Misplaced Pages

#814185

94-684: The Hurrians ( / ˈ h ʊər i ən z / ; Hurrian : 𒄷𒌨𒊑 , romanized:  Ḫu-ur-ri ; also called Hari, Khurrites, Hourri, Churri, Hurri) were a people who inhabited the Ancient Near East during the Bronze Age . They spoke the Hurrian language , and lived throughout northern Syria , upper Mesopotamia and southeastern Anatolia . The Hurrians were first documented in the city of Urkesh , where they built their first kingdom. Their largest and most influential Hurrian kingdom

188-416: A , /f/ becomes diphthongised to /u/, e.g. tānōšau (<*tān-ōš-af)) "I did". /s/ is traditionally transcribed by /š/, because the cuneiform script adapted the sign indicating /š/ for this phoneme. /ts/ is regularly transcribed by z , and /x/ by ḫ or h . In Hurrian, /r/ and /l/ do not occur at the beginning of a word. Vowels, just like consonants, can be either long or short. In the cuneiform script, this

282-607: A Hittite translation was discovered at Hattusa in 1983. Hurrian settlements are distributed over three modern countries, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. The heart of the Hurrian world is bisected by the modern border between Syria and Turkey. Several sites are situated within the border zone, making access for excavations problematic. A threat to the ancient sites are the many dam projects in the Euphrates , Tigris and Khabur valleys. Several rescue operations have already been undertaken when

376-711: A campaign in Syria; hence, his Syrian campaign may be placed at the beginning of his second regnal year. This second campaign was the farthest north any Egyptian ruler had ever campaigned. Although it has not been found in modern times, he apparently set up a stele when he crossed the Euphrates River. During this campaign, the Syrian princes declared allegiance to Thutmose. But after he returned, they discontinued tribute and began fortifying against future incursions. Thutmose celebrated his victories with an elephant hunt in

470-539: A certain Mephres in his Epitome. This data is supported by two dated inscriptions from Years 8 and 9 of his reign bearing his cartouche found inscribed on a stone block in Karnak. Accordingly, Thutmose is usually given a reign from 1506 BC to 1493 BC (low chronology), but a minority of scholars date it from 1526 BC to 1513 BC (high chronology). Upon Thutmose's coronation, Nubia rebelled against Egyptian rule. According to

564-500: A certain order. The resulting "morpheme chain" is as follows: Note: (SA) indicates morphemes added through Suffixaufnahme , described below. These elements are not all obligatory, and in fact a noun can occur as a single root followed by nothing except zero-suffixes for case and number. Despite the general agglutinative structure of the language, the plural marker (5) merges with the case morphemes (6) in ways which do not seem to be entirely predictable, so singular and plural forms of

658-456: A few Hurrian ones. This stem-final vowel disappears when certain endings are attached to it, such as case endings that begin with a vowel, certain derivational suffixes, or the article suffix. Examples: kāz-ōš (like a cup) from kāzi (cup), awarra (the fields) from awari (field). A minority of Hurrian noun roots have athematic stem vowels, such as šen (brother) in the forms šena and -šenni , mad (wisdom; later becomes i -stem in

752-635: A key to the understanding of Hurrian culture and history. The 2nd millennium Hurrians were masterful ceramists. Their pottery is commonly found in Mesopotamia and in the lands west of the Euphrates; it was highly valued in distant Egypt, by the time of the New Kingdom . Archaeologists use the terms Khabur ware and Nuzi ware for two types of wheel-made pottery used by the Hurrians. Khabur ware

846-422: A large number of suffixes could be attached to existing stems to form new words. For example, attardi (ancestor) from attai (father), futki (son) from fut (to beget), aštohhe (feminine) from ašti (woman). Hurrian also provided many verbal suffixes, which often changed the valency of the verb they modify. The nominal morphology of Hurrian employs numerous suffixes and/or enclitics, which always follow

940-768: A letter from the king of Shubria to an Assyrian magnate from the time of Sargon II was composed in the Hurrian language. Knowledge of Hurrian culture relies on archaeological excavations at sites such as Nuzi and Alalakh as well as on cuneiform tablets, primarily from Hattusa (Boghazköy), the capital of the Hittites, whose civilization was greatly influenced by the Hurrians. Tablets from Nuzi, Alalakh, and other cities with Hurrian populations (as shown by personal names) reveal Hurrian cultural features even though they were written in Akkadian. Hurrian cylinder seals were carefully carved and often portrayed mythological motifs. They are

1034-445: A noun in the genitive modifying another noun, in which case the following nouns takes a possessive pronoun. šēniffufenefe šēn-iffu-fe-ne-fe brother-my- GEN . SG - ART . SG - GEN . SG ōmīnīfe ōmīni-i-fe land-his- GEN . SG šēniffufenefe ōmīnīfe šēn-iffu-fe-ne-fe ōmīni-i-fe brother-my-GEN.SG-ART.SG-GEN.SG land-his-GEN.SG "of the land of my brother" (lit, "of my brother his land") The phenomenon

