In the study of the history of the Ancient Near East, it is common to define the period roughly comprising the sixteenth century bc as a ‘dark age’. This phase separates the First Dynasty of Babylon from the beginning of the Late Bronze Age, which is far better attested. The length of this ‘dark age’ depends on whether one chooses a short or a long chronology. This preference also becomes a way to evaluate this ‘dark age’. The supporters of a long chronology emphasise the drastic cultural changes taking place between the Old Babylonian period and the Late Bronze Age. These changes would explain the long interval between the two phases. On the other hand, the supporters of a short chronology emphasise the elements of cultural continuity and the scarcity of documentation for this phase. Thankfully, now that the study of the Old and Middle Hittite evidence has drastically improved, the obscure character of the sixteenth century bc has been partly reduced.
The Mitannian kingdom (a. k.a. Hurri or Hanigalbat) already existed at the time of Hattusili I. Therefore, Upper Mesopotamia, which experienced the majority of changes in this phase, does not constitute a total gap in our knowledge anymore. Nonetheless, this phase shows a visible decrease of textual evidence. Broadly speaking, for Babylonia there is a gap between the Old Babylonian and the Kassite documentation. The latter only provides evidence from the Amarna Age onwards. Equally vast is the gap between the Assyrian kings Ishme-Dagan and Ashur-uballit, while the Hittite gap between Mursili and Telipinu is far shorter. On a local level, there is the gap between the texts of Alalah VII (ca. 1700—1650 bc) and Alalah IV (ca. 1550—1450 bc), since levels VI to V have not yielded any texts. This drastic reduction in the available sources cannot be entirely due to chance in the excavations. The sixteenth century bc must have been a consolidating period for new state administrations, such as the ones of the Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni and of the Kassite kingdom of Babylonia. These new state formations must have needed some time to implement an effective system to control their territories and manage their economy.
While the character of the sixteenth century bc is to a certain extent destined to remain obscure, several formerly accredited interpretations regarding this phase are now largely discredited. The old interpretation saw the appearance of this sort of ‘middle age’ of the second millennium bc as the result of the irruption of new populations in the Near East, mainly coming from the Anatolian and Iranian highlands. For this reason, these populations were conventionally called the ‘mountain people’ and were considered of Indo-European origins. The rise of the Hittites, Hurrians and Kassites in the political scene of the Near East was therefore arbitrarily considered as a single phenomenon, and thus placed in the same period and within the same ethno-linguistic group. However, there were considerable differences between the Indo-European groups ofAnatolia and the Indo-Iranian ones of the Hurrians and the Kassites. Moreover, these groups had several non-Indo-European features.
The Hittites and the other Indo-European groups from the Anatolian plateau were part of an archaic branch of the Indo-European language. They were already settled in that region by the end of the third millennium bc (perhaps even earlier). Consequently, their migration to Anatolia already took place at least half a millennium before the sixteenth century bc. Moreover, the Hittite state was already under development towards the end of the Old Babylonian period. It already had the opportunity to express its political and military influence in the Near East through its conquests of Yamhad and Babylon.
Similarly, in the mid-second millennium bc, the Hurrians were not a new population. They are attested in Upper Mesopotamia in the earliest evidence concerning the area, namely, from the mid-third millennium bc. Finally, the Kassites were one of the many populations inhabiting the Zagros (like the Gutians and Lullubeans), constantly pressing on the Mesopotamian alluvial plain. Consequently, their rise in Babylonia was not the result of a consistent migratory movement. It was a political and military intervention of a small group of Kassites, who were thus unable to completely alter the ethnic composition of Babylonia.
The ethno-linguistic innovation of the sixteenth century bc was rather brought about by the appearance of Indo-Iranian terms in the personal names from Mitanni and other states connected to it. Alongside these personal names, there was the appearance of a specific terminology linked to the breeding and training of horses for the two-wheeled horse-drawn chariot (Text 16.1). These names had a clear Indo-Iranian etymology, very similar to Ancient Persian and Sanskrit, such as Shuwardata (‘given by the sky’), Biryashshura (‘valiant hero’) and Indaruta (‘supported by Indra’). Moreover, new names of gods appeared, such as Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Nashatya (invoked in a treaty between Hatti and Hurri) and Shurya, the Sun-god of the Kassites. Similarly, Indo-Iranian terms and phrases regarding the training of horses began to appear in treaties, such as aika-wartanna (‘one turn’), tera-wartanna (‘three turns’),panza-wartanna (‘five turns’), and so on. Even the etymology of the word used to indicate chariot warriors, maryannu, was of Indo-Iranian origins (from the Sanskrit marya, ‘young warrior’). This Indo-Iranian element was therefore very different from the Indo-European linguistic group found in Anatolia, since it was more recent and of eastern origins.
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