Meskheti ( Georgian : მესხეთი ) or Samtskhe ( Georgian : სამცხე ), also known as Moschia in ancient sources, is a mountainous area in southwestern Georgia .
53-591: Ancient tribes known as the Mushki (or Moschi) and Mosiniks (or Mossynoeci) were the first known inhabitants of the area of the modern Samtskhe-Javakheti region. Some scholars credit the Mosiniks with the invention of iron metallurgy. Between the 2nd millennium BCE and the 4th century BCE, Meskheti was part of the kingdom of Diauehi . It was subsequently, until the 6th century, part of the Kingdom of Iberia . During
106-1086: A geminated pronunciation. By the first millennium, the lenis consonants seem to have been spirantized in Lydian, Lycian, and Carian. The Proto-Anatolian laryngeal consonant *H patterned with the stops in fortition and lenition and appears as geminated -ḫḫ- or plain -ḫ- in cuneiform. Reflexes of *H in Hittite are interpreted as pharyngeal fricatives and those in Luwian as uvular fricatives based on loans in Ugaritic and Egyptian, as well as vowel-coloring effects. The laryngeals were lost in Lydian but became Lycian 𐊐 ( χ ) and Carian 𐊼 ( k ), both pronounced [k], as well as labiovelars —Lycian 𐊌 ( q ), Carian 𐊴 ( q )—when labialized. Suggestions for their realization in Proto-Anatolian include pharyngeal fricatives , uvular fricatives, or uvular stops . Anatolian morphology
159-470: A split-ergative system based on gender, with inanimate nouns being marked in the ergative case when the subject of a transitive verb. This may be an areal influence from nearby non-IE ergative languages like Hurrian. The basic word order in Anatolian is subject-object-verb except for Lycian, where verbs typically precede objects. Clause-initial particles are a striking feature of Anatolian syntax; in
212-469: A derivational suffix * -h 2 , attested for abstract nouns and collectives in Anatolian. The appurtenance suffix * -ih 2 is scarce in Anatolian but fully productive as a feminine marker in Tocharian . This suggests the Anatolian gender system is the original for IE, while the feminine-masculine-neuter classification of Tocharian + Core IE languages may have arisen following a sex-based split within
265-555: A given sentence, a connective or the first accented word usually hosts a chain of clitics in Wackernagel's position . Enclitic pronouns, discourse markers, conjunctions, and local or modal particles appear in rigidly ordered slots. Words fronted before the particle chain are topicalized. The list below gives the Anatolian languages in a relatively flat arrangement, following a summary of the Anatolian family tree by Robert Beekes (2010). This model recognizes only one clear subgroup,
318-534: A gradual rise to power of the Anatolian language speakers over the native Hattians , until at last the kingship became an Anatolian privilege. From then on, little is heard of the Hattians, but the Hittites kept the name. The records include rituals, medical writings, letters, laws and other public documents, making possible an in-depth knowledge of many aspects of the civilization. Most of the records are dated to
371-582: A separate feminine agreement class from PIE. The two-gender system has been described as a merger of masculine and feminine genders following the phonetic merger of PIE a-stems with o-stems. However the discovery of a group of inherited nouns with suffix * -eh 2 in Lycian and therefore Proto-Anatolian raised doubts about the existence of a feminine gender in PIE. The feminine gender typically marked with -ā in non-Anatolian Indo-European languages may be connected to
424-525: Is Hittite , which is considered the earliest-attested Indo-European language. Undiscovered until the late 19th and early 20th centuries, they are often believed to be the earliest branch to have split from the Proto Indo-European family. Once discovered, the presence of laryngeal consonants ḫ and ḫḫ in Hittite and Luwian provided support for the laryngeal theory of Proto-Indo-European linguistics. While Hittite attestation ends after
