From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 464
Date: 1999-12-07
----- Original Message -----From: Mark OdegardSent: Tuesday, December 07, 1999 7:26 AMSubject: [cybalist] Re: Goliath and Uriah the Hittite as IEMark wrote:Luvian is written in syllabic hieroglyphs, which constitute a 'logosyllabary' to use Peter Daniel's terminology. There is also some material in the Hittite archives written in cuneiform.
Actually the vast majority of Anatolian texts are cuneiform. Hittite proper (both Old Hittite before the 15th c. BC, and New Hittite, ca. 1450-1200 BC) is written exclusively in cuneiform; so are Palaic and classical Luwian (as well as the non-IE Hattic and Hurrian languages). This fact was of great help in their decipherment. The tradition of using the cuneiform script ended with the destruction of the Hittite Empire (the New Kingdom) ca. 1200 by the Sea People.Hieroglyphs began to be used before that date for a southern dialect of Luwian also known, confusingly, as "Hieroglyphic Hittite", bust most hieroglyphic texts were written in northern Syria and southeastern Anatolia in the centuries after the downfall of the New Kingdom. Hieroglyphic Luwian became extinct about 700 BC when the remaining Anatolian city-states (independent or controlled by the Aramaeans) were incorporated into the Assyrian Empire under Sargon II.The Biblical "sons of Heth" were mainly the "Syro-Hittites", or the ethnically intermingled population of those small city-states on the southern fringes of the fallen empire (the oldest passages possibly refer to the period of the New Kingdom).
So, to sum up the discussion so far, we seem to have two possible Anatiolian (Luwian?) etymologies for Middle Eastern ethnonyms:wanak- 'lordly?' < *gw@...-nepila- 'heavenly?' < *nebh-elo-Any other ideas?Piotr