A life confined to the coast, the scent of wild thyme, jagged rocks, and a wind that takes you out of time and space... Karaburun, İzmir in the 1990s was a place far removed from today’s fast-paced life, hiding unseen beauty. It was here that I felt the mixed emotions that both saddened and delighted the people of the Aegean. As author John Fowles described in his book The Magus, the "Aegean Blues" was like a feeling of homesickness that clung to everyone born in the Aegean and Western Anatolia. This magic was a deep legacy left behind by the Aegean.
During my conversation with Dr. Eberhard Zangger, who studies the ancient Luwians of Western Anatolia, I was reminded of this magic from my childhood. The desire to uncover the charm and mystery of Western Anatolia came to life in Zangger’s theories about the Luwians and the work of the Luwian Studies Foundation, which he founded in 2014. For those of us who see Western Anatolia as one of the most balanced and beautiful regions in the world, the Luwians gain meaning through Zangger’s research. He is one of the few people producing truly valuable studies in this field.
The Luwians were an ancient people, particularly prominent in Western Anatolia during the Bronze Age. Historians believe that they entered Anatolia around 3000 BCE. The Luwian language is known to have spread across a much larger area than the Hittite language by the end of the Bronze Age. However, despite their cultural richness, research on the Luwian language and the Luwians remains quite limited.
Kubaba, who is believed to have evolved into the Cybele cult, was a significant religious figure in Anatolian and Mesopotamian mythology.
In Luwian religious belief, Kubaba was regarded as a goddess of fertility, protection, and the patroness of cities.
It is believed that the Luwians arrived in Anatolia around 3000 BCE.
Throughout the 2nd millennium BCE, the Luwians lived in a vast region of Western Anatolia, stretching from the shores of the Aegean Sea to the Euphrates Valley in the east.
In the region, many Bronze Age settlement mounds remain either undiscovered or insufficiently researched to this day.
Before the fall of the Hittite Empire, the Luwians lived in petty states and in independent cities across these lands.
The Luwians had a profound impact on the culture of Anatolia, particularly with respect to language and religion.The Luwian language was spoken across Western and Southern Anatolia, serving as an important factor to form an identity among the local populations. Luwian religious beliefs helped shape the cultural structure of Anatolia. Despite their interactions with the Hittites, the Luwians had their own distinct gods and religious rituals.
In our conversation with the German and Swiss archaeologist and geologist Dr.Eberhard Zangger who is known for his work and publications on the Luwians, he points out that the Luwians have been overlooked in academia and historical writing due to Eurocentrism. Zangger argues that although the Luwians in Western Anatolia established a culture as large and significant as the Hittites, they have not been given adequate attention in Eurocentric historical narratives. He emphasizes that this perspective has overshadowed the Luwians' critical role in history and presents strong arguments in our interview for greater recognition of this ancient culture.
Dr. Eberhard Zangger: The most famous archaeological site in the world is in Western Turkey, and yet Western Anatolia’s early civilizations have often been overlooked. I believe this largely stems from historical circumstances. When archaeological research began, scholars naturally focused on the most renowned and accessible sites. They went first to Pompeii, Herculaneum, the pyramids, and Thebes in Egypt. Expeditions ventured to Iraq and Iran. Schliemann arrived at Troy in 1870, which was relatively early in archaeological terms. It was one of the first systematic excavations of its kind. But afterward, the focus continued to be on Greece, with excavations at Mycenae, Tiryns, and Orchomenos. Western Turkey wasn’t ignored entirely; sites like Pergamon and Miletus were also explored in the 19th century. However, most of the scholars who came to Turkey were classicists. Prehistory wasn’t really a field yet. Schliemann’s work on the Bronze Age was groundbreaking, but until then, archaeology and related disciplines – like ancient history, philology, and art history – were almost entirely centered on classical Greek and Roman cultures. The experts who excavated in places like Miletus and Ephesus were primarily focused on those periods, and that tradition continued.
Later, when Turkey began developing its own cadre of archaeologists, they were trained in Europe – in places like Germany, France, and Hungary – where the same classical, Eurocentric perspective prevailed. So, when they returned to Turkey, they continued in the same vein, focusing largely on Greek and Roman settlements. This is still the case today, despite the fact that Anatolian cultures, which predate these by a thousand years, offer rich and unexplored histories. That’s the gap Luwian Studies aims to fill.
Archaeology operates on a pretty straightforward principle: you need major, tangible discoveries to capture attention. Theoretical models are interesting, but they don’t have the same appeal or impact as something you can physically unearth and present. This applies to both the academic world and the general public. That’s why early archaeologists often focused on royal seats, citadels, palaces, and temples – they were hoping to uncover spectacular finds that would justify the time, expense, and effort of their excavations.
