Mitanni

Mitanni was an Indo aryan  Hurrian speaking kingdom in northern Mesopotamia from ca. 1500 BC. Since no histories, royal annals or chronicles have yet been found in its excavated sites, knowledge about Mitanni is sparse compared to the other powers in the area, and dependent on what its neighbours commented in their texts.

A number of  proper names and glosses (technical terminology) of the Mitanni are of Indo-Aryan or Proto-Indo-Aryan origins. Starting from Shuttarna I who is the first Mitanni ruler historically attested to have existed, the Mitanni had Indo-Aryan throne names.De Martino, Stefano, (2014). "The Mittani State: The Formation of the Kingdom of Mittani", in Constituent, Confederate, and Conquered Space in Upper Mesopotamia: The Emergence of the Mittani State, De Gruyter, Berlin, Boston, p. 69. The Kikkuli's horse training text includes technical terms of Indo-Aryan origin, and the Indo-Aryan deities Mitra, Varuna, Indra, and Nasatya (Ashvins) are listed and invoked in two treaties found in Hattusa, between the kings Sattiwaza of Mitanni and Šuppiluliuma I the Hittite: (treaty KBo I 3) and (treaty KBo I 1 and its duplicates).Fournet, Arnaud, (2010). "About the Mitanni Aryan Gods" , in Journal of Indo-European Studies 38 (1-2), pp. 26-40. See [in this pdf version] pp. 3, 5, and 10.Devecchi, Elena, (2018). “Details That Make the Difference: The Akkadian Manuscripts of the ‘Šattiwaza Treaties.’”, in: Die Welt Des Orients, vol. 48, no. 1, 2018, pp. 72–95. See p. 72: "...The so-called 'Šattiwaza treaties' are a set of two documents (CTH 51 and CTH 52) ratifying the subjugation of Šattiwaza of Mittani to the Hittite king
Šuppiluliuma I, an event dated to the 2nd half of the 14th century BCE..." The toponym of the Mitanni capital of Washukanni is also "unanimously accepted" to have been derived from an Indo-Aryan dialect. Annelies Kammenhuber (1968) suggested that this vocabulary was derived from the still undivided Indo-Iranian language,Kammenhuber, Annelies (1968). Die Arier im vorderen Orient. Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag. p. 238. On p. 238 she indicates they spoke a "noch ungeteiltes Indo-Iranisch". but Mayrhofer has shown that specifically Indo-Aryan features are present.

It is generally believed that Indo-Aryan peoples settled in Upper Mesopotamia and northern Syria, and established the Kingdom of Mitanni following a period of political vacuum, while also adopting Hurrian. This is considered a part of the Indo-Aryan migrations. Since the late 20th century, the view that the Mitanni kingdom was ruled by royal house and aristocracy of Indo-Aryan origin has been prevalent among the scholars; accordingly, a branch of Indo-Aryans separated from the other Indo-Iranians around the turn of second millennium BCE and migrated into West Asia, hence giving rise to the Mitanni kingdom, while also adopting Hurrian language. Some of the recent studies such as those by Eva von Dassow (2022) and Cotticelli-Kurras and Pisaniello (2023), while noting the modern identification of Mittani as Indo-Aryan and the role of Indo-Aryan speakers in establishing its dynasty, have disputed the significance of Indo-Aryan vocabulary in an otherwise Hurrian-speaking state stating that it does not indicate any Indo-Aryan origins for Mitanni kings. According to Alexander Lubotsky (2023), however, the military elite of Mitanni kingdom (see Maryannu) was of Aryan descent and that their language displays a clear Indo-Aryan character. 

Jasper Eidem in 2014 reported on Farouk Ismail's earlier study,Eidem, Jasper, (2014). "The Kingdom of Šamšī-Adad and its Legacies", in Eva Cancik-Kirschbaum, Nicole Brisch and Jesper Eidem (eds.), Constituent, Confederate, and Conquered Space: The Emergence of the Mittani State, p. 142, and footnote 16. in reference to the word marijannu that was found in a letter from Tell Leilan in northeastern Syria dating to a period slightly before 1761 BC, which is the time when the reign of Zimri-Lim ended in the region of Mari. Kroonen et al. (2018) consider this as an early Indo-Aryan linguistic presence in Syria two centuries prior to the formation of the Mitanni realm, as mariannu is generally seen as a Hurrianized form of the Indo-Aryan *marya, which means 'man' or 'youth', associated to military affairs and chariots.Kroonen, Guus, Gojko Barjamovic, and Michaël Peyrot, (2018). "Linguistic supplement to Damgaard et al. 2018: Early Indo-European languages, Anatolian, Tocharian and Indo-Iranian", in Zenodo 2018, p. 11.

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References

 Other websites 
The Hurrian Culture
Vyacheslav Ivanov 
Vahan Kurkjian, "History of Armenia," Michigan, 1968
Dutch excavations at Tell Sabi Abyad 
Excerpts from the text of the Shuppililiuma-Shattiwazza treaty
Mitanni  Simple article.
Armenian Highland

Category:Assyria
Category:Mesopotamia
Category:16th century BC