Damien F. Mackey
“Very little is
known about this ancient place and the origins of its people.
Who
were they? Where did they come from? The earliest documentary mention of the
land of Urartu can be found in Assyrian sources”.
Recurring
words historians will use to describe the ancient Urartians and their kingdom
of Urartu (or Ararat) are “mysterious” and “enigmatic”.
For
instance: http://www.ancientpages.com/2014/06/22/mysterious-lost-kingdom-of-urartu-and-its-enigmatic-history/
Mysterious Lost Kingdom Of
Urartu
And Its Enigmatic History
A. Sutherland – AncientPages.com
– The lost kingdom of Urartu is shrouded in mystery
because very little is known about this ancient place and the origins of
its people.
This time our journey
takes us to ancient Armenia where we look for traces of the mysterious lost
kingdom of Urartu as it was called by the Assyrians.
The Hebrews referred to
it as Ararat and in more modern times it has been named Kingdom of Van.
Mackey’s comment: it
was there, “on the mountains of Ararat”, that the Ark landed.
See e.g. my:
Mountain of landing
for the Ark of Noah
The article, “Mysterious Lost Kingdom Of
Urartu”, continues with further obscurities:
The kingdom’s beginnings
are lost in the mists of pre-history, but before it was destroyed, Urartu was
situated in Eastern Turkey, Iran and the modern Armenian Republic.
The earliest documentary
mention of the land of Urartu can be found in Assyrian sources.
Based on what we know,
the people of Urartu were famous metalworkers, spoke a language that was
related to Hurrian (a language that has no other known connections), and they
adapted the Assyrian cuneiform script for their own purposes.
….
Although it cannot be
said with certainty, it appears that from the ninth century on, Urartu was
ruled by a single dynasty ….
The true origin of the
people of Urartu is unknown. Some historians think these people people migrated
from somewhere to the west into the Armenian plateau, then for the most part
known as Nairi. They called themselves Khaldians or children of the god
Khaldis, just as the name of the Assyrians reflects the name of their god
Assur.
….
Several attempts have
been made to decipher the cuneiform inscriptions of Armenia through the
present-day Armenian language.
The failure of these
attempts has led some to believe that the inscriptions in question must be in
some unknown, alien tongue, neither Indo-European nor Semitic.
….
Sooner or later
everything must come to [an] end, and so did the existence of the Kingdom of
Urartu. The fall of the Kingdom of Urartu is shrouded in darkness. The kingdom
was succumbed in around 585 – 590 BCE. However, there is no written account of
this event and this timescale is not undisputed.
Similarly, again, we read
at: http://www.messagetoeagle.com/ancient-artifacts-shed-new-light-mysterious-kingdom-urartu/
Ancient Artifacts Shed New Light On
The Mysterious Kingdom Of Urartu
….
The mysterious kingdom of Urartu does
still hold many ancient secrets. The kingdom’s beginnings are lost in the mists
of pre-history, but before it was destroyed, Urartu was situated in Eastern
Turkey, Iran and the modern Armenian Republic.
In
ancient times the kingdom of Urartu was known under a variety of different
names. The Assyrians called it Urartu and the Hebrews referred to it as Ararat,
and in more modern times it has been named Kingdom of Van.
Very
little is known about this ancient place and the origins of its people. Who
were they? Where did they come from? The earliest documentary mention of the
land of Urartu can be found in Assyrian sources.
Based on
what we know, the people of Urartu were famous metalworkers, spoke a language
that was related to Hurrian (a language that has no other known connections),
and they adapted the Assyrian cuneiform script for their own purposes.
….
Obviously people of
Urartu knew their kingdom was about to vanish and made a last attempt to hide
some precious objects with hope these would survive as a reminder of the
kingdom’s existence.
Unfortunately, a large
number of these artifacts, including most of the inscribed objects, have not
been excavated. For example, many Urartian cemeteries with their hundreds of
burial goods have been robbed, while only a few (such as the cemetery at
Altintepe) have been properly excavated. This means that archaeologists have
been deprived of a complete and contextual knowledge of the culture and
precious history has been lost once again.
This brilliant era of
Urartu did not last long and the kingdom disappeared rapidly from history. ….
North, south, east, or
west?
“That the Kingdom
of Urartu was imperialistic can be deduced by the fortress-like citadels
constructed in strategic positions, presumably harboring military garrisons.
But where did they come from, we may wonder'! The barbarian north? The Semitic
south? Or Anatolia? Velikovsky identified the Hittites with the Chaldeans, and
the Chaldeans in turn with the Urartians … and claims that "striking
similarities" occur between Hitttite and Urartian art. Khaldis (or
Khaldia) was a Urartian deity recorded by Sargon II following his capture of
the city of Musasir (site unknown) around 714 B.C. …. As the chief deity of the
captured city its image was ritualistically removed from its shrine, signifying
subjugation. Assuming Khaldis to be the ancestor god, these people may then
tentatively be identified with the Armenian tribe known to the Greeks and
Romans several centuries later as the "Chalybes" ...”.
