The Relations of Urartu and Etiuni: A Case Study

 The Relations of Urartu and Etiuni: A Case Study

The relations of Biaina (Urartu) with its neighboring regions are usually depicted in cuneiform texts through military campaigns, following the conventional canons of war: destruction, plunder, prisoners, and executions. However, this method of presenting events carries a degree of propaganda and almost certainly replicates the aggressive Assyrian style. The everyday life of non-Biainians on lands controlled by Biainian kings was almost certainly more complex and nuanced.

Miqayel Badalyan 's paper discusses a clay tablet that plausibly describes the integration of Etiuni men into Urartian society. The clay tablet was found in Sardurihinili (Çavuştepe / Haykaberd) in the Van Basin. It contains numbers of people alongside ethnic names—all from the Sevan Basin—who were apparently living in Sardurihinili and performing certain duties there, most likely military service. What is remarkable is that Assyrian sources report the exact same information about Sardurihinili (which they call Sardurihurda). The Assyrians mention an ethnic group on whom the Urartian king relies to protect the Sardurihinili fortress. Although the name of this ethnic group is incomplete (--tina), Grekyan suggests that it could very well be Etiunians. Furthermore, there are other examples of individuals with Etiunian names, such as Abilianiše and Waza, who attained higher positions within the Urartian hierarchy.

We can add on our part that a few DNA samples from Sardurihinili support Badalyan's theory. One of the DNA samples from Sardurihinili belonged to an Etiuni woman. While we obviously do not know her social status in Urartian society, the description of her burial and grave goods—such as a bronze ring—does suggest that she was not an ordinary enslaved person.

Hopefully, in the future, we will see ancient DNA from Etiuni men with clear evidence in their burials of their integration into Urartian society.

The puzzle of Cimmerian-Scythian presence in ancient South Caucasus.

 The puzzle of Cimmerian-Scythian presence in ancient South Caucasus.

Ancient historic sources mentions the presence of east Iranian tribes in Iron Age South Caucasus. Despite the large number of ancient DNA from Armenia and Georgia from relevant periods there is no single sample that we can securely link to Scytho-Cimmerians. Garegin Tumanyan in his paper speaks about the same problem in archaeology. Urartian and Etiunian archaelogic cultures are widely discussed in academic circles, while no much discussion of possible east Iranian material presence.

In his paper he shows number of artefacts and features that he links to Scythians and Cimmerians. One of them are the anthropomorphic stellaes. The left one is from Lori Berd, while the right ones are from Georgia and North of Caucasus. Other feature is the presence of animal or/and human sacrifices in the graves. The link to the whole paper is below.

Update on J1-Z1842 and Kura-Araxes culture.

 Update on J1-Z1842 and Kura-Araxes culture.

The recent Agdzhoyan et al. paper about Dagestani people added some long waited details to the structure of the J1-Z1842 and its distribution.

We learned that beside ZS3114 and CTS1460 there is a third important branch in Z1842, which is very specific to Dagestan. Its ZS3042 which is absent in Armenians and apparently very rare in South Caucasus. In Yfull many Dargins and Kaitags are present in that branch.

Another important information is the branch ZS3114 which is more frequent in Lezgins than other Dagestani people. It has a more southern distribution. In Armenians its found almost exclusively among eastern Armenians. If the language of Lezgi speakers is related to this ZS3114 branch then this can support some linguistic theories making Lezgi-Udi group as the first split in Nakh-Dagestani family.

All this data forces us to rethink the origin of J1-Z1842 and place its locus of differentiation close to Eastern Caucasus range.

However I still dont think that the expansion of Z1842 started from the northeast of Caucasus. There are many arguments against such a theory. But one the most strongest is the autosomes of oldest Z1842 ancient DNA. They all have significantly lower levels of steppe ancestry than Areni cave preceding them. Its very hard to imagine that Z1842 lived for thousand years in the north and did not acquired substantial steppe ancestry.

What this data tell us is another possibility. The branch specific to Dagestan the ZS3042 could have diverged earlier with Chalcolithic culture Sioni - Ginchi (5000-4000bc). Ginchi is a site on north Caucasus with similar pottery as in Sioni (Georgia). As for the parallel CTS1460 which has a great diversity in South Caucasus/Near East and was found in multiple ancient Kura֊Araxes sites is a genuine Kura-Araxes lineage. Its TMRCA in Yfull also more realistically fits to the spread of Kura-Araxes culture.