SECTION 10

#1732765592815

1128-484: A region stretching from the Caucasus Mountains in the north, to the borders of northern Assyria and northern Ancient Iran in the south, and controlled much of eastern Anatolia. Some scientists consider Urartu to be a re-consolidation of earlier Hurrian populations mainly due to linguistic factors, but this view is not universally held. After the destruction of Mitanni by the Hittites around 1350-1325 BC,

1222-465: A sizable portion of the population of Yamhad . The presence of a large Hurrian population brought Hurrian culture and religion to Aleppo , as evidenced by the existence of certain religious festivals that bear Hurrian names. Of Nergal the lord of Hawalum, Atal-shen, the caring shepherd, the king of Urkesh and Nawar, the son of Sadar-mat the king, is the builder of the temple of Nergal, the one who overcomes opposition. Let Shamash and Ishtar destroy

1316-449: A stela from Thutmose's fourth regnal year hunting near Memphis, and he became the "great army-commander of his father" sometime before his death, which was no later than Thutmose's own death in his 12th regnal year. Thutmose had another son, Wadjmose , and two daughters, Hatshepsut and Nefrubity , by Ahmose. Wadjmose died before his father, and Nefrubity died as an infant. Thutmose had also one son by his another wife, Mutnofret , who

1410-668: A team under Zahi Hawass on the Amarna royal mummies also featured the unidentified royal mummy previously thought to be Thutmose I in the control samples. The study indicated that the mummy belonged to haplogroup L , which is mainly observed in southern, western and central Asia (highest in the Indian subcontinent ). What was thought to be his mummy could be viewed in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo . But in 2007, Hawass announced that

1504-552: A voiced consonant is written in these situations, i.e. b (for p ), d (for t ), g (for k ), v (for f ) or ž (for š ), and, very rarely, ǧ (for h , ḫ ). All consonants except /w/ and /j/ can be long or short. The long ( geminate ) consonants occur only between vowels. In the cuneiform, as in the Latin transcription, geminated consonants are indicated by doubling the corresponding symbol, so ...VC-CV.. . Short consonants are written ...V-CV... , for example mānnatta ("I am")

1598-459: Is generally dated to 1506–1493 BC , but a minority of scholars—who think that astrological observations used to calculate the timeline of ancient Egyptian records, and thus the reign of Thutmose I, were taken from the city of Memphis rather than from Thebes —would date his reign to 1526–1513 BC. He was succeeded by his son Thutmose II , who in turn was succeeded by Thutmose II's sister, Hatshepsut . It has been speculated that Thutmose's father

1692-584: Is also found when the head noun is in the locative, instrumental or equative. In the absolutive singular, Suffixaufnahme would be meaningless, as the case and number are unmarked. When more than two genitives occur, they are merged, so Suffixaufnahme only occurs on the innermost genitive, as in the following example: ōmīni ōmīni country Mizrinefenefe Thutmose I Thutmose I (sometimes read as Thutmosis or Tuthmosis I , Thothmes in older history works in Latinized Greek; meaning " Thoth

1786-692: Is born") was the third pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty of Egypt . He received the throne after the death of the previous king, Amenhotep I . During his reign, he campaigned deep into the Levant and Nubia , pushing the borders of Egypt farther than ever before in each region. He also built many temples in Egypt, and a tomb for himself in the Valley of the Kings ; he is the first king confirmed to have done this (though Amenhotep I may have preceded him). Thutmose I's reign

1880-536: Is characterized by reddish painted lines with a geometric triangular pattern and dots, while Nuzi ware has very distinctive forms, and are painted in brown or black. They were also skilled at glass working. The Hurrians had a reputation in metallurgy . It is proposed that the Sumerian term for "coppersmith" tabira / tibira was borrowed from Hurrian, which would imply an early presence of the Hurrians way before their first historical mention in Akkadian sources. Copper

1974-540: Is indicated by placing an additional vowel symbol between the CV and VC syllables, giving CV-V-VC . Short vowels are indicated by a simple CV-VC pairing. In the Latin transcription, long vowels are indicated with a macron, ā , ē , ī , ō , and ū . For /o/, which is absent in the Sumerian script, the sign for U is used, whereas /u/ is represented by Ú . While Hurrian could not combine multiple stems to form new stems,

SECTION 20

#1732765592815

2068-660: Is related to the Urartian language, the language of the ancient kingdom of Urartu. Together they form the Hurro-Urartian language family . The external connections of the Hurro-Urartian languages are disputed. There exist various proposals for a genetic relationship to other language families (e.g., the Northeast Caucasian languages ), but none of these are generally accepted. The Hurrians adopted

