Gutian people
The Guti (
Conflict between people from Gutium and the
By the 1st millennium BC, usage of the name Gutium, by the peoples of lowland
Origin
Little is known of the origins, material culture or language of the Guti, as contemporary sources provide few details and no artifacts have been positively identified.[6] As the Gutian language lacks a text corpus, apart from some proper names, its similarities to other languages are impossible to verify. The names of Gutian kings suggest that the language was not closely related to any languages of the region, including Sumerian, Akkadian, Hurrian, Hittite, and Elamite. Most scholars reject the attempt to link Gutian king names to Indo-European languages.[7]
History
25th to 23rd centuries BC
The Guti appear in texts from
The epic
Prominence during the early 22nd century BC
During the Akkadian Empire period the Gutians slowly grew in strength and then established a capital at the Early Dynastic city of Adab.[13] The Gutians eventually overran Akkad, and as the King List tells us, their army also subdued Uruk for hegemony of Sumer, in about 2147–2050 BC. However, it seems that autonomous rulers soon arose again in a number of city-states, notably Gudea of Lagash.
The Gutians seem also to have briefly overrun
, an inscription imitates his Akkadian predecessors, styling him "King of Gutium, King of the Four Quarters".The Weidner Chronicle (written c. 500 BC), portrays the Gutian kings as uncultured and uncouth:
Naram-Sin destroyed the people of
Gutiumagainst him. Marduk gave his kingship to the Gutian force. The Gutians were unhappy people unaware how to revere the gods, ignorant of the right cultic practices. Utu-hengal, the fisherman, caught a fish at the edge of the sea for an offering. That fish should not be offered to another god until it had been offered to Marduk, but the Gutians took the boiled fish from his hand before it was offered, so by his august command, Marduk removed the Gutian force from the rule of his land and gave it to Utu-hengal.
Decline from the late 22nd century BC onwards
The Sumerian ruler
In his Victory Stele, Utu-hengal wrote about the Gutians:
Gutium, the fanged snake of the mountain ranges, a people who acted violently against the gods, people who the kingship of Sumer to the mountains took away, who Sumer with wickedness filled, who from one with a wife his wife took away from him, who from one with a child his child took away from him, who wickedness and violence produced within the country..."
Following this, Ur-Nammu of Ur ordered the destruction of Gutium. The year 11 of king Ur-Nammu also mentions "Year Gutium was destroyed".[18] However, according to a Sumerian epic, Ur-Nammu died in battle with the Gutians, after having been abandoned by his own army.
A Babylonian text from the early 2nd millennium refers to the Guti as having a "human face, dogs’ cunning, [and] monkey's build".[19] Some
Modern connection theories
The historical Guti have been regarded by several scholars as having contributed to the ethnogenesis of the Kurds.[21][22]
History of Greater Iran | |
---|---|
1407–1468 | |
Aq Qoyunlu Turcomans | 1378–1508 |
Safavid Empire | 1501–1722 |
Mughal Empire | 1526–1857 |
Hotak dynasty | 1722–1729 |
Afsharid Iran | 1736–1750 |
Zand dynasty | 1750–1794 |
Durrani Empire | 1794–1826 |
Qajar Iran | 1794–1925 |
References
- ^ "The Sumerian King List line 308". ETCSL. Retrieved 19 December 2010.
- ^ "The Cursing of Agade". ETCSL. Retrieved 18 December 2010.
- ^ "Sumerian king list page 18". ETCSL.
- ^ Parpola, S., "Neo-Assyrian Toponyms", (AOAT 6). Kevelaer and Neukirchen-Vluyn: Butzon & Bercker and Neukirchener Verlag, 1970
- ^ Oppenheim, A. Leo, "VIII. Assyrian and Babylonian Historical Texts", The Ancient Near East: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures, edited by James B. Pritchard, Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 246-286, 2011
- ISBN 9780700714636.
- ISBN 978-0-500-05101-6.
- ISBN 9781438453255.
- ISBN 978-0-521-07791-0.
- ISBN 9783110037050.
- University of California Los Angeles.
- ^ The Sumerian Kings List (PDF). p. 119, note 305.
- ^ [1]M. Molina, "The palace of Adab during the Sargonic period", D. Wicke (ed.), Der Palast im antiken und islamischen Orient, Colloquien der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 9, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2019, pp. 151-20
- ^ Sicker, Martin (2000). The Pre-Islamic Middle East. p. 19.
- ^ "The victory of Utu-ḫeĝal". ETCSL.
- ^ a b Full transcription and translation in: "CDLI-Found Texts". cdli.ucla.edu.
- JSTOR 23283609.
- ^ "Year names of Ur-Nammu". cdli.ucla.edu.
- ^ Ansky, S.. "The Cursing of Akkade". The Harps that Once..., edited by David G. Roskies, New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 359-374, 1992
- ^ See, for example, Douglas, J. D.; Tenney, Merrill C. (2011). Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary (3rd ed.). HarperCollins. p. 1897.
- ISBN 9781438126760.
- JSTOR 41926760.