Luwian Studies

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Luwian Studies is an independent, private, non-profit foundation based in Zurich , Switzerland . The sole purpose of the foundation is to research the cultures of the 2nd millennium BC. To promote in Asia Minor . The foundation supports archaeological, linguistic and scientific research in order to increase knowledge about the cultures of the Middle and Late Bronze Age in the Mediterranean .

Research subject

Political geography in Asia Minor around 1200 BC Chr.
Political geography in Asia Minor around 1200 BC Chr. (Source: Luwian Studies)

The term Luwian (German: "Luwisch") denotes the Luwian language and the hieroglyphic Luwian script , which was developed in the 2nd millennium BC. Was used in much of Asia Minor. In the context of Luwian Studies, however , "Luwisch" is a toponym that includes peoples of different ethnic origins and languages. It is an abstract umbrella term for the states and small kingdoms in western Asia Minor, most of which could not be ascribed to the neighboring Hittite civilization in the east or the Mycenaean culture in the west. The most famous political units in the region were Arzawa / Mira , Masa, Seha , Hapalla, Wilusa , and Lukka . The names of these countries often appear in documents found in Hattusa when the Hittite kings referred to their neighbors to the west.

The idea that in the 2nd millennium BC An independent civilization in western Asia Minor could have existed a century ago. In 1920, the Swiss Assyriologist Emil Forrer recognized the Luwian language in the documents that had been discovered during the first excavations in Hattuscha. He came to the conclusion "that the Luwians were a far larger people than the Hittites ... It is becoming more and more apparent that the culture of the Hatti empire was created in all parts by the Luwians and adopted by the Hittites". Helmuth Bossert , another pioneer of Anatolian archeology, put forward similar ideas ; he even describes the Luwians as a great power. The almost complete decipherment of the Luwian hieroglyphs led to a series of extensive investigations. Today there are various monographs on Arzawa, the Luwians and the Luwian hieroglyphic inscriptions. Two scientists concentrate almost exclusively on Luwian hieroglyphs in their work: John David Hawkins and Frederik Christiaan Woudhuizen .

The Middle and Late Bronze Age in western Asia Minor has so far been little researched archaeologically. Only two large-scale excavations of indigenous Anatolian settlements, Troy and Beycesultan , have been published in a Western language. About twenty smaller-scale excavations under Turkish direction have been published in Turkish . Therefore, the results of these investigations have so far hardly been included in the overall presentation of the Aegean early history. Luwian Studies would like to help close this large research gap. Under the patronage of the Foundation, a catalog of over 340 extensive settlement sites from the Middle and Late Bronze Ages was compiled, based on information already available in academic and predominantly Turkish literature.

Board of Trustees

Luwian Studies was founded by the Swiss geoarchaeologist Eberhard Zangger . He is also President of the Board of Trustees , which also includes Ivo Hajnal , Jorrit Kelder , Matthias Oertle and Jeffrey Spier .

Results

Luwian hieroglyphic inscription in chamber 2 of the south castle of Hattuša
Luwian hieroglyphic inscription in chamber 2 of the south castle of Hattuša (source: Luwian Studies)

Under the patronage of Luwian Studies, a catalog was created with a total of 340 important settlement sites from the 2nd millennium BC. This is accessible via the foundation's website.

The book by Zangger's Die Luwische Kultur - The Missing Element in the Aegean Bronze Age from 2016 summarizes the basic arguments and is published in English, German and Turkish. The research supported by Luwian Studies sheds new light on the collapse of the Bronze Age in the eastern Mediterranean and the still open question of the origin of the sea peoples.

In December 2017, the so-called Beyköy-2 inscription was published. This is a drawing of a Luwian hieroglyphic inscription that the British Hittite scientist Oliver Robert Gurney first showed in July 1989 at the Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale in Ghent . If this inscription proves to be authentic, it provides an account of the events at the end of the Bronze Age shortly after the fall of the Hittite Empire. However, doubts about the authenticity of the inscription are justified, as Zangger himself admitted.

Another result of the research supported by the foundation is the interpretation of the Hittite rock sanctuary Yazılıkaya as a facility for maintaining a lunisolar calendar .