Somewhat more positive about the Urartians is revisionist Robert H. Hewsen, who has written as follows (“Anatolia and Historical Concepts”): http://archive.is/t134Y#selection-83.1-83.32
According
to Velikovsky's chronology the Hurrians would disappear in ca. 865, while, in
ca. 860 - five years later - we first hear in Assyrian records of Aramu, king
of a state first called in Assyrian Uruatri and then Urartu.21) This
state was a federation of smaller states and peoples of the Armenian Plateau
welded together through the arms of the Kings of Biaina.22) The
history of this Urartian federation and of its long struggle with Assyria is
rather well known thanks to its conspicious inscriptions, and these enable us
to determine that its language was closely akin to Hurrian. Indeed, Burney, one
of the few western authorities on Urartu, states `the Urartian language was
closely related to Hurrian, so much so that, whatever the reservations of some philologists,
it may legitimately be described as latter-day Hurrian.23)
Now using
the conventional chronology, archaeology has discovered that one of those
ubiquitous dark ages exists on the Armenian Plateau between the disappearance
of the Hurrians and the emergence of the Urartian state, a period which Burney
describes as somewhere between six to ten centuries in duration.24) According
to Velikovsky's chronology, Burney exaggerates. The imaginary gap would be
somewhere between seven and eight centuries and would not represent any dark
age.
Rather,
its presence would be due to the inaccuracies of the traditional chronology.
Since the dates of the Hurrians and Mitannians are bound to those of the
so-called Hittites, and the date of the Hittites is bound to what Velikovsky
considers the erroneous chronology of Egypt, these dates, he feels have led to
the unnatural separation of the Hurrians and the Urartians by perhaps as much
as 700 to 800 years.
The
Urartian federation would thus be nothing [more] than a new Hurrian formation
which arose immediately following, and perhaps because of, the destruction of
Mitanni in the ninth century BC. The traditional and incessant hostility
between the Urartians and the Assyrians may well have begun as a result of the
Assyrian role in the destruction of Mitanni.25)
Now, I
mentioned earlier that Velikovsky notes that the Urartians were called Khaldu
and that Chaldeans were encountered by Xenophon on his march through Armenia in
401-400 BC. Actually the term Chaldean for the Urartians is an arbitrary one
adopted by Lehmann-Haupt, who, since the Assyrians were called after their
chief god, Ashur, patterned the name of the Urartians after their chief god,
Khaldis, and who believed that the Chaldeans encountered by Xenophon 200 years
after the fall of Urartu were surviving Urartians under their native name.26)
We know
now, however, that the Chaldeans of the Armenian Plateau were only one
component of the Urartian federation, which actually called itself `Biainili.27) Thus,
while Velikovsky errs in thinking them to have been remnants of the
Neo-Babylonian or Chaldean state which he identifies with the `Hittite' Empire
of central Anatolia.
The
chronological revisions of Velikovsky affect the lesser peoples of eastern
Anatolia as well. North of the Hittites lived the warlike Kashka tribes. First
cited, in the conventional chronology, in ca. 1350 BC, Velikovsky's revisions
would make them actually appear in ca. 850 BC. Since the Kashka are believed to
be identical to the Qulha of eighth century Urartian sources, the new
chronology places them between the Kashka and the Qulha. Since the Qulha are
one of the peoples who went into the blend which produced the later Georgian
people of Caucasia, the exact date of their first appearance is of some import
for our understanding of the formation of Colchis, the earliest Georgian
political entity.28)
Finally,
there is one other people whose traditional date is bound to that of the
Hittites and thus to the traditional chronology of Egypt. These are the Hayasa,
a people who traditionally flourished in the fourteenth century BC but,
according to Velikovsky, in the ninth. Since the Armenians call themselves
Hayk' (singular Hay), it has usually been accepted that, while Herodotus
(7.73) calls them simply a Phrygian colony, they were probably an amalgamation
of an Indo-European-speaking Phrygian tribe with local, perhaps
Hurrian-speaking, Hayasa. The only problem was the chronology. The Armenians
first appear in the sixth century BC, whereas the Hayasa were thought to have
flourished in the fourteenth. Velikovsky's chronology reduces this gap by over
600 years and the link between the Hayasa and the Hayk'/Armenians becomes more
secure.29)
In
conclusion, let me note that none of the evidence which I have gathered in this
paper can be interpreted as proof of the exactness of Velikovsky's
chronological revisions. Rather, I have merely attempted to apply his thesis to
a particular part of the ancient East. I have tried to demonstrate that nothing
he has to say presents any undue difficulties for this field but rather tends
to simplify and clarify the history of the area. While this does not make
Velikovsky correct, it certainly gives us pause. I cannot but urge all
specialists to address themselves without prejudice to an investigation of
their own areas of interest and expertise in the light of Dr. Velikovsky's
work.
If
ancient history stands in need of being rewritten, so be it. It will not be the
first time. Perhaps we should at least attempt to determine if it is necessary
for us to begin.30) ….
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