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

The Luwian: Another Theory

Hierogylphic Luwian Inscription found at Pancarli Hoyuk

Alice C. Linsley

Eberhard Zangger is the head of the international non-profit organization Luwian Studies based in Zurich, Switzerland. He believes that the Luwians destroyed the Hittite Empire 3200 years ago and were also responsible for destabilizing the Egyptian New Kingdom. Read more here.

The Luwian populations are called by various names: Luwian or Luian or Luwi. During the Hellenistic Period they were known to inhabit Lycia, Cilicia Aspera, and Crete, which is why they are considered by some to be the "Sea People" to which many Biblical and extra-Biblical texts refer.

Zangger believes the Luwian aggression explains the enigmatic and quick disappearance of many Bronze Age civilizations in the eastern Mediterranean during a period of about 50 years around 1200 BC. This is the conventional explanation of the Bronze Age collapse, but the identity of the Sea People continues to elude scholars.

In a paper published in the journal Nature Scientific Data, an international team from the Luwian Studies Foundation provided the most up-to-date map of Middle and Late Bronze Age (c. 2000–1200 BCE) Luwian settlements ever catalogued, which includes ancient Troy. The study, comprising 483 settlements, illuminates the cultural landscape around Troy and challenges long-standing scholarly assumptions. Alongside the scientific article, the team also published an interactive settlement map.

Modern cultural terms such as Mycenaean, Hittite, or even Luwian are terms of convenience. Zangger notes, “Some 3,000 years ago, identities of this kind did not exist in the clear-cut forms we use today. When we speak of ‘Luwians,’ we are referring to a region whose inhabitants certainly did not regard themselves as part of either the Mycenaean or the Hittite cultural spheres. Linguistically and ethnically, this area was home to numerous tribes and groups. People would have identified primarily with their city-state.”

Ther were Hebrew living in many of those city-states among the Luwian and the Hittites. Genesis 23 recounts how Abraham, the ruler of Edom, did business with Hittites. Here the Hittites are designated the "sons" of Heth/Het (Gen. 23:2-11) and one of the clans of Canaan (Gen. 10:15). They recognized Abraham as their kinsmen, addressing him as "a great prince among us" (Gen. 23:6).

The clan of Het lived near Kirtiath-Arba or Hebron (Genesis 23:3,7), at the northern boundary of Abraham's territory. This was the location of Sarah's settlement. Here Abraham purchased a cave tomb for Sarah's burial.

It is evident that the Hittites were widely dispersed, from Canaan to the kingdom of Khatti in eastern Asia Minor. The Hittite Empire of the second millennium BC rivaled that of the Babylonians and Egyptians. Current research on the Hittites relate the Hittites to the ancient city of Zippalanda and to recent excavations in Turkey. The Hittite and Luwian peoples were a major influcence on the cultural development of the Aegean civilization.

Hurrians are an ancient people of northern Mesopotamia, Syria, and eastern Asia Minor circa1500 BC and possibly descendants of the Horites that inhabited the Dead Sea region and the Nile Valley. Research suggests an organic connection between the Hurrian and Akkadian languages, although this is disputed by the Russian ethnologist Sergey Arutiunov. Arutiunov believes that the Luwians are the Luwi who live in Luya, on the southern coast of Asia Minor. According to Arutiunov, the Luwian and Hurri languages are not related. I don't agree with him. There seems to be a linguistic connection, but the complexity of languages by 2300–1000 BC is so great that it is difficult to pursue all the connections.

The Luwians had their own language, Luwian, which was predominant in western and southern Asia Minor during the second millennium BC. They also possessed a distinct script, Luwian hieroglyphics, from at least ca. 1700–700 BC.

Luwian hieroglyphs continued to be used throughout the Dark Ages (ca. 1200–800 BC), while the other Bronze Age writing systems were either abandoned altogether (Linear B) or were no longer used in Asia Minor (cuneiform).

The Luwian writing system is known from quotations in Hittite documents and from ancient scripts from Crete and Cyprus.

