Tyrsener

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The Tyrsenians even Tyrrhenians called ( ancient Greek Attic : Τυρρηνοί Tyrrhenoi , ionic : Τυρσηνοί Tyrsenoi , Dorian : Τυρσανοί Tyrsānoí ; Latin Tyrrheni ) were, in the ancient Greek mythology and history the designation of certain sections of the population in the area of north-western Asia Minor , but also on the islands Lemnos , Imbros , Samothrace and Lesbos . According to a view that was widespread in antiquity and still today, they were closely related to the Etruscans , who began in Etruria in the 1st millennium BC. BC represented an influential culture and politico-military power in the area of ​​the western Apennine peninsula , Sardinia and Sicily . According to individual authors, Tyrsenians were also found in Egyptian sources around 1200 BC. Mentioned in the section Sea Peoples .

The Tyrsenian language, which is now called Lemnian , resembled Etruscan and Rhaetian , according to contemporary "ear witnesses" as well as modern analyzes of inscriptions . This led to the suggestion of a “Ur-Tyrsenic” or “Proto-Tyrsenic” common original language , which dates from around 1000 BC. And from which these three languages ​​- the Tyrsenic languages - emerged.

Etruscan

→ Main article: Etruscans

The great interest was in the Etruscans , whose colorful and realistic sculptures mainly in tombs attract admirers and tourists. There are also numerous inscriptions left there. These use an easy-to-read Greek alphabet that was common at the time . However, the language is not Indo-European , hardly to be assigned to any other known language group, so it is largely incomprehensible. This resulted in the “ Etruscan riddle ”. The Tyrsenians were in a sense a " fulcrum " a hypothetical construct , should be solved with the aid of this "mystery".

The idea of ​​the Tyrsenians as a people related to the Etruscans probably led to the fact that "Tyrrhenians" became a synonym for "Etruscans" and that the part of the Mediterranean bordered by the Apennine peninsula, Sardinia and Sicily was called the Tyrrhenian Sea . Alternatively , the designation "Tyrrhener" was considered authentic and originally supposedly based on typical Etruscan defense structures - "tyrseis".

It is hardly customary today to distinguish the Tyrsenians from the Etruscans . This may essentially be due to the fact that the choice of the name of the Etruscans of Italy does not matter if one restricts oneself to the consideration of the Etruscans of Italy . In this view, the phonetic difference between “Tyrsenians” and “Tyrrhenians” does not matter. On the other hand, the distinction in this article makes sense for the following reasons:

  1. It is said that the Aegean island of Lemnos was built around 700 BC. Was conquered by Tyrsenians . It is considered nonsensical that these were Etruscans who had traveled from Italy .
  2. For the establishment of references between the Etruscans living on the Apennine Peninsula and the peoples active in the Eastern Mediterranean, the sibilant sound in “Tyrsener” is important, which is missing in “Tyrrhener”.
  3. "Tyrsener" was the spelling used by German-speaking historians around 1900 in the discussion about the references of the Etruscans living in Italy to peoples operating in the Eastern Mediterranean and about the " Pelasger question " going back to the logographers .

"Sea Peoples"

→ Main article: Sea Peoples

Archaeological finds in Egypt in the 19th and 20th centuries and other written sources of the time gave rise to the idea of ​​a "sea peoples storm" that occurred at the end of the Bronze Age - in the 12th and 11th centuries BC. BC - Threatened and partly torn down civilizations from the Middle East. The Egyptian inscriptions name ethnic groups that can be identified and localized by comparing them with Hittite correspondence or biblical tradition ( Lycians , Philistines , Cretans [ Keftiu ], Danuna / Danaer , etc.).

On the other hand, it was claimed that one of the invading peoples - "Trš.w" ( Tur [u] ša , Turiša ) - was simply the Etruscans . Similarly, people from Sardinia ( Šardana ) and Sicily ( Šekeleš or Tjeker , the latter also known as Sikeler) were spoken of. Such localizations in the already western Mediterranean area cannot be substantiated by correspondence from the Near East. However, it is reasonable to imagine that various peoples initially unsuccessfully attempted to gain a foothold on the Near East and African coasts, ultimately encountering repulsive Egyptians and Libyans and finally settling in the area of ​​the "Tyrrhenian" Sea. In addition, discoveries of Mycenaean ceramics , Cypriot copper bars and other Eastern Mediterranean imports in Sardinia as well as ceramics of Sardinian origin in Kommos (South Crete) make it possible to travel between Sardinia and the Middle East as early as the Bronze Age. Alternatively , it is offered, for example, that the Šekeleš settled down as the northern neighbors of the Philistines and over time were absorbed by the neighboring population - or perished (archaeological fire horizon). The similarity of the name with the rather autochthon Italian people of the Sikeler (also called Sikuler ), who, coming from the mainland, in the 13th century BC. Chr. The Sican population displaced from the east of Sicily, so far could be pure coincidence. It could be analogous or similar with the Šardana and Turiša .

Phonetically , the equation of the forces TURSA with the Tyrsenern on; it gains attraction in relation to the pirate people of the Tyrsenians in Greek poetry . It is more difficult to find that around 1200 BC. To identify the Turša people mentioned above with the historical Tyrsenians, who first lived around 700 BC. As conquerors of the Aegean island of Lemnos , or with the Etruscans , who first came to around 800 BC. In north-west Italy and called themselves "Rasenna". The key to equating the latter with the Turša is the equation of the Etruscans with the Tyrsians made by ancient Greek authors.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ F. Lochner-Hüttenbach: The Pelasger (= work from the Institute for Comparative Linguistics in Graz. Vol. 6). Gerold, Vienna 1960, pp. 105ff. with discussion and further literature. This is mainly concluded indirectly from mentions in Herodotus and his confusion of Pelasgians and Tyrsenians, which is evident in some places.
  2. ^ Printout : Entry "Raetian Language" in the RGA ; "urtyrsenisch": Meier-Brügger, Michael (2002, 8th edition), Indo-European Linguistics and Bonfante, Giuliano and Larissa (2002, 2nd edition), The Etruscan Language: An Introduction
  3. ^ Dionysius of Halicarnassus , Roman antiquities. Book I, chap. 25ff.
  4. ↑ James H. Breasted: The Ancient Records of Egypt. Vol. IV: The twentieth to the twenty-sixth dynasties. Reissued, Russell & Russell, New York 1962, p. 59.
  5. ↑ Overview with Laura Soro: Sardinia and the Mycenaean world: The research of the last 30 years , in: Fritz Blakolmer u. a. (Ed.): Austrian research on the Aegean Bronze Age 2009. Files from the conference from March 6 to 7, 2009 at the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Salzburg , Vienna 2011, pp. 283–294.
  6. ↑ Eduard Meyer : The sea peoples and the ethnographic problems. Tyrsenians and Achaeans. In: Ancient History. zeno.org , accessed March 30, 2014 .