Qaldeian

Natela B. Popkhadze

The Name of the Country of King Lugalbanda and His Son Gilgamesh

 

Texts written in cuneiform script say that Kulaba (ku-la-ba) was the name of the area where at first Lugalbanda, later his son Gilgamesh ruled in the lowlands of the rivers Puranunu and Idigana. Thus Kula-ba is the name of the country ruled by Lugalbanda, and, after him, by Gilgamesh. Who was Kula? The cuneiform text entitled Enqi and the World Order tells that god Enqi pinched a piece of clay and molded, created from it the god of bricks and architecture at large, and called it Kula. This god Kula was especially expected to supervise the building of temples to gods. The first building created by Kula was naturally the temple dedicated to his creator, to his father. That was god Enqi and that first temple was built in Eridu//Eri-du. The name of this first city of the nation that lived there seems to be a two-part word. The first part in Eri-du is eri. The word eri is explained in Sumerian-Kartvelian, Sumerian-English, Sumerian-French dictionaries to mean ‘people’, ‘a group of people’, that sometimes eri means an army. The names of beloved towns are immortalized by their creator nations by naming other towns afterwards. The town called Eri-du is nowadays also in the area situated rather far north from the first Eri-du. It is near the town Gori (some 40 km from Tbilisi-the capital of the Republic of Kardu//Sa-kardu-elo//Georgia). Kardu//Kartu is the root and sa is a prefix and –elo is a suffix in the name Sa-kartu-elo. My aim is to draw the attention of the scientists to an interesting fact that the ancient word eri encountered in the literature attested in cuneiform script is preserved to this day in the mother tongue of the ethnic Kola-qi//Kolqi//Colchian//Kardu//Kartu//Kartu-eli nation in the same meanings it had in III millennium BCE: 1.eri=a nation//an ethnicity; 2. eri-a national army, a synonym of the modern Kartuli word jari. There is a definite distinction between modern Kartvelian words eri , khalkhi, and , on the other hand, mosakhleoba-at least during XIX-XXI centuries. In publications, political appeals ‘Kartveli eri’ has been understood to mean a congregation of ethnic Kartvelians: the Kolkhians//Colchians( the Suani//Svans Margalians//Megrels, the Lazians, the Tchanians-and the Eastern Kartvelians. The Eastern Kartvelian is a clearly nondefined term used by modern scientists to denote the ethnic Kartvelians that are indigenous in the area situated in the Eastern part of the Modern Republic of Kartu//Kardu//Sakartuelo//Georgia. In 1918-1921 the Eastern Georgia included, besides that, half of the Modern republic of Azerbaijan. The term Azerbaijan itself is a corruption of the word known as Adribezhani in 1780-ies. Moreover, that Adribezhani was not at the Caspian lake at all, but was in what is Middle Iran nowadays. Historically the indigenous territory of the nation//eri called the Kola//Colchians//Suanians//Margali//Megrelians//Kartvelians//Lazians includes the entire area of Mesopotamia, both Caucasias( at the eastern and at the western sides of the Caspian Lake(the Caspian “Sea”), the Aia peninsula(modern Crimea), the basin of the river Hypanis( now the river Dniepr basin in the Republic called Ukraina//Okraina). The ethnicity of the Kartu-eli eri I will hereafter designate Aiakardu//Aiakartu eri//ethnos. It is traditionally determined here by Kartvelian//Aiakartvelian ethnic origin of both father and mother, i.e. that of the ethnicity of both parents of a person or, at least, that of a father(while ethnicity of the mother is not crucial). Kartveli khalkhi is a synonym of Kartveli eri and means the congregation of ethnic Kartvelian persons that live anywhere in the world and not only in what is a Republic of Georgia//Sakartuelo in XX century. On the other hand, Sakartvelos mosakhleoba is a local term for the population of Georgia, of the entire (Kartvelian and Non-kartvelian )inhabitants of the Republic of Sakartvelo//Georgia. Summing up the aforesaid, the word eri attested in texts carved in cuneiform script has retained its meaning only in Modern Kartvelian language. No other modern language is known to me where eri is in its lexical fund and has the meaning nation//ethnicity of the word used in millennia-old texts written in the cuneiform script. Other mutual words attested in Modern Kardu//Aiakartu language and in the language of the Ancient Karduniash encompassing Mesopotamia, known also as Kola//Kolkhiti[m] in cuneiform script are an, ki//qi, mare, khan//han, shara, gal, nin and over 200 other words according to Mikheil Tsereteli. These words are