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Search of HURRIAN URKESH In Search of HURRIAN URKESH GIORGIO BUCCELLATI and MARILYN KE LLY-BUC C E LLAT I he thousands of mid-second-millennium B.C. documents unearthed at Boghazkoy, Turkey, the T site of the Hittite capital of Hattusha, include several collections of myths dealing with ancient heroes and gods. In the most important group of these myths, however, the heroes and gods are not Hittite; they are Hurrian, and their stories are set , not in Anatolia but in Syro-Mesopotamia, where ’ Hurrian-speaking people lived. These myths, the so- called Kumarbi Cycle, are Hittite translations of 7 Hurrian stories. Some of them are even inscribed on bilingual tablets in both Hittite and Hurrian. 16 MAY/JUNE 2001 I ODYSSEY 1 ‘I - -d. Preceding pages: Tish-atal, king of The Kumarbi Cycle consists of stories appeared on the antiquities market; the Urkesh, reads part of the Hurrian about one of the principal Hurrian gods, lions are inscribed with a text in which a inscription on this 5-inch-high bronze Kumarbi, and his family. (The fittites took kmg by the name of TEh-atal boasts of hav- foundation peg, now in the Louvre. Kumarbi’s son Teshub, the storm god, as ing bdt a temple in Urkesh. But since the About 5,000 years ago, the Hurrians their main god.)” Kumarbi rules over a city provenance of these lions is not known, the entered Mesopotamia, settling in location of the city until recently was also present-day northern Syria. They named Urkesh. In one story, Kumarbi’s son adapted cuneiform script to write their Silver is sent to live with his mother in the Unknown. language, and by the mid-second mountainous countryside, where another Our excavations, however, have proved millennium B.C.-with the rise of the child, an orphan, torments him by telhg that Urkesh was located at the remote north Hurrian Mittani kingdom-their myths him that he has been abandoned by his Syrian site of Tell Mozan. There we have and gods were known from the Tigris father and that he, too, is just an “orphan”: found a number of short Hurrian inscrip- River to the Mediterranean and central tions, mostly on seal impressions, or bul- Anatolia. Weeping, Silver went into his house. lae-lumps of moist clay impressed with The most prominent city in Hurrian Silver began to repeat the words to his seals (which, at Tell Mozan, are cylindrical lore is Urkesh, home of the god mother His mother turned around and ... in shape) to secure documents or shipments Kumarbi. Until this bronze figurine began to reply to Silver, her son ... turned up on the antiquities market, in of goods. The name “Urkesh” appears on “Your father is Kumarbi, the Father of 1948, it was not known whether several seal impressions that also give the the city of Urkesh ... Your brother is Urkesh was an actual city. Even then, name and Hurrian title of the king: Teshub. He is king in heaven. Your however, since no one knew where the “Tupkish, the endan (king) of Urkesh.” statue came from, the location of sister is Shauska, she is queen in and Here, then, is the city made famous in the ancient Urkesh remained a mystery. Nineveh. You must not fear any other ancient Near East by the elegant religious Just a few years ago, authors Giorgio god; only one deity (Kumarbi) must you Buccellati and Marilyn Kelly-Buccellati lore of the Hurrians. fear” ... Silver listened to his mother’s found tiny seal impressions stamped We began looking for a Hurrian site to I words. He set out for Urkesh, but he did with the place-name ”Urkesh“ at Tell excavate in the early 1980s. Although we not find Kumarbi in his house. Kumarbi Mozan (shown above, looking from the were interested in the Hurrians, we were had gone off to roam the lands.’ north), in northern Syria, confirming not specifically looking for Urkesh-just the existence and the location of the Hurrian city of myth. We know that Urkesh was not just the for a third-millennium B.C. city that might central city of Hurrian myth. It was a real tell us about Hurrian urban civilization. At city as well. In 1948, two bronze lions that time, very little was known about the enigmatic Hurrians, and there are still *See E.C. Krupp, “Sacred Sex in the Hittite Temple of Yazilikaya,” Archaeology Ck&ssey, MarcWApril 2OOO. many gaps in our knowledge. The name "Hunian" refers to a language found in Syro-Mesopotamia during the third and second millennia B.C. Its only known rel- ative is Urartian, a language attested in eastern Anatolia in the ninth and eighth centuries B.C." As a result of our excava- tions, we believe that Hurrian speakers, or Hunians, were present in northern