NOG KNUT TALLQVIST. 
later Dr. PAUL ROST declared that the names Artamanza, Suvardata, Ruzmania, Teuvatti, laÿ- 
data and Zirdamiasda were derived from Aryan "forerunners", which had come to Syria and 
Palestine at the end of the fifteenth century i In the following year, 1898, Professor HOMMEL 
took up the problem of these names. He came to the conclusion that they are Iranian and prove 
that the royal dynasty of Mitanni and the Hittite kings of the time of Ramses II were of Iranian, or, 
more exactly, of “Scythian” descent? In 1901 these names were studied by Dr. SCHEFTELOWITZ 3, 
who compared them partly with Old Iranian and partly with Old Indian names, emphasizing their 
Aryan character and attempting to prove that the Mitanni language corresponded closely with V edic. 
It is worthy of special mention that he was the first to suggest the possibility that the name 
of the Palestinian prince Sz(v)arda ta contains the Skr. word svar (Av. hvara) "sun" — and 
thus represents a period of linguistic development when the Iranian sound change s > h had 
not yet taken place. SCHEFTELOWITZ's daring etymology and especially his attempt to prove the 
Indo-European and, particularly, the Aryan character of the Cassite also, evoked, in 1906, a much- 
needed criticism from Professor BLOOMFIELD? who suggested that "the Mitanni and other Asiatic 
Iranoid proper names came from a dialect closely allied to Iranian but not yet exactly Iranian; 
2. e. a dialect which did not change s to h”. In 1907 the problem was taken up once more, 
this time by Professor Eb. MEYER*. Without going into the question of more or less probable 
etymologies, he regarded the subject primarily from a historical standpoint and proved that the 
then known kings of Mitanni and a number of Syrian dynasts mentioned in the Tell el Amarna 
letters bore names of an Iranian stamp. This circumstance MEYER accounted for by supposing 
that the Median and Persian tribes came to their homes in Iran in the 17 or 16'^ century, 
while individual Iranian chiefs penetrated into Mesopotamia and Syria at the latest in the 15^ cen- 
tury and perhaps considerably earlier. The names of these chiefs would constitute the oldest 
dated instance of the Iranian language. Before MEYER's essay had been printed, however, a dis- 
covery was made which necessitated an essential modification of this theory. 
In the summer of 1907 the late Professor HUGO WINCKLER's excavations at Boghazkoi 
in Cappadocia — probably identical with Herodotos' Pteria — brought to light the remains of 
the Hatti kings' former residence and parts of the royal archives. Among other things was found 
the cuneiform text of a treaty between the Hatti king Subbiluliuma and the Mitanni king Matti- 
vaza. In this treaty the gods of either kingdom are cited as witnesses, and among other deities 
worshipped in Mitanni are named iläni mi-it-ra-as-St-il dani u-ru-na-a3-Xi-el (var. a-ru-na-as-Si-i) 
ilu in-dar ilani na-Sa-alt-ti-ia-aln-na (var. in-da-ra na-Sla]-at-t-ia-an-na. In his “Vorläufige Nach- 
richten über die Ausgrabungen in DBoghaz-kói im Sommer 1907" ^ WINCKLER recognised in these 
names, whose suffixes a$sil/ and anna clearly belong to the Mitannian idiom, the Vedic deities 
Mitra, Varuna and Indra, while, following the suggestion of Prof. F. ANDREAS, he hesitatingly, 
though certainly by right, compared Nasattiia with Nasatya. It is clear that the occur- 
rence of these Vedic deities in Mitanni in the 14" century B. C. throws a new light upon 
the supposed Iranian origin of the Mitanni kings. In a postscript to his essay, which was publi- 
shed in 1908, MEYER felt compelled to characterize the Mitanni kings as Aryans and he lays 
stress on the fact that they did not yet speak Iranian but Aryan. MEYER reached this con- 
I) P. Rost, Das sogenannte Mederreich und das Emporkommen der Perser, in MVG, II (1897), p. 216. 
2) Frırz HOMMEL, Hethiter und Scythem und das erste Auftreten der Iranier im der Geschichte, in Sitzungs- 
berichte der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften in Prag, Philos.-Histor. Cl, 1898, No. VI, p. 9. 
3) J. SCHEFTELOWITZ, Die Sprache der Kossäer, in KZ, 38 (1905), pp. 260 ff. 
4) On some alleged Indo-European languages in cuneiform characters, in American Journal of Philology, XXV. 
5) Die ältesten datierten Zeugnisse der iranischen Sprache und der zoroastrischen Religion, in KZ 42 (1909), p. I ff. 
6) Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft, Dezember 1907, No. 35. 
T. XLIII. 
