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The Kassite dynasty, also known as the third Babylonian dynasty, was a line of kings of Kassites origin who ruled from the city of Babylon in the latter half of the second millennium BC and who belonged to the same family that ran the kingdom of Babylonia between 1595 and 1155 BC, following the first Babylonian dynasty (Old Babylonian Empire; 1894-1595 BC). It was the longest known dynasty of that state, which ruled throughout the period known as "Middle Babylonian" (1595-1000 BC).
The Kassites (kaššû in Mesopotamian and kossaioi in later Greek sources) were a people whose origins are unknown, although it has been suggested that they originated in the Zagros Mountains.Yalçın, S., "Chapter 3 People Praying on Stone: Identity in Kassite Babylonian Seals, ca. 1415–1155 BCE", in Selves Engraved on Stone. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, pp. 42–122, 2022 It took their kings more than a century to consolidate their power in Babylon under conditions that remain unclear. Despite their external origin, the Kassite kings did not change Babylon's ancestral traditions and, on the contrary, brought order to the country after the turbulence that marked the end of the first dynasty. They undertook a great deal of construction work, notably on the great temples, they contributed to the expansion of agricultural land, and under their auspices Babylonian culture flourished and expanded throughout the Middle East. The Kassite period is still very poorly known, due to the scarcity of sources relating to it, of which few are published. The economic and social aspects, in particular, are very poorly documented, with the exception of what relates to the royal donations attested by the characteristic donation Stele of the period, the .
From an epigraphy standpoint, J. A. Brinkman, a leading expert on sources from the period, has estimated that approximately 12,000 texts from the period have been found, is a currently dated work, but remains fundamental for the presentation of the sources of this period. most of them belonging to the administrative archives from Nippur, of which only about 20% have been published.The publication of much of the published texts is in , the only recent publication of a corpus of sources from Nippur, which doubled the number of texts from the Kassite period published. They were found in American excavations carried out mainly during the late 19th century and are stored in Istanbul and Philadelphia. The rest come from other sites: there are forty tablets found at Dur-Kurigalzu that have been published, others from Ur, in the city of Babylon sets of private economic tablets and religious texts have been found that have not been published. In the sites of the Hanrim hills, tablets have also been found, most of them unpublished,These Hanrim mound tablets are mentioned, for example, in . and there are also tablets whose provenance is unknown (the " Peiser archive"). Most of this documentation is of an administrative and economic nature, but there are also some royal inscriptions and scholarly and religious texts.
The royal inscriptions of the Kassite kings, few in number and generally brief, provide little information about the political history of their dynasty. It is necessary to turn to the later sources, which are the historical chronicles written in the early first millennium BC, the Synchronic History and the Chronicle P, which provide information mainly about the conflicts between the Kassite kings and the Assyrian people kings. The royal inscriptions of the latter, which are very abundant, provide essential information about the same wars. The royal inscriptions are somewhat less reliable. To these sources are also added some letters from the diplomatic correspondence of the Kassite kings with EgyptAmarna Letters, EA 1 & EA 15. and the Hittites. The former are part of the so-called Amarna letters, found in Amarna, the ancient Akhetaten, capital of the pharaoh Akhenaten. The latter were found at Boğazköy, on the site of the ancient Hittite capital, Hattusa.
The type of textual source concerning the administrative and economic life of Kassite Babylon that has attracted the most attention of scholars is a form of royal inscription, found on stelae known as (which the Babylonians called narû), commemorating royal donations. Some forty kudurrus are known from the Kassite period. Their texts usually consist of a brief description of the donation and any privileges, a long list of witnesses, and curses for those who did not respect the act.
There are no mentions of the exact origin of the kassites in ancient texts.About the Kassite people and their history, see . The first mention of them dates from the 18th century BC in Babylon, but they are also mentioned in Syria and Upper Mesopotamia in the following centuries. However, most experts place their origin in the Zagros Mountains range, where Kassites were still found during the first half of the first millennium BC. The first Kassite sovereign attested as king of Babylon seems to be Burna-Buriash II. This dynasty had as its rival that of the Sea Country, located south of Babylon around the cities of Uruk, Ur and Larsa, which was defeated in the early 15th century BC by the Kassite sovereigns Ulamburiash and Agum III. After this military victory, Babylon's preponderance in southern Mesopotamia was not challenged again and the Kassite sovereigns dominated the entire territories of Sumer and Akkadia, which became the country of Karduniash ( Karduniaš; the term Kassite equivalent to Babylon), which was one of the great powers of the Middle East.
