Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Princeton University Press (1994), Paperback, 276 pages
Description
When did the Indo-Europeans enter the lands that they occupied during historical times? And, more specifically, when did the Greeks come to Greece? Robert Drews brings together the evidence--historical, linguistic, and archaeological--to tackle these important questions.
User reviews
LibraryThing member AndreasJ
The subtitle is important: much of the book is about the Hittites and about the Aryan (ie. Indo-Iranian) superstrate in Mitanni and the Levant, which one might not expect in a book about the "coming of the Greeks".
That the successes of the early Hittites and of the Near-Eastern Aryans was due to
Am I convinced? Well, I'm not really qualified to have much of an opinion, but his arguments for putting the arrival of the Greek language to Greece ca 1600 BC seem strong, and if that's conceded, it'd be downright odd if it wasn't related to the appearance, at that very time, of the chariot in Greece. But he doesn't offer much in the way to support that Indo-European went chariot-borne to the rest of Europe, and if one doesn't affirm that, the connection with the Armenian homeland hypothesis is much weakened: one could equally put the PIE homeland back north of the Caucasus, and assume merely that Anatolian and Graeco-Aryan had gone south in time to be part of the chariot revolution, while the other European branches went west in a more "traditional" manner.
That the successes of the early Hittites and of the Near-Eastern Aryans was due to
Show More
them being early experts on chariot warfare is a common idea; the same has been suggested of the Aryan conquest of India. Drews's big idea here is that the same accounts for the "coming of the Greeks", ie. the Indo-Europeanization of Greece, and, perhaps, that of Europe beyond. He also accepts Ivanov and Gamkrelidze's placing of the PIE homeland in Armenia, which would put it right around the place of origin of the chariot.Am I convinced? Well, I'm not really qualified to have much of an opinion, but his arguments for putting the arrival of the Greek language to Greece ca 1600 BC seem strong, and if that's conceded, it'd be downright odd if it wasn't related to the appearance, at that very time, of the chariot in Greece. But he doesn't offer much in the way to support that Indo-European went chariot-borne to the rest of Europe, and if one doesn't affirm that, the connection with the Armenian homeland hypothesis is much weakened: one could equally put the PIE homeland back north of the Caucasus, and assume merely that Anatolian and Graeco-Aryan had gone south in time to be part of the chariot revolution, while the other European branches went west in a more "traditional" manner.
Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original publication date
1988
Physical description
276 p.; 5.43 x 0.71 inches
ISBN
0691029512 / 9780691029511