently not long before 1200 B.C., i.e., roughly the time when, according to the Homeric epic, the Mycenaean Greeks captured and burned Troy-I1ion (87). For the Greeks the Trojan War was the central event of the heroic age, making a tremendous impression on the minds and imaginations of many generations, and we cannot doubt that such a war against Troy, led by a coalition of Achaean princes, the vassals and allies of the king of Mycenae, actually took place.
Until the beginning of the 13th century B.C. the relations of the Hittite Empire with Ahhiawa (Mycenae?) were peaceful and even friendly. Under Mursilis II and Muwattallis, Ahhiawa had a bridgehead on the coast of Asia Minor in Millawandas, or Milawatas (Miletus?), and although at one period there were misunderstandings between Ahhiawa and the Hittites regarding their zones of influence (88), this did little damage to their friendly relations. Thus Ahhiawa turned over to the Hittites the sea pirate Piamaratus (89), who had been plundering the western coasts of the peninsula. However in the reign of Tuthalias IV (c. 1250-1220 B.C.) the king of Ahhiawa himself apparently invaded the coast of Asia Minor. From the seriously damaged annals of Tuthalias IV (90) it may be inferred that the entire west of Asia Minor fell from Hittite control at that time. The annals inform us of three or four Hittite campaigns [63] toward the west-against the land of the river Seha, which was occupied by the king of Ahhiawa, against the same country, Arzawa, Wallarimma (in Lycia?), and others, and apparently two (?) campaigns against Assuwa. Assuwa was apparently a powerful kingdom since, according to the annals, the Hittites took 10,000 infantrymen and 600 charioteers captive there. It is possible that "Assuwa" is the prototype of our term "Asia" (91) Among the localities in Assuwa are named several places which undoubtedly lay in the . northern part of the Aegean coast of Asia Minor (92). Also mentioned are Wilusia (the kingdom of Ilion?) (93) and Taruisa, which may actually be the city of Troy (94).
According to the Homeric epic, a few decades before the Trojan War the Trojan king Priam had fought as an ally of the Phrygians (who had come from Europe into Asia Minor over the Hellespont) against the "Amazons" on the bank of the river Sangarius (modern Sakarya) (95). The later Greeks attributed the Hittite culture (cf. the role of the queen among the Hittites?) to the "Amazons" (96). But actually, in the 13th century B.C., the future territory of Phrygia was held by Assuwa.
According to Greek tradition, about this time or a little later (but still before the Trojan War) the Cretans (i.e., Achaean Cretans?) Sarpedon and Rhadamantys invaded Lycia and created a kingdom there (97). A Hittite source mentions similar raids of one Attarissias of Ahhiawa, who had penetrated deep into Asia Minor and also made attacks on Cyprus. The same source apparently mentions Muksas, i.e., Mopsus of the Greek legend (98) whose campaign into Asia Minor Greek tradition envisaged as taking place immetdiately after the Trojan War.
One, and perhaps the most important, episode of this movement of the Peoples of the Sea was the Trojan War. According to [64] tradition, all the city-states of Achaean Greece participated, as allies and vassals of Agamemnon, the king of Mycenae, who was avenging the Trojan prince Paris's insult to his brother Menelaus, the king of Sparta.
According to the Homeric epic, quite a number of kingdoms of western Asia Minor took part in the war on the side of the Trojans. Territorially these kingdoms correspond to regions belonging to the confederation of Arzawa of the Hittite sources, right up to Lycia in the southeast of the peninsula (99); in one place, as we have already mentioned, among the allies of Troy are mentioned the Cetii, who are probably the Hittites (100). According to the epic, several tribes from the European side of the Hellespont and Bosporus were also allied with the Trojans. This information of the epic is, however, most unreliable, and the ethnonyms must belong to the early 1st millennium B.C. (101)
The Greek tradition knew of different wanderings of the heroes of the war both on sea and on land immediately after the fall of Troy.
These tribes, as we shall see below, belonged linguistically, without any shadow of a doubt, to a new branch of the Indo-European family not yet in evidence in the East. This branch was the Thraco- Phrygian, to which, according to a plausible linguistic theory, the Proto-Armenian language also may have been close (see Chapter III).
