Kassites

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Kassites

The Kassites were an ancient Near East

Ancient Near East

The Ancient Near East refers to early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia , Fars Province, Elam and Medes , Anatolia , the Levant , and Ancient Egypt, from the rise of Sumer in the 4th millennium BCE until the region's conquest by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BCE, or covering both th...
ern tribe who gained control of Babylonia

Babylonia

Babylonia was a state in Lower Mesopotamia , Babylon as its franklin. Babylonia emerged when Hammurabi created an empire out of the territories of the former kingdoms of Sumer and Akkad....
after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire after ca. 1531 BC to ca. 1155 BC (short chronology). Their language is classified as an isolate

Language isolate

A language isolate, in the absolute sense, is a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical relationship with other living languages; that is, one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common to any other language....
.

original homeland of the Kassites is obscure, but appears to have been located in the Zagros Mountains

Zagros Mountains

The Zagros , are the largest mountain range in Iran and Iraq. They have a total length of 1 500 km from western Iran, on the border with Iraq to the southern parts of the Persian Gulf....
in Lorestan

Lorestan Province

Lorestan comprises a province and a historic territory of western Iran amidst the Zagros Mountains.The population of Lorestan is calculated 1,739,644 people in 2006 ....
in Iran. Their first historical appearance occurred in the 18th century BC when they attacked Babylonia

Babylonia

Samsu-Iluna

Samsu-Iluna , was the King of Babylon, who reigned from 1749 BC to 1712 BC.He was a son of Hammurabi. During the reign of Samsu-Iluna the Babylonian Empire lost a lot of provinces....
(reigned ca.

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The Kassites were an ancient Near East

Ancient Near East

Babylonia

Language isolate

History

The original homeland of the Kassites is obscure, but appears to have been located in the Zagros Mountains

Zagros Mountains

Lorestan Province

Babylonia

Samsu-Iluna

Hammurabi

Hammurabi Hammurabi is known for the set of laws called Code of Hammurabi, one of the first written Civil code in recorded history. These laws were written on a stone tablet standing over six feet tall that was found in 1901....
. Samsu-Iluna repelled them, but they subsequently gained control of northern Babylonia sometime after the fall of Babylon

Babylon

Babylon was a city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, sometimes considered an empire, the remains of which can be found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Governorate, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad....
to the Hittites

Hittites

The Hittites were an ancient Anatolian people who spoke a Hittite language of the Anatolian languages of the Indo-European languages family, and established a kingdom centered at Hattusa in north-central Anatolia ca....
in ca. 1531 BC (short), and conquered the southern part of the kingdom by ca. 1475 BC. The Hittites had carried off the idol of the god Marduk

Marduk

Marduk was the Babylonian language name of a late-generation god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city of Babylon, who, when Babylon permanently became the political center of the Euphrates valley in the time of Hammurabi , started to slowly rise to the position of the head of the Babylonian pantheon, a position he fully acqu...
, but the Kassite rulers regained possession, returned Marduk to Babylon, and made him the equal of the Kassite Shuqamuna. The circumstances of their rise to power are unknown, due to a lack of documentation from this so-called "Dark Age" period of widespread dislocation. No inscription or document in the Kassite language has been preserved, an absence that cannot be purely accidental, suggesting a severe regression of literacy in official circles. Babylon under Kassite rulers, who renamed the city Karanduniash, re-emerged as a political and military power in the ancient Near East. A newly built capital city Dur-Kurigalzu

Dur-Kurigalzu

Dur-Kurigalzu was a city in southern Mesopotamia near the confluence of the Tigris and Diyala rivers about 30 km west of modern Baghdad. It was founded by a Kassites king of Babylon, Kurigalzu I or II, some time in the 14th century BC, and was abandoned after the fall of the Kassite dynasty....
was named in honour of Kurigalzu

Kurigalzu

Kurigalzu is the name of at least two kings in the Kassites Dynasty of Babylonia. They ruled in the fourteenth century BC. One of them founded a new capital city called Dur-Kurigalzu. His name means 'Herder of the Kassites "....
I (ca. early 14th century BC). His successors Kadashman-Enlil I

