“Reading Figurines from Ancient Urkeš (2450 B.C.E.): A New Way of Measuring Archaeological Artifacts, with Implications for Historical Linguistics,”
in A. Archi (ed.), Tradition and Innovation in the Ancient Near East, Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, pp. 105-120.
The figurines (both anthropomorphic and zoomorphic) represent one of the most peculiar finds at Urkesh [see “Figurines”, “Human figurines”,“Animal figurines”; cf. also the dedicated topical books on “Human figurines” and “Animal figurines”].
This paper analyses some figurines portraying equids presenting a new reading approach (as openly declared in the title), comparing figurines dating to ca. 2450 BC (coming from the Royal Building AK: see briefly Area AA) with coeval glyptic material. Such an approach streamed from another paper of the present author (in RAI 57) where he “invites consideration of the archaeological artifacts as embodied object, a cultural presence rather than an inert and compromised fragment of past lifeways” (p. 105) [cf. also the concepts of ‘emplacement’ and ‘context’ in CAR, Themes (by M. De Pietri)].
After a general presentation of the site of Tell Mozan (stressing the turning point of the identification of ancient Urkesh by quoting P. Steinkeller affirmation: “the importance, the author of the discovery of Urkeš […] can hardly be overstated […]. It marks a new phase in our study of Hurrian civilization” BM 26, p. 75), the author presents his methodology, based on “an innovative […] strategy for measuring the objects, and rigorous evaluation standards for secondary characteristics [working out] methodology and typology in tandem” (p. 106).
The corpus considered in this analysis comprises 335 examples, also “[documenting] the morphological change that comes with domestication” (p. 107). The basic research question deals with the definition of a ‘type‘: “How to identify what type was represented by which shape? There had to be a key that would allow us to ‘read’ these sometimes nondescript yet various terra-cotta objects” (p. 108).
Hauser then clarifies the different, actual species of horses attested at Urkesh (Equusspecies-E. asinus-E. hemionus and E. caballus. The further comparison with a sealing of Išar-Beli [A13.54] suggests also the presence at Urkesh of onagers (i.e. semi-wild ‘donkey of the steppe’).
The ‘template’ of analysis proposed by the author consists basically in retracing ‘underlying patterns’ and 17 different diagnostic correlations in shapes have been detected; the primary assumption is that the author “[has] chosen to use classical topographic anatomical terms of veterinary science in order to emphasize that the figurines represent observed, living animals not arbitrary creations by inexperienced artisans or non-professionals or children” (p. 110).
Urkesh’s horses are then further described, with the specimen of Equus Type III Caballine (presenting peculiar long manes).
The last part of the contribution is devoted to a discussion about the connection of horses and the Indo-Europeans (and the equid representations at Urkesh as a ‘missing link’), asking ‘where’ and ‘when’ horses were domesticated the first time (probably, in a region between Northern Syrian border and the Caucasus, around the Pontic-Caspian steppes, ca. 4800 BC), and the possible later role of Mittani in spreading the use of horses for military purposes.
Directly about Tell Mozan: “In the case of Urkeš, archaeological evidence shows that equids were present; morphological change as represented in terra-cotta representations of Equus documenting domestication occurred—and the program that brought this change about persisted long after Tupkish, endan of š, and his household were little more than shadows in memory” (p. 115).
The final portion of the paper deals with topics connecting archaeology and linguistics, linking material culture and language: “The animal figurines from Urkeš figure amongst “a vast array of archaeological facts” (Anthony, D.W. 2007, The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, p. 465) to which we as archaeologists and linguists have access today, and may be seen as so many tools that eventually will permit analysis of quite complex issues of language dispersal, form and other acculturated phenomena” (p. 117).
[For Urkesh’s figurines, see mainly Hauser 2007 (UMS 5)].