Mushki
The
Mushki (
Muški) were an
Iron Age people of
Anatolia, known from
Assyrian sources. They do not appear in
Hittite records.
[identification with the Kaskas was tentatively suggested by Goetze (Diakonoff 1984:116)] Several authors have connected them with the
Moschoi (Μόσχοι) of Greek sources and the Georgian tribe of the
Meskhi.
Josephus Flavius identified the
Moschoi with the Biblical
Meshech.
Two different groups are called
Muški in the Assyrian sources (Diakonoff 1984:115), one from the 12th to 9th centuries, located near the confluence of the
Arsanias and the
Euphrates ("Eastern Mushki"), and the other in the 8th to 7th centuries, located in
Cilicia ("Western Mushki"). Assyrian sources identify the Western Mushki with the
Phrygians, while Greek sources clearly distinguish between Phrygians and Moschoi.
Identification of the Eastern with the Western Mushki is uncertain, but it is of course possible to assume a migration of at least part of the Eastern Mushki to Cilicia in the course of the 10th to 8th centuries, and this possibility has been repeatedly suggested, variously identifying the Mushki as speakers of a
Georgian,
Armenian or
Anatolian idiom.
Originally, these "Eastern Mushki" may have occupied a territory in the area of
Urartu. They appear to have moved into
Hatti in the 12th century, completing the downfall of the collapsing Hittite state, establishing themselves in a
post-Hittite kingdom in
Cappadocia. Allied with the
Hurrians and
Kaskas, they invaded the Assyrian provinces of Alzi and Puruhuzzi in about 1160, but they were pushed back and defeated, along with the
Kaskas, by
Tiglath-Pileser I in
1115 BC, who until 1110 advanced as far as
Milid.
In the 8th century,
Tabal became the most influential of the post-Hittite polities, and the Mushki under Mita entered an anti-Assyrian alliance with Tabal and
Carchemish. The alliance was soon defeated by
Sargon of Assyria, who captured Carchemish and drove back Mita to his own province. Ambaris of Tabal was diplomatically married to an Assyrian princess, and received the province of
Hilakku, but in
713 BC, Ambaris was deposed and Tabal became an Assyrian province.
In 709, the Mushki re-emerged as allies of Assyria, Sargon naming Mita as his friend. It appears that Mita had captured and handed over to the Assyrians emissaries of Urikki, king of
Que, who were sent to negotiate an anti-Assyrian contract with Urartu, as they passed through his territory.
In 714 the
Cimmerians invaded Urartu, breaking through the Caucasus. From there they turned west along the coast of the Black Sea as far as
Sinope, and then headed south towards Tabal, in 705 defeating an Assyrian army in central Anatolia, resulting in the death of Sargon. Macqueen (1986:157) and others have speculated that the Mushki under Mita may have participated in the Assyrian campaign and were forced to flee to western Anatolia, disappearing from Assyrian accounts, but entering the periphery of Greek historiography as king
Midas of
Phrygia.
Rusas II of
Urartu in the 7th century fought the
Mushki-ni to his west, before he entered an alliance with them against Assyria.
|
On this map, based on ancient Greek literary sources, the Moschi are located in the southern approaches of Colchis. London, c 1770 |
Hecataeus (c. 550 - 476 BCE) speaks of the Moschi as "
Colchians" (perhaps,
Georgian speaking), situated next to the
Matieni (
Hurrians).
[Fragmenta historicorum graecorum I, fragm. 228.]According to
Herodotus, the equipment of the Moschoi was similar to that of the
Tibareni,
Macrones,
Mossynoicoi and
Mardae, with wooden caps upon their heads, and shields and small spears, on which long points were set. All these tribes formed the 19th
satrapy of the
Achaemenid empire, extending along the southeast of the Euxine, or the
Black Sea, and bounded on the south by the lofty chain of the
Armenian mountains.
Strabo locates the Moschoi in two places. The first location is somewhere in modern
Abkhazia on the eastern shore of the Black Sea, in agreement with
Stephan of Byzantium quoting
Hellanicus. The second location
Moschice (
Moschikê) â€" in which was a temple of
Leucothea, once famous for its wealth, but plundered by
Pharnaces and
Mithridates â€" was divided between the
Colchians,
Armenians, and
Iberians (cf.
Mela, III. 5.4;
Pliny VI.4.). These latter Moschoi were obviously the Georgian
Meskhi or Mesx'i (where
Greek χ,
chi, is
Georgian ხ, x).
Procopius calls them Meschoi and says that they were subject to the Iberians (i.e., Georgians), and had embraced
Christianity, the religion of their masters. According to Professor
James R. Russell of
Harvard University, the Georgian designation for Armenians
Somekhi, preserves the old name of the Mushki.
Pliny in the 1st century AD mentions the
Moscheni in southern Armenia ("
Armenia" at the time stretching south and west to the Mediterranean, bordering on Cappadocia). In
Byzantine historiography, Moschoi was a name equivalent to or considered as the ancestors of "Cappadocians" (
Eusebius) with their capital at Mazaca (later Caesarea Mazaca, modern
Kayseri).
|
"The World as known to the Hebrews", a map from the Historical Textbook and Atlas of Biblical Geography by Coleman (1854) locates the Mesech together with Gog and Magog in the southern Caucasus. |
Josephus Flavius identified the
Moschoi with the Biblical
Japhetic tribe descended from
Meshech in his writings on the Genealogy of the Nations in Genesis 10. Meshech is named with
Tubal as a principality of the prince of
Gog and Magog in
Ezekiel 38:2 and 39:1.
*J.G. Macqueen,
The Hittites and their contemporaries in Asia Minor (1986), ISBN 0-500-02108-2.
*
I. M. Diakonoff,
The Pre-History of the Armenian People (revised, trans. Lori Jennings), Caravan Books, New York (1984), ISBN 0-882067-039-2, pp. 115-119.
*Anne-Maria Wittker,
Mušker und Phryger. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte Anatoliens vom 12. bis zum 7. Jh. v. Chr., Wiesbaden (2004), ISBN 3-89500-385-9.
This article incorporates text from the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), a publication now in the public domain.*
Gog and Magog*
Hayasa*
Bryges*
A History of Armenia by Vahan M. Kurkjian (1958)
