Alamut and Lamasar
W. Ivanow
Kayhan Press
he name of Alamut apparently descends from great antiquity and belongs to one of the now long extinct non-Aryan languages which were spoken by the various tribes of local inhabitants before the advent of the Iranians, which took place about the eighth or seventh c. B.C. Every historical mediaeval work offers the supposed etymology of the word, which means some absurdity like “education of eagles” and so forth. Now, surely, the etymology of a word belonging to an unknown language, cannot be reconstructed. But it is very probable that in this term we have a name with a suffix denoting a place, or a tribe which inhabited it, -ut, -uttu, -utti, -utta, -utu, etc., which appear in the numerous local names preserved in the cuneiform inscriptions of the Babylonian and Assyrian kings, recording the “victories” in these localities won ... |