Артефакты из раскопок Кармир блура и новая интерпретация урартского термина šišuhani

Abstract

In 2021, during the excavations on the territory of Karmir Blur (Red Hill), a huge complex of the Urartian period was discovered by the Armenian and Austrian archaeologists who evidenced it had been the royal stable. In 782 BC the Urartian king Argishti I founded the city of Er(e)buni, the present capital of Armenia Yerevan. And since in his legend he stated that he had built this city in order to subdue the rival countries (i.e., “for horrifying them”), it is ensued that the fortress of the Teisheba (Teshub, the God of war) situated in Karmir Blur, as well as the newly discovered stable had been built by the same belligerent Urartian king Argishti, the son of Menua. My scientific surveys have shown that the discovered construction is not a stable, but in a wider interpretation, it is a “billet (իջևանատուն)for the royal cavalry (այրուձի)” for an overnight lodging and replacing the tired horses with more vigorous ones to continue the incursion, sometimes right before the battle with the enemy. The fact of discovering a stable with the remains of horses fully coincides with my disclosure of the meaning of the Urartian term “šišuhani”, which formerly has been translated by all urartologists with almost a zero meaning, namely – «again». According to the new semantic interpretation, this is a compound word consisting of two roots: “šišu” (= a horse, a mare, a race-horse, a stallion) and “han” (= an inn). My new interpretation is based on an episode from Movses Khorenatsi’s "History of Armenia". The brilliant Armenian historian of the 5th century amazingly preserved for the future descendants not only the word “khan” (inn), but also described the scene of the Armenian king Yervand’s escape (201 BC), during which the latter took advantage of the possibility of replacing horses in a khan. This narrative, proving the existence of the havens for horses in the capital of Armenia, Yervandashat, in the 3rd century BC, fully confirms the meaning and the purpose of the historical constructions discovered in Karmir Blur, moreover, it testifies the unshakable unity of Urartu and Armenia․