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radle of Civilization

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Armenian mythology

Posted by Fredsvenn on September 13, 2013
Mesopotamian religion refers to the religious beliefs and practices followed by the Sumerian and East Semitic Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian and Chaldean peoples living in Mesopotamia (approximately the area of modern Iraq and north east Syria) that dominated the region for a period of 4,200 years from the fourth millennium BC throughout Mesopotamia to approximately the 10th century CE. in Assyria.
The first evidence for what is recognisably Mesopotamian religion can be seen with the invention in Mesopotamia of writing ca. 3500 BC. The Sumerians were not originally one united nation, but members of various different city-states.
The Sumerians, who migrated from the north and settled in southern Mesopotamia, which became known as Sumer, were not originally one united nation, but members of various different city-states such as Uruk, Ur, Lagash, Isin, Umma, Eridu, Nippur and Larsa.
The Sumerians were incredibly advanced: as well as inventing writing, they also invented early forms of mathematics, early wheeled vehicles, astronomy, astrology and the calendar. They had a huge influence over the East Semitic Akkadians (later to be known as Assyrians and Babylonians) that came to the area ca. 3000 BC.
Akkadian Semitic names first appear in king lists of these states circa 2800 BCE. Sumerians (who spoke a language isolate) remained largely dominant in this synthesised Sumero-Akkadian culture however, until the rise of the Akkadian Empire under Sargon of Akkad in 2334 BC which united all of Mesopotamia under one ruler, ia, the world’s first empire, though this Akkadian Empire collapsed after two centuries.
Gradually there was increasing syncreticism between the Sumerian and Akkadian cultures and deities, with the Akkadians typically preferring to worship fewer deities but elevating them to greater positions of power.
Following a brief Sumerian revival the empire broke up into two Akkadian states, Assyria reasserted itself in the north, and in 1894 BC Babylonia was founded the south (although Babylon was founded by invading West Semitic Amorites, and was rarely ruled by native dynasties throughout its history).
Some time after this the Sumerians disappeared, becoming wholly absorbed into the Assyrio-Babylonian population. Assyrian kings are attested from the late 25th century BC, and dominated northern Mesopotamia and parts of Asia Minor.
Babylon was founded as an independent state in 1894 BC. In around 1750 BC, the Amorite ruler of Babylon, King Hammurabi, conquered much of Mesopotamia, but this Babylonian empire collapsed after his death due to attacks from mountain-dwelling people known as the Kassites from Asia Minor, who went on to rule Babylon for over 500 years.
The Mesopotamian religion was polytheistic, worshipping over 2,100 different deities, many of which were associated with a specific city or state within Mesopotamia such as Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, Assur, Nineveh, Ur, Uruk, Mari and Babylon. Some of the most significant of these deities were Anu, Ea, Enlil, Ishtar (Astarte), Ashur, Shamash, Shulmanu, Tammuz, Adad/Hadad, Sin (Nanna), Dagan, Ninurta, Nisroch, Nergal, Tiamat, Bel and Marduk.
Polytheism was the only religion in ancient Mesopotamia for thousands of years before entering a period of gradual decline beginning in the 1st century CE. This decline happened in the face of the introduction of native Eastern Rite forms of Christianity, as well as Manicheanism and Gnosticism, and continued for approximately three to four centuries, until most of the original religious traditions of the area died out, with the final traces existing among some Assyrian communities until the 10th century CE.
As with most dead religions, many aspects of the common practices and intricacies of the doctrine have been lost and forgotten over time. Fortunately, much of the information and knowledge has survived, and great work has been done by historians and scientists, with the help of religious scholars and translators, to re-construct a working knowledge of the religious history, customs, and the role these beliefs played in everyday life in Sumer, Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia during this time.
What we know about Mesopotamian religion comes from archaeological evidence uncovered in the region, particularly literary sources, which are usually written in cuneiform on clay tablets and which describe both mythology and cultic practices. Other artifacts can also be useful when reconstructing Mesopotamian religion.
As is common with most ancient civilizations, the objects made of the most durable and precious materials, and thus more likely to survive, were associated with religious beliefs and practices. This has prompted one scholar to make the claim that the Mesopotamians’ “entire existence was infused by their religiosity, just about everything they have passed on to us can be used as a source of knowledge about their religion.”
Mesopotamian religion is thought to have been a major influence on subsequent religions throughout the world, including Canaanite, Aramean, ancient Greek, and Phoenician religions, and also monotheistic religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It has also inspired various contemporary neopagan groups to begin worshipping the Mesopotamian deities once more, albeit in a way often different from that of the Mesopotamian peoples.
It is known that the god Ashur was still worshipped in Assyria as late as the 4th century CE and it is rumoured that Ashurism was still practiced by tiny indigenous Assyrian minorities in northern Assyria (around Harran) until the 10th century CE.
Although it mostly died out 1,600 to 1,700 years ago, Mesopotamian religion has still had an influence on the modern world, predominantly because Biblical mythology that is today found in Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Mandeanism shares some overlapping consistency with ancient Mesopotamian myths, in particular the Creation Myth, the Garden of Eden, The Great Flood, Tower of Babel and figures such as Nimrod and Lilith (the Assyrian Lilitu). In addition the story of Moses’ origins shares a similarity with that of Sargon of Akkad, and the Ten Commandments mirror Assyrian-Babylonian legal codes to some degree.
Ancient Semitic religion encompasses the polytheistic religions of the Semitic speaking peoples of the ancient Near East and Northeast Africa. Its origins are intertwined with Mesopotamian mythology. As Semitic itself is a rough, categorical term (when referring to cultures, not languages), the definitive bounds of the term “ancient Semitic religion” are only approximate.
These traditions, and their pantheons, fall into regional categories: Canaanite religions of the Levant, Assyro-Babylonian religion influenced by Sumerian tradition, and Pre-Islamic Arabian polytheism. There is also a possible transition of Semitic polytheism into Abrahamic monotheism, by way of the god El, a word for “god” in Hebrew and cognate to Islam’s Allah.
Canaanite religion was the group of belief systems utilized by the people living in the ancient Levant throughout the Bronze Age and Iron Age. Canaanite religion was strongly influenced by their more powerful and populous neighbours, and shows clear influence of Mesopotamian and Egyptian religious practices.
Like other people of the ancient Near East, Canaanite religious beliefs were polytheistic, with families typically focusing worship on ancestral household gods and goddesses while acknowledging the existence of other deities such as Baal and El. Kings also played an important religious role and in certain ceremonies, such as the sacred marriage of the New Year Festival may have been revered as gods.
According to the pantheon, known in Ugarit as ‘ilhm (=Elohim) or the children of El (cf. the Biblical “sons of God”), supposedly obtained by Philo of Byblos from Sanchuniathon of Berythus (Beirut) the creator was known as Elion (Biblical El Elyon = God most High), who was the father of the divinities, and in the Greek sources he was married to Beruth (Beirut = the city).
This marriage of the divinity with the city would seem to have Biblical parallels too with the stories of the link between Melkart and Tyre; Yahweh and Jerusalem; Tanit and Baal Hammon in Carthage. El Elyon is mentioned as ‘God Most High’ occurs in Genesis 14.18–19 as the God whose priest was Melchizedek king of Salem.
Philo further states that from the union of El Elyon and his consort were born Uranus and Ge, Greek names for the “Heaven” and the “Earth”. This closely parallels the opening verse of Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God (Elohim) created the Heavens (Shemayim) and the Earth (Eretz)”, and this would appear to be based upon this early Canaanite belief. This also has parallels with the story of the Babylonian Anunaki (i.e. = “Heaven and Earth”; Shamayim and Eretz) too.
I. J. Gelb and E. A. Speiser believed Semitic Subarians had been the linguistic and ethnic substratum of northern Mesopotamia, also known as the Armenian Highland, were the Sumerians once had their origin, since earliest times, while Hurrians and Urartians, later to become Armenians, were merely late arrivals.
That idea is at odds with a long-held belief among scholars that the Hurrians arrived much later from the Caucasus or some other distant region to the northeast, drawn to the fringes of civilization after the rise of the great southern Sumerian centers of Ur, Uruk, and Nippur. Scholars long assumed that the Hurrians arrived in the middle of the third millennium B.C., and eventually settled down and adopted cuneiform as a script and built their own cities. That theory is based on linguistic associations with Caucasus’ languages and the fact that Hurrian names are absent from the historical record until Akkadian times.
The discovery of a sophisticated city with monumental architecture, plumbing, stonework, and a large population contradicts the idea that Hurrians were a roving mountain people in a strange land. Far from being yet another rough nomadic tribe, such as the Amorites or Kassites who were latecomers to the Mesopotamian party, the Hurrians and their unique language, music, deities, and rituals may have played a key role in shaping the first cities, empires, and states. The language has died, the music faded, and the rituals are forgotten. But thanks to the sculptors, stone masons, and seal carvers at Urkesh, Hurrian creativity can shine once again.
The Hurrians (Ḫu-ur-ri) were an ancient people, who spoke a Hurro-Urartian language of the Ancient Near East, living in Anatolia and Northern Mesopotamia during the Bronze Age. Hurrian, like Sumerian, was a language unrelated to Semitic or Indo-European tongues that dominated the region during and after the third millennium BC. Perhaps the Hurrians were earlier inhabitants of the region, who, like the Sumerians, had to make room for the Semitic-speaking people who created the world’s first empire based at Akkad in central Mesopotamia around 2350 BC.
The Hurrian culture made a great impact on the religion of the Hittites. From the Hurrian cult centre at Kummanni in Kizzuwatna Hurrian religion spread to the Hittite people. Syncretism merged the Old Hittite and Hurrian religions. Hurrian religion spread to Syria, where Baal became the counterpart of Teshub. The later kingdom of Urartu also venerated gods of Hurrian origin. The Hurrian religion, in different forms, influenced the entire ancient Near East.
Hurrian cylinder seals often depict mythological creatures such as winged humans or animals, dragons and other monsters. The interpretation of these depictions of gods and demons is uncertain. They may have been both protective and evil spirits. Some is reminiscent of the Assyrian shedu.
The Hurrian gods do not appear to have had particular “home temples”, like in the Mesopotamian religion or Ancient Egyptian religion. Some important cult centres were Kummanni in Kizzuwatna, and Hittite Yazilikaya. Harran was at least later a religious centre for the moon god, and Shauskha had an important temple in Nineve, when the city was under Hurrian rule. A temple of Nergal was built in Urkesh in the late third millennium BC. The town of Kahat was a religious centre in the kingdom of Mitanni.
The Hurrian myth “The Songs of Ullikummi”, preserved among the Hittites, is a parallel to Hesiod’s Theogony; the castration of Uranus by Cronus may be derived from the castration of Anu by Kumarbi, while Zeus’s overthrow of Cronus and Cronus’s regurgitation of the swallowed gods is like the Hurrian myth of Teshub and Kumarbi. It has been argued that the worship of Attis drew on Hurrian myth. The Phrygian goddess Cybele would then be the counterpart of the Hurrian goddess Hebat.
A change from nomadic to sedentary life occurred in the Neolithic period in the Armenian Highland around 6000 BC. about the same time as in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the headwaters of which rise in Armenia. Chalcolithic (copper age) culture from 4000 BC. relates Armenia to the Caucasus, Iran, and Mesopotamia.
The Armenian Highland was located in the cradles of ancient civilizations, Mesopotamia, including the Sumerians and the Akkadians, bordering immediately to the south, Egypt in the southwest, and the Indus river valley to the east. It was affected by each but most significantly by Mesopotamian civilization. The name “Urartu” in the form “Urashtu” occurs frequently in Babylonian inscriptions.
The Bronze Age in the Armenian Highland began around 3200 BC. and extended to and coexisted with the era of iron smelting and working which was inaugurated around 1000 BC. Yerevan (Erebuni) was founded in 782 BC., when it is first mentioned in historic sources.
The state of Urartu, corresponding to the biblical Kingdom of Ararat or Kingdom of Van, comprised an area of approximately 200,000 square miles (520,000 km2), extending from the river Kura in the north, to the northern foothills of the Taurus Mountains in the south; and from the Euphrates in the west to the Caspian sea in the east.
The name Urartu comes from Assyrian sources: the Assyrian King Shalmaneser I (1263–1234 BC) recorded a campaign in which he subdued the entire territory of “Uruatri”. The Shalmaneser text uses the name Urartu to refer to a geographical region, not a kingdom, and names eight “lands” contained within Urartu (which at the time of the campaign were still disunited). The kingdom’s native name was Biainili, also spelt Biaineli, (from which is derived the Armenian toponym “Van”).
Strictly speaking, Urartu is the Assyrian term for a geographical region, while “kingdom of Urartu” or “Biainili lands” are terms used in modern historiography for the Hurro-Urartian speaking Iron Age state that arose in that region. That a distinction should be made between the geographical and the political entity was already pointed out by König (1955).