And finally about the origins of KA culture itself. Recent claims of KA pottery in Chalcolithic levels of Areni, Ovčular tepesi in Nakhichevan and in some sites in Turkey combined with the fact the extra CHG/J1 ancestry in KA samples was from more eastern regions means that the formation of KA culture and its later spread are not necessarily done by the same population. So there must be two distinct KA with probably two distinct autosome profiles.

Alternatively the extra CHG could still be from unsampled forest mountain regions of Lori and Tavush. They could harbor a hunter gatherer (Aknashen like) enclave different from Areni and Shulaveri culture. But even with this scenario the contradiction is not solved.

According Passerini et al. the oldest KA was in lowlands with collective kurgan burials. Only starting from 3300BC highland KA with permanent settlements emerged. This later KA that we can call KA 2 can have a different locus (left side of Kur river?) and population (CHG rich) than the first one. KA 1 in the other side can be more related to Areni type population. This hypothesis obviously require confirmation by ancient DNA

The patriarch Phawos (Փաւոս)

Khorenatsi lists multiple kings/patriarchs for a short period that fits into the end of Urartu and the rise of Orontid (Eruanduni) Armenia. This can be interpreted as an argument for the complexity of that period.

We have already seen one of patriarchs of that period. The Pharnawaz who seems to be a real person related to Parnaki tribe. Another patriarch of that period is Phawos pronounced as P'awos. His name is written in various forms in different texts but the canonic form is Phawos (Փաւոս).

Finding an ancient tribe or person related to him seems impossible. But the more close look on ancient provinces of Armenia gives a remarkable result.

Strabo in his Geography mentions a certain province Phauene in Armenia. Few paragraphs later he mentions Phaunitis between Basoropeda (Vaspurakan) and Caspiane (Paytakaran). 

There is also Phauenê,⁠ a province of Armenia, and Comisenê, and Orchistenê, which last furnishes the most cavalry. Chorzenê and Cambysenê are the most northerly ...

....

(Artaxias and Zariadres) enlarged their kingdoms by cutting off for themselves parts of the surrounding nations, — I mean by cutting off Caspianê and Phaunitis and Basoropeda from the country of the Medes;

If we remove the Greek suffixes usually added to foreign toponyms we get the root Phau/Phaun. This root is virtually identic to the possible root Phaw- in the name of patriarch Phawos. We can deduce that the name of Phawos is derived from an old tribe that lived probably somewhere in Syunik/Artsakh and/or south of Araxes also in the adjacent northern regions of Iran. 

This hypothetic Phaw-os tribe gived his name to that region but overtime the name was lost.  Some scholars has proposed that the name Phauene is preserved in Pharisos of Artsakh (north of Mrav range) while Hewsen suggested that Phaun-itis is a corrupted form Siwnik/Syunik. Both proposals are problematic from linguistic perspective, even though in one manuscript the name of Phawos was written as Pharos.

Keeping aside whether the name survived to medieval period or not, there is another interesting name in ancient texts. The tribe Pausikae was living next of Caspians (Paytakaran) in 11th satrapy according Herodotus.  If we consider -ikae as a Greek suffix or a particle from the language of Pausikae we get the root Paus- in a region where later Strabo mentions Phaun-itis. This is a strong argument that such a tribe lived in that region.

Finally the ultimate origin of Pausikae/Phawos is obviously unknown. Some scholars suggested an Iranian origin for Pausikae based on a vague similarity of name with some Central Asian tribes. If -ik is a suffix from their language then they could be both Armenic and Iranian. And finally if -os was a suffix from their language then this links them to the wider Gutian group where such a suffix is found in names. My own opinion is that Phawos more likely is descending from the R1b tribes present in that region. They became part of wider Armenian identity while some others were probably absorbed in Iranians.

The king Urnayr (Ուռնայր)

 The king Urnayr (Ուռնայր)

Urnayr was an Arsacid king of Albania. Historic tradition claims that he was baptised by Gregory the Illuminator. Another Urnayr was contemporary of king Pap (around 370 AD). However not all scholars agree that there was two different Urnayrs.

Its remarkable that the name Urnayr has a typical Armenian form. Norayr (new man), Hrayr (fire man), Zhirayr (lively/active man) are such examples. Indeed Ačaryan gives an Armenian etymology for Urn-ayr meaning hammer man.

Ironically if we count the proportion of Armenian names among Arsacids ruling Armenia we will have a lower proportion than in Albania. Alongside the toponym Getaru this is another example of a name with transparent Armenian etymology. Prior the genetics it was virtually impossible to understand why we have Armenian terms in Albanian onomastic. But today there is no puzzle about that. Armenians and Proto-Armenians had a long presence all over Kur river basin since Bronze Age, even though its not granted that this particular name has old origins there.

