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Other Archaeological Sites / The Neolithic of the Levant (500 Page Book Online)
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East
Pre-History and Archaeology Glossary
Excerpts and Definitions and Addendums: The Hurrians were a people identified by their non-Semitic, non Indo-European language, Hurrian. Their origin northeast of Mesopotamia in Caucasia or beyond is inferred from an indirect link between Hurrian and Urartian, both descendants of a common root language (Proto-Hurrian-Urartian) and connected to northeast Caucasian languages. Textual attestations of Hurrian proper names (in tablets from, for instance, Nuzi) indicate a gradual migration from east of the Tigris River in the late third millenium across northern Mesopotamia to the Mediterranean coast in the second millenium BC, although isolated linguistic associations suggest a Hurrian presence in northern Syria and Anatolia as early as 2000 BC. The Hurrians are divided historically and geographically into two cultural spheres. The older eastern sphere encompasses the Hurrian heartland, stretching fromm the region of Lake Van and Lake Urmia in the north to Kirkuk in the south. The later western sphere centers on southeastern Anatolia and North Syria. They each absorbed Sumero - Akkadian traditions and were briefly united under the Mitannian hegemony in the mid-second millenium BC.
SETTLEMENT PATTERNApart from slaves exported to southern Mesopotania, the Hurrians settled the northern Fertile Crescent where their was suffuicient rainfall for animal husbandry and dry farming without the use of irrigation ... |
