Between the Plain and the Mountain: Luwian-Phrygian Contact Zone as a Geographical and Cultural Phenomenon
The present contribution aims to bring together different strands of evidence bearing on the phenomenon of Luwian-Phrygian contact zone. The latter can be defined as a cultural space which came into being at the interface between the ‘old-Anatolian’ population inheriting the traditions of the Hittite Empire (conventionally ‘Luwians’) and the peoples originating, in the long run, in the Balkan region who started to move to Central Anatolia around the mid 12th century BC (conventionally ‘Phrygians’). Although effects of this cultural contact can be expected to be found at different places, the phenomenon can be seen most clearly in the south-eastern parts of Central Anatolia: Lycaonia and Cappadocia. Picking up earlier discussions of onomastic evidence (Simon 2017 and Oreshko 2021), I will argue in the first part of the talk that Luwian inscriptions of Cappadocia may contain more non-Luwian names than previously thought. Another clue for the Phrygian presence in southern Cappadocia may be unusually frequent mentions of horses in the Luwian texts from the region. The third part of the talk will be dedicated to the historical evidence of the TOPADA inscription: bearing on a recent discussion of the text (d’Alfonso 2019), I will revisit the problem of identification and localisation of the city Parzuwa(n)da. In the last part of the talk there will be addressed the question of how the inscriptions of Hartapus can be integrated into the broader picture.
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