If we are to believe Greek tradition, the infiltration of the fIrst Thraco-Phrygians from the Balkan peninsula into Asia Minor began before the Trojan War (probably across the Bosporus). But after the fall of Troy their invasion became so massive that they expelled many earlier inhabitants of Asia Minor from their homes. The Hittite Empire fell about the end of the first decade of the 12th century B.C., probably under pressure from the vanguard groups of the Thraco-Phrygian tribes, and under conditions of [65] disorderly movements among the Anatolian peoples themselves at a time when Asia Minor was being raided by the Achaeans. It was, at least in part, the tribes of Asia Minor, ousted from their places, whom we encounter in Syria as mentioned by Ramesses III's inscription. The Thraco-Phrygians, being an inland people, stayed in the hinterland and did not occupy the sea coast. It was the seafarers, the Achaeans, Cretans (102), and Pelasgi, that now streamed into the coastal city-states and kingdoms which formerly had also been protected by the strength of the Hittites. At the same time the movement of the tribes of the Balkan peninsula displaced the Greeks there, the last of whom to move were the Dorians; settled in the mountain regions of northern Greece, they had no part in the Mycenaean culture. The latter culture perished as a result of inner processes, but tribal incursions followed in the next two centuries. Greek colonies began to appear on the Aegean coast of western Asia Minor, beginning with the Aeolians in the north and then later the Ionians in the center.
At the beginning of the 12th century B.C. the Thraco-Phrygian tribes already controlled the center of Asia Minor, and by 1165 B.C. their vanguard military detachments reached the valley of the Upper Euphrates. These were apparently the tribes speaking Proto- Armenian. The Phrygians who came after them assimilated the local population in parts of Asia Minor, but did not form their own states, except perhaps in Phrygia Minor on the coast of the Sea of Marmara. Independent fragments of the Hittite Empire were preserved in the outlying Luwian districts, where they tried to continue the Hittite traditions.
The appearance in Asia Minor and the Armenian Highlands of the Thraco-Phrygian ethnos means that all the basic components from which the Armenian people were ultimately formed were now present.
At the end of the 12th century B.C. there is evidence of the existence of an important new kingdom (or tribe?) in the valley of the Choroh, namely, the Daiene (Urart. Diauhe). They are to be identified with the Taochi of the later Greek sources. The linguistic affinity of the Daiene is not completely clear; Melikishvilil (107) considers them to be a Hurrian tribe, and this is quite plausible for a number of reasons. But since the Daiene existed on the Choroh as early as the 12th century B.C., the Georgian-speaking tribes attested to farther to the west of this river in the 8th century B.C. must have arrived there before the Daiene emerged on the Choroh, i.e., in all probability as early as the beginning of the 12th century B.C.
From the 6th century on the tribe of the Moschi, usually thought to have been Georgian-speaking (108), is in evidence in Pontus. Their name perhaps bears witness to the tribe's ancient contacts with the Phrygians (we shall speak about this in detail in the next chapter). It is possible also that the Moschi appeared here before the formation of the Daiene kingdom, if the term is not simply to be identified as another name for the Chalybes (cf. Chapter III).
Greek tradition has preserved a legend about the Achaean heroes sailing in the ship Argo to Colchis in quest of the Golden Fleece a generation before the Trojan War. The Georgian linguistic afftliation of the Colchi is probable (109). The legend of the Argonauts must have become popular in the period of Greek penetration to [67] the Black Sea, i.e., not earlier than the 8th-7th century B.C. It is much to be doubted whether the Colchis as such actually existed as early as the 13th century B.C., when the legend places the voyage of the Argo, but it definitely did exist in the 9th and 8th centuries B.C. And as Melikisvili has shown, at the time this term (in the broad sense) included not only the valley of the river Rioni, but also eastern Pontus and the valley of the river Choroh (110). However the penetration into Pontus of the Colchi, as well as various other small tribes (the Macroni, the Mosynoeci (111), the Bizeri, and perhaps the Moschi) (112), if they actually were Georgian-speaking, must be dated to a time after the destruction of the kingdom of the Daiene (Diauhe) in the valley of the river Choroh, i.e., after the second half of the 8th century B.C. (113)
Thus it can be regarded as proved that a movement of the Thraco- Phrygian tribes from the west to the east (from the Balkans to the Upper Euphrates) took place between the end of the 13th--beginning of the 12th centuries B.C. through the 10th or 8th centuries B.C. (114) But there is also a whole set of indications, albeit indirect, which seems to point to a countermovement of Georgian- speaking tribes into Colchis and Pontus during the course of the 12th (?) through the 8th centuries B.C. In any event by the period on which Greek sources throw light, i.e., the middle of the lst millennium B.C., the geographical and edinical map of Asia Minor had completely changed, and, in particular, the tribes and inhabited places in Pontus, etc., were completely different from those in the Hittite period (115).
Footnotes 62-115
Asterisked Footnotes
Bibliography