Essay Question:

How far is it possible to trace the development of the state of Mitanni?

Essay written by David Rohl (2nd Year Ancient History/Egyptology).

Submitted on the 30th May 1989.

The question of the rise and fall of the Mitannian state has been one of the least discussed topics in ancient historical scholarship. This is mainly because the source material for the land of Hanigalbat/Mitanni/Naharina is exceedingly scarce and those who study its history find themselves having to speculate far more frequently than is usual in other ancient Near Eastern disciplines. In tackling the historical development of Mitanni, this essay will have recourse to similar speculations. Considering the current state of our knowledge, the reader should, therefore, bear this unavoidable fact in mind when tackling any discussion on the state of Mitanni and its culture.

The Geography

The land of Mitanni was established c. 1500 BC and ended c. 1320 BC. The Egyptians employed two names for the region, 'Mitanni' and 'Naharina', the latter meaning 'the rivers' – that is to say the land which lay between the two great rivers of the Euphrates and Tigris in northern Mesopotamia, or perhaps, in a more restricted sense, between the Euphrates and the Khabur (what we call today the 'Khabur Triangle'). The subject-states belonging to Egypt in the southern Levant naturally adopted their overlord's designation and referred to Mitanni as 'Naharim'. On the other hand, a different term prevailed in southern and eastern Mesopotamia where Assyrian records refer to the land of Hanigalbat situated in the same time period and locality.

At its height, the territory controlled by the kings of Mitanni extended to Alalakh in the west and Nuzi to the east; the extent of its influence to the south is less easy to establish, but must have reached into northern Syria – the Egyptian land of the Amurru.

So from what and where did this powerful kingdom arise and, perhaps more particularly, how?

The Origins of the State of Mitanni

In Cambridge Ancient History, J.-R. Kupper [Kupper p. 36] makes the following statement:

“After the disappearance of Mari our sources fall silent ... this region is plunged into almost total obscurity. ... Towards the beginning of the fifteenth century, when the silence is finally broken, we are suddenly confronted with an important state, Mitanni. ... Nothing is known about the phases of its development.”

Thus, in terms of this region, there is a gap in our knowledge for 280 years between c. 1760 and c. 1480, and it is precisely in this time that the state of Mitanni rose to ascendancy in northern Mesopotamia.

The Hurrian Question

When discussing the rise of the Mitannian state, it is inevitable that the so-called Middle Bronze Age population movements should be brought to bear on the question. This especially concerns the supposed arrival of the Hurrians into the Levant, around 1800 BC. J. A. Brinkman [Brinkman p. 28] notes that there is no specific term to be found in Babylonian documents corresponding to 'Hurrian', that is to a particular ethnic/linguistic group. The term `Hurri Land' is however used by the Egyptians. It would therefore seem best to use the term `Hurrian' simply as a convenience, always remembering that, in its strictest sense, it simply means a person bearing a Hurrian type name.

When it comes to archaeology, the only evidence for the Hurrian culture appears to be the so-called 'Nuzi ware', first found at Nuzi and then identified at other sites in the region. That no structural remains have been found which can be definitely attributable to the Mitannian culture is an interesting problem, paralleling the Hittite question which prevailed in scholarship at the end of the last century – before Boghazkoy was discovered. This state of affairs will remain until the royal capital of the Mitannian state, Washukanni, can be located and excavated. It has been suggested that the Mitannian capital lies beneath the tell at Fakhariyyah near Ras el-Ain, but this is yet to be confirmed by excavation. This simple issue lies at the heart of the Mitanni problem, because, without the palace and archive of the kings of Mitanni, the history and culture of these enigmatic people can only really be guessed at.

What we do know about the Hurrian/Mitannian culture can be fairly briefly reviewed. Their national gods were Teshub, the storm god of the mountains (reflected in the Hittite royal name Uhri-Teshub and the various Teshubs of Carchemish), and his consort Heba, the mother goddess who is compounded with a number of secondary elements in the names of local rulers throughout the Levant, including Abdi-Heba of Jerusalem in the el-Amarna period. Other gods later found in the Mitannian pantheon, as evidenced by Mitannian/Hittite treaties, are clearly of Indo-Iranian origin and remain with us today in the names of the Vedic deities of India: Mitra, Varuna, Indra and the Nasatya. The importance of these four deities is, however, uncertain given their lowly position in the long lists of the hundred gods inscribed at Yazilikia (13th century).