used in modern Aiakartu language variants to these days both in literature and as words of the colloquial language. The word ‘colloquial’ in modern Kolkhian Kartvelian language variant is ‘Amasil’, while in cuneiform texts it is ‘Emesal’; Emesal and Amasil are surely identical words that are pronounced in the same way for millennia and have the same meaning-that of the  colloquial language. This is not accidental and has deep historical roots of the same eri//nation. To the investigation of the great number of such words common in Modern Kartvelian language variants and in the Sumerian, Akkadian, Hurrian, M. Tsereteli dedicated decades since 1920-ies. He learned the Sumerian language and literature in Germany and in England. An ethnic Kardu//Karttveli //Aiakardu man, a stranger to him, financed his studies due to the recommendation of Ivane Javakhishvili. M.Tsereteli published a vast work about the Sumerian language in English in 1912-1913 in several issues of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. Oliver Wardrop helped him to translate it from Kartuli into English. His works on this theme were published in Kartuli as well. M. Tsereteli translated the Epic of Gilgamesh and published it in Kartuli language in 1924 in Constantinopol. At that moment that epic was translated only into English, French, German. Modern Kartuli was the fourth language in which the Epic called Gilgamesh was translated. Publications of M. Tsereteli are taught, studied and cited in modern Sakartvelo. He has followers. As a member of the government of the independent Republic of Sakartvelo, after the invasion of the Red Army and occupation of the Georgian Republic, M. Tsereteli left for a short time as he thought, and lived in emigration abroad. Due to his emigration he was declared an enemy of the Soviets and of the USSR; hence his name and his works became unmentionable in the USSR. He died in Germany and wrote a will where pleaded to bury his ashes in his ancestral village in Sakartuelo. This will ought to be fulfilled some day. His archive kept abroad is lost. His son fought on the German side and was killed at the end of the war. His niece Giorgi Tsereteli became an Orientalist  and the first director of the Oriental Institute in Tbilisi. Studies of texts written in the cuneiform script continued in Tbilisi. Nino Samsonia published a monograph in Kartuli language on M. Thereteli’s studies. M. Tsereteli is supposed to be the second ethnic Kartvelian of the first decades of the XX century that learned the language and literature of texts written in cuneiform script. The other was Alexandre Svanidze- the brother of the Kartvelian first wife of Ioseb Jughashvili//Joseph Stalin. She died at birth of her first child Iacob Jughashvili; A young soldier Iacob was captured and killed by the Germans during the war. A. Svanidze studied at the university in Germany. He was imprisoned later by the Soviets and killed. A. Svanidze published his own works on the affinity of the Kartveli nation with the ancient Sumerians in the Kartuli language and in the Russian language. In 2009 I came across a commentary in the dissertation thesis of Ketevan Genebashvili where among the unpublished works of the Kartvelian scientist Mose Janashvili (1855-1934) the Sumerian-Modern Kartvelian dictionary was mentioned. My interest was aroused by that note and after talking with almost every scientist that is now involved in the studies of the culture of the Ancient Near East in Tbilisi, especially texts written in ancient Kola, Sumer, Karduniash, Hurri, Urartu, it appeared to me that M. Janashvili is unknown in Sakartvelo and elsewhere in this aspect-as a Sumerologist and Chaldeologist//Urartologist. With the permission of the scientists working in the cuneiform studies in Tbilisi( there are none in other areas of this Republic), I started reading and analyzing the material in the archive of M. Janashvili kept at the Centre of Manuscripts in Tbilisi. I have analyzed five books prepared for publication and written with the hand of M. Janashvili in various years between 1880 and 1934. Two of them are translated from Kartuli into Russian by that author himself as the Russian language was considered in the USSR to be the most appropriate international language to reach a vast audience. M. Janashvili turned to the riches of the words in several variants of the Aiakartuli language. The entire lore of these variants where called by him ‘the Kartveluri( Kartvelian) language’; another term- Kartuli language he retained only for the Modern Literary Language variant in which the laws in the republic called Sakartvelo were