Sealand and the Early Kassites
During the reign of King Samsu-iluna cracks had begun to appear in the Babylonian Empire. A new dynasty of Sealand gained control of the region from Nippur southward, a land that was now mainly marsh; its founder, Iluma-ilum, consciously revived Sumerian traditions. After the Hittites sacked Babylon, Sealand briefly gained control of the city itself. Little is known of the
A Kassite chalcedony cylinder seal from Babylonia. It bears a heraldic scene of two winged, rampant bulls resting their forelegs upon a small tree with a round crown belonged to an official of the Kassite king Burnaburiash, 1359-1333 B. C.E. (Zev Radovan/Land of the Bible Picture Archive)
Dynasty but during its rule trade links between Babylonia and the Gulf were severed.
Samsu-iluna also came into conflict with the Kassites, who were known in Babylonia by around 1770. The Kassites' origins are unknown; currently they are thought to have come from the Zagros region, although an origin in the northwest was formerly favored. Generally they were nomads, but over the years many settled peacefully in Babylonia where they were employed as mercenaries and agricultural laborers.
According to the Babylonian Chronicle, the Kassite dynasty reigned for 576 years and 9 months; this figure takes the dynasty back to the time of Samsu-iluna. Gandash, the traditional founder, may have ruled a small Kassite kingdom on the middle Euphrates established around this time. Details of the dynasty's rise in importance over the following centuries are completely unknown, but around 1570 the Kassite king Agum II kakrime was sufficiently powerful to wrest control of Babylon from the Sealand dynasty. By this time the Kassites were probably thoroughly integrated into Babylonian society. Although they had their own gods, they paid devout attention to the Babylonian pantheon, and it was during their reign that Marduk, patron god of Babylon, gained the preeminent position of king of the gods. The Kassites took pains to preserve and encourage Babylonian traditions, restoring or building temples and other monuments and reinforcing Babylonian customs and practices.
Around 1475, Ea-gamil, king of Sealand, fled to Elam, where a little-known dynasty, the Kidinuids, ruled for about a century. Shortly afterward Ulamburiash, brother of the Kassite king Kashtiliash III, conquered Sealand, unifying the whole of southern Mesopotamia under Kassite rule. The conquest of the south reopened connections with the trade routes of the Gulf, and under the Kassites Dilmun (Bahrein) came under direct Babylonian control. Nearly a century later, Kurigalzu I constructed a fortress, Dur-Kurigalzu (modern Aqar Quf), to protect another important trade route that led east across the Iranian plateau to Afghanistan, source since distant antiquity of lapis lazuli, which now figured prominently among the diplomatic gifts sent to Egyptian kings who reciprocated with gold.
Although the Kassite realm seems to have enjoyed peace and prosperity, very little is known of the political history of the region beyond the names of the rulers and occasionally their achievements. The earliest known from contemporary inscriptions was Kara-indash, who ruled around 1415. He signed a treaty with Ashur-bel-nisheshu of Assyria establishing the line of their shared border, an action that had also been taken by an earlier Kassite ruler, Burnaburiash I. Thereafter Babylon began to play a more important role in the wider world. Kara-indash's son, Kadashman-harbe, had considerable trouble with nomads on his western border and strengthened a series of fortresses in the Syrian Desert as defense against them. At this time, around 1400, a new dynasty, the Igihalkids, gained control of Elam. Good relations between Elam and Babylonia are implied by successive marriage ties between their royal houses.
Assyria and Mitanni
Among the many peoples of northern Mesopotamia were the Hurrians, known from texts but impossible to identify in the archaeological record. They were concentrated on the northern and eastern margins, and by the early second millennium b. c.e. many of the small states of the north were ruled by Hurrian dynasties.
In the later seventeenth century b. c.e. when Babylonia was in decline, a larger Hurrian state began to develop on the north Mesopotamian plain, possibly coalescing as a response to aggressive moves by the Hittites farther to the west. By around 1500 this was becoming a major power, a state known as Mitanni, which came to control a huge swathe of territory from eastern Anatolia and the northern Levant through northern Mesopotamia to east of the Tigris. Assyria was swallowed up and for many years remained under Mitanni rule. Some linguistic evidence was formerly taken to indicate that Mitanni was ruled by an Indo-European-speaking elite, but this theory has now largely been superseded.
