The Kushite Marriage Pattern Drove Kushite Expansion

 Alice C. Linsley

What follows is a response to Maximus' questions from an earlier essay on Kushite migration out of Africa. He asked, "Did the city of Mohenjo Daro belong to the Kushite Sudras? Are Dravidians the indigenous peoples of the Indian subcontinent?"

As I explained in the earlier essay, the word Sudra means black and is also the name of the country - Sudan, which was part of ancient Kush. Mohenjo Daro is one of about six identified settlements in southern Pakistan that share a cultural pattern that is essentially Kushite and specifically Horite. That is, the temples and shrines of the region reflect the worship of Horus. This is evident in the name of one of the more northern cities - Har-appa.  Har refers to Horus and appa is the Dravidian word for father. This suggests that the Dravidians originated in the Kush-Nile region which is the point of origin of the worship of Horus.

The book of Genesis indicates that Kushites moved out of the Upper Nile area into Mesopotamia and Central Asia. They brought their religious practices with them. Kushite rulers, such as Nimrod and their priests spread a common worldview from ancient Kush/Nubia to southern India and beyond. Horite religious practices are found in Nepal and Cambodia, as evidenced from this stone relief at Anghor Wat which shows the solar boat of Re with Horus flying as a falcon above the sun. The etiology of Anghor Wat is also telling.  Wat means village, town, settlement or shrine. Anghor is ankh-Hor which means something like Life to Horus! or Long live Horus!

The Kushite diffusion across the Levant, Arabia, Mesopotamia, Central Asia and beyond has been documented by independent reserach in various fields including gnetics, migration studies, linguistics, archaeology and anthropology.  I call the ancient Kushite sphere of influence the "Afro-Asiatic Dominion."

The Kushite conquest of the Sumerian city-states is well-documented. Sargon the Elder conquered Nippur in 2340 B.C. and established his capital in Accad. His grandson was Sargon the Great who is Nimrod of Genesis 10.  Sar-gon is a title meaning High King or King of Kings. The Elamite word for king is sunki, a cognate of the Hahm/Hamitic sarki, meaning king. The Sumerian word for king is sar and the Chadic word for ruler - gon.

Let us consider the case of this great Kushite kingdom builder. Nimrod is remembered in history as Sar-gon the Great. Nim-rod is his Egyptian name. (See Nim-lot. As governor of Nekhen, Nimlot controlled Middle Egypt and the nomes of Upper Egypt. Nekhen, in modern Sudan, is the earliest know site of Horus worship.)

The researcher and lecturer on African Culture, Dr. Catherine Acholonu, reports that in Nigerian lore Nimrod is known as Sharru-Kin which is interpreted to mean “the righteous King.” Nimrod's Accadian name was Šarru-kīnu, which is usually translated “the true king.”

Many of the place names of Sar-gon’s kingdom match places names in ancient Kush.  For example, Accad is Agade, which is the original name of a river settlement in Odukpani, Nigeria. (Its geographical coordinates are 5° 29' 0" North, 7° 58' 0" East.) The name Accad is also related to the name Agades, a city in Niger which is famous for metalwork. Sargon’s territory was called Kish, which is Kush. One of the cities of his territory was Mari which is the Egyptian word for Mary. Another was Yar-muti (Old Arabic) which means Obedient (muti) Friend (yar). A seventh century Assyrian text says that his city on the bank of the Euphrates was called Azu-piranu. It was a Horite shrine as evidenced by the word piranu. The Hapiru devotees of Horus called their temples O-piru, meaning House of the Sun. Azu is the East African name for God - Asa. So Azu-piranu means “House of God” and is equivalent to the Hebrew word Beth-el.

Clearly, the Kushites were empire builders. Nimrod, the younger son of Kush, is an example.  He was probably the "sent away" son, as were Cain, Abraham, Ishmael, Jacob, Joseph and Moses. Just as Abraham gave gifts to all his sons and sent them away from Isaac who inherited Abraham's territory, so Kush gave gifts to his son Nimrod and sent him away from his older brother Ramah whose territory was in northern Arabia. As with all sent-away sons in the Bible, there was struggle and hardship, but ultimately by God's grace, these sons prospered. Nimrod’s territory was even greater than his brother’s. It extended the length of the Tigris-Euphrates Valley and within this territory there were three principal cities: Babel, Erech and Accad in the plain of Shinar (Gen. 10:10). The script used to communicate across Nimrod’s empire is called “Accadian.”

The Nilotic or Kushitic religious life spread or diffused through the agency of ruler-priests who controlled water systems at a time when the Sahara, Mesopotamia, southern Pakistan and southern India were wetter. These ruler-priests are called Horites because they were devotees of Horus, who was called "son of God."  They are called to the Hapiru in Akkadian and Habiru in Kushitic languages. The Arabic yakburu means “he is getting big” and with the intensive active prefix: yukabbiru means "he is enlarging." Likely, this is a reference to the morning ritual of Horite priests who greeted the rising sun with prayers and watched as it expanded across the horizon.

The Egyptians called the temple priestly attendants ‘pr.w, the w being the plural suffix. This has been rendered '*wap'er' by the Afro-Asiatic linguist Christopher Ehret.  The *wap'er had significant political authority alongside the ruler. He presided over the rituals directed toward the High God and acted as the intercessor and prophet of the God.

The Dravidian east-facing temple was termed O-piru, meaning “Sun House” or “House of the Sun.” Sar-gon the Great is said to have been the son of a virgin queen who was born in an O-piru. His home city was called Azu-piranu, meaning House of God (Azu). (Azu in Accadian, Asa in Chadic, Asha in Kushitic, Ashai in Hebrew; a Jerusalem priest was named Am-ashai in Neh. 11:13).

Many Dravidian shrines and monuments are now submerged under the sea, but originally they were on land that bridged the Arabian Peninsula and southern Pakistan and southwestern India. These settlements are sometimes referred to as the "Har-appa" civilization. Har refers to Horus and "appa" is the Dravidian word meaning father. The origin of Dravidian religion was apparently Egypt and ancient Kush from which the Horites came.” Har-appa might refer to Horus as father, just as today a Jew might refer to his father as “horeh.”

Diffusion of the Horite belief system was driven by four historically identified factors: Kushite migration out of Africa, commerce, conquests, and marriage alliances between the Horite ruler-priests. The Kushite migration out of Africa has been well documented. Commerce between the Horn of Africa, Arabia and Central Asia in the second and third millenium B.C. has also been well documented. Sar-gon's conquests of the Sumerian city-states have been well documented.

My research into the genealogical material in Genesis involves analysis of the Horite kinship pattern whereby the rulers had two wives and at least two concubines.  The first wife was a half-sister and the second wife was a patrilineal cousin or niece. The marriages of firstborn sons contributed to the diffusion of Horite religion. The firstborn son of the half-sister wife ascended to the throne of his biological father. The firstborn son of the patrilineal cousin or niece bride ascended to the throne of his maternal grandfather. All other sons were given gifts of camels, jewelry, flocks, herds and servants and sent away. The importance of this marriage pattern as a driving factor in Kushite expansion should not be overlooked.

Related reading: Who Were the Horites?; The Myth of Israel's Dual Origins; Afro-Asiatic Metalworkers; Nimrod was a Kushite Ruler; "History in Africa" by Dr. Christopher Ehret