The landscape corresponds to the mountainous plateau between Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, and the Caucasus mountains, later known as the Armenian Highlands. The kingdom rose to power in the mid-9th century BC, but was conquered by Media in the early 6th century BC.
It is believed that the people of Urartu called themselves Khaldini after their god Khaldi. The Urartians first appear in history in the 13th century B.C. as a league of tribes or countries which did not yet constitute a unitary state. In the Assyrian annals the term Uruatri (Urartu) as a name for this league was superseded during a considerable period of years by the term “land of Nairi”.
Together with Armani-Subartu (Hurri-Mitanni), Hayasa-Azzi and other populations of the region such as the Nairi fell under Urartian (Kingdom of Ararat) rule in the 9th century BC, and their descendants, according to most scholars, later contributed to the ethnogenesis of the early Armenians.
Nairi was the Assyrian name (Na-i-ri) for a Proto-Armenian (Hurrian-speaking) region in the Armenian Highlands, roughly corresponding to the modern Van and Hakkâri provinces of modern Turkey.
The word is also used to describe the tribes who lived there, whose ethnic identity is uncertain. Nairi has sometimes been equated with Nihriya, known from Mesopotamian, Hittite, and Urartean sources. However, its co-occurrence with Nihriya within a single text may argue against this.
During the Bronze Age collapse (13th to 12th centuries BC), the Nairi tribes were considered a force strong enough to contend with both Assyria and Hatti. The Battle of Nihriya, the culminating point of the hostilities between Hittites and Assyrians for control over the remnants of the former empire of Mitanni, took place there, circa 1230. Nairi was incorporated into Urartu during the 10th century BC.
According to Trevor Bryce the Nairi lands were inhabited by what he calls “fierce tribal groups” divided into a number of principalities, and are first mentioned by Tukulti-Ninurta I (1243–1207 BC) when he defeated and exacted tribute from forty Nairi kings. It is believed that Nairi extended from the Tur-Abdin mountains in the south to the mountainous area southwest of Lake Van in the north.
It is suggested that what he refers to as the Hurriland dissolved into a number of small states that the Assyrians called Nairi. Others take this hypothesis skeptically; e.g., while others points out that there is no evidence of the presence of Hurrites in the vicinity of Lake Van. Anyway, the Nairi fought against the southern incursions of the Assyrians and would later unite into Urartu.
The land of Subartu or (Sumerian: Shubur) is mentioned in Bronze Age literature. The name also appears as Subari in the Amarna letters, and, in the form Šbr, in Ugarit. Subartu was apparently a polity in Northern Mesopotamia, at the upper Tigris.
Most scholars accept Subartu as an early name for Assyria proper on the Tigris, although there are various other theories placing it sometimes a little farther to the east, north or west of there. Its precise location has not been identified. From the point of view of the Akkadian Empire, Subartu marked the northern geographical horizon, just as Martu, Elam and Sumer marked “west”, “east” and “south”, respectively.
The Sumerian mythological epic Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta lists the countries where the “languages are confused” as Subartu, Hamazi, Sumer, Uri-ki (Akkad), and the Martu land (the Amorites).
Similarly, the earliest references to the “four quarters” by the kings of Akkad name Subartu as one of these quarters around Akkad, along with Martu, Elam, and Sumer. Subartu in the earliest texts seem to have been farming mountain dwellers, frequently raided for slaves.
Eannatum of Lagash was said to have smitten Subartu or Shubur, and it was listed as a province of the empire of Lugal-Anne-Mundu; in a later era Sargon of Akkad campaigned against Subar, and his grandson Naram-Sin listed Subar along with Armani (Armenians), – which has been identified with Aleppo-, among the lands under his control. Ishbi-Erra of Isin and Hammurabi also claimed victories over Subar.
Three of the 14th century BC. Amarna letters, Akkadian cuneiform correspondence found in Egypt, mention Subari as a toponym. All are addressed to Akenaten; in two (EA 108 and 109), Rib-Hadda, king of Byblos, complains that Abdi-Ashirta, ruler of Amurru, had sold captives to Subari, while another (EA 100), from the city of Irqata, also alludes to having transferred captured goods to Subari.
There is also a mention of “Subartu” in the 8th century BC Poem of Erra (IV, 132), along with other lands that have harassed Babylonia. In Neo-Babylonian times (under Nabopolassar, Nebuchadrezzar II and Nabonidus), Subartu was used as a generic term for Assyria. The term was still current under Cambyses II, who mentions Subarian captives.
Subartu may have been in the general sphere of influence of the Hurrians. There are various alternate theories associating the ancient Subartu with one or more modern cultures found in the region, including Armenian or Kurdish tribes. Some scholars, such as Harvard Professor Mehrdad Izady, claim to have identified Subartu with the current Kurdish tribe of Zibaris inhabiting the northern ring around Mosul up to Hakkari in Turkey.
Shubria, or Arme-Shupria (Akkadian: Armani-Subartu from the 3rd millennium BC), was a Hurrian-speaking kingdom, known from Assyrian sources beginning in the 13th century BC, located in the Armenian Highland, to the southwest of Lake Van, bordering on Ararat proper. The capital was called Ubbumu. Scholars have linked the district in the area called Arme or Armani, to the name Armenia.
After the Hurrian king Shattuara of Mitanni was defeated by Adad-nirari I of Assyria in the early 13th century BC, he then became ruler of a reduced vassal state known as Shubria or Subartu. The name Subartu for the region is attested much earlier, from the time of the earliest Mesopotamian records (mid 3rd millennium BC).
Hayasa-Azzi or Azzi-Hayasa was a Late Bronze Age confederation formed between two kingdoms of Anatolia, Hayasa located South of Trabzon and Azzi, located north of the Euphrates and to the south of Hayasa. The Hayasa-Azzi confederation was in conflict with the Hittite Empire in the 14th century BC, leading up to the collapse of Hatti around 1290 BC.
Hittite inscriptions deciphered in the 1920s by the Swiss scholar Emil Forrer testify to the existence of a mountain country, the Hayasa and/or the Azzi, lying around Lake Van. Several prominent authorities agree in placing Azzi to the north of Ishuwa. Others see Hayasa and Azzi as identical.
The similarity of the name Hayasa to the endonym of the Armenians, Hayk or Hay and the Armenian name for Armenia, Hayastan has prompted the suggestion that the Hayasa-Azzi confereration was involved in the Armenian ethnogenesis. Thus, the Great Soviet Encyclopedia of 1962 posited that the Armenians derive from a migration of Hayasa into Shupria in the 12th century BC.
Some historians find it sound to theorize that after the Phrygian invasion of Hittites, the theoretically named Armeno-Phrygians would have settled in Hayasa-Azzi, and merged with the local people, who were possibly already spread within the western regions of Urartu.
After the fall of the latter, and the rise of the Kingdom of Armenia under the Artaxiad dynasty, Hayasan nobility (given they were truly Armenian) would have assumed control of the region and the people would have adopted their language to complete the amalgamation of the proto-Armenians, giving birth to the nation of Armenia as we know it today.
At its apogee, Urartu stretched from the borders of northern Mesopotamia to the southern Caucasus, including present-day Armenia and southern Georgia as far as the river Kura. Archaeological sites within its boundaries include Altintepe, Toprakkale, Patnos and Cavustepe. Urartu fortresses included Erebuni (present day Yerevan city), Van Fortress, Argishtihinili, Anzaf, Cavustepe and Başkale, as well as Teishebaini (Karmir Blur, Red Mound) and others.
With the expansion of Urartian territory, many of the gods worshiped by conquered peoples were incorporated into the Urartian pantheon, as a mean to confirm the annexation of territories and promote political stability.
Good examples of incorporated deities are the goddesses Bagvarti (Bagmashtu) and Selardi. On Mheri-Dur, or Meher-Tur (the “Gate of Mehr”), overlooking modern Van, an inscription lists a total of 79 deities, and what type of sacrificial offerings should be made to each; goats, sheep, cattle, and other animals served as the sacrificial offerings. Urartians did not practice human sacrifice.
The pantheon was headed by a triad made up of Khaldi (the supreme god), Theispas (Teisheba) god of thunder and storms, as well as sometimes war, and Shivini a solar god. Their king was also the chief-priest or envoy of Khaldi. Some temples to Khaldi were part of the royal palace complex while others were independent structures.
Ḫaldi, also known as Khaldi or Hayk, was one of the three chief deities of Ararat (Urartu). His shrine was at Ardini. The other two chief deities were Theispas of Kumenu, the Araratian (Urartian) weather-god, notably the god of storms and thunder, and also sometimes the god of war, and Shivini of Tushpa, the solar god in the mythology of the Urartu.
Khaldi was a warrior god whom the kings of Urartu would pray to for victories in battle. The temples dedicated to Khaldi were adorned with weapons, such as swords, spears, bow and arrows, and shields hung off the walls and were sometimes known as «the house of weapons».
Of all the gods of Ararat (Urartu) panthenon, the most inscriptions are dedicated to him. His wife was the goddess Arubani, the Urartian’s goddess of fertility and art. He is portrayed as a man with or without a beard, standing on a lion.
Theispas was a counterpart to the Assyrian god Adad, and the Hurrian god, Teshub. He was often depicted as a man standing on a bull, holding a handful of thunderbolts. His wife was the goddess Huba, who was the counterpart of the Hurrian goddess Hebat.
Shivini or Artinis (the present form of the name is Artin, meaning “sun rising” or to “awake”, and it persists in Armenian names to this day) was cognate with Shiva in Hinduism and the Assyrian god Shamash. He was depicted as a man on his knees, holding up a solar disc. His wife was most likely a goddess called Tushpuea who is listed as the third goddess on the Mheri-Dur inscription.
Shivini is generally considered a good god, like that of the Egyptian solar god, Aten, and unlike the solar god of the Assyrians, Ashur, to whom sometimes human sacrifices were made. The Assyrian and Babylonian god Shamash is a counterpart to Shivini.
In 714 BC, the Assyrians under Sargon II defeated the Urartian King Rusa I at Lake Urmia and destroyed the holy Urartian temple at Musasir. At the same time, an Indo-European tribe called the Cimmerians attacked Urartu from the northwest region and destroyed the rest of his armies. Under Ashurbanipal (669-627 BC) the boundaries of the Assyrian empire reached as far as Armenia and the Caucasus Mountains.
The Medes under Cyaxares invaded Assyria later on in 612 BC, and then took over the Urartian capital of Van towards 585 BC, effectively ending the sovereignty of Urartu. According to the Armenian tradition, the Medes helped the Armenians establish the Orontid dynasty (also known by their native name, Yervanduni).
In the early 6th century BC, the Urartian Kingdom was replaced by the Armenian Orontid dynasty. In the trilingual Behistun inscription, carved in 521/0 BC. by the order of Darius the Great of Persia, the country referred to as Urartu in Assyrian is called Arminiya in Old Persian and Harminuia in Elamite. It is possible that the last Urartian king, Rusa IV, had connections to the future incoming Armenian Orontids dynasty.
The temporary eclipse of Assyria in the first half of the 8th century BC, had helped Urartu’s growth, as it became the largest and most powerful state in the Near East, all this was done in little time. But the state grew weaker under constant attacks from Cimmerian and Scythian invaders and was destroyed by the Medes in either 590 BC or 585 BC. By the late 6th century, Urartu had certainly been replaced by Armenia.
This would indicate two scenarios – either Media subsequently conquered Urartu, bringing about its subsequent demise, or Urartu maintained its independence and power, going through a mere dynastic change, as a local Armenian dynasty (later to be called the Orontids) overthrew the ruling family with the help of the Median army.
Ancient sources support the latter version: Xenophon, for example, states that Armenia, ruled by an Orontid king, was not conquered until the reign of Median king Astyages (585– 550 BC) – long after Median invasion of the late 7th century BC. Similarly, Strabo (1st century BC – 1st century AD) wrote that “[i]n ancient times Greater Armenia ruled the whole of Asia, after it broke up the empire of the Syrians, but later, in the time of Astyages, it was deprived of that great authority …”
Little is known of what happened to the region of Urartu under the foreign rule following its fall. There is a unansweard question if the Indo-European Armenians were living there all along, especially since it looks like the Armenian Higland is the origin of the Indo-European languages, or if the Armenians were late comers, and came to power in the events of the sixth hundred BC.
The largest and most influential partly Hurrian nation was the kingdom of Mitanni, though the Mitanni were an Indo-European speaking people who formed a ruling class over the Hurrians. Pharaoh Thutmose III of Egypt mention in the 33rd year of his reign (1446 BC) the people of Ermenen, and says in their land “heaven rests upon its four pillars”.
According to Amjad Jaimoukha the southern expanse of the Kura–Araxes culture (3400 BC until about 2000 BC, which has traditionally been regarded as the date of its end, but it may have disappeared as early as 2600 or 2700 BC), or the early trans-Caucasian culture, is attributable primarily to Mitanni and the Hurrians. The spread of this pottery, along with archaeological evidence of invasions, suggests that the Kura-Araxes people may have spread outward from their original homes, and most certainly, had extensive trade contacts.
The earliest evidence for the Kura–Araxes culture is found on the Ararat plain; thence it spread. Its territory corresponds to parts of modern Armenia, Azerbaijan, Chechnya, Dagestan, Georgia, Ingushetia and North Ossetia. It may have given rise to the later Khirbet Kerak ware culture found in Syria and Canaan after the fall of the Akkadian Empire. The name of the culture is derived from the Kura and Araxes river valleys.
