Posts Tagged ‘Hittite Empire’
Empires that ruled the Near-East: And a quick 90-second video-map attached
Posted by: adonis49 on: May 22, 2012
Empires that ruled the Near-East: And a quick 90-second video-map attached
I have this theory, backed by historical accounts and substantiated by archeological and ontological finding, that the Near East (Levant) region has been the crossroad for the innumerable waves of immigrations from East to West and to a lesser extent from Eastern Africa via Egypt to the west. This is a valid hypothesis that could be adopted as an alternative direction and guide to studying our people.
I take the first premise that most locations had their own indigenous people for various reasons going far back to thousands of years; this premise is only just, logical and convenient. I also offer the second premise that emigrants prefer moving toward areas with abundance of water and greener pastures. The successive waves of immigration have started in full bloom before the seventh millennia of our calendar.
People from Central Asia tended to march towards Northern Iran and then onward to the Anatolian plateau (Turkey), rich in rivers and water reserves from the melting of snow-covered majestic Taurus mountain chains.
The populations in Iran were inclined to settle the shores of the great Tigris River (Dujlah) in Iraq. From there, they forked either south along the mighty river or northward. Moving south was initially the preferred route because the climate is warmer and because it is almost impossible to navigate upward the Tigris River in its northern section. They settled and built the ancient and mighty Empires around Ur and Basra on the mouth of the Tigris River which empties in the Arab/Persia Gulf and then they expanded along the Arabian Gulf shores.
The Empires of the Antiquity (Sumer, Akkad, and Babylon) constituted the trading centers from the Arabian Gulf to the coasts of the Western Indian Ocean. The Prophet Abraham is said to have moved out with his tribe from the great city of Ur, and most probably progressed south-west along the Red Sea coast. (Actually, the Israelite tribes are initially from Yemen, where most of their idols such as Hud still exist)
Later, the mighty Empire of Babylon based its Capital further north of Ur on the Tigris River.
Aramaic was the main mother language with various dialects for each region: Iraq was the hotbed of civilization for over 4 millennia before Christ, starting by the kingdoms of Sumer, Akkad, Babylon, and Ashur. All the regions from Iran, Kurdistan, the Arabic Peninsula, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and the western part of Turkey were under the hegemony of either one of these empires.
The main religion and Gods, the main language, and the tradition for trading and doing business and administrations were homogeneous.
Moving north the Tigris River the hardy immigrants settled and built mighty Empires like Assyria in Nineveh (Ninawa) around Mosul and in the current Kurdish homeland. Those immigrants who moved north the river overflowed to the Anatolian Plateaus in Turkey and settled along the mighty Euphrates River (Al Furat) and built the Hittite Empire that discovered iron and invaded Egypt, where they were called the Hyksos, and settled there for a long time until they signed a peace treaty with Ramses II.
It is recounted that prosperous Troy was vanquished by the Greeks, after ten years of siege, because the Hittite Empire was endeavoring at that junction to reach the sea and thus, aided the Greek invaders to destroy their natural enemy. The more recent power coming from the Anatolian plateau that conquered the Middle East is the Ottoman Empire.
The waves of immigration descended along the Euphrates River and jointed the Orontes River (Al Assy, going counter to topography) and built many City-States along these rivers and many reached the Mediterranean Sea.
It is known that the Orontes and Euphrates shores were studded with numerous large and prosperous City-States like Homs, Hama, Tel Amarna, Van, and Mary because it was the preferred land trade route towards Iraq, Persia and ultimately China.
The alternative more direct route was through the Syrian Desert passing by Palmyra (Tadmor) but it was way too harsh and inconvenient. Actually, almost all invasions coming from further East and North used the coastal and Euphrates River corridors to loot and conquer Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and ultimately Egypt. All these immigrants might have initially fled from persecutions and tribal warfare and also because of changing weather conditions and draughts.
The waves coming from Eastern Africa settled first in Egypt and fled for many reasons to the southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea toward the Maghreb regions and also to the eastern shores and settled in the sea cities of Canaan that includes Palestine, and Lebanon.
