Urartu-Religion

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Urartu-Religion

Yeah, that for the religion section, and i was hoping to have a separate article just about it's location and excavation, but the sources i have are limited.

BTW, if you are going to be editing more on that page, watch out for Dbachmann and be very careful dealing with him, he is a nasty piece of work and high up in the Wikipedia cabal.

[Pedro Xaramillo]

Re: Urartu-Religion

Armazd, Anahit and I think Hayk were also indigenous Gods/Godesses of Armenia/Urartu, as I know Armenians like many Pagan societies made great leaders into Godlike status later on (similar to Egyptians, Celts, Aztecs, etc.)

[jgk3]

Re: Urartu-Religion

Apparently, the Urartian indigenous gods formed a trinity, between Khaldi (their ancestor/father), Theispas (storm god) and Artinis (sun god). These may be related to important Indo-European gods. Bell, what would you say on this matter? I have a lot of reading to do before I can make any elaborate claims myself.

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Urartu-Religion

Armazd, Anahit and I think Hayk were also indigenous Gods/Godesses of Armenia/Urartu, as I know Armenians like many Pagan societies made great leaders into Godlike status later on (similar to Egyptians, Celts, Aztecs, etc.)

Hayk is from Armenian mythology, so has nothing to do with the actual gods that the Urartians worshiped. From what I gather, he is more like a warrior-hero with almost superhuman qualities, than an actual god. Neither do Armazd or Anahit - they are "real" gods/goddesses, but from a timeperiod after the fall of Urartu.

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Urartu-Religion

The Armenian legend that gives "Mher's Door" its name actually has nothing directly to do with Urartian religion or the original purpose of the "door". It is some more background and info about the Urartian cuneiform inscription that is on the "door" that ara87 seems to be asking about.

Oh, and there is something about the content of that inscription that has been used to suggest that the Urartians were the direct ancestors of the Armenians - but I can't remember what that content is!

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Urartu-Religion

Apparently, the Urartian indigenous gods formed a trinity, between Khaldi (their ancestor/father), Theispas (storm god) and Artinis (sun god). These may be related to important Indo-European gods. Bell, what would you say on this matter? I have a lot of reading to do before I can make any elaborate claims myself.

I've got scans of some recent books about Urartu that I'll look at. But there isn't a lot known for certain, and much of what Urartian religion consisted of is a mystery. None of the books seem to address the obvious (obvious from the archaeological remains) fact that what the Urartians believed was underground was an important aspect to their religion. The artificial "doors" they carved in cliff faces seem to have been considered by them to be real doors, through which they could access certain gods, and many sites have long, ceremonial passages, or staircases, or vertical shafts that often descend deep underground.

[jgk3]

Re: Urartu-Religion

I saw some sources that link Urartian to modern Turkish, a truly ridiculous enterprise with an early and lasting confirmation of piss poor methodology (diachronic analysis regarding their relation is completely absent, not that they would be able to get very far if they tried to fill developmental gap between the two languages). These comparisons, which focus on the lexicon, were done very haphazardly with extreme disregard for the etymological association between Urartian forms and modern Turkish. In fact, there was no etymological analysis conducted whatsoever on the Urartian forms, whilst the Turkish forms were hyper-tailored, often using such fatally moronic tactics as adding case or tense suffixation to Turkish forms in order to give a "surface match" to an Urartian form of contrary specific sense, perfect for the lay Turkish nationalistic reader to swallow up without a second thought.

Furthermore, these sources aren't necessarily studies conducted by amateur or trained linguists, sometimes they can be attributed to just a lay person who does not know more than a couple of languages and probably has not even bothered to learn Urartian (as evidenced by their inability to provide an etymological analysis of their word forms, showing an unawareness for the morpho-syntax and semantics in the language they are trying to relate to Turkish).

I would like to warn Armenians that we engage in this too sometimes, that is, we don't inspect enough of the etymological possibilities of Urartian, or some other language we are trying to relate to Armenian. We are happy to just find some ground that we can argue can link the two, without paying much heed to the development of the non-Armenian form within its own linguistic environment, and we pack up our bags and go home, smiling that we've yet again, linked some grand aspect of non-Armenian civilization, to Armenian or to a preconception of proto-Indo-European that must come from the Armenian Highlands.

I am sorely reminded of such backward, self-satisfied methodology making headway whenever people try to relate the name of Karahundj to Stonehenge, or when Tork Angegh is being related to the name of the Angles (invading tribe that mixed with the Saxons in Britain). People all too quickly forget (or are simply ignorant) that they can very easily tell a sloppy story when they don't take care to consider the etymology of words (and that of other, semantically related words regarding their compatibility with the said theory) on both sides of a comparison

[Pedro Xaramillo]

Re: Urartu-Religion

Urartian has no relation to Turkish from any sources I have ever seen, its an unrelated language only similar to Hurrian, it has similarities with Caucasian languages, but not related

[jgk3]

Re: Urartu-Religion

Hayk is from Armenian mythology, so has nothing to do with the actual gods that the Urartians worshiped. From what I gather, he is more like a warrior-hero with almost superhuman qualities, than an actual god. Neither do Armazd or Anahit - they are "real" gods/goddesses, but from a timeperiod after the fall of Urartu.

This is an easy dismissal to make, especially when one does not know much about the natures of Khaldi, Teispas, or Artinis.