Their pottery was distinctive; in fact, the spread of their pottery along trade routes into surrounding cultures was much more impressive than any of their achievements domestically. It was painted black and red, using geometric designs for ornamentation. Examples have been found as far south as Syria and Israel, and as far north as Dagestan and Chechnya.
Inhumation practices are mixed. Flat graves are found, but so are substantial kurgan burials, the latter of which may be surrounded by cromlechs. This points to a heterogeneous ethno-linguistic population. They are also remarkable for the production of wheeled vehicles (wagons and carts), which were sometimes included in burial kurgans. Their practice of storing relatively great wealth in burial kurgans was probably a cultural influence from the more ancient civilizations of the Fertile Crescent to the south.
But there are even earlier mentions of the Armenians in the region. Aleppo appears in historical records as an important city much earlier than Damascus. The site has been occupied from around 5000 BC, as excavations in Tallet Alsauda show. The first record of Aleppo comes from the third millennium BC, when Aleppo was the capital of an independent kingdom closely related to Ebla, known as Armi to Ebla,an ancient city about 55 km (34 mi) southwest of Aleppo, and Armani to the Akkadians.
It has been suggested by early 20th century Armenologists that Old Persian Armina and the Greek Armenoi are continuations of an Assyrian toponym Armânum or Armanî. There are certain Bronze Age records identified with the toponym in both Mesopotamian and Egyptian sources.
According to Giovanni Pettinato Armi was Ebla’s alter ego. Naram-Sin of Akkad destroyed both Ebla and Armani in the 23rd century BC. The site is most famous for the Ebla tablets, an archive of about 20,000 cuneiform tablets found there, dated from around 2250 BC, written in Sumerian script to record the Eblaite language – a previously unknown language that is now the earliest attested Semitic language after the closely related Akkadian.
However, the most widely accepted theory is that settlers related to Phrygians, or more specifically tribes speaking a Proto-Armenian language conventionally named Armeno-Phrygians, who had already settled in the western parts of the region prior to the establishment of Urartu, had become the ruling elite under the Medes, followed by the Achaemenid Persians.
These Armeno-Phrygians, referred to as Armenians as of now, would have mingled with the disparate peoples of Urartu, resulting a fusion of languages and cultures. The Armenians multiplied in numbers and spread their language throughout the territory of Urartu. The Urartians, during its dominance, had amalgamated disparate tribes, each of which had its own culture and traditions. Thus, when the political structure was destroyed, little remained that could be identified as one unified Urartian culture.
The region formerly known as Urartu became an Achaemenid satrapy called Armina, which later became an independent kingdom called Armenia. The Urartians who were in the satrapy were then assimilated, becoming part of the Armenian ethnogenesis.
Urartu did not give birth to a direct successor, however, the Satrapy of Armina, as an entity which emerged immediately after its fall, inherited its cultural, traditional, geographical and some linguistic aspects.
Darius I the Great, in his famous Behistun Inscription, calls the region Armina/Armenia in Old Persian and Urashtu/Urartu in Babylonian, clearly equating the two, suggesting that both are somewhat part of a same continuous entity. As the Armenian identity developed in the region, the memory of Urartu faded and finally disappeared.
The language spoken in Urartu is now extinct. Little is known of what was spoken in the geopolitical region from the time of Urartu’s fall in the 6th century BC, to the creation of the Armenian alphabet in the 4th century AD. In ancient Persian inscriptions, references to Armina (Armenia) indicate that Urartian was still spoken, or was in a transitional period into being replaced with the Armenian language.
However, other Urartians might have kept their former identity. In fact, the ethnonym “Armina” itself and all other names attested with reference to the rebellions against Darius in Armina are not connected with Armenian linguistic and onomastic material attested later in native Armenian sources. They are also not Iranian, but seem related to Urartian.
The name of the province of Ayrarat in the Kingdom of Armenia is believed to be a continuum of the Urartu toponym (or biblical Ararat). The modern name of Mount Ararat is derived from the biblical Mountains of Ararat (or Mountains of Urartu), and the Ararat Province of modern Armenia is in turn named after the mountain.
The Orontid dynasty, a semiautonomous hereditary Armenian dynasty of probable Iranian origin and related to the Persian royal house, established their supremacy over the Iron Age kingdom of Urartu and established the Kingdom of Armenia. Under Orontids, Armenia at times was an independent kingdom, and at other times a satrapy of the Persian Empire.
The Orontid dynasty ruled Armenia intermittently until at least the second century BC, first as client kings or satraps of the Median and Achaemenid empires who established an independent kingdom after the collapse of the Achaemenid empire, and later as kings of Sophene and Commagene who eventually succumbed to the Roman Empire.
The name Orontes is the Hellenized form of a masculine name of Iranian origin Eruand in Old Armenian. The name is only attested in Greek. Its Avestan connection is Auruuant (brave, hero) and Middle Persian Arwand (Modern Persian Arvand). Some have suggested a continuity with the Hittite name Arnuwanda. Various Greek transcriptions of the name in Classical sources are spelled as Orontes, Aruandes or Ardoates.
The presence of this dynasty is attested from at least 400 BC, and it can be shown to have ruled, originally from Armavir and subsequently Yervandashat. The precise date of the foundation of the Orontid Dynasty is debated by scholars to this day but there is a consensus that it occurred after the destruction of Urartu by the Scythians and the Medes around 612 BC.
The Kingdom of Armenia reached its height between 95 and 66 BC. under Tigranes the Great, becoming one of the most powerful kingdoms of its time within the region.
Religion in ancient Armenia was historically related to a set of beliefs which in Persia led to the emergence of Zoroastrianism. It particularly focused on the worship of Mihr (Avestan Mithra) and also included a pantheon of native Aryan gods, such as Aramazd, Vahagn, Anahit, and Astghik. The country used the solar Hayk Armenian calendar, which consisted of 12 months.
The pantheon of Armenian gods (ditsov) formed during the nucleation of the Proto-Armenian tribes that, at the initial stage of their existence, inherited the essential elements of paganism from the Proto-Indo-European tribes that inhabited the Armenian Plateau.
Beliefs of the ancient Armenians were associated with the worship of many cults, mainly the cult of ancestors, the worship of heavenly bodies (the cult of the Sun, the Moon cult, the cult of Heaven) and the worship of certain creatures (lions, eagles, bulls).
According to De Morgan there are signs which indicate that the Armenians were initially nature worshipers and that this faith in time was transformed to the worship of national gods, of which many were the equivalents of the gods in the Roman, Greek and Persian cultures.
Historians distinguish a significant body of Indo-European language used by Armenian pagans as sacred. Since ancient times the cult of sun worship occupied a special place in Armenian mythology.
Among the most ancient types of worship of Indo-European roots are the cults of eagles and lions, and the worship of heaven. In addition to the main worship of the eagle and the lion, there were other sacred animals: the bull (Ervand and Ervaz were born to a relationship of a woman and a bull), deer (from the Bronze Age, there are numerous pictures, statues and bas-reliefs associated with the cult of the mother goddess and, later, with the Christian Mother of God), bear, cat and dog (e.g. Aralez).
The original cult worship was a kind of unfathomable higher power or intelligence called Ara, called the physical embodiment of the sun (Arev) worshiped by the ancient Armenians, who called themselves “the children of the sun”.
Ara the Beautiful (also Ara the Handsome or Ara the Fair) was a legendary Armenian hero. He is notable in Armenian literature for the popular legend in which he was so handsome that the Assyrian queen Semiramis waged war against Armenia just to get him. He is the god of spring, flora, agriculture, sowing and water. He is associated with Osiris, Vishnu and Dionysus, as the symbol of new life.
Aragil or Stork – considered as the messenger of Ara the Beautiful, as well as the defender of fields. According to ancient mythological conceptions, two stork symbolize the sun. Aralez, spirit-dogs that were licking the bounds of fallen or such an injured warriors of armenian troops, was an Armenian mythology creature-kinocefal (dog-heads).
Over time, the Armenian pantheon was updated, and new deities of Armenian and not Aryan origins appeared. Furthermore, the supreme god of the Armenian pantheon, Vanatur, was later replaced by Aramazd. The latter, though, has appeared under the influence of Zoroastrianism, but with partially preserved traditional Armenian features. Similarly, the traditional Armenian goddess of fertility, Nar, or Tsovinar, the goddess of rain, sea and water, though she was actually a fiery being who forced rain to fall, was replaced by Anahit.
During the fifth century BC. the Armenians adopted the Iranian forms of the Indo-European divinities and domesticated them. Ahura-Mazda, who assumed the status of the father of the gods, was worshiped as Aramazd. Mithra, god of light and justice, was known as Mihr. Anahita, goddess of fertility and mother of all wisdom, became Anahit, the favorite goddess of the Armenians. Verethrangna, the god of war, was worshiped as Vahagn. Astghik was the goddess of love. Tir, the scribe of Aramazd, was the god of science and the recorder of human deeds of good and evil. Barshamin and Nane, probably of Syrian origin, also took their places in the Armenian pantheon.
Aramazd (Zeus), the Master of all Armenian gods, the father of all gods and goddess, the creator of heaven and earth, was the principal deity in Armenia’s pre-Christian pantheon. He was the source of earth’s fertility, making it fruitful and bountiful. The celebration in his honor was called Am’nor, or New Year, which was celebrated on March 21 in the old Armenian calendar (also the Spring equinox). He was called “the great and couragous Aramazd”.
Aramazd was a syncretic deity, a combination of the autochthonous Armenian legendary figure Ara and the Iranian Ahura Mazda, the Avestan name for a higher divinity of the Old Iranian religion who was proclaimed as the uncreated God by Zoroaster, the founder of Zoroastrianism. In the Hellinistic period Aramazd in Armenia was compared with Greek Zeus.
Aramazd displaced Vanatur at the top of the pantheon after interaction with the Persians led to the Armenians’ identifying the Zoroastrians’ Ahura Mazda as their prime deity. Amanor and Vanatur (probably it was the same god with various names) was the god of Armenians new year and lord of the new yield. The celebration in his honor occurred in the end of Junly and was called Navasard (new year). His main worship was located in Bagavan city. If Amanor was the god of new year and new yield, Vanatur was the god of hospitality and bountiful hosts.
The principal temple of Aramazd was in Ani (Kamakh in modern Turkey), a cultural and administrative center of ancient Armenia. The temple had been ruined at the end of the 3rd century AD, after the adoption of Christianity in Armenia as the state religion. The treasures and tribal mausoleums of Armenian Arshaguni (Arshakuni) kings were there, too.
Anahit (Artemis) was the daughter or wife of Aramazd. Anahit was the most loved and honored Armenian goddess. She was  mother-goddess. Anahit was sculptured with the child on her hands` with specific hair style of Armenians mothers or women and was called “Great Lady Anahit”. Ancient Armenians believed that Armenian world was existing by Anahit’s will. Anahit was the cult of maternity and fertility. Anahit-worships were established in Eriza avan (region) and in Armavir, Artashat and Ashtishat cities . A mountain in Sophene district was known as Anahit’s throne (Athor Anahta).
Vahagn (Heracles), or Vahagn Vishapakagh (Vahagn the Dragon Reaper), was the third god of Armenian Pantheon. Vahagn was the god of thunder and lightning, and a herculean hero noted for slaying dragons. He was also worshiped as a sun-god and a god of courage. Vahagn’s main sanctuary was located in the Ashtishat city of Taron “world” (a region in ancient Armenia). Vahagn was also a god of war to whom Armenian kings and warlords would pray before engaging in battle.
Astghik (Greek – Aphrodite, Mesopotamian – Ishtar), the goddess of love, beauty and water, was the wife or lover of Vahagn, the god of thunder and lightning, while Nane  (Athena) was the daughter of Aramazd. The goddess of war. Her cult was closely connected with Anahit’s cult.
Mihr was the god of sun and heaven light. He was the son of Aramazd, the brother of Anahit and Nane, while Tir (Apollo) was the god of wisdom, science and studies, also an interpreter of dreams. Tir was secretary of Aramazd. Tir’s temple was located near Artashat and  was called “Aramazds grchi divan” or “Mehyan for studying sciences”.
Both Vedic Mitra and Avestan Mithra derive from an Indo-Iranian common noun *mitra-, generally reconstructed to have meant “covenant, treaty, agreement, promise.” This meaning is preserved in Avestan mithra “covenant.” In Sanskrit and modern Indo-Aryan languages, mitra means “friend,” one of the aspects of binding and alliance.
In the Hellenistic age (3rd to 1st centuries BC), ancient Armenian deities identified with the ancient Greek deities: Aramazd with Zeus, Anahit with Artemis, Vahagn with Hercules, Astghik with Aphrodite, Nane with Athena, Mihr with Hephaestus, Tir with Apollo.
After the formal adoption of Christianity in Armenia, new mythological images and stories were born as ancient myths and beliefs transformed. Biblical characters took over the functions of the archaic gods and spirits. For example, John the Baptist inherited certain features of Vahagn and Tyre, and the archangel Gabriel that of Vahagn.
Basic information about Armenian pagan traditions were preserved in the works of ancient Greek authors such as Plato, Herodotus, Xenophon and Strabo, Byzantine scholar Procopius of Caesarea, as well as medieval Armenian writers such as Moses of Chorene, Agathangelos, Yeznik of Kolb, Sebeos and Anania Shirakatsi, not to mention oral folk traditions.
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In the beginning

