About Synchronized Ancient History

Anatolia and Historical Concepts
Robert H. Hewsen

In this study, I would like to address myself to an examination of Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky's chronological revisions in relation to the little known regions of Eastern Anatolia, Caucasia, and the Armenian Plateau, for these revisions, if valid, must be applicable to every geographical area of the ancient East, great and small, well-known and obscure, whose chronology has been based on that of Egypt. Unless this can be done successfully, these revisions are not going to be acceptable - at least in their present form. As a specialist in these remote regions I can say at the start that, not only does Veli- kovsky's revised chronology present no insurmountable obstacles to our understanding of the early history of this part of the world, but rather it gives a much greater sense to this history and imposes a much more comprehensible and logical development upon it.¹⁾

Now since much of what I shall be saying will be based on material contained only in Velikovsky's theses and in his unpublished work, I realize at the outset that some of my views may appear somewhat avant garde. Since there is no space to repeat Dr.Velikovsky's supporting evidence in detail, however, I must ask the reader to accept as basic premises the following five hypotheses put forth by Velikovsky and which I have attempted to apply to my own area of study:

That the presently accepted chronology of these regions is in error by some 500 to 600 years and that their early history must be brought down by that amount of time. Specifically, the events dated to the fourteenth century BC belong properly to the ninth - eighth.²⁾

That the so-called New Hittite Empire, thus brought down, cannot be found in the Middle East at this later period and that, through coincidences in their histories and the lives of their rulers, Velikovsky has identified this state with the Neo-Babylonian or Chaldean Empire, centered first at Hattusas in East Central Anatolia and then, only later, at Babylon.³⁾

That the Mitannians, associated with the Hittites and Egypt in the Amarna Age, must similarly be brought down and are to be identified with the early Medes.⁴⁾

That the Hurrians, also associated with the Hittites and also with Mitanni, must likewise be brought down and perhaps be identified with the Carians.⁵⁾

That the Urartians, who flourished on the Armenian Plateau in the 9th - 7th century BC, were also called `Khaldu' (i.e. Chaldeans), but called themselves `Biani' of the kingdom of Lake Van, they were encountered by Xenophon on his journey through Armenia in the winter of 401 - 400 BC, and are to be related in some way with the Anatolian Chaldeans of Hattusas wrongly called Hittites.⁶⁾

These last two are put forth very tentatively and, as Dr.Velikovsky freely admits in his text, the fourth requires investigation.

Setting aside the question of the identification of the Hittites with the Neo-Babylonians, which I personally feel that Velikovsky has brilliantly demonstrated in his unpublished work, but which lies outside of my geographical scope, I shall address myself to the identifications of three lesser but nonetheless important peoples: the Hurrians, the Mittannians and the Urartians.

The Hurrians, like the Hitties, are one of the discoveries of the past century, a people speaking a language neither Indo-European nor Semitic but having strong ties with Urartian and perhaps with Modern Georgian as well. Their original home appears to have lain on the Armenian Plateau whence they spread to Anatolia, north Syria and central Mesopotamia. The earliest record of them is found in the appearance of certain Hurrian personal names in Akkadian tablets conventionally dated to the last half of the third millenium. In the early second millenium they are attested in Babylonia, in the Kingdom of Mari^6b) and at various Syrian centers, particularly Alalak and Ras Shamra. Subsequent migrations are supposed to have deposited them in large numbers throughout much of western Asia from Nuzi in the northeast, to Palestine in the south, while Hurrian glosses and texts are encountered as far west as Hattusas, where even some Hittite queens appear to have been of the Hurrian nation.

Yet, for all this, there appears to have been little political result either of Hurrian numbers or expansion. As Velikovsky states, they appear to have been a people without a history. Specialists were thus quick to relate them to the Empire of Mitanni, whose correspondence and other writings were kept in the Hurrian language by a ruling class whose personal names and deities, however, are manifestly Indo-European.⁷⁾ The question as to whether the Mitannians were Hurrians or were actually Indo-Europeans ruling over a Hurrian or part Hurrian population in an important one, for so impressive is the Hurrian accomplishment that they are regarded as having been the people responsible for the Transcaucasion `eneolithic' culture (or Kura-Arax culture as it is often called after the river valleys where excavations have revealed its remains). This was a cultural unity which pervaded Transcaucasia and the Armenian Plateau from c. 3250 BC to 1750, after which it gradually broke up, surviving in some places (e.g., the Van region) until as late as ca. 1500 BC.⁸⁾ (conventional chronology).