Syro- Mesopotamia at least by the beginning of the third millennium B.C. They adapted the cuneiform script devised by the Sumeri-and used by the Babylonians and Assyrians to write forms of Akkadian- to write their own language. Until recently, almost nothing was known about the Hurrians as an ethnic group (see writer Agatha Christie, surveyed the site in - box, p. 24) or a political entity. That is one 1934. He dug three trenches and noted some *2auc reason we hoped to hdan early Hurrian surface remains. The most detailed account city that might enhghten us about the ori- of Mallowan's work at Tell Mozan is in gins of these people. Christie's memoir Come Tell Me Hqw You Tell Mozan was promisii. It was the only Liue, in which she reports that he interpreted large third-millennium B.C. site in the gen- the tell as Roman and moved on to another eral area from which the lions of TEh-atal site. For years, on the strength of Agatha were reputed to have come and where Christie's brief description, Tell Mozan had Hurrian myths seemed to situate Urkesh. a reputation as a Roman-period site. Tell Mom had previously been investigated, In 1984 we began excavations at the tell. but only briefly. The British archaeologist Almost immediately we discovered a large Max Mallowan, husband of the mystery temple lying near the surface at the top of the mound, which rises some 80 feet above "Most dohbelieve that Hunian and Urartian derive h the surroundmg plain. From associated seal asinglelanguageandthattheseiwobranchesbmkeoffsome- time in the late fourth or early third millennium B.C. impressions and pottery we dated this tem- ODYSSEY 1 MAYlJUNE 2001 19 Ip 1 -f 610RGIO AND YARILYN KELLY IUCCELLAlI In 1990 the Buccellatis began ple to about 2500 B.C. Enclosing the tell We now have seven impressions belong- uncovering a substantial building was a city wall more than 20 feet high and ing to the king. In one fragment, courtiers at the foot of the westem end of 25 feet thick, dating to around 2600 B.C. offer the king presents or tribute, including the tell. After several seasons of Although our initial surveys turned up only what appears to be a skein of wool. Another work they could identify the build- scant architectural remains and few extremely elaborate bulla (see pp. 24-25) ing as a palace, largely because of shows the king seated, with a lion crouched the numerous seal impressions objects-a stone lion, a stone relief associ- they found scattered on the build- ated with the temple and some seal impres- under the throne. At Urkesh, as throughout ing’s floor. (All of the seal impres- sions-we knew that this was just what we the Near East, lions often represented royal sions from Tell Mozan were made were loohfor. authority. On our bull+ a child stands on by rolling a cylindrical seal, proba- Our major discovery came six years later. the lion’s mane and touches the kmg‘s lap. bly carved of semiprecious stone, In the 1990 season we cut a stepped trench The child‘s association with the lion prob- over a lump of moist clay, thus on the western side of the mound, which ably identifies him as the crown prince; in sealing a document or a shipment a touchmg the kq‘s lap, he is confirming a of goods.) The impressions exca- ends in large flat area at the base of the vated at the palace are all royal; tell. Here the line of squares forming our pledge made to the king, his father (Si- they show various activities per- trench traversed a series of moms. It was B larly, in Genesis 24:2, Abraham instructs his formed at court, from gatherings well-preserved building, which we later servant to confirm a vow by placing his of the royal family to the preporo- determined was the royal palace. The accu- hand “under his [Abraham’s] thigh”). One tion of royal meals. Some of the mulation above the floor contained numer- last element completes the scene on the impressions have inscriptions in ous seal impress;onS. By 1998 we had found impression: Standing before the king is a Humanincluding references to rigid, formal, humanlike figure holdmg an the king, the queen and, most almost 2,000 seahngs, about 170 of them important of all for the identifica- insrribed. AU the inscribed seals me %yd”- offering cup over a larger bowl. Given that tion of the site, the city itself that is, they refer to the lang, the queen or this elegant figure is associated with an Urkesh. one of their courtiers-and they present an eight-pointed star, and that a bull behind intimate tableau of Hurrian court life toward the king is looking not at the lung but at the end of the third millennium B.C.
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