Posted by Fredsvenn on September 13, 2013
The name Armenia is connected to the Indo-European root Ar- meaning “assemble/create” which is vastly used in names of or regarding the Sun, light, or fire, found in Ararat, Aryan, Arta etc. The most ancient and principal national deity of the Armenian people was the deity of the sun and fire.
The term “Natufian” was coined by Dorothy Garrod who studied the Shuqba cave in Wadi an-Natuf, in the western Judean Mountains, about halfway between Tel Aviv and Ramallah.
The Natufian culture (13,000-9,800 BC) was an Epipaleolithic culture that existed in the Levant, a region in the Eastern Mediterranean. It was unusual in that it was sedentary, or semi-sedentary, before the introduction of agriculture.
The Natufian communities are possibly the ancestors of the builders of the first Neolithic settlements of the region, which may have been the earliest in the world. There is some evidence for the deliberate cultivation of cereals, specifically rye, by the Natufian culture, at the Tell Abu Hureyra site, the site for earliest evidence of agriculture in the world. Generally, though, Natufians made use of wild cereals. Animals hunted included gazelles.
Zarzian culture (18,000-8,000 BC) is an archaeological culture of late Paleolithic and Mesolithic in Iraq, Iran, Central Asia, named and recognised of the cave of Zarzi in Iraqi. It was preceded by the Upper Palaeolithic Baradostian in the same region and was related to the Imereti culture of the Caucasus.
Andy Burns states “The Zarzian of the Zagros region of Iran is contemporary with the Natufian but different from it. The only dates for the entire Zarzian come from Palegawra Cave, and date to 17,300-17,000BP, but it is clear that it is broadly contemporary with the Levantine Kebaran, with which it shares features.
The Zarzian culture seems to have participated in the early stages of what Kent Flannery has called the broad spectrum revolution. It is found associated with remains of the domesticated dog and with the introduction of the bow and arrow. It seems to have extended north into the Kobistan region and into Eastern Iran as a forerunner of the Hissar and related cultures.
The Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN, around 8500-5500 BCE) represents the early Neolithic in the Levantine and upper Mesopotamian region of the Fertile Crescent. It succeeds the Natufian culture of the Epipaleolithic (Mesolithic) as the domestication of plants and animals was in its beginnings, possibly triggered by the Younger Dryas. The Pre-Pottery Neolithic culture came to an end around the time of the 8.2 kiloyear event, a cool spell lasting several hundred years centred around 6200 BC.
Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA, ca 8,500 – 7,500 BC), succeeds the Natufian culture of the Epipaleolithic (Mesolithic) and denotes the first stage in early Levantine Neolithic culture. Archaeological remains are located in the Levantine and upper Mesopotamian region of the Fertile Crescent. The time period is characterized by tiny circular mud brick dwellings, the cultivation of crops, the hunting of wild game, and unique burial customs in which bodies were buried below the floors of dwellings.
The Pre-Pottery Neolithic A and the following Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) were originally defined by Kathleen Kenyon in the type site of Jericho (Palestine). During this time, pottery was not in use yet. They precede the ceramic Neolithic (Yarmukian).
Like the earlier PPNA culture the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B culture (ca 7,500 to 6200 BC) developed from the Earlier Natufian but shows evidence of a northerly origin, possibly indicating an influx from the region of north eastern Anatolia.
The PPNB culture disappeared during the 8.2 kiloyear event, a term that climatologists have adopted for a sudden decrease in global temperatures that occurred approximately 8,200 years before the present, or c. 6200 BC, and which lasted for the next two to four centuries.
Cultural tendencies of this period differ from that of the earlier Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) period in that people living during this period began to depend more heavily upon domesticated animals to supplement their earlier mixed agrarian and hunter-gatherer diet. In addition the flint tool kit of the period is new and quite disparate from that of the earlier period. One of its major elements is the naviform core.
This is the first period in which architectural styles of the southern Levant became primarily rectilinear; earlier typical dwellings were circular, elliptical and occasionally even octagonal. Pyrotechnology was highly developed in this period. During this period, one of the main features of houses is evidenced by a thick layer of white clay plaster floors highly polished and made of lime produced from limestone.
It is believed that the use of clay plaster for floor and wall coverings during PPNB led to the discovery of pottery. The earliest proto-pottery was White Ware vessels, made from lime and gray ash, built up around baskets before firing, for several centuries around 7000 BC at sites such as Tell Neba’a Faour (Beqaa Valley).
In the following Munhatta and Yarmukian post-pottery Neolithic cultures that succeeded it, rapid cultural development continues, although PPNB culture continued in the Amuq valley, where it influenced the later development of Ghassulian culture.
On a hill known as Göbekli Tepe (“Potbelly Hill”) in the Armenian Highland in todays southeastern Turkey, archaeologists have uncovered several large megalithic enclosures that date between 10000 and 8000 BC., the dawn of civilization and the Neolithic age.
Each of these circular enclosures, which many have described as Turkey’s “Stonehenge,” consists of ten to twelve massive stone pillars surrounding two larger monoliths positioned in the middle of the structure.
There are no village remains at or near the Göbekli Tepe ruins, suggesting that the unique site was a ceremonial center exclusively used for the practice of the Neolithic religion of local hunter-gatherer groups.
The tell includes two settlement phases dating back to the 10th-8th millennium BC. During the first phase (PPNA), circles of massive T-shaped stone pillars were erected. More than 200 pillars in about 20 circles are currently known through geophysical surveys. Each pillar has a height of up to 6 m (20 ft) and a weight of up to 20 tons. They are fitted into sockets that were hewn out of the bedrock.
In the second phase (PPNB), the erected pillars are smaller. They stood in rectangular rooms. These rooms had floors of polished lime. Obviously, the site was abandoned after the PPNB-period. Younger structures date to classical times.
Given the early age of the site, equally surprising are the varied and often highly elaborate carvings that adorn the pillars of the Göbekli Tepe ruins. Among the pillars are detailed and often very realistic depictions of animal figures, including vultures and scorpions, lions, bulls, boars, foxes, gazelles, asses, snakes, and other birds and reptiles.
In addition, some of the massive monoliths are carved with stylized anthropomorphic details – including arms, legs and clothing – that give the impression of large super-human beings watching over the enclosures.
The Göbekli Tepe ruins and enclosures – the earliest monumental ritual sites of Neolithic religion and possibly the oldest religion in the world – are causing experts to rethink the origins of religion and human civilization.
Until recently, scholars agreed that agriculture and human settlement in villages gave rise to religious practices. The discoveries at the Göbekli Tepe ruins, however, indicate that earlier hunter-gatherer groups that had not yet settled down had already developed complex religious ideas, together with monumental ceremonial sites to practice the sacred communal rituals of Neolithic religion.
The Khabur River is the largest perennial tributary to the Euphrates in Syrian territory. Although the Khabur originates in Turkey, the karstic springs around Ra’s al-‘Ayn are the river’s main source of water. Several important wadis join the Khabur north of Al-Hasakah, together creating what is known as the Khabur Triangle, or Upper Khabur area.
From north to south, annual rainfall in the Khabur basin decreases from over 400 mm to less than 200 mm, making the river a vital water source for agriculture throughout history. The Khabur joins the Euphrates near the town of Busayrah.
Since the 1930s, numerous archaeological excavations and surveys have been carried out in the Khabur Valley, indicating that the region has been occupied since the Lower Palaeolithic period. Important sites that have been excavated include Tell Halaf, Tell Brak, Tell Leilan, Tell Mashnaqa, Tell Mozan and Tell Barri.
The region has given its name to a distinctive painted ware found in northern Mesopotamia and Syria in the early 2nd millennium BCE, called Khabur ware. The region of the Khabur River is also associated with the rise of the kingdom of the Mitanni that flourished c.1500-1300 BC.
The Hurrians were an ancient people, who spoke a Hurro-Urartian language of the Ancient Near East, living in Anatolia and Northern Mesopotamia during the Bronze Age. Hurrian settlements are distributed over three modern countries, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. The heart of the Hurrian world is dissected by the modern border between Syria and Turkey.
The Hurrians spoke an ergative-agglutinative language, conventionally called Hurrian, (unrelated to neighbouring Semitic or Indo-European languages), which may have been a language isolate. The Iron Age Urartian language is closely related to or a direct descendant of Hurrian. Several notable Russian linguists have claimed that the Hurrian and the Hattic were related to the Northeast Caucasian languages.
The Hurrians had a reputation in metallurgy. The Sumerians borrowed their copper terminology from the Hurrian vocabulary. Copper was traded south to Mesopotamia from the highlands of Anatolia. The Khabur Valley had a central position in the metal trade, and copper, silver and even tin were accessible from the Hurrian-dominated countries Kizzuwatna and Ishuwa situated in the Armenian highland.
Hurrian names occur sporadically in north western Mesopotamia and the area of Kirkuk in modern Iraq by the Middle Bronze Age. Their presence was attested at Nuzi, Urkesh and other sites. They eventually infiltrated and occupied a broad arc of fertile farmland stretching from the Khabur River valley to the foothills of the Zagros Mountains.
I. J. Gelb and E. A. Speiser believed Semitic Subarians had been the linguistic and ethnic substratum of northern Mesopotamia since earliest times, while Hurrians were merely late arrivals.
That idea is at odds with a long-held belief among scholars that the Hurrians arrived much later from the Caucasus or some other distant region to the northeast, drawn to the fringes of civilization after the rise of the great southern Sumerian centers of Ur, Uruk, and Nippur. Scholars long assumed that the Hurrians arrived in the middle of the third millennium B.C., and eventually settled down and adopted cuneiform as a script and built their own cities. That theory is based on linguistic associations with Caucasus’ languages and the fact that Hurrian names are absent from the historical record until Akkadian times.
The discovery of a sophisticated city with monumental architecture, plumbing, stonework, and a large population contradicts the idea that Hurrians were a roving mountain people in a strange land.
Far from being yet another rough nomadic tribe, such as the Amorites or Kassites who were latecomers to the Mesopotamian party, the Hurrians and their unique language, music, deities, and rituals may have played a key role in shaping the first cities, empires, and states. The language has died, the music faded, and the rituals are forgotten. But thanks to the sculptors, stone masons, and seal carvers at Urkesh, Hurrian creativity can shine once again.
Hurrian, like Sumerian, is a language unrelated to Semitic or Indo-European tongues that dominated the region during and after the third millennium BC. Perhaps the Hurrians were earlier inhabitants of the region, who, like the Sumerians, had to make room for the Semitic-speaking people who created the world’s first empire based at Akkad in central Mesopotamia around 2350 BC.
Hurrian cannot be considered an Indo-European language. Traditional Indo-European languages, such as Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Gothic, Old Irish, Old Church Slavic, Tocharian, etc., are clearly related to each other through many common features and shared innovations that are lacking in Hurrian.
Hurrian and Proto-Indo-European “[bear] a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could have been produced by accident; so strong that no philologer could examine [them] without believing them to have sprung from some common source.”
The relevant phonological, morphological, and lexical data shows that Urarto-Hurrian and Indo-European are, in fact, genetically related at a very deep level. They both are descended from a common ancestor, which may be called “Proto-Asianic”.
The origin of the Indo-Aryans is to be found in the Transcaucasus based on their possession of a genetic component related to that of modern Northeast Caucasian speakers and the putative relationship of the latter with the Hurro-Urartian group. This place the Proto-Indo-European homeland in the vicinity of the Hurrians.
Although there are few proofs of lexical borrowing between PIE and North Caucasian, there are a few undeniable areal-typological parallels in phonology and grammar. Some features generally attributed to PIE are not found in the majority of languages of North and Northeastern Eurasia, while they are common, or universally present, in the languages of the Caucasus (especially North Caucasus).
Those features include the high consonant-to-vowel ratio, tonal accent, number suppletion in personal pronouns, the presence of gender and the morphological optative and, possibly, the presence of glottalized consonants and ergativity.
Quite consistent with the idea that Proto-Indo-European is related to the West Asian autosomal component this component occurs at a a level greater than 50% level in modern North Caucasian speakers, is absent in Europe prior to 5,000 years ago, and occurs at levels greater or equal to 10% in most present-day Indo-European speakers from Europe.
Fusional languages are generally believed to have descended from agglutinative languages, though there is no linguistic evidence in the form of attested language changes to confirm this view. On the other hand, fusional languages generally tend to lose their inflection over the centuries – some languages much more quickly than others.
For example, while most Uralic languages are predominantly agglutinative, Estonian is markedly evolving in the direction of a fusional language. On the other hand, Finnish, its close relative, exhibits fewer fusional traits, thereby keeping closer to the mainstream Uralic type.
Also, supposedly, Sanskrit, Latin, Slovenian, Lithuanian, and Armenian are about as fusional as the unattested Proto-Indo-European, but modern English and Afrikaans are almost entirely analytic. The Slavic and Baltic languages have generally retained their inflection, along with Greek.
Armenian corresponds with other Indo-European languages in its structure, but it shares distinctive sounds and features of its grammar with neighboring languages of the Caucasus region. There is a Caucasian substratum, consisting of loans from the Kartvelian and Northeast Caucasian languages such as Udi, in Old Armenian.
There is a Hurro-Urartian substratum of social, cultural, and zoological and biological terms in Armenian. Some of the terms have an Akkadian or Sumerian provenance. Given that these borrowings do not undergo sound changes characteristic of the development of Armenian from Proto-Indo-European their borrowing must have been before the written record, but after the Proto-Armenian language stage.
Armenian is characterized by a system of inflection unlike the other Indo-European languages, as well as a flexible and liberal use of combining root words to create derivative and compound words by the application of certain agglutinative affixes. In fact Armenian is one of only two Indo-European languages with this characteristic, the other one being Persian.
After reviewing some of the morphological basics of Armenian grammar, it is perhaps important to note that none of these characteristics bear any hints of influence from Classical Greek or Old Persian grammar. Amazingly, these characteristics reflect many of the features of the extinct languages that were spoken within the region, until recently known as the Armenian Plateau (currently designated as Anatolia) and its immediate surroundings.
