The Anatolian Roots of Lycia

From Lukka to Lycia

The Anatolian Roots of Lycia are the key to understanding the story of the Land of Light. Who were the Lycians, and where did they come from? For a long time this question was answered through the accounts of ancient Greek writers. Today, however, we have far older and more direct evidence: Hittite royal inscriptions, Bronze Age letters, the Lycian language itself and the names of the Lycian gods. This evidence points to a common conclusion: the roots of Lycian culture lie in Anatolia.

In this article we look at this evidence one piece at a time, telling the story of the Lycians’ Anatolian roots as science understands it today, without exaggeration and without belittling anyone.

📌 Contents

• Lukka in the Bronze Age Records
• Lycian: An Anatolian Language
• The Gods of Lycia
• The Apollo Debate
• What Did Herodotus Say?
• Encounters: Persia, Greece and Rome
• What Scholars Say
• Frequently Asked Questions
• References

The Anatolian Roots of Lycia: Lukka in the Bronze Age Records

Traces of the Lycians appear centuries before the Lycian inscriptions, in the records of the great Bronze Age powers. In these documents, the region and its people are called Lukka.

• Hittite records: In the 2nd millennium BC, Hittite texts refer to the “Lukka lands” in southwest Anatolia, a region of independent communities that were sometimes allies of the Hittite state and sometimes its opponents.
• The Yalburt inscription: A Luwian hieroglyphic inscription from the reign of the Hittite king Tudhaliya IV (13th century BC), found at Yalburt Yaylası near Konya, describes the king’s campaign in the Lukka lands and names places in the region. Scholars identify some of these names with later Lycian cities: Awarna with Xanthos (Lycian Arñna), Pinali with Pinara, Talawa with Tlos (Lycian Tlawa) and Wiyanawanda with Oinoanda.
• Egypt and Cyprus: In the Amarna letters of the 14th century BC, the king of Cyprus complains about raids on his coast by the “Lukki”. At the Battle of Kadesh in 1274 BC, the Lukka are listed among the allies of the Hittites.

These records show that the names of Lycia’s cities, and its people, had lived on the same land since the Bronze Age. The city names passed for thousands of years from Hittite texts to Lycian inscriptions, and from there to Greek sources.

Lycian: An Anatolian Language

The Lycians’ language, Lycian, belongs with Hittite and Luwian to the Anatolian language family, considered the oldest attested branch of the Indo-European languages. Within this family, Lycian belongs to the group most closely related to Luwian.

• Script and language are different things: From the 6th and 5th centuries BC, the Lycians wrote their language in an alphabet adapted from the Greek, with new letters added for their own sounds. But while the alphabet was of Greek origin, the language was entirely Anatolian, much as Turkish is written in Latin letters today.
• Two kinds of Lycian: Most inscriptions are written in “Lycian A”. A second dialect, known as “Lycian B” or Milyan, appears in a small number of inscriptions.
• Their own name: The Lycians called themselves Trmmili and their land Trmmisa. Herodotus records the name as “Termilae”.
• City names: In Lycian inscriptions, Xanthos is Arñna, Tlos is Tlawa, Pinara is Pillẽn and Patara is Pttara.

The most famous Lycian inscription is the inscribed pillar at Xanthos. The trilingual inscription from Letoon, written in Lycian, Greek and Aramaic, played a major role in deciphering Lycian and is now in the Fethiye Museum.

The Gods of Lycia

Lycia’s religious world also had Anatolian roots. Many Lycian gods, known in Greek sources by the names of Greek gods, were in fact Anatolia’s ancient deities:

• Trqqas: Lycia’s storm god. His name is the Lycian form of Tarhunt, the storm god of the Hittites and Luwians. The Greeks equated him with Zeus.
• The Mother Goddess of Letoon: The goddess worshipped at the sanctuary of Letoon is referred to in Lycian inscriptions by the word ẽni, meaning “mother”. The Greeks identified her with Leto.
• Maliya: A goddess known from Luwian religion, also worshipped in Lycia, whom the Greeks equated with Athena.

Even when they were called by Greek names, Lycia’s gods were often a continuation of older Anatolian beliefs.

The Apollo Debate

Apollo was highly important in Lycia, and the famous oracle at Patara was dedicated to him. The origin of Apollo, however, has long been debated by scholars.

• The Anatolian origin view: A treaty dated to around 1280 BC between the Hittite king Muwatalli II and Alaksandu, king of Wilusa (identified by many scholars with Troy), names among the gods of Wilusa a god called Apaliunas. Some scholars see this name as an early form of Apollo, suggesting that Apollo’s roots reach back to Anatolia. The fact that Apollo fights on the side of Troy in Homer’s Iliad is often cited in support of this view.
• The cautious view: Other scholars stress that a similarity of names is not conclusive proof on its own, and that Apollo is a complex god shaped by several different traditions.

The question remains open today, and more evidence is needed before a firm conclusion can be reached.

What Did Herodotus Say?

Writing in the 5th century BC, Herodotus says that the Lycians came from Crete, settled this land under the leadership of Sarpedon and were once known as the “Termilae”. He also writes that the Lycians named themselves after their mothers rather than their fathers.

These accounts are valuable because they show how the ancient world saw the Lycians, but they need to be weighed against today’s evidence:

• The fact that Lycian is an Anatolian language, and that Lycian city names appear in Bronze Age Hittite records, shows that the Lycians had a very long history on this land.
• In Lycian inscriptions, people are mostly named after their fathers, suggesting that Herodotus’s “mother’s name” was not a general rule.

Encounters: Persia, Greece and Rome

Lycia was never a closed world. In the 6th century BC it came under Persian rule, and trade and cultural exchange with the Greek world were always intense. After the 4th century BC, Greek gradually replaced Lycian. Later the region became part of Rome, and then of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire.

Lycian art and culture brought these influences together in a language of their own: rock-cut tombs that translate timber house architecture into stone, monuments that combine Persian and Greek elements, and the distinctive system of government of the Lycian League. These encounters do not erase Lycia’s Anatolian identity. On the contrary, they show that Anatolia has always been a place where cultures meet.

What Scholars Say

That Lycian is an Anatolian language, and that the Lycians are connected with the Bronze Age Lukka, is today widely accepted by scholars.

One of the best-known voices on this subject in Türkiye is the archaeologist Prof. Dr. Fahri Işık, who began the excavations at Patara in 1988 and led them for many years. Işık argues that the Lycian, Ionian and Phrygian cultures grew from Anatolia’s native roots, and he criticises Western-centred histories that treat these cultures as primarily Greek in origin. In his view, the fact that people in Anatolia wrote in the Greek alphabet at that time did not make them Greek. Işık sets out these views in detail in works such as Uygarlık Anadolu’da Doğdu (Civilisation Was Born in Anatolia).

In writing about the Anatolian Roots of Lycia, our aim is neither to glorify nor to belittle anyone. It is to present the Lycians as the scientific evidence shows them: on their own land, with their own language and their own gods.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

References

• Trevor R. Bryce, The Lycians in Literary and Epigraphic Sources (1986)
• H. Craig Melchert, A Dictionary of the Lycian Language (2004)
• J. David Hawkins, Corpus of Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscriptions: the Yalburt inscription
• Herodotus, Histories, Book I
• Fahri Işık, Uygarlık Anadolu’da Doğdu
• The Alaksandu Treaty (between the Hittite king Muwatalli II and Wilusa, 13th century BC)