Glimpses of the early Mitanni state come from various sources. An inscription written around 1480 implies that Alalah in the northern Levant was a vassal of Mitanni by this time. The Egyptians were now seeking to control the Levant; Mitanni was the major power with which they came into conflict in the north. Thutmose I, Thutmose III, and Amenhotep II campaigned in this region,
A quartz cylinder seal, a product of the workshops of one of the principal Hurrian centers of the Mitanni Empire. Combined in this seal are elements from Egypt (the sphinx and the Hathor heads), from Mesopotamia (the master-of-animals motif and the winged disc), and from Anatolia (the double-headed creature). (Zev Radovan/Land of the Bible Picture Archive)
Recording the defeats they inflicted and setting up stelae to mark their farthest successes. For example, around 1447 Thutmose III defeated Mitanni forces in a major battle near Aleppo and ravaged lands on both banks of the Euphrates. An embassy was sent from Babylon to congratulate him on his victory.
The Assyrian king Ashur-nadin-ahhe I also sent an embassy to Thutmose III. Possibly in revenge for this action, the Mitanni king Saushtatar, who flourished around 1430, sacked Assur, carrying off a gold and silver door from Ashur's temple to the Mitanni capital, Washshukanni (a city that has yet to be identified). Saushtatar extended the Mitanni dominions to include the region of Nuzi and Arrapha east of the Tigris and the kingdom of Kizzuwatna in southeast Anatolia. Kizzuwatna later made a treaty with the Hittites that reneged on its allegiance to Mitanni.
This period is brought more sharply into focus by the increase in surviving documents, particularly from Egypt. Letters survive from the reigns of the pharaohs Amenhotep III and his son Akhenaten (fourteenth century b. c.e.) in the latter's capital, Akhetaten (modern Amarna). This famous archive, the "Amarna letters," contains diplomatic correspondence between contemporary rulers, discussing diplomatic gifts and exchanges of courtesies, along with the sealing of ties by marriage. For instance, a daughter of the Kassite king Kurigalzu I married Amenhotep III. Some years later his son declined to send a princess to Egypt, on the grounds that he knew nothing of the current fate of his sister. The kings address each other as "brother," implying that they accorded each other equal status. The letters are mostly written in the cuneiform script and in the Babylonian Akkadian language, the lingua franca of the Near East at that time, used for example in letters to Egypt from its vassals in the Levant. By the end of the fifteenth century, the Egyptian pharaohs decided that their interests in the Levant would best be served by peaceful relations with Mitanni, with whom they shared a common enemy in the Hittites. According to the Amarna letters Thutmose IV married a daughter of Artatama I of Mitanni, and the latter's son Shuttarna sent his daughter as bride to Amenhotep III, who also married Shuttarna's granddaughter Tatuhepa. By now, however, cracks were appearing in the Mitanni kingdom. Shuttarna's heir was murdered by conspirators who enthroned his brother Tushratta, probably still a minor, as their puppet. Eventually Tushratta was able to rid himself of them and restore Mitanni's good relations with Egypt. His authority was disputed by supporters of a rival claimant, his brother Artatama II, who had the backing of the Hittites: Civil war ensued. Eventually the Hittite king, Suppiluliumas I, gained control of all the Mitanni lands in the west and plundered Washshukanni, ruling through his son-in-law Shattiwaza, a son of Tushratta who had taken refuge at the Hittite court.
At the same time, Assyria, for many years under Mitanni domination, took the opportunity to seize control of some of the eastern Mitanni territory, led by its strong and enterprising king, Ashur-uballit I. To underline its newly won independence, Assyria sent an embassy to Akhenaten. Initially a small state centered around Assur, Arbela, and Nineveh (the Assyrian heartland), Assyria under Ashur-uballit came also to control a considerable area to the north and east. A fragment of the old Mitanni state remained, a temporary buffer between the rising powers of the Hittites and the Assyrians and at the mercy of both.
Ashur-uballit also extended his influence southward by concluding a treaty with Babylonia, sealed by marrying his daughter to the Kassite king Burnaburiash II. When the son of the marriage, Karahardash, succeeded to the Babylonian throne, he was deposed and killed by the army. Ashur-uballit swiftly intervened, deposing the usurper, Nazi-bugash, and installing his own candidate, Kurigalzu II (another son of Burnaburiash), in place of his murdered grandson. Kurigalzu had a successful military career; a later chronicle asserts that he defeated Elam, Assyria, and Sealand, and he himself claimed to have conquered Susa, Elam, and Marhashi. During the Mitanni period Babylonia had encroached on Assyrian terrritory and several boundary engagements had been fought. After a battle between Kurigalzu and Ashur-ubal-lit, the border was redrawn south of the Lower Zab.
