A hieroglyph in Luvian, the Anatolian language of the 7th, was decipheredu century BC and its meaning is “city”.
A research team led by Petra M. Goedegebuure from the University of Chicago presented their groundbreaking study on the use of the word “city” in the Lubian language of ancient Anatolia.
The study, which was published in the journal Anatolian Studies, in addition to offering a thorough linguistic analysis of the specific word, explores the cultural and social connotations of cities in the Lubian documents, offering scholars new evidence for the interpretation of urban life and territorial organization in ancient Anatolia.
Luvian, an Indo-European language of the Oriental language group, was dominant in central and southern Anatolia for several centuries.
Along with its relative, Hittite, it constituted one of the main language families of the region, surviving until the fall of the Hittite Empire in 12the century BC, extending its use to the small, then – Hittite kingdoms, until their conquest by the Assyrian Empire, in 7the century BC
The hieroglyphic written system of Anatolia, which had begun to develop at the zenith of the Hittite Empire, is of fundamental importance in the study of these languages, as it provides a logographic and, partially, syllabic system which is adapted to the representation of concepts and words.
This script was used in inscriptions on monuments and in administrative and ceremonial documents although it was always in Luviki.
In her article, Goedegebuure explains that, although Hittite was primarily a language of administration, Luvian was the language of everyday life in the public sphere.
Scholars believe that this hieroglyphic script began to be used as a complete written system by the 14the century BC, while until today, about 300 inscriptions have been discovered, from different locations in Anatolia and Northern Syria.
The enigma her «City» at Lubian: The logogram THE CITY
One of the most impressive findings of the research is the identification of the Anatolian hieroglyph URBS, which is interpreted in the context of describing urban life.
To this day, however, there is no consensus on the exact meaning of the logogram, partly because the Lubian term for “city” has no direct equivalents in other Anatolian languages, such as Hittite. This makes its precise interpretation even more difficult.
Through an interdisciplinary approach, which combines orthographic, morphological, iconographic analysis, Goedegebuure, concludes that the word represented by the hieroglyph URBS may be the word allamminna/i- or allamminna, i.e. “fortified settlement”.
This word is not only interpreted as “city”, but also as a term that emphasizes the importance of defense and fortification in the concept of urban life in Luvian culture.
A recurring term
Scholars studying Lubian texts have noted that cities often appear in important descriptions in which rulers boast about their conquests, the establishment of settlements, and the rebuilding of fortresses.
In these narratives, cities are not only centers of power and territorial dominance, but also symbols of the stability and prosperity attributed to kings by establishing and defending these local societies.
To understand the complexity of the term allamminna and its representation in hieroglyphs, Goedegebuure studied the morphology of the inscriptions and architectural features of the Anatolian cities of the period.
The author argues that the logogram URBS refers to some rampart or bastion, the elevated part of the fort, characteristic of defensive structures, representing, in a single symbol, the close connection between the concept of “city” and the defensive structure in the Luvian mentality.
Thus, this hieroglyph does not simply symbolize the city as an urban center, but as an entity strongly intertwined with its defensive structure.
In order to reach her conclusion about the Lubian word for “city”, Goedegebuure first solved the problems posed by the analysis of Anatolian hieroglyphs.
A peculiarity of the Luvian system is that many words, although they often appear in the inscriptions, are written with logograms, without a complete phonetic representation.
For example, the word for “house” appears mostly as DOMUS while for “sheep” OVIS, without phonetic symbols. Similarly, the symbol URBS appears repeatedly, again without a full syllabic transcription, making its exact interpretation difficult.
The research details that Lubian writings are relatively extensive compared to other Anatolian languages, although they are limited to a few hundred inscriptions and seals, in contrast to the abundance of Hittite cuneiform writing.
Through textual analysis, comparisons of verbal combinations and etymological studies, the knowledge of Anatolian hieroglyphs has made remarkable progress in recent decades.
However, many hieroglyphs and words remain unintelligible, as was the term for “city” which has now been deciphered thanks to Goedegebuure’s study.
Luwic remained the official language of the post-Hittite kingdoms of Anatolia and northern Syria, although its use gradually began to decline, until it was replaced under Assyrian rule. The process of gradual extinction lasted almost 800 years, making it a language of extraordinary resilience and relevance to the history of the region.
Source: www.enikos.gr
