Achaeans

:''This article is about the ancient people of the Achaeans. See [[Achaea (MUD)]] for the [[MUD]].''
The '''Achaeans''' (in [[Greek language|Greek]] {{polytonic|Ἀχαιοί}}, ''Akhaioi'') is one of the collective names used for the Greeks in [[Homer]]'s ''[[Iliad]]'' (used 598 times) and ''Odyssey''. The other names are the '''Danaans''' ({{polytonic|Δαναοί}}, used 138 times in the ''Iliad'') and '''Argives''' ({{polytonic|Ἀργεῖοι}}, used 29 times in the ''Iliad''). In the historical period, the '''Achaeans''' were the inhabitants of the region of [[Achaea]], a region in the north central part of the [[Peloponnese]]. The city states of this region formed a confederation known as the [[Achaean League]] which was influential during the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC.

The Achaeans are one of the four main tribes occupying the ancient Greek mainland (Achaeans, Aeolians, Ionians, Dorians). The name Achaeans came to mean all the Greeks at the time of the Trojan War. [http://www.jstor.org/view/00029114/ap020140/02a00010/1?searchUrl=http%3a//www.jstor.org/search/BasicResults%3fhp%3d25%26si%3d1%26gw%3djtx%26jtxsi%3d1%26jcpsi%3d1%26artsi%3d1%26Query%3dachaeans%2borigin%26wc%3don&frame=noframe&currentResult=00029114%2bap020140%2b02a00010%2b0%2cFF3D&userID=80243439@yale.edu/01c054500b00502d928&dpi=3&config=jstor]

The Homeric Achaeans would have been a part of the [[Mycenaean civilization]] that dominated Greece from ca. [[1600 BC]], with a history as a tribe that may have gone back to the prehistoric [[Ancient Greece|Hellenic]] immigration in the late [[3rd millennium BC]]. It has been suggested that the Achaeans had not settled in the Greek mainland until the Dorian invasions of the 12th century BC. It is possible that Homer's Achaean leaders, held power in the Mycenean world but were replaced by the Dorians. Herodotus identified the Achaeans of the northern Peloponnese as descendants of these earlier Achaeans.

A scholarly consensus has not yet been reached on the origin of the historic Achaeans, and is still hotly debated. Professor Karl Beloch has suggested that there was no Dorian invasion, but rather that the Peloponnesian Dorians were the Achaeans.<ref>K. J. Beloch, ''Griechische Geschichte'', 1: I, p. 92, and p. 88, n. 1.</ref> Professor Eduard Meyer, disagreeing with Beloch, has instead put forth the suggestion that the real-life Achaeans were mainland pre-Dorian Greeks.<ref>Eduard Meyer, ''Geschichte rles Alterturns'', 112, I (1928), p. 251</ref> His conclusion is based off of his research on the similarity between the languages of the Achaeans and pre-historic Arcadians. And Professor William Prentice disagrees with both, noting that archeological evidence suggests that the Achaeans instead migrated from “southern Asia Minor to Greece, probably settling first in lower Thessaly” probably prior to 2000 BC.<ref>The Achaeans. William K. Prentice. ''American Journal of Archaeology'', Vol. 33, No. 2. (Apr. - Jun., 1929), pp. 206-218.</ref>

==Hittite documents==
Some [[Hittite language|Hittite]] texts mention a nation lying to the west called '''''Ahhiyawa'''''. An important example is the ''[[Tawagalawa Letter]]''<ref>[http://www.hittites.info/translations.aspx?text=translations/historical%2fPiyama-radu+Letter.html Translation of the Tawagalawa Letter]</ref> written by an unnamed [[Hittites|Hittite]] king of the empire period (14th century B.C.) to the king of ''Ahhiyawa'', treating him as an equal and suggesting that [[Miletus]] (''Millawanda'') was under his control. It also refers to an earlier "''Wilusa'' episode" involving hostility on the part of ''Ahhiyawa''. In the earliest reference to this land, in a letter outlining the treaty violations of the Hittite vassal [[Madduwatta]],<ref>[http://www.hittites.info/translations.aspx?text=translations/historical%2fCTH147_Madduwatta.html Translation of the Sins of Madduwatta]</ref> it is called ''Ahhiya''. Ahhiya(wa) has been identified with the Achaeans of the [[Trojan War]] and the city of Wilusa with the legendary city of [[Troy]] (note the similarity with {{polytonic|(ϝ)Ίλιον}}, ''(w)Ilion'', the name of the [[acropolis]] of Troy). However the exact relationship of the term ''Ahhiyawa'' to the Achaeans beyond a similarity in pronunciation is hotly debated by scholars, even following the discovery that Mycenaean [[Linear B]] is an early form of Greek; the earlier debate was summed up in 1984 by Hans G. Güterbock of the Oriental Institute.<ref>Hans G. Güterbock, "Hittites and Akhaeans: A New Look" ''Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society'' '''128'''.2 (June 1984), pp. 114-122. Bibliography.</ref>