Mitanni, itself, appears in the conventional chronology in 1550 BC and was destroyed by a combination of Assyrian and `Hittite' pressure about 1365. The exact location of the Mitannians is not known for certain and their capital, Wassukani, has not been identified, but they are usually placed on the south central slopes of the Armenian Plateau just north of the Tigris between, say, modern Diyarbekir and Mosul. We really don't know.⁹⁾ Mitanni was a hereditary monarchy, supposedly Hurrian-speaking, and certainly the Hurrian language was used by them in their writings. The sovereign, however, was surrounded by a restricted class of nobles called by the Indo-European term `maryannu,' who shared the land in feudal fashion. In the Amarna Age, the Empire of Mitanni was of considerable importance and maintained the balance of power between Egypt and Mitannian princesses married pharaohs of the eighteenth dynasty. Culturally, however, the Mitannians were under heavy Sumero-Akkadian influence although they blended the writing, literature, religion, law and science of these earlier peoples with their own, native, Hurrian traditions and then passed this blend on to the other peoples with whom their far-flung migrations brought them into contact. Their principal beneficiaries were the `Hittites' but also it would appear, the Syrians and Canaanites as well. Altogether, the scope and impact of Hurrian influence is most impressive.¹⁰⁾

Now, according to Velikovsky's chronological revisions, the Hurrians flourished not in the 16th-14th centuries BC but in the 11th-9th, and, as we have seen, he postulates their identification with the Carians.¹¹⁾ Showing the weak linguistic evidence for a reading khur/hur rather than khar/kar, and noting the obvious importance of the Hurrians about whom almost nothing is known, he recalls that the Carians are said to have come from Crete and that Strabo (I.3.21) speaks of their wide migration. He further notes that the Carian language, which is very imperfectly understood, is neither Indo-European nor Semitic, but is described by specialists as `asianic', and that, furthermore, Mitannian elements have been detected in it.¹²⁾ Velikovsky thus calls for a reconsideration of the problem of the Carian language on the basis of a comparison of it with Hurrian. I would suggest, moreover, a comparison of it with Urartian, which is so close to Hurrian that one specialist, as we shall see, describes it as nothing less than a later version of Hurrian.

But if the Hurrians are Carians, what are we to do with the Mitannians?

First, let us note that the identification of Mitanni with the Hurrians is based entirely on linguistic considerations. Yet, King Tushratta of Mitanni wrote to Amenhotep III that he must make war upon King Artatama `of Hurri', and the specialist Moscati asks if this be a dynastic conflict or rather a war between two different Hurrian states.¹⁴⁾ Conceivably, Mitanni was not really a Hurrian state at all, but merely an Indo-European polity which contained a substantial Hurrian population. Thus, according to Velikovsky, the Mitannians are to be identified not with the Hurrians but with the early Medes and he supports this by the fact that his chronological revisions bring two peoples together in time and also because `Matiene' or `Mantiane' was the name of a lake and province of Media in the classical period.

Let us compare the two peoples, Mitannians and Medes, and we see what correlations can be adduced. First, the last King of Mitanni was Shattuara II after whom the Mitannian state disappears conventionally in ca. 1365 BC. Velikovsky's chronology, however, would place this event at ca. 865 BC, whereupon the Medes promptly appear from nowhere for the first time in history as the Mada of the Assyrian records of Shalmaneser III. This was in ca. 836 BC, i.e. about thirty years later.¹⁵⁾

The first Median ruler on record was Daiukku, the Deioces of the Greeks, who is cited in Assyrian records in 715 BC, and the Median Empire begins under his successors.¹⁶⁾ Note, then, that 121 years elapse between the first mention of the Medes in 836 and their first known ruler, Daiukku, attested in 715. The Armenian historian Moses of Khoren, who wrote perhaps in the eighth century AD, fills in this gap, however, with four Median kings preceeding Daiukku, whose names, though obviously derived from a Greek source, bear striking resemblances to the names of certain Mitannian rulers.¹⁷⁾ The names found in Moses of Khoren (taken from Ctesias?) and those of the possibly corresponding names of known Mitannian kings are as follows:

Varbaakes
Modakes
Sosarmos
Artikas

Wasashata
Mattiwaza
Saushattar
Aratama

It need hardly surprise us that the Greeks, who could turn Ashurbanipal into Sardanapalus, should be able to render Mattiwaza as Modakes. In any case, the combined reigns of these four sovereigns - if their names be, indeed, cognate - could possibly bridge the gap of 121 years between Shattuara II, the last known Mitannian sovereign, and Daiukku, the earliest known King of the Medes.¹⁸⁾

