The Wandering Archaeologist

       The origin of the Indo-Europeans is an issue which scholars have debated for many years.     From this debate two major theories have been proposed by scholars Colin Renfrew and Marija Gimbutas.     The former proposed that the Indo-Europeans emerged from Anatolia and the latter that they came from the Pontic-Caspian steppe, north of the Black Sea.          Renfrew argued that the Indo-Europeans originated in Anatolia and spread from there in a ‘wave advance model’, taking with them farming methods and the Proto-Indo-European language.  This spread began ca. 7000 BCE with the peoples moving into Greece and then the rest of Europe. This spreading was achieved not by violent conquest but gradually as their numbers increased and people sought new lands to set up their farmsteads.  Renfrew believes these were Europe’s first farmers, sharing the developments of the Neolithic Revolution with the northe...

    The Hittite text, The Deeds of Suppiluliuma , contains a famous passage recording a letter from an Egyptian king’s widow asking to marry a son of the Hittite king and make him ruler of Egypt. Even though the text gives the Egyptian king’s name Nibhururiya, this has been of little help to scholars seeking to identify him. Smenkhkare, Tutankhamun, and Akhenaten have all been slated as possibilities.      Based on his translation of a reconstructed Hittite text (KUB 19.15+KBo 50.24) dated to the 7 th -9 th year of the reign of Suppiluliuma’s son Mursili, Jared Miller has argued for Akhenaten. The text recounts Tette of Nuhhasse’s flight to Egypt and Egypt’s interference in Amurru (Miller 2007: 252). Mursili discusses his correspondence with an Egyptian battle commander named Armaya, who Miller identifies as Horemheb (Miller 2007: 253), who became king of Egypt after Ay (who took over after the death of Akhenaten’s son Tutankhamun). In his article, “Amarna ...