Shupria
It was located north of the upper Tigris River and to the southwest of Lake Van, extending eastwards to the frontiers of Urartu.
Bradley J. Parker writes that the existing evidence indicates that Shubria had a heterogeneous population including Hurrians, Arameans, and likely also Urartians, Assyrians and others.
According to some scholars, Shubria was inhabited, at least in part, by speakers of the Proto-Armenian language and played an important role in the formation of the later Armenian state and ethnic group.
The name Shubria is related to the older term Subartu(m) (Shubartu(m), Subir, Subar(u)), which had varying geographical and ethnic or cultural associations that transformed over time.
[1] This term dates back to Sumerian times, when it appears to have been used to describe an area corresponding to Upper Mesopotamia and the southern Armenian highlands.
[1] In Igor Diakonoff's view, the ending -ia in Shubria cannot be native Akkadian and probably indicates that the term was borrowed or reborrowed from Urartian.
[3] Shubria was located south of modern-day Muş, Turkey, north of the upper Tigris River and to the southwest of Lake Van, extending eastwards to the frontiers of Urartu.
[12][b] However, in a later version of his work, Diakonoff writes that "there is good reason to believe that [Urmiu] lay to the east of Šubria," while Urartian Arme may have simply meant "Aramaic-speaking country," indicating the area between Amid (modern Diyarbakır) and the upper Tigris where the Aramaic and Proto-Armenian linguistic zones met.
[1] After the Hurrian king Shattuara of Mitanni-Khanigalbat was defeated by Adad-nirari I in the early 13th century BC, he appears to have become ruler of a reduced vassal state, Subartu.
[1] In the 1st millennium BC, Shubria, the continuation of the earlier Subartu,[1] appears as an independent kingdom occupying a difficult geopolitical position: it was wedged between two great powers of Assyria and Urartu.
[4] In 854 BC, Ashurnasirpal's successor Shalmaneser III captured Shubrian cities and forced Anhitti to submit and pay tribute.
[24] According to Diakonoff, it is "quite probable" that Shubria was settled by speakers of Proto-Armenian—who he believes were known as the (eastern) Mushki and possibly also the Urumeans—from the time of Esarhaddon's conquest and deportations.
Bradley J. Parker writes that the existing evidence indicates that Shubria had a heterogeneous population including Hurrians, Arameans, and likely also Urartians, Assyrians and others.
[32] Diakonoff theorized that the Proto-Armenians migrated eastwards from Anatolia into the western part of the Armenian highlands in the second quarter of the 12th century BC.
Tamas Deszö argues that Shubria's policy of accepting refugees derived from religious tradition, suggesting that the Shubrians had a refuge sanctuary at Uppumu, as well as a temple to Teshub there.