Assyria, Babylonia, and Elam
The Egyptians and their rivals, the Hittites, signed a peace treaty around 1259. Babylonia and initially Assyria managed to enjoy good relations with both. However, Ashur-uballit's successors, Adad-nirari I and Shalmaneser I, further extended the Assyrian realms, sacking Washshukanni and taking control of the tattered remnant of Mitanni. This brought them into direct conflict with the Hittites, whom Shalmaneser resoundingly defeated, taking, according to his claims, 14,400 prisoners. Shalmaneser also won victories in Urartu to the north (a region whose highland terrain made it virtually impossible actually to conquer) and fought off many nomad raids.
A Kudurru (boundary stone) recording a grant of land from the Kassite king Melishipak (1186-1172 B. C.E.) to his son Marduk-apla-iddina. The symbols, which represent gods, include Marduk's dragon, the sun god Shamash, the moon god Sin and the planet Venus representing Ishtar. (Gianni Dagli Orti/Corbis)
The next Assyrian king, Tukulti-Ninurta I, built extensively at Assur but also founded a new capital city, Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta, just to its north. He campaigned on all fronts, further extending the Assyrian Empire, now one of the major powers of the Near East. In the west he again defeated the Hittites, reputedly taking 28,800 prisoners. He also reopened the border dispute with Babylonia. The Babylonian king, Kashtiliash IV, misjudging his opponent's strength, invaded Assyria. Tukulti-Ninurta responded by conquering Babylonia in 1225, deposing Kashtiliash and initially taking the throne himself. The following year he installed a puppet king, Enlil-nadin-shumi.
Good relations had been maintained throughout the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries between the royal houses of Elam and Babylon, while both were often hostile to Assyria. In support of his ally, the Elamite king Kidin-Hutran III invaded Babylonia in 1224, capturing Nippur and deposing Enlil-nadin-shumi. Some years later he again invaded Babylonia and overthrew another Assyrian appointee. Tukulti-Ninurta was unable to respond because of domestic problems, and in 1207 he was assassinated.
Kashtiliash's son regained control of Babylonia, restoring the Kassite line and later defeating Assyria. Kidin-Hutran III of Elam died a few years later, and with him the Igihalkid dynasty. The new dynasty, the Shutrukids, also intermarried with the Kassite royal family. Conflict with Assyria was renewed when its king Ashur-dan I mounted a raid after the death of the Babylonian king Marduk-apla-iddina I in 1158. Babylonian relations with Elam now also turned sour. Shutruk-Nahhunte, king of Elam and grandson of the previous Kassite king, Melishipak, decided that he ought to be the next Babylonian king. When his "sincere proposal" was rejected, he invaded Babylonia, overthrew the new Kassite king Zababa-shuma-iddina, and sacked many Babylonian cities, including Babylon, carrying off a huge amount of booty, including precious objects like Hammurabi's law code. He installed his son Kutir-Nahhunte as ruler of Babylonia. Despite this, a Kassite king, Enlil-nadin-ahhe, managed still to rule Babylonia for three years. In 1155, however, Kutir-
The palace of Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 B. C.E.) at Kalhu was built with the wealth accumulated through aggressive military campaigns and the resultant plunder and extraction of tribute from the vanquished. It was inaugurated with a ten-day banquet at which there were nearly 70,000 guests. (Ridpath, John Clark, Ridpath’s History of the World, 1901)
Nahhunte again invaded, sacking cities, including Babylon, and carrying off the city's precious image of its patron deity, Marduk. Thus after almost 400 years the Kassite dynasty was finally overthrown.
Kutir-Nahhunte was succeeded by his brother Shilhak-Inshushinak, who gained control of many cities within Babylonia and Assyria, taking advantage of Assyria's decline under the now aged Ashur-Dan, the fall of the Kassites, and their replacement by the much less powerful Second Dynasty of Isin. His son Hutelutush-Inshushinak came under attack by the fourth king of this dynasty, Nebuchadrezzar I, who defeated him. Elamite history at this point descended into obscurity that lasted around 300 years.
World History