A large number had to emigrate very often from the cities of Canaan after repeated invasions of the Moguls, Persian, Iraqi, and Egyptian Empires: These Empires made it a routine to invade and loot the rich Canaan City-States for their accumulated treasures and for their skilled workers.
All these immigrants ended up in Syria and the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea of Canaan and some settled in Egypt. The ancient city of Byblos in Lebanon extended its civilization and built the cities of Sidon and Beyrouth and other sea towns and invented a new alphabet of 22 letters. Sidon built Tyr and Akka.
As the Empires in Iraq, Persia, and Egypt invaded these cities the settled inhabitants of these prosperous seashore cities had to immigrate again to the southern and western shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
Note 1: I read recently that a newly excavated City-State by the current city of Rukka (Northern Syria) is as old as 5,500 BC; many millenia before the City-States in southern Iraq. The society was very structured and copper was imported from Southern Turkey. A vast temple was excavated in southern Turkey that is 11,000 years BC.
Note 2: https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2009/01/09/the-inhabitants-of-the-mediterranean-sea-shores-part-2/
Culture transmission: The priest, the warrior, and the peasant
Posted by: adonis49 on: August 23, 2009
The priest, the warrior, and the peasant; (August 22, 2009)
Another alternative title could be more realistic and comprehensive such as “Elder, male, and female” but it is not catchy enough.
George Dumezil, a French researcher who can speak over 20 languages, says “The first 10 languages are the hardest to learn; the remaining languages come pretty easy because it is the same routine and same thing”.
George Dumezil wrote the trilogy “Myth and Epic” that describes the mythologies in Ireland, Iceland, Scandinavia, Germany, Roman, Greek, Ossetia (Caucasus region), and then links all these mythologies to their hierarchical transmission from the Indian Mahabharata and Bhagavat mythology.
Dumezil calls this unifying mythology “The Indo-European mythology” and end up with a summary that this mythology is based on 3 fundamentals the Priesthood, Warrior, and Peasant classes with their respective Gods.
After over 40 years of detailed research to reach this common sense conclusion is a monstrous let down.
Da! This classification of society is common to all cultures and civilizations and going pretty strong nowadays. (The main Gods in all civilizations were of Justice, War, and Fecundity. The all-encompassing unifying God was barely worshiped by the people because not symbolizing their trade or class).
The Romans had the (Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus). The Scandinavian counties had Odinn reigning over the Val-Holl of (Porr, Mimir, and Odrerir) and Ases was their unifying God. The Germans had Wotan reigning over their Walhalla. In the Near East mythology we had (Shamsh, Baal, and Ashtarout); El or Allah in the Arab Peninsula was their unifying God. In the Nile civilization we had Amon (Sun), Osiris, and Isis.
The major let down is this conventional direction of researchers of thinking top down or hierarchically. Well, after the Scandinavian got their mythology from Ossetia that got their mythology from Northern India, then from whom did the Indian receive their mythology? If there are any written records that go many thousands of years in antiquity (not probable) we might discover that mythology transmission is no longer hierarchical but cyclical.
Adopting the easy hierarchical line of reasoning is basically wrong. It is the wrong logic to consider: simply because it stick to the conventional that the King/Priesthood classes are the transmitters of culture and civilization. The Priesthood class is mainly the conservative maintainer of the status quo and barely the transmitter of much anything.
A more realistic and promising line of reasoning is to consider that it is the warrior classes that transmitted rituals, myths, and customs.
It is the soldiers and sub officers who were in direct and daily contact with the conquered people: they are the ones who interrogated prisoners, facilitated trade and communication, and learned by osmosis the new culture and civilization of the subjugated people. The soldiers and sub officers returned to their hometowns and villages and disseminated their story telling testimonies and accounts of their war period.
