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The Prehistoric Aryans and the Kings of Mitani

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Abstract

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Miscellaneous Communications
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1909

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References

page 1108 note 1 Meyer, E., “Das erste Auftreten der Arier in der Geschichte”: Sitzungsberichte d. Königl. Preussischen Akademie der Wissenchaften, 1908, p. 14 ff.Google ScholarJacobi, H. G., “On the Antiquity of Vedic Culture”: JRAS., 1909, p. 721 ff.Google ScholarWinckler, H., “Vorläufige Nachrichten über die Ausgrabungen in Boghaz Köi im Sommer 1907,” in the Mitteilungen d. Deutschen Orientgesellschaft, Nro. 35. I have to thank Dr. Hoernle for first drawing my attention to Winckler's discovery.Google Scholar

page 1108 note 2 Hall, H. R., “Myrsil and Myrtilos”: Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1909, vol. xxix, pt. i, p. 21.Google Scholar

page 1108 note 3 Under Salmanassar I, c. 1270, according to Winckler.

page 1109 note 1 The dates of the Pharaohs are Petrie's, who has given a useful summary of the Tell el Amarna tablets in his History of Egypt, afterwards revised and enlarged in his Syria and Egypt from the Tell el Amarna Letters.

page 1109 note 2 According to the Guide to the Babylonian and Assyrian Antiquities in the British Museum, 1908, p. 183,Google Scholar Gilukhipa is an Egyptian name = Kirkipa. We find a female slave Khipa at Babylon in 710 B.C., op. cit., p. 81.Google Scholar

page 1110 note 1 “The defenders of Janua, a city which Mr. Tomkins has identified with Einya on the Euphrates,” have features of “a remarkably high and refined character. The nose is mesorrhine and straight, the lips thin and well-formed, the cheek bones are high, the eyebrows prominent, the forehead high. There is but little hair on the face beyond a moustache. The hair itself appears to be straight. Are we to see in the face the features of the subjects of the Mitannian king?” (Sayce, , The Races of the Old Testament, p. 124.Google Scholar) If so, the Mitani Aryans had entered Mesopotamia before Tahutmes III. The features of the celebrated Queen Teie, wife of Amenhotep III, are very striking, and irresistibly suggest an admixture of the Aryan type.

page 1111 note 1 “Apparently the combination Mitra-Varuna is not indicated, the two being quite separate,” as Hall rightly says, op. cit., p. 21.Google Scholar

page 1111 note 2 Studies in Eastern History, by King, L. W., p. 136.Google Scholar

page 1112 note 1 Hinke, , New Boundary Stone of Nebuchadrezzar I, p. 230.Google Scholar

page 1112 note 2 Winckler, in The World's History, ed. by Helmott, H. F., Eng. ed., vol. iii, p. 14.Google Scholar

page 1113 note 1 Meissner, B., Beiträge zum Altbabylonischen Privatrecht, p. 6; cf. pp. 18, 19.Google Scholar

page 1113 note 2 Meyer, , Das erste Auftreten, etc., p. 18, n. 2.Google Scholar

page 1113 note 3 JRAS., 1898, p. 262, “The Early Commerce of Babylon with India,” where I have discussed the matter at some length. I then suggested that Berosus might for Medes have said the Manda, the generic name for the barbarians dwelling on the mountains north of Elam. At that time one was obliged to suspend judgment, but the presence of Aryans in Mesopotamia has given verisimilitude to old traditions, which here, as elsewhere, prove truer than we thought.Google Scholar

page 1114 note 1 Moïse de Khorène, ed. avec traduction Française par P. E. de Vaillant de Florival, bk. i, c. 6, pp. 31–7.Google Scholar

page 1114 note 2 Brunnhofer, H., Iran und Turan, p. 221.Google Scholar

page 1114 note 3 What I have said about the horse is mainly taken from a note with which Mr. W. St. Chad Boscawen has kindly furnished me.

page 1114 note 4 Das erste Auftreten, etc., p. 15.Google Scholar

page 1115 note 1 I give Mr. Boscawen's transliteration and translation—

“Ana-Akhu-ni

2. Qi-be-ma

3. Um ma Ba-la-nu-uni-ma

4. Samas u Marduk U-ba-al-li-tu-ka

5. Isten gur seim ana ukulli sisi

6. Khu-bu-ut-ma

7. Sisu U-ku-lu La-i-bi-ru-u

Translation.

To Akhuni speaks thus Balanuunima:

May Samas and Marduk grant thee life!

One gur (8 bushels) of corn for the horse's nourishment

(Provide) that the horse may eat and not suffer hunger.

The date of this tablet is during the latter part of the First Dynasty of Babylon, about B.C. 1950, and Ungnad says it was with other tablets of the reign of Samsi-iluna the son of Khammurabi.”

page 1115 note 2 Guide to the Babylonian and Assyrian Antiquities in the British Museum, 1908, p. 94, where there is an engraving of the stele and a full account of it.Google Scholar

page 1116 note 1 MrBoscawen's, note. See the engraving of the stele in the official guide, p. 94.Google Scholar

page 1116 note 2 Namar (formerly read Zimri) is shown in Winckler's, map in The World's History, ed. Helmott, , vol. iii, p. 8, between Gutium and the Kashshu.Google Scholar

page 1116 note 3 See the discussion in Schliemann's, Ilios, pp. 275 ff. and 446 ff.Google Scholar

page 1117 note 1 de la Couperie, T. in Babylonian and Oriental Record, vol. iii, p. 101, has given a history of the Chinese notices of jade in remote antiquity.Google Scholar

page 1117 note 2 Guide to the Babylonian and Assyrian Antiquities in the British Museum, p. 157. The specimens are merely labelled green schist. I understand from Dr. Budge that they are nephrite, a green variety of jade supposed to be efficacious in kidney disease.Google Scholar

page 1117 note 3 Engravings of Nos. 24 and 69 are given in the Guide-book, pp. 158 and 160.

page 1118 note 1 In Table-case H there are four small jade celts brought, as I understand, by Layard from the palace of Esarhaddin. Among the prehistoric antiquities are exhibited three small objects, “apparently of jade,” from the vicinity of Mosul.

page 1118 note 2 Peters, J. P., Nippur, vol. ii, p. 240; cf. p. 243 n.Google Scholar

page 1118 note 3 Articles of lapis lazuli were common in every stage of Babylonian history. Mr. Peters says that the lapis lazuli was brought from Bactria, “where the ancient mines, still worked, are 1500 feet above the bed of the river Kakchu, a tributary of the Oxus” (Nippur, vol. ii, p. 134Google Scholar). If the trade in lapis lazuli went on while the trade in jade was interrupted, it would go far to prove the presence of the Aryans in Bactria and their extension westwards, while the Bolor range cut them off from the east. But De Morgan says that according to old traditions lapis lazuli was worked round Kailan and between Yezd and Ispahan (Délégation en Perse. Mémoires VII. Recherches Archéologiques, 1905, ii, p. 128, n. 3).Google Scholar

page 1117 note 4 King, , Studies, etc., p. 168, n. 1.Google Scholar