Phrygians (Bryges or Briges) and Macedonia

[Cadmus]

Phrygians are supposed to have migrated from the Balkans (Macedonia and Thrace) somewhere between 12th and the 8th centuries BC. This point is not clear, as many works are dealing on the object now, so we can expect new knowledge.The beginning of the Phrygian state is unknown. It appears for the first time as a well-organized kingdom, under Midas' authority, in the end of the 8th c. BC. We know nothing for sure before him, but there was probably a king Gordias. We have very little information about the rise of Phrygia"
Prof. Garance Fielder, Aix-en-Provence Univercity, France. URL: archaeology Info


"Legends and history also record how the Phrygians had initially settled in area of Macedonia. Known in this area in classical times as the Bryges, we can theorize whether they prompted the Dorian, Thessalian and other movements south about this time, or if they were part of a general southward movement of peoples in the Balkans in this era. The Bryges were known to have lingered at various locations in the region of greater Macedonia for centuries after their brethren had debarked for Anatolia".


Establishing their capital at Edessa in their decades sojourning in Macedonia, the Bryges’ language and culture mixed with that of the local Thracians while they dominating an area equivalent to Philip’s Macedonia. After some time dominating northern Greece and the southern Balkans, the bulk of the Bryges moved on into Anatolia, picking up the mantle dropped by the Hittites and filling up the power vacuum there to become known as the Phrygians. The reason for this may have been connected with their knowledge of the legends of the former Hittite riches or that of the contemporary Near Eastern states. New pressures from the north by the Illyrians and others could also have prompted their new

"Edessa, the most ancient city of first Macedonians, the legendary and historical capital of Argeades royal dynasty, known in the era of Macedonian kings as Aegae, was built by Bryges a prehistoric pepople existing in the middle of 3th millenium BC, long ago before Greek tribes emerged in Europe"
Alice Stougianakis, Greek archaologist worked in 60's Edessa's excavations. Abstract from her article in Edessan Chronicles Magazine, May 1972


According to the Telegony (Epic Cycle), Odysseus came upon the land of Thesprotia where he stayed for a number of years. He married Thesprotia's queen, Kallidike (Callidice, Kallidice) and had a son with her Polypoetes. Odysseus led the Thesprotians in the war against the Brygoi (Brygi), but lost the battle because Ares was on the Brygoi side. Athena went to support Odysseus, by engaging the war god in another confrontation until Apollo separated them. When Kallidike died, Odysseus returned home to Ithaca, leaving their son, Polypoetes, to rule Thesprotia.

Ares Blessings - The Brygoi

Some text mentioning the Mushki in Hittite area:

This left the Hittite homelands vulnerable to attack from all directions, and Hattusa was burnt to the ground sometime around 1180 BC following a combined onslaught from Gasgas, Bryges and Luwians. The Hittite Empire thus vanished from the historical record.

By 1160 BC, the political situation in Asia Minor looked vastly different from how it had only 25 years earlier. In that year, the Assyrians were dealing with the Mushku pressing into northernmost Mesopotamia from the Anatolian highlands, and the Gasga people, the Hittites' old enemies from the northern hill-country between Hatti and the Black Sea, seem to have joined them soon after. The Mushku or Mushki had apparently overrun Cappadocia from the West, with recently discovered epigraphic evidence confirming their origins as the Balkan "Bryges" tribe, forced out by the Macedonians.

The Makednoi from the mountains of Epirus moved out towards the south pushing the Bryghes out of the area.or perhaps by the Illyrians prior to 1500B.C..

Also there was a Brucidas capitol of the Bryghes found on the Via Egnatia road between Heracleia Lyncestis and Patrae/Claudanum .

This is from the Bordeaux Pilgrim text 9

City of Heraclea (Heraclea Lyncestis, Toli Monastir) - miles xiii.
[607] Change at Parambole (Caste, Nicia) - miles xii.
Change at Brucida (Brucias, Brygias) - miles xix.

Frontier of Macedonia and Epirus.
City of Cledo (Lychnidus, Ochrida) - miles xiii.
Change at Patrae - miles xii.


Who knows more about the mysterious Bryghes? or can give any more valuable info from books about them.

[akritas]

A intresting opinion from Margalit Finkelberg as about the Phrygians and theirs relationship with the IE theory.

The Phrygians spoke an Indo-European language closely related to Greek, which allows us to suppose that their position as regards the Greeks could not have differed much from that of the Macedonians.
Yet, no ancestor of the Phrygians is mentioned in Greek genealogies on a par with Makedon and Graikos. This ‘structural amnesia’ was obviously due to the fact that, as distinct from the Macedonians who remained in their original habitat in southeastern Europe, the Phrygians moved to Anatolia in the time of the great migrations at the end of the Bronze Age.