To some extent, this approach worked. However, it also created an imbalance. For many years, we learned more about kings than about farmers, as smaller sites like farmsteads were largely ignored. Fortunately, that’s begun to change in recent decades. But when it comes to Western Anatolia and the Luwians, we still face a significant gap. We don’t know the location of a single capital of a local Luwian king. There must have been one or two dozen different petty kingdoms in the region, and yet not a single royal seat has been excavated. This is an urgent area that needs attention. If we could excavate the capital of a local king, the potential for groundbreaking discoveries is enormous. Finding documents, perhaps even an archive, would be invaluable for filling in the gaps in our understanding of the Luwians and could significantly raise the profile of these ancient cultures in the academic world.
Around 1200 B.C., the Eastern Mediterranean experienced a major cultural rupture. This period is known for events like the Trojan War, but it’s also the time of the Sea People invasions. From Egyptian documents and even depictions, we have a fairly good idea of what these people looked like. They formed a coalition, and according to the records, they had a strategic plan. They attacked Cyprus first, then Syria, and continued south toward Egypt. The key questions are: Where did these people come from? What was their objective? And what became of them afterward?
Many years ago, I presented a hypothesis that the Sea People originated in Western Turkey. I’m not the first, nor the only one to propose this, but the evidence seems compelling. The earliest sightings of Sea People ships occurred off the southwestern coast of Turkey. Additionally, the King of Ugarit mentioned sending troops to the same region. These and other clues point toward Western Turkey as their place of origin. In my view, the Sea People invasions and the Trojan War are different facets of the same broader conflict – a complex, multi-layered series of events that unfolded over the course of 10 to 20 years. It was by no means a simple or single-cause situation. It was a prolonged and intricate conflict in which, ultimately, everyone lost. This led to one of the most significant collapses in human history.
When we talk about the Luwians, as we define them, we’re primarily referring to the people of western Anatolia. At that time, central Anatolia was dominated by the Hittite kingdom. Everything west of the Hittites and east of the Mycenaeans in Greece can be considered Luwian territory. There would have been numerous small kingdoms in this region, often competing with one another, but at times forming coalitions. Some of these kingdoms may have been vassals of the Hittites at certain points. The political landscape evolved over the centuries, but we know that toward the end of the Hittite period, this evolution worked against the Hittites, contributing to the kingdom’s eventual collapse – a collapse so complete that the Hittites were forgotten for 3,000 years.
As for your question on where to look for more significant finds, one idea is to dig deeper into the Bronze Age layers at established sites like Pergamon and Miletus. In Ephesus, that isn’t possible because there’s no Bronze Age layer beneath the classical remains. Coastal settlements like Ephesus didn’t build one city on top of another for thousands of years because the coastline itself shifted over time, and people relocated accordingly. To find settlements that are a thousand years older than the classical Greek and Roman ones, we’d need to search inland, where earlier settlements are preserved.
One high-priority target is the location of Apaša, the capital of Arzawa, which was the largest Luwian kingdom. It’s long overdue for discovery, and the search area isn’t too large – maybe 10 by 10 kilometers – so it should be achievable if the effort is made. Locating Apaša is near the top of the list. Another promising site is Beyköy, a small mound only about 100 meters in diameter, which has already yielded documents. We know it was the seat of a local king, so the chances of finding more are quite good. Beyond these, we’ve compiled a catalog of nearly 500 sites – 483, to be precise – that would be worth investigating. About 20 of them are at the top of our list and would make excellent candidates for excavation.
The way I define the Luwians encompasses the Middle and Late Bronze Age kingdoms in the western part of today’s Republic Türkiye. In that context, Troy occupies a peripheral position – it’s located along the coast near the Dardanelles, which I think significantly defines its role among the Luwian states. Being on the periphery, Troy was subject to influences from both the north, particularly the Balkans, and the south. At different times, it’s possible that rulers from these regions even governed Troy. I believe Troy was often a cultural and ethnic melting pot, with a mixture of peoples and languages. Rulership may have shifted periodically, with Luwian kings at some points and Thracian rulers at others. Nonetheless, Luwian culture remained a major part of Troy's identity.
Regarding the Trojan War, I view it as a counteraction to the Sea Peoples' invasions. In my model, the Sea Peoples gathered at Troy to launch their campaign. All the states in western Turkey came to an agreement to fight the Hittites – not by land, as had been the custom for generations, but by sea. An overland attack would have given the Hittite king weeks of advance notice, but by sea, there would have been almost no warning – maybe a day at most. To pull off such a strategy, the Luwian kingdoms needed to build a unified fleet, with each contributing ships. I believe this fleet assembled at Troy, which likely had the most nautical expertise due to its location near the Dardanelles, a difficult passage to navigate. Troy may have also taken the lead in shipbuilding.
I don’t think Troy was especially powerful within the broader Luwian world. It wasn’t a dominant kingdom; it was simply the place where the fleet was built and where the Sea Peoples gathered. From there, they launched their attack, first on Cyprus and then on Syria. Their campaign was successful, leading to the collapse of the Hittite kingdom. For a short time, the Luwians ruled over a vast region, stretching to Canaan and the Egyptian border, though their dominance likely only lasted a few years.
