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"And the Kurdish nation divides into four branches, each with its own different tongue and customs. First is the Kurmanj, second the Lur, third the Kalhur, fourth the Guran.
The Sharafnma, Prologue, 7-9.
Prince Sharafaddin Bitlisi, AD 1597
Exploring Kurdish Origins
The question of Kurdish origins, i.e., who the Kurds are and where they come from, has for too long remained an enigma. Doubtless in a few words one can respond, for example, that Kurds are the end-product of numerous layers of cultural and genetic material superimposed over thousands of years of internal migrations, immigrations, cultural innovations and importations.
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Being the native inhabitants of their land, there are no "beginnings" for Kurdish history and people.
Kurds and their history are the end products of thousands of years of continuous internal evolution and assimilation of new peoples and ideas intro- duced sporadically into their land.
Genetically, Kurds are the descendants of all those who ever came to settle in Kurdistan, and not any one of them.
A people such as the Guti, Kurti. Mede, Mard, Carduchi, Gordyene, Adianbene, Zila and Khaldi signify not the ancestor of the Kurds but only an ancestor.
Archaeological finds continue to document that some of mankind's earliest steps towards development of agriculture. domestication of many common farm animals (sheep, goats, hogs and dogs). record keeping (the token system), development of domestic technologies (weavmg, fired pottery making and glazing), metallurgy and urbanization took place in Kurdistan, dating back between 12,000 and 8.000 years ago.
The earliest evidence so far of a unified and distinct culture (and possibly, ethnicity) by people inhabiting the Kurdish mountains dates back to the Halaf culture of 8,000-7,400 years ago. This was followed by the spread of the Ubaidian culture, which was a foreign introduction from Mesopotamia. After about a millennium, its dominance was replaced by the Hurrian culture, which may or may not have been the Halafian people reasserting their dominance over their mountainous homeland. The Hurrian period lasted from 6,300 to about 2,600 years ago. |
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4.000 years ago:
The first vanguard of the Indo-European-speaking peoples were trickling into Kurdistan in limited numbers and settling there. These formed the aristocracy of the Mittani, Kassite, and Hittite kingdoms, while the common peoples there remained solidly Hurrian. By about 3,000 years ago, the trickle had turned into a flood, and Hurrian Kurdistan was fast becoming Indo-European Kurdistan. Far from having been wiped out, the Hurrian legacy, despite its linguistic eclipse, remains the single most important element of the Kurdish culture until today. It forms the substructure for every aspects of Kurdish existence, from their native religion to their art, their social organization, women's status, and even the form of their militia warfare.
Medes, Scythians and Sagarthians are just the better-known clans of the Indo- European-speaking Aryans who settled in Kurdistan. By about 2,600 years ago, the Medes had already set up an empire that included all Kurdistan and vast territories far beyond. Medeans were followed by scores of other kingdoms and city-states Qall dominated by Aryan aristocracies and a populace that was becoming IndoEuropean, Kurdish speakers if not so already.
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They spoke a language of the Northeast Caucasian family of languages (or Alarodian), kin to modern Chechen and Lezgian. The Hurrians spread far and wide, dominating much territory outside their Zagros-Taurus mountain base. Their settlement of Anatolia was complete-all the way to the Aegean coasts. Like their Kurdish descendents, they however did not expand too far from the mountains. Their intrusions into the neighbouring plains of Mesopotamia and the Iranian Plateau, therefore, were primarily military annexations with little population settlement. Their economy was surprisingly integrated and focused, along with their political bonds, mainly running parallel with the Zagros- Taurus mountains, rather than radiating out to the lowlands. The mountainplain economic exchanges remained secondary in importance, judging by the archaeological remains of goods and their origin.
Hawramy
The Hurrians-whose name survives now most prominently in the dialect and district of Hawraman/Awraman in Kurdistan- divided into many clans and subgroups, who set up city-states, kingdoms and empires known today after their hective clan names. These included the Gutis, Kurti, Khadi, Mards, Mushku, Manna, Hatti, Mittanni, Urartu, and the Kassitis1es, to name just a few. All these were Hurrians, and together form the Hurrian phase of Kurdish history.
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By the advent of the classical era in 300 BC:
Kurds were already experiencing massive population movements that resulted in settlement and domination of many neighbouring regions. Important Kurdish polities of this time were all by products of these movements. The Zelan Kurdish clan of Commagene (Adyaman area), for example, spread to establish in addition to the Zelanid dynasty of Commagene, the Zelanid kingdom of Cappadocia and the Zelanid empire of PontusQall in Anatolia. These became Roman vassals by the end of the Ist century BC. In the east the Kurdish kingdoms of Gordyene, Cortea, Media, Kirm, and Adiabene had, by the I st century B C, become confederate members of the Parthian Federation.
While all larger Kurdish Kingdoms of the west gradually lost their existence to the Romans, in the east they survived into the 3rd century A D and the advent of the Sasanian Persian empire. The last major Kurdish dynasty, the Kayosids, fell in AD 380. Smaller Kurdish principalities (called the Kotyar, "mountain administrators") however, preserved their autonomous existence into the 7th century and the coming of Islam.
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