KASSITES
a people who probably originated in the Zagros and who ruled Babylonia in the 16th-12th centuries BCE.
After the Hittite invasion of Mesopotamia, an Indo-Iranian people called Hurrians, from the Zagros Mountains, poured into Mesopotamia and overran peoples. The Hurrians settled down, gradually adopted civilized ways and became dominant in such cities as Mari, on the upper Euphrates, and Nuzi, which became a thriving commercial center.
Then came another wave of invaders, the Kassites, from the mountainous region just east of Mesopotamia – the first people known to have entered Mesopotamia on horseback. Hurrians continued to control their areas, and Kassites became rulers of great estates from which they dominated surrounding territory. From this Kassite elite came Babylon's new kings. In the early 1500s they began what would become a 500-year reign at Babylon. They accepted Babylon's literature as sacred, and with this they laid the ground for a new Babylonian culture.
Their Akkadian name Kaššû originates from a Kassite form *G/Kalž- (cf. Balkan, 1954, pp. 131 f.). Middle Babylonian documents from Nuzi have the form Ku-uš-šu (-hé), i.e., with the Hurrian adjectival ending -ḫḫe (Fincke, 1993, pp. 160 f.; also >Kunšu-; cf. Balkan, 1954, p. 109). This form resembles the much later Greek nameKossaioii, Lat. Coss(a)ei, Cossiaei, etc., i.e., “Kassites” (along with he Kissía as the name of the Kassites’ country; see Weissbach, 1921, 1922; Eilers, 1957-58, p. 135; Brinkman, 1976-80, p. 471b).
The original abodes of the Kassites are not known. The commonly held opinion that they originated from the Zagros mountains east of Babylonia (see, e.g., Balkan, 1986, p. 8; Heinz, 1995, p. 167) is based on the assumption that their geographical distribution before they took over the Babylonian alluvium was the same as their distribution after the demise of the Kassite rule in Babylonia. Sassmannshausen (1999, pp. 411 f.) is of the opinion that they penetrated from the central Zagros via the lower Diyala region into northern Babylonia, notably the Sippar region during the late Old Babylonian period. The Kassites seem to be relatively new to the region, in view of the fact that they do not appear among the peoples who inhabited the central and southern Zagros according to Sargonic and Ur III sources. In addition, no Kassite anthroponyms and toponyms are recorded in these regions according to the above-mentioned early sources. Several suspected Kassite names are recorded in Ur III economic documents from southern Babylonia, but it is not known whence these individuals originally came
Kings with Kassite names appeared on the middle Euphrates during the 17th century BCE. Agum the prince (? bukašum), who received envoys of the king of Halaba (very probably Aleppo) in his encampment, was perhaps a contemporary of Samsiluna (see Podany, 2002, p. 49). Kaštiliašu of Terqa was probably a contemporary of Abi-ešuh (1711-1684 BCE; see Podany, 2002, pp. 43 f.; cf. Charpin, 1995). The canal Habur-ibal-bugaš (see Balkan, 1954, p. 104) is recorded in a document from Terqa which is dated to King Hammurapih (perhaps 16th century BCE, i.e., at the beginning of the Middle Babylonian period; see Podany, 2002, pp. 58 f., 65 f.; cf. Charpin, 1995). Several individuals with Kassite names are recorded in the prism of Tunip-Teššup from Tikunan
The Character of the Kassite rule in Babylonia (the chronology follows Boese, 1982; cf. Brinkman, 1986). The first-millennium Babylonian King Lists assign the Kassite dynasty the longest rule of all the other dynasties who ruled Babylonia: 36 kings who ruled for 576 years and nine months. Its end is dated to 1150 BCE. Adding the years given by the King List to that date would place the beginning of the dynasty in the 18th century BCE, when rulers of the Hammurabi dynasty controlled Babylon. Therefore it is clear that the King List includes ancestors of the Kassite kings
By the 14th century BCE, the Kassites controlled the whole of Babylonia, including the Diyala region. Dilmun (modern Bahrain) in the Persian Gulf was ruled by a Kassite governor. Babylonia was recognized as a great power by the other Near Eastern powers, namely, its neighbors and Egypt, according to the Amarna correspondence. Fourteen letters were exchanged between the pharaohs and two successive Kassite kings, Kadašman-Enlil I (1369-55 BCE) and Burnaburiaš II (1354-28 BCE). The correspondence is mainly concerned with diplomatic marriages. The Kassites kings pursued a policy of dynastic marriages with rulers of the other contemporary Near Eastern powers, namely, Elam (from the reign of Burnaburiaš II onwards until that of Meli-Šīhu; see van Dijk, 1986, pp. 164 f.) and Hatti. The emergence of Assyria as a world power under Aššur-uballiṭ caused Burnaburiaš II to marry Aššur-uballiṭ’s daughter as his main wife. When Burnaburiaš II died, his son Kara-hardaš succeeded him but was assassinated in a rebellion (1328 BCE). Following this event, his grandfather Aššur-uballiṭ invaded Babylonia to place Kurigalzu II (1327-03 BCE) on the throne. But Babylonia remained a world power: the Hittite king Hattušili III contacted Kadašman-Enlil II (1258-50 BCE) when the latter became king, in order to continue their good relations.
The Kassites(/ˈkæsaɪts/) were a people of theancient Near East, who controlledBabylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empirec. 1531 BC and until c. 1155 BC (short chronology). Theendonym of the Kassites was probably Galzu,[1]although they have also been referred to by the names Kaššu, Kassi, Kasi or Kashi.
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