Recent research connects the Luwian hieroglyphs and the Hittite hieroglyphs. The Luwian inscriptions from the Yazilikaya site in Turkey are connected to the Hittite religion. The Luwian scripts took two forms: (1) Akkadian cuneiform, as with the Hittite scripts found at Hattusa, because from the 21st century BC to the late 18th century BC, Assyria controlled Anatolia; and (2) Egyptian hieroglyphic. Both writings systems are connected to the Proto-Saharan rulers who dispersed out of Africa into the Mediterranean and Southern Europe.

The spoken language had properties typical of Chadic, Nilotic, and ancient Sumerian languages, which like spoken Luwian, are ergative-agglutinative languages. 


Features of Luwian and Hittite Religion

The Luwian religion appears to be similar to that of the Hittites and the Hurrian or Horite Hebrew. There is a common symbolism involving the Sun, horns of the cow, stone altars, fortified temples, a binary worldview, etc.



Yazilikaya Water Shrine at Hattusa, Turkey

The binary feature of Hittite religion is expressed in the arrangement of male and female deities. The west wall of the Yazilikaya shrine is adorned with reliefs of gods and the east wall is devoted to goddesses. A relief of great significance shows the divine appointment of a woman by the overshadowing of the Sun and the divine appointment of a ruler as one who wears the horns as a solar cradle. This is inside of Chamber A on the western wall.

Another binary aspect of the ancient heliocentric religion is the distinction between heaven and earth. The Creator, known by many names in the ancient world, was portrayed as a male. At the Yazilikaya Sanctuary he is known as Teshub, also written Teshup or Tešup (cuneiform dIM). He makes the T journey (the solar arc) over Earth. One relief at the Yazilikaya shrine depicts the gathering of the celestial beings to witness the marriage between Teshub (Sky) and Hepat (Earth).

The sky was very important to archaic peoples and anything that came from the sky was regarded as coming from the Creator. This included rays of sunlight and meteroritic iron beads. These were perceived as the Creator's semen/seeds giving life to "mother" Earth. Obviously, the Creator was perceived as male/father and the source of fertility.


Divine Appointment

Luwian is the Anatolian language of cattle-herding peoples. The Luwian hieroglyph is a bull's head with horns, the sign of divine appointment. The bull's horns are a prominent feature of the religion of the archiac rulers. It represents the widespread solar symbolism that pertained to the Creator.

It was believed that the divinely appointed ruler would be conceived in his mother's womb by the overshadowing of the Sun, the Creator's emblem. This belief was widely held among the archaic rulers in the Nile Valley, in India, in Mesopotamia, and in Southern Europe. Sargon claimed such a miraculous conception, and according to Luke's Gospel, the Virgin Mary conceived by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35).

Horus was conceived when Hathor was overshadowed by the Sun. That is why Hathor is shown wearing the Sun within the horns of the cow.

The Y image came to designate divinely appointed rulers among Abraham's people: Yitzak, Yacob, Yaqtan, Yishmael, Yeshua, Yishbak, etc. One of the signs of divine kingship was that the new born child was swaddled in a red cloak.

The Luwian: Another theory

The Luwian are also known as the Luwi. Luwi resembles the name of the Nilo-Saharan Lwo (Luo), an ethnic group that inhabits South Sudan and Ethiopia. The Luo languages belong to the Nilotic group and form part of the larger Eastern Sudanic family. This is the region of Abraham's Proto-Saharan cattle-herding ancestors.

There are many linguistic and cultural connections between the Luwian and the Nilotic Luo. Consider the word qanyty or qanitti in Genesis 4:1. Cain's mother declares, "Kaniti (Qanitti); I have gotten a man, as has YHWH."

The word qanitti is of Akkadian origin, but it is also found among the Nilotic peoples. This should not surprise us. Akkadian was the language of Nimrod's kingdom and Nimrod was the son of Kush, according to Genesis 10. The Akkadian itti, as in itti šarrim, means "with the king" or "for the king." It is attached to the names of royalty. Even today the Oromo and the Luo attach itti to names: Onditi, Kaartuumitti, Finfinneetti and Dimashqitti. That itti is associated with Nilotic rulers is evident in the name of the great Egyptian queen Nefertitti.