Selection of supported projects

  • Archaeological Landscapes of the Luwian Kingdoms of Tarhuntašša and Tabal on the Konya Plain by Christoph Bachhuber and Michele Massa
  • An Important Bronze Age Settlement in Inland Western Anatolia: Intensive Survey Project of Tavşanlı Höyük and its Surroundings by Erkan Fidan and Murat Türktek
  • In Search of the Missing Link: Writing in Western Anatolia during the Bronze Age by Willemijn Waal
  • The Relationship between Hieroglyphic and Cuneiform Luwian: Reflections on the Origins of Anatolian Hieroglyphs by Francis Breyer
  • East Aegean / western Anatolia and the Role of Aššuwa and Arzawa in Late Bronze Age Cultural Interaction by Antonis Kourkoulakos

Remarks

  1. ^ Emil Forrer in a letter to his doctoral supervisor Eduard Meyer , written on August 20, 1920. Based on: Oberheid 2007. Emil O. Forrer and the beginnings of Hittitology. De Gruyter. 102
  2. ↑ Helmuth Bossert, 1946, p. IV: Asia . Istanbul University Literary Faculty 323.
  3. ↑ Massimiliano Marazzi: Il geroglifico anatolico: problemi di analisi e Prospettive di ricerca . In: Herder (ed.): Biblioteca di ricerche linguistiche e filologiche . tape 24 . Dipartimento di studi glottoantropologici, Università "La sapienza", Rome 1990, ISBN 88-85134-23-8 .
  4. ^ Payne, Annick .: Hieroglyphic Luwian: an introduction with original texts . In: Subsidia et instrumenta linguarum Orientis . 2nd, revised edition. tape 2 . Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2010, ISBN 978-3-447-06109-4 .
  5. ↑ Mouton, Alice., Rutherford, Ian., Yakubovich, Ilya S .: Luwian identities: culture, language and religion between Anatolia and the Aegean . Brill, Boston 2013, ISBN 978-90-04-25341-4 .
  6. ^ Melchert, H. Craig (Harold Craig), 1945-: The Luwians . Brill, Boston 2003, ISBN 1-4175-3661-6 .
  7. ↑ Yakubovich, Ilya S .: Sociolinguistics of the Luvian language . Brill, Leiden 2010, ISBN 978-90-04-17791-8 .
  8. ^ Rose, Charles Brian .: The archeology of Greek and Roman Troy . Cambridge University Press, 2014, ISBN 978-1-107-50594-0 .
  9. ↑ James Mellaart, Ann Murray: Beycesultan III pt. 1 . In: Late Bronze Age architecture, Occasional Publication of the British Institute of Archeology at Ankara . 1995, ISBN 1-898249-06-7 .
  10. ↑ Eberhard Zangger, et al .: The Luwier: Link between Mycenaeans and Hittites . In: Messages from the Heinrich Schliemann Museum Ankershagen . No. 10/11 . Heinrich Schliemann Museum, Ankershagen 2016, ISBN 978-3-00-059166-2 , p. 53-89 .
  11. ↑ Eberhard Zangger: The Luwian culture - The missing element in the Aegean Bronze Age . Yayinlari, Istanbul 2016, ISBN 978-6-05968021-9 ( online [accessed May 6, 2019] preview and PDF for download).
  12. ^ Eberhard Zangger, Fred Woudhuizen: Rediscovered Luwian Hieroglyphic Inscriptions from Western Asia Minor . In: Jan Stronk, Maarten de Weerd (ed.): TALANTA. Proceedings of the Dutch Archaeological and Historical Society . tape 50 (2018) . Wolters-Noordhoff, 2017, ISSN  0165-2486 , p. 9–56 (English, digitized version [PDF; 5.0 MB ; accessed on May 6, 2019]).
  13. ^ Owen Jarus: famed-archaeologist-created-fakes. Live Science, March 12, 2018, accessed March 1, 2020 .
  14. ↑ Colin Barras: Yazılıkaya: A 3000-year-old Hittite mystery may finally be solved. In: New Scientist. June 19, 2019, accessed June 28, 2019 .
  15. ↑ Cornelia Eisenach: The secret of the rocks of Yazilikaya. In: Higgs. Accessed June 28, 2019 (German).

Web links