The Hurro-Urartian languages (circa 2000-580 BC) were agglutinative languages, but they definitely did not belong to the Semitic or Indo-European language families. Scholars such as I.M. Diakanoff and Segei Starostin see affinities between Hurro-Urartian and the Northern Caucasian languages, yet, there is little evidence for a relationship of Hurro-Urartian to other language families and this view, prudently, is not shared by serious linguists who consider Hurro-Urartian as an independent family at present.
Today, studies demonstrate that there is evidence of a strong Hurrian cultural and linguistic influence on Hittite in ancient times. Consequently, one can easily conclude that together with Summerian, Elamite, Hattic or Urartian languages, Armenian grammar inherited some of its grammatical and lexical elements from the languages that have seen their political and military rise and fall throughout the ages. Astoundingly, Armenian language seems to be the only survivor as well as the only link to these extinct languages and civilizations.
Graeco-Armenian (also Helleno-Armenian) is the hypothetical common ancestor of the Greek and Armenian languages which postdates the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE). The hypothetical Proto-Graeco-Armenian stage would need to date to the 3rd millennium BC, only barely differentiated from either late PIE or Graeco-Armeno-Aryan.
Evaluation of the hypothesis is tied up with the analysis of the poorly attested Phrygian language. While Greek is attested from very early times, allowing a secure reconstruction of a Proto-Greek language dating to the late 3rd millennium, the history of Armenian is opaque. It is strongly linked with Indo-Iranian languages; in particular, it is a Satem language.
The earliest testimony of the Armenian language dates to the 5th century AD (the Bible translation of Mesrob Mashtots). The earlier history of the language is unclear and the subject of much speculation. It is clear that Armenian is an Indo-European language, but its development is opaque. In any case, Armenian has many layers of loanwords and shows traces of long language contact with Greek and Indo-Iranian. Nakhleh, Warnow, Ringe, and Evans (2005) compared various phylogeny methods support a Graeco-Armenian subgroup.
An interrelated problem is whether there is a “Balkan Indo-European” subgroup of Indo-European, which would comprise not only Greek and Armenian, but also Albanian and possibly some dead languages on the Balkans.
Graeco-Aryan (or Graeco-Armeno-Aryan) is a hypothetical clade within the Indo-European family, ancestral to the Greek language, the Armenian language, and the Indo-Iranian languages. Graeco-Aryan unity would have become divided into Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian by the mid 3rd millennium BC. The Phrygian language would also be included. Conceivably, Proto-Armenian would have been located between Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian, consistent with the fact that Armenian shares certain features only with Indo-Iranian (the satem change) but others only with Greek (s > h).
Graeco-Armeno-Aryan has comparatively wide support among Indo-Europeanists for the Indo-European Homeland to be located in the Armenian Highland. Early and strong evidence was given by Euler’s 1979 examination on shared features in Greek and Sanskrit nominal flection.
Used in tandem with the Graeco-Armeno-Aryan hypothesis, the Armenian language would also be included under the label Aryano-Greco-Armenic, splitting into proto-Greek/Phrygian and “Armeno-Aryan” (ancestor of Armenian and Indo-Iranian).
In the context of the Kurgan hypothesis, Greco-Aryan is also known as “Late PIE” or “Late Indo-European” (LIE), suggesting that Greco-Aryan forms a dialect group which corresponds to the latest stage of linguistic unity in the Indo-European homeland in the early part of the 3rd millennium BC. By 2500 BC, Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian had separated, moving westward and eastward from the Pontic Steppe, respectively.
If Graeco-Aryan is a valid group, Grassmann’s law may have a common origin in Greek and Sanskrit. (Note, however, that Grassmann’s law in Greek postdates certain sound changes that happened only in Greek and not Sanskrit, which suggests that it cannot strictly be an inheritance from a common Graeco-Aryan stage. Rather, it is more likely an areal feature that spread across a then-contiguous Graeco-Aryan-speaking area after early Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian had developed into separate dialects but before they ceased being in geographic contact.)
Haplogroup J2 is thought to have appeared somewhere in the Middle East towards the end of the last glaciation, between 15,000 and 22,000 years ago. Its present geographic distribution argue in favour of a Neolithic expansion from the Fertile Crescent.
This expansion probably correlated with the diffusion of domesticated of cattle and goats (starting c. 8000-9000 BCE) from the Zagros mountains and northern Mesopotamia, rather than with the development of agriculture in the Levant (which seems to have been linked to haplogroup G and perhaps also E1b1b).
A second expansion of J2 could have occured with the advent of metallurgy (also from Anatolia and Mesopotamia) and the rise of some of the oldest civilisations.
Roy King and Peter Underhill had previously published on the Congruent distribution of Neolithic painted pottery and ceramic figurines with Y-chromosome lineages, in which they found that only the Eu9 [Dienekes: J2-M172] haplogroup successfully predicted the distribution of both Neolithic figurines (88% accuracy) and painted pottery (80% accuracy).
Examining the beginnings of agriculture in the ‘Fertile Crescent’, this research team has compared the distribution of rainfall with the distribution of Y-chromosome haplogroups. The extended families signalled by J1 and J2 haplogroups seem to have had different destinies in the era of agro-pastoralist experiment: J2 were the agricultural innovators who followed the rainfall, while J1 remained largely with their flocks.
In human genetics, Haplogroup J-M172 is a Y-chromosome haplogroup which is a subclade (branch) of haplogroup J-P209. J-M172 can be classified as Mediterranean/Aegean (Di Giacomo, 2004), Greco-Anatolian, Mesopotamian and/or Caucasian and is linked to the earliest indigenous populations of Anatolia and the Aegean. It was carried by Bronze Age immigrants to Europe.
The precise region of origin for haplogroup J-M172 remains a topic of discussion. However, at least within a European context, Anatolia and the Aegean seem to be source regions, with Hg J2 having perhaps arisen in the Levant (Di Giacomo 2004) / Middle East (Semino 2004) with the development of agriculture.
The highest reported frequency of J-M172 ever was 87.4%, among Ingush in Malgobek (Balanovsky 2011). J-M172 – Associated with Mediterranean, South Caucasian and Fertile Crescent populations, with its peaks at 87.4% in Ingushetia and 72% in Georgia’s Kazbegi region (near Mount Kazbek). In the North Caucasus, the largest frequencies are those of Nakh peoples (Chechens (56.7%) and Ingush (88.8%). Other notable values were found among North Caucasian Turkic peoples (Kumyks (25%) and Balkars (24%).
It is notable that according to both Nasidze’s study in 2004 and then a later study on Dagestani peoples by Yunusbaev in 2006, J-M172 suddenly collapses as one enters the territory of non-Nakh Northeast Caucasian peoples, dropping to very low values among Dagestani peoples. The overwhelming bulk of Chechen J-M172 is of the subclade J-M67), of which the highest frequencies by far are found among Nakh peoples- Chechens were 55.2% according to the Balanovsky study, while Ingush were 87.4%.
Y DNA haplogroup J-M267, also commonly known as Haplogroup J1 is found today in significant frequencies in many areas in order near the Middle East, and parts of the Caucasus, Sudan and the Horn of Africa.
North Africa received Semitic migrations, according to some studies it may have been diffused in recent time by Arabs who, mainly from the 7th century a.d., expanded to northern Africa. However the Canary islands is not known to have had any Semitic language. There J-M267 is dominated by J-P58, and dispersed in a very uneven manner according to studies so far, often but not always being lower among Berber and/or non-urban populations.
In Ethiopia there are signs of older movements of J-M267 into Africa across the Red Sea, not only in the J-P58 form. This also appears to be associated with Semitic languages. According to a study in 2011, in Tunisia, J-M267 is significantly more abundant in the urban (31.3%) than in the rural total population (2.5%).
According to the authors, these results could be explained by supposing that Arabization in Tunisia was a military enterprise, therefore, mainly driven by men that displaced native Berbers to geographically marginal areas but that frequently married Berber women.
Since the discovery of haplogroup J-P209 it has generally been recognized that it shows signs of having originated in or near West Asia. The frequency and diversity of both its major branches, J-M267 and J-M172, in that region makes them candidates as genetic markers of the spread of farming technology during the Neolithic, which is proposed to have had a major impact upon human populations.
Quite a few ancient Mediterranean and Middle Eastern civilisations flourished in territories where J2 lineages were preponderant. This is the case of the Hattians, the Hurrians, the Etruscans, the Minoans, the Greeks, the Phoenicians (and their Carthaginian offshoot), the Israelites, and to a lower extent also the Romans, the Assyrians and the Persians. All the great seafaring civilisations from the middle Bronze Age to the Iron Age were dominated by J2 men.
There is a distinct association of ancient J2 civilisations with bull worship. The oldest evidence of a cult of the bull can be traced back to Neolithic central Anatolia, notably at the sites of Çatalhöyük and Alaca Höyük. Bull depictions are omnipresent in Minoan frescos and ceramics in Crete. Bull-masked terracotta figurines and bull-horned stone altars have been found in Cyprus (dating back as far as the Neolithic, the first presumed expansion of J2 from West Asia).
The Hattians, Sumerians, Babylonians, Canaaites, and Carthaginians all had bull deities (in contrast with Indo-European or East Asian religions). The sacred bull of Hinduism, Nandi, present in all temples dedicated to Shiva or Parvati, does not have an Indo-European origin, but can be traced back to Indus Valley civilisation.
Minoan Crete, Hittite Anatolia, the Levant, Bactria and the Indus Valley also shared a tradition of bull leaping, the ritual of dodging the charge of a bull. It survives today in the traditional bullfighting of Andalusia in Spain and Provence in France, two regions with a high percentage of J2 lineages.
Shulaveri-Shomu culture is a Late Neolithic/Eneolithic culture that existed on the territory of present-day Georgia, Azerbaijan and the Armenian Highlands. The culture is dated to mid-6th or early-5th millennia BC and is thought to be one of the earliest known Neolithic cultures. The Shulaveri-Shomu culture begins after the 8.2 kiloyear event which was a sudden decrease in global temperatures starting ca. 6200 BC and which lasted for about two to four centuries.
Shulaveri culture predates the Kura-Araxes culture and surrounding areas, which is assigned to the period of ca. 4000 – 2200 BC, and had close relation with the middle Bronze Age culture called Trialeti culture (ca. 3000 – 1500 BC). Sioni culture of Eastern Georgia possibly represents a transition from the Shulaveri to the Kura-Arax cultural complex.
In around ca. 6000–4200 B.C the Shulaveri-Shomu and other Neolithic/Chalcolithic cultures of the Southern Caucasus use local obsidian for tools, raise animals such as cattle and pigs, and grow crops, including grapes.
Many of the characteristic traits of the Shulaverian material culture (circular mudbrick architecture, pottery decorated by plastic design, anthropomorphic female figurines, obsidian industry with an emphasis on production of long prismatic blades) are believed to have their origin in the Near Eastern Neolithic (Hassuna, Halaf).
Leyla-Tepe culture, a archaeological culture of the eneolithic era, was distributed on the southern slopes of the Central Caucasus dated 4350-4000 BC. Leyla-Tepe culture is genetically well linked with the north Ubaid period monuments, in particular, with the settlements of the district of Eastern Anatolia (Arslan-tepe, Coruchu-tepe, Tepechik, etc.). The settlements is typical Near Eastern settlements.
According to some Russian scientists, media Leyla-Tepe culture were the founders of the Maykop culture (ca. 3700 BC-2500 BC), a major Bronze Age archaeological culture in the Western Caucasus region of Southern Russia, which migrated to the northern slopes of the Central Caucasus.
There are similarities in the artifacts of Leyla-Tepe culture and Maykop culture. New data revealed the similarity of artifacts from the Maykop culture with those found recently in the course of excavations of the ancient city of Tell Khazneh in northern Syria, the construction of which dates back to 4000 BC. Correspondingly, it is supposed that the monuments of the Leyla-Tepe culture shows the migration to the South and then the North Caucasus in Ubaid period of the Near East.
The Maykop culture extends along the area from the Taman Peninsula at the Kerch Strait to near the modern border of Dagestan and southwards to the Kura River. It is suggested that the Maykop culture (or its ancestor) may have been a way-station for Indo-Europeans migrating from the South Caucasus and/or eastern Anatolia to a secondary Urheimat on the steppe. This would essentially place the Anatolian stock in Anatolia from the beginning. Considering that some attempt has been made to unite Indo-European with the Northwest Caucasian languages, an earlier Caucasian pre-Urheimat is not out of the question.
In the south the Maykop culture borders the approximately contemporaneous Kura-Araxes culture (3500—2200 BC), which extends into eastern Anatolia and apparently influenced it. To the north is the Yamna culture, including the Novotitorovka culture (3300—2700), which it overlaps in territorial extent. It is contemporaneous with the late Uruk period in Mesopotamia.
In the early 20th century, researchers established the existence of a local Maykop animal style in the found artifacts. This style was seen as the prototype for animal styles of later archaeological cultures: the Maykop animal style is more than a thousand years older than the Scythian, Sarmatian and Celtic animal styles.
The Yamna culture is identified with the late Proto-Indo-Europeans (PIE) in the Kurgan hypothesis of Marija Gimbutas. It is the strongest candidate for the Urheimat (homeland) of the Proto-Indo-European language, along with the preceding Sredny Stog culture, now that archaeological evidence of the culture and its migrations has been closely tied to the evidence from linguistics.
It is said to have originated in the middle Volga based Khvalynsk culture and the middle Dnieper based Sredny Stog culture. In its western range, it is succeeded by the Catacomb culture; in the east, by the Poltavka culture and the Srubna culture.
Pavel Dolukhanov argues that the emergence of the Pit-Grave culture represents a social development of various local Bronze Age cultures, representing “an expression of social stratification and the emergence of chiefdom-type nomadic social structures”, which in turn intensified inter-group contacts between essentially heterogeneous social groups.
The earliest remains in Eastern Europe of a wheeled cart were found in the “Storozhova mohyla” kurgan (Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine, excavated by Trenozhkin A.I.) associated with the Yamna culture.
The Kura–Araxes culture or the early trans-Caucasian culture was a civilization that existed from 3400 BC until about 2000 BC, which has traditionally been regarded as the date of its end, but it may have disappeared as early as 2600 or 2700 BC. The earliest evidence for this culture is found on the Ararat plain; thence it spread to Georgia by 3000 BC (but never reaching Colchis), and during the next millennium it proceeded westward to the Erzurum plain, southwest to Cilicia, and to the southeast into an area below the Urmia basin and Lake Van, and finally down to the borders of present day Syria. Altogether, the early Trans-Caucasian culture, at its greatest spread, enveloped a vast area approximately 1,000 km by 500 km.
The name of the culture is derived from the Kura and Araxes river valleys. Its territory corresponds to parts of modern Armenia, Azerbaijan, Chechnya, Dagestan, Georgia, Ingushetia and North Ossetia. It may have given rise to the later Khirbet Kerak ware culture found in Syria and Canaan after the fall of the Akkadian Empire.