The dissemination was quick because most soldiers were mercenaries from the neighboring countries to the powerful Kingdom. Once the war was over, the soldiers were disbanded to return mainly to their families and spread the news of alternative rituals, myths, customs, and techniques of the conquered culture.
Since frequent communication of central government of Empires with their neighboring vassal countries was not sustained, it stands to reason that the peasant classes managed to occasionally change their traditions before the government realized the changes.
When central government is strong then either of two possibilities was activated:
1. If the mercenary warriors sided with the peasants then the King/Priesthood was defeated and the newer traditions and mythologies took roots.
2. If the King/Priesthood vanquished then many varieties of sects and cults mushroomed in the neighboring kingdom.
Empires come and go, but the tank sources for mercenaries were constant.
These warriors came from mountain chain regions and high plateaus or desert regions. In “Indo-European civilization” the mercenaries flocked from the Turkish Anatole Plateau and its extension in the Caucasus of Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Ossetia, Chechnya, Albania, and Romania. The people were known as Cherkessk, Kurd, Tatar, Parthian, Scythe, and so on. The other sources of mercenaries came from Central Asia such as Turkmenistan, Kirghizia, Tajikistan, and Mongolia.
The main central EMPIRE was Persia that extended many times from coastal Turkey to all of Afghanistan and part of Pakistan.
Babylon and later Assyria empires were counties of current Iran that moved the Capitals to their provinces as central power weakened in Persia. The same is true for the Hittite Empire in Anatolia that expanded to Egypt and signed the first recorded peace treaty with Egypt after the battle of Caddish. The Hittite aided the Greek by all means to defeat the Empire of Troy: Troy was a major handicap to extending to the coast and building a navy.
The urban centers in plains, rich with major water resources and large river,s hires mercenaries to defend or expand empires. The Near East region was constituted of City-States) that hired mercenaries for the war effort to defend the cities. A City-State was the center for Priesthood/learning class and peasant/skilled artisans class (the bread basket). Empires that could not maintain autochthonous soldiers as majority of their armies vanished in no times.
When studying civilizations and their continuity we should never dismiss the main factor: climate.
There are the cold, mild, and hot weather civilizations. Within these 3 categories there are the plain and mountain region people. Talking about “indo-European” languages or civilizations is stretching the imagination a tad too far and forcing issues.
It is not with the antiques written records of the elite class that civilizations and dissemination of culture can be described and comprehended, but with archeological finds of daily living, rituals, and customs within homogeneous climatic regions.
Note 1: I had the topic from “Smell of the Time” (Odeur du temps) by Jean d’Ormesson who published three articles on George Dumezil. I didn’t read “Myth and Epic” and hope that d’Ormesson did.
Notes 2: The nomadic desert Jewish tribes could not invent but one God “Yahwa”; Jehovah ended up to be their warrior God. When the Jews of Moses got in contact with the Canaanites in Palestine, Yahwa was set aside during peaceful period to be resurrected during war period and his statues and temples moved closer to God Baal in order for the Jews to be hired as mercenaries.
Who are we, the inhabitants of the Mediterranean Sea shores? Part 1
Posted by: adonis49 on: December 30, 2008
Who are we, the inhabitants of the Mediterranean Sea shores? (Part 1; March 1, 2008)
I have this theory, backed by historical accounts and substantiated by archaeological and ontological finding, that the Near East region (Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine) has been the crossroad for the innumerable waves of immigration from East to West and to a lesser extent from Eastern Africa via Egypt to the west. This is a valid hypothesis that could be adopted as an alternative direction and guide to studying our people.
I take the first premise that most locations had their own indigenous people for various reasons going far back to thousands of years; this premise is only just, logical and convenient.
The second premise is that emigrants prefer moving toward areas with abundance of water and greener pastures. The successive waves of immigration have started in full bloom before the seventh millennial of our calendar.
People from Central Asia tended to march towards Northern Iran and then onward to the Anatolian plateau (Turkey), rich in rivers and water reserves from the melting of snow-covered majestic Taurus mountain chains. The populations in Iran were inclined to settle the shores of the great Tigris River (Dujlah) in Iraq.
