Top: An inscription dated c. 2130 BCE, mentioning the Gutians: "Lugalanatum, prince of Umma ... built the E.GIDRU [Sceptre] Temple at Umma, buried his foundation deposit [and] regulated the orders. At that time, Siium was king of Gutium." The name 𒄖𒋾𒌝𒆠, gu-ti-umKI appears in the last column. Louvre Museum. Bottom: Approximate location of original Gutium territory
The Guti (/ˈɡuːti/), also known by the derived exonymsGutians or Guteans, were a non Semitic and non Indo-European people of the ancient Near East who both appeared and disappeared during the Bronze Age. Their homeland was known as Gutium (Sumerian: 𒄖𒌅𒌝𒆠, GutūmKI or 𒄖𒋾𒌝𒆠, GutiumKI).[1][2]
Conflict between people from Gutium and the Akkadian Empire has been linked to the collapse of the empire, towards the end of the 3rd millennium BCE. The Guti subsequently overran southern Mesopotamia and formed the short lived Gutian dynasty of Sumer. The Sumerian king list suggests that the Guti ruled over Sumer for several generations following the fall of the Akkadian Empire and oversaw a reduction in written record and agriculture in the region.[3]
By the mid 1st millennium BCE, use of the name "Gutium", by the Semitic Assyrians and Babylonians of Mesopotamia had become merely a geographical term, and was extended to include all foreigners from northwestern Iran, between the Zagros Mountains and the Tigris River. Thus, various unrelated tribes and places to the east and northeast, regardless of ethnicity and language, were often referred to as Gutians or Gutium.[4] For example, Assyrian royal annals use the term Gutians in relation to populations known to have been Medes or Mannaeans, two groups unrelated to one another. As late as the reign of Cyrus the Great of Persia, the famous general Gubaru (Gobryas) was described as the "governor of Gutium".[5]
The Gutians capturing a Babylonian city, as Akkadians are making a stand outside their city. 19th century illustration.
Little is known of the origins, material culture or language of the Guti, as contemporary sources provide few details and no artifacts have been positively identified.[6] As the Gutian language lacks a text corpus due to the illiteracy of the Gutians, apart from some proper names, its similarities to other languages are impossible to verify. The names of Gutian kings suggest that the language was not closely related to any languages spoken in the region during the 3rd and early 2nd millennium BC, including Sumerian, Akkadian, Hurrian, Hittite, Amorite and Elamite. Most scholars reject the attempt to link Gutian king names to Indo-European languages, and the Gutians both appear and disappear long before Indo-European peoples entered the region.[7]
Sargon the Great (r. c. 2340–2284 BCE) also mentions them among his subject lands, listing them between Lullubi, Armanum and Akkad to the north; Nikku and Der to the south. According to one stele, Naram-Sin of Akkad's army of 360,000 soldiers defeated the Gutian king Gula'an, despite having 90,000 slain by the Gutians.
The epic Cuthean Legend of Naram-Sin claims Gutium among the lands raided by Annubanini of Lulubum during the reign of Naram-Sin (c. 2254–2218 BCE).[10] Contemporary year-names for Shar-kali-sharri of Akkad indicate that in one unknown year of his reign, Shar-kali-sharri captured Sharlag king of Gutium, while in another year, "the yoke was imposed on Gutium".[11]
Votive macehead of Gutian king La-erabum, and its inscription "La-eraab, great King of Gutiim" (𒆷𒂍𒊏𒀊 𒁕𒈝 𒈗 𒄖𒋾𒅎la-e-ra-ab da-num lugal gutiim). The name is quite damaged, and was initially read "Lasiraab".[12]British Museum (BM 90852)
During the Akkadian Empire period the Gutians slowly grew in strength and then established a capital at the Early Dynastic city of Adab, a hitherto Sumero-Akkadian city state.[13] The Gutians eventually overran Akkad, and as the King List tells us, their army also subdued Uruk for hegemony of Sumer, in about 2147~2050 BCE. However, it seems that autonomous rulers soon arose again in a number of city-states, notably Gudea of Lagash, while Upper Mesopotamia (Assyria) appears to have been largely unaffected by the Gutians.
The Gutians seem also to have briefly overrun Elam at around the same time, towards the close of Kutik-Inshushinak's reign (c. 2100 BCE).[14] On a statue of the Gutian king Erridupizir at Nippur, an inscription imitates his Akkadian predecessors, styling him "King of Gutium, King of the Four Quarters".
