Copper or bronze spearheads. Royal cemetery of Ur.3rd millennium BCE.No satisfactory explanation is known for the marking, attested on several objects from the Royal Cemetery. The excavator, Sir Leonard Woolley, thought that it might be a hallmark or even an owner's mark.
No, it was not a hallmark. It was a Meluhha hieroglyph indicating an armourer, a Meluhha maker of weapons.
Hieroglyph on the six spearheads of Ur:
The hieroglyph is comparable to the axe of Tepe Gawra, shown below:
This Meluhha hieroglyph is read rebus:
Hieroglyph:kuṭhāra m. ʻ axe ʼ R., °raka -- m. VarBrS., °rī -- f. lex., °rikā -- f. Suśr. [kuṭhātaṅka -- m., °kā -- f. lex. Prob. ← Drav. and conn. with √kuṭṭ EWA i 223 with lit.]Pa. kuṭhārī -- f., Pk. kuḍhāra -- m., kuhāḍa -- m., °ḍī -- f. (for ṭh -- r ~ h -- ḍ see piṭhara -- ), S. kuhāṛo m., L. kuhāṛā m., °ṛī f., P. kulhāṛā m., °ṛī f., WPah. bhal.kurhāṛi f., Ku. kulyāṛo, gng. kulyāṛ, B. kuṛā̆l, °li, kuṛul, Or. kuṛāla, kurāṛha, °ṛhi, kurhāṛi, kuṛāri; Bi. kulhārī ʻ large axe for squaring logs ʼ; H. kulhāṛā m., °ṛī f. ʻ axe ʼ, G. kuhāṛɔ m., °ṛī f., kuvāṛī f., M. kurhāḍ, °ḍī f., Si. keṇeri Hettiaratchi Indeclinables 6 (connexion, if any, with keṭeri, °ṭēriya ʻ long -- handled axe ʼ is obscure).WPah. ṭg. khəṛari , kəṛari f. ʻ axe ʼ. (CDIAL 3244).कुठार [ kuṭhāra ] m S An ax or a hatchet (Marathi)
Rebus: Rebus: kuṭhāru‘armourer or weapons maker’(metal-worker), also an inscriber or writer.
Allographs: kuṭhāru कुठारु [p= 289,1] [L=51732]m. a tree L.[L=51733]a monkey L.[L=51734]an armourer L. (Monier Williams Sanskrit lexicon)
Go. (Ph.) kuṭār chaff (Voc. 729); (ASu.) kuṭṭār corn without grains. Kur. (Hahn) kuṭṭā chaff. (DEDR 1665).
Ta. kōṭaram monkey. Ir. kōḍa (small) monkey; kūḍag monkey. Ko. ko·ṛṇ small monkey. To. kwṛṇ monkey. Ka. kōḍaga monkey, ape. Koḍ. ko·ḍë monkey. Tu. koḍañji, koḍañja, koḍaṅgů baboon. (DEDR 2196). kuṭhāru = a monkey (Sanskrit)
Tree: kuṭhāru kuṭi ‘tree’ kuṭhi ‘smelter’.
Selected copper or bronze implements from Tepe Gawra, including sickles, axe, chisels and knife. The two needles are from Gawra stratum IV and the knife from stratum V; the other nine objects are from stratum VI. Gawra V-IV cover period ca 2100-1600 BCE; Gawra VI is second half of third millennium BCE. University Museum Collection.
Altar, offered by Tukulti-Ninurta I, 1243-1208 BC, in prayer before two deities carrying wooden standards, Assyria, Bronze Age. Atop the standard is the Meluhha (Assur) hieroglyph: nave of wheel, spokes of wheel [Note: The standards are comparable to the standards discovered in Nahal Mishmar dated to ca. 4400 BCE though made of arsenical copper using cire perdue (lost-wax) casting.] See: http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2014/01/meluhha-standard-compares-with-nahal.html This monograph compares the standards of Nahal Mishmar with Meluhha standard (Indus writing).
Rebus readings of the hieroglyphs carried on standards or banners indicate alloyed copper weapons:
Hieroglyphs: era, er-a = eraka = ?nave of wheel; erakōlu = the iron axle of a carriage (Kannada.Malayalam.) arā 'spoke of wheel' (Vedic)
Rebus: arā ‘brass’, āra ‘brass’ as in ārakūṭa (Sanskrit.). eraka, era, er-a = syn. erka, copper, weapons (Kannada.) eraka, er-aka = any metal infusion (Kannada.Tulu.); erako molten cast (Tulu)
Tin moved from east to west
Tin (as tin oxide SnO2) is found within veins of quartz running hrough the granite rock. Alluvial tin deposits in stream-beds and found in the form of small black nuggets of cassiterite known as tin-stone. The tin-stone smelted together with charcoal freed the oxygen and reduced the oxide to metallic tin.
