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The Kassites were a Near Eastern mountain tribe of obscure origins,
who spoke a non-Indo-European, non-Semitic language. They conquered
Mesopotamia, bringing the Old Babylonian era to an end and for the first
time welding together the network of independent, feuding city-states
into a territory that can be called 'Babylonia.' According to the
conventionally used Middle Chronology, Kassite hegemony in Babylon,
Nippur and other centers lasted from about 1595 to 1155 BC.
Contents
1 History
2 Kassite survivals
2.1 Language
3 References
4 External links
History
The original homeland of the Kassites is obscure, but appears to have
been located in the Zagros Mountains in Luristan [1] [2]. Their first
historical appearance occurred in the 18th century BC when they attacked
Babylonia in the 9th year of the reign of Samsu-Iluna (reigned 1749 BC -
1712 BC), the son of Hammurabi. Samsu-Iluna repelled them, but they
subsequently gained control of northern Babylonia sometime after the
fall of Babylon to the Hittites in 1595 BC, and conquered the southern
part of the kingdom by about 1475 BC. The Hittites had carried off the
idol of Marduk, 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 retraction 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 was named to honour Kurigalzu I (ca. 1400 — ca. 1375). His
successors Kadashman-Enlil I (c. 1375-c. 1360) and Burnaburiash II (c.
1360-c. 1333) were in correspondence with the Egyptian rulers Amenhotep
III and Akhenaton (Amenhotep IV) (see Amarna letters).
Their success was built upon the relative political stability that the
Kassite monarchs achieved. They ruled Babylonia practically without
interruption for over four hundred years— the longest rule by any
dynasty in Babylonian history. Even after a minor revolt in 1333 BC and
a seven-year Assyrian hiatus in the 13th century BC, the ruling Kassite
family managed to regain the throne.
The transformation of southern Mesopotamia 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, Egypt, Elam, and the Hittites, 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 Nubian gold) to Assyria and
Anatolia. Kassite weights and seals, the packet-identifying and
measuring tools of commerce, have been found in Thebes in Greece, in
southern Armenia, 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 was the most
important provincial center. Nippur, the formerly great city, which had
been virtually abandoned about 1730 BC, was rebuilt in the Kassite
period, with temples meticulously re-sited on their old foundations.
Other important centers during the Kassite period were Larsa, Sippar and
Susa. Even 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.
Comparisons of Kassite Babylonia with feudalism are now considered more
misleading than useful, but the prestige of Nippur was enough for a
series of 13th century Kassite kings to reassume the title 'governor of
Nippur' for themselves.
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, kudurrus (comparable to land grants
and administrative prerogatives), 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 circle." (Oppenheim 1964, p. 62). In the course of
centuries, however, the Kassites were absorbed into the Babylonian
population. Eight among the last kings of the Kassite dynasty have
Akkadian names, and Kassite princesses married into the royal family of
Assyria.
The Elamites conquered Babylonia in the 12th century BC, thus ending
four hundred years of Kassite rule. The last Kassite king,
Anllil-nadin-akhe, was taken to Susa and imprisoned there, where he also
died.
Kassite survivals
The contributions that Kassites brought to native Babylonian culture are
still being debated, partly through identifying the few hundred later
Akkadian words of Kassite origin, about ten percent of them are names of
gods.
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 attacked them in
702 BC. They are doubtless the "Kossaeans" of Ptolemy, who divides
Susiana between them and the Elymaeans. Alexander the Great battled
Kossaeans in the winter of 323 BC on his way from Ecbatana to Babylon;
according to Strabo (xi. 13,3,6) the Kossaeans were the neighbours of
the Medes. Theodor Nöldeke (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 (Choephorae 424, Persians 17, 120) and by
Herodotus (v. 49, 52).
Language
Like the other languages of the non-Semitic tribes of Elam, that of the
Kassites was agglutinative; a fragment of Kassite vocabulary has
survived in a single Cuneiform tablet. There is also a list of Kassite
names with their Semitic equivalents, and a few technical terms. Some of
the Kassite deities were introduced into the Babylonian pantheon.
Nothing else remains. Kassite is not descended from Indo-European
languages, as had once been supposed. The study of Kassite is hindered
by the fact that the Kassite bureaucracy conducted business in Akkadian.
Consequently, lists of Kassite names have assumed a prominent
importance.
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