Geographical Names According to Urartian Texts
Igor M. Diakonoff
S. M. Kashkai
Ludwig Reichert Verlag
his part of the Repertoire Geographique des Textes Cuneiformes includes all the names of countries, regions, mountains, towns, tribes and rivers registered up to 19781 in cuneiform texts from the Kingdom of Urartu, or Biainele (rock inscriptions, inscriptions on buildings and stelae, bronze objects and tablets)2
The Urartian sources range from the 9th to the 6th century B.C. The earliest inscriptions - those of Sardure I, son of Lutihre (or Lutewre ?) - are in the NAss dialect of Akkadian (UKN 1-3, 319-325), the rest are written in Urartian, in a writing descended from one of the Hurrian cuneiform writing styles (more probably Alzian than, e.g., Mitannian?)3 with the addition of certain orthographic features taken over from the NAss cuneiform spelling rules, as well as of sumerograms (which partly are secondary inventions) and of akkadograms.
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INTRODUCTION
This part of the Repertoire Geographique des Textes Cuneiformes includes all the names of countries, regions, mountains, towns, tribes and rivers registered up to 19781 in cuneiform texts from the Kingdom of Urartu, or Biainele (rock inscriptions, inscriptions on buildings and stelae, bronze objects and tablets)2
The Urartian sources range from the 9th to the 6th century B.C. The earliest inscriptions - those of Sardure I, son of Lutihre (or Lutewre ?) - are in the NAss dialect of Akkadian (UKN 1-3, 319-325), the rest are written in Urartian, in a writing descended from one of the Hurrian cuneiform writing styles (more probably Alzian than, e.g., Mitannian?)3 with the addition of certain orthographic features taken over from the NAss cuneiform spelling rules, as well as of sumerograms (which partly are secondary inventions) and of akkadograms.
Toponyms and hydronyms are mostly encountered in annals and in lesser inscriptions devoted to local victories of the Urartian kings on the border of their empire; they were often carved on rocks in the conquered lands, not uncommonly near the site of some battle or of a refounded town or fortress. The toponyms allow us sometimes to get some notion of the probable linguistic affinity of the local inhabitants, or of their tribal structure; the inscriptions also include data allowing us to judge indirectly of the economic condition of the countries in question, and of the density of their population.
The Urartian texts have been discovered and published at different times and by different scholars. All editions are enumerated and referred to in G. A. MELIKISVILI, Urartskie klinoobraznye nadpisi, 2nd ed., Moscow 1960 (which addenda in VDI, 1971, 3-4); the work (UKN) contains thus the most complete bibliography. We have mostly followed the readings and reconstructions of this standard work, as well as its numbering of the texts. For the sake of convenience, their numbers according to F.W. KÖNIG’s Handbuch der chaldischen Inschriften, Graz 1955”
57 (HChI) are also appended.
The transcription and transliteration follow the system introduced by I. M. DIAK0N0FF in: Hurrisch und Urartäisch, München 1971 (HuU), with the exception that the final neutral vowel /a/ is uniformly transcribed as e.
The signs GA, GI, GU are transliterated in capital letters, because there is reason to believe that they were actually often pronounced as /ya/, /ye/, /yi/ and /yu/; GU is also attested with the reading gu. For comparative historico-geographical studies note that the Urartian š, s, ş, z were probably pronounced /s/, /š/ or /č/, /tş/, (/tş’/?) and /dz/.
Each toponym (etc.) is itemized in bound transcription and in the Absolute case; even if not actually attested in the existing contexts, this case has been reconstructed for the sake of uniformity.
The quotations follow in transliteration, sometimes, when important for the localization, with a minimal context; for its interpretation, I. M. DIAK0N0FF is responsible. Sometimes it was difficult to say, whether a -ne at the and of a toponym belongs to the stem, or is the article, or is part of the ending -(i)ne of the possessive adjective, or the ending -ne of the Ablative; in doubtful cases -(ne) is bracketed. Note that the thematic vowel of the stem of words ending in the Absolute case in -e /a/ is usually -i, thus Abs. Sardure9 Erg. Sarduri- se, Gen. Sardurei, Dat. Sarduri-ie9 Abl. Sarduri-ne9 etc. However, there are also substantives and especially adjectives with an —e- stem, thus the adjective Sardurine, Erg. Sardurine-se etc., as well as nouns with an -a- stem, as taramane "fountain", sale "year", stems taramana-, sala-. The stem vowels -u (also/~o/) and -a are preserved in the Absolute case, and the same is true of -ae (/aie/), which, however, may be contracted to -a-.
Also in references to other works containing suggested localizations we use, for unity’s and clarity’s sake, not the transcription used by the respective authors but the one we have adopted in this fascicle.
Since most Assyriologists are not aware of the Urartian nominal inflection and therefore often erroneously quote the toponyms in oblique cases, a reference to the grammatical form in question is always added in parentheses.
Then follows the name of the king to whose reign the quoted inscription belongs, and lastly comes the reference to the number of the text, the column (or obverse, reverse etc.), and the line according to the UKN and the HChl. (UKN 1-370 are published in MELIKISVILI’s book in 1960, new texts 371-447, 448-533, are published in the Addenda VDI 1971, 3-4; in the Addenda also some previously published texts are re-published under their old numbers, with corrections4, namely, UKN 1U, 15, 16, 118, 1^9a, 277a, 286, 318, 319-325, 328, 329, 333).
After each item follow such localizations as have been suggested with more or less plausibility. The problem of localization of Urartian toponyms has been discussed by a number of scholars in the U.S.S.R. and abroad; all suggestions have been sorted out and quoted in the works by Melikisvili (UKN, Nairi-Urartu et al.) and by N. V. Arutjtjnjan (Harouthiounian), Biainili, Erevan 1970.
