Urartian languageUrartian or Vannic is an extinct Hurro-Urartian language which was spoken by the inhabitants of the ancient kingdom of Urartu (Biaini or Biainili in Urartian), which was centered on the region around Lake Van and had its capital, Tushpa, near the site of the modern town of Van in the Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey. Its past prevalence is unknown. While some believe it was probably dominant around Lake Van and in the areas along the upper Zab valley, others believe it was spoken by a relatively small population who comprised a ruling class.
Hurrian songsThe Hurrian songs are a collection of music inscribed in cuneiform on clay tablets excavated from the ancient Amorite-Canaanite city of Ugarit, a headland in northern Syria, which date to approximately 1400 BCE. One of these tablets, which is nearly complete, contains the Hurrian Hymn to Nikkal (also known as the Hurrian cult hymn or A Zaluzi to the Gods, or simply h.6), making it the oldest surviving substantially complete work of notated music in the world. While the composers' names of some of the fragmentary pieces are known, h.
SapinuwaSapinuwa (sometimes Shapinuwa; Hittite: Šapinuwa) was a Bronze Age Hittite city at the location of modern Ortaköy in the province Çorum in Turkey about 70 kilometers east of the Hittite capital of Hattusa. It was one of the major Hittite religious and administrative centres, a military base and an occasional residence of several Hittite kings. The palace at Sapinuwa is discussed in several texts from Hattusa. Ortaköy was identified as the site of ancient Sapinuwa after a local farmer contacted Çorum Museum; he found two clay cuneiform tablets in his field.
Hurrian foundation pegsThe Hurrian foundation pegs, also known as the Urkish lions, are twin copper foundation pegs each in the shape of a lion that probably came from the ancient city of Urkesh (modern Tell Mozan) in Syria. The pegs were placed at the foundation of the temple of Nergal in the city of Urkesh as mentioned in the cuneiform inscriptions on them. The inscription on the two pegs and the associated stone tablet is the oldest known text in the Hurrian language. One of the lions is now housed, along with its limestone tablet, in the Musée du Louvre in Paris.
MardamanMardaman (modern Bassetki) was a northern Mesopotamian city that existed between ca.2200 and 1200 BC. It was uncovered in 2018 after translation of 92 cuneiform tablets. The tablets were discovered in summer 2017, near the Kurdish village of Bassetki, by a team of archaeologists. The team hailed from Tübingen's Institute for Ancient Near Eastern Studies, and were led by Prof. Dr. Peter Pfälzner of the University of Tübingen. The city was continuously occupied between 3000 and 600 BC.
Ancient Mesopotamian religionMesopotamian religion was the original religious beliefs and practices of the civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia, particularly Sumer, Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia between circa 6000 BC and 400 AD. The religious development of Mesopotamia and Mesopotamian culture in general, especially in the south, were not particularly influenced by the movements of the various peoples into and throughout the area. Rather, Mesopotamian religion was a consistent and coherent tradition, which adapted to the internal needs of its adherents over millennia of development.
MitraMitra (Proto-Indo-Iranian: *mitrás) is the name of an Indo-Iranian divinity from which the names and some characteristics of Rigvedic Mitrá and Avestan Mithra derive. The names (and occasionally also some characteristics) of these two older figures were subsequently also adopted for other figures: A vrddhi-derived form of Sanskrit mitra gives Maitreya, the name of a bodhisattva in Buddhist tradition. In Hellenistic-era Asia Minor, Avestan Mithra was conflated with various local and Greek figures leading to several different variants of Apollo-Helios-Mithras-Hermes-Stilbon.
IrriduIrridu (Irrite) was a city in northwestern Mesopotamia, likely located between Harran and Carchemish. It flourished in the middle and late Bronze Age before being destroyed by Assyria. The city was first mentioned in a letter from the king of Carchemish to Zimri-Lim of Mari. The letter suggested that Irridu had been a subject of Carchemish, and subsequently it came under the rule of Yamhad. In the middle of the 18th century BC, the city was ruled by Yarim-Lim, who was the brother of Abba-El I, king of Yamhad.
