Sanskrit and PIE

[Stephen Hodge]

Rajarshee Banerjee wrote:
> Hard dates are provided by greek 1200  BC, hittite 1800 BC and
mitanni,
> kassite 1300.

Are these dates so "hard" ?   I allude especially to the dating of
Hittite materials.  I may be wrong, but my impression is that much of
Hittite dating relies on Egyptian chronology.  There are a number of
serious Egyptologists who believe that the conventional chronology for
Egypt is wrong in many respects -- often because the later parallel
dynasties were counted sequentially rather than concurrently.   For a
well-argued presentation see D. Rohl's "A Test of Time" (Century 1995)
who presents a detailed revised Egyptian chronology.

The main Egyptian rulers who had contact with the Hittites, and whose
dates are thus used for the Hittites, were:

Akhenaten (the Amarna letters)  conventionally c1300 BCE to be revised
to c980 BCE
and
Ramesses II (battle of Qadesh) conventionally c1200 BCE to be revised
to c930 BCE.

These dates fit events in neighbouring countries (Israel etc) better,
so if these revised dates hold good, then the linguistic status of
Hittite needs to be re-examined -- its likely origins then would
probably fall nearer to early Greek.

Best wishes,
Stephen Hodge