2162-399: Is written ma-a-a n-n a-a t-t a . Since /f/ was not found in the Sumerian cuneiform script, the Hurrians used the symbols representing /p/, /b/ or /w/. An /f/ can be recognised in words where this transcription varies from text to text. In cases where a word occurs only once, with a p , it cannot be known if it was originally meant to represent a /p/ or an /f/. In final syllables containing

2256-521: The Akkadian language and Cuneiform script for their own writing about 2000 BC. Texts in the Hurrian language in cuneiform have been found at Hattusa , Ugarit (Ras Shamra), as well as in one of the longest of the Amarna letters (EA 27), written by King Tushratta of Mitanni to Pharaoh Amenhotep III . It was the only long Hurrian text known until a multi-tablet collection of literature in Hurrian with

2350-487: The Amarna Letters during the time of Pharaoh Akhenaten (1353–1336 BC). Domestically, Mitanni records have been found at a number of places in the region including several Hittite sites as well as Tell Bazi , Alalakh , Nuzi , Mardaman , Kemune , and Müslümantepe among others. Another major center of Hurrian influence was the kingdom of Arrapha . Excavations at Yorgan Tepe, ancient Nuzi, proved this to be one of

2444-589: The Hittite language and the Ugaritic language also became extinct, in what is known as the Bronze Age collapse . In the texts of these languages, as well as those of Akkadian or Urartian, many Hurrian names and places can be found. Renewed interest in Hurrian was triggered by texts discovered in Boğazköy in the 1910s and Ugarit in the 1930s. Speiser (1941) published the first comprehensive grammar of Hurrian. Since

2538-586: The Hurro-Urartian language family . The external connections of the Hurro-Urartian languages are disputed. There exist various proposals for a genetic relationship to other language families (e.g. the Northeast Caucasian languages , Indo-European languages , or Kartvelian languages which are spoken in Georgia ). It has also been speculated that it is related to " Sino-Caucasian ". However, none of these proposals are generally accepted. The earliest Hurrian text fragments consist of lists of names and places from

2632-629: The Mesopotamian 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

2726-460: The direct object in antipassive constructions (where the transitive subject receives the absolutive case instead of the ergative), and, in the variety of Nuzi , also the dative. In Hurrian, the function of the so-called " article " is not entirely clear, inasmuch as its use does not seem to resemble closely a typical definite article . It is attached directly to the noun, but before any case endings, e.g. tiwē-na-še (object. art . gen.pl ) (of

2820-458: The equative case , has a different form in both of the main dialects. In Hattusha and Mari, the usual ending is -oš , termed equative I, whereas in the Mitanni letter we find the form -nna , called equative II. Another case, the so-called 'e-case', is very rare, and carries a genitive or allative meaning. Like many languages in the region, Hurrian is an ergative language, which means that

2914-623: The 12th Dynasty—to be dredged in order to facilitate easier travel upstream from Egypt to Nubia. This helped integrate Nubia into the Egyptian empire. This expedition is mentioned in two separate inscriptions by the king's son Thure: Year 3, first month of the third season, day 22, under the majesty of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Aakheperre who is given life. His Majesty commanded to dig this canal after he found it stopped up with stones [so that] no [ship sailed upon it]; Year 3, first month of

Hurrians - Misplaced Pages Continue

3008-403: The 1903–04 excavation season did Howard Carter , after two previous seasons of strenuous work, clear its corridors and enter its double burial chamber. Here, among the debris of broken pottery and shattered stone vessels from the burial chamber and lower passages, were the remnants of two vases made for Queen Ahmose Nefertari , which formed part of Thutmose I's original funerary equipment; one of

3102-559: The 1980s, the Nuzi corpus from the archive of Silwa-tessup has been edited by G. Wilhelm. Since the late 1980s, significant progress was made due to the discovery of a Hurrian-Hittite bilingual, edited by E. Neu ( StBoT 32). The Hurrian of the Mitanni letter differs significantly from that used in the texts at Hattusha and other Hittite centres, as well as from earlier Hurrian texts from various locations. The non-Mitanni letter varieties, while not entirely homogeneous, are commonly subsumed under

3196-599: The 20th dynasty when KV38 was plundered; the sarcophagus's lid was broken and all this king's valuable precious jewelry and grave goods were stolen. Thutmose I's mummy was discovered in the Deir el-Bahri Cache above the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut , revealed in 1881. It had been interred along with those of the 18th- and 19th-dynasty leaders Ahmose I , Amenhotep I , Thutmose II , Thutmose III , Ramesses I , Seti I , Ramesses II , and Ramesses IX , as well as