The Indo-European origins of the Hurrians and associated groups may be reflected in the funerary practices of both the Hittite and Mitannian kings, who appear to have undergone cremation at death. It has been suggested that this shows a commonality between the two major non-semitic groups of the Near East in some sort of distant Indo-European/Indo-Iranian ancestry.

The Hurrians seem to have settled in strength during the Ur III and Mari periods in the early 18th century. Letters from Mari show that the rulers of Urshu and Hashshu bore Hurrian names. The Turukkians (thought to be a Hurrian element) were often in conflict with Hammurabi around 1792-1750. Also the Alalakh tablets from Level VII, dating to the 1st Dynasty of Babylon (17th century) suggest that the Hurrians were well established, some holding high offices in the priesthood and civil administration.

When Hittite texts come into play (c. 1650) we hear of Hurrian kings in northern Syria and, indeed, in the reign of Hattusili I, Hurrian forces are ranging across Hatti with the king of the Hittites forced to retreat behind the defences of Hattusa itself. Mursili I, in turn, encounters a major Hurrian presence east of Aleppo on his campaign into that region in c. 1600. By the time of Level IV at Alalakh (c. 1480) documents show that the Hurrians almost completely dominated the population with only a small element of West Semitic speaking names appearing in the texts.

The Rise of the Mitannian State

It is also at Alalakh, in Level IV, that names of Indo-Iranian type first appear and it is these names which seem to characterise the nobility and royal family of the Mitannian Dynasty.

The usual theory, [cf. Crossland pp. 826-7] is that the Indo-Iranians were a warrior aristocracy which brought new Hurrians into the region when the political vacuum, brought about by the sack of Babylon by Mursili I, was created. It was this aristocratic group which went on to establish the kingdom of Mitanni with both the new and indigenous Hurrians (as well as certain Amorite groups) as their subject population. Crossland [op. cit., p. 826] observes that 'Hurrians demonstrably spoke a non-Indo-European language' but that they were 'ruled by men of Indo-European origin'. Thus there certainly would appear to have been at least two, and probably three, strata of society in the region at this time.

At Alalakh an inscription on the famous statue of Idrimi showed that the city and its domains were ruled by a local dynasty subject to Mitanni, as were Aleppo and Emar. Alalakh Level IV, in which the statue was found, was contemporary with the Nuzi archive (c. 1500-1350). This valuable collection of contemporary documents shows that Nuzi, as part of the state of Arrapha, was also subject to Mitannian overlords during most of this period. The letters and other documents are written in Akkadian but the majority of the names contained therein are of Hurrian type. Hurrians also controlled Qatna on the Orontes and therefore the important trade route across the desert fringes to Babylonia, although these Hurrians do not appear to have been subject to Mitanni. Further south still, during the reigns of Amenhotep III and Akhenaten (mid-14th century), there were rulers with Hurrian names located in the cities of the coastal plain (where the later Seranim of the Philistines were to rule) and others at Megiddo, Jerusalem and elsewhere.

Mitannian Chronology

The chronology of Alalakh was first reconstructed by Sidney Smith [Smith p. 47] and he gave a summary of the stratification of the site resulting from his excavations. Later, a more detailed discussion of Alalakh's chronology was offered by the city's second excavator, Sir Leonard Woolley, [Woolley 1955]. With these two works, and in combination with other sources, the following historical summary has been constructed for the kingdom of Mitanni.

Chronological Chart.

It appears that one of the major factors in the early development of the Mitannian state was the destruction of Aleppo by Mursili I (c. 1600). By destroying the principal city state in the region, the Hittite king inadvertently left a power vacuum in the region which was to result in the rise of Mitanni.

