Shupria

Shupria (Shubria) or Arme-Shupria (Armenian: Շուպրիա; Akkadian: Armani-Subartu from the 3rd millennium BC) was a Hurrian-speaking kingdom, known from Assyrian sources beginning in the 13th century BC, located in the Armenian Highland, to the southwest of Lake Van, bordering on Ararat proper. The capital was called Ubbumu.[1] Scholars have linked the district in the area called Arme or Armani, to the name Armenia.[2][3]

Weidner interpreted textual evidence to indicate that after the Hurrian king Shattuara of Mitanni was defeated by Adad-nirari I of the Middle Assyrian Empire in the early 13th century BC, he then became ruler of a reduced vassal state known as Shubria or Subartu.[4] The name Subartu (Sumerian: Shubur) for the region is attested much earlier, from the time of the earliest Mesopotamian records (mid 3rd millennium BC).

Together with Armani-Subartu (Hurri-Mitanni), Hayasa-Azzi and other populations of the region such as the Nairi fell under Urartian (Kingdom of Ararat) rule in the 9th century BC, and their descendants, according to most scholars, later contributed to the ethnogenesis of the Armenians.[5][6][7]

Shupria is mentioned in the letter of Esarhaddon to the god Assur. Esarhaddon undertook an expedition against Shupria in 674, subjugating it.

See also

References

  1. Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles, Albert Kirk Grayson, p. 263.
  2. Lang, David Marshall. Armenia: Cradle of Civilization. London: Allen and Unwin, 1970, p. 114. ISBN 0-04-956007-7.
  3. Redgate, Anna Elizabeth. The Armenians. Cornwall: Blackwell, 1998, pp. 16–19, 23, 25, 26 (map), 30–32, 38, 43 ISBN 0-631-22037-2.
  4. Cambridge Ancient History p.276
  5. Armenians article, Great Soviet Encyclopedia
  6. Mitannian (Armenian) origin
  7. Jacquetta Hawkes, The First Great Civilizations "Yet the Hurrians did not disappear from history. Away to the North in their Armenian homeland, they entrenched themselves and build up the kingdom of Urartu."; M. Chahin, The Kingdom of Armenia, "The new kingdom of Urartu, which proved to be the stronghold of the Hurrian race."