The Ethnicity of the Sea Peoples - RePub - Erasmus Universiteit ...

13. TEUKROI, AKAMAS, AND TROJAN GREY WARE
The Tjeker of the Egyptian sources, who are mentioned
among the Sea Peoples attacking Egypt in the fifth and
eighth year of Ramesses III (= 1179 and 1176 BC), and are
later recorded in the Wen Amon story (1076-1074 BC) as
inhabitants of the region of Dor in the Levant, have been
identified with the Teukroi of Greek literary tradition by
Lauth in 1867. 500 This identification was subsequently
taken over by François Chabas, 501 and after him, the majority
of the authors on the topic. 502 As a minority view,
however, it has been proposed by H.R. Hall to identify the
Tjeker rather with the Sikeloi of Greek literary tradition. 503
The latter view received new impetus by Elmar Edel’s argument
that Egyptian [t] as a rule corresponds with the
Hebrew samekh. 504 However, a serious disadvantage of
the latter line of approach is that the Shekelesh would remain
without proper identification. Moreover, the equation
of Tjeker with the Teukroi receives further emphasis from
archaeological as well as historical evidence (see below),
whereas the one with the Sikeloi does not, for which reason
in the following we will stick to the majority view.
The Teukroi and their heros eponym Teukros are
definitely at home in the Troad. According to Herodotos,
remnants of the ancient Teukroi are, under the name of
Gergithai, still traceable for the Troad at the beginning of
the 5th century BC. 505 A problem is posed, however, by
the fact that the Teukroi are not straightforwardly associated
with the Troad in our Late Bronze Age sources.
Thus, 506 in the Egyptian list of the Hittite allies at the battle
of Kadesh (1274 BC) troops from the region of the
Troad are referred to as Drdny “Dardanians”. It is, of
500 Wainwright 1961: 75.
501 Chabas 1872: 296.
502 Hall 1901-2: 184; von Lichtenberg 1911: 18; Wainwright
1961: 75; Barnett 1969: 19; Albright 1975: 508; Strobel 1976: 54;
Mégalomitis 1991: 811; Redford 1992: 252; cf. Gardiner 1947:
199-200 (undecided).
503 Hall 1922: 301; cf. Gardiner 1947: 199-200 (undecided).
504 Edel 1984; cf. Lehmann 1985: 34-5 (critical, but undecided).
Edel’s view is now backed up by Drews 2000: 178-80, who herewith
withdraws his earlier (1993: 52, note 13) objection.
505 Herodotos, Histories V, 122; VII, 43.
506 Barnett 1969: 4.
107
course, possible that, like in the case of the Mycenaean
Greeks being called Tanayu “Danaoi” by the Egyptians but
A®®iyawa “Akhaians” by the Hittites, the Egyptians preferred
a different ethnonym from the Hittites, but because
of the silence in the Hittite sources on this point we do not
know for sure. What the Hittite sources do tell us is that in
the reign of the Hittite great king Muwatallis II (1295-1271
BC) the region of Wilusa (= Greek Ilion) is reigned by a
certain Alaksandus, whose name recalls the Homeric Alexandros
alias Paris. 507 Now, in Herodotos’ version of the
story of the abduction of Helena, according to which an
unfavorable wind brings Paris and his company to Egypt,
Paris is called of Teukrian birth. 508 In this manner, then, a
direct link between Alaksandus of Wilusa from the Hittite
sources and the Teukroi from the Greek ones can be established.
As far as the ultimate origins of the Teukroi are concerned,
there are three different versions of myth. In the
first place, we have the autochthonous version according to
which the heros eponym Teukros is the son of the rivergod
Skamandros and a nymph of mount Ida; in this version
his daughter Bateia married with Dardanos, the heros eponym
of the Dardanians – as we have seen the Egyptian denomination
of the inhabitants of the Troad. 509 Secondly,
we have the Cretan version which holds that the Teukroi
were colonists from Crete who settled in Hamaxitos510 and
introduced the cult of the goddess Kybele. 511 In archaeological
terms, this version of the myth might be linked up
with the radiation of Minoan influence to nearby
Samothrace as deducible from the discovery of Cretan hieroglyphic
sealings of the “libation formula”-type, dated to
the end of Middle Minoan II or to Middle Minoan III, 512
and even to Troy itself in form of Linear A inscriptions
507 Gurney 1990: 46.
508 Herodotos, Histories II, 114.
509 Apollodoros, Library III, 12, 1; Diodoros of Sicily, Library of
History IV, 75, 1; cf. Strobel 1976: 50.
510 Strabo, Geography XIII, 1, 48; Strobel 1976: 50-1.
511 Vergilius, Aeneid III, 104 ff.; Vürtheim 1913: 4-8; Strobel
1976: 50.
512 Olivier & Godart 1996: 30 (# 135-7); cf. Matsas 1991: 168.