477-655: Is attested in two different scripts, cuneiform and Anatolian hieroglyphs , over more than a millennium. While the earlier scholarship tended to treat these two corpora as separate linguistic entities, the current tendency is to separate genuine dialectal distinctions within Luwian from orthographic differences. Accordingly, one now frequently speaks of Kizzuwatna Luwian (attested in cuneiform transmission), Empire Luwian (cuneiform and hieroglyphic transmission), and Iron Age Luwian / Late Luwian (hieroglyphic transmission), as well as several more Luwian dialects, which are more scarcely attested. The cuneiform corpus (Melchert's CLuwian)
530-431: Is considerably simpler than other early Indo-European (IE) languages. The verbal system distinguishes only two tenses (present-future and preterite), two voices (active and mediopassive ), and two moods ( indicative and imperative ), lacking the subjunctive and optative moods found in other old IE languages like Tocharian , Sanskrit , and Ancient Greek. Anatolian verbs are also typically divided into two conjugations:
583-643: Is recorded in glosses and short passages in Hittite texts, mainly from Boğazkale. About 200 tablet fragments of the approximately 30,000 contain CLuwian passages. Most of the tablets reflect the Middle and New Script, although some Old Script fragments have also been attested. Benjamin Fortson hypothesizes that "Luvian was employed in rituals adopted by the Hittites." A large proportion of tablets containing Luwian passages reflect rituals emanating from Kizzuwatna . On
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#1732772393026636-774: The 19th satrapy of the Achaemenid empire , extending along the southeast of the Euxine, or the Black Sea , and bounded on the south by the lofty chain of the Armenian mountains . Strabo locates the Moschoi in two places. The first location is somewhere in modern Abkhazia on the eastern shore of the Black Sea, in agreement with Stephan of Byzantium quoting Hellanicus . The second location Moschice ( Moschikê ) – in which
689-660: The Armenian Highlands and South Caucasus region. It is possible that at least some of the Mushki were Armenian-speakers or speakers of a closely related language. Pliny in the 1st century AD mentions the Moscheni in southern Armenia (" Armenia " at the time stretching south and west to the Mediterranean, bordering on Cappadocia). In Byzantine historiography, Moschoi was a name equivalent to or considered as
742-674: The Bronze Age , hieroglyphic Luwian survived until the conquest of the Neo-Hittite kingdoms by the Semitic Assyrian Empire , and alphabetic inscriptions in Anatolian languages are fragmentarily attested until the early first millennium AD, eventually succumbing to the Hellenization of Anatolia as a result of Greek colonisation . The Anatolian branch is often considered the earliest to have split from
795-592: The Georgian SSR . Meskheti is now part of the Samtskhe-Javakheti region, together with Javakheti and Tori . Meskhetians or Meskhs (Meskhi) are a subgroup of Georgians , the indigenous population of Meskheti. Meskhetians speak the Meskhetian dialect and are mainly Georgian Orthodox Christians in religion, while part of them are Catholics. Meskhetian Turks are the former inhabitants of
848-870: The Hittites . Several authors have connected them with the Moschoi (Μόσχοι) of Greek sources and the Georgian tribe of the Meskhi . Josephus Flavius identified the Moschoi with the Biblical Meshech . Two different groups are called Muški in Assyrian sources ( Diakonoff 1984:115), one from the 12th to the 9th centuries BC near the confluence of the Arsanias and the Euphrates ("Eastern Mushki") and
901-971: The Proto-Indo-European language , from a stage referred to either as Indo-Hittite or "Archaic PIE"; typically a date in the mid-4th millennium BC is assumed. Under the Kurgan hypothesis , there are two possibilities for how the early Anatolian speakers could have reached Anatolia: from the north via the Caucasus , or from the west, via the Balkans ; the latter is considered somewhat more likely by Mallory (1989), Steiner (1990), and Anthony (2007). Statistical research by Quentin Atkinson and others using Bayesian inference and glottochronological markers favors an Indo-European origin in Anatolia , though