3290-500: The 21st-dynasty pharaohs Pinedjem I , Pinedjem II , and Siamun . Thutmose I's original coffin was taken over and reused by a later pharaoh of the 21st dynasty. The mummy of Thutmose I was thought to be lost, but Egyptologist Gaston Maspero , largely on the strength of familial resemblance to the mummies of Thutmose II and Thutmose III, believed he had found his mummy in the otherwise unlabelled mummy #5283. This identification has been supported by subsequent examinations, revealing that

3384-614: The Assyrians. The Hurrian entity of Mitanni, which first rose to power before 1550 BC, was first mentioned in the records of Egyptian pharaohs Thutmose I (1506–1493 BC) and Thutmose III (1479–1425 BC), the later most notably associated with the Battle of Megiddo in that pharaoh's 22 regnal year. Most of the time Egyptians referred to the kingdom as Naharin . Later, Mitanni and Hanigalbat (the Assyrian name for Mitanni) are mentioned in

3478-472: The Egyptians' aim at this stage was to control the area permanently, because they established no permanent presence in the area. This happened later, during the 18th dynasty. Thutmose had to face one more military threat, another rebellion by Nubia in his fourth year. His influence accordingly expanded even farther south, as an inscription dated to his reign has been found as far south as Kurgus , south of

3572-866: The Female Horus...The king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Maatkare, the son of Re, Hatshepsut-Khnemet-Amun! May she live forever! She made it as her monument to her father whom she loved, the Good God, Lord of the Two Lands , Aakheperkare, the son of Re, Thutmosis the justified . Thutmose I was not destined to lie alongside his daughter after Hatshepsut's death. Thutmose III, Hatshepsut's successor, decided to reinter his grandfather in an even more magnificent tomb, KV38 , featuring another yellow sarcophagus dedicated to Thutmose I and inscribed with texts that proclaim this pharaoh's love for his deceased grandfather. Unfortunately, Thutmose I's remains were disturbed late during

3666-555: The Hittite people. Syncretism merged the Old Hittite and Hurrian religions. Hurrian religion spread to Syria, where Baal became the counterpart of Teshub. The Hurrian religion, in different forms, influenced the entire ancient Near East , except ancient Egypt and southern Mesopotamia. While the Hurrian and Urartian languages are related, there is little similarity between corresponding systems of belief. The main gods in

3760-505: The Hurrian deity Teshub , and several Shubrian names have Hurrian origins. Hurrians formed part of the Shubrian population and may have been the predominant group. Some scholars have suggested that Shubria was the last remnant of Hurrian civilization, or even constituted the original homeland of the Hurrians. Karen Radner writes that Shubria "can certainly be described as [a] (linguistically and culturally) Hurrian" state. According to Radner,

3854-406: The Hurrian pantheon were: 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 remains uncertain. They may have been both protective and evil spirits. Some are reminiscent of the Assyrian shedu . The Hurrian gods do not appear to have had particular home temples, like in

Hurrians - Misplaced Pages Continue

3948-510: The Nile from Semna . There are also records of specific religious rites the viceroy of El-Kab was to have performed in the temples in Nubia in proxy for the king. He also appointed a man called Turi to the position of viceroy of Kush , also known as the "King's Son of Cush." With a civilian representative of the king permanently established in Nubia, Nubia did not dare revolt as often as it had and

4042-800: The Syrian Department of Antiquities. The tells, or city mounds, often reveal a long occupation beginning in the Neolithic and ending in the Roman period or later. The characteristic Hurrian pottery, the Khabur ware, is helpful in determining the different strata of occupation within the mounds. The Hurrian settlements are usually identified from the Middle Bronze Age to the end of the Late Bronze Age, with Tell Mozan (Urkesh) being

4136-530: The architecture and contents of KV38." The location of KV20, if not its original owner, had been known since the Napoleonic expedition of 1799 and, in 1844, the Prussian scholar Karl Richard Lepsius had partially explored its upper passage, but all its passageways "had become blocked by a solidified mass of rubble, small stones and rubbish which had been carried into the tomb by floodwaters" and only during

4230-726: The area of Kirkuk in modern Iraq by the Middle Bronze Age . Their presence was attested at Nuzi , Urkesh and other sites. They eventually occupied a broad arc of fertile farmland stretching from the Khabur River valley in the west to the foothills of the Zagros Mountains in the east. By this point, during the Old Babylonian period in the early second millennium BC, the Amorite kingdom of Mari to

4324-498: The area of Niy , near Apamea in Syria, and returned to Egypt with strange tales of the Euphrates, "that inverted water which flows upstream when it ought to be flowing downstream." The Euphrates was the first major river the Egyptians had ever encountered that flowed from the north, which was downstream on the Nile , to the south, upstream on the Nile. Thus the river became known in Egypt as simply "inverted water." Textual sources from