==Egyptian sources==
During the 5th year of Pharaoh [[Merneptah]], a confederation of [[Libya]]n and northern peoples is supposed to have attacked the Western Delta. Included amongst the ethnic names of the repulsed invaders is the [[Ekwesh]] or Eqwesh, whom some have seen as [[Achaeans]]. Homer mentions an Achaean attack upon the delta, and [[Odysseus]] speaks of the same when he talks to the shade of [[Menelaus]]. Later Greek myths also say that Helen had spent the time of the [[Trojan War]] in [[Egypt]], and not at [[Troy]], and that after Troy the [[Greeks]] went there to recover her. There is also the strange myth of the brothers [[Aegyptus]] and [[Danaus]], sons of [[Belus (Egyptian)|Belus]], with the latter supposedly coming from Egypt, that Marianne Luban has suggested may date to this time.

The same Egyptian sources indicate that [[Merneptah]] defeated the invasion, killing 6,000 soldiers and taking 9,000 prisoners. To be sure of the numbers, among other things, he took the penises of all uncircumcised enemy dead and the hands of all the circumcised, from which history learns that the Ekwesh were circumcised, a fact causing some to doubt they were Greek.

==In Greek mythology==
In [[Greek mythology]] the perceived cultural divisions among the Hellenes were represented as legendary lines of descent that identified kinship groups, among them the Achaeans. Hellen, Graicos, Magnis, and Macedon were sons of Deucalion and Pyrrha, the only people who survived the Great Flood. The family was originally named after the elder son Graikoi but renamed later after Hellen who was proved to be the strongest. Sons of Hellen and the nymph Orsiis were Dorus, Xuthos, and Aeolus. Sons of Xuthos and Kreousa, daughter of Erechthea, were Ion and Achaeus.<ref> [http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Achaeans ''Encyclopaedia Britannica'' 1911: "Achaeans"]</ref> The Greek ''[[ethnos|ethnoi]]'' were named in their honor Achaeans, Danaans, Kadmeioi, Hellenes, [[Aeolians]], [[Ionians]], [[Dorians]]. Kadmos and Danaos came from Egypt, and Pelops from [[Phrygia]] settled in the mainland Greece and were assimilated and Hellenized.

==See also==
*[[Achaea]], [[Achaea (province)]]
*[[Aegean civilization]]
*[[Mycenaean Greece]]
*[[Historicity of the Iliad]]
*[[Mycenaean language]]
*[[Homer]]
*[[Troy]]
* The '''[[Achaean League]]''' was a [[confederation]] of [[Greece|Greek]] [[city state]]s in [[Achaea]], a territory on the northern coast of the [[Peloponnese]]. An initial confederation existed during the [[5th century BC|5th]] through the [[4th century BC]].

==Notes==

{{reflist|2}}

==External links==
* [http://www.sitesandphotos.com Sites and Photos: Mediterranean and Classical Archaeology Images]
* [http://ancientgreece-earlyamerica.com Detailed cultural studies of Minoan Crete and relations with the mainland "Mycenean" tribes of Achaians]
* [http://www.salimbeti.com/micenei The Greek Age of Bronze weapons and warfare]

==References==
*Tsotakou-Karveli. ''Lexicon of Greek Mythology''. Athens: Sokoli, 1990.

[[Category:Greek mythology]]
[[Category:Mycenaean Greece]]
[[Category:Ancient Greece]]
[[Category:Ancient peoples]]

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