Archaic Nes Peoples

Alice C. Linsley

Much research needs to be done to gain a better understanding of the ancient Nes peoples who appear to have dispersed widely. Likely these were a caste of metal workers in the service of rulers and chiefs. One of their totems was the serpent and their signs appear to have been were NS and HT.

Goran Pavolic reports that in Serbian "nas" means us and "naši" means ours, or one of us. Nas and Nes share the same archaic root NS. In Akkadian, "na" is a modal prefix indicating service to, affirmation, or affiliation. The name Na-Hor would then indicate a servant of Horus. I have a suspicion that Na-S refers to archaic metal workers for whom the serpent was a sacred symbol and their totem.

The association of copper with serpent is evident is the relationship between the Akkadian words: sibbu - serpent and siparru - copper. The words Hittite and Het share the same primitive root HT. HT is the Hebrew and Arabic root for copper - nahas-het. As an adjective, HT means shining bright, like burnished copper. Nahash (NS) refers to a serpent. The HT copper smiths ranged from Timnah in Canaan to Anatolia in Turkey. The serpent image was sacred for them, just as it was for Moses the Horite Hebrew ruler who fashioned a bronze serpent and set it on the standard (Numbers 21:9).

The root NS appears in the variants Nes, Neshi, Nehesi, Nesli, and Nuzi. Nuzi was a Horite administrative center on the Tigris. The Horite Hebrew were devotees of Horus and his mother Hathor, the patroness of metal workers. Documents from the household of a Nuzi official named Tehiptilla record grants of food, clothing, and shelter to a number of Hebrew in his service. One who likely served in a military role received a horse.

Nehesi is a name found in ancient Nubia. Hesi is a variant of Hathor, and she was the patroness of metal workers in the archaic world. The metal workers of Anatolia (modern Turkey) called themselves the Nes (NS) and their language was called Nesli. They are referred to as Hittites or Hivites (likely related clans) in II Chronicles and I Kings 9:20. The Nes/Neshi/Nehesi appear to be in the same R1 Haplogroup as Abraham. This haplogroup is both European and African.

These ancient stone masons built palaces, tombs and temples, and the metal workers fashioned weapons and symbols of royal authority. Many magnificent artifacts have been recovered from these tombs, including the magnificent sun disk from Alaca Hüyük shown above.

In southern Anatolia royal stone masons built Catalhoyuk beginning in 7500 BC. (The Turkish words catal means fork and hoyuk means mound.) This was a settlement built on two mounds (east and west) and a channel of the Çarşamba River once flowed between them. The houses excavated in Catalhoyuk date between 6800-5700 B.C. Recent excavations have identified a shrine or small temple on the eastern side. At Horoztepe, in northern Anatolia, they built royal tombs dating from 2400–2200 BC. These are richly furnished with finely crafted artifacts in bronze, gold, and silver.

Related reading: The Nuzi Tablets; Abraham and the Hittites; Hittite Religion