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

(Histories I, 57) reports, adopted the Greek language –
which, considering our view that Greek is a split from
Thraco-Phrygian under foreign influences, is only a small
step. The exact date of the migration of Pelasgians to Crete
as recorded in the literary sources and backed up by place,
divine, and personal names eludes us, but, at any rate it is
clear that these latter became fully Minoanized and, like
their fellow Cretans, used a Luwian dialect as their first
language and a Semitic one for religious and administrative
purposes in order to keep up with the current international
standards. At the time of their migration to the
Levant and settling down in the Philistine pentapolis, the
Pelasgians of Crete were in close contact with their kinsmen
of western Anatolia, both producing Late Helladic
IIIC1b pottery – as we have seen, the hallmark of the settlement
of Sea Peoples in the Levant. This may be a sign
of their ethnic coherence, though it must be admitted that
the same material culture is shared with the Mycenaean
Greeks. It goes without saying that the Pelasgians during
their colonization of the Philistine pentapolis mixed with
the local population and went over to the local Semitic dialect
– with which the Cretan branch was already familiar
anyway.
Notwithstanding the fact that the Teresh and Peleset
are explicitly distinguished in one Egyptian text, it seems
highly attractive to consider the related ethnonyms of the
Tyrrhenians and Pelasgians from Greek literary sources, on
the analogy of Akhaians and Danaoi being alternative
means to refer to the Mycenaean Greeks, as competing
forms of address of one and the same population group. 604
Under the related name of Etruscans, the Tyrrhenians are
especially known to us as an archaeologically, epigraphically,
and linguistically traceable entity from c. 700 BC in
Italy. In all these aspects, however, their homeland can be
traced back to the Aegean region and western Anatolia. A
crown witness of their early history is formed by their language,
which, although basically of Luwian nature, shows
clear signs of a long early history with Greek – a linguistic
deep layer explicable only if the literary traditions of the
Tyrrhenians once living in Attica are correct. Mutatis mutandis,
the evidence of the Etruscan language also goes a
604 As we have stipulated in section 10 above, Herodotos, Histories
I, 57, distinguishes the language of the Pelasgians from that of
the Tyrrhenians, but, as we have seen in section 12, language is
not a defining “criterium” for Pelasgians, so that Greek-like and
Luwian-like speaking representatives may all belong to one and
the same ethnic entity.
118
long way in backing up our reconstruction of Pelasgians
originally speaking a Thraco-Phrygian vernacular, but going
over to Luwian with their migration from mainland
Greece to western Anatolia. A distinct branch of migrants
from western Anatolia to Italy is formed by the Trojan followers
of Aeneas. As these are likely originating from the
region south of mount Ida, where to all probability a Luwian
dialect was spoken, we are seemingly dealing here
with kinsmen of the Tyrrhenians. However, contrary to the
situation in Etruria, the Trojan followers of Aeneas, for
mere lack of numbers, did not plant their name, language,
culture, and customs in Latium, but were only held responsible
for the introduction of the cult of the Penates here.
Tjeker or Teukroi is an indication of the population of
the Troad, which alternatively can be addressed as Drdny
or Dardanians. To all probability this people spoke a
Thraco-Phrygian language, and hence they likely were
kinsmen of the pre-Greek population groups of Greece like
the Phrygians, Thracians, and Pelasgians. The latter inference
gains weight from the fact that the characteristic Trojan
grey ware is closely related to the so-called Minyan
ware of Middle Helladic Greece. At the end of the Late
Bronze Age, this grey ware, attested from the beginning of
Troy VI onwards, is distributed to Cyprus and the Levant,
thus enabling us to trace the epigraphically and historically
recorded trade contacts and migrations of the Teukroi
archaeologically. All in all, the Teukroi form a clear case
of a coherent ethnic entity according to our protohistoric
criteria.
The homeland of the Sherden is likely to be located in
Sardinia in the central Mediterranean, as we find statuemenhirs
in this region (in casu nearby Corsica) depicting
the same type of warriors as the Egyptian reliefs associated
with this ethnonym. The specificity of the outfit of the
Sardinian warriors seems to indicate a strong ethnic bond.
On the analogy of the fact that an Hittite princess betrothed
to Ramesses II is rebaptized with an Egyptian name on the
event of her marriage, 605 the Semitic and Egyptian names
for individual Sherden mentioned in the Akkadian cuneiform
and Egyptian texts bear testimony only of their acculturation
in their new homelands, and tell us nothing of the
Sardinian language, about which, for the lack of epichoric
texts or even glosses in Greek or Latin, we are totally ignorant.
605 Bryce 1998: 312; compare Greeks in Hellenistic Egypt taking
Egyptian names, on which see Goudriaan 1988.