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

closely linked up with the given majority view, these invaders
are also considered non-Greek foreigners.
In order to decide between these conflicting views, it
may be of relevance to determine who were the inhabitants
of Greece before the arrival of the proto-Greeks. The most
serious attempt to tackle this question is formed by Jan
Best’s investigation into the origins of the cultural traits of
the Middle Helladic period, in casu Minyan ware, cist
graves with individual burials and apsidal houses. The
closest parallels for these three features he was able to
trace in the northern Balkans in the period antedating their
introduction into Greece. As this region in historical times
is inhabited by Thracian tribes, Best extrapolated that
bearers of the Middle Helladic culture in Greece were
kinsmen of the latter. 130 This conclusion could be backed
up by literary tradition, according to which, as first noted
by Stanley Casson, central Greece had once been inhabited
by Thracians. 131 Thus it is recorded that the Thracians
with Eumolpos and his son Ismaros were driven from
Eleusis by the Athenian Erekhtheus, and that they took
refuge at the court of the Thracian king Tegyrios in Boeotian
Tegyra. 132 Furthermore, the Thracian king Tereus is
of old situated at Daulis in Phokis, and the likewise Odrysian
royal name Sitalkas is recorded as an epiklesis of
Apollo at Delphi. 133 The presence of the Thracian tribe of
the Odrysians in Phokis is strikingly confirmed by evidence
from Linear B. On an inscribed stirrup jar from the
destruction layer of the “House of Kadmos” at Thebes,
dated c. 1350 BC, the ethnonym o-du-ru-wi-jo “Odrysian”
is recorded. As another inscribed stirrup jar was found in
Orkhomenos, it seems not unlikely to assume that the stirrup
jars from the “House of Kadmos”, which in fact are of
130 Best in Best & Yadin 1973; cf. Coles & Harding 1979: 132 f.
To the three given comparanda should be added the tumulus for
elite burials as attested for Vraca in Bulgaria during the Early
Bronze Age, i.e. either previous to or simultaneous with its introduction
in southern Greece, see Coles & Harding 1979: 136, Fig.
47. Note that the tumulus ultimately constitutes a North Pontic
steppe or Kurgan element, further represented by sherds of corded
ware as recorded for Armenokhori in eastern Macedonia, Eutresis
in Boeotia, and Agia Marina in Phokis at the end of the Early
Bronze Age, see Sakellariou 1980: 151.
131 Casson 1968: 102-3.
132 Pauly-Wissowa Realencyclopädie, s.v. Eumolpos.
133 Note in this connection that one of the harbors of Delphi,
Krisa, exemplifies a Thracian toponym originating from Proto-
Indo-European [= PIE] *krs- “black”, see Detschew 1976, s.v.
Krisos.
60
Cretan type and of which as many as 120 in sum have been
found, served export purposes for the at that time still predominantly
Minyan hinterland of Thebes. 134 Finally, the
Thracian nature of the ancient population of Phokis may be
further enhanced by the fact that the Thracian tribe of the
Abantes are recorded to have moved from their city Abai
in Phokis to Euboeia across the Euripos.
It is rightly stipulated by Casson that there is also evidence
of Phrygians among the earliest inhabitants of
Greece. Most famous in this respect is, of course, the case
of Pelops, after whom the Peloponnesos (= “island of
Pelops”) is named. In later times, the presence of the Phrygian
Pelops in southern Greece was no longer understood
and he was considered an immigrant from Anatolia – the
later habitat of the Phrygians. But the fact that the Phrygians
were originally at home in southern Greece is duly
indicated by scores of Phrygian place names (Azania,
Mideia, Mopsopia, Olympia, Phrikion, Phrixa, Phrixos,
Phrygia) and personal names (Adrastos, Akrisios, 135
Atreus, Azan, Azeus, Kelainos, Kharites, 136 Khlris, 137
Phorkys, Phrixos, Proitos) attested in the historical records.
In some instances, like a-da-ra-te-ja (= Greek Adrsteja)
or a-da-ra-ti-jo (= Greek Adrstijos), u-ru-pi-ja (= Greek
Olumpia), ke-ra-no (= Greek Kelainos), and mo-qo-so (=
Greek Mopsos) the ancient nature of these names can be
emphasized by their occurrence or of that of related forms
in Linear B. 138 With the Thracians and the Phrygians, we
have by no means exhausted the historical documentaries
on the earliest inhabitants of Greece. Yet another group
which figures prominently in the sources is that of the
Leleges, who Herodotos (Histories I, 171) identifies with
the Carians from the Cycladic islands. Their presence in
southern and central Greece may perhaps be reflected in
134 Woudhuizen 1989.
135 Brother of Proitos, see Sakellariou 1986: 133; cf. Akrisias, the
Phrygian name for Kronos according to a gloss by Hesykhios, see
Diakonoff & Neroznak 1985: 91.
136 Cult installed by Eteokles of Orkhomenos, see Pausanias,
Guide to Greece IX, 35, 1; cf. Old Phrygian agaritoi “ungracious
(D. sg.)” in G-02, see Brixhe & Lejeune 1984.
137 Wife of Neleus, descendant of the Minyan royal house of Orkhomenos,
see Pausanias, Guide to Greece IX, 36, 4 – 37, 1; cf. the
Phrygian gloss glouros “gold” (< PIE *g h lro- or *g h el-), see Haas
1966: 144, 209 and cf. Gamkrelizdge & Ivanov 1995: 618, from
which it follows that the personal name is of the same type as
Greek Khruseïs and English Goldy.
138 Woudhuizen 1993b.