and are published. The term Aiakartu coined by me with two words Aia+Kartu is better than the term Kartveluri( Kartvelian) in M. Janashvili’ works because the significant political-geographical ancient term Aia is lost and ignored in his term Kartveluri. M. Janashvili has revealed many instances of identities and/or affinities among words and word-formants of the Modern Kartvelian//Aiakartu language variants and words known from texts written in cuneiform script in the Ancient Near East. He is the first ethnic Kartu to have translated Laws of Hammurabi//Ammurapi from transliterated original text into modern literary Kartu//Kartuli language; he translated from the original into Modern Kartuli also 20 texts written//carved by kings of Khaldia//Khaldea: Menua, Argisti etc., compiled a Mitanian-Modern Kartuli and , besides, Khaldeian-Modern Kartuli dictionaries, using publications of French and German scientists and his knowledge of the Kartvelian language variants mainly. His unprinted book The Kartvelian Nation in the Ancient World is very important for understanding the culture, history of the area starting from the river Nile and stretching to the East including the Ancient Karduniash, Cola//Colchis, Media, Sagartia. Basing his views on historical facts, he claimed that Media and Sagartia were also the political entities created by the Kolkhian//Kartvelian nation and remained Kartvelian for millennia. I agree with this deduction. Ignorant of M. Janashvili’s unpublished works on this topic, I lost decades in my own research and came to the conclusion of M. Janashvili written in his work The Kartvelian Nation in the Ancient World. I have prepared a 20 page review, two analyses of 12 manuscripts from the archive of M. Janashvili concerning the cuneiform studies. Both are written in the Kartuli language ready for publication. I intend to translate both papers into English to arouse the international interest to the works of M. Janashvili. His deductions are based on facts and on the analysis of the data. He worked very hard on the above-mentioned topics for over five decades, gathered great knowledge in this field of science. Use of the unpublished works of M. Janashvili in previous decades would have spared me and many others decades of work on Sumerian, Akkadian, Khaldeian, Hurri, Urartian data and adjacent themes. We were unaware of his pioneering works and lost decades in doing the same work and with substantially less effect. Ignorance of cuneiform studies of this person among the historians working in this republic is more amazing considering that he always studied and worked in Sakartuelo and never left it even for a day. Returning to the topic of the title of this report I desire to draw the attention of the scientists to the following fact : Kula ought to be pronounced  ‘Kola’ in texts written in cuneiform script; it is long known from science literature. The fact that ‘u’ was pronounced ‘o’ in cuneiform texts is universally accepted- as much as I know. The texts written in cuneiform script say that the first town in the world known to the ancients at that moment was Eridu in the lowland of the rivers called the Puranunu and the Idigana. These rivers were renamed much later into ‘the Euphrates’ and ‘the Tigris’. The god of architecture-Kula//Kola, was born, was created from a piece of clay there. The same town Eri-du is, according to the texts, the place where the first kingdom was attested when god Enqi lowered the royal insignia (the crown, the scepter, the throne) from the sky. The name of the god of the architect of the first city Eri-du ( Kula) seems to me to have a link to the large geographical area mentioned later as Kulukhiti[m] in texts written in cuneiform script and, later, as Kola-qi,Kolkheti, Kola, Colchis in several scripts and several languages (  ancient and modern Kartu-li, ancient Hellenic, Latin etc.) for a national//ethnic indigenous territory of the Colchians//Kola-qi-ans( this is the nation of king Aieetes//Aieti, of his sister Circea//Tsirtsea the ruler of the Isle of Aia(modern Crimean peninsula), of Aiettes’s daughter Medeia//Medea. The part of Kola ruled by her was named after her as Media. Her son succeeded her there. The theme of king Aiettes and his family is thoroughly treated in the works of M. Janashvili. My attention was attracted to the geographical area called ‘kullihitim’ mentioned by W.H.Van Soldt in ZA [1992  82  30]. That publication is available  at the Ilia Chavchavadze National Parliamentary library of Kartu//Sa-kartu-elo in Tbilisi. The area called ‘kola’ is mentioned in the area of the source of the river Mtkuari//Kura