954-483: The Trialeti-Vanadzor culture originally, which suggests an eastern homeland for the Mushki. In the 8th century BC, Tabal became the most influential of the Neo-Hittite polities, and the Mushki under Mita entered an anti-Assyrian alliance with Tabal and Carchemish . The alliance was soon defeated by Sargon of Assyria , who captured Carchemish and drove back Mita to his own province. Ambaris of Tabal
1007-646: The Urumu and Kaskas (Apishlu), they attempted to invade the Middle Assyrian Empire 's Anatolian provinces of Alzi (Alshe) and Puruhuzzi in about 1160 BC, but they were pushed back and subjugated by Ashur-Dan I . In 1115 BC, the Mushki advanced further, penetrating into Kadmuhi, along the Upper Tigris . After being turned away by Tiglath-pileser I , the Mushki apparently settled in Alzi. Whether
1060-455: The mi conjugation and ḫi conjugation, named for their first-person singular present indicative suffix in Hittite. While the mi conjugation has clear cognates outside of Anatolia, the ḫi conjugation is distinctive and appears to be derived from a reduplicated or intensive form in PIE. The Anatolian gender system is based on two classes: animate and inanimate (also termed common and neuter). Proto-Anatolian almost certainly did not inherit
1113-523: The 10th to the 8th centuries BC. Although almost nothing is known about what language (or languages) the Eastern or Western Mushki spoke, they have been variously identified as being speakers of a Phrygian , Armenian , Anatolian , or Georgian language. The Eastern Mushki appear to have moved into Hatti in the 12th century BC, around the time that the Hittite Empire collapsed. Together with
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#17327723930261166-598: The 10th-15th centuries, this region was a part of the united Georgian Kingdom. In the 16th century it was the independent Principality of Samtskhe until it was occupied and annexed by the Ottoman Empire . In 1829-1917 the region was a part of Tiflis Governorate , and then briefly (1918–1921) part of the Democratic Republic of Georgia . Between 1921-1990 it was a part of the Soviet Union , as
1219-536: The 13th century BC (Late Bronze Age). They are written in cuneiform script borrowing heavily from the Mesopotamian system of writing. The script is a syllabary . This fact, combined with frequent use of Akkadian and Sumerian words, as well as logograms , or signs representing whole words, to represent lexical items, often introduces considerable uncertainty as to the form of the original. However, phonetic syllable signs are present also, representing syllables of
1272-464: The 19th century BC Kültepe texts, the Akkadian language records of the kârum kaneš , or "port of Kanes," an Assyrian enclave of merchants within the city of kaneš (Kültepe). This collection records Hittite names and words loaned into Akkadian from Hittite. The Hittite name for the city was Neša , from which the Hittite endonym for the language, Nešili , was derived. The fact that the enclave
1325-730: The 4th century AD in Iberia. Rayfield's theories are speculative, however, and nothing is actually known of the Mushki's religious convictions. Hecataeus of Miletus (c. 550 – 476 BC) speaks of the Moschi as " Colchians ", situated next to the Matieni . According to Herodotus , the equipment of the Moschoi was similar to that of the Tibareni , Macrones , Mossynoeci and Mardae , with wooden caps upon their heads, and shields and small spears, on which long points were set. All these tribes formed
1378-571: The Anatolian language group as a whole, or languages identified as Luvian by the Hittite texts. The name comes from Hittite luwili ( 𒇻𒌑𒄿𒇷 ). The earlier use of Luvic fell into disuse in favor of Luvian . Meanwhile, most of the languages now termed Luvian, or Luvic, were not known to be so until the latter 20th century. Even more fragmentary attestations might be discovered in the future. Luvian and Luvic have other meanings in English, so currently Luwian and Luwic are preferred. Before
1431-506: The Anatolian languages preserves distinctions lost in its sister branches of Indo-European. Famously, the Anatolian languages retain the PIE laryngeals in words such as Hittite ḫāran- (cf. Ancient Greek ὄρνῑς , Lithuanian eręlis , Old Norse ǫrn , PIE * h₃éron- ) and Lycian 𐊜𐊒𐊄𐊀 χuga (cf. Latin avus , Old Prussian awis , Archaic Irish ᚐᚃᚔ (avi), PIE * h₂éwh₂s ). The three dorsal consonant series of PIE also remained distinct in Proto-Anatolian and have different reflexes in