4418-474: The case endings are usually listed separately. The anaphoric marker (7) is formally identical to the article and anchors the Suffixaufnahme suffixes (8) and (9). While the absolutive pronoun clitics (10) attached to a noun are not necessarily connected to it syntactically, typically designating the object or intransitive subject of a nearby verb, the third plural pronoun clitic -lla can be used to signal

4512-517: The city of Urkesh (modern Tell Mozan) during the third millennium BC. There is evidence that they were initially allied with the Akkadian Empire of Mesopotamia , indicating they had a firm hold on the area by the reign of Naram-Sin of Akkad (c. 2254–2218 BC). A king of Urkesh with the Hurrian name Tupkish had a queen with the name Uqnitum, Akkadian for "girl of lapis lazuli". Hurrian names occur sporadically in northwestern Mesopotamia and

4606-421: The coastal region of Adaniya in the country of Kizzuwatna , southern Anatolia. Yamhad eventually weakened vis-a-vis the powerful Hittites, but this also opened Anatolia for Hurrian cultural influences. The Hittites were influenced by both the Hurrian cultures over the course of several centuries. The city of Shibaniba (Tell Billa) may have also played an important role at that time. Possible Hurrian occupation

4700-678: The construction of dams put entire river valleys under water. The first major excavations of Hurrian sites in Iraq and Syria began in the 1920s and 1930s. They were led by the American archaeologist Edward Chiera at Yorghan Tepe (Nuzi), and the British archaeologist Max Mallowan at Chagar Bazar and Tell Brak. Recent excavations and surveys in progress are conducted by American, Belgian, Danish, Dutch, French, German and Italian teams of archaeologists, with international participants, in cooperation with

4794-671: The designation Old Hurrian . Whereas in Mitanni the vowel pairs i / e and u / o are differentiated, in the Hattusha dialect they have merged into i and u respectively. There are also differences in morphology, some of which are mentioned in the course of the exposition below. Nonetheless, it is clear that these represent dialects of one language. Another Hurrian dialect is likely represented in several texts from Ugarit, but they are so poorly preserved that little can be said about them, save that spelling patterns used elsewhere to represent Hurrian phonemes are virtually ignored in them. There

SECTION 50

#1732765592815

4888-486: The embalming techniques used came from the appropriate period of time, almost certainly after that of Ahmose I and made during the 18th dynasty. Gaston Maspero described the mummy as follows: The king was already advanced in age at the time of his death, being over fifty years old, to judge by the incisor teeth, which are worn and corroded by the impurities of which the Egyptian bread was full. The body, though small and emaciated, shows evidence of unusual muscular strength;

4982-448: The end of the third millennium BC. The first full texts date to the reign of king Tish-atal of Urkesh , at the start of the second millennium BC, and were found on a stone tablet accompanying the Hurrian foundation pegs known as the "Urkish lions". Archeologists have discovered the texts of numerous spells, incantations, prophecies and letters at sites including Hattusha , Mari , Tuttul , Babylon , Ugarit and others. Early study of

5076-438: The existing finished sarcophagus to her father, Thutmose I. The stonemasons then attempted to erase the original carvings by restoring the surface of the quartzite so that it could be re-carved with the name and titles of Tuthmose I instead. This quartzite sarcophagus measures 7 feet long by 3 feet wide with walls 5  inches thick and bears a dedication text that records Hatshepsut's generosity towards her father: ...long live

5170-404: The final /i/, an epenthetic vowel /u/ is inserted between them, e.g. hafur u n-ne-ta (heaven- art - all.sg , to heaven), the stem of which is hafurni (heaven). One prominent feature of Hurrian is the phenomenon of Suffixaufnahme , or suffix absorption, which it shares with Urartian and the geographically proximate Kartvelian languages . In this process, the dependent modifiers of a noun share

5264-501: The form madi ), and muž (divine name). Some names of gods, heroes, persons, and places are also athematic, e.g. Teššob (Teššobi/a), Gilgaamiž, Hurriž (later Hurri). These nouns seem to occur more frequently in the earliest Hurrian texts (end of the third millennium BC ). Note: This type of thematic stem vowel is completely different in function to Indo-European stem vowels. For a discussion of those, see here and here . Hurrian has 13 cases in its system of declension. One of these,

5358-464: The fourth cataract. He inscribed a large tableau on the Hagar el-Merwa, a quartz outcrop c. 40m long and 50m wide 1200 meters from the Nile, on top of several local inscriptions. This is the furthest south the Egyptian presence is attested. During his reign, he initiated a number of projects that effectively ended Nubian independence for 500 years. He enlarged a temple to Sesostris III and Khnum, opposite