The only notable territorial gain made by Kassite rulers thereafter was the island of Bahrain, then called Dilmun, where a seal bearing the name of a Babylonian governor of the island was discovered, although nothing is known about the duration of this rule.
The courts of the regional powers of this period connected through dynastic marriages, and the Kassite kings took an active part in this process, establishing multi-generational ties with some courts, such as that of the Hittites (which possibly lay behind their seizure of power in the city of Babylon) and the . Burna-Buriash II (ca. 1359-1333 BC) married one of his daughters to the pharaoh Akhenaten (3rd quarter of the 14th century BC)Amarna letters, EA 13 & EA 14. and another to the Hittite king Suppiluliuma II, while he himself espoused the daughter of the Assyrian king Ashur-uballit I. There were also Babylonian princesses who married Elamite sovereigns. These practices were intended to strengthen the ties between the different royal houses, which in the last two cases were direct neighbors, in order to avoid political tensions. With more distant partners, such as the Hittites, they were essentially a form of prestige and influence, since the Babylonian princesses and the specialists (doctors and scribes) who were sent to the Hittite court were protagonists of Babylonian cultural influences in the Hittite kingdom..
The situation then became increasingly confused, as the Assyrians failed to establish a lasting domination in Babylon, despite the will of Tukulti-Ninurta, who had his victory described in a long epic text (the Epic of Tukulti-Ninurta) and proclaimed himself king of Babylon. The conflicts continued and escalated when the Elamite king Kidin-Hutran (r. 1245-1215 BC) became involved, possibly in solidarity with the Kassite kings, to whom he was linked by marriage. Kidin-Hutran devastated Nippur and made the situation difficult for the Assyrian-imposed rulers in Babylon, who were deposed one after another until 1217 BC.
After the assassination of Tukulti-Ninurta in 1208 BC and the internal turmoil that followed in Assyria, the kings of Babylon were able to regain their autonomy, to the extent that it was the Babylonian king Merodach-Baladan I (r. 1171-1159 BC) who helped the Assyrian king Ninurta-apil-Ecur take power in the northern kingdom, before the latter turned against him unsuccessfully. Shortly after the end of these conflicts, the Elamite armies entered Mesopotamia, commanded by their king Shutruk-Nakhunte (r. 1185-1160 BC), at a time when Babylon and Assyria were weakened by recent warfare. The Elamite king's intervention in Babylon may have been motivated by his desire to assert his rights to the Babylonian throne resulting from his family ties to the Kassite dynasty, at a time when succession disputes had weakened the legitimacy of the Babylonian sovereigns.
Notwithstanding their ethnic background, the Kassites influences on the political and religious usages of the court seem to have been limited. The names of the sovereigns are Kassite at the beginning of the dynasty, referring to gods of this people, such as Burias, Harbe, or Marutas, but later mix Kassite and Akkadian Empire terms. The royal dynasty placed itself under the protection of a pair of Kassite deities, Sucamuna and Sumalia, who had a temple in the city of Babylon at which kings were crowned. Although, according to a text of the time, the official capital was later moved to Dur-Kurigalzu, the kings continued to be honored in Babylon, which preserved its status as the main capital. Dur-Kurigalzu was a new city founded by Kurigalzu II (r. 1332-1308 BC), where the Kassite kings were honored by the chiefs of the Kassite tribes. Apparently, this secondary capital seems to be more closely linked to the dynasty, without really shadowing Babylon, whose prestige remained intact.
A little more is known about provincial administration.. The kingdom was divided into provinces ( pīhatu), headed by governors, usually called šakin māti or šaknu, to which can be added the eventual tribal territories headed by a bēl bīti, an office we talk about below. The governor of Nippur bore the particular title of šandabakku (in Sumerian: GÚ.EN.NA) and had more power than the rest. This office of governor of Nippur is only well known because of the abundance of archives found in that city about the Kassite period. Governors often succeeded each other within the same family. At the local level, villages and towns were administered by a "mayor" ( hazannu), whose functions had a judicial component, although there were judges ( dayyānu).. The subordinate administrative posts were held by Babylonians, who were well trained for such tasks. The Kassites do not seem to have had much inclination for the profession of scribe-administrator. All subjects were obliged to pay taxes to the royal power, which in some cases could be paid with works: sometimes it happened that the administration requisitioned certain goods from private individuals. These tax contributions are known mainly because they are mentioned in the kudurrus, which record the exemption for certain lands.