Related reading: Luwian Studies; Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscription from Pancarli Hoyuk; Historical Relationship Between Sanskrit and Hittite; Hittite Religion; The Sun and the Sacred; Abraham and the Hittites; The Yazilikaya Sanctuary; The Last Days of Hattusa

Hittite Religion

Alice C. Linsley

The Hebrew priests of the archaic world served at the Sun temples built by the early kingdom builders known in Genesis as the mighty men of old. They served rulers in Egypt, Arabia, Canaan, Mesopotamia, and Anatolia in southern Turkey. The Hebrew ruler-priests were kin to the ruler-priests of many peoples as they shared common ancestors before Noah's time (c.5000-4500 B.C.) The term Hittite is related to the name Heth, a descendant of Noah.

Ḫattuša (modern Boğazkale in Turkey) was the administrative center of a people as early as 2500 B.C. It was a shrine city with more than 30 temples. (Interactive map of Hattusa) The kingdom of Hatti was a powerful Near Eastern kingdom in the late 14th and 13th centuries B.C. The kings of Egypt, Babylon, and Assyria were received in Hattusa's reception hall located in the royal citadel, known as Büyükkale, or “Big Castle”. Vassal rulers came to Hattusa to reaffirm their loyalty and pay tribute to the Hittite king.

More than 232 letters of state correspondence have been found at Hattusa. One is a letter from the ruler of Išuwa to the "Chief of the Charioteers." Hattusa's administrative center had many scribes who were schooled in Akkadian. Ancient Akkadian is the oldest known Semitic language and the language of the territory of Nimrod, a Kushite kingdom builder (Gen.10).

Hittite Empire (c. 2000–1200 B.C.).

Many of the priests of the ancient world, including the priests of ancient Hatti, were devotees of Horus. The shrine centers of the greater region reflect this: Horoztepe (Horus Hill); Kültepe (Ash Hill, place of sacrifice) and Išuwa (Yeshua/Yesu). Yesu is an ancient ruler-priest name found among the early Egyptians.

The name "Jesus" (Yeshua/Yesu) is derived from the ancient Egyptian name Yesu (shown above) which is associated with royal authority. The feather represents the letter Y and stands for one who judges, measures, or weights. The next symbol represents horns. The idea of God's presence "between the horns" predates Judaism. Then there is the sedge plant which represents a king, and finally the falcon, the totem of HR (Horus), the patron of kings. HR in ancient Egyptian means "Most High One". (Source: Bill Manley, Egyptian Hieroglyphs, 2012, Thames and Hudson Ltd., London)

At the Hittite capital in Ḫattuša there was a shrine dedicated to Horus. It is marked by a large green stone.

Green cube at Ḫattuša.

This green stone is believed to be a gift from the Egyptian king with whom the Hatti signed a treaty in 1258 B.C. Among the early Nilotes and later Egyptians green malachite was associated with Horus whose animal totem was the falcon. The Book of the Dead speaks of how the deceased will become a falcon "whose wings are of green stone" (chapter 77). The green stone may have symbolized the hope of resurrection. The land of the blessed dead was described as the "field of malachite." The Ancient Pyramid Texts speak of Horus as the Lord of the green stone (Utterance 301).

Bronze statue of mother and nursing infant found at Horoztepe (Horus Hill).

The Hittites called themselves the Nes and their language was called Nesli (Nesian, Nesite, or Neša). The word Nuzi is derived from the words Nes and Nuz. Nuzi was a Horite/Hurrian administrative center on the Tigris. The Horites 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 Habiru/Hebrew/Abrutu in his service. One who likely served in a military role received a horse.

The Hittite also were known for silver work. The Ugaritic word for silver - ḥtt - appears in the name of the people and Hittite place names. Hittite scribes often used the word sign for silver in their names: Ḥatti and Ḥattuša are examples.

The Hittites were famous for their metal work. HT is the Hebrew and Arabic root for copper - nahas-het. The mountains near the Hittite center of Isuwa had rich deposits of copper which were mined in antiquity.

Hittite Henotheism

The religion of the Hittites was henotheistic. They believed in a supreme Creator who was served by lesser "gods" or assisting divine powers. The deification of righteous rulers followed logically from the idea that divinely appointed powers on earth were also lesser gods (Allohi in Arabic and Hausa, Elohiym in Hebrew).