5452-444: The genitive and dative endings merges with a preceding p or t giving pp and tt respectively, e.g. Teššuppe (of Teššup), Hepat-te (of Hepat). The associative can be combined with the instrumental, as in šēna-nn-ae (brother- ass-instr ), meaning 'brotherly'. The so-called essive case can convey the meaning "as" and a condition, but also to express direction, the aim of a demand, the transition from one condition to another,

5546-453: The head is bald, the features are refined, and the mouth still bears an expression characteristic of shrewdness and cunning. James Harris and Fawzia Hussien (1991) conducted an X-ray survey on New Kingdom royal mummies and examined Thutmose I's mummified remains. The study found that Thutmose I's mummy had all the craniofacial characteristics common among Nubian populations and a “typical Nubian morphology”. A 2020 genetic study performed by

5640-495: 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 agglutinating and highly ergative Hurrian language

5734-473: The language, however, was entirely based on the Mitanni letter , found in 1887 at Amarna in Egypt, written by the Hurrian king Tushratta to the pharaoh Amenhotep III . The Hurro-Urartian relation was recognized as early as 1890 by Sayce (ZA 5, 1890, 260–274) and Jensen (ZA 6, 1891, 34–72). After the fall of the Akkadian Empire , Hurrians began to settle in northern Syria , and by 1725 BC they constituted

SECTION 60

#1732765592815

5828-473: The later Urartu. Some small fine bronze lion foundation pegs were discovered at Urkesh. Among the Hurrian texts from Ugarit are the oldest known instances of written music , dating from c. 1400 BC. Among these fragments are found the names of four Hurrian composers, Tapšiẖuni, Puẖiya(na), Urẖiya, and Ammiya. 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

5922-442: The main exception. The list includes some important ancient sites from the area dominated by the Hurrians. Excavation reports and images are found at the websites linked. As noted above, important discoveries of Hurrian culture and history were also made at Alalakh, Amarna, Hattusa and Ugarit. Hurrian language Hurrian is closely related to Urartian , the language of the ancient kingdom of Urartu . Together they constitute

6016-601: The most important sites for our knowledge about the Hurrians. Hurrian kings such as Ithi-Teshup and Ithiya ruled over Arrapha, yet by the mid-fifteenth century BC they had become vassals of the Great King of Mitanni. At the end of the second millennium BC the Urartians around Lake Van and Mount Ararat rose in power forming the Kingdom of Urartu . During the 11th and 10th centuries BC, the kingdom eventually encompassed

6110-518: The mummy previously thought to be Thutmose I is that of a 30-year-old man who died as a result of an arrow wound to the chest. Because of the young age of the mummy and the cause of death, it was determined that the mummy was probably not that of Thutmose I. The mummy has the inventory number CG 61065. In April 2021 the mummy was moved to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization along with those of 17 kings and four queens in an event termed

6204-484: The name of Thutmose I, but Thutmose III may have moved his body into the tomb of Hatshepsut, KV20 , which also contains a sarcophagus with the name of Thutmose I on it. Thutmose I was originally buried and then reburied in KV20 in a double burial with his daughter Hatshepsut rather than KV38 , which could only have been built for Thutmose I during the reign of his grandson Thutmose III based on "a recent re-examination of

6298-473: The northernmost two were replaced by Thutmose I himself. Hatshepsut also erected two of her own obelisks inside Thutmose I's hypostyle hall. In addition to Karnak, Thutmose I also built statues of the Ennead at Abydos , buildings at Armant, Ombos, el-Hiba , Memphis, and Edfu, as well as minor expansions to buildings in Nubia, at Semna, Buhen, Aniba , and Quban. Thutmose I was the first king who definitely

6392-515: The noun's case suffixes. Between the suffix of the dependent noun and the case ending comes the article, which agrees with the referent in number, for example, with an adjective: ḫurwoḫḫeneš ḫurw-oḫḫe-ne-š Hurrian- ADJ - ART . SG - ERG . SG ōmīnneš ōmīn-ne-š land- ADJ - ART . SG - ERG . SG ḫurwoḫḫeneš ōmīnneš ḫurw-oḫḫe-ne-š ōmīn-ne-š Hurrian-ADJ-ART.SG-ERG.SG land-ADJ-ART.SG-ERG.SG "the Hurrian land" Suffixaufnahme also occurs with other modifiers, such as

6486-437: The objects). The article is unmarked in the absolutive singular – e.g. kāzi 'cup'. The /n/ of the article merges with a preceding /n/, /l/ or /r/ giving /nn/, /ll/ and /rr/ respectively, e.g. ēn-na (the gods), ōl-la (the others), awar-ra (the fields). In these cases, the stem-final vowel /i/ has been dropped; the singulars of these words are ēni (god), ōli (another), awari (field). If there are two consonants preceding