Inhumation practices are mixed. Flat graves are found, but so are substantial kurgan burials, the latter of which may be surrounded by cromlechs. This points to a heterogeneous ethno-linguistic population (see section below).
Late in the history of this culture, its people built kurgans of greatly varying sizes, containing greatly varying amounts and types of metalwork, with larger, wealthier kurgans surrounded by smaller kurgans containing less wealth. This trend suggests the eventual emergence of a marked social hierarchy. Their practice of storing relatively great wealth in burial kurgans is shared with the ancient civilizations of the Fertile Crescent to the south.
Their pottery was distinctive; in fact, the spread of their pottery along trade routes into surrounding cultures was much more impressive than any of their achievements domestically. It was painted black and red, using geometric designs for ornamentation. Examples have been found as far south as Syria and Israel, and as far north as Dagestan and Chechnya. The spread of this pottery, along with archaeological evidence of invasions, suggests that the Kura-Araxes people may have spread outward from their original homes, and most certainly, had extensive trade contacts. Jaimoukha believes that its southern expanse is attributable primarily to Mitanni and the Hurrians.
Hurrian and Urartian elements are quite probable, as are Northeast Caucasian ones. Some authors subsume Hurrians and Urartians under Northeast Caucasian as well as part of the Alarodian theory. The presence of Kartvelian languages was also highly probable. Influences of Semitic languages and Indo-European languages are also highly possible, though the presence of the languages on the lands of the Kura–Araxes culture is more controversial.
In the late 3rd millennium BC. settlements of the Kura-Araxes culture began to be replaced by early Trialeti culture sites, named after Trialeti region of Georgia. The Trialeti culture shows close ties with the highly-developed cultures of the ancient world, particularly with the Aegean, but also with cultures to the south, such as probably the Sumerians and their Akkadian conquerors.
The Trialeti culture was known for its particular form of burial. This form of burial in a tumulus or “kurgan”, along with wheeled vehicles, is the same as that of the Kurgan culture which has been associated with the speakers of the Caucasian language. In fact, the black burnished pottery of especially early Trialeti kurgans is similar to Kura-Araxes pottery.
The Ubaid culture is characterized by large village settlements, characterized by multi-roomed rectangular mud-brick houses and the appearance of the first temples of public architecture in Mesopotamia, with a growth of a two tier settlement hierarchy of centralized large sites of more than 10 hectares surrounded by smaller village sites of less than 1 hectare. Domestic equipment included a distinctive fine quality buff or greenish colored pottery decorated with geometric designs in brown or black paint; tools such as sickles were often made of hard fired clay in the south. But in the north, stone and sometimes metal were used.
During the Ubaid Period (5000 BC.– 4000 BC.), the movement towards urbanization began. “Agriculture and animal husbandry [domestication] were widely practiced in sedentary communities”. There were also tribes that practiced domesticating animals as far north as Turkey, and as far south as the Zagros Mountains.
The Ubaid period as a whole, based upon the analysis of grave goods, was one of increasingly polarised social stratification and decreasing egalitarianism. Bogucki describes this as a phase of “Trans-egalitarian” competitive households, in which some fall behind as a result of downward social mobility.
It has been hypothesised that Ubaid culture saw the rise of an elite class of hereditary chieftains, perhaps heads of kin groups linked in some way to the administration of the temple shrines and their granaries, responsible for mediating intra-group conflict and maintaining social order. It would seem that various collective methods, perhaps instances of what is called primitive democracy, in which disputes were previously resolved through a council of one’s peers, were no longer sufficient for the needs of the local community.
Ubaid culture originated in the south, but still has clear connections to earlier cultures in the region of middle Iraq. The appearance of the Ubaid folk has sometimes been linked to the so-called Sumerian problem, related to the origins of Sumerian civilisation. Whatever the ethnic origins of this group, this culture saw for the first time a clear tripartite social division between intensive subsistence peasant farmers, with crops and animals coming from the north, tent-dwelling nomadic pastoralists dependent upon their herds, and hunter-fisher folk of the Arabian littoral, living in reed huts.
Stein and Özbal describe the Near East oikumene that resulted from Ubaid expansion, contrasting it to the colonial expansionism of the later Uruk period. “A contextual analysis comparing different regions shows that the Ubaid expansion took place largely through the peaceful spread of an ideology, leading to the formation of numerous new indigenous identities that appropriated and transformed superficial elements of Ubaid material culture into locally distinct expressions”.
Hamoukar is a large archaeological site located in the Jazira region of northeastern Syria near the Iraqi border (Al Hasakah Governorate) and Turkey. The Excavations have shown that this site houses the remains of one of the world’s oldest known cities, leading scholars to believe that cities in this part of the world emerged much earlier than previously thought.
Traditionally, the origins of urban developments in this part of the world have been sought in the riverine societies of southern Mesopotamia (in what is now southern Iraq). This is the area of ancient Sumer, where around 4000 BC many of the famous Mesopotamian cities such as Ur and Uruk emerged, giving this region the attributes of “Cradle of Civilization” and “Heartland of Cities.” Following the discoveries at Hamoukar, this definition may have to extended further up the Tigris River to include that part of northern Syria where Hamoukar is located.
The discovery at Hamoukar indicates that some of the fundamental ideas behind cities – including specialization of labor, a system of laws and government, and artistic development – may have begun earlier than was previously believed.
Previously it was believed that a system of written language was a necessary predecessor of that type of complex city. This archaeological discovery suggests that civilizations advanced enough to reach the size and organizational structure that was necessary to be considered a city could have actually emerged before the advent of a written language.
Most importantly, archaeologists believe this apparent city was thriving as far back as 4000 BC and independently from Sumer. Until now, the oldest cities with developed seals and writing were thought to be Sumerian Uruk and Ubaid in Mesopotamia, which would be in the southern one-third of Iraq today.
The fact that this discovery is such a large city is what is most exciting to archaeologists. While they have found small villages and individual pieces that date much farther back than Hamoukar, nothing can quite compare to the discovery of this size and magnitude. Discoveries have been made here that have never been seen before, including materials from Hellenistic and Islamic civilizations.
The people of Mesopotamia originally consisted of the Sumerians. The Sumerians were a non-Semitic people, and spoke a language isolate. They were farmers who came from the north and migrated down to southern Iraq, after perfecting irrigation agriculture there. Farming peoples spread down into southern Mesopotamia because they had developed a temple-centered social organization for mobilizing labor and technology for water control, enabling them to survive and prosper in a difficult environment.
The archaeological record shows clear uninterrupted cultural continuity from the time of the Early Ubaid period (5300 – 4700 BC C-14) settlements in southern Mesopotamia. The Sumerian people who settled here farmed the lands in this region that were made fertile by silt deposited by the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers.
The Ubaid pottery of southern Mesopotamia has been connected via Choga Mami Transitional ware to the pottery of the Samarra period culture (c. 5700 – 4900 BC C-14) in the north, who were the first to practice a primitive form of irrigation agriculture along the middle Tigris River and its tributaries. The connection is most clearly seen at Tell Awayli (Oueilli, Oueili) near Larsa, excavated by the French in the 1980s, where 8 levels yielded pre-Ubaid pottery resembling Samarran ware.
They settled in southern Mesopotamia, which became known as Sumer. They were incredibly advanced: as well as inventing writing, they also invented early forms of mathematics, early wheeled vehicles, astronomy, astrology and the calendar and they created the first city states/nations such as Uruk, Ur, Lagash, Isin, Umma, Eridu, Nippur and Larsa.
Ubaid 1, sometimes called Eridu (5300–4700 BC), a phase limited to the extreme south of Iraq, on what was then the shores of the Persian Gulf. This phase, showing clear connection to the Samarra culture to the north, saw the establishment of the first permanent settlement south of the 5 inch rainfall isohyet. These people pioneered the growing of grains in the extreme conditions of aridity, thanks to the high water tables of Southern Iraq.
Ubaid 2 (4800–4500 BC), after the type site of the same name, saw the development of extensive canal networks from major settlements. Irrigation agriculture, which seem to have developed first at Choga Mami (4700–4600 BC) and rapidly spread elsewhere, form the first required collective effort and centralised coordination of labour.
Ubaid 3/4, sometimes called Ubaid I and Ubaid II – In the period from 4500–4000 BC saw a period of intense and rapid urbanisation with the Ubaid culture spread into northern Mesopotamia replacing (after a hiatus) the Halaf culture. Ubaid artifacts spread also all along the Arabian littoral, showing the growth of a trading system that stretched from the Mediterranean coast through to Oman.
In the past it was asserted that pastoral nomads left no presence archaeologically but this has now been challenged. Pastoral nomadic sites are identified based on their location outside the zone of agriculture, the absence of grains or grain-processing equipment, limited and characteristic architecture, a predominance of sheep and goat bones, and by ethnographic analogy to modern pastoral nomadic peoples.
Work at the site of ‘Ain Ghazal in Jordan has indicated a later Pre-Pottery Neolithic C period which existed between 8,200 and 7,900 BP. According to Juris Zarins pastoral nomadism began as a cultural lifestyle in the wake of the 6200 BC, partly as a result of an increasing emphasis in Pre-Pottery Neolithic B agriculturalists upon animal domesticates and a fusion with Harifian hunter-gatherers in Southern Palestine, with affiliate connections with the cultures of Fayyum and the Eastern Desert of Egypt, and PPNB to produce a nomadic lifestyle based on animal domestication, developing a circum-Arabian nomadic pastoral complex, and spreading Proto-Semitic languages. Cultures practicing this lifestyle spread down the Red Sea shoreline and moved east from Syria into southern Iraq.
The earliest attestations of a Semitic language are in Akkadian, dating to ca. the 23rd century BC (see Sargon of Akkad) and Eblaite, but earlier evidence of Akkadian comes from personal names in Sumerian texts circa 2800 BC. Researchers in Egypt also claim to have discovered Canaanite snake spells that “date from between 3000 and 2400 BC”.
The specific appearance of the donkey (an African animal) in Proto-Semitic but total absence of any reference to wheeled vehicles rather narrowly dates Proto-Semitic to between 4,800 BC and 4,500 BC.
The archaeological record shows that Arabian Bifacial/Ubaid period came to an abrupt end in eastern Arabia and the Oman peninsula at 3800 BC, just after the phase of lake lowering and onset of dune reactivation. At this time, increased aridity led to an end in semi-desert nomadism, and there is no evidence of human presence in the area for approximately 1000 years, the so-called “Dark Millennium”. This might be due to the 5.9 kiloyear event at the end of the Older Peron.
Aleppo, which has been occupied from around 5000 BC, as excavations in Tallet Alsauda show, appears in historical records as an important city much earlier than Damascus. The first record of Aleppo comes from the third millennium BC, when Aleppo was the capital of an important Bronze Age city-kingdom kingdom closely related to Ebla (modern Tell Mardikh, Idlib Governorate, Syria) in northern Syria, known as Armi to Ebla and Armani to the Akkadians, during the late third millennium BC located.
Giovanni Pettinato describes Armi as Ebla’s alter ego. Naram-Sin of Akkad (or his grandfather Sargon) destroyed both Ebla and Armani in the 23rd century BC. It has been suggested by early 20th century Armenologists that Old Persian Armina and the Greek Armenoi are continuations of an Assyrian toponym Armânum or Armanî. There are certain Bronze Age records identified with the toponym in both Mesopotamian and Egyptian sources.
The site is most famous for the Ebla tablets, an archive of about 20,000 cuneiform tablets found there, dated from around 2250 BC, written in Sumerian script to record the Eblaite language – a previously unknown language that is now the earliest attested Semitic language after the closely related Akkadian.
Eblaite has been described as an East Semitic language which may be very close to pre-Sargonic Akkadian. For example, Manfred Krebernik says that Eblaite “is so closely related to Akkadian that it may be classified as an early Akkadian dialect”, although some of the names that appear in the tablets are Northwest Semitic. According to Cyrus H. Gordon, although scribes might have spoken it sometimes, Eblaite was probably not spoken much, being rather a written lingua franca with East and West Semitic features.
The Semitic family is a member of the larger Afroasiatic family, all of whose other five or more branches are based in north and north east Africa. Largely for this reason, the ancestors of Proto-Semitic speakers were originally believed by some to have first arrived in the Middle East from North Africa, possibly as part of the operation of the Saharan pump, around the late Neolithic.
A recent Bayesian analysis of alternative Semitic histories supports the latter possibility and identifies an origin of Semitic languages in the Levant around 3,750 BC with a single introduction from southern Arabia into Africa around 800 BC.
In one interpretation, Proto-Semitic itself is assumed to have reached the Arabian Peninsula by approximately the 4th millennium BC, from which Semitic daughter languages continued to spread outwards.
When written records began in the late 4th millennium BC, the Semitic-speaking Akkadians (Assyrians/Babylonians) were entering Mesopotamia from the deserts to the west, and were probably already present in places such as Ebla in Syria. Akkadian personal names began appearing in written record in Mesopotamia from the late 29th Century BC.
The Sumerians had a huge influence over the incoming East Semitic Akkadians (later to be known as Assyrians and Babylonians) and their culture. Akkadian Semitic names first appear in king lists of these states circa 2800 BC. The Sumerians were largely dominant in this synthesised Sumero-Akkadian culture however, until the rise of the Akkadian Empire under Sargon of Akkad in 2334 BC. which united all of Mesopotamia under one ruler.
By the late 3rd millennium BC, East Semitic languages, such as Akkadian and Eblaite, were dominant in Mesopotamia and north east Syria, while West Semitic languages, such as Amorite, Canaanite and Ugaritic, were probably spoken from Syria to the Arabian Peninsula, although Old South Arabian is considered by most people to be South Semitic despite the sparsity of data.
The Akkadian language of Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia had become the dominant literary language of the Fertile Crescent, using the cuneiform script that was adapted from the Sumerians. The Middle Assyrian Empire, which originated in the 14th century BC, facilitated the use of Akkadian as a ‘lingua franca’ in many regions outside its homeland. The related, but more sparsely attested, Eblaite disappeared with the city, and Amorite is attested only from proper names in Mesopotamian records.
Posted in Megalithic, Neolithic, Paleolithic, The Fertile Crescent | Leave a Comment »

