The onager kings of Anatolia: Hartapus, Gordis, Muška and the steppe strand in early Phrygian culture

Abstract

Abstract The article discusses a complex of questions associated with the king Ḫartapus and early culture of the Phrygians. §§ 1-3 revise the evidence of the newly discovered HLuw. inscription TÜRKMEN-KARAHÖYÜK, arguing that the correct reading of king’s name in the first line is AQUILA+ra/i-tá-pu-sa = Ḫartapus, and (once again) that the king is not a conqueror, but a native king of Masa or Muška, who reigned in the late 2nd millennium BC. In §§ 4-5 it is suggested that HLuw. Ḫartapus conceals an early Phrygian name preserved in the toponym *Γαρδιβιον (*Γαρδυβιον) attested in the inscriptions of the Xenoi Tekmoreioi. §§ 6-11 argue that the name *Gardabos is connected with Sanskrit gardabhá- ‘donkey’, that it corresponds semantically to the west-Anatolian names Tarkasnawas and Tarkašnalliš, and that donkey ears of King Midas are a late ‘refraction’ of this fact. § 12 discusses the morphological structure of *Gardabos, revising the PIE suffix *-bho- and suggesting new cognates for Skr. gard- ‘shout’ (Armenian kard- and Baltic gerd-). §§ 13-14 discuss a probable steppe background of the ‘donkey-names’. In § 15 it is suggested that Phrygian name Gordis is based on the same root as *Gardabos, and some relevant Phrygian epigraphical evidence is presented. § 16 discusses a further probable Anatolian ‘donkey-name’, Mugallu and its likely cognate μύκαλος. §§ 17-18 touch upon the etymology of the ethnic names Masa and Muška, connecting them with the word for ‘mule’ preserved in the modern Balkan languages (Alb. mushk(ë) etc.), and, more speculatively, with the old Balkan word for ‘horse’ (*me(n)za-). § 19 argues that the ethnic name Φρύγες may have a similar original meaning, going back to another Balkan term for ‘donkey’, βρικός.