Shupria or Shubria ( hy, Շուպրիա) was an
Hurrian
The Hurrians (; cuneiform: ; transliteration: ''Ḫu-ur-ri''; also called Hari, Khurrites, Hourri, Churri, Hurri or Hurriter) were a people of the Bronze Age Near East. They spoke a Hurrian language and lived in Anatolia, Syria and Northern ...
kingdom known from
Assyria
Assyria ( Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the ...
n sources from the 13th century BC onward, in the
Armenian Highlands, to the south-west of
Lake Van
Lake Van ( tr, Van Gölü; hy, Վանա լիճ, translit=Vana lič̣; ku, Gola Wanê) is the largest lake in Turkey. It lies in the far east of Turkey, in the provinces of Van and Bitlis in the Armenian highlands. It is a saline soda lake ...
, bordering
Urartu
Urartu (; Assyrian: ',Eberhard Schrader, ''The Cuneiform inscriptions and the Old Testament'' (1885), p. 65. Babylonian: ''Urashtu'', he, אֲרָרָט ''Ararat'') is a geographical region and Iron Age kingdom also known as the Kingdom of V ...
. The capital was Ubbumu. The name Shupria is often regarded as derived from, or even synonymous with, the earlier kingdom of
Subartu
The land of Subartu (Akkadian ''Šubartum/Subartum/ina Šú-ba-ri'', Assyrian '' mât Šubarri'') or Subar (Sumerian Su-bir4/Subar/Šubur, Ugaritic 𐎘𐎁𐎗 ṯbr) is mentioned in Bronze Age literature. The name also appears as ''Subari'' in ...
(
Sumerian: ''Shubur''), mentioned in Mesopotamian records as early as the 3rd millennium BC. The Sumerians appear to have used the name Subartu to describe an area corresponding to
Upper Mesopotamia
Upper Mesopotamia is the name used for the uplands and great outwash plain of northwestern Iraq, northeastern Syria and southeastern Turkey, in the northern Middle East. Since the early Muslim conquests of the mid-7th century, the region has been ...
and/or
Assyria
Assyria ( Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the ...
.
Ernst Weidner interpreted textual evidence to indicate that after a
Hurrian
The Hurrians (; cuneiform: ; transliteration: ''Ḫu-ur-ri''; also called Hari, Khurrites, Hourri, Churri, Hurri or Hurriter) were a people of the Bronze Age Near East. They spoke a Hurrian language and lived in Anatolia, Syria and Northern ...
king,
Shattuara
Shattuara, also spelled Šattuara, was a king of the Hurrian kingdom of Mittani c. 1305-1285 BC.
Shattuara became a vassal of the Assyrian king Adad-nirari I (1263 BC) after the latter defeated him. In an inscription made by Adad-nirari I, he is s ...
of
Mitanni
Mitanni (; Hittite cuneiform ; ''Mittani'' '), c. 1550–1260 BC, earlier called Ḫabigalbat in old Babylonian texts, c. 1600 BC; Hanigalbat or Hani-Rabbat (''Hanikalbat'', ''Khanigalbat'', cuneiform ') in Assyrian records, or ''Naharin'' in ...
, was defeated by
Adad-nirari I of the
Middle Assyrian Empire in the early 13th century BC, he became ruler of a reduced vassal state, Shupria or Subartu.
Regardless, the region fell under
Urartian
Urartian or Vannic is an extinct Hurro-Urartian language which was spoken by the inhabitants of the ancient kingdom of Urartu (''Biaini'' or ''Biainili'' in Urartian), which was centered on the region around Lake Van and had its capital, Tushpa, ...
rule in the 9th century BC. Their descendants, according to most scholars, contributed to the ethnogenesis of the
Armenians
Armenians ( hy, հայեր, '' hayer'' ) are an ethnic group native to the Armenian highlands of Western Asia. Armenians constitute the main population of Armenia and the ''de facto'' independent Artsakh. There is a wide-ranging diasp ...
and the neighbouring people. Some scholars have linked a district in the area, ''
Arme'' or ''Armani'', to the
name ''Armenia''. Medieval Islamic scholars, relying on ancient sources, claimed that the people of ''Subar'' (Subartu or Shupria) and the ''Armani'' (Armenians) had shared ancestry. These scholars include the 17th century Ottoman traveller and historian
Evliya Çelebi
Derviş Mehmed Zillî (25 March 1611 – 1682), known as Evliya Çelebi ( ota, اوليا چلبى), was an Ottoman explorer who travelled through the territory of the Ottoman Empire and neighboring lands over a period of forty years, recording ...
(''Derviş Mehmed Zillî'') in his most important work "''
Seyāḥat-nāme''"(Book IV, Chapter 41).
In the early 7th century BC, Shupria was mentioned in the letter of the Assyrian King
Esarhaddon
Esarhaddon, also spelled Essarhaddon, Assarhaddon and Ashurhaddon ( Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , also , meaning " Ashur has given me a brother"; Biblical Hebrew: ''ʾĒsar-Ḥaddōn'') was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from the death of hi ...
to the god
Assur
Aššur (; Sumerian: AN.ŠAR2KI, Assyrian cuneiform: ''Aš-šurKI'', "City of God Aššur"; syr, ܐܫܘܪ ''Āšūr''; Old Persian ''Aθur'', fa, آشور: ''Āšūr''; he, אַשּׁוּר, ', ar, اشور), also known as Ashur and Qal ...
. Esarhaddon undertook an expedition against Shupria in 674, subjugating it.
At least one king of Shupria, Anhitte, was mentioned by
Shalmaneser III
Shalmaneser III (''Šulmānu-ašarēdu'', "the god Shulmanu is pre-eminent") was king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from the death of his father Ashurnasirpal II in 859 BC to his own death in 824 BC.
His long reign was a constant series of campai ...
.
The term Arme-Shupria
Shubria is not attested in Urartian texts. For this reason, Melikishvili hypothesized that the Urartian term Urme denoted Shupria or overlapped with it geographically. Diakonov disagreed to this and coined the term Arme-Shupria (also
Urme-Shupria ) to denote a broader region in the sources of Tigris and Mush plain.
This term was mostly used in post-Soviet countries and it is virtually absent in Western literature. It is also absent both in Assyrian and Urartian corpus. Given that the royal city of Arme was Nihiria while the royal cities of Shubria were Kullimeri and Ubbumu, it is very unlikely that they were the same polity. In most likelihood they were different, but neighboring, polities.
[Igor Diakonoff. ''The Prehistory of the Armenians'' (in Russian). Chapter II. Footnote 150]
/ref>
See also
*Armani (kingdom)
Armani was an ancient kingdom mentioned by Sargon of Akkad.
Location
Syria: ''Armani'' was mentioned alongside ''Ibla'' in the geographical treaties of Sargon. This led some historians to identify ''Ibla'' with Syrian Ebla and ''Armani'' with Syri ...
*Bronze Age collapse
The Late Bronze Age collapse was a time of widespread societal collapse during the 12th century BC, between c. 1200 and 1150. The collapse affected a large area of the Eastern Mediterranean (North Africa and Southeast Europe) and the Near ...
*Proto-Armenian language
Proto-Armenian is the earlier, unattested stage of the Armenian language which has been reconstructed by linguists. As Armenian is the only known language of its branch of the Indo-European languages, the comparative method cannot be used to re ...
*Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
References
{{Reflist
Western Armenia
Urartu