Indo-Aryans in the Ancient Near East

This short post presents the evidence of Indo-Aryan attestation in the Near East in the 3rd millennium BCE.

The mainstream Kurgan hypothesis holds that the Indo-Iranian split happened somewhere around the 16th century BCE (Lubotsky 2023). However, early attestation of some Indo-Aryan names in the Near East strongly refutes this hypothesis.

Names from Ur III period

Harmatta (1992, pg 366) found two attested Indo-Aryan names Arisena, and Somasena on a tablet dating from the time of the dynasty of Agade. He concludes:

Thus the spread of the Proto-Indians towards Mesopotamia and their amalgamation with the Hurrian population must have begun between 2300–2100 b.c

Some have expressed doubts that these words could be Hurrian. However, new tablets published in 2019 further confirm the Indo-Aryan identification. (CDLI 2019, Yajnadevam 2023). The tablet CDLI P516366 refers to oil rations for men of Meluhha (usually identified as Indus Valley Civilisation). Some of the people from Meuhha have Indo-Aryan names:

sa6-ma-ar = Samara

na-na-sa3 = Nānas

CDLI P212982 (2340-2200 BC) refers to Meluhhan man Lu-Sunzida which can be identified with the Sanskrit name Saṃsiddha.