Editing Hurrian language (section)

==History==
The earliest Hurrian text fragments consist of lists of names and places from the end of the third millennium BC. The first full texts date to the reign of King [[Tish-atal]] of [[Urkesh]], at the start of the second millennium BC, and were found on a stone tablet accompanying the [[Hurrian foundation pegs]] known as the "Urkish lions".<ref name="louvre">{{cite web|url=http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/hurrian-foundation-deposit-known-urkish-lion|title=A Hurrian foundation deposit known as the "Urkish Lion"|first1=Claire|last1=Iselin|last2=André-Salvini|first2=Béatrice|publisher=[[Musée du Louvre]]|access-date=2 December 2012|archive-date=17 October 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121017141858/http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/hurrian-foundation-deposit-known-urkish-lion|url-status=dead}}</ref> Archeologists have discovered the texts of numerous spells, incantations, prophecies and letters at sites including [[Hattusha]], [[Mari, Syria|Mari]], [[Tuttul]], [[Babylon]], [[Ugarit]] and others. Early study of the language, however, was entirely based on the [[Amarna letters|Mitanni letter]], found in 1887 at [[Amarna]] in Egypt, written by the Hurrian King [[Tushratta]] to the Pharaoh [[Amenhotep III]]. The Hurro-Urartian relation was recognized as early as 1890 by Sayce (ZA 5, 1890, 260–274) and Jensen (ZA 6, 1891, 34–72). After the fall of the [[Akkadian Empire]], [[Hurrians]] began to settle in northern [[Syria (region)|Syria]],{{sfn|Owen|2000|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=qRtUqxkB7wkC&pg=PA618 618]}} and by 1725 BC they constituted a sizable portion of the population of [[Yamhad]].{{sfn|Nathanson|2013|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=odCmAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA72 72]}}{{better source needed|date=July 2023|reason=Self published  work by former surgeon and amateur historian}} The presence of a large Hurrian population brought Hurrian culture and religion to [[Aleppo]], as evidenced by the existence of certain religious festivals that bear Hurrian names.{{sfn|Kupper|1973|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=FF5-7JVj4jYC&pg=PA41 41]}}

[[File:Foundation tablet, dedication to God Nergal by Hurrian king Atalshen, king of Urkish and Nawar, Habur Bassin, circa 2000 BC Louvre Museum AO 5678.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|Foundation tablet with a dedication to the god [[Nergal]] by the Hurrian king Atalshen, king of Urkish and Nawar, [[Habur]] Bassin, circa 2000 BC. (Louvre Museum AO 5678.) The text on the tablet reads:<blockquote>Of Nergal the lord of Hawalum, Atal-shen, the caring shepherd, the king of Urkesh and Nawar, the son of Sadar-mat the king, is the builder of the temple of Nergal, the one who overcomes opposition. Let [[Shamash]] and [[Ishtar]] destroy the seeds of whoever removes this tablet. Shaum-shen is the craftsman.<ref>{{cite web |title=Royal inscriptions |url=http://urkesh.org/pages/571.htm |website=urkesh.org}}</ref></blockquote>]]
In the thirteenth century BC, invasions from the west by the Hittites and from the south by the [[Assyria]]ns brought the end of the Mitanni empire, which was divided between the two conquering powers. In the following century, attacks by the [[Sea Peoples]] brought a swift end to the last vestiges of the Hurrian language. It is around this time that other languages, such as the [[Hittite language]] and the [[Ugaritic language]], also became extinct, in what is known as the [[Bronze Age collapse]]. In the texts of these languages, as well as those of [[Akkadian language|Akkadian]] or Urartian, many Hurrian names and places can be found.

Renewed interest in Hurrian was triggered by texts discovered in [[Boğazkale|Boğazköy]] in the 1910s and Ugarit in the 1930s. In 1941, Speiser published the first comprehensive grammar of Hurrian. Since the 1980s, the [[Nuzi]] corpus from the archive of Šilwa-Teššup has been edited by G. Wilhelm. Since the late 1980s, significant progress was made due to the discovery of a Hurrian-Hittite bilingual, edited by E. Neu ([[StBoT]] 32).