In
Mycenaean times Zakro was an important place, so that the Tjakaray may
be the Teukroi, after all, and Zakro may preserve the name. At any rate,
this identification is most alluring and, taken in conjunction with
the other cumulative identifications, is very probable; but the
identification of the Pidaea with the river Pediaeus in Cyprus is
neither alluring nor probable.
In the time of Ramses II some of these Asia Minor tribes had marched
against Egypt as allies of the Hittites. We find among them the Luka or
Lycians, the Dardenui (Dardanians, who may possibly have been at that
time in the Troad, or elsewhere, for all these tribes were certainly
migratory), and the Masa (perhaps the Mysians). With the Cretans of
Ramses Ill's time must be reckoned the Pulesta, who are certainly the
Philistines, then most probably in course of their traditional migration
from Crete to Palestine. In Philistia recent excavations by Mr. Welch
have disclosed the unmistakable presence of a late Mycenaean culture,
and we can only ascribe this to the Philistines, who were of Cretan
origin.
Thus we see that all these Northern tribal names hold together with
remarkable persistence, and in fact refuse to be identified with any
tribes but those of Asia Minor and the AEgean. In them we see the broken
remnants of the old Minoan (Keftian) power, driven hither and thither
across the seas by intestinal feuds, and "winding the skein of grievous
wars till every man of them perished," as Homer says of the heroes after
the siege of Troy.
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