Greeks translated Iliad from Illyrian sources.

Greeks translated Iliad from Illyrian sources while Illyrians must copied their texts from the Hittites.

How do we know whether Troy is mentioned in the Hittite texts?

As Troy is an important regional centre, located at the edge of the Hittite Empire, it seemed likely that there would be references to Troy in the Hittite archives. Wilusa, referred to in the Hittite tablets as the name of a kingdom in western Anatolia, was the ancient Anatolian name for Troy. However, the tablets themselves give no clear indication of where Wilusa was situated geographically and so the connection could not be proved.

However in recent years a series of breakthroughs and inspired detective work have enabled scholars to establish the Hittite geography and the location of Wilusa.

Seven years ago Professor David Hawkins of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London made an important breakthrough. In the Karabel pass which takes the road from Ephesus to Sardis over the Imolus range, not far from the modern Turkish city of Izmir, there's an ancient sculpture of an armed human figure cut into the rock.

However, no one knew what it meant, because until Hawkins' breakthrough, no-one had been able to decipher the inscription associated with the sculpture. Hawkins' translation identified the human figure as the king of a powerful western country called Mira.

The sculpture probably marked Mira's northern frontier with another kingdom called the Seha River Land. We now know that this kingdom extended north from the Karabel pass towards the northwest corner of Anatolia. When taken in conjunction with a letter, this new information helped scholars to locate the kingdom of Wilusa.

The letter was written by a king of the Seha River Land called Manapa-Tarhunda to his Hittite overlord. It describes how a notorious local trouble maker called Piyamaradu has attacked Wilusa. The Hittite king orders Manapa-Tarhunda to drive Piyamaradu out, but he fails dismally and the Hittites send out an expeditionary force to do the job themselves. Before reaching Wilusa, the Hittite force arrives first in the Seha River Land and from there march directly into Wilusa.

This leads to the inescapable conclusion that there is only one possible location for Wilusa - in the far Northwest corner of Turkey, the precise location of the site of Troy. It seems likely that Wilusa and Troy are one and the same.

Are the Greeks mentioned in the Hittite texts?

As well as a number of kingdoms that can be placed in Western Anatolia, the texts also make reference to the land of Ahhiyawa. Professor David Hawkins says that Ahhiyawa is associated with boats, islands and phrases like across the sea. The geography of western Anatolia as now established leaves no space on the Turkish mainland for the great kingdom of Ahhiyawa. Scholars have therefore suggested that Ahhiyawa is the Hittite name for Mycenaean Greece.

What can the Hittite texts and archaeology tell us about Troy and the story of the Trojan War?

In general the texts suggest that certain Mycenean kings and their allies became politically and militarily involved on the Western Anatolian coast during the Late Bronze Age. Moreover, there are six references to Wilusa in the Hittite texts a number of which suggest conflict over the site. In particular, a letter attributed to the Hittite King Hattusilli III, dated to around 1250 BC and written to the Mycenean or Ahhiyawan King, refers to former hostilities between the Hittites and the Ahhiyawans over Wilusa, which have now been discontinued in favour of peace.

"Now as we have come to an agreement on Wilusa over which we went to war" Tawagalawa Letter, c1250 BC.

This text, says Bryce, gives us a firm contemporary, historical reference for a war involving Mycenaean Greeks, Trojans and Hittites.

However, Prof. Hawkins urges caution. Although excavations at Troy have revealed three destruction horizons at around 1300, 1200 and 1100BC, it is not easy to identify these with any known historical events mentioned in the Hittite texts.

While it is difficult to identify any specific event in either the archaeological record or the Hittite archives that corresponds directly to Homer's Trojan War, we may now be closer than ever to establishing a historical context behind Homer's epic tale.

Are the Illyrians mentioned in the Hittite texts?

Homeric songs describe innumerous Balkan tribes who defended Wilusa (Ilios) from Ahhiyawa (Achaeans). Therefore Illyrians might have been named not according to their ethic makeup or linguistic background but according to the side they took in the Trojan War. The name Illyrus derived from Illyssus since in Greek and Latin languages -s- > -r- is a common phonetic mutation. Hence the name Illyrus (Wilusa) could mean the founder of Ilios. Various Greek gods in Iliad can be explained through the inherited Indo European words of Albanian (Illyrian) language. Therefore Greeks translated Iliad from Illyrian sources while Illyrians must copied their texts from the Hittites.

