Mitani
Mitani was the name of an ancient kingdom located in the north of present-day Syria, also known as Naharina. The Mitani kingdom can be considered to have existed since before 1500 BCE. c.
As a geographical concept, this name was later used to also designate the region between the Jabur River and the Euphrates River in Neo-Assyrian times. The name Mitani would have been preserved among the Kurds (the Motikan tribe) who inhabit the same territories as the former kingdom. Mitani was a state led by a military aristocracy that arrived in the area around 1800 BC. C. or 1700 B.C. C. and which acquired great importance around the 17th century BC. C., due to its privileged location on the banks of the Orontes River and between the Assyrian, Egyptian and Hittite empires. This kingdom would have been conquered by Assyria, being annexed in 1270 a. C. and converted into the viceroyalty or province of Hanigalbat.
Mitani stretched from Nuzi, near Kirkuk, and the Tigris River in the east, to Aleppo and Syria in the west. Its center was in the Jabur valley, with two capitals: Taidu or Taite and Wassugani (called Ushshukana in Assyrian sources), which has not yet been located with complete certainty, and therefore not has been excavated. Its entire surface allowed agriculture without the need for artificial irrigation. Its climate was very similar to that of Assyria and it was populated by indigenous Hurrians and other people who spoke the language of the Amorites (Amurru).
Etymology
Mitani was probably a term native to the country. The Hittites called the country Hurri or Jurri and in a text by Mursili I (16th century BC) a "king of the Hurrians" is cited. It is cited by Assyro-Akkadians as Hanigalbat (Janigalbat) and the name Mitani was not used by Assyrians until a time when the kingdom no longer existed (indicating then a geographical and not a political term). The Egyptians cite it as Naharina (in Assyro-Akkadian it means "river"). Mitani is mentioned for the first time in Egyptian sources around 1480 BC. C. in the memoirs of an Egyptian officer named Amememhet, who served Amenhotep I (circa 1525-1504 BC) and perhaps his two successors.
History
Origins
The ethnicity or origin of the Mitanians is difficult to discern. A treatise on the training of chariot horses from Kikkuli contains a number of glosses of Indo-Aryan origin. Kammenhuber (1968) surmised that this vocabulary was derived from a language close to Proto-Indo-Iranian, although Mayrhofer (1974) showed that it had characteristics specifically Indo-Aryan.
The names of the Mitani aristocracy are frequently of Indo-Aryan origin, but it is the names of their deities that reveal Indo-Aryan lexical roots (associated with names such as Mitra, Varuna, Indra, Nasatya), although some think that these names could be related to Kassite (kašku) influence. The common language of the people was the Hurrian language, which is neither an Indo-European nor a Semitic language but shows typological features of Northeast Caucasian languages. In fact, some linguists have conjectured a relationship with these languages (see Alarodian hypothesis). The only sure thing is that Hurrian is phylogenetically related to Urartian, forming the Hurrito-Urartian family. A passage in Hurrian in the Amarna letters—which are usually written in Akkadian, the lingua franca of that time—points out that the Mitani royal family also used to speak Hurrian.
First mentions
Since Akkadian times, the Hurrians lived east of the Tigris River in northern Mesopotamia and in the Jabur Valley. They are mentioned in texts found at Nuzi, at Ugarit, and in the Hittite archives at Hattusa. Mari cuneiform texts mention rulers of northern Mesopotamian city-states with Amorite (Amurru) and Hurrian names.
Enemy Hurrian tribes and city-states are believed to have united under a single dynasty, ruled by an Indo-European elite, following the collapse of Babylonia due to the Hittite sack of Mursili I in 1595 BC. C. and the invasion of the Casitas. The Hittite conquest of Aleppo, the weakness of the Assyrian kings of the time, and the infighting of the Hittites created a power vacuum in northern Mesopotamia. This led to the creation of the kingdom of Mitani. The Indo-Aryan names are reflected above all in the onomastics of the Mitanian kings and gods. On the other hand, the Hurrian component was the transmitter of the old Sumerian culture.
The first written mention of Mitani or Janigalbat is in the Akkadian version of the Bogazköy Hittite texts, from the reign of Hattusili I. Khanigalbat and Mitani are used interchangeably, although the former term is older. Likewise, Jurri and Mitani are closely related terms, since they correspond to neighboring territories of the same linguistic community, usually governed by the same monarch. However, geographically, Hurri corresponds to Upper Syria, between the Caucasus and Lake Van, while Janigalbat is in Upper Mesopotamia, to the south and southeast of the former, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
State Organization
The idea that people have of the history of Mitani is necessarily vague, because few data are available, and they also come from abroad, mainly the Amarna letters and the historical introductions of various Hittite treatises found in Bogazköy. The State of Mitani came to acquire capital importance around 1600 B.C. C. due to its privileged location between the Assyrian, Egyptian and Hittite empires. It reached its maximum power in the 15th century BC. C., expanding to the southwest towards Syria, where it managed to contain Egypt, until being replaced by Hatti as the dominant power in the 14th century BC. c.
With an army that introduced decisive improvements such as war chariots and a powerful cavalry, Mitani's war machine inflicted several heavy defeats on the immense Pharaonic Egypt and even invaded Assyria (a fact that historians still cannot explain given the war potential of the Semitic Empire).
Mitani would not succeed in keeping its territory safe from conquest. On the one hand, the territory between the upper Euphrates and the Tigris had been the target of Hittite expansion since the time of Hattusili I. On the other hand, after the defeats of the Hyksos, the Egyptian pharaohs tried to reconquer the territories of Retenu that once they once possessed in northern Syria. The Hittite rise and Mitani dynastic conflicts weakened the kingdom, eventually being subjugated by a resurgent and once again powerful Assyria, just 250 years after its rise. They left a valuable legacy, highlighting their innovative administrative organization and a refined art with diverse influences, both Assyrian, Semitic and Egyptian.
Rulers of Mitani
- Kirta (1500 BC-1490 BC)
- Shuttarna I, son of Kirta (1490-1470 BC)
- Barattarna, P/Barat(t)ama (1470-1450 B.C.)
- Parsha(ta)tar (1450-1440 a. C.)
- Shaushtatar (son of Parsha[ta]tar) (1440-1410 BC)
- Artatama I (1410-1400 BC)
- Shuttarna II (1400-1385 BC)
- Artashumara (1385-1380 BC)
- Tushratta (1380-1350 BC)
- Artatama II, brother of Tushratta and supported by the Hittites (1350 BC)
- Shuttarna III, usurper son of Artatama, supported by Assyrians (1350 B.C.)
- Shattiwaza, son or brother of Tushratta (1350-1320 B.C.)
- Shattuara I (1320-1300 BC)
- Wasashatta, son of Shattuara (1300-1280 BC)
- Shattuara II, son or nephew of Wasashatta (1280-1270 B.C.), defeated by Salmanasar I.
Timeline
Excavations
- Nuzi, excavated by an American expedition under the direction of R. F. S. Starr in the 1930s.
- Tell Fecheriye.
- Tell Rimah (Sindjar).
- Tell Sabi Abyad, currently excavated by a Dutch team.
- Kemune