Suggestions made or adopted by Melikisvili, if quoted from UKN or its Addenda (from the commentaries to the texts, or the glossary) are marked by the letter (M.) - alone, if made in the commentary, with page number if only (or more completely) in the glossary; those adopted by Harouthiounian are marked by the letter (H.).
Many identifications of toponyms have been made by I. M. Diakonoff in: Assiro-vavilonskie istocniki po istorii Urartu (AVIIU), VDI 1951, 2-4; id., Istoria Midii, Moscow-Leningrad 1956; id., Predystorija armyanskogo naroda, Erevan 1968 et al.; Diakonoff's suggestions which have not been published earlier are marked by the letter (D.) alone, those taken from the AVIIU have the number of the text in that edition and the note following the letter D., the other works are quoted as (D.IM) and (D.PAN)j with page number. Of the opinions not referred to by M., H., D., the most important are those of N. Adontz, G. Kapancyan (Ghapantsian), Ya. Manandian, and Mirjo Salvtni. Other later opinions on localization (and also some of the more important earlier ones) are also quoted.
Sometimes the Urartian inscriptions spell the toponyms (with Kur) as ethnonyms (with I or Lù), or vice versa: an ethnonym may in a later inscription occur as a toponym, and I may also be used before a PN or a dynastic name; the distinction between the latter and an ethnonym is often difficult to draw, and both clear ethnonyms and dubious cases have been included in our list.
Addendum: When compiling this introduction, the authors were not aware of Gernot Wilhelms important contribution "Zur urartäischen Nominalflexion", ZA 66 (1976) 105-109. According to Wilhelm the -ne (or -ni) of our "definite declension"
1. is a copula, if the noun is in the nominative;
2. is a correlative particle (Sg. -ne-, PI. -na-) connecting the qualifiying noun in the Genitive or the adjective in -he- with the qualified noun; also used in the oblique case from the qualified noun to qualifying noun;
3. if the last consonant of the stem is -l/r-, then *-I/r + stem vowel + -ne/na->-l/ re/a.
Thus our "definite declension" is actually a "declension with correlative particle", and all forms of our "possesive adjective" in -(i)ne are (with a few dubious exceptions) actually also forms of the "declension with correlative particle" in the cases Genitive or Dative.
For the users of the vocabulary, the important thing is, that the -ne-morph does not as a rule belong to the toponym in its Absolute (or "Nominative") case.
For the convenience of Assyriologists not versed in Urartian grammar, we append a table of the Urartian declension:
…..
1) A few texts published after 1978 have been filed, but a completeness of data was unattainable.
2) The texts UKN 28, 127, 128 A and B, 155, 156 are annals, UKN 18,19,27, 63-65, 81 (?) ,89, 96-98, 99+382, 279(?),281, 1+1+8-1+51 are offering lists and declarations of the introduction of new offeringsmostly in connection with the introduction of the cult of Haldi in conquered places, UKN 20, 21+-1+1, 129-131+, I58-16I, 170, 265,266,278,372,373,386,W+5,U52(2) are descriptions of local campaigns, UKW 333, 1+55-1+56 = UPD 2,1 ,l+,3,5»6,7 are letters, UKN 286, 326-332, 1+63 = UPD 11,12,13,1^,15 are administrative documents, the rest are building and votive inscriptions, in many cases^ connected with the establishment of new fortresses (E. GAL), temples (süse), "gates" (sestile, KA i.e. stelae in open cultic places, or niches in a rock wall) devoted to Haldi and sometimes to other gods, or commemorating the construction of different religious and other buildings, artificial lakes (UKN 268), canals, fountains, etc., also the prowess of the kings in sports (UKN 110, 277); some inscriptions simply state that the object or building belongs to a particular king. The texts UKN 19 and 26U (a kind of vassal treaty with Musasir) are bilingual.
3) Thus, the signs tug and sig in the Urartian cursive have no prototypes in Neo-Assyrian; also some scribal formulae in the Urartian royal inscriptions go back to the Hittite annals apparently through Hurrian, having no analogies in the Assyrian annals.
4) No£e that in UKN U62:12 for LUa-hu-pa one should ^read
LUSA.RESI (noticed by Harouthiounian). Cf.378U LUSA.
ReSi UKN 286 obv.: 10, cf. rev. 2 (Addenda I).
Igor M. Diakonoff
S. M. Kashkai
Repertoire Geographique des Textes Cuneiformes IX
Geographical Names According to Urartian Texts
Ludwig Reichert
Ludwig Reichert Verlag
Repertoire Geographique des Textes Cuneiformes IX
Geographical Names According to Urartian Texts
By Igor M. Diakonoff and S. M. Kashkai
Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag
Wiesbaden 1981
This material is presented solely for non-commercial
educational/research purposes.
CIP-Kurztitelaufnahme der Deutschen Bibliothek
Repertoire geographique des textes cuneiformes /
[diese Arbeit ist im Sonderforschungsbereich 19, Tübingen,
entstanden]. In Zusammenarbeit mit Jean-Robert Küpper…
hrsg. von Wolfgang Röllig. – Wiesbaden: Reichert.
(Beihefte zum Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients:
Reihe B, Geisteswiss.; Nr. 7)
NE: Röllig, Wolfgang [Hrsg.]; Sonderforschungsbereich
Orientalistik mit Besonderer Berücksichtigung des Vorderen
Orients <Tübingen>;
Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients / Beihefte / B
Bd. 9. Geographical names according to the Urartian texts /
by Igor M. Diakonoff and S. M. Kashkai. - 1981.
ISBN 3-88226-119-6
NE: D’jakonov, Igor’ M. [Mitverf.]
© 1981 Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag Wiesbaden
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