in an anonymous text written in Kartuli language in 270-ies CE and entitled ‘Tsamebai 9 krmata Kola-elta’ ( ‘The Martyrdom of  Nine Children that Lived in the Kola Region’ ) . This is about children that attracted by the songs, chants of the Christians in their village, were baptized secretly by them, left their homes and stayed with the Christians unwilling to return to their parents. The parents fetched them, but unable to persuade them to stay, live in their homes, dragged them to a ditch at night and killed them throwing them into the same pit. The English translation of this text is available on the web. The manuscript of the text has a date written on it. The date is 270 CE; I learned about that date of this text from Valeri Silogava’s oral report at the presentation of the  book-entitled Adishis Otkhtavi. Adishi is a name of the village where the ancient Kartvelian//Iberian//Georgian text Adishis Otkhtavi is kept from ancient time to this day. The texts written in cuneiform script sometimes mention the word kuptar. In Hittite glossaries kuptar is explained to be ‘an offering’. The meaning of ‘kuptar’ in modern-day Kartvelian language in the Republic of Georgia) may shed some more light on the exact meaning of that millennia-old word. In modern Sakartvelo kuptar is a round, medium-sized bakery; it looks like flat bread. Very finely chopped beef and dry greens called ‘dzira’ in Kartuli language and the like greens are added to that meat and then baked rapped in the dough. The beef ought to be of superb parts of meat and ought to have some fat on that meat. Lean beef ought be not used for kuptar. It may be interesting to scientists that kuptar is dedicated to the national deities of the Kartvels: to Lile//En-Lile, to Aia. In modern times kuptar bakery is dedicated also to the Orthodox  Christian saints and consumed at their festivities. People may treat themselves to kuptar any day nowadays as it is baked and sold at many places in the city of Tbilisi in Sakartvelo. God Enki//Enqi is still often mentioned when the Kartveli children in Tbilisi play and say a rhyme: Enki, Benki, sikli, sar, Enki, Benki, Bau. Enki and Bau are gods, sikli and sar are measures used for the millennia by the nation-the Kolkhians//Kola-ki-ans// Georgians//Iberians. A song was written by a composer in Tbilisi in 1970-ies that started with the above-mentioned ancient rhyme: Enqi, Benqi, Sikli, Sar, Enqi, Benqi, Bau- followed by modern phrases: Dgeni sikmatsvilisa gavida etc. That song is very popular to this day. The fact how deeply rooted the ancient national beliefs are in Sakartuelo is apparent from a real story told by a musicologist Ioseb Zhordania in his report at the International Conference in Traditional Music in Tbilisi in 2008: the Kartveli alpinist Mikheil Khergiani happened to be in a dangerous situation over a steep cliff covered with ice at the famous Ushba mountain in Sakartvelo. He was always the first in the group leading the way to the top. At a certain moment he shouted down to his team to unfasten themselves from the common rope of the alpinists( if he fell from the cliff, he would perish alone without dragging others with him). The team obeyed the leader. Soon they heard him humming a hymn to god Lile in a low voice. A member of the team told others that it was apparent that M. Khergiani was in great danger, because he hummed that hymn to Lile appealing to him for divine aid while climbing- only when he was on the verge of a disaster. Hence the team fastened themselves to the common rope again and shouted upstairs that they did so and if M. Khergiani would fall from the cliff, the team either would stop his fall with the rope or would willingly perish with him. M. Khergiani at last found the way up. Soon the rest of the team followed up the steps cut by M. Khergiani. In that critical situation it was not Christ, St. Mary, St. George or any  Christian saint or Mohammed, but a millennia-old national Aiakartuelian diety Lile(En-Lile) that those Kartvels consciously appealed for help. To the delight of the students, millennia-old seals were excavated in this Republic near the town Gori in 2009 by a team of archaeologists from the Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, and in 1950-ies by other Kolkhian//Georgian archaeologists in another region of Sakartvelo; these seals are clearly of ancient Mesopotamian nature and prepared locally. They are without cuneiform inscriptions and have geometric and other engravings on them. The archaeologist working at the site near Gori is Vakhtang Licheli. His third-year student found two seals in the building of an excavated hall in a pot placed on the altar. Seals excavated at a far-away site in another area of the Georgian Republic are investigated by another Georgian archaeologist Goderdzi Narimanishvili. These seals were the topics of presentations and reports of these archaeologists at several local-Republican, as well as at the International conferences held in Tbilisi at the Tbilisi University. The seals excavated near Gori were analyzed by Nino Samsonia-a coauthor of the reports and papers of V. Licheli in this instance.  