Obviously the Mitannian Empire was destroyed but, according to Velikovsky, not in 1365, but rather in ca. 865. After this, the Mitannians, if they actually ever did live on the south central slopes of the Armenian Plateau, could have moved further East where the Assyrians would refer to them as the Mada thirty years later. They then could have entered upon a period of political eclipse (possibly under a line of native rulers, whose names may be those preserved for us by Moses of Khoren), down to Daiukku, his successors, and the resurgence of Mitanni as the Median Empire. Thus, we see that the chronology of Velikovsky presents no real problem for Median history. The end of Mitanni would virtually correspond with the first appearance of the Medes. Theealier obscurity of the latter is accounted for by the destruction of the earlier Median Empire of Mitanni, while the Indo-European-speaking Medes who doubtless used Hurrian as a literary language much as the later Armenians were to use Aramaic and Greek for centuries prior to the invention of the Armenian alphabet in the fifth century AD.¹⁹⁾
Returning to the Hurrias, now, I must say that, while I maintain an open mind upon the subject, I cannot accept Velikovsky's identification of them with the Carians. In my opinion, the importance of the Hurrians does not correspond to the relative unimportance of the Carians who, whatever the extent of their migrations, could hardly have been numerous enough to have made such a profound impression upon the Middle Eastern scene. Rather, I tend to agree with Soviet specialists and with Burney²⁰⁾ in that the Hurrians are to identified with the people of the Armenian Plateau who produced the unified culture al ready referred to, which characterized these regions from ca. 3250 to 1750 and in some places to ca. 1500 BC (conventional chronology).

Archaeology demonstrates that sometimes in the late second millennium and the ealy first millennium, this transcaucasian eneolithic culture gradually broke up and, using Velikovsky's chronology, it is in this period that Mitanni appears. This state, as I have already indicated, I believe to have been a basically Indo-European polity. It may have been formed over a predominately Hurrian population, however, but only in the southern Hurrian lands, for the existence of more than one Hurrian political formation appears clear in this period and Mitanni never to our knowledge dominated the Armenian Plateau.

Now, as the Hurrians disappear at the same time as the Mitannians - ca. 1365 according to the conventional chronology but ca. 865 according to Velikovsky - we must examine this region of Eastern Anatolia and the Armenian Plateau in the light of this new chronology.

And what do we find? According to Velikovsky's chronology the Hurrians would disappear in ca. 865, while, in ca. 860 - five years later - we first hear in Assyrian records of Aramu, king of a state first called in Assyrian Uruatri and then Urartu.²¹⁾ This state was a federation of smaller states and peoples of the Armenian Plateau welded together through the arms of the Kings of Biaina.²²⁾ The history of this Urartian federation and of its long struggle with Assyria is rather well known thanks to its conspicious inscriptions, and these enable us to determine that its language was closely akin to Hurrian. Indeed, Burney, one of the few western authorities on Urartu, states `the Urartian language was closely related to Hurrian, so much so that, whatever the reservations of some philologists, it may legitimately be described as latter-day Hurrian.²³⁾

Now using the conventional chronology, archaeology has discovered that one of those ubiquitous dark ages exists on the Armenian Plateau between the disappearance of the Hurrians and the emergence of the Urartian state, a period which Burney describes as somewhere between six to ten centuries in duration.²⁴⁾ According to Velikovsky's chronology, Burney exaggerates. The imaginary gap would be somewhere between seven and eight centuries and would not represent any dark age.

Rather, its presence would be due to the inaccuracies of the traditional chronology. Since the dates of the Hurrians and Mitannians are bound to those of the so-called Hittites, and the date of the Hittites is bound to what Velikovsky considers the erroneous chronology of Egypt, these dates, he feels have led to the unnatural separation of the Hurrians and the Urartians by perhaps as much as 700 to 800 years.

The Urartian federation would thus be nothing mare than a new Hurrian formation which arose immediately following, and perhaps because of, the destruction of Mitanni in the ninth century BC. The traditional and incessant hostility between the Urartians and the Assyrians may well have begun as a result of the Assyrian role in the destruction of Mitanni.²⁵⁾

Now, I mentioned earlier that Velikovsky notes that the Urartians were called Khaldu and that Chaldeans were encountered by Xenophon on his march through Armenia in 401-400 BC. Actually the term Chaldean for the Urartians is an arbitrary one adopted by Lehmann-Haupt, who, since the Assyrians were called after their chief god, Ashur, patterned the name of the Urartians after their chief god, Khaldis, and who believed that the Chaldeans encountered by Xenophon 200 years after the fall of Urartu were surviving Urartians under their native name.²⁶⁾

We know now, however, that the Chaldeans of the Armenian Plateau were only one component of the Urartian federation, which actually called itself `Biainili.²⁷⁾ Thus, while Velikovsky errs in thinking them to have been remnants of the Neo-Babylonian or Chaldean state which he identifies with the `Hittite' Empire of central Anatolia.

