Armeno-Phrygian

The Armeno-Phrygians are a hypothetical people of West Asia in prehistory.

There are two conflicting accounts of their origins.

• Ancient Greek scholars, such as Herodotus, believed that the Phrygians had originated as the Bryges of the Balkans, before migrating to western Anatolia and establishing the kingdom of Phyrgia. After the collapse of the kingdom in the late 7th century BC (following an invasion by Cimmerians), some of the Phyrgians migrated eastward and settled in Armenia.
• Some modern scholars instead believe that a proto-Armeno-Phrygian population originated in eastern Anatolia and/or the Armenian Highlands, from where the Phrygians later migrated westward.[1]

The name Armeno-Phrygian is also used for a hypothetical language branch, which would include their languages, and would be a branch of the Indo-European language family, or a sub-branch of either the proposed"Graeco-Armeno-Aryan" or "Armeno-Aryan" branches. Classification is difficult because little is known of Phrygian, but Proto-Armenian arguably forms a subgroup with Greek and Indo-Iranian.

The name Mushki can also mean both Armenians and Phrygians. It was applied to different peoples by different sources and at different times. It can mean Phrygians, in Assyrian sources, as well as the Proto-Armenians.[2] A third and possibly original usage of Mushki refers to a people originally from the Caucasus region, who settled in Anatolia.

See also

• Armenian hypothesis
• Urartu

References

1. "Historical Data". Archived from the original on 2011-06-01. Retrieved 2011-05-17.
2. I. M. Diakonoff The Problem of the Mushki Archived August 25, 2011, at the Wayback Machine in The Prehistory of the Armenian People