Of all the languages of the East Indo-European group only Greek, Macedonian and Phrygian are centum languages, that is, they did not develop the palatalisation of the velar consonants characteristic of the other East Indo-European languages (Armenian, Albanian, Indo-Iranian, the Slavic and Baltic languages). This common retention can only be accounted for if we assume that the Greeks, Macedonians and Phrygians jointly separated from the proto-Indo-European unity and left for the Balkans before satemisation of the rest of the East Indo-European languages had taken place. Had Greek and Phrygian separated before the arrival of the Greeks in the Balkans, Phrygian should have been related to Greek approximately as are Armenian or Iranian, which also belong to the Eastern group of Indo-European languages and are quite close to Greek.

[Margalit finkelberg, Greeks and pre-Greeks, page 31]

[Andrew]

The Phrygians are widely accepted as bearers of the Lausitz culture , a culture located until 1300 BC ca. in the German-Polish borders. How did they finished upthere ? It is notable the great similarity wit hthe greek language and so most linguists agree that there was a Graeco-Phrygian group inhabiting central balkans around 2700 BC and recently splitted from the greater and more eastern Graeco-Aryan group. It is probalbe that near the Danubian Gorge the Phrygiasn were West of it and Proto-Greeks East of it and it was the descending Paeonians (a Daco-Moesian group) who splitted them and finished occupying the Morava Valley forming the Bubanj Hum I culture. From then the Phrygians moved north to Lausitz and the proto-Greeks/mello-Greeks moved southwards pushing the Paeonians in Paeonia and occupying Bubanj Hum forming the distincte Bubanj Hum II culture.

Around 1300 BC the Phrygians begun their descent as a responce of the Urnfield cultures expansion on them . During their pass from the Pannonian plain they pushed many Italic IE groups (remnants of the Baden culture) westwards in Italy and pushed the Illyrian proper tribes near Glasinac. They invaded Macedonia from the valleys of the rivers Tresca & Saletska (as the proto-Greeks had done before them) and at the level of Lychnitis they were separated in a Western group that ended near Epidamnus and in a Eastern group that settled in Pelagonia and later gave a branch that came via Eordea to the central Macedonian plain were they formed a wealthy kingdom that was at it's best from 1050 to 900 BC

After the fall of Troy and of the Hittite empire some Phrygians went to Northern Asia minor and after the increasing Illyrian harashment in Macedonia from 1000 BC and on almost the whole Phrygian Bulk migrated to Asian Phrygia leaning beside a few remants :

1) Briges north of Pelagonia
2) Briges in the innland of Epidamnus
3) Briges near Khalkidike who attacked the Persians as "Thracian Briges".

[Cadmus]

First of all thanks for reviving this old thread of mine!

So the proto-Greeks pushed the Paeonians south? or did the Paonians prevent the proto Greeks to move to the Vardar-Axios region and forced the proto Greeks to descend through the Satetska valley towards the Lychnitis?

That is the question..could the paonians had build fortifications enough to repell the incoming invaders towards their homeland the Vardar river delta etc..

[Cadmus]

PS Andrew what do you think of the etymology between Brucida and Bryghes?

See BBB's post about Hammonds supposition of a Bryghes "capitol" above Pelagonia near the Demir Hisar region in Pelagonia..

[Andrew]

Originally Posted by Cadmus

First of all thanks for reviving this old thread of mine!

So the proto-Greeks pushed the Paeonians south? or did the Paonians prevent the proto Greeks to move to the Vardar-Axios region and forced the proto Greeks to descend through the Satetska valley towards the Lychnitis?

That is the question..could the paonians had build fortifications enough to repell the incoming invaders towards their homeland the Vardar river delta etc..

The proto-Greeks had driven the Paeonians from Bubanj Hum to Paeonia and later the Paeonians defended themselves near Skopje and forced the Greeks (who were driven away from Bubanj Hum by Daco-Moesians) to deviate to the valleys of Treska and Saletska.

There were 2 Greco-Paeonian "meetings" :

1) One in Bubanj Hum where the Greeks pushed away the Paeonians south to Skopje and you have the transition Bubanj Hum I >> Bubanj Hum II

2) One other later near Skopje where the Paeonians defended themselves and forced the Greeks to move westwards to Treska& Saletska and from there Lychnitis ..etc...etc ...So since the Paeonians here defended themselves they might had some kind of fortification...

What do you say Cadmus ??