The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> follow the bouncing assyrian....Zack Cherry

follow the bouncing assyrian....Zack Cherry
Posted by pancho (Moderator) - Wednesday, September 18 2013, 4:56:44 (UTC)
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...and yes, he is assyrian.

You have to follow the illogic closely...in the first place the Turkey tablet is eagerly described, because they think it makes their point...on the other hand, when you'd think they'd want even more detail...they just say, "as it is clearly shown"..or, "as it is known"..with no example..no tablet, no book, nothing but their statement which amounts to little more than that old opinion business they always trot out, with a little "academic" cover this time....here are his own words...

"A stone with a 2800 year old inscription sheds new light on today's Assyrian identity and the relation between the terms Suroyo, Suryoyo and Asuroyo. According to Prof. Robert Rollinger the question is solved. "Suroye or Suryoye means nothing else than Assyrians", he says to hujada.com.

...that's true, but ONLY to the people of Cinekoy, that small kinglet the Assyrians conquered and which had this peculiar way of spelling..only to them, not to the Assyrians themselves...all this tablet shows is that different people, with different languages and grammars etc., had some odd ways of referring to the Assyrians, one of which was to drop the initial letter "A"...which is no more significant than realizing that the French call us "les Americains"...this is THEIR word for us, not our own...how does this prove that those who called themselves Syrians for centuries REALLY meant "Assyrians"...how?

"The stone with the important inscription was recently found in today's southeastern Turkey, more precisely in Cineköy in the vicinity of the city Adana. The archaeologists say the inscription dates from circa 800 BC, making it astonishingly 2800 years old. The striking feature of this particular inscription is its bilingual form, as it is written both in Phoenician and Luwian. Phoenician is not spoken anymore but back then it was the language of the Phoenicians who were traders along the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. Luwian is another dead language that was spoken by people in Anatolia but which later was replaced by the Aramaic language around 500 BC."

....The Phoenicians called the Assyrians by their proper name..apparently in their language they didn't drop the "A", so they said it the way the Assyrians themselves said it...and, as he points out, both Luwian (Cinekoy) and Phoenician died and were replaced by Aramaic...NOT Luwian, meaning the Luwian spelling of Assyria also died with them ansd was replaced by Aramaic and in Aramaic we have always been Syrians not Assyrians.

"In the inscription, successfully translated by archaeologists, a local king named Urriki from the area of Cineköy tells of his relationship with the Assyrian empire. In the Phoenician version of the inscription the word Assyria is written "Assur" but in the Luwian version the same word is written "Sur". These two ways to write "Assyria" have caught the eye of the researchers as it might settle the much debated question about the names Assyria and Syria.

...it "might" have...but it doesn't. It would have if an Akkadian tablet had been found in which the Assyrians THEMSELVES referred to themselves as also Syrians or Sur.

"In the fourth issue of the highly acclaimed "Journal of Near Eastern Studies" from October 2006, Professor Robert Rollinger from the Leopold-Franzens-Universität in Innsbruck, Austria, argues that the Cineköy inscription delivers a definite answer to the question debated since the Middle Ages. Prof. Rollinger argues that the bilingual inscription proves beyond all reasonable doubt that the name Syria is only a shorter version of Assyria. Prof. Rollinger, who is considered an authority on the history, languages and cultures of the Orient, has only received positive feedback from other researchers regarding his conclusions. Positive feedback has also reached him from the Assyrian community who also has debated the question for a long-time now. The Professor has himself now put all questions aside."

..I'm sure the professor has HIMSELF put all questions aside...but that doesn't do it for everyone else...and yes, there are serious scholars who disagree, only one of whom is John Joseph....

...Rollinger says this tablet proves that.."Syria is only a shorter version of Assyria".....well D'UH! Of course this "proves it"...but only for the LUWIANS...in THEIR language. And they were not trying to "shorten" it...this was just a peculiarity of their language...but there is no evidence that the Assyrians THEMSELVES were engaged in shortening their own name...I mean REALLY!

"In my opinion this will put an end to all discussions, I am one hundred percent sure of it because it is written clearly in the inscription.

...yes, in the LUWIAN language...NOT in the language of the ASSYRIANS!

We have the luck of finding the same text in two different languages, Phoenician on one side and Luwian on the other side, it is clearly a bilingual inscription. In the Phoenician version we have the word Assyria written in its original form with an 'A' in the beginning making it "Assur". In the Luwian version we have the same word but without the initial A making it "Sur". So the name Assyria had lost the initial 'A' in the Luwian version.


