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Pelasgians
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Ancient Greek writers used the name "Pelasgians" (Gk. Pelasgo#237;, s. Pelasg#243;s) to refer to groups of people who preceded the Hellenes and still dwelt in several locations in mainland Greece, Crete, and other regions of the Aegean, as neighbors of the Hellenes, into the 5th century. The Greek references to Pelasgians are unanimously in agreement that they spoke a language or dialect that was different enough from Greek dialects so as not to be intelligible to Hellenes. Whether Pelasgian was pre-Indo-European or not, and the extent to which Pelasgian was a single language are modern disputes that are colored by contemporary nationalist issues. Scholars have since come to use the term "Pelasgian", somewhat indiscriminately, to indicate all the autochthonous inhabitants of these lands before the arrival of the Greeks, and in recent times some may apply "Pelasgian" to the indigenous, pre-Indo-European peoples of Anatolia as well.
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelasgians[/url]
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The Iron Age Background to the Formation of the Phrygian State
OSCAR WHITE MUSCARELLA
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10028
Recent excavations at Gordion have revealed below the destroyed Phrygian city (ca. 700 B.C.) an early Iron Age settlement with handmade coarse ware, which is followed by a settlement that contains the earliest Phrygian pottery forms. The handmade ware relates to that from Troy and the Balkans and is considered firm evidence of the historically recorded migration of the Brygians into Anatolia. A suggested chronology for the two early settlements is posited, based primarily on information from Troy. This chronology is then examined together with the information derived from preserved ancient traditions. A hypothesis is generated regarding the chronology of the establishment of kingship in Phrygia. This event is posited to have occurred in the late ninth century B.C., and the historical King Midas is considered to have been the fourth Phrygian king to reign.
From the modern scholarly perspective, the Anatolian Iron Age is said to begin with the destruction and collapse of the Hittite and neighboring states, in the years around 1200-1180 B.C., a chronology derived from texts from Bo#287;azk#246;y, Ugarit, Meskene-Emar, and Egypt (for a summary of the evidence see Hoffner 1992; Yon 1992; Caubet 1992; also Astour 1965; Freu 1988; Otten 19761977; 1983). Destructions of the Mycenaean centers occurred about the same time--and may have resulted from some of the same causes. In both regions thereafter writing ceased to exist until the eighth century B.C., giving rise to the alternative term "Dark Age" for the period (e.g., Ak*rgal 1983; Muscarella 1988 : 417). But whereas in the Aegean during the postdestruction centuries, artifacts, burials, and architecture are archaeologically documented, indicating the continuous presence of a population, material remains are lacking in most areas of Anatolia. Such a condition signifies for Anatolia a darker Dark Age and a less comprehensible cultural and historical situation than that which existed in the west.
Burned or abandoned settlements have been recorded at practically every Late Bronze Age site excavated in central, southern, and eastern Anatolia ( Ak*rgal 1983 : 75-78; Bittel 1976-1977 : 39-43, 48-49; 1983: 26-28, 30-35, 37-39; Muscarella 1988 : 417-19; Drews 1993b : 8-11, fig. 1). The magnitude of the political and social disruption is indicated by the fact that not a single site is recognized to have been directly reoccupied; this process of resettlement did not begin in most cases until centuries later.1
The identity of the forces that destroyed the Hittite polity still remains unknown--although a number of candidates, e.g., the Sea Peoples (specifically named as the destroyers by Rameses III), Muski, Kashka, or alliances of these powers have been tendered and supported by various scholars. To date neither archaeology nor textual remains in fact furnish definite answers or even clues on this issue ( Ak*rgal 1983 : 72; Bittel 1983 : 27; Hoffner 1992 : 49; Drews 1993b : 48-61). While indeed texts from destruction levels at Bo#287;azk#246;y and Ugarit refer to military threats by land and sea against the Hittite and allied states, it is uncertain if one may attribute them specifically to the final destructions; and names of enemies for this time have not been recovered ( Astour 1965; Otten 1976-1977; 1983, Hoffner 1992). A text written in the eighth regnal year of the Egyptian pharaoh Rameses III, ca. 1180/1176 B.C., is both the last written reference to the Hittite state and a post
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