Essay on the language of Gutians

The R1b from Bakr Awa (Mesopotamia) is now published in FTDNA. Its confirmed as Z2106 and is positive to Y100087 snp. This branch has strong presence in ancient remains from Ukraine and Russia. Thus the steppe origin of this Bakr Awa R1b is beyond the doubt.

This is the first case of Y100087 from West Asia, while other cases of Z2106 were from the parallel CTS8966 branch found from Armenia and possibly Levant.

As previously mentioned the best candidate for its affiliation is the Gutian connection. Even though its quite possible that over time he and similar people were assimilated in to locals, but their initial identity might be IE.

Its remarkable that Henning and after him Gamkrelidze and Ivanov proposed the IE origins of Gutians. Even though they linked it to Tocharian which is untenable in current stage of our knowledge.

Now with genetic data on hands lets look closer at Gutian names. 

At last three kings have the root Yarla in their name.

• Yarlagab
• Yarla
• Yarlaganda

In most likelihood the 'Yarla' is a Gutian deity name or a dynastic name while the rest are particles or other roots.

Yarla can be compared to Slavic deity Yarilo which has IE origin from *yeh₁r-. Its a Spring deity. The root is present in English in the form of word "year".

Another interesting root is the -gab. Its present in two names

• Sarlagab
• Yarlagab

It fits well with the PIE root ghabh- (also reconstructed as *gʰebʰ-). Which means to give, to hold. A frequent root in names. The English word to give is derived from that root.

Incidently the name Sarlak supports the fact that "Sarl" in Sarlagab is a root. Most probably a deity name. However this name is not from Sumerian king list so we are not sure anout its identity. He could be the same as Sarlagab ( or Zarlagab) 

Another possible root is the -gan present in 

• Tirigan
• Yarlaganda

Can be compared to PIE root *ǵenh₁. To give birth. Multiple names ending with -es or -us also supports the IE classification. The potential root Tir is also remarkable. It can be compared to Armeno-Iranian deity Tir.

Some other names are obvious Mesopotamian influence. Like Puzur-Suen. While the particle -um in some names is probably an Akkadian suffix.

Summing up the scant Gutian onomastic data we see evidence that can support their IE classification. However the potential IE language behind Gutian names seems to be somewhat different from the Proto-Armenian. It seems to be a centum, while Armenian is satem. It also preserved the phoneme [s] while Armenian converted them to [h] and lost them. What is also remarkable is that their Y DNA was widely present deep in steppe which once more could mean that the Gutian language was a (close?) parallel language to Armenian rather than a simple dialect of Proto-Armenian. 

With more ancient DNA we will have more clarity on all aspects of Middle Bronze Age migrations from steppe to West Asia.

Cambysene was a region first attested in the Geographica

 Cambysene was a region first attested in the Geographica ("Geography") of Strabo (64 BC – c. 24 AD). According to Strabo, it comprised one of the northernmost provinces of the ancient Kingdom of Armenia, and bordered on the Caucasus Mountains and was region through which a road connecting Caucasian Albania and Iberia passed. It was eventually lost by Armenia to Caucasian Albania, likely after 69 BC.

Cambysene correspond to modern Kakheti and northwestern parts of Azerbaijan. We have ancient DNA from Kakheti and it helps to understand why Strabo was considering Cambysene as part of Armenia.

Cambysene had virtually the same Etiuni related population since the Bronze Age which lived there at last till the antiquity. Probably sometimes around 4-2 century BCE the spread of Yaloylutepe culture from eastern parts of Albania introduced the Lezgi - Udi speakers into Cambysene. Ancient DNA from 3th century AD has more J1 and higher levels of CHG ancestry than usual Lchashen type ancestry. (See the chart)

In that period Graeco-Roman sources consider the Kur river as the border of Albania and Armenia, thus the Cambysene was firmly part of Albania in late antiquity. Despite this, Armenian population was still mentioned in that region in Medieval period. Even though those medieval Armenians in western Albania were most probably only partly descending from Lchashen culture but had some ancestry from south of Kur river.

Onomastic data also supports the Armenian presence in Cambysene. The river Getaru has transparent Armenian etymology (Hrach Martirosyan 2010). Compare to river Getar in Yerevan. Even more interesting it's possible that the name Cambysene (Կամբեճան) itself can be derived from Armenian term meaning water buffalo (գոմեշ). The other etymology based on the Persian king Cambys is considered as later invention and not realistic. And finally the river Yori can be compared to Armenian word *yur meaning water. Its evolved to grabar jur (ջուր) later. I discussed this theory with Armen Petrosyan and he considered it plausible.