And the Armenian celestial symbols
Summary
Sargis G. Petrosyan-Doctor of Historical Sciences
The winged Sun – the symbol of the Hittite Sun god, was present on the stamps of several Hittite kings. The prototype of this symbol is found on the rockcarvings in Armenia, and in Urartu this symbol was used both as that of the Sun god and sometimes as the symbol of Haldi. One of the gods of the Hittite pantheon was called “rising from the sea”, “Sun god of Water” and was described “with fish on his head”. The city of Tushpa (Van), on the eastern shore of Lake Van, was a well-known centre of the Sun worship. The River Berkri, which is rich in fish, flows into Lake Van in its north-east. Here were the fishery trades of the ancient Armenian kings. It is in this region where the Urartian king Menua erected a stele which according to its script, was dedicated to the Sun god.
The stamp of Suppiluliuma I differs from those of other Hittite kings with the contour image of the constellation of Orion printed on it. It is also found in the Armenian cave drawings, on the ceramic products of the Bronze Age, in the Urartian hieroglyphic scripts, even in the Medieval Armenian manuscripts (in the list of “The Letters of the Sages”). As a written sign, in ancient times it was considered the symbolic sign of Hayk, the main god of the ancestors of Armenians. It is known that ancient Armenians called the constellation of Orion-Hayk(-n).
On the stamp of Suppiluliuma I there was also a written sign which in the Hittite hieroglyphic writing meant “deity”. In Armenia, the same signs are found on one Bronze Age ceramic vessel (18th-16th cc. B.C.) and on one bronze jug (8th6th cc. B.C.) from Lake Sevan basin. In the Armenian Highland this sign was attributed to the Sky god (most probably to the same Hayk). It was a picture of an ellipsoidal eye, i.e. the same image which was attributed to the sky by our ancestors. In the mythological images of the Indo-Europeans/Indo-European peoples, the concepts “eye” and “sky” are comparable in the same way as the conceptions “eye’s light” and “light” or “tear” and “rain”.
The appearance of symbols like the winged disk of Sun, the constellation Orion and the Sky in the form of eyes on the stamp of Suppiluliuma I and on materials related to the cult of Hayk – the mythical progenitor of Armenians, is not the result of an accidental coincidence. Most likely, we are dealing with the IndoEuropean heritage.
In case of Armenian material, one must keep in mind that the archetypes of these symbols are already present in the oldest rock paintings of the Armenian mountains. In case of the stamp of Suppiluliuma I, it should be borne in mind, that the symbol of the constellation Orion has been added to the symbols of the wingy solar disk and the celestial eye known to the Hittites long ago.
The need for a parallel research of these symbols in the paper is dictated by the logic of the hole Hittite and Armenian adduced and discussed material.