1484-676: The Armenian nation after 1200 BC, making the Mushki, if they indeed migrated from a Balkan or western Anatolian homeland during or after the Bronze Age Collapse , unlikely candidates for the Proto-Armenians. Some Georgian historians have proposed that the Mushki, together with other ancient tribes of Asia Minor mentioned in Assyrian sources (such as the Tibal and others), were "proto-Georgian" tribes, which contributed to
1537-1507: The Iberians (i.e., Georgians), and had embraced Christianity , the religion of their masters. Josephus Flavius identified the Cappadocian Moschoi with the Biblical Japhetic tribe descended from Meshech in his writings on the Genealogy of the Nations in Genesis 10 , while Hippolytus of Rome connected Meshech with Illyrians . Meshech is named with Tubal as a principality of the prince of Gog and Magog in Ezekiel 38:2 and 39:1. Anatolian language Pontic Steppe Caucasus East Asia Eastern Europe Northern Europe Pontic Steppe Northern/Eastern Steppe Europe South Asia Steppe Europe Caucasus India Indo-Aryans Iranians East Asia Europe East Asia Europe Indo-Aryan Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Others European The Anatolian languages are an extinct branch of Indo-European languages that were spoken in Anatolia . The best known Anatolian language
1590-561: The Luwic languages, e.g. Luwian where * kʷ > ku- , * k > k- , and * ḱ > z-. The three-way distinction in Proto-Indo-European stops (i.e. *p, *b, *bʰ ) collapsed into a fortis-lenis distinction in Proto-Anatolian, conventionally written as / p / vs. / b /. In Hittite and Luwian cuneiform, the lenis stops were written as single voiceless consonants while the fortis stops were written as doubled voiceless, indicating
1643-490: The Luwic languages. Modifications and updates of the branching order continue, however. A second version opposes Hittite to Western Anatolian, and divides the latter node into Lydian, Palaic, and a Luwian group (instead of Luwic). Hittite ( nešili ) was the language of the Hittite Empire , dated approximately 1650–1200 BC, which ruled over nearly all of Anatolia during that time. The earliest sources of Hittite are
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1696-957: The Meskheti region of Georgia along the border with Turkey . They were deported to Central Asia during November 15–25, 1944 by Joseph Stalin and settled within Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan , and Uzbekistan . Of the 120,000 forcibly deported in cattle-trucks a total of 10,000 perished. Today they are dispersed over a number of other countries of the former Soviet Union . There are 500,000 to 700,000 Meskhetian Turks in exile in Azerbaijan and Central Asia . Most Meskhetian Turks are Sunni Hanafi Muslims . 41°35′N 43°16′E / 41.583°N 43.267°E / 41.583; 43.267 Mushki The Mushki (sometimes transliterated as Muški ) were an Iron Age people of Anatolia who appear in sources from Assyria but not from
1749-491: The Mushki initially moved into the core Hittite areas from the east or west has been a matter of some discussion by historians. It has been speculated that the Mushki were connected to the spread of the so-called Transcaucasian ceramic ware, which appeared as far west as modern Elazığ, Turkey in the late second millennium BC. This ceramic ware is believed to have been developed in the South Caucasus region, possibly by
1802-465: The Mushki under Mita may have participated in the Assyrian campaign and were forced to flee to western Anatolia, disappearing from Assyrian accounts, but entering the periphery of Greek historiography as king Midas of Phrygia . Rusas II of Urartu in the 7th century BC fought the Mushki-ni to his west, before he entered an alliance with them against Assyria. Some scholars have speculated that
1855-570: The Royal Archives of Nineveh by Sir Henry Layard , the Cimmerians invaded Urartu from Mannai in 714 BC. From there they turned west along the coast of the Black Sea as far as Sinope , and then headed south towards Tabal, in 705 BC campaigning against an Assyrian army in central Anatolia, resulting in the death of Sargon II, although they were cleared from Assyrian ruled territory. Macqueen (1986:157) and others have speculated that