The most interesting discovery of the comparative etymology is the origin of Troy. Troy was built by Dardanus. According to Greeks Dardanus was the son of Zeus and Electra. He sailed from Samothrace (meaning 'the only Thrace') to Troas in a raft made of hides. He eventually married Batea, the daughter of King Teucer, who gave him land near Abydos. There he founded the city of Dardania (the later, ill-fated city of Troy).

Actually the name Dardanus derived from the Illyrian tribe called Dardanians. But who were Illyrians? What was their language like? Illyrians were those blue-eyed, fair-haired Aryans who entered India and named the land they discovered as the land of the Dardania.

Dards, Dardis, and Dardic

Greek and Roman References

In a well-known and much repeated story, Herodotus (4th century B.C.) mentions a war-like people on the frontier of India, near to whom are found gold-digging ants. Herodotus provides the name Dadikai for one of the groups living on India's frontier, which was then the seventh satrapy of the Achaemenian empire. Writing much later, Strabo (64 B.C. to A.D. 23) and Pliny (A.D. 23 to A.D. 79) repeat Herodotus' story and name the war-like people Dardae. Alexander, whose travels provide much of the data for classical geography of India, apparently did not meet any Dard people, but he did go to a place called Daedala. Curtius reports Alexander fought against people called Assakenoi in Daedala. Tucci assumes the Assakenoi were a Scythican tribe whose name derives from the word for horse (Tucci 1977:29). Herodotus' Dadikai may be the Persian name for the darada given in the Puranic lists, which Strabo and Pliny applied to the war-like people whom they equated with Curtius' Assakenoi. Hence, Herodutus' original citation appears to have been derived from Puranic sources. Finally, Ptolemy gives us a map that shows the Indus River arising in the country of the daradrai (map in McCrindle 1885), a term that appears to be received from Sanskrit epic and Puranic sources.

Sanskrit Epic and Puranic References

These Sanskrit references to Daradas, although they cannot be assigned any historicity, indicate that the Darada were known to those familiar with such texts. Singh cites references in the Vayu, Brahmanda, Markandeya, Vamana, and Padma Puranas (Singh 1972). Daradas are also mentioned in the Brhatsamhita, and in Manu, where they are classified pejoratively as Mlecchas. Mahabharata refers to them as degraded Kshatriyas (XII 35, 17-8 in Singh 1972). Rather than a specific people, the term Dard may have been used to characterize a fierce people, residing in the northwest, outside the boundaries of civilization. Their land is near to the "Strirajaya", the Country of Women. These fantastic and vaguely defined regions and the people who lived in them belong as much to the mythic landscape of ancient India as to the historiographic. David White, in discussing the European, Chinese, and Indian traditions regarding these people, points out that "they are a negativity, a blank space on the fringes of the conceptual map of these traditions' self-centered universes" (White 1991:117).

Epigraphic References

Three inscriptions on rocks along the Indus and Gilgit Rivers in the southern reaches of the Karakoram provide the earliest epigraphic references to Dard kings. One is found on rocks where the present-day road between Gilgit and Skardu crosses the Gilgit River, over a bridge known as the Alam bridge, now called the Farhad bridge. The inscription is in poor Kharosthi, and Fussman has read "daradaraya", meaning "King of the Dards" (Fussman 1978:1-6). The second inscription is found at Chilas Terrace, near to Chilas village along the Indus River, south of the junction of the Gilgit River and the Indus River. It has been discussed by Dani (1983) and more recently by Hinuber (1989). It is in Brahmi script. Hinuber publishes a transliteration srir daranmaharajavaisrava, which he interprets as daran-maharaja "great king of the Dards" (1989:57-8). A third inscription is immediately below the Thalpan bridge over the Indus River on the Thalpan side of the bridge. It is also in Brahmi script. Hinuber publishes a transliteration of daratsu maharaja sri vaisravanasena ssatrudamanah, which he translates as "The glorious Vaisravanasena, the subduer of enemies, great King in the land of the Dards" (1989:59). Hinuber interprets these Brahmi inscriptions as referring to the same king Vaiaravanasena, and dates them to the 4th or 5th centuries A.D. He remarks that this king "is the second oldest king of the Dards known by name, preceded only by the daradaraya mentioned at Alam bridge in a Kharosthi inscription" (1989:59). These inscriptions appear to be the only known self-reference to a Dard people.