The first major evidence of Mitannian superiority in the region is seen in the vassalage of Idrimi of Alalakh to Paratarna king of Mitanni. Then came king Shaushtatar's annexing of Assyria, which then also became a vassal principality of Mitanni/ Hanigalbat. This king oversaw the expansion of Mitanni during a weak period in Egyptian history when Hatshepsut occupied the throne of the Tuthmosids for 20 years. In this time Egypt appears to have been militarily inactive in Palestine and Syria and would have put up little resistance to Mitannian expansion. Shaushtatar has been regarded by most historians as the great Mitannian warrior king because of this sudden expansion, but so little is really known about his rule, or for that matter any of his predecessors and successors, that due caution is needed in assessing the successes and failures of the Mitannian kings.

Even before this, the Hurrians had penetrated into the heartland of the Old Kingdom Hittite Empire. It must be remembered that Hattusili I nearly met total disaster at their hands and had complained that only the capital Hattusa had remained loyal to him. We learn from Akkadian texts that the aggressors were from 'the land of Hanigalbat'. Thus earlier Hurrian/Mitannian kings seem to have laid the groundwork for the later successes of Shaushtatar. It was, in fact, through the destruction of Babylon by Hattusili's successor, Mursili I, that a power vacuum was created in Mesopotamia which also led to the establishment of the Kassite kingdom in southern Mesopotamia. Thus the Hittites, by this sudden raid and destruction of the existing status quo in Mesopotamia, had changed the whole political structure in the region, from Aleppo in the north-west to Babylon in the south-east. For some 300 years the Hurrian groups and their Amorite neighbours succeeded in dominating the whole of the Levant, which, in part, included their occupation of Lower Egypt as the 'Heka-khasut' or Hyksos.

The so-called Indo-Iranian names began to appear in northern Mesopotamia soon after the assassination of Mursili, and it could be argued that this heralded the arrival of the Mitannian chieftains who were later to establish the state of Mitanni in the Khabur Triangle.

Egypt and Mitanni

From Egyptian sources we first hear of Mitanni in the reign of Thutmose I (c. 1520) [Astour pp. 22-3 & 25] and then, following the end of Hatshepsut's reign, they really enter the political stage as a major enemy of Egypt with the great campaign of Thutmose III in his Year 33 (Gebel Barkal Stela). Having crossed the Euphrates in boats specially transported up the Mediterranean coast by the Egyptian fleet and manhandled across Syria, Thutmose was able to launch a full attack upon the land of Mitanni:

“The numerous army of Mittani was overthrown in the space of an hour, completely wiped out like such as have never been after the manner of a consuming fire, as is done by the arms of the good god, great of might in battle, who wreaks slaughter on all men, being his own sole master, king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Menkheperre', living for ever. ... He is a king to be acclaimed on account of his actions in battle, who crossed the Euphrates pursuing him who had attacked him, at the head of his army, seeking that wretched enemy of the land of Mitanni. He, however, had fled before his Majesty to another land far away.” [Cumming pp. 2-3]

It is a pity that we do not know the name of the Mitannian king who was defeated and fled `to a distant land'. It was not, however, very long before the dynasty of Mitanni was re-established at Washukanni under Artatama I.

A couple of reigns after Thutmose III, Egypt, under Thutmose IV, was suing for peace with Artatama I by means of a marriage alliance; a marriage which eventually took place to seal peace between the two long-time adversaries. This was followed by another Egyptian/Mitannian marriage: that of his successor, Amenhotep III to Giluhepa, daughter of Shutarna I. It is possible therefore that Amenhotep II, the king between Thutmose III and Thutmose IV, may have suffered a military reverse in his first campaign in Year 7. His later activity is restricted to southern Palestine and he never ventures north of Kadesh on the Orontes. On the other hand an inscription of this king from Karnak boasts:

“The chieftains of Mitanni come to him their tribute on their backs, to plead for mercy from his Majesty and for his sweet breath of life, a significant deed which had never been heard of in the past since the time of men and gods. This foreign land which did not know Egypt made supplication to the good god.” [Cumming p. 39]

If this is not simply misplaced bravado on the part of a pharaoh with a bruised ego, then it does suggest that Egypt was later pursuing peace with the stronger hand and not as a result of any loss of control in the region.

