HORSES, WHEELS, LANGUAGES: GREEK, MESOPOTAMIAN AND INDIC EPIC ON THE EURASIAN STEPPE

Abstract A motif in the Cypria is sometimes explained as borrowed in the seventh century from the Akkadian epic Atra-ḫasīs , sometimes as inherited from a third-millennium Indo-European poetic tradition surviving also in the Sanskrit Mahābhārata . These explanations seem incompatible, but they are not. Narrative traditions often cross linguistic boundaries through multilinguals, and linguistic and archaeological evidence suggests that some speakers of Proto-Indo-European were also speakers of Semitic languages. Indo-European and Ancient Near Eastern comparative approaches are therefore halves of a single enterprise: the Cypria , Mahābhārata and Atra-ḫasīs belong to a Eurasian-Steppe tradition, and must be read together.