The origin of the name Dardanus

Root / lemma: der-, heavy basis derǝ-, drē-

Meaning: to cut, split, skin (*the tree)

German meaning: `schinden, die Haut abziehen, abspalten, spalten'

Comments:

Root / lemma: der-, heavy basis derǝ-, drē- : `to cut, split, skin (*the tree)' derived from Root / lemma: deru-, dō̆ru-, dr(e)u-, drou-; dreu̯ǝ- : drū- : `tree' Material: Old Indian dar- `break, make crack, split, burst ', present the light basis dárṣ̌i, adar, dárt, n-present the heavy basis dr̥ṇā́ti ` bursts, cracks', Opt. dr̥ṇīyā́t, Perf. dadā́ra, participle dr̥ṭa-, of the heavy basis dīrṇá-, Kaus. dā̆rayati, Intens. dardirat, dárdarti (compare av. darǝdar- `split'; čech. drdám, drdati `pluck, pick off, remove'), dardarīti `split up', dara-ḥ m., darī f. `hole in the earth, cave' (: gr. δορός `hose', lett. nuõdaras `dross of bast', ksl. razdorъ), dŕ̥ṭi-ḥ m. `bag, hose' (= gr. δάρσις, got. gataúrÞs, russ. dertь), darmán- m. ` smasher ' (: gr. δέρμα n.), next to which from the heavy basis dárīman- `destruction'; -dāri- `splitting' (= gr. δῆρις), dāra- m. `crack, col, gap, hole', dāraka- `ripping, splitting', darī- in dardarī-ti, darī-man- with ī for i = ǝ (compare Wackernagel Old Indian Gr. 1 20), barely after Persson Beitr. 779 of the i-basis; npers. Inf. dirīδan, darīδan, jüd.-pers. darīn-išn;

alb. (*dāras) dërrasë `board, plank (cut wood)', dërrmonj `destroy, break, exhaust, tire'. Dardani illyr. TN
N

ote: The name Dardani illyr. TN and [Latin transcription: Dōrieĩs] Greek: Δωριει̃ς, att. -ιη̃ς derive from the same root.

DARA

DARA (Dara, Ptol. vi. 8. § 4). 1. A small river of Carmania, at no great distance from the frontier of Persis. There can be little doubt that it is the same as the Dora of Marcian (Peripl. p. 21) and the Daras of Pliny (vi. 25. s. 28). Dr. Vincent conjectures (Voyage of Nearchus, vol.

1. p. 372) that it is the same as the Dara-bin or Derra-bin of modern charts.

2. A city in Parthia. [APAVARCTICENE]

3. A city in Mesopotamia. [DARAS] [V.]

DARDANI

DARDANI (Dardanoi), a tribe in the south-west of Moesia, and extending also over a part of Illyricum. (Strab. vii. p. 316; Ptol. iii. 9. § 2; Caes. Bell. Civ. iii. 4; Liv. xl. 57; Plin. iii. 29; Cic. p. Sest. 43) According to Strabo, they were a very wild and filthy race, living in caves under dunghills, but very fond of music. [L. S.] Dardani were a fierce fighting people recorded in the Egyptian annals as a separate group of the Sea People who came from that Illyrian part called Dardania. In Greece the Dardani people were called simply Doris, as the name dar-dar is a duplication of the name dar- 'tree, cut a tree'. Celtic people called the priestly class as Druids. So the name Dardani was part of the priestly caste among early Indo Europeans. After the migration of the Sea People to Asia Minor, the Hittite Empire seized to exist, hence the Hittite name Willussa (from Hattussa) became Troad from Darda, Dardic, Doris of Illyrian Greek origin. This is the reason why Troy had an older name Wilusa, and a new name Troad. Dor-is, Dar-dar people were the ruling Celtic caste of Indo Europeans who invaded Mycenae and plunged Greece into the Dark Ages. Illyria must have suffered a similar fate as Mycenae and Hattusa. So Illyrian Dardanians received their name Illyroi in Greek meaning 'the conquerors of Wilusa'.