A motif in the Cypria is sometimes explained as borrowed in the seventh century from the Akkadian epic Atra-ḫasīs, sometimes as inherited from a third-millennium Indo-European poetic tradition surviving also in the Sanskrit Mahābhārata. These explanations seem incompatible, but they are not. Narrative traditions often cross linguistic boundaries through multilinguals, and linguistic and archaeological evidence suggests that some speakers of Proto-Indo-European were also speakers of Semitic langu…
Read moreA motif in the Cypria is sometimes explained as borrowed in the seventh century from the Akkadian epic Atra-ḫasīs, sometimes as inherited from a third-millennium Indo-European poetic tradition surviving also in the Sanskrit Mahābhārata. These explanations seem incompatible, but they are not. Narrative traditions often cross linguistic boundaries through multilinguals, and linguistic and archaeological evidence suggests that some speakers of Proto-Indo-European were also speakers of Semitic languages. Indo-European and Ancient Near Eastern comparative approaches are therefore halves of a single enterprise: the Cypria, Mahābhārata and Atra-ḫasīs belong to a Eurasian-Steppe tradition, and must be read together.