Kadashman-Enlil I

Kadashman-Enlil I was a Kassites King of Babylon from ca. 1374 BC to 1360 BC . He is known to have been a contemporary of Amenhotep III of Egypt, with whom he corresponded; three letters authored by Kadashman-Enlil are preserved in the Amarna letters corpus....
(ca. 1374 – 1360 BC (short)) and Burnaburiash II (ca. 1359 – 1333 BC (short)) were in correspondence with the Egypt

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an Ancient history civilization in eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile in what is now the modern nation of Egypt....
ian rulers Amenhotep III

Amenhotep III

Amenhotep III was the ninth pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt. According to different authors, he ruled Egypt from June 1391 BC-December 1353 BC or June 1388 BC to December 1351 BC/1350 BC after his father Thutmose IV died....
and Akhenaton (Amenhotep IV) (see Amarna letters

Amarna letters

The Amarna letters are an archive of correspondence on clay tablets, mostly diplomatic, between the Ancient Egypt administration and its representatives in Canaan and Amurru during the New Kingdom....
). Their success was built upon the relative political stability that the Kassite monarchs achieved. They ruled Babylonia practically without interruption for almost four hundred years— the longest rule by any dynasty in Babylonian history. Even after a minor revolt ca. 1333 BC and a seven-year hiatus of Assyria

Assyria

Assyria was a political state centered on the Upper Tigris river, in Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times in history....
n rule (ca. 1224 - 1217 BC (short)), the ruling Kassite family regained the throne.

The transformation of southern Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia is the area of the Tigris-Euphrates river system, along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, largely corresponding to modern Iraq, as well as some parts of northeastern Syria, some parts of southeastern Turkey, and some parts of the Khuzestan Province of southwestern Iran....
into a territorial state, rather than a network of allied or combatative temple-cities, made Babylonia an international power. Kassite kings established trade and diplomacy with Assyria

Assyria

Assyria was a political state centered on the Upper Tigris river, in Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times in history....
, Egypt

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an Ancient history civilization in eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile in what is now the modern nation of Egypt....
, Elam, and the Hittites

Hittites

The Hittites were an ancient Anatolian people who spoke a Hittite language of the Anatolian languages of the Indo-European languages family, and established a kingdom centered at Hattusa in north-central Anatolia ca....
, and the Kassite royal house intermarried with their royal families. There were foreign merchants in Babylon and other cities, and Babylonian merchants were active from Egypt (a major source of Nubia

Nubia

Nubia is a region in Southern Egypt along the Nile and in what is now northern Sudan. Most of Nubia is situated in Sudan with about a quarter of its territory in Egypt....
n gold) to Assyria and Anatolia. Kassite weights and seals, the packet-identifying and measuring tools of commerce, have been found in as far afield as Thebes

Thebes, Greece

Thebes is a city in Greece, situated to the north of the Cithaeron range, which divides Boeotia from Attica, Greece, and on the southern edge of the Boeotian plain....
in Greece, in southern Armenia

Armenia

Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in South Caucasus between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea....
, and even in a shipwreck off the southern coast of Turkey.

The Kassite kings maintained control of their realm through a network of provinces administered by governors. Almost equal with the royal cities of Babylon and Dur-Kurigalzu, the revived city of Nippur

Nippur

Nippur , from the Sumerian for 'lord wind' , is modern Nuffar in Afak Al Qadisyah Governorate, Iraq. Nippur was one of the most ancient of all the Sumerian cities....
was the most important provincial center. Nippur, the formerly great city, which had been virtually abandoned ca. 1730 BC, was rebuilt in the Kassite period, with temples meticulously re-built on their old foundations. In fact, under the Kassite government, the governor of Nippur, who took the Sumerian-derived title of Guennakku, ruled as a sort of secondary and lesser king. The prestige of Nippur was enough for a series of 13th century BC Kassite kings to reassume the title 'governor of Nippur' for themselves.

Other important centers during the Kassite period were Larsa

Larsa

Larsa , was an important city of ancient Sumer. It lies some 25 km southeast of the ruin mounds of Uruk , near the east bank of the Shatt-en-Nil canal ....
, Sippar

Sippar

Sippar , was an ancient Sumerian and later Babylonian city on the east bank of the Euphrates, some 60 km north of Babylon....
and Susa

Susa

Susa was an ancient city of the Elamite, Persian Empire and Parthian empires of Iran, located about 250 km east of the Tigris River.The modern town of Shush, Iran is located at the site of ancient Susa....
. After the Kassite dynasty was overthrown in 1155 BC, the system of provincial administration continued and the country remained united under the succeeding rule, the Second Dynasty of Isin.

