Hurrians and Subarians

oi.uchicago.edu HURRIANS AND SUBARIANS BY IGNACE J. GELB THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO STUDIES IN ANCIENT ORIENTAL CIVILIZATION • NO. 22 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS • CHICAGO • ILLINOIS oi.uchicago.edu International Standard Book Number: 0-226-62393-9 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 44-4506 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS, CHICAGO 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 1944 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. Published 1944. Second Impression 1973. Printed by Cushing-Malloy, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America oi.uchicago.edu PREFACE The present monograph grew out of what was originally intended to be merely a chapter serving as historical introduction to Nuzi Personal Names ("Oriental In stitute Publications," Vol. LVII). But during preparation of the manuscript it soon became apparent that such a sober volume as Nuzi Personal Names was no place for complicated discussions on the history and relationship of the Hurrians and Subarians. This fact, coupled with the steady growth of the manuscript, made it imperative to give up the original intention and to publish it separately. To Dr. John A. Wilson and Dr. T. George Allen are due my thanks and gratitude for hav ing accepted the monograph for publication in the Oriental Institute's "Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization." The manuscript had attained approximately its present size, if not its present form, at the beginning of 1940. The gist of it was presented in a lecture, "The Hur- rian-Subarian Problem/' given February 26, 1940, at a meeting of the Near East Club of the University of Chicago. The main object of this monograph is the elucidation of the status of Hurrians and Subarians within the historical framework of the ancient Near East. As is gen erally known, two scholars in particular—Speiser in his book Mesopotamian Origins and Ungnad in his book Subartu—have in recent years rendered outstanding service in assembling and presenting data on the Hurrians and Subarians. They both treated of the aboriginal population of Mesopotamia; but, while Speiser called it "Human," Ungnad called it "Subarian." In accordance with their conclusions the practical equivalence of the two terms has become generally accepted. Study of early Sumerian and Akkadian sources hitherto overlooked or differently interpreted has, however, led me to an entirely different conclusion. The terms are not used for one and the same ethnic unit, as generally assumed; they do not even apply to separate branches of a single ethnic family, as Speiser seems to imply in a later treatise on "Ethnic Movements in the Near East." On the contrary, I hope to be able to prove in this monograph that from now on it will be necessary to distin guish sharply between two entirely different and unrelated ethnic units: the Su barians, who from the earliest historical periods are found not only occupying vast mountainous areas north of Babylonia but also living peacefully within Babylonia side by side with Sumerians and Akkadians, and the much younger Hurrians, who appeared relatively late on the Mesopotamian scene and who played an important role in the history of the Near East in the middle of the 2d millennium B.C. At the time when the Hurrians first enter the Mesopotamian scene the Subarians can look back on a long past. The subsequent histories of the two ethnic units develop along independent and unrelated courses. Only in the 2d millennium, when the Hurrians in oi.uchicago.edu IV PREFACE occupied territories previously inhabited by the Subarians, may there have been some confusion of the two. In spite of the fact that the final results of this monograph are so different from those reached by Speiser and Ungnad, it is but fair to state how much it owes to the works of these two scholars. Certainly it owes more to them than one might realize from a casual perusal of the remarks and criticisms scattered throughout this study. It was not my intention to write a complete history of the Hurrians and Subarians which would supersede entirely the works of my predecessors. Since my chief aim is to show that Hurrians and Subarians were of different and unrelated origins, it was only natural for me to treat the earliest sources, that is, those of the 3d millennium B.C., more exhaustively than those of the next two millenniums. For this reason the treatment of these later sources remains in some respects fuller in the works of my predecessors. Grown as it has from a historical introduction to Nuzi Personal Names, the pres ent study was intended to be a historical monograph on the Hurrians and the Su barians. In theory a historical monograph should be based on studies involving nu merous avenues of approach, including philology, physical anthropology, archeol ogy, history of art, and history of religion. The reader can see at a glance how little this monograph approaches such an ideal. I have intentionally avoided calling upon physical anthropology and archeology, not because of skepticism as regards their validity in general but because for the de termination of ethnic relationships and ethnic movements in the ancient Near East they still have too little to offer. In the years after the first World War great en thusiasm prevailed in the fields of physical anthropology and archeology. In con trast to the custom formerly prevalent of throwing away as useless most of the ex cavated skeletal and material remains which did not have the flashiness of gold ob jects or the immediate appeal of written records, recent, excavators have saved and studied diligently everything recovered from the earth. The newly acquired ma terials were soon given exaggerated value. Often on the basis of a few skulls "races" were identified, and from scattered artifacts new "cultures" were reconstructed. We know how short-lived have been such reconstructions. The time is now ripe to take a definite stand toward such methods. Just as a language usually cannot be safely identified on the basis of a few scattered linguistic phenomena, so new races and cultures cannot be reconstructed on the basis of a few skulls or artifacts. Not until further excavations have filled many lacunae in our knowledge and all the available materials have been thoroughly analyzed and classified shall we be ready to propose any synthetic conclusions as to race and culture. And only after the principles gov erning the relations of race and culture to tribe, people, and nation have been estab lished will the time be ripe for applying the data of physical anthropology and arche ology to the solution of the ethnic problems of the ancient Near East. oi.uchicago.edu PREFACE v Contributions from the history of art and the history of religion would have been very valuable, but unfortunately limitations in the sources or in our understanding of them prevent us from making full use of these two disciplines. Our slight knowl edge of the art and religion of the Hurrians and our total ignorance of the art and re ligion of the Subarians make any constructive comparisons impossible at present. In view of the circumstances just outlined I have depended almost exclusively upon written records—historical inscriptions, legends, traditions, year names, ad ministrative documents, letters, syllabaries, lists of synonyms—bearing directly or indirectly upon my subject. If points of philological interest have been overempha sized, I hope that professional historians will look with forbearance upon the di gressions of a philologist. Proper names, especially personal names, have been par ticularly useful. Even in the ancient Near East, however, personal names are not wholly dependable indicators of ethnic relationships. For example, some Hurrians at Nuzi and some Subarians in Babylonia were given Akkadian names such as were borne by the people among whom they lived. Though such exceptions occur, they do not invalidate the principle that a personal name is normally couched in the language spoken by the recipient's parents. In general the principle of testis unus testis nullus has been observed. But occasionally a name found only once had to be used when it furnished a badly needed link in some reconstruction and fitted into the picture I was trying to give. Of course I am fully aware of the fact that objections similar in nature to those voiced above against anthropology and archeology might be raised against philology. Is language sufficiently characteristic of a people to justify dependence upon it as an ethnic criterion? In answer to this question we must try to define "people" (ethnos) as opposed to "nation" (demos). The definition of "nation" is relatively easy: "nation" is a political term denoting a body of persons linked together by a state or by the common will to a state. Definition of the ethnic term "people" is more difficult, as the traits characterizing a people are more numerous and more complex. The main traits of a people are community of tradition, customs, religion, culture, language, and geographic position. Not all of these traits are of equal strength, and indeed some of them may even be absent. Quite influential are the ties of common tradition in respect to descent. Compactness of geographic position is an important factor, even though parts of the same ethnic unit may at times in habit widely scattered areas. Religion as an ethnic tie varies in strength. Language as the vehicle of tradition is one of the strongest foundations of a people. As an out ward expression language becomes the symbol with which a people is most easily identified. For a people to give up its language in favor of another normally means the renunciation of its own ethnic identity and subsequent assimilation into the ethnic group from which the new language has been taken.

Load more