The Weidner Chronicle (written c. 500 BCE), portrays the Gutian kings as uncultured and uncouth:
Naram-Sin destroyed the people of Babylon, so twice Marduk summoned the forces of Gutium against him. Marduk gave his kingship to the Gutian force. The Gutians were unhappy people unaware how to revere the gods, ignorant of the right cultic practices. Utu-hengal, the fisherman, caught a fish at the edge of the sea for an offering. That fish should not be offered to another god until it had been offered to Marduk, but the Gutians took the boiled fish from his hand before it was offered, so by his august command, Marduk removed the Gutian force from the rule of his land and gave it to Utu-hengal.
Utu-Khegal, Prince of the Sumerian city of Uruk, praying for victory against the Gutian king Tirigan.
The Sumerian ruler Utu-hengal, Prince of the Sumerian city of Uruk is similarly credited on the King List with defeating the Gutian ruler Tirigan, and removing the Guti from the country in c. 2050 BCE (short chronology).[15]
In his Victory Stele, Utu-hengal wrote about the Gutians:
Utu-hengal's victory stele, where he describes the Gutians he vanquished as "the fanged snake of the mountain ranges". Louvre Museum, AO 6018.[16]
Gutium, the fanged snake of the mountain ranges, a people who acted violently against the gods, people who the kingship of Sumer to the mountains took away, who Sumer with wickedness filled, who from one with a wife his wife took away from him, who from one with a child his child took away from him, who produced wickedness and violence within the country ..."
Following this, Ur-Nammu of Ur ordered the complete destruction of Gutium. The year 11 of king Ur-Nammu also mentions the "year Gutium was destroyed".[18] However, according to a Sumerian epic, Ur-Nammu died in battle with the Gutians, after having been abandoned by his own army.
A Babylonian text from the early 2nd millennium refers to the Guti as having
The Gutians, as a distinct people, disappeared from history in the early part of the 2nd millennium BC, though the name endured until the mid 1st millennium BC as a geographical area and was also used as a catch all term to describe various later inhabitants of the region regardless of their ethnic and linguistic background.
Some biblical scholars believe that the Guti may be the Qoa, named with the Shoa and Pekod as enemies of Jerusalem in Ezekiel 23:23,[20] which was probably written in the 6th century BCE.
^Johns, C.H.W.; Parpola, Simo (1970). Tallqvist, Knut Leonard; Dietrich, Manfried; Bergerhof, Kurt (eds.). Neo-Assyrian Toponyms. Alter Orient und Altes Testament. Vol. 6. Kevelaer and Neukirchen-Vluyn: Butzon & Bercker and Neukirchener Verlag. OCLC102576. Open Library OL20241301M.
^Oppenheim, A. Leo (2011). "VIII. Assyrian and Babylonian historical texts". In Pritchard, James B. (ed.). The Ancient Near East: An anthology of texts and pictures. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
^Molina, M. (2019). Wicke, D. (ed.). The palace of Adab during the Sargonic period(PDF). Der Palast im antiken und islamischen Orient, Colloquien der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 9. Wiesbaden, DE: Harrassowitz. p. 151 – via digital.csic.es.
^Sicker, Martin (2000). The Pre-Islamic Middle East. p. 19.
^ abFull transcription and translation in: "RIME 2.13.06.04 composite". CDLI-found texts. cdli.ucla.edu. Translated by Frayne, Douglas R. Los Angeles, CA: University of California. 1993 [c.2340–2200 BCE]. P433096.
^Thureau-Dangin, Fr. (1912). "La fin de la domination Gutienne" [The end of Gutian domination]. Revue d'Assyriologie et d'archéologie orientale (in French). 9 (3): 111–120. ISSN0373-6032. JSTOR23283609.
^Ansky, S. (12 February 2018) [1992]. "The cursing of Akkade". In Roskies, David G. (ed.). The Harps that Once ... [sic] : Sumerian poetry in translation. Translated by Werman, Golda. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. pp. 359–374. doi:10.12987/9780300161878. ISBN978-0-3001-6187-8.
^See, for example, Douglas, J.D.; Tenney, Merrill C. (2011). Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary (3rd ed.). HarperCollins. p. 1897.
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