"...the first real use of tin bronze in Mesopotamia comes at the time of the Royal Cemetery of Ur, dated to E.D. IIIa or roughly the twenth-sixth century BCE...Tin appears in the Royal Cemetery, as at Ebla, together with gold and lapis lazuli. All three materials are to be found in Afghanistan...Oman...copper bun or plano-convex ingots...From the land of Magan located in Oman, the copper imported by the Sumerians must have gone north from the Gulf area. It is possible that the wealth of Afghanistan came into Mesopotamia by the sme route, with some of it continuing on up the Euphrates to Syria and the city of Ebla...Dilmun is almost certainly to be equated with the island of Bahrain, its role in the Gulf trade has long been understood to have been that of an emporium involved in the transhipment of materials...east-west movement of tin is documented in the numerous Old Assyrian texts from Kultepe, the ancient kārum Kanish...the tin was brought to Assur and from there shipped overland by donkey caravan to various Assyrian merchant colonies in Anatolia...The published analyses show that alongside arsenical copper, tin bronze was in regular use at Early Bronze Age sites such as Alaca Huyuk, Ahlathbel, Mahmutlar and Horoztepe. Some of the best evidence for the Early Bronze Age use of tin bronze comes, in fact, from the Early Bronze Age levels at Troy...For Western Asia Afghanistan has emerged as the most promising source for much of the tin in use during Bronze Age times.Its deposits of gold and lapis lazuli, both materials highly prized by the Sumerians during the third millennium BCE, may have led ancient prospectors of tin, which was also then exported to Sumer ... "(Muhly, James D. , Sources of tin and the beginnings of bronze metallurgy, American Journal of Archaeology 89 (1985), pp.281-290.) [1] For the trade involved, see Y. Majidzadeh, ‘Lapis Lazuli and the Great Khorasan Road,’ Paleorient 8.1 (1982) 59-69. Majidzadeh argues that lapis came into Mesopotamia not via the Great Khorasan Road, the ancient Silk Route, but by a southern route going across Kerman (Aratta), Fars (Anshan) and Khuzistan (Susa). A tin trade by the same route would explain the importance of Susa in the Mari letters dealing with the tin trade.
Meluhha hieroglyphs: 1. Dhokra kamar lost-wax metal caster; 2. Dance-step of Mohenjo-daro metal cast http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2014/01/meluhha-hieroglyphs-1-dhokra-lost-wax.html
Cire perdue or lost-wax casting metallurgy spread from Meluhha into the Fertile Crescent (Nahal Mishmar). html http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2014/01/meluhha-metallurgical-roots-and-spread.html
Tin Road stretched from Meluhha in the east into the Fertile Crescent (Kultepe, Anatolia) defining the Bronze Age. http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2014/01/meluhha-and-tracking-tin-road-after-all.
Example of a hieroglyph carried on a standard or banner
Tin Road stretched from Meluhha in the east into the Fertile Crescent (Kultepe, Anatolia) defining the Bronze Age. http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2014/01/meluhha-and-tracking-tin-road-after-all.
Electrum wolf's head from a Tomb at Tepe Gawra
"It has separately made ears, teeth (ca. 4th millennium BCE) and lower jaw and the whole stands only 23 mm high. It was probably attached to a wooden staff as there are two holes in the tubular neck and may have been a terminal to a ceremonial wand or staff of office." (Crawford, Harriet, 2004, Sumer and the Sumerians, Cambridge University Press, Fig. 6.1)
Hieroglyph: huḍa -- , °ḍu -- m. ʻ ram ʼ lex. 2. huṇḍa -- 1 m. Kāśīkh. 1. Pk. huḍa -- m. ʻ ram ʼ, WPah.bhal. huṛ, jaun. hūṛ. <-> L. huṛeāl, huṛeār m. ʻ the wild hill sheep or oorial ʼ, P. huṛiār m. 2. L. huṇḍū m. ʻ fighting ram ʼ, (Shahpur) hũḍḍu m., P. huṇḍū m. 3. †hulu -- ʻ ram ʼ lex.: WPah.kṭg. huḷ m. ʻ ram for breeding ʼ.(CDIAL 14135)*huḍahāra ʻ sheep -- taker ʼ. 2.*huṇḍahāra [huḍa -- , hāra -- . -- But Pk. huḍa -- m. ʻ dog ~ ram ʼ, Or. huṇḍā ʻ hyena ʼ; and semant. cf. H.bheṛī ʻ sheep ʼ ~ bheṛiyā ʻ wolf ʼ]1. Mth. huṛār ʻ wolf ʼ. 2. N. hũṛār ʻ wolf ʼ; Or. dial. hunã̄r ʻ wolf, hyena ʼ; Mth. H. hũṛār m. ʻ wolf ʼ. (CDIAL 14137)
Rebus: hunati (opt. hunēt Pañcar.) ʻ offers libation ʼ. [From pp. *huna -- ~ hutá -- (see prāhuṇa -- ). -- √hu] Pa. hunitabba -- ʻ to be sacrificed ʼ; Pk. huṇaï ʻ offers oblation ʼ, huṇia -- pp., huṇaṇa -- n.; MB. hune ʻ sacrifices ʼ ODBL 553, H. hunnā.(CDIAL 14139). ఉడుగర [ uḍugara ] uḍugara. [Tel.] n. A gift, a present, any present given to a bride or bridegroom during the celebration of their marriage, A. vi. 190. -కట్నము కానుక "గంధర్వులకుడుగరల్ దయనొసగు" N. ii. 126. లబాంధవులొసగిరపుడు కాంచన భూషలు చీరలు నరపతికింబొలతికినుడు గరలుముదము పొదలగనంతన్." Swa. v. 120. (Telugu)
S. Kalyanaraman
Sarasvati Research Center
January 18, 2014