The Hittites conceived of the cosmos as God's sacred temple. Elevated sites were the preferred locations for their shrines and temples. These "high places" were fortified settlements near permanent water sources. Some place names reflect the Horite Hebrew presence among the Hittites. Such is the case of the Horite shrine on Mt. Silpius overlooking the Orontes (Draco) in Turkey. This ancient site was called Meroe. It hieroglyphic symbol was IO, representing a pillared sun temple. IO had a twin settlement designated as Ant-IO (Antioch).

Solar images abound in Hittite culture. These metal artifacts are found in the royal tombs or on the standards of rulers. One example is the long horns of bulls and deer, such as appear on this bronze standard found at Horoztepe (shown right). The horns of the bull were a solar cradle that indicated divine appointment by overshadowing. Images of Hathor, the mother of Horus, show her overshadowed by the Sun resting in the long horns of a bull. Divine appointment of the ruler was indicated by the solar cradle Y at the beginning of the ruler's name: Yishmael, Yitzak, Yacob, Yeshua, etc. and by the ili/itti suffix in the Akkadian and Nilotic languages.

The dispersed Hebrew and their descendants living in Anatolia viewed the high king as the High God's earthly representative. This is clearly evident with King Hattusili I who claimed that he was divinely appointed, and that the prosperity of his people depended on his intercessions on their behalf. He moved his administrative center from Neša (near modern Kültepe) to Ḫattuša.

The March/April 2016 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review shows a statue found at the principal temple in Hattusa. The mother of the king wears the Sun as a sign of divine appointment. This is a Hittite version of ancient Nilotic images of Hathor holding Horus on her lap (shown below)

The divine son was a ruler-priest associated with the heavens and thunder. He was regarded as the High God and was known throughout the ancient world by different names: An, Ra, El, Yahweh, etc. The Hittites believed that the High God has a son. The son was known by different names also: Horus, Enki, Yehu, Hesus, etc. This is the only European bull deity that is celebrated in the middle of the Leo sign and he is often referred to as "the Giving God." The Giving God, sometimes shown as a bull between two lions, expresses the same idea as Aker among the early Nilotes. Aker is an image of the sun between two lions. The sun was the symbol or emblem of the High God among many peoples of the Fertile Crescent and Ancient Near East.

The Giving God, sometimes called Hesus, was crucified on an oak tree. The hope of his third-day resurrection was enacted by the sowing of grain in the fields. In antiquity, this annual ritual was overseen by Horite Hebrew priests who led the people in procession to the fields.

Related reading: Twin Cities of the Ancient World; Historical Relationship Between Sanskrit and Hittite; Abraham and the Hittites; The High Places; Horned Altars and Horned Sacred Vessels; Solar Imagery of the Proto-Gospel; The Last Days of Hattusa

Abraham and the Hittites

Alice C. Linsley

Genesis 23 recounts how Abraham the Habiru (Hebrew, from Akkadian "abru" - priest) did business with local Hittites in Canaan. They recognize Abraham's high status. They speak of him as "a great prince among us" (Gen. 23:6).

The Hittites are designated the "sons" of Heth/Het (Gen. 23:2-11) and one of the clans of Canaan (Gen. 10:15). The clan of Het lived near Kirtiath-Arba or Hebron (Genesis 23:3,7), the northern boundary of Abraham's territory and the location of Sarah's settlement. It was here that Abraham purchased a cave tomb for Sarah's burial. Typically, such cave tombs were a chamber reached through a vertical shaft which could be sealed by a stone slab, as shown in the image below.

It is likely that the deed to the cave with these tombs was part of the property that Abraham passed to his son Isaac (Gen. 25:5–6). According to Genesis 49:29, the cave tombs that Abraham bought with the field of Ephron were used to bury Isaac, Rebekah, and Leah.

The term "Hittite" in reference to Abraham is an anachronism. Abraham lived before the time of the ascendancy of the Hittites in Anatolia and Northern Syria around BC 1800. There is evidence of their existence as early as BC 1900, which places them closer to the time of Abraham (BC 2039-1964).

