Talk:Kurunta

Spelling of "Teshup"

Any clue on Wikipaedia's orthography for the Hurrian storm god? -- Zimriel 15:25, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Ulmi-Teshup, child of Muwatalli II: Kurunta's birth name, or wife?

Well, THIS is mind-blowing -

According to the Hurrian / Hittite bilingual "K Bo XXXII 15 IV 2-3 = III 4": ulmi is the female counterpart to kurami, "male-slave". (Neu 1996, 346, 451; c.f. Comparative Notes on Hurro-Urartian, Northern Caucasian)

Has anyone given thought to the idea that Ulmi-Teshup might be Muwatalli's daughter and Urhi-Teshup's sister? In that case, "Kurunta" isn't Ulmi's throne name (by analogy with Urhi > Mursili III); Kurunta is Ulmi's Luwian husband.

Old Hittite doesn't have a grammatical distinction between male and female genders; it prefers "animate" and "inanimate". But Muwatalli's time is 13th century, and there may be indications of Ulmi's sex scattered around late-stage cuneiform and/or hieroglyphic. -- Zimriel 15:25, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

The notion of Ulmi-Tessup as a female is far too speculative. His name is preceded by the male, not the female, determinative, he is specifically referred to as a 'king', not a 'queen', and his wife is mentioned twice in the treaty. ~~ 69.109.188.199 04:36, 16 June 2006

I would argue that it is still relevant for a mention in the main article, that ulmi is feminine. And the name being preceded with a male determinative could be the Hittites' way of directing the treaty's provisoes to Kurunta through his queen.

I'm not going to initiate an article update war; it doesn't look like you're going to back down and life is too short as it is.

Nice of you to keep some of the controversy on the main page, but I will say that I'm disheartened that you deleted the meaning of Ulmi's name off it. Also, since you're posting under your IP, no-one has any idea on your credentials beyond SBC Internet Services (69.104-111.x.x). -- Zimriel 15:41, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Zimriel, I clearly offended you with my changes, for which I apologize. That was not my intention at all. However, I believe the reasons I gave for the edits are sufficient to justify the changes. I don't think the talk board is intended for long defenses of a position, but perhaps I can at least clarify my reasoning a bit more in hopes of making the peace.

After reviewing Wikipedia policy on original research, I realize I should have been including references with my edits. I am guilty of not doing that. But I think your proposal that Ulmi-Tessup is possibly female qualifies as original research, since I am not aware of any scholar who has proposed it. That means a better place for your proposal to be debated would be on, perhaps, a discussion board of some type such as Usenet.

Also remember that, if you accept that Kurunta and Ulmi-Tessup are the same person, then you need to include all references to Kurunta as well when trying to determine his genealogy. The Bronze Tablet discusses how Muwatalli entrusted Kurunta to Hattusili for his upbringing, at which time he became fast friends with Tudhaliya. And Kurunta explicitly identifies himself as a son of Muwatalli, although of course he would say exactly the same thing if he were his son-in-law.

I did consider leaving your link about the word "ulmi" when I made my edits, and I did read that link. I will give my reasons why I didn't leave it, and then you can restore it if you like. The Hittite-Hurrian bilingual actually has "ki-i-ru-nu-ul-mi-ip", not "ul-mi-ip". At least, according to the hand copy, KBo 32.15 Rs. IV 3. Apparently this is interpreted as poor word spacing, and divided into "ki-i-ru-nu ul-mi-ip", but I wanted to read the discussion of this in the published text edition to understand the analysis, to see if we really are dealing with a word "ulmi" here at all. Unfortunately, I do not have access to the edition at this time, nor access to the Hurrian glossary by Laroche referenced in that article. This is further unfortunate since one of these sources might discuss "Ulmi-Tessup" explicitly. However, I decided that, (1) the analysis of the word was in question, at least in my mind, (2) the evidence for Ulmi-Tessup's sex is otherwise overwhelming, and (3) a more likely explanation is that we are dealing with a homonym. If it is a homonym, then the definition, and the link, become irrelevant.

A few other points. If I understand correctly your statement that the male determinative could be "directing the treaty's provisoes to Kurunta through his queen", then you are suggesting it is being used similar to the way that we would say in English, "Mrs. John Smith". Is that correct? If so, then I would point out that this is not how determinatives are used in cuneiform. They simply set off the catagory that the object belongs to, i.e. "human male", "human female". They are not titles like "Mr." or "Mrs.". Other determinatives include, for example, "wool", "wood", "stone", "town", "vessel", and "deity".

Finally, there is no cultural reason I can think of for Kurunta to be referred to indirectly through his wife in a treaty. To begin with, the Hittite Great King was free to appoint whoever he wanted to the kingship of Tarhuntassa (Cf. Telipinu at Aleppo,Sarri-Kusush at Charchemish, and Hattusili himself at Hakpis). Next, even if he did want to reinforce his choice's legitimacy by marrying him to a daughter of the royal dynasty, that would still be no reason to speak of him through his wife. There is more than one example of a Hittite vassal king being married to a daughter of the royal line, and there is no problem with referencing the vassal king directly (E.g Huqqana of Hayasa, Sattiwaza of Mitanni). There are even several Hittite Great Kings who owed their throne to their marriage to a royal daughter, but no need to indirectly reference themselves in any way.

I hope that this does not add fuel to the fire. If for no other reason than the "no original research" policy, I recommend removing all references to this hypothesis, and that this idea be taken up and debated in some other more appropriate forum. And I apologize again if I have offended you. 69.109.188.199 21:49, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. Now that I see your reasoning I get where you are coming from. Also I was happy that you corrected my mistake on which monarch it was who moved the seat of state back to Hattusa, so thanks for that too (I stuck in a reference to the relevant tablet just for, you know, kicks). And I apologise for venting.

I try to put in "avenues for future research" where I think the consensus may have gone in the wrong direction; still, I do need to work on not crossing that border into "original research" on my own part.

I'll leave the article as is; hopefully some kindly Hurrian expert will happen along and throw us some better references. -- Zimriel 16:53, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

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