In the Kassite period some innovations were made in the field of administrative organization, which are partly due to Kassite traditions. Some territories were called "houses" (in Akkadian: bītu), headed by a chief ( bēl bīti, "house chief"), who usually claimed to be descended from an eponymous common ancestor of the group. This was long interpreted as a kassite mode of tribal organization, with each tribe having a territory that it administered. This view has recently been challenged, and it has been proposed that these "houses" of family property inherited from an ancestor were a form of province that complemented the administrative grid described above, in which chiefs were appointed by the king.
These donations are recorded in kudurrus, and 40 have been found from the Kassites dynasty. These are stelae divided into several sections: the description of the donation, with the rights and duties of the beneficiary (taxes, corvees, exemptions), the divine curses to which those who did not respect the donation were subjected, and often carved Relief. The kudurrus were placed in temples, under divine protection. Usually the donations involved very large properties, 80 to 1,000 (250 ha on average) and the recipients were high dignitaries close to the king: high officials, members of the court, especially the royal family, generals or priests. They were a reward for people's loyalty or for acts for which they had distinguished themselves. The great temples of Babylon also received important estates: Esagila, the temple of Marduk of Babylon, received 5,000 ha during the period. The land was granted with agricultural workers, who became dependent on the temple. Sometimes the grants were accompanied by tax exemptions or corvees. In extreme cases, the beneficiaries had power over the local population, which took the place of the provincial administration, from which they were protected by special clauses.On economic and social analysis of the content of these donations, see and
Some scholars see some similarities of this practice with feudalism,Kemal Balkan explicitly refers to the alleged parallelism between feudalism and the cassite donation system in his work Studies in Babylonian Feudalism of the Kassite Period, which remains one of the most extensive studies on the social and economic situation of that period. in which is flatly refuted by most recent studies, according to which these donations did not call into question the traditional Babylonian economic system, which was never feudal as such, although there may have been strong local powers on some occasions. The grants did not concern most of the land, which the sovereign could not alienate and which continued to be administered in the same ways as described above from previous periods.
The land grants made by the kings seem to have focused mainly on lands located in the vicinity of cultivated areas, which may reflect a desire to take back areas that had become uncultivated after the end of the previous period. It is also noted that the royal administration engaged in the exploitation of intensively cultivated areas around Nippur. However, little is even known about irrigated , the main economic sector of Babylon.
Babylon exported to its western neighbors (Egypt, Syria, and Anatolia) lapis lazuli, which was imported from Afghanistan, and also whose breeding seems to have been a specialty of the Kassites, well attested in the Nippur texts, although these animals came from the mountainous regions of eastern and northeastern Mesopotamia..
The original Kassite deities did not acquire an important place in the Babylonian pantheon. The main ones are known through a few mentions in the texts: the patron couple of the Sucamuna-Sumalia dynasty already mentioned, the storm god Burias, the warrior god Marutas, the sun god Surya, and Harbe, who seems to have had a sovereign function.
The various works sponsored in the temples by the Kassite monarchs are poorly known at the architectural level, but there are indications that some innovations were made. A small temple with original decoration built inside Eanna, the main religious complex of Uruk, is known to have been constructed during the reign of Caraindas (15th century BC), and of works carried out at Ebabar, the temple of the god Shamash in Larsa, during the reign of Burna-Buriash II II (ca. 1359-1333 BC). However, it is mainly one of two kings named Kurigalzu I (probably the first, who reigned in the early 14th century BC) who is known, among other works, for building or rebuilding several temples in the main cities of Babylon, namely in the major religious centers (Babylon, Nippur, Akkadian Empire, Kish, Sippar, Ur and Uruk), in addition to the city he founded, Dur-Kurigalzu, where a ziggurat dedicated to the god Enlil was built. Besides these works, Kurigalzu sponsored the worship of the deities worshipped in these different temples. Resuming the traditional role of Babylonian kings as protectors and funders of the cult of the gods, the Kassite kings played a crucial role in restoring the normal functioning of many of these shrines that had ceased to function following the abandonment of several major sites in southern Babylon at the end of the Paleobylonian Period, such as Nippur, Ur, Uruk and Eridu.
During the Kassite period, several fundamental works of Mesopotamian literature were written and there was mainly the canonization and standardization of works from previous periods that until then had circulated under various variants. Akkadian versions of some Sumerian myths were also prepared. The Kassite period seems to have enjoyed prestige among the literates of the following periods, who sometimes looked for an ancestor among the literates who were supposed to have been active during this period. Important achievements of this period include the writing of canonical versions of numerous lexical lists,. the writing of a "Hymn to Utu," one of the most notable in ancient Mesopotamia, as well as another dedicated to Gluttony. The standard version of the "Epic of Gilgamesh," which according to tradition is by the exorcist Sîn-lēqi-unninni, is often attributed to this same period. However, precise dating of the literary works is often impossible: at best, these achievements can be placed in the period between 1400 and 1000 BC..