6580-472: The plural of the host noun in the absolutive. Almost all Hurrian nouns end in a vowel, known as a thematic vowel or stem vowel . This vowel will always appear on the word, and will not switch between types. Most nouns end with /i/; a few end with /a/ (mostly words for relatives and divine names) and /e/ (a few suffix derivations, possibly the same as /i/-stems). As well, in texts from Nuzi , stems of /u/ (or /o/?) are found, mainly on non-Hurrian names and

6674-452: The power of the Hyksos , who were formerly strong in this area. As many as 20 sites in the Levant suffered destruction at this time. For example, the fiery destruction of Stratum XVIII at Gezer has been assigned to the second half of the 16th century BCE, the time of Amenhotep I and Thutmose I, based on the pottery and scarabs discovered in the destruction debris. It does not appear that

6768-415: The road. Thutmose was the first king to drastically enlarge the temple. He had the fifth pylon built along the temple's main road, along with a wall around the inner sanctuary and two flagpoles to flank the gateway. Outside of this, he built a fourth pylon and another enclosure wall. Between pylons four and five, he had a hypostyle hall constructed, with columns made of cedar wood. This type of structure

6862-471: The same case is used for the subject of an intransitive verb as for the object of a transitive one; this case is called the absolutive . For the subject of a transitive verb, however, the ergative case is used. Hurrian has two numbers, singular and plural. The following table outlines the case endings (the terms used for some of the more obscure cases vary between different authors). In certain phonological environments, these endings can vary. The f of

6956-556: The seeds of whoever removes this tablet. Shaum-shen is the craftsman. In the thirteenth century BC, invasions from the west by the Hittites and the south by the Assyrians brought the end of the Mitanni empire, which was divided between the two conquering powers. In the following century, attacks by the Sea Peoples brought a swift end to the last vestiges of the Hurrian language. It is around this time that other languages, such as

7050-414: The south had subdued Urkesh and made it a vassal state. Urkesh later became a Mitanni religious center. The Hurrians also migrated further west in this period. By 1725 BC they are found also in parts of northern Syria , such as Alalakh . The mixed Amorite–Hurrian kingdom of Yamhad is recorded as struggling for this area with the early Hittite king Hattusilis I around 1600 BC. Hurrians also settled in

7144-466: The southeast, and later by the Assyrians to the east. At its maximum extent Mitanni ranged as far as west as Kizzuwatna by the Taurus mountains, Tunip in the south, Arraphe in the east, and north to Lake Van . Their sphere of influence is shown in spread Hurrian place names, personal names. Eventually, after an internal succession crisis, Mitanni fell to the Hittites, later to fall under the control of

7238-494: The term Shubaru was used in Assyrian sources to refer to the remnants of the Mitanni in the upper Tigris valley. The Shubaru people revolted against the Assyrians multiple times in the last centuries of the second millennium BC. The term is related to Shubria , the name of a country located north of the upper Tigris River valley. Shubria was located between Urartu and Assyria and existed as an independent kingdom until its conquest by Assyria in 673–672 BC. The Shubrians worshipped

7332-475: The third season, day 22. His Majesty sailed this canal in victory and in the power of his return from overthrowing the wretched Kush . In the second year of Thutmose's reign, the king cut a stele at Tombos, which records that he built a fortress at Tombos, near the third cataract, thus permanently extending the Egyptian military presence, which had previously stopped at Buhen , at the second cataract. Thutmose's Tombos stele indicates that he had already fought

7426-472: The throne. But Carter also discovered two separate coffins in the burial chamber. Hatshepsut's beautifully carved sarcophagus "was discovered open with no sign of a body, and with the lid lying discarded on the floor"; it is now housed in the Cairo Museum along with a matching yellow quartzite canopic chest . A second sarcophagus was found lying on its side with its almost undamaged lid propped against

7520-430: The time of Thutmose I include references to Retenu , Naharin , and the 'land of Mitanni '. The last is believed to be the first historical reference to that kingdom. Many Levantine sites were destroyed in the middle of the 16th century B.C., and these destructions have often been attributed to the military campaigns of Thutmose I, or of his predecessor Amenhotep I . Initially these campaigns may have aimed at defeating

7614-496: The tomb autobiography of Ahmose, son of Ebana , Thutmose traveled up the Nile and fought in the battle, personally killing the Nubian king. Upon victory, he had the Nubian king's body hung from the prow of his ship, before he returned to Thebes . After that campaign, he led a second expedition against Nubia in his third year in the course of which he ordered the canal at the first cataract—which had been built under Sesostris III of

7708-430: The vases contained a secondary inscription that says that Thutmose II made it "as his monument to his father." Other vessels that bore Thutmose I's names and titles had also been inscribed by his son and successor, Thutmose II, along with fragments of stone vessels made for Hatshepsut before she herself became king as well as other vessels that bore her royal name of 'Maatkare', which would have been made only after she took