Documentation of the Kassite period depends heavily on the scattered and disarticulated tablets from Nippur, where thousands of tablets and fragments have been excavated. They include administrative and legal texts, letters, seal inscriptions, kudurru
Kudurru

Kudurru was a type of stone document used as boundary stones and as records of land grants to vassals by the Kassites in ancient Mesopotamia between the 16th and 12th centuries BCE....
s (land grants and administrative regulations), private votive inscriptions, and even a literary text (usually identified as a fragment of a historical epic).

"Kassite rulers in Babylon were also scrupulous to follow existing forms of expression, and the public and private patterns of behavior "and even went beyond that — as zealous neophytes do, or outsiders, who take up a superior civilization — by favoring an extremely conservative attitude, at least in palace circles." (Oppenheim

A. Leo Oppenheim

A Leo Oppenheim , one of the most distinguished Assyriologists of his generation was editor-in-charge of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of Chicago 1955-1974 and John A....
1964, p. 62). Over the centuries, however, the Kassites were absorbed into the Babylonian population. Eight among the last kings of the Kassite dynasty have Akkadian

Akkadian language

Akkadian or Assyrian-Babylonian is a Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian language, an unrelated language isolate....
names, Kudur-Enlil's name is part Elamite and part Sumerian

Sumerian language

Sumerian was the language of ancient Sumer, spoken in Southern Mesopotamia since at least the 4th millennium BC. It was gradually replaced by Akkadian language as a spoken language somewhere around the turn of the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BC , but continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary and scientific language in Mesopotamia...
and Kassite princesses married into the royal family of Assyria

Assyria

Assyria was a political state centered on the Upper Tigris river, in Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times in history....
.

The Elam

Elam

Elam was an ancient civilization located in what is now southwest Iran.Elam was centered in the far west and southwest of modern-day Iran, stretching from the lowlands of Khuzestan and Ilam Province , as far as Jiroft in Kerman province and Burned City in Zabol, as well as a small part of southern Iraq....
ites conquered Babylonia in the 12th century BC, thus ending the Kassite state. The last Kassite king, Enlil-nadin-ahi, was taken to Susa

Susa

Susa was an ancient city of the Elamite, Persian Empire and Parthian empires of Iran, located about 250 km east of the Tigris River.The modern town of Shush, Iran is located at the site of ancient Susa....
and imprisoned there, where he also died.

The Kassite tribe of Khabira seems to have settled in the Babylonian plain. Remnants of Kassite tribes were living in the mountains northwest of Elam, immediately south of Holwan, when Sennacherib

Sennacherib

Sennacherib Rise to power As a crown prince, Sennacherib was placed in charge of the empire while his father Sargon II was on campaign....
attacked them in 702 BC. They are doubtless the "Kossaeans" of Ptolemy

Ptolemy

Claudius Ptolemaeus , known in English as Ptolemy , was a Roman Greek mathematics, Greek astronomy, geographer and astrologer. He lived in History of Roman Egypt, and was probably born there in a town in the Thebaid called Ptolemais Hermiou; he died in Alexandria around 168 AD....
, who divides Susiana between them and the "Elymaeans". Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great , also known as Alexander III of Macedon was an ancient Greeks King of Macedon . He was one of the most successful military commanders of all time and is presumed undefeated in battle....
battled Kossaeans in the winter of 323 BC on his way from Ecbatana

Ecbatana

Ecbatana is supposed to be the capital of Astyages , which was taken by the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great in the sixth year of Nabonidus ....
to Babylon; according to Strabo

Strabo

Strabo was a Ancient Greeks history, geography and philosophy....
(xi. 13,3,6) the Kossaeans were the neighbours of the Medes

Medes

The Medes were an Ancient Iranian peoples who lived in the northwestern portions of present-day Iran. This area was known in Greek as Media or Medea ....
. Theodor Nöldeke

Theodor Nöldeke

Theodor N?ldeke , Germany Semitic scholar, was born at Harburg, and studied at university of G?ttingen, Vienna, Leiden and Humboldt University of Berlin....
(Gott. G. G., 1874, pp. 173 seq.) has shown that they are the Kissians of the older Greek authors who are identified with the Susians by Aeschylus

Aeschylus

Aeschylus was an Ancient Greece playwright. He is often recognized as the father or the founder of tragedy, and is the earliest of the three Greek tragedy whose Play survive extant, the others being Sophocles and Euripides....
(Choephorae 424, Persians 17, 120) and by Herodotus

Herodotus

Herodotus of Halicarnassus was a Greeks historian who lived in the 5th century BC and is regarded as the "Father of History" in Western culture....
(v. 49, 52).

