Etruscan / Pelasgian

[Carol F. Justus]

Within the cuneiform tradition of ancient Hattusa, it is often thought that
Luwian Tarhunta and Hittite Tarhun (stormgods) have a prototype in Hattic
Taru. This is based on bilingual texts between Hattic and Hittite, for
example.

The transmission of religious traditions during the 400-odd years of
attested Hittite texts is itself not exactly straightforward, but fun to
play with, as I did some years ago in an article in JIES (indexed on the
website by author and volume /date at the new URL

http://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/lrc/iedocctr/jies.html ).

The Hittites preserved Hattic rituals from pre-Hittite Hattusa and added
Hurrian rituals and a pantheon at least by the time that Hattusili III had
married Puduhepa, the Hurrian priestess from Kizzuwatna, at the behest of
the goddess Ishtar (Babylonian deity). In the Hittite-Hurrian pantheon,
Tesup replaced Taru / Tarhun as head stormgod.

The coincidence of similiar-sounding 'Tarquinia' is tempting, but how would
you fill in the historical and phonological blanks? At Hattusa we are
fortunate to have bilingual texts and changing traditions that can be
correlated with repercusions of events perhaps.

Carol Justus

[ moderator snip ]

>[Ed Selleslagh]

>I have several questions, some of which are based upon extremely speculative
>ideas (somebody has to stick out his neck):

>1. Is Tarhun(t) the root for the name Tarquinius?

>2. Is it unthinkable that the (Greek) names 'Pelasgoi' and 'Leleges' are based
>upon the name of the NE Caucasian Lesghians? The first one with some
>indigenous
>prefix (maybe indicating they're from the lowlands, not from the (Caucasian)
>mountains), the second one with Greek reduplication, because of the shortness
>of the name. If this could be substantiated, it might mean that the substrate
>is non-PIE, non-Anatolian, not even sister-of-Anatolian, or else, of course,
>that the Pelasgoi and the Leleges were misnamed or changed their language.
>Anyone versed in Lesghian language and ancient history?

>3. About -assos/-assa: In Basque there is a "complex" of suffixes composed of
>parts of -(a)tz(a/e).  The meanings can be pretty diverse, but an important
>one is something like 'place of (many/a lot of) ....' and the like (also: a
>plant, tree producing fruit xxx). It looks like if the core meaning was a
>'genitive', 'of', 'belonging to' (non existant in modern Basque case endings).
>I am not pretending that this is the origin of -assos/-assa, but rather
>wondering if the Basque form might have a common Mediterranean origin, with or
>without Greek or Iberian (or whatever) mediation. It could be an indication
>that this suffix was wandering around the Mediterranean at an early date.

>Don't kill me for this: I'm just wondering....

>Ed.