1908-533: The Western Mushki were not Phrygians, but they conquered the Phrygians, or were conquered by the Phrygians, and the two became conflated with one another. According to Igor Diakonoff , the Mushki were a Thraco-Phrygian group who carried their Proto-Armenian language from the Balkans across Asia Minor , mixing with Hurrians (and Urartians ) and Luwians along the way. Diakonoff theorized that
1961-399: The ancestors of "Cappadocians" ( Eusebius ) with their capital at Mazaca (later Caesarea Mazaca, modern Develi, Kayseri ). According to Armenian tradition, the city of Mazaca was founded by and named after Mishak (Misak, Moshok), a cousin and general of the legendary patriarch Aram . Scholars have proposed a connection between the name Mishak and Mushki. The Armenian region of Mokk' and
2014-535: The city of Mush (Muş) may derive their names from the Mushki. According to Professor James R. Russell of Harvard University, the Georgian designation for Armenians, "Somekhi", refers to the Mushki. However, the connection between the Mushki and Armenian languages is quite unclear and many modern scholars have rejected a direct linguistic relationship if the Mushki were Phrygian speakers. Additionally, genetic research does not support significant admixture into
2067-559: The class of topical nouns to provide more precise reference tracking for male and female humans. Proto-Anatolian retained the nominal case system of Proto-Indo-European, including the vocative, nominative, accusative, instrumental, dative, genitive, and locative cases, and innovated an additional allative case . Nouns distinguish singular and plural numbers, as well as a collective plural for inanimates in Old Hittite and remnant dual forms for natural pairs. The Anatolian branch also has
2120-784: The form V, CV, VC, CVC, where V is "vowel" and C is "consonant". Hittite is divided into Old, Middle, and New (or Neo-). The dates are somewhat variable. They are based on an approximate coincidence of historical periods and variants of the writing system: the Old Kingdom and the Old Script, the Middle Kingdom and the Middle Script, and the New Kingdom and the New Script. Fortson gives the dates, which come from
2173-401: The formation of the eastern Georgian Kingdom of Iberia . According to Donald Rayfield, Mushki, Moschoi, and Meskhi are floating names. He argues the Mushki may have worshiped the Hittite moon god Arma and the Luwian god Santush (Santa/Sandan) , comparing these names to the phonetically similar pagan Iberian gods Armazi and Zaden , whose idols were overthrown by Christian missionaries in
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2226-697: The method's validity and accuracy are subject to debate. It has been theorized that Cernavodă culture , together with the Sredny Stog culture , was the source of Anatolian languages and introduced them to Anatolia through the Balkans after Anatolian split from the Proto-Indo-Anatolian language, which some linguists and archaeologists place in the area of the Sredny Stog culture. Petra Goedegebuure suggests Anatolian separated from PIE in
2279-446: The north by 4500 BC and had arrived in Anatolia by about 2500 BC, via a migration route through the Caucasus. Melchert (2012) has proposed the following classification: Kloekhorst (2022) has proposed a more detailed classification, with estimated dating for some of the reconstructed stages: In addition, the Kalašma language is believed to be a Luwic language, though further analysis has yet to be published. The phonology of
2332-413: The other from the 8th to the 7th centuries BC in Cappadocia and Cilicia ("Western Mushki"). Assyrian sources clearly identify the Western Mushki with the Phrygians , but later Greek sources then distinguish between the Phrygians and the Moschoi. Identification of the Eastern Mushki with the Western Mushki is uncertain, but it is possible that at least some of the Eastern Mushki migrated to Cilicia in