Kassite Dynasty of Babylon

Ruler	Reigned	Comments
Agum II or Agum-Kakrime
Burnaburiash I		Treaty with Puzur-Ashur III Puzur-Ashur III Puzur-Ashur III was the Monarch of Assyria from 1503 BC to 1479 BC. According to the Assyrian King List, he was the son and successor of Ashur-nirari I and ruled for 24 years.... of Assyria Assyria Assyria was a political state centered on the Upper Tigris river, in Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times in history....
Kashtiliash III
Ulamburiash		Conquers the first Sealand dynasty
Agum III Agum III Agum III was a Kassites king of Babylon ca. mid 14th century BC.Little is known about the king, with the only Babylonian reference to him from an expedition he led against "the Sealand" ca....
Karaindash		Contemporary of Amenophis III of Egypt Ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt was an Ancient history civilization in eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile in what is now the modern nation of Egypt....
Kadashman-harbe I
Kurigalzu I
Kadashman-Enlil I Kadashman-Enlil I Kadashman-Enlil I was a Kassites King of Babylon from ca. 1374 BC to 1360 BC . He is known to have been a contemporary of Amenhotep III of Egypt, with whom he corresponded; three letters authored by Kadashman-Enlil are preserved in the Amarna letters corpus....	ca. 1374—1360 BC (short)	Contemporary of Amenophis III of the Egyptian Ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt was an Ancient history civilization in eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile in what is now the modern nation of Egypt.... Amarna letters Amarna letters The Amarna letters are an archive of correspondence on clay tablets, mostly diplomatic, between the Ancient Egypt administration and its representatives in Canaan and Amurru during the New Kingdom....
Burnaburiash II	ca. 1359—1333 BC (short)	Contemporary of Akhenaten Akhenaten Akhenaten , was a Pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt, who died 1336 BC or 1334 BC. He is especially noted for attempting to compel the Egyptian population in the monotheism worship of Aten, although there are doubts as to how successful he was at this.... and Ashur-uballit I Ashur-uballit I Ashur-uballit I , was king of the Assyrian empire . His reign marks Assyria's independence from the kingdom of Mitanni, by defeating Shuttarna II; and the beginning of Assyria's emergence as a powerful empire....
Kara-hardash	ca. 1333 BC (short)	Grandson of Ashur-uballit I Ashur-uballit I Ashur-uballit I , was king of the Assyrian empire . His reign marks Assyria's independence from the kingdom of Mitanni, by defeating Shuttarna II; and the beginning of Assyria's emergence as a powerful empire.... of Assyria Assyria Assyria was a political state centered on the Upper Tigris river, in Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times in history....
Nazi-Bugash or Shuzigash	ca. 1333 BC (short)
Kurigalzu II	ca. 1332—1308 BC (short)	Son of Burnaburiash II, Fought Battle of Sugagi with Enlil-nirari Enlil-nirari Enlil-nirari was an Assyrian king..He fought against Kurigalzu, one of the mightiest Kassites kings of Babylon and great-grandson of Ashur-uballit I, in the battle of Sugagu to establish the boundary between both states.... of Assyria Assyria Assyria was a political state centered on the Upper Tigris river, in Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times in history....
Nazi-Maruttash Nazi-Maruttash Nazimaruttash was a Kassites king of Babylon ca. 1307 ? 1282 BC . Nazimaruttash is known to have made at least one Kudurru boundary stone....	ca. 1307—1282 BC (short)	Contemporary of Adad-nirari I Adad-nirari I Adad-nirari I was a Kings of Assyria of Assyria. He is the earliest Assyrian king whose annals survive in any detail.Adad-nirari I was a king of substantial military consequence in the development of the Assyrian kingdom.... of Assyria Assyria Assyria was a political state centered on the Upper Tigris river, in Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times in history....