She teaches the Sumerian language and literature and Ancient Near Eastern Art at the Tbilisi University. She qualified in Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the Oxford University with Nicholas Postgate. A large map of the Ancient Near East depicting the kingdom called Karduniash in Mesopotamia is hanging on the wall of the room at the Tbilisi University where cuneiform script and Sumerian, Akkadian, Hurri, Hettic, Ancient Egyptian languages and literatures are taught by several scientists. I was present recently when the students under the supervision of N. Samsonia made seals from clay for themselves, engraved images of the star of Inana//Ninana, gazels, flowers, Utu, lions, cuneiform signs etc. Thin clay rectangular objects were also made of clay by these dubsar students and Gudea’s texts inscribed on them. I engraved the word Aia in cuneiform signs. We colored some white clay with blue paint and then made inscribed seals from it. All were engaged and delighted with the results after the works were dried in the air. Now these objects are exhibits of the room at the University. The idea of molding clay seals with cuneiform inscriptions in blue occurred to me after seeing in a journal a photo of a student with a blue seal hanging from her neck and made with her own hands in the USA. Excerpts from the Lugalbanda cycle and from the Gilgamesh cycle attest that their kingdom was called Kula-ba. There is surely an incessant link from the Kula-ba of Lugalbanda and Kula-ba of Gilgamesh, and Kulikhiti[m] of the cuneiform text mentioned in W.H.Van Soldt’s publication in ZA, and Kola of the text entitled The Martyrdom of the Nine Children from Kola Area written in the Kartuli script in the Kartuli language by the Kartveli author in 290 CE, Kola area in modern-day Artaani area, the city CLH//Calhu//Colhu in upper Mesopotamia, the kingdom of Colchis//Kolakheti//Kolkheti and modern Kolkheti region in the Republic of Sakartvelo//Sa-kartu-elo. The history of the studies in cuneiform inscriptions by modern Kartvels starts from the Kartveli wife of an Italian traveler Patrizio della Valle that in XVII century gave the inscribed stones found on their way to Patrizio and insisted that he hand it to linguists in large cities so that she would learn what and by who was inscribed on them. I consider the action of that lady called Tina in childhood, and later, Mariucha//Maria, the natural call of the ancestral impulse, the desire to learn what her ethnic ancestors desired to tell her and her kin by these writings. She was kidnapped by alien invaders and sold abroad at the age of eight. This lady provoked the public interest in the cuneiform inscriptions. Others followed in her effort and the success arrived-cuneiform script was deciphered. King of Sakartvelo Davit( died in 1819)- son of King of Sakartvelo Giorgi XIII, the grandson of King of Sakartvelo Erekle II, was imprisoned by the people of the Russian emperor in Tbilisi in 1801and sent out from his kingdom to Russia together with all relations that could ever claim back the throne of Sakartvelo. They were deprived of the right to return to Sakartvelo ever even for a day. King Davit continued intellectual work in exile. In those days books in French, German, English, Russian were printed about the progress achieved in the decipherment of texts written in cuneiform script. Under the direction of this King Davit of Sakartvelo his companion wrote a book in Kartuli language on the history and progress in cuneiform studies in those days. The manuscript of that book is in the archive at Kutaisi and is still unpublished. Ilia Chavchavadze wrote and published a political book on the abuse of the national rights of the Kartvels in Sakartvelo ‘governed’ by aliens sent by the Russian tsar. The book is entitled Qvata Ghaghadi in Kartuli; that means The Stones Attest. The author wrote a large portion of that book about information obtained from the deciphered cuneiform texts that attest that the Kartveli nation created the cuneiform script, that this nation is indigenous to the vast area, that the Kartvels founded the kingdom(s) in