2385-484: The other hand, many Luwian glosses (foreign words) in Hittite texts appear to reflect a different dialect, namely Empire Luwian. The Hittite language of the respective tablets sometimes displays interference features, which suggests that they were recorded by Luwian native speakers. The hieroglyphic corpus (Melchert's HLuwian) is recorded in Anatolian hieroglyphs , reflecting Empire Luwian and its descendant Iron Age Luwian. Some HLuwian texts were found at Boğazkale, so it
2438-437: The reigns of the relevant kings, as 1570–1450 BC, 1450–1380 BC, and 1350–1200 BC respectively. These are not glottochronologic . All cuneiform Hittite came to an end at 1200 BC with the destruction of Hattusas and the end of the empire. Palaic , spoken in the north-central Anatolian region of Palā (later Paphlagonia ), extinct around the 13th century BC, is known only from fragments of quoted prayers in Old Hittite texts. It
2491-409: The root of the name Mushki was "Mush" (or perhaps "Mus," "Mos," or "Mosh") with the addition of the Armenian plural suffix -k' . Armen Petrosyan clarifies this, suggesting that -ki was a Proto-Armenian form of the Classical Armenian -k' (compare to Ancient Greek -κοί) and etymologizes "Mush" as meaning "worker" or "agriculturalist." Some have placed (at least the Eastern) Mushki homeland in
2544-470: The term Luwic was proposed for Luwian and its closest relatives, scholars used the term Luwian in the sense of 'Luwic languages'. For example, Silvia Luraghi's Luwian branch begins with a root language she terms the "Luwian group", which logically is in the place of Common Luwian or Proto-Luwian. Its three offsprings, according to her are Milyan, Proto-Luwian, and Lycian, while Proto-Luwian branches into Cuneiform and Hieroglyphic Luwian. The Luwian language
2597-464: Was Assyrian, rather than Hittite, and that the city name became the language name, suggest that the Hittites were already in a position of influence, perhaps dominance, in central Anatolia . The main cache of Hittite texts is the approximately 30,000 clay tablet fragments, of which only some have been studied, from the records of the royal city of Hattuša , located on a ridge near what is now Boğazkale, Turkey (formerly named Boğazköy). The records show
2650-405: Was a temple of Leucothea , once famous for its wealth, but plundered by Pharnaces and Mithridates – was divided between the Colchians , Armenians , and Iberians (cf. Mela , III. 5.4; Pliny VI.4.). These latter Moschoi were obviously Meskhi or Mesx’i (where Greek χ, chi , is Georgian ხ, x), located in southern Georgia. Procopius calls them Meschoi and says that they were subject to
2703-601: Was diplomatically married to an Assyrian princess, and received the province of Hilakku under Assyrian dominion, but in 713 BC, Ambaris was deposed and Tabal became a fully fledged Assyrian province. In 709 BC, the Mushki re-emerged as allies of Assyria, Sargon naming Mita as his friend. It appears that Mita had captured and handed over to the Assyrians emissaries of Urikki, king of Que , who were sent to negotiate an anti-Assyrian contract with Urartu, as they passed through his territory. According to Assyrian military intelligence reports to Sargon recorded on clay tablets found in
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#17327723930262756-413: Was extinguished by the replacement of the culture, if not the population, as a result of an invasion by the Kaskas , which the Hittites could not prevent. The term Luwic was proposed by Craig Melchert as the node of a branch to include several languages that seem more closely related than the other Anatolian languages. This is not a neologism, as Luvic had been used in the early 20th century to mean
2809-515: Was formerly thought to have been a "Hieroglyphic Hittite". The contexts in which CLuwian and HLuwian have been found are essentially distinct. Annick Payne asserts: "With the exception of digraphic seals, the two scripts were never used together." HLuwian texts are found on clay, shell, potsherds, pottery, metal, natural rock surfaces, building stone and sculpture, mainly carved lions. The images are in relief or counter-relief that can be carved or painted. There are also seals and sealings. A sealing
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