Kadashman-Turgu	ca. 1281—1264 BC (short)	Contemporary of Hattusili III Hattusili III Hattusili III was a king of the Hittite empire ca. 1267 ? 1237 BC . He was the fourth and last son of Mursili II. Mursili appointed Hattusili as priest of Sausga of Samuha, and Hattusili remained loyal to the "Ishtar of Samuha" to the end of his days.... of the Hittites Hittites The Hittites were an ancient Anatolian people who spoke a Hittite language of the Anatolian languages of the Indo-European languages family, and established a kingdom centered at Hattusa in north-central Anatolia ca....
Kadashman-Enlil II	ca. 1263—1255 BC (short)	Contemporary of Hattusili III Hattusili III Hattusili III was a king of the Hittite empire ca. 1267 ? 1237 BC . He was the fourth and last son of Mursili II. Mursili appointed Hattusili as priest of Sausga of Samuha, and Hattusili remained loyal to the "Ishtar of Samuha" to the end of his days.... of the Hittites Hittites The Hittites were an ancient Anatolian people who spoke a Hittite language of the Anatolian languages of the Indo-European languages family, and established a kingdom centered at Hattusa in north-central Anatolia ca....
Kudur-Enlil	ca. 1254—1246 BC (short)
Shagarakti-Shuriash	ca. 1245—1233 BC (short)	Son of Kudur-Enlil
Kashtiliashu IV	ca. 1232—1225 BC (short)	Contemporary of Tukulti-Ninurta I Tukulti-Ninurta I Tukulti-Ninurta I was a king of Assyria. He succeeded Shalmaneser I, his father, as king and won a major victory against the Hittites at the Battle of Nihriya in the first half of his reign.... of Assyria Assyria Assyria was a political state centered on the Upper Tigris river, in Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times in history....
Enlil-nadin-shumi	ca. 1224 BC (short)	Assyria Assyria Assyria was a political state centered on the Upper Tigris river, in Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times in history.... installed governor
Kadashman-Harbe II	ca. 1223 BC (short)	Assyria Assyria Assyria was a political state centered on the Upper Tigris river, in Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times in history.... installed governor
Adad-shuma-iddina	ca. 1222—1217 BC (short)	Assyria Assyria Assyria was a political state centered on the Upper Tigris river, in Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times in history.... installed governor
Adad-shuma-usur	ca. 1216—1187 BC (short)	Contemporary of Ashur-nirari III Ashur-nirari III Ashur-nirari III was king of Assyria. . He was the grandson of Tukulti-Ninurta I and may have succeeded his uncle Ashur-nadin-apli on the throne.... of Assyria Assyria Assyria was a political state centered on the Upper Tigris river, in Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times in history....
Meli-Shipak II	ca. 1186—1172 BC (short)
Marduk-apla-iddina I	ca. 1171—1159 BC (short)
Zababa-shuma-iddin	ca. 1158 BC (short)
Enlil-nadin-ahi	ca. 1157—1155 BC (short)	Defeated by Shutruk-Nahhunte of Elam Elam Elam was an ancient civilization located in what is now southwest Iran.Elam was centered in the far west and southwest of modern-day Iran, stretching from the lowlands of Khuzestan and Ilam Province , as far as Jiroft in Kerman province and Burned City in Zabol, as well as a small part of southern Iraq....

Social life

In spite of the fact that some of them took Babylonian names, the Kassites retained their traditional clan and tribal structure, in contrast to the smaller family unit of the Babylonians. They were proud of their affiliation with their tribal houses, rather than their own fathers, and preserved their customs of fratriarchal property ownership and inheritance.

Language

According to Encyclopedia Iranica:

Culture

The most notable Kassite artifacts are their Kudurru

Kudurru

Kudurru was a type of stone document used as boundary stones and as records of land grants to vassals by the Kassites in ancient Mesopotamia between the 16th and 12th centuries BCE....
stele

Stele

A stele is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected for funerals or commemorative purposes, most usually decorated with the names and titles of the deceased or living ? inscribed, carved in relief , or painted onto the slab....
s. Used for marking boundaries and making proclamations, they were also carved with a high degree of artistic skill.

External links

abstract of a dissertation gives details of Kassite Nippur and Babylonia.