Artinis/Shivini is apparently the counterpart of Egyptian god Aten. Curiously, both gods emphasize the worship of the sun disk. Such an analysis could possibly link Akhenaten, the Egyptian pharaoh who instated (or reinstated) this cult in his kingdom, to the original Hurro-Urartian style of sun-disk worship. The user Armenian has already suggested that Nefertiti, Akhenaten's wife was of Mitanni (Hurrian, possibly elements of Indo-Aryan) origin. Apparently, Nefertiti played a great role in the religious revolution of Akhenaten, which would later be suppressed by the time of Tutankhamen's rule (1 generation later). What I'm curious about is what relation Sun disk worship stands with the prevalent forms of Fire or Sun worship in Indo-European mythology. I would not be too hasty to pass off the possibility that the likes of Agni/Hephaestus/Ara have no relation to it. On the other hand, you have heroic divinities associated with fire, such as Heracles or Vahagn, who don't match up neatly with the primordial fire divinities but are necessarily, heros who re institute the will of the divine on Earth. I will have to do more reading on these three categories of divinities associated with fire/Sun, but my guess is that the Sun disk divinities should have more in common with the primordial fire Gods Agni/Hephaestus/Ara, than with the hero variety.

Teispas (Teshub) is a storm god. Hadad, in the pantheon of Babylonians was also known this way, a god to be feared but also praised for the fertility and rain he brought to the earth, and also regarded as lord of heaven. Apparently Teispas is just the Anatolian variety of Babylonian Hadad, Greek Zeus and thus, Armenian Aramazd (inherited from Zoroastrian Ahura-Mazda).

Khaldi represents something a bit different, some kind of divine heroic warrior who is the all-time leader of the Urartians. It is curious to find such a warlike god at the top of the hierarchy in this divine trinity, as opposed to the Indo-European ones where you will tend to find an all encompassing, omnipotent Zeus/Mazdean-like figure at the head. The claim by some Armenian scholarship has been that the name "Hayk" is just the Armenian version of Urartian "Khaldi", that they are one and the same god. His hostility towards Baal (a general category for storm gods which has manifested itself in Hadad as a positive force in some cults, but not in others), the Storm god of the Assyrians and Babylonians, was simply an inheritance from Urartian times of conflict with the Assyrians (or, if we are to take the claim that Hayk slew a specifically Babylonian deity Baal, this longstanding hostility could be speculated to have taken place in pre-Assyrian times). This reminds us of Ara the Beautiful's rejection of Shamiram (Semiramis), which can again be very easily attributed to Urartian times, whilst it's not really applicable to the period when Armenians showed up explicitly in the records as a unified ethnic group after the 6th century BC. Therefore, the idea is that divine heros of indigenously Armenian mythology make their way through Urartian times, suggesting nothing less than a genetic link between Urartu and Armenia expressed through folk beliefs (though transforming in certain details) making their way into the core traditional beliefs of Armenians (and of historic Northern Middle Easterners in general, being at odds with West Semitic incursions into the Levant). Another thing I find curious about Khaldi and Hayk is that Urartians and Armenians have both called upon the name of their respective divine chieftain gods as a basis for self-designation. In any case, I have to do more of my own readings on Khaldi before I can feel positive about all these expressed views, but I think they are worth considering.

I've got scans of some recent books about Urartu that I'll look at. But there isn't a lot known for certain, and much of what Urartian religion consisted of is a mystery. None of the books seem to address the obvious (obvious from the archaeological remains) fact that what the Urartians believed was underground was an important aspect to their religion. The artificial "doors" they carved in cliff faces seem to have been considered by them to be real doors, through which they could access certain gods, and many sites have long, ceremonial passages, or staircases, or vertical shafts that often descend deep underground.

This is actually a fairly straightforward motif for referring to that which is divine through reference of "the invisible, the unreachable by mortals" It is an interesting phenomenon, noting that Urartians engaged in ways of expressing this that are very different from that of their neighbours. It could have to do with the rocky, mountainous land on which they lived, serving as an inspiration for the orientation of the invisible divine forces which ruled their world. The fact that Urartians engaged in extensive mining operations could have promoted this kind of exploration for the divine underground, especially if they held their metals to be sacred (which ancient peoples from this region most certainly did). Again, the idea is that the gods dwell in the inhospitable places and when a man reaches such places, he becomes closer with the divine and thus, part of his nature can transcend his mortal aspect to join the god or gods of his cult.

The same idea has been used for the designation of sacred mountains by different civilizations. Various Anatolian tribes seemed rather keen on doing this it seems. A more familiar case may be found with the treatment of Mount Olympus as the home of the Olympian Gods, or Mount Ararat as being the sacred place of regenesis for all of mankind. Motifs can range from being very detailed, such as Noah's Ark unloading the ancestors of all of modern animals and humans to the simple idea that increased elevation brings one closer to the sky, that is, the heavens, which is probably what was noted about Mount Ararat and Mount Olympus alike before all the elaborate myths came about.

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Urartu-Religion

I saw some sources that link Urartian to modern Turkish, a truly ridiculous enterprise with an early and lasting confirmation of piss poor methodology (diachronic analysis regarding their relation is completely absent, not that they would be able to get very far if they tried to fill developmental gap between the two languages). These comparisons, which focus on the lexicon, were done very haphazardly with extreme disregard for the etymological association between Urartian forms and modern Turkish. In fact, there was no etymological analysis conducted whatsoever on the Urartian forms, whilst the Turkish forms were hyper-tailored, often using such fatally moronic tactics as adding case or tense suffixation to Turkish forms in order to give a "surface match" to an Urartian form of contrary specific sense, perfect for the lay Turkish nationalistic reader to swallow up without a second thought.

The Urartians spoke Turkish because Ataturk said they did, and Ataturk is even more infalable than the Pope.