One of the most remarkable aspects of the literature of the Middle Babylonian period is the fact that several works reflect a deepening of reflections on human destiny, in particular the relations between gods and men. This is found in several major works of Mesopotamian sapiential literature, a genre that had existed for a millennium, but which then reached its full maturity and proposed deeper reflections. The Ludlul bēl nēmeqi ("I will praise the Lord of Wisdom"; also known as "Poem of the Just Sufferer" and "Monologue of the Just Sufferer," "Praise to the Lord of Wisdom," or "Babylonian Job") presents a just and pious man who laments over his misfortunes whose cause he does not understand, for he respects the gods. The Dialogue of Pessimism, written after the Kassite period, proposes a similar reflection in the form of a satirical dialogue. The changes leading to the standard version of the Epic of Gilgamesh would also reflect these developments: whereas the previous version accentuated mainly the heroic aspect of Gilgamexe, the new version seems to introduce a reflection on human destiny, in particular on the inevitability of death.
A few housing blocks from this period have been uncovered in the sites at Ur, Nippur, and Dur-Kurigalzu, where no major changes from the preceding period have been noted. In contrast, the religious architecture, although poorly known, seems to witness some innovations. The small shrine built under the Caraindas of the Eanna complex at Uruk has a facade decorated with molded baked bricks representing deities protecting the waters, a type of ornamentation that is an innovation of the Kassite period. However, official architecture is mainly represented in Dur-Kurigalzu, a new city ordered built by one of the kings named Kurigalzu, where the large size of the main buildings shows that a new phase of monumentality has been entered.
In that city, a part of a vast palace complex in area, organized around eight units, was uncovered. Each of the sections of this building may have been assigned to the main Kassite tribes. According to a text of the time, the palace of Dur-Kurigalzu was the place where these tribes formally recognized the power of the new kings when they ascended the throne, which happened after the coronation had taken place in the city of Babylon, which remained the main capital. Some of the rooms were decorated with paintings, fragments of which have been found, including scenes of processions of male characters, who are identified as dignitaries of the Kassite tribes. Southeast of the palace was a religious complex dedicated to Enlil, dominated by a ziggurat whose ruins still stand over 57 meters high. Other temples were also built on this site. The stone sculpture of the Kassite period is represented mainly by the Relief decorating the kudurrus already mentioned several times, whose iconography is particularly interesting.. In them are symbols of the deities that guarantee the legal acts recorded on the stela, which are considerably developed by the artists of this period and replace the anthropomorphic representations of the deities, which allowed many deities to be represented in a minimum space. Nevertheless, sculptors continue to make figurative representations of characters on these Stele, as was common in previous periods. A kudurru from Meli-Shipak II represents this king holding hands with his daughter, to whom he made the donation of property recorded in the stela text, and presenting her to the goddess Nanaia, guarantor of the act, who is seated on a throne. Above are depicted the symbols of the astral Deity Sin (Lunar phase), Utu (Sun) and Inanna (morning star, Venus).
The use of Vitreous enamel materials developed greatly during the second half of the second millennium BC, with the enamelled glass technique in various colors (blue, yellow, orange and brown), which was used to produce glaze-covered clay vases and architectural elements, of which the tiles and bricks found at Acar Cufe are a good example. The first forms of glass also appeared in this period, and are represented in the artistic field by vases decorated with mosaics..
The glyptic themes experienced various evolutions during the second half of the second millennium BC, which experts divide into three or four types but whose chronology and geographical distribution are still poorly determined. The type of seal that predominated at the beginning took up the tradition of the preceding period; it associates a seated and a praying deity, with the text accompanying the image, very developed, consisting of a votive prayer; the engraved material is generally a hard stone. The next type of the kassite period is more original; a central character is depicted, often a kind of kthonic figure, a god on a mountain or emerging from the waters, or a hero, a demon, or trees surrounded by genies. The third kassite type is characterized by Assyrian influences and the presence of real or hybrid animals. The later style (also called "pseudo-Kassite"), developed at the end of the Kassite period or shortly thereafter, was engraved on soft stones and the images were dominated by animals associated with trees and framed with friezes of triangles..
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