The Mycenaean Greeks, who were themselves divided into petty kingdoms, observed the Luwians’ strategy and decided to replicate it. They saw the Luwians unite their forces and establish a navy, and thought, “If the Luwians can do it, we should do the same.” So they formed a coalition of their own and also began building a fleet, a process that probably took two or three years. Homer’s Iliad gives us a catalog of ships from the Mycenaean kingdoms, with 1186 ships sailing east. They didn’t go straight to Troy – they attacked and destroyed around two dozen Luwian port towns first. Ultimately, the decisive conflict took place between the united Luwian kingdoms and the united Mycenaean kingdoms at Troy.
In essence, the Mycenaeans had copied the Luwians’ military approach. This makes sense, as individual petty kingdoms had little chance of success on their own. For example, Egypt was relatively unified, and when the Egyptians invaded Canaan, they faced over 300 petty kings. These small city-states had to band together because, individually, they couldn’t stand against the might of the Egyptian army. Forming coalitions was a common practice during this period, as we see in the Iliad, in the inscriptions about the Sea Peoples, and in records like those describing the Battle of Kadesh. Even the Hittite king knew the importance of gathering as many allies and vassals as possible when facing Ramesses II.
The Trojan War is known in mythology as the legendary conflict believed to have started when Paris of Troy abducted Helen, the wife of King Menelaus of Sparta.
In fact, the mythological beginning of the Trojan War starts with the "Golden Apple" incident. The Goddess of Discord, Eris, throws a golden apple inscribed with "To the Fairest" into a wedding, sparking a beauty contest between Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite.
Paris of Troy gives the apple to Aphrodite because she promises him the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen. Paris's abduction of Helen then triggers the start of the Trojan War.
Luckily, as a young researcher, I sensed there were still major discoveries to be made in Türkiye’s western regions. It’s been over 30 years now, yet these ideas haven’t exactly gained traction in official circles. Ideally, I’d hope we don’t need to wait another three decades to start tapping into this potential. There are so many straightforward ways to move forward – public lectures, media engagement, authorizing ground-penetrating surveys, even drone-based photogrammetry. If we don’t act on these possibilities soon, future textbooks on economics might well use Luwian research as a prime case study in ‘opportunity cost’! The reason for this is simple: it’s hard to even fathom the level of tourism Turkey could attract if its vast cultural heritage from before the so-called Greek colonization were more fully developed. Turkey truly stands as a ‘land of milk and honey’ for archaeological research. In the west alone, there are over 500 large settlements, many with histories stretching back 5000 years. Yet only a small fraction of these sites have been thoroughly explored to date
How did I get interested in Western Turkey? Well, for about 20 years, I worked as a geologist on archaeological excavations all around the Mediterranean. Excavation directors would invite me to their digs to examine the geology and geomorphology. I worked in places like Greece, Crete, Cyprus, Tunisia, and Egypt – but never in Turkey. The question is, why? Archaeological research in Turkey is conducted differently than elsewhere, and that raises another question: why is this so?
I think it stems from a long-standing competition between Western Europe and Turkey, one that goes back hundreds of years, possibly beginning with the fall of Constantinople. Afterward, we see prominent European thinkers – Martin Luther, for instance – and even more recently, figures like Pope Benedict XVI, who have expressed clear anti-Turkish sentiments. In the late 1990s, when Turkey was very pro-European, there was a window of opportunity for closer integration, perhaps even for Turkey to join the EU. But there was considerable resistance from key European leaders, including religious figures and politicians like Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy. Their opposition, which I believe was largely rooted in anti-Turkish sentiments, has had a significant impact – even on archaeological research.
For the past 150 years, archaeological work in Turkey has predominantly focused on Greek and Roman settlements. While a lot of archaeology is happening in Turkey, the vast majority of it relates to European cultures on Turkish soil, rather than the rich Anatolian civilizations. This Eurocentric focus is incredibly difficult to overcome because academic reputations are on the line. If everyone else is Eurocentric in their thinking, it becomes almost impossible to break away from that. If you don’t adopt a similar approach, your chances of securing a job, getting permits, or obtaining funding are slim. Everyone is trapped in the same mindset.
I believe this is a huge mistake. It has made archaeology less dynamic. We see fewer students enrolling, academic positions going unfilled, professorships left vacant, and archaeological institutes shutting down. We aren’t making new discoveries because we’re stuck in an ideology that’s over 120 years old.
Dr. Eberhard Zangger
Dr. Alper Aşınmaz
Luwian Studies
Kürasyon: Pergamon Drone: bodrumsurf, Silyon Drone: Ravil_S, Paris by noe-3d.at on Sketchfab, Black basalt stela of the goddess Kubaba by The British Museum on Sketchfab, GeoJSON: Luwian Studies
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