As with all the archaic rulers, the Hittite rulers were known for their stone work and metal work. Royal tombs made of stone have been discovered in Alaca Hüyük and Horoztepe in Anatolia, dating to c. 2400–2200. The word tepe means hill in Turkish. This can be a reference to the kar of the ancient rulers. "Horoz-tepe" is a reference to the Horite ruler-priests living in Anatolia. They were devotees of Horus and his mother Hathor/Hesi. Since these fortified hills were places of burnt offerings, the term kar is often associated with charcoal and soot. The Turkish kara means "black." In Magyar, korom refers to soot, as does the Korean word kurim. Among the Nilotic Luo, kar specifies a place with boundaries.

They are referenced in ancient texts as the Nes. In addition to stone work, they were smiths who introduced iron work to Anatolia. They called themselves the Nes, Neshi or Nehesi (NS) and their language was called Nesli. These ancient stone masons built tombs and temples, and the metal workers fashioned weapons and symbols of royal authority. Many magnificent artifacts have been recovered from these tombs, including this magnificent sun disk from Alaca Hüyük.

In southern Anatolia (modern Turkey) 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.

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 to Anatolia. The serpent image was sacred for them, just as it was for Moses the Horite ruler who fashioned a bronze serpent and set it on the standard (Numbers 21:9).

The Neshi appear to be in the same R1b haplogroup as Abraham. Their point of origin is not the Black Sea region, as often speculated, but the region of the Upper Nile Valley and Paleo-Lake Chad, shown on the map below. At one time these water system were interconnected. The Neshi still function as priests in Igboland (Nigeria).

Nehesi means "one who serves Hesi." Hesi was another name for Hathor, Horus' mother. Throughout the ancient world fortified mounds with water sources known (the ancient kar) were dedicated to both Horus and Hathor. Tell-Hesi, a 25-acre archaeological site in Israel, is an example. It was the first major site excavated in Palestine, first by Flinders Petrie in 1890 and later by Frederick Jones Bliss in 1891 and 1892.

Hathor was regarded as the patroness of metal workers. A temple dedicated to Hathor was discovered at the southwestern edge of Mt. Timnah by Professor Beno Rothenberg of Hebrew University. Timnah is the site of some of world's oldest copper mines. The oldest mines - about 6000 years - were worked almost continuously until the Roman Period. Ancient rock carvings have been found here showing warriors in chariots, holding stone axes and metal shields.

Hittite writings

For a long time, little was known about the Hittites other than what could be gathered from the Bible. In 1834, archeologist Charles Texier stumbled upon the ruins of Hattusha (Hattusa), a principal Hittite settlement in modern-day Boğazköy (Boghazkoy). In 1884 William Wright discovered a script that speaks of a "people of Hattusa." For the large part, Hittite court records were written using Akkadian cuneiform, the script of Nimrod's territory. Nimrod was a Kushite ruler. Nimrod was known as Sharru-Kin which means “the righteous king.” His Akkadian name Šarru-kīnu is usually translated “the true king.”

In 1915 the Czech linguist, Bedřich Hrozný announced the results of his study of the Hittite language in a lecture at the Near Eastern Society of Berlin. His book, The Language of the Hittites; Its Structure and Its Membership in the Indo-European Linguistic Family, begins with: "The present work undertakes to establish the nature and structure of the hitherto mysterious language of the Hittites, and to decipher this language [...] It will be shown that Hittite is in the main an Indo-European language."

There are many connections between ancient Nilotic words and those found in Anatolia, Northern India and Serbia were the Kushite Saka ruled for many thousands of years. Vad means “to speak” in Sanskrit. The root VD also refers to seeing. In Ancient Egyptian vidjet refers to the Eye of Horus, the son of the Creator. In Serbian, vidjet means "to see."

The collapse of the Hittite Empire at the end of the late Bronze Age is consistent with developments elsewhere that may have been triggered by extensive regional drought. Learn more about the Bronze Age collapse and new evidence of droughts in the region.

Related reading: Solar Imagery of the Proto-Gospel; Stone Work of the Ancient World; Who Were the Kushites?; Göbekli Tepe's T-shaped Pillars; The Ra-Horus-Hathor Narrative; Edom and the Horites; What Color Was Abraham?; Intermarriage Between the Dedanites and the Edomites; INDEX of Topics at Just Genesis