The Coming of the Greeksfrom the coasts of Pontus. The notion that anyone could have
shipped horses ca. 1600 B.C. may initially seem preposterous,
but the thing was obviously done. At a later time, Homer's
audience apparently had no difficulty imagining the Achaean
heroes transporting their horses to Troy. We need not rely,
however, on Iron Age traditions about the Bronze Age, for we
have contemporary evidence that in the Late Bronze Age, char-
iots were used on the islands of the Mediterranean. There were
horses and chariots in Cyprus at this time, the chariots (like
those of the Hittite kings) apparently carrying three-man
crews." On the island of Paros, two horse skeletons from the
LH IIIB period were recently discovered. 58 And the Greeks
brought the horse and chariot to Crete no later than ca. 1450
B.C. Unknown in Crete in the MM period, the horse appears
frequently in LM art. 59 As it happens, among the earliest of the
Late Minoan artistic representations is an LM II seal impression
of a horse standing in a ship. 60 There is no reason to think that
the seal represents a mythical horse in a mythical ship. The
Chariot Tablets from the Linear B archive found at Knossos
(and dating, on Evans's chronology, to ca. 1400 B.C.) show
how much the Greek overlords depended on chariots for the
defense of their regime on the island.
That PIE speakers from Armenia could have been capable of
going anywhere by sea is again a surprise, but I think that the
proposition is not only not out of the question, but almost
certain. Let us consider the invasion of India. It has usually
been assumed (there is even less evidence for "the coming of
the Aryans" than for "the coming of the Greeks") that the Ar-
yans came overland, somehow, to India, taking either a north-
ern route through Afghanistan and across the Hindu Kush to
the Punjab, or possibly a dreadfully arid southern route,
through Baluchistan, across the Kirthar range, and into the
- Schachermeyr, "Streitwagen," 726.
- Crouwel, Chariots, 35.
- Schachermeyr, "Streitwagen," 722—24.
- Ibid., 723.
182