...yes, but only in the LUWIAN VERSION. In the Akkadian version, in their own language, the Assyrians never called THEMSELVES Syrians, neither did the Phoenicians..so if anything this proves that ONLY the Luwians (to date) used this peculiar spelling...but no evidence at all that the Assyrians also used it to refer to themselves.

" Of course both "Assur" and "Sur" mean Assyria; the only difference is the usage of the shorter form of the word Assyria in the Luwian text, he told hujada.com"


...what do you mean "of course"? The both mean "Assyria" in two DIFFERENT languages...that's like "proving" that the word for that flat top surface we eat off of is called "table" by Americans and "mesa" by Mexicans....and you can say that BOTH mean table....but how have you proven that Mexicans are North Americans? is it a surprise that they would have different names for the same object...after all, they ARE different languages! But Americans don't call their tables "mesa"..and Mexicans don;t call their mesa "table".

...hence Luwiana called the ancients Syrians....and the Assyrians called themselves Assyrians. Both MEANT the same thing, but to DIFFERENT PEOPLE...in DIFFERENT LANGUAGES! This really needs explaining?


What are then the consequences of Prof. Rollingers conclusions regarding today's Assyrians?

For as long as we remember we have called ourselves in our western dialect Suroye or the version with the extra "y" spelled Suryoye. And in the eastern dialect we have called ourselves Suraye or Suryaye. Both versions of the name sound very similar with the name "Sur" found in the Cineköy inscription which itself means Assyria. Could it be that Suroye, Suryoye and Suraye, Suryaye all mean Assyrians?

Did the Assyrian movement draw the right conclusions when it pointed out this connection from the beginning?

Prof. Rollinger himself has no doubt about the connection.

"I totally agree that these names mean Assyrians. From an etymological point of view, that is where the name came from, I think it is totally clear. It is an abbreviation of the name Assyria, he says and adds:

"And of course, in this area of Cilicia and northern Syria, exactly in this time we are talking about (800 BC), there were other than Assyrians; many Arameans, Luwians and Greeks. And of course the Arameans also used this expression for designating Assyria", says Rollinger and elaborates further:

...they did? Where's the evidence? This is a most provocative point; that Arameans adopted the Luwian spelling for their traditional foes the Assyrians. Why would they do that? The Arameans are from the land of the Phoenicians and we see, in this tablet, that the Phoenicians used the correct spelling of "Assyrian" not Syrian....you'd think Rollinger would want to say something about this rather than just saying..",,,of course...".

"Generally speaking you have to distinguish between two aspects, one is the linguistic level, where the name comes from, and the other is the identity concerning culture, race, blood and things like that which are much more difficult and much more complicated to investigate."

...this clarifies nothing....seems to me that even without this marvellous tablet's discovery Rollinger had "proof" that Aramaens called the Assyrians Syrians...so, who needed the tablet? Also, why not show the evidence for that since it is central to the whole issue which Rollinger says has been a bone of contention for years...where is the proof that Arameans started calling the Assyrians "Syrians"? Why did the Arameans adopt the Luwian spelling? And surely this "lost A" would have been "found" long before WW I? Why didn;t the assyrians, who adopted Aramaic, go back to their OWN spelling...since they USED the initial "A"...why would they stick with the spelling handed over to them by their mortal foes which THEY picked up from another defeated nationette?

"But concerning the name, it is now totally clear", says the eminent researcher.

...well, naturally he would like to think so...but hardly. Turns out what's on that tablet really isn't the issue...let's say the Luwian name for Assyrians was "Crumbollas"...why would it follow that first the Arameans and then the Assyrians would adopt the Luwian name for themselves?

..all this tablet does is show us that a certain people had a certain way of spelling "Assyrian"...that's all. What we need to have demonstrated is

1. that the Arameans picked up the Luwian spelling for the Assyrians

2. that the Assyrians then picked it up as well.

...But, I think I know the game...because in Aramaic WE say Syrian...Rollinger is presenting it as if the Arameans themselves, long before they disappeared from history and we took on their language...tat the Arameans BACK THEN used the Luwian spelling...and that he hasn't shown...all he's done is say..."Look, the assyirna sspeak Aramaic today and today in Aramaic they say Syrian...so the EARLY Arameans, speaking Aramaic, must have done the same"...nice try!

... it is we assyrians who are now saying Syrian is the same as Assyrian.....where is the proof that ancient Arameans used the term?



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