Umman Manda (
Akkadian language: ) is a term used in the early second and first millennia BC for a poorly known people in the
Ancient Near East. They have been identified in different contexts as
Hurrians
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 Mes ...
,
Elamites,
Medes,
Cimmerians, and
Scythians.
The homeland of Umman Manda seems to be somewhere from Central Anatolia to north or northeastern
Babylonia
Babylonia (; Akkadian: , ''māt Akkadī'') was an ancient Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Syria). It emerged as an Amorite-ruled state c. ...
, possibly in what later came to be known as
Mitanni,
Mannae, or
Media.
Zaluti, whose name seems to have an Indo-Iranian etymology, is mentioned as a leader of Ummanda Manda. He is even suggested to be identified with
Salitis the founder of the
Hyksos, the
Fifteenth dynasty of Egypt.
The principal literary source is the so-called
''Cuthaean Legend'' of
Naram-Sin, a composition that deals with the third-millennium BC king of
Agade (Akkad) Naram-Sin and his struggles against the Umman-manda. As a
literary topos, the Umman-manda represent a socio-cultural phenomenon with a strong theological basis: The Umman-manda are created by the gods and called forth from their homeland on the northeastern frontier of Mesopotamia by the chief god, be it
Enlil
Enlil, , "Lord f theWind" later known as Elil, is an ancient Mesopotamian god associated with wind, air, earth, and storms. He is first attested as the chief deity of the Sumerian pantheon, but he was later worshipped by the Akkadians, Bab ...
,
Marduk
Marduk (Cuneiform: dAMAR.UTU; Sumerian: ''amar utu.k'' "calf of the sun; solar calf"; ) was a god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city of Babylon. When Babylon became the political center of the Euphrates valley in the time of ...
, or
Aššur
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'a ...
, for some particular work of destruction; since this destruction is divinely ordained, human beings are powerless to stop it, and in fact are enjoined against interfering; when the destruction is completed, the gods themselves will destroy the Umman-manda. In the literary topos, the Umman-manda is the enemy of civilization. The question of who the original Umman-manda were remains a mystery.
[ The Cyrus Cylinder however, states that the Umman-manda were subdued by ]Cyrus the Great
Cyrus II of Persia (; peo, 𐎤𐎢𐎽𐎢𐏁 ), commonly known as Cyrus the Great, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire, the first Persian empire. Schmitt Achaemenid dynasty (i. The clan and dynasty) Under his rule, the empire embraced ...
, and therefore made part of the Achaemenid Empire
The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest em ...
just before he captured Babylon in 539 BC. According to the Cyrus Cylinder: "Cyrus, king of Anšan ..made the land of Gutium and all the Umman-manda bow in submission at his feet."
In the first millennium BC, the term denoted Cimmerians
References
Bibliography
*The Coming of the Greeks: Indo-European Conquests in the Aegean and the Near East, Robert Drews, Princeton University Press, 1989, , , 276 pages, see pages 226-230.
Ancient Near East
Ancient peoples
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