Small context on the Arzawa/Assuwa, that she glosses over. [Note: there are a lot of conjectures from my part here, so take it with a grain of salt.]

Arzawa started as a confederation of 22 cities in Western Anatolia. I believe the locals weren’t Hittite speakers, but a clusterfuck of speakers of other Anatolian languages (such as Luwian/Lydian) and plus Pre-Indo-European languages (i.e. languages that were already in Anatolia before Hittites and other Indo-Europeans started settling in it.)

What united them wasn’t culture, but politics: they ganged up to fight against the Hittite dominance over the region. But this likely failed and by 1300 BCE the confederation was already some sort of vassal of the Hittites.

Then as plague devastated the Hittites I think the vassal saw an opportunity to regain its independence. Or perhaps the inverse, if they indeed caused the plague. But as they were revolting against the East, the Achaeans in the West started attacking them and besieging their cities. One of them being Wilusa aka Troy VI.

Now, she doesn’t talk about this because it’s outside the scope of her video, but I really, really need to soapbox about this.

You know, the Etruscans in Italy? At least language-wise, I think they’re descendants of diaspora of the Trojan War from 1300 BCE, either from Troy itself or another Arzawan city. It’s why I mentioned I believe the confederation included pre-Indo-European peoples from Anatolia.

I’m saying this based on multiple pieces of info:

1. The existence of the Lemnian language, related to Etruscan, right in the sea between Greece and Arzawa. Given the general pattern of invasions and migrations in the region, it hints a common origin near Lemnos, not Etruria.

2. Etruscan, Lemnian and Rhaetic are clearly related to each other. But they’re also unrelated to the Indo-European languages (Hittite, Greek, Latin etc.) or the Vasconic languages (Basque) spoken further West. And the general distribution of Etruscan and Rhaetic hints invasion through the ports, as if the language was a latecomer to Italy invading through sea.

3. Herodotus mentions some people from Lydia emigrating to Central Italy, led by their king Tyrrhenus, as the origin story for the Etruscans (note Etruscan is called Τυρρηνικός / Tyrrhēnikós in Greek). Lydia was a kingdom in Western Anatolia, that rose in power after the fall of the Hittites, but the centre of its power was pretty much where Arzawa used to be.

In the meantime, Hellanicus of Lesbos claims the same Tyrrhenians/Etruscans were descendants of Pelasgians. “Pelasgian” is a catch-all Classical Greek word for “pre-Greek”, i.e. “native to the southern Balkans before the Greeks invaded it”.

Both narratives conflict with each other in time and place, but look at the common ground: both claim the Etruscans migrated from the East, into Central Italy.

4. The Aeneid. A Roman spin-off fanfic of the Iliad, published by Virgil in 19 BCE. It tells the story of the Trojan hero Aeneas, who’d flee the Trojan war and settle in Italy. Eventually becoming the ancestor of “those” Romulus and Remus who would found Rome.

We know the Aeneid is bullshit when it comes to Roman history; odds are the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages reached Italy through the Alps. And it was politically motivated bullshit, to justify Roman control over Greece. But where did Virgil get this story from?

Note how it makes a lot of sense, if Virgil “creatively borrowed” the story from some nearby people. Such as the Etruscans; the Romans loved to grab bits and bobs of the mythologies of conquered peoples, it’s just that this bit of Etruscan mythology would’ve been loosely based on RL events.