A common ancestor of Indo-European and Hurrian

Posted by Fredsvenn on September 13, 2013

A common ancestor of Indo-European and Hurrian

There is an interesting monograph by Fournet & Bomhard on the Indo-European Elements in Hurrian (pdf). I will leave the linguistic details to the experts, as I doubt that many people are competent in both Proto-Indo-European and Hurrian to assess the authors’ thesis. However, this is the bit that captured my attention:
Hurrian cannot be considered an Indo-European language — this is so obvious that it barely needs to be stated. Traditional Indo-European languages, such as Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Gothic, Old Irish, Old Church Slavic, Tocharian, etc., are clearly related to each other through many common features and shared innovations that are lacking in Hurrian.
However, that is not the end of the argument. In the preceding chapters, we presented evidence that Hurrian and Proto-Indo-European “[bear] a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could have been produced by accident; so strong that no philologer could examine [them] without believing them to have sprung from some common source.” In this chapter, we will discuss our views on what that common source may have been like. In so doing, we will have to delve deeply into prehistory, well beyond the horizon of what is traditionally reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European in the traditional handbooks.
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Our discussion now comes to an end. In the course of this book, we have attempted to show, through a careful analysis of the relevant phonological, morphological, and lexical data, that Urarto-Hurrian and Indo-European are, in fact, genetically related at a very deep level, as we indicated at the beginning of this chapter by quoting from the famous Third Anniversary Discourse (1786) of Sir William Jones. We propose that both are descended from a common ancestor, which may be called “Proto-Asianic”, to revive an old, but not forgotten, term.
On the basis of genetic data I have recently proposed an origin of the Indo-Aryans in the Transcaucasus, based on their possession of a genetic component related to that of modern Northeast Caucasian speakers and the putative relationship of the latter with the Hurro-Urartian group. If the Hurrian-Indo-European “Proto-Asianic” hypothesis is true, then it would strengthen that hypothesis as it would place the Proto-Indo-Europeans in the vicinity of the Hurrians.
Posted in Armenia, Caucasus, Indo-Europeans | Leave a Comment »

Göbekli Tepe – National Geographic Channel

Posted by Fredsvenn on September 13, 2013
Turkey presents Armenian Portasar to the world as a Turkish Stonehenge
Portasar is a great ritualistic-religious-scientific building, which is situated in the Western Armenia and has 18,500-years-old history. Vachagan Vahradyan, candidate of biological sciences, adviser and chief scientist to the Armenian scientific party of Oxford University’s ‘Stones and Stars’ project, said at today’s meeting with journalists that the Turks ascribe the establishment of Portasar to themselves. According to Carl Schmidt, in the Armenian highland the haven was divided into constellations even 12-18 thousand years ago.
Vachagan Vahradyan says the Portasar was built in the eon of Scorpion. Griffon was painted on the huge building. This one and other resemblances come to prove that Portasar has a lot in common with Karahunj; the builders belonged to the same culture.
The scientist says the existence of such a monument creates basis for casting doubt on the opinion about the knowledge of the old civilization. Turkey organizes a number of exhibitions, representing the monument as a Turkish one before the world. Vachagan Vahradyan says it is necessary to reach arrangements with Turkey and conduct excavations in Portasar.
But, who is really are the Turks – 95 % of the genetical pool is local Anatolian – maybe the Turks and the Armenians should find that they share the same story an that cooperation is better than competition, even if the Turks speak Turkic, a Central Asiatic language, and not Armenian, which has proven to be local.
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Posted in Megalithic, Religion, The Fertile Crescent | Leave a Comment »

Pope Tawadros II prays for Syria

Posted by Fredsvenn on September 12, 2013
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Head of the Coptic Orthodox Church Pope Tawadros II denounced any possible attack on Syria by Western countries. In a tweet on Monday 2/9/2013, the Pope said he prays for the safety and integrity of Syria. He praised Egypt’s stance on the Syrian crisis.
As an answear to the threat of a possible Western military strike against Syria the pope said on his personal Twitter account, “We pray for Syria’s peace and unity and denounce any attacks against it. Fire isn’t extinguished by fire, but rather by water. Thus we salute the Egyptian position.”
Posted in Syria, War | Leave a Comment »

Krise i Syria – Mens Vesten toer sine hender

Posted by Fredsvenn on September 12, 2013
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Den lille kristne byen Maaloula nord for Damaskus er en av de mest kjente byene i Syria og kanskje det eneste stedet i verden der befolkningen snakker samme språk som Jesus i sin tid snakket, vest-arameisk, et språk som har vært snakket i over 3.500 år og som i tillegg til i Maaloula i Syria kun tales i Bakh’a and Jubb Adin.
Maaloula er et symbol på det kristne nærværet i Syria, med flere historiske klostre. Før krigen var byen et yndet turistmål. Byen, som inkluderer to av de eldste overlevende klostre i Syria, Mar Sarkis og Mar Takla, står på UNESCOs verdensarvliste. Det er et pilegrimssted for kristne, men også muslimer har valfartet til byen for å få velsignelse.
Sist uke falt Maaloula i hendene på ytterliggående islamister. Angrepet startet da en av opprørerne sprengte seg selv i luften ved en kontrollpost på veien inn til byen. Den 4. september hadde islamistene overtatt kontrollposten, og sist helg ble det meldt at islamistene hadde tatt full kontroll og gått inn i byen.
Medlemmer av al-Nusra, en opprørsgruppe knyttet til al-Qaida, er blant dem som har inntatt byen, som har cirka 3.500 innbyggere og er strategisk viktig for opprørerne som prøver å stramme grepet om Damaskus, som ligger 55 kilometer lenger sør. Maaloula kan blant annet brukes som utskytningspunkt for rakettangrep mot hovedveien mellom Damaskus og Homs, som er viktig for regjeringens leveranser og transport.
Det er de to islamistmilitsene Ahrar al-Sham (Syrias frie folk) og Al-Nusra-fronten, er en av de best organiserte og bevæpnede islamistgruppene blant opprørerne, som har gått til angrep. Sistnevnte gruppe sverget for en tid tilbake troskap til Al-Qaida-lederen Ayman al-Zawahiri.
En video publisert på Ahrar al-Shams Facebook-side viser angrepet på kontrollposten utenfor Maaloula, og en stemme på i et annet klipp fra kampene bekrefter at de to gruppene samarbeider om aksjonen.
– Ahrar al-Sham samarbeider med Jabhat al-Nusra. Gud er størst, sier stemmen, før videoen viser døde syriske soldater og folk kledd i sivile klær.
De islamistiske opprørererne omtaler den kristne befolkningen i byen som «korsfarere», og har tvunget folk til å konvertere til islam, mens de har truet med skytevåpen. Patriark Gregorius III Laham hevder overfor den libanesiske TV-kanalen Al-Nahar at bevæpnede menn har tatt seg inn i hus og brant kors og helgenbilder. Det har samtidig blitt rapportert at kristne farmere ikke kunne arbeide på sitt land uten følge av en muslim.  
Av de 3,500 innbyggerne har kun 50 blitt værende under kampene. Mange har blitt tvunget til å forlate byen av opprørerne, som har angrepet kristne hjem og drept flere sivile, samt truet med å av kappe hodene til folk om de ikke konverterer til islam. En kvinne, som ble intervjuet av libanesisk media, har fortalt at hennes mann fikk kuttet over sin hals.
– De kom til byen vår ved daggry og ropte: «Vi er fra Nusrafronten og er kommet for å gjøre livet elendig for dere korsfarere», forteller en kvinne ved navn Marie, som har flyktet til Damaskus.
– Jeg så folk med Nusrafrontens hodetørklær som begynte å skyte mot kors, forteller han.
– En av dem rettet pistolen mot hodet til naboen min og tvang ham til å konvertere ved å få ham til å repetere at «det er ingen annen gud enn Allah», sier han.
– Etterpå fleipet de med ham og sa: «Han er en av oss nå.»
Tirsdag den 10. september erklærte The Free Syrian Army, samlebetegnelsen for en rekke opprørsgrupper, at opprørerne ville trekke seg tilbake for å spare byens folk og historiske arv, forutsatt at regimets soldater også holdt seg unna. Men opprørerne har fortsatt å være i byen.
Nye rapporter vedrørende den nåværende situasjonen i og rundt Maaloula sier at enheter fra Syrian Arab Army (SAA) har klart å gjeninnta kontrollen over deler av byen og at enheter fra den syriske hæren har fortsatt sine operasjoner mot de utenlandsk-støttede terroristgruppene og islamistene i al-Nusra Front i og rundt byen.
De amerikansk-støttede islamistiske styrkene og terroristgruppene har allerede ødelagt flere kirker opg andre bygninger. Islamistene er med andre ord nå godt i gang med å ødelegge Syrias og landets minoriteters kulturarv. Dette mens Obama truer med å bombe Syria, noe som gjør lite annet enn å forverre situasjonen, ettersom det ikke akkurat er konstruktive forslag det er han kommer med.
I stedet for å hale ut tiden, slik at Syria blir maksimalt ødelagt, er det nå på tide å handle. Første punkt på programmet bør da være å slutte å gi støtte til terroristgrupper, såkalte opprørsgrupper, og å legge skylden på andre, inkludert på Assad, Russland og Kina.
I konflikten som nå finner sted i Syria støtter jeg ingen av partene – hverken Assads regjering eller de såkalte “frihetskjemperne”. De kristne, som befinner seg mellom barken og veden, ber anstendig Vesten om å holde seg borte.
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Ashur – The Sky God and Enûma Eliš

