Tutankhamen Statue Found in Kurdistan

From monstersandcritics.com Middle East News Found in Iraq: King "Tut" Feb 12, 2009, 16:48 GMT Dohuk, Iraq - A Kurdish archaeological expedition announced on Thursday that it had found a small statue of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen in northern Iraq, a Kurdish news agency reported. Hassan Ahmed, the director of the local antiquities authority, told the Kurdish news agency Akanews that archaeologists had found a 12-centimeter statue of the ancient Egyptian king in the valley of Dahuk, 470 kilometres north of Baghdad, near a site that locals have long called Pharaoh's Castle. He said archaeologists from the Dahuk Antiquities Authority believe the statue dates from the mid-14th Century BC. Ahmed said the statue of Tutankhamen showed 'the face of the ancient civilization of Kurdistan and cast light on the ancient relations between pharaonic Egypt and the state of Mitanni.' The kingdom of Mittani occupied roughly the same territory spanning Syria, Iraq, Turkey, and Iran in the 14th Century BC that many Kurds now hope will one day form an independent Kurdistan. 'Historical information indicates familial and political ties between Mittani and Egypt,' Ahmed said. 'The discovery of this statue shows us that the name of Pharaoh's Castle, was not invented out of vacuum, but rather arose out of historical fact,' Ahmed told Akanews. 'This calls for strengthening archaeological research ties between the territory of Kurdistan and the Arab Republic of Egypt.' (c) Deutsche Presse-Agentur

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The Mittani were the original "horse-whisperers." They spoke a language that was neither Indo-European nor Semitic - it was Hurrian, and an exquisitely detailed horse-training manual originally dictated in that language by the great horse trainer Kikkuli, was translated into Hittite and Akkadian in the 14th century BCE. According to Robert Drews ("The Coming of the Greeks", 90), "[t]he fact of translation into other languages shows how great a value was put upon the expertise of a famous [horse] trainer". This was during the great age of chariot warfare and the Mittani horse-whisperers were in great demand in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and the Levant. In the Hittite language, these horse-training men (a literal translation) were called LU.ashshushshani. The reconstructed proto-Indo-European root word for horse is ekwo, perhaps originally derived from oku. Words descended include equestrian, equine, equitant, from Latin equus, horse; second derivative line of words is hippus, hippocampus, hippocene, hippodrome, hipogriff, hippotamus, from Greek hippos, horse. In Sanskrit (India) this became something like ashwa; in Pahlavi (Persia) asp; in Farsi (Iran) asb. In the Hittite phrase LU.ashshushshani, the PIE root word for horse - ash- is evident. The specially bred long-legged horses that were the most highly coveted to pull these light-weight war chariots were imported from the land that is today Armenia, the same place that, according to Drews, the eight-spoked chariot wheel first appeared in about 1800 BCE. By about 1650 BCE the swift, light-weight war chariot ridden on two strong but aerodynamic eight-spoked wheels enabled the Hkysos to conquer most of Egypt. Personally, I have always thought that the ancient PIE root word for horse - ekwo - and the word Hyksos have a linguistic connection. Some day I hope to have the time to learn more about linguistics, a fascinating field, and etymology. I think learning more about these subjects could yield valuable clues about the true meanings of the names of the ancestors of the chess pieces we use today.