The Collapse of Mitannian Rule

The alliance with Egypt secured a peace in the region for a while, but then another militarily weak pharaoh, the enigmatic Akhenaten (c. 1364-1330), came to the throne, and this perceived weakness may have been a signal for a new and vigorous Hittite king to try his luck in the arena of northern Syria, where Egypt and Mitanni had established their hegemonies. So began the great conquests of Suppiluliuma I (c. 1370). Egypt, following the death of Akhenaten and his el-Amarna successors, found itself confronted by a new enemy, less than a hundred years after resolving its conflict with Mitanni. The focus of our historical sources from Egypt thus turns away from Mitanni, and the land of Naharina disappears from the Egyptian records. For the end of the state of Mitanni we must look to the history of the Assyrian Middle Kingdom and their new king Ashurubalit I.

Tushratta, the Mitannian king in correspondence with Akhenaten (and whose daughter, Taduhepa, had become Amenhotep III's second Mitannian bride), ended up losing part of his kingdom to a rival dynasty of rulers created by his own brother, Artatama II. The kings of the new state were called 'the kings of Hurri'. So it was that the disintegration of the Mitannian state began. Not long after, Tushratta was assassinated in a palace plot; the crown prince, Matiwaza, at first fled to Babylon where Burnaburiash refused him asylum. He eventually found a place of exile in the capital city of the Hittites. Mitanni was then swallowed up in the expanding empire of Assyria under Ashurubalit I (c. 1365-1330). He had witnessed the inability of Egypt to control Palestine and Syria, and had correctly calculated that Egypt would not risk coming to the rescue of its old ally Mitanni, now that the Hittites were unsettling Egypt's northern vassal city states. Both Nikmed II of Ugarit and Aziru of Amurru had allied themselves to Suppiluliuma and the faithful Ribaddi of Byblos had lost his city to Aziru's Amorite forces, just a few years earlier during the reign of Akhenaten.

A few generations later, an Assyrian governor of Hanigalbat had become king of Assyria. Adad-shuma-usur of Babylon wrote to the 'two kings of Assyria' Ashur-nirari and his co-ruler Ili-hadda (otherwise governor of Hanigalbat), and, as if to seal the fate of Mitanni forever, it was the latter who fathered the succeeding Assyrian dynasty after the assassination of Tukulti-Ninurta I. Assyria succeeded in holding the Khabur region until the fall of Nineveh in 612 BC.

Virtually all we know about Mitanni in the whole period from the rise of Shaushtatar to the death of Tushratta derives from the records of other states. In that light, the history of Mitanni, as it stands today, can only be cursory. Much of the gaps in our knowledge concerning the great dynasty of the Hurrian chiefs of Hanigalbat will no doubt be filled when Washukanni is unearthed. Until then, scholars will have to make do with the meagre material gleaned from the great powers of the Near East: Egypt, Hatti, Babylonia and Assyria.

Bibliography

M.C. Astour: 'Toponymic Paralles Between the Nuzi Area and Northern Syria' in Morrison & Owen, pp. 11-26.

J.A. Brinkman: 'Hurrians in Babylonia in the Late Second Millennium B.C.: An Unexploited Minority Resource for Socio-Economic and Philological Analysis' in Morrison & Owen, pp. 27-36.

R.A. Crossland: 'Immigrants from the North' in CAH I:2B, pp. 824-876.

B. Cumming: Egyptian Historical Records of the Later Eighteenth Dynasty, Fascicle I, (Warminster, 1982).

M.A. Morrison & D.I. Owen (eds): Nuzi and the Hurrians (Winona Lake, 1981).

M.A. Morrison: 'The Jacob and Laban Narrative in Light of Near Eastern Sources' in Biblical Archaeologist 46:3 (1983), pp. 155-64.

N. Na'aman: `The Ishtar Temple at Alalakh' in JNES 39 (1980), pp. 209-14.

J.-R. Kupper: `Northern Mesopotamia and Syria' in CAH II:1, pp. 22-24 & 36-42.

G. Roux: Ancient Iraq (Harmondsworth, 1986), pp. 208-223.

S. Smith: Alalakh and Chronology (...., .....).

L. Woolley: Alalakh: An Account of the Excavations at Tell Atchana (Oxford, 1955), pp. 377-399.