7802-517: The wall nearby; it was eventually presented to Theodore M. Davis , the excavation's financial sponsor, as a gesture of appreciation for his support. Davis in turn presented it to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston . The second quartzite sarcophagus had originally been engraved with the name of "the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Maatkare Hatshepsut", but when it was complete, Hatshepsut decided to commission an entirely new sarcophagus for herself and donated

7896-406: Was Amenhotep I . His mother, Senseneb , was of non-royal parentage and may have been a lesser wife or concubine. Queen Ahmose , who held the title of Great Royal Wife of Thutmose, was probably the daughter of Ahmose I and the sister of Amenhotep I; but she was never called "king's daughter," so there is some doubt about this, and some historians believe she was Thutmose's sister. Assuming she

7990-622: Was Mitanni . The population of the Hittite Empire in Anatolia included a large population of Hurrians, and there is significant Hurrian influence in Hittite mythology . By the Early Iron Age , the Hurrians had been assimilated with other peoples. The state of Urartu later covered some of the same area. The Khabur River valley became the heart of the Hurrian lands for a millennium. The first known Hurrian kingdom emerged around

8084-542: Was also a Hurrian-Akkadian creole, called Nuzi , spoken in the Mitanni provincial capital of Arrapha . As can be seen from the table, Hurrian did not possess a voiced - voiceless distinction. There is no voiced consonant with an unvoiced counterpart, nor vice versa. However, based on evidence from the cuneiform script, there seem to have been voiced allophones of consonants other than /ts/, which occurred in certain environments: between two voiced phonemes (sonorants or vowels), and, surprisingly, also word-finally. Sometimes

8178-402: Was buried in the Valley of the Kings . Ineni was commissioned to dig this tomb, and presumably to build his mortuary temple. His mortuary temple has not been found, possibly because it was incorporated into or demolished by the construction of Hatshepsut's mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri . His tomb, however, has been identified as KV38 . In it was found a yellow quartzite sarcophagus bearing

8272-630: Was common in ancient Egyptian temples, and supposedly represents a papyrus marsh, an Egyptian symbol of creation. Along the edge of this room he built colossal statues, each one alternating wearing the crown of Upper Egypt and the crown of Lower Egypt. Finally, outside of the fourth pylon, he erected four more flagpoles and two obelisks, although one of them, which now has fallen, was not inscribed until Thutmose III inscribed it about 50 years later. The cedar columns in Thutmose I's hypostyle hall were replaced with stone columns by Thutmose III, but at least

8366-455: Was easily controlled by future Egyptian kings. Thutmose I organized great building projects during his reign, including many temples and tombs, but his greatest projects were at the Temple of Karnak under the supervision of the architect Ineni . Before Thutmose, Karnak probably consisted only of a long road to a central platform, with a number of shrines for the solar bark along the side of

8460-522: Was identified at Tell Billa during the middle of the second millenium BC. In 2022 Tell Billa was proposed as the possible site of the city of Šimānum (possibly known as Asimānum during the Akkadian Empire). Šimānum was important during the Ur III period (ca 2100 BC). The Mitanni Empire was a strong regional power limited by the Hittites to the north, Egyptians to the southwest, Kassites to

8554-431: Was likely a daughter of Ahmose I and a sister of Amenhotep I . This son succeeded him as Thutmose II , whom Thutmose I married to his daughter, Hatshepsut. It was later recorded by Hatshepsut that Thutmose willed the kingship to both Thutmose II and Hatshepsut, but this is considered propaganda by Hatshepsut's supporters to legitimise her claim to the throne when she later assumed power. A heliacal rising of Sothis

8648-529: Was recorded in the reign of Thutmose's predecessor, Amenhotep I, which has been dated to 1517 BC , assuming the observation was made at Thebes . The year of Amenhotep's death and Thutmose's subsequent coronation can be accordingly derived, and is dated to 1506 BC by most modern scholars. But if the observation were made at either Heliopolis or Memphis , as a minority of scholars argue, Thutmose would have been crowned in 1526 BC. Manetho records that Thutmose I's reign lasted 12 years and 9 months (or 13 years) as

8742-427: Was related to Amenhotep, one might speculate that she was married to Thutmose in order to guarantee succession. This is known not to be the case for two reasons. First, Amenhotep's alabaster bark built at Karnak associates Amenhotep's name with Thutmose's name well before Amenhotep's death. Second, Thutmose's first-born son with Ahmose, Amenmose , was apparently born long before Thutmose's coronation. He can be seen on

8836-561: 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 Anatolian highland. Gold was in short supply, and the Amarna letters inform us that it was acquired from Egypt. Not many examples of Hurrian metal work have survived, except from

#814185