From there, they forked either south along the mighty river Tigris or northward. Moving south was initially the preferred route because the climate is warmer and because it is almost impossible to navigate upward the Tigris River in its northern section. They settled and built the ancient and mighty Empires around Ur and Basra on the mouth of the Tigris River which empties in the Arab/Persia Gulf and then they expanded along the Arabian Gulf shores.
The Empires of the Antiquity (Sumer, Akkad, and Babylon) constituted the trading centers from the Arabian Gulf to the coasts of the Western Indian Ocean. The Prophet Abraham is said to have moved out with his tribe from the great city of Ur and most probably progressed south-west along the Red Sea coast. (Actually, the Jewish tribes are initially from Yemen, where most of their idols such as Hud still exist). Later, the mighty Empire of Babylon based its Capital further north of Ur on the Tigris River.
Aramaic was the main mother language with various dialects for each region because Iraq was the hotbed of civilization for over 4 millennial before Christ, starting by the kingdoms of Sumer, Akkad, Babylon, and Ashur. All the regions from Iran, Kurdistan, the Arabic Peninsula, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and the western part of Turkey were under the hegemony of either one of these empires.
The main religion and Gods, the main language, and the tradition for trading and doing business and administrations were homogeneous.
Moving north the Tigris River the hardy immigrants settled and built mighty Empires like Assyria in Nineveh (Ninawa) around Mosul and in the current Kurdish homeland. Those immigrants who moved north the river overflowed to the Anatolian Plateaus in Turkey and settled along the mighty Euphrates River (Al Furat) and built the Hittite Empire that discovered iron and invaded Egypt, where they were called the Hyksos, and settled there for a long time until they signed a peace treaty with Ramses II.
It is known that prosperous Troy was vanquished by the Greeks, after ten years of siege, because the Hittite Empire was endeavoring at that junction to reach the sea and thus, aided the Greek invaders to destroy their natural enemy. The more recent power coming from the Anatolian plateau that conquered the Middle East is the Ottoman Empire.
The waves of immigration descended along the Euphrates River and jointed the Orontes River (Al Assy) and built many cities along these rivers and many reached the Mediterranean Sea. It is known that the Orontes and Euphrates shores were studded with numerous large and prosperous City-States like Homs, Hama, Tel Amarna, Van, and Mary because it was the preferred land trade route towards Iraq, Persia and ultimately China.
The alternative more direct route was through the Syrian Desert passing by Palmyra (Tadmor) but it was way too harsh and inconvenient. Actually, almost all invasions coming from further East and North used the coastal and Euphrates River corridors to loot and conquer Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and ultimately Egypt. All these immigrants might have initially fled from persecutions and tribal warfare and also because of changing weather conditions and droughts.
The waves coming from Eastern Africa settled first in Egypt and fled for many reasons to the southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea toward the Maghreb regions and also to the eastern shores and settled in the sea cities of Canaan that includes Palestine, and Lebanon. A large number had to emigrate very often from the cities of Canaan after repeated invasions of the Moguls, Persian, Iraqi, and Egyptian Empires: These Empires made it a routine to invade and loot the rich Canaan City-States for their accumulated treasures and for their skilled workers.
All these immigrants ended up in Syria and the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea of Canaan and some settled in Egypt. The ancient city of Byblos in Lebanon extended its civilization and built the cities of Sidon and Beirut and other sea towns and invented a new alphabet of 22 letters. Sidon built Tyr and Akka. As the Empires in Iraq, Persia, and Egypt invaded these cities the settled inhabitants of these prosperous seashore cities had to immigrate again to the southern and western shores of the Mediterranean Sea
Note: I read recently that a newly excavated City-State by the current city of Rukka (Northern Syria) is as old as 5,500 BC; many millennial before the City-States in southern Iraq. The society was very structured and copper was imported from Southern Turkey. A vast temple was excavated in southern Turkey that is 11,000 years BC.
Adonis Diaries 