Kar-da KI -ka 21 st ce. B.C.E. Karda Land of Valiant Mountain People Central Zagros East Terminological Analysis

Abstract

The toponym “kar-daKI-ka” (“ma-da kar-daKI-ka”) meansland of “Karda”, which derives most likely out of Akkadian “qarda” (“qurda”) forheroic, brave, valiant, and warlike (mountain) people. It was geographically locatedin ancient heartlands of the Guti(ans) in central Zagros east areas in NorthwestIran of today, and was documented in several late Sumerian UrIII sources at theend of the 3rd millennium B.C.E. from Girsu in south Mesopotamia. Originand ethnic affiliations of the inhabitants of the land of “Karda” are not known.The term “kar-daKI-ka” was one of the oldest cuneiform expressions usedby Mesopotamians to denote various indigenous Zagros hilly/mountain nomads of multi-ethnicalorigin in the North and the (North-)East, whom they regarded as warlike and alsoas uncivilized because they were at the time mainly not urban organized in contrastto lowland Mesopotamians. Available cuneiform sources indicated thatMesopotamians saw “kar-daKI-ka” in consecutive connection withGuti(ans): first, because of its location in the center of (former) dominatingGuti power coalitions in areas of central Zagros (east); second, because of theimage of its population as warlike, similar to Guti(ans) where (who) was (were)portrayed by Mesopotamians; third, because of further suggesting that itssociety(ies) could have been militarily orsganized, possibly migrating andtemporarily prevailing inter-regionally (across the Zagros); and last but notleast, because of its obvious geo-strategic importance even for far away lateUrIII leaders of south Mesopotamia, regardless whether or not they effectivelycontrolled the area which seems for the time in question unlikely.Mesopotamians used to describe the inter-connected ancestral habitat of variousmulti-ethnic Zagros mountain coalitions in a vague terminology, and in waxingand waning concepts who were influenced by changing policies. They did not see regions(lands) like “kar-daKI-ka” as isolated single ones in a far north-eastbut embedded in an inter-regionally connected habitat of mountain nomad coalitionsstretching from the North to the North-East of Mesopotamia. They also used a goodnumber of different terms in particular assumed Sumerian “kur”-stem expressions(who later prevailed) to characterize them accordingly. In linguistic terms, thepresumed Semitic (Akkadian) word-stem “kard-” (KI-ka”is formally not identical with the presumably Sumerian rooted “kurd-” one (for Kurds,land of Kurds). However, the content of both terms denoting (warlike) Zagros-Taurusmountain populations of multi-ethnical origins seems to be strikingly similar. Therefore,the explanation attempt of “kar-daKI-ka” as land of heroic, valiant,and warlike indigenous central Zagros (east) inhabitants could indicate a local/regional militarily organized autochthonous pre-IE (proto-non-Iranian) population,and could even possibly point to ancient forefathers of Kurds in NW Iran of today,interpreted as Zagros-Taurus mountaineers.