Mitanni/History

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Mitanni (or even Mittani, Naharina in Egyptian texts) was a kingdom located in northern Mesopotamia that was extended, at the height of its amplitude, the Zagros Mountains to Lake Van and the borders of Assyria, inhabited mainly by the Hurrians. It reached its peak between 1450 BC and 1350 BC, during the terminal phase of the Bronze Age. Its capital was Washukanni, identified today with Tell el Fakhariya. The defeat for the Hittite army, led by Piyashshili of Carchemish and King Suppiluliuma I, marked the end of the power of Mitanni although the principality lived for a time. The early Bronze Age heralded many changes in southewestern Anatolia: population increases marked by the appearance of many new sites; changes in settlement size and structure, including the appearance of monumental buildings and fortifications; increases in the sophistication of craft-production technologies, especially with respect to metallurgy and ceramics; and increasing evidence of long-distance exchange, probably practiced most frequently between elite members of increasingly centralized communities. Intermitted excavation over the early 20th century has provided the best contextual evidence for the period, revealing broad similarities of material in both burial and habitation contexts. At the same time, surface surveys have revealed a widespread and more regular distribution of over 100 Early Bronze Age throughout the region, the majority of them apparently newly settled in this period. Military defence must have been a priority since most settlements were located on mounds that rise from valley floors or higher up on natural ridges and plateaus at valley edges. This Early Bronze Age culture was not limited to mainland Western Anatolia, however; the Greek islands of Lesbos, Chios, and Samos have also yielded settlement sites and artefacts that very much resemble those found back in Turkey.

Settlement sites have yet to be excavated fully enough to reveal details of local settlement structure, yet mortuary remains from the excavated sites mentioned above provide good information about the range of burial types and grave goods found in both intramural burials (usually associated with children) and extramural cemeteries. As elsewhere in western Anatolia, the most frequently attested type of burial is in an urn called a pithos, with the deceased accompanied by grave goods that almost always include ceramics, and, in particular examples, a rich assortment of other items: stoneware vessels; animal and anthropomorphic figurines, or “idols,” in stone or metal; polished stone axes; copper-alloy weapons; and silver, gold, or electrum personal adornments. Some of these burials have yielded hints of links to the Mediterranean and beyond, a pair of stone bowls of Cycladic manufacture were found in a pithos burial in the Akhisar Valley.

Rise of the Aryans - the Hurrians[edit | edit source]

Owing to a dearth of resources, modern man unfortunately knows very little about the Hurrians.


Hurrians appeared in the Near E as early as the middle of the 3rd millennium b.c., c. 2300. Hurrians occupied the great half-circle of the Taurus Mountains from Urkish, N of Carchemish, to the country of Namar, around Lake Van, and perhaps as far S as the Upper Zab River. Hurrian kings (at least kings whose names appear to be of a Hurrian type) reigned in Assyria c. 2200-2000 b.c. The so-called Assyrian King List found at Khorsabad includes the names Tudia, Ushpia, Sulili, and Kikkia, which are neither Semitic nor Hurrian. During the reign of the Hitt. king Hattushili I (c. 1700 b.c.), Hurrians appeared along the Upper Euphrates to the E of the Hitt. heartland and carried out occasional raids to the W to harass the Hittites. When Hattushili’s successor, Murshili I (c. 1595 b.c.), led his armies through Syria to sack Babylon, he recorded military encounters with Hurrians. But it was during the following few centuries (c. 1600-1400 b.c.) that the great Hurrian buildup in Syria transpired. Hurrians dominated, if not actually ruled, the kingdom of Kizzuwatna (Cilicia), as well as the kingdom of Alalakh to the S. Indeed, the new dynasty of the Hittites, of which Suppiluliuma I is the most illustrious representative, seems to have been of Hurrian extraction. It is from c. 1400 b.c. that the great influx of Hurrian deities and Hurrian myths in the Hitt. corpus is dated. The greatest political achievement of the Hurrians was the kingdom of Mitanni, whose capital was Washukkanni in the Middle Euphrates Valley. At its height, c. 1400 b.c., Mitanni dominated Kizzuwatna and N Syria on the W, Assyria in the central region, and Nuzi in the E. During this period (c. 1500-1400 b.c.), Mitanni was ruled by kings who bore Indo-Aryan (i.e., not Hurrian-names): Shuttarna, Parsashatar, Shaushshatar, Artatama, and Tushratta. They carried on royal corresponden ce and international trade with the pharaohs of 18th dynasty of Egypt as equals. Several Mitannian princesses became wives of the pharaohs. It is through the royal correspondence between Tushratta of Mitanni and Amenophis III of Egypt that we possess in the El Amarna archive the famous Mitanni Letter, still the primary source for the Hurrian language. King Suppiluliuma I of Hatti put an end to the kingdom of Mitanni c. 1380 b.c. But the principal contribution of the Hurrians was not in their organized political authority; it was the cultural infusion that they brought into Hittite, Babylonian, Ugaritian, and Heb. societies that left its permanent mark.

3. Hurrians and Hurrian culture in the OT. The degree of Hurrian cultural influence on the peoples of southern and central Pal. was far less than that in Syria and northern Mesopotamia and Asia Minor. Since Abraham emigrated into Pal. from the E via the Haran region in Upper Mesopotamia, he brought with him many customs acquired while he lived in Haran. Many hitherto obscure aspects of the patriarchal narratives, chiefly having to do with legal customs, have been remarkably clarified by the tablets from Nuzi, a Hurrian settlement in northern Iraq, E of the Tigris. The presence in Pal. proper of Hurrians can be shown by Hurrian names. The El Amarna tablets indicate that the Jebusite ruler of Jerusalem bore a name that means “servant of (the goddess) Hepa.” Hepa is a shortened form of the name Hepat, or Hebat, the name of the leading goddess in the Hurrian pantheon, the consort of the god Teshub. A Jebusite successor to “Servant of Hepa” is the king from whom David purchased the site for the future temple of Yahweh (2 Sam 24:18ff.; cf., 1 Chron 21:18ff.).

Enter the Mitanni[edit | edit source]

Originally the Mitanni were probably part of the Aryan people who finally settled in India, but it appears they, and some other of their race (including the Hurri), turned and settled in Mesopotamia instead. Their kingdom was a feudal state led by a Hurrian or Aryan warrior. The upper class in the cities consisted of a chariot-warrior caste, the maryannu, which bred horses on large country estates. The nobles received their land as an inalienable fief: land could not be sold. To get around this law, landowners arranged to sell land by "adopting" buyers for a prearranged sum of money. Sheep were raised for their wool, and the palace collected textiles to be exported to foreign markets. The social structure and legal system were well-organized and patterned after the Babylonian.


There have been few Mitanni settlements uncovered in Mesopotamia. There were large palaces for the ruling house even in small district capitals. These were decorated with frescoes. Small temples have also been found. The dead were probably buried outside of the towns. Small artifacts include seals that show Babylonian and Assyrian influence, especially in the naturalistic representation of the figures. Finely crafted ceramics were decorated in white on a dark background.

Continuation as Urartu?[edit | edit source]

References[edit | edit source]