The chronological revisions of Velikovsky affect the lesser peoples of eastern Anatolia as well. North of the Hittites lived the warlike Kashka tribes. First cited, in the conventional chronology, in ca. 1350 BC, Velikovsky's revisions would make them actually appear in ca. 850 BC. Since the Kashka are believed to be identical to the Qulha of eighth century Urartian sources, the new chronology places them between the Kashka and the Qulha. Since the Qulha are one of the peoples who went into the blend which produced the later Georgian people of Caucasia, the exact date of their first appearance is of some import for our understanding of the formation of Colchis, the earliest Georgian political entity.²⁸⁾

Finally, there is one other people whose traditional date is bound to that of the Hittites and thus to the traditional chronology of Egypt. These are the Hayasa, a people who traditionally flourished in the fourteenth century BC but, according to Velikovsky, in the ninth. Since the Armenians call themselves Hayk' (singular Hay), it has usually been accepted that, while Herodotus (7.73) calls them simply a Phrygian colony, they were probably an amalgamation of an Indo-European-speaking Phrygian tribe with local, perhaps Hurrian-speaking, Hayasa. The only problem was the chronology. The Armenians first appear in the sixth century BC, whereas the Hayasa were thought to have flourished in the fourteenth. Velikovsky's chronology reduces this gap by over 600 years and the link between the Hayasa and the Hayk'/Armenians becomes more secure.²⁹⁾

In conclusion, let me note that none of the evidence which I have gathered in this paper can be interpreted as proof of the exactness of Velikovsky's chronological revisions. Rather, I have merely attempted to apply his thesis to a particular part of the ancient East. I have tried to demonstrate that nothing he has to say presents any undue difficulties for this field but rather tends to simplify and clarify the history of the area. While this does not make Velikovsky correct, it certainly gives us pause. I cannot but urge all specialists to address themselves without prejudice to an investigation of their own areas of interest and expertise in the light of Dr. Velikovsky's work.

If ancient history stands in need of being rewritten, so be it. It will not be the first time. Perhaps we should at least attempt to determine if it is necessary for us to begin.³⁰⁾

1) For the traditional views regarding the early history of eastern Anatolia, Caucasia and the Armenian plateau cf. the bibliographical note at the end of this study.
2) The Synchronized chronological revision requires more than a single alteration in the conventional dating of ancient history. Thus, for example, we must consider the 18th dynasty to have been placed ca. 500 years too far in the past, the 19th nearly 700 years, and the 20th nearly 800 years.
3) Thesis 182, 183. Chaldean/Urartian kings included: a) Merodach-Baladan; b) Sardure II (753-735 BC).
4) Thesis 190.
5) Thesis 94-97.
6) This is found in the unpublished galley of Ages in Chaos, Vol. II.
6b) For an image of the city of Mari see The Horizon Book of the Lost Worlds, New York, 1962, p. 164.
7) Goetze 62-63; Hrozny 164-166.
8) Burney and Lang, 46-48.
9) Associated with Mitanni is the name Subartu, used by the Assyrians for the region where Mitanni was supposedly located, so much so that the terms Mitannian, Subarean and even Hurrian are often regarded as synonymous, (e.g. by Toumanoff, Studies, 51 n. 44) where he states `The cosmocratic title `King of All' appears to have originated ... among the Hurrians-Subareans. It was from that this title ... was inherited by the Assyrians, as masters of the once Hurrian territory; as also by the Urartians, as holders of a part - a token part - of that territory. This token territory must have been the once Hurrian land of Subria/Supria, its name a derivative of `Subartu' and `Sura' must thus be regarded as a mere variant of that name. Accordingly, `King of Sura' in Urartian appears to have signified simply `King of Subartu', and that was an alternative name for the Hurrian cosmocratic title which the Assyrians rendered as `sar kissati.' The Subareans appear in the classical period as the Saspeires (Herodotus, III, 94) and also as Sapeires, Sabiri and Esperitae. Toumanoff (61, n.58) considers them a remnant of the `Subareans or Hurrians' and (321, n. 76) relates their name to the Armenian principality Sper (classical: Sysperitis cf. Strabo 11.4.8.11.14.12).
It is interesting to note in this connection that in Herodotus (Ibid) the Saspeires are included with the Matienians and the Alarodians (i.e. Urartan remnants) in the 18th satrapy of the Achaemenian Empire of Iran.
10) Speiser, World History of the Jewish People, p. 154-155; Moscati, p. 198ff.
11) Thesis 94-96.
12) Bork, in `Die Sprache der Karen.'

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