Posted by Fredsvenn on September 12, 2013
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In Akkadian mythology and Sumerian mythology, Ashur is a sky god – husband of his sister Kishar; their children Lahmu and Lahamu, and the parents of Anu and Ea (and, in some traditions, Enlil). He is sometimes depicted as having Ninlil as a consort. As Anshar, he is progenitor of the Akkadian pantheon; as Ashur, he is the head of the Assyrian pantheon. He led the gods in the war against Tiamat.
In Akkadian mythology, Anshar (also spelled Anshur), which means “sky pivot” or “sky axle”, is a sky god. He is the husband of his sister Kishar. They might both represent heaven (an) and earth (ki). Both are the second generation of gods; their parents being the serpents Lahmu and Lahamu and grandparents Tiamat and Abzu. In their turn they are the parents of Anu another sky god.
During the reign of Sargon II, Assyrians started to identify Anshar with their Ashur, the Assyrian pantheon in Mesopotamian religion, worshipped mainly in the northern half of Mesopotamia, and parts of north east Syria and south east Asia Minor which constituted old Assyria, in order to let him star in their version of Enuma Elish, the Babylonian creation mythos (named after its opening words).
This epic is one of the most important sources for understanding the Babylonian worldview, centered on the supremacy of Marduk and the creation of humankind for the service of the gods. Its primary original purpose, however, is not an exposition of theology or theogony but the elevation of Marduk, the chief god of Babylon, above other Mesopotamian gods.
Babylonian religion is the religious practice of Babylonia. In Babylonian religion, the ritual care and worship of the statues of deities was considered sacred; the gods resided simultaneously in their statues in temples and in the natural forces they embodied. An elaborate ceremony of washing the mouths of the statues appeared sometime in the Old Babylonian period.
The pillaging or destruction of idols was considered to be a withdrawal of divine patronage; during the Neo-Babylonian period, the Chaldean prince Marduk-apla-iddina II fled into the southern marshes of Mesopotamia with the statues of Babylon’s gods to save them from the armies of Sennacherib of Assyria.
Babylonian mythology is a set of stories depicting the activities of Babylonian deities, heroes, and mythological creatures. These stories served many social, political, ceremonial purposes, and at times tried to explain natural phenomena. Chaldean religion was largely centered around civilization.
Babylonian mythology was greatly influenced by their Sumerian counterparts, and was written on clay tablets inscribed with the cuneiform script derived from sumerian cuneiform. The myths were usually either written in Sumerian or Akkadian. Some Babylonian texts were even translations into Akkadian from the Sumerian language of earlier texts, though the names of some deities were changed in Babylonian texts.
Many Babylonian deities, myths and religious writings are singular to that culture; for example, the uniquely Babylonian deity, Marduk, replaced Enlil as the head of the mythological pantheon. The Enûma Eliš, a creation myth epic was an original Babylonian work.
The Enûma Eliš exists in various copies from Babylon and Assyria. The version from Ashurbanipal’s library dates to the 7th century BC. The composition of the text probably dates to the Bronze Age, to the time of Hammurabi or perhaps the early Kassite era (roughly 18th to 16th centuries BC.), although some scholars favour a later date of ca. 1100 BC.
Many of the stories of the Tanakh are believed to have been based on, influenced by, or inspired by the legendary mythological past of the Near East. The Enûma Eliš was recognized as being related to the Jewish Genesis creation mythos from its first publication (Smith 1876), and it was an important step in the recognition of the roots of the account found in the Bible and in other Ancient Near Eastern (Canaanite and Mesopotamian) myths.
In one interpretation, Genesis 1:1-3 can be taken as describing the state of chaos immediately prior to God’s act of creation: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. ”
The Enûma Eliš and Genesis, however, have different aims according to some researchers. To address these similarities within a Christian framework, Conrad Hyers of the Princeton Theological Seminary for example stated that the Genesis mythos polemically addressed earlier Babylonian and other pagan world views to “repudiate the divinization of nature and the attendant myths of divine origins, divine conflict, and divine ascent,” thus rejecting the idea that Genesis borrowed from or appropriated the form of the Enûma Eliš.
According to this view, The Enûma Eliš was comfortable using connections between the divine and inert matter while aim of Genesis was supposedly to trumpet the superiority of the Israelite Elohim over all creation (and subsequent deities).
Reconstruction of the broken Enûma Eliš tablet seems to define the rarely attested Sapattum or Sabattum as the full moon. This word is cognate or merged with Hebrew Shabbat (cf. Genesis 2:2-3), but is monthly rather than weekly; it is regarded as a form of Sumerian sa-bat (“mid-rest”), attested in Akkadian as um nuh libbi (“day of mid-repose”). This conclusion is a contextual restoration of the damaged tablet, which is read as: “[Sa]bbath shalt thou then encounter, mid[month]ly.”
The deified city Ashur dates from the mid 3rd millennium BC and was the capital of the Old Assyrian kingdom. Ashur did not originally have a family, but as the cult came under southern Mesopotamian influence he came to be regarded as the Assyrian equivalent of Enlil, the chief god of Nippur, which was the most important god of the southern pantheon from the early 3rd millennium BC until Hammurabi founded an empire based in Babylon in the mid-18th century BC, after which Marduk replaced Enlil as the chief god in the south. In the north, Ashur absorbed Enlil’s wife Ninlil (as the Assyrian goddess Mullissu) and his sons Ninurta and Zababa – this process began around the 14th century BC and continued down to the 7th century.
In Enuma Elish Anshar’s spouse was Ninlil. They do evil, unspeakable things. Then, Abzu decides to try to destroy them. They both hear of the plan and kill him first. Tiamat gets outraged and gives birth to 11 children. They then kill them both and then are outmatched by anyone. Marduk (God of rain/thunder/lightning) kills Tiamat by wrapping a net around her and summoning the 4 winds to make her swell, then Marduk shoots an arrow into her and kills her. Half of her body is then divided to create the heavens and the Earth. He uses her tears to make rivers on Earth and take her blood to make humans.
During the various periods of Assyrian conquest, such as the Assyrian Empire of Shamshi-Adad I (1813-1750 BC), Middle Assyrian Empire (1391-1056 BC) and Neo-Assyrian Empire (911-605 BC), the Assyrians did not require conquered peoples to take up the worship of Ashur; instead, Assyrian imperial propaganda declared that the conquered peoples had been abandoned by their gods.
When Assyria conquered Babylon in the Sargonid period (8th-7th centuries BC), Assyrian scribes began to write the name of Ashur with the cuneiform signs AN.SHAR, literally “whole heaven” in Akkadian, the language of Assyria and Babylonia. The intention seems to have been to put Ashur at the head of the Babylonian pantheon, where Anshar and his counterpart Kishar (“whole earth”) preceded even Enlil and Ninlil. Thus in the Sargonid version of the Enuma Elish, the Babylonian national creation myth, Marduk, the chief god of Babylon, does not appear, and instead it is Ashur, as Anshar, who slays Tiamat the chaos-monster and creates the world of humankind.
Ashur, together with a number of other Mesopotamian gods, continued to be worshipped by Assyrians long after the fall of Assyria, with temples being erected in his honour in Assyria (Athura/Assuristan) until the 3rd and 4th centuries CE, but by this time most Assyrians had adopted East Syrian Rite Christianity.
The city of Ashur, named in honour of the deity, was inhabited until the 14th century CE, when a massacre of Assyrian Christians by Tamurlane left it finally emptied. Ashur is still a common given and family name amongst Assyrians to this day.
Posted in Religion, The Fertile Crescent | Leave a Comment »

Inanna – The Goddess of Sexual Love, Fertility, and Warfare

Posted by Fredsvenn on September 12, 2013
Inanna has a central role in the myth of Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta. A major theme in the narrative is the rivalry between the rulers of Aratta and Uruk for the heart of Inanna. Ultimately, this rivalry results in natural resources coming to Uruk and the invention of writing.
The goddess Inanna resides in Aratta, but Enmerkar of Uruk pleases her more than does the lord of Aratta, who is not named in this epic. Enmerkar wants Aratta to submit to Uruk, bring stones down from the mountain, craft gold, silver and lapis lazuli, and send them, along with “kugmea” ore to Uruk to build a temple. Inana bids him send a messenger to Aratta, who ascends and descends the “Zubi” mountains, and crosses Susa, Anshan, and “five, six, seven” mountains before approaching Aratta. Aratta in turn wants grain in exchange. However Inana transfers her allegiance to Uruk, and the grain gains the favor of Aratta’s people for Uruk, so the lord of Aratta challenges Enmerkar to send a champion to fight his champion. Then the god Ishkur makes Aratta’s crops grow.
Inanna can be considered the most prominent female deity in ancient Mesopotamia. As early as the Uruk period (ca. 4000–3100 BC), Inanna was associated with the city of Uruk. The famous Uruk Vase (found in a deposit of cult objects of the Uruk III period) depicts a row of naked men carrying various objects, bowls, vessels, and baskets of farm produce, and bringing sheep and goats, to a female figure facing the ruler. This figure was ornately dressed for a divine marriage, and attended by a servant. The female figure holds the symbol of the two twisted reeds of the doorpost, signifying Inanna behind her, while the male figure holds a box and stack of bowls, the later cuneiform sign signifying En, or high priest of the temple. Especially in the Uruk period, the symbol of a ring-headed doorpost is associated with Inanna.
Seal impressions from the Jemdet Nasr period (ca. 3100–2900 BC) show a fixed sequence of city symbols including those of Ur, Larsa, Zabalam, Urum, Arina, and probably Kesh. It is likely that this list reflects the report of contributions to Inanna at Uruk from cities supporting her cult. A large number of similar sealings were found from the slightly later Early Dynastic I phase at Ur, in a slightly different order, combined with the rosette symbol of Inanna, that were definitely used for this purpose. They had been used to lock storerooms to preserve materials set aside for her cult. Inanna’s primary temple of worship was the Eanna, located in Uruk (c.f. Worship).
Inanna’s name derives from Queen of Heaven (Sumerian: nin-anna). The Cuneiform sign of Inanna; however, is not a ligature of the signs lady (Sumerian: nin) and sky (Sumerian: an). These difficulties have led some early Assyriologists to suggest that originally Inanna may have been a Proto-Euphratean goddess, possibly related to the Hurrian mother goddess Hannahannah, accepted only latterly into the Sumerian pantheon, an idea supported by her youthfulness, and that, unlike the other Sumerian divinities, at first she had no sphere of responsibilities. The view that there was a Proto-Euphratean substrate language in Southern Iraq before Sumerian is not widely accepted by modern Assyriologists.
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Ninhursag – The Mountain and Mother Goddess

Posted by Fredsvenn on September 12, 2013
Frieze with Lion-Headed Eagle (Ninhursag) and Stags, copper, Temple at Tell al-Ubaid, 2500 BCE, h: 1.07 from the Early Dynastic – Southern Mesopotamian Period, 2900 BCE – 2350 BCE – Found in Ubaid.
This copper frieze was found in the temple at Ubaid, presumably to be placed over the doorway. It represents the storm-god Ninhursag (lady of the mountain), shown as a lion-headed eagle grasping two stags with her great talons. The panel has been cast in high relief, with the heads of the three beasts cast separately. Note that the head of the eagle breaks out of the border of the frieze.
Royal seal of Šauštatar of Mitanni (Aryans)
Winged Ashur is portrayed looking like the Faravahar or Zoroaster.
The Artaxiad Dynasty or Ardaxiad Dynasty ruled the Kingdom of Armenia from 189 BC until their overthrow by the Romans in AD 12. Their realm included Greater Armenia, Sophene and intermittently Lesser Armenia and parts of Mesopotamia. Their main enemies were the Romans, the Seleucids and the Parthians, against whom the Armenians had to conduct multiple wars. During this period, Armenian culture experienced considerable Hellenistic influence.
In Sumerian mythology, Ninhursag or Ninkharsag was the mountain and mother goddess, one of the seven great deities of Sumer. She was the chief nurse, the one in charge of medical facilities. In that role the goddess was called NINTI (lady-life). She is principally a fertility goddess. She was nicknamed ‘Mammu’ – now called ‘mother’ ‘mom’.
According to legend her name was changed from Ninmah to Ninhursag by her son Ninurta in order to commemorate his creation of the mountains. Nin-hursag means “lady of the sacred mountain” and «Lady of the Foothills» (from Sumerian NIN “lady” and ḪAR.SAG “sacred mountain, foothill”). Temple hymn sources identify her as the “true and great lady of heaven” and kings of Sumer were “nourished by Ninhursag’s milk”.
She had many names including Dingirmah («Lady of the Gods»), Ninmah (“Great Queen”); Nintu (“Lady of Birth”); Mamma or Mami (mother); Aruru probably connected with Homeric arura (arable land, land generally). As wife of Enki she was usually called Damgalnunna. In Akkadian she was Belit-ili (lady of the Gods), Mama and Damkina.
As the wife of Ea, Enki’s Akkadian counterpart, she was usually called Damkina. Her prestige decreased as Ishtar’s increased, but her aspect as Damkina mother of Marduk, the supreme god of Babylonia, still held a secure place in the pantheon. As Ninmenna, according to a Babylonian investiture ritual, she placed the golden crown on the king in the Eanna temple.
Some of the names above were once associated with independent goddesses (such as Ninmah and Ninmenna), who later became identified and merged with Ninhursag, and myths exist in which the name Ninhursag is not mentioned.
She usually appears as the sister of Enlil. She bore a male child to Enlil. His name was NIN.UR.TA(lord who completes the fountain). He was the son who to do battle for his father using bolts of lightening. In the legend of Enki and Ninhursag, Ninhursag bore a daughter to Enki called Ninsar (“Lady Greenery” or “Goddess of the Pasture”). Through Enki, Ninsar bore a daughter Ninkurra. Ninkurra, in turn, bore Enki a daughter named Uttu. Enki then pursued Uttu, who was upset because he didn’t care for her.
Uttu, on her ancestress Ninhursag’s advice buried Enki’s seed in the earth, whereupon eight plants (the very first) sprung up. Enki, seeing the plants, ate them, and became ill in eight organs of his body. Ninhursag cured him, taking the plants into her body and giving birth to eight deities: Abu, Nintulla (Nintul), Ninsutu, Ninkasi, Nanshe (Nazi), Azimua, Ninti, and Enshag (Enshagag).
In the text ‘Creator of the Hoe’, she completed the birth of mankind after the heads had been uncovered by Enki’s hoe. In creation texts, Ninmah (another name for Ninhursag) acts as a midwife whilst the mother goddess Nammu makes different kinds of human individuals from lumps of clay at a feast given by Enki to celebrate the creation of humankind.
She is typically depicted wearing a horned head-dress and tiered skirt, often with bow cases at her shoulders, and not infrequently carries a mace or baton surmounted by an omega motif or a derivation, sometimes accompanied by a lion cub on a leash. She is the tutelary deity to several Sumerian leaders.
Her symbol, the omega Ω, has been depicted in art from around 3000 BC, though more generally from the early second millennium. It appears on some boundary stones — on the upper tier, indicating her importance. Her temple, the Esagila (from Sumerian E (temple) + SAG (head) + ILA (lofty)) was located on the KUR of Eridu, although she also had a temple at Kish.
In Egypt she played the roles of several creational goddesses – Isis, Maat and Hathor.
Posted in Mesopotamia, Religion | Leave a Comment »

The Holy Trinity

Posted by Fredsvenn on September 12, 2013
holy The Holy Trinity in Hinduism
A triple deity (sometimes referred to as threefold, tripled, triplicate, tripartite, triune or triadic, or as a trinity) is a deity associated with the number three. Such deities are common throughout world mythology.
The doctrine of the Trinity in Christianity defines God as three divine persons or hypostases: the Father, the Son (Jesus), and the Holy Spirit; “one God in three persons”. The three persons are distinct, yet are one “substance, essence or nature”. A nature is what one is, while a person is who one is.
The Trinity is considered to be a mystery of Christian faith. According to this doctrine, there is only one God in three persons. Each person is God, whole and entire. They are distinct from one another in their relations of origin: as the Fourth Lateran Council declared, “it is the Father who generates, the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds”.
While distinct in their relations with one another, they are one in all else. The whole work of creation and grace is a single operation common to all three divine persons, who at the same time operate according to their unique properties, so that all things are from the Father, through the Son and in the Holy Spirit. The three persons are co-equal, co-eternal and consubstantial.
Trinitarianism contrasts with nontrinitarian positions which include Binitarianism (one deity in two persons, or two deities), Unitarianism (one deity in one person, analogous to Jewish interpretation of the Shema and Muslim belief in Tawhid), Oneness Pentecostalism or Modalism (one deity manifested in three separate aspects).
Posted in Christianity, Religion | Leave a Comment »
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