those areas before any other nation or tribe invaded and devastated them. The first half of this book is a study in cuneiform literature and ought to be treated as such and taught at least in the Republic of Sakartvelo and in areas situated outside this republic where the Kartvels live. I. Chavchavadze died in 1906. Another Kartvelian that wrote and published a work on cuneiform studies and the relation to the modern Kartvels was Mikheil Tamarshvili(died in 1911) known as Michele Tamarati in Rome where he worked as a padre in the cathedral and held other offices. It is a pity that he did not dedicate his work entirely to cuneiform studies as there was that possibility in Rome. The initial part of his book printed at Rome in French in 1910 and entitled L’eglise Georgienne is in fact a history of the Kartveli//Georgian nation from the times that they created the cuneiform script to 1864 when the Russian tsar abolished the last independent Kartvelian political unit, followed in several decades by the great revolt and the downfall of the royal house in Russia and the brutal slaughter of the family of the Russian Tsar N. Romanov. That book of I. Chavchavadze is absolutely ignored by teachers of the languages and literatures created in cuneiform script in Tbilisi and elsewhere. The interest of the public at large to the Sumerian studies was kindled in 1995 by the book entitled Sumeri, consisting of two parts, one written by Zurab Qapianidze and the other by Teimuraz Mibchuani. The second edition appeared in 2003 as a lavishly illustrated publication. It was translated and published in the English language as well. Historians Amiran Tsamtsishvili, Karlo Topuria, Jumber Kakulia published books in 1990-ies analyzing the achievements of the Sumerian studies in view of the Kartvelian history. Several other authors also published works on these topics. The public at large in Sakartvelo needs simply, plainly written truthful publications and failing to find them, start individually research on their own, depending mainly on the History of the Kartveli Eri published in Kartuli by Ivane Javakhishvili( died in 1940). Several amateur authors, mainly engineers by education, succeeded in this field and arrived at interesting results. Gia Kvashilava deciphered the Phaistos Disc found in 1908 at the Isle of Curato//Creta. His report was a success at an International Conference held in London in 2009. The cuneiform studies in the Republic of Sakartvelo are lagging behind those of many other countries that have no historical links to the creators of the cuneiform script whatsoever The reasons of the subjugation of these studies in the Soviet Georgia- the reality that has plagued the studies in this field of science and caused wars here-is a vast theme. Elderly scientists blame the government of Sakartvelo that used to be chosen and approved or disaproved by the government of the USSR in Moscow and hence was never independent in his activity. Thus at the start of the revival of the interest in cuneiform inscriptions among ethnic Kartvels  stands Tina//Maria//Mariucha-the wife of Partizio della Valle(XVIIc.). She is followed by King Davit of Sakartuelo( died in 1819) under whose command a book was written in Kartuli, followed by Nico Marr( an only son of the ruler of Guria region in Sakartvelo, raised by the husband of Nico’s peasant mother), Ilia Chavchavadze, Mikheil Tamarashvili, Mose Janashvili, afterwards Mikheil Tsereteli followed in XIX century and in the first decades of XX century. The role of these scientists ought to be analyzed and taught at least at several kindergartens, schools, institutes in the Republic of Sakartuelo in order to promote cuneiform studies by the Kartvels.

Literature:

1. Lugalbanda in the mountain cave. Segment A. Alster, Bendt.Like a clod thrown into water in Zeitscrift fur die kund der des Morgenlands.1996; 86. 17-20
2. Gilgamesh and Aga. Black Jeremy A. 1995.Real and unreal conditional sentences in Sumerian. Acta Sumerologica 17. 15-39
3. W.H.Van Soldt:A note on Old Babylonian lu ittum “Let me remind you” Z.Assyr. Band 82. no.1. 30. 1992
4. Tsereteli, Mikheil, Sumerian and the Georgian. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of the Great Britain and Ireland. 1913. No.1.  23-46
5. Chavchavadze, Ilia. Qvata Ghaghadi. The Stones Attest(in Kart.). 1897 Tbilisi
6. Janashvili, Mose. Qaldeuri lursmnuli dzegltserani. Cuneiform texts from Chaldea. In Kartuli//Georgian. Archive of M. Janashvili in the Center of Manuscripts.manusc. no.148, 149. 154. Tbilisi.
7. Janashvili, Mose. Saqartvelos istoria. History of Sakartuelo( in Kart.).Tbilisi. 1906. 24