connexion with the north, and Asia Minor, goes back to a very
early date. It may be that some of the early north Babylonian
kingdoms, such as Kish, extended control thither. The earliest
Babylonian monarch of whose presence in Mesopotamia there is
positive evidence is Lugalzaggisi (before 2500 B.C.), who claims,
with the help of En-lil, to have led his countless host victorious
to the Mediterranean. His empire, if he founded one, was
before long eclipsed, however, by the rising power of the Semites.
Excavation in Mesopotamia may in time cast some light on the
questions whether the Semites really reached Babylonia by way
of Mesopotamia,[1] when, and whom they found there, and
whether they partly settled there by the way. Whether
Sharru-GI, Manishtusu and Remush (often called Uru-mush)
really preceded, and to some extent anticipated, “Sargon” i.e.
Shargani-sharri, as L. W. King now[2] plausibly argues, is not
certain; nor whether the 32 kings who revolted and were conquered by
Manishtusu, as we now learn, were by the Mediterranean,
as Winckler argued, or by the Persian Gulf, as King
holds. That Sargon was or became supreme in Mesopotamia
cannot be doubted, since there is contemporary evidence that
he conquered Amurru. The three versions of the proceedings
of Sargon (Sharru-GI-NA) in Suri leave us in doubt what really
happened. As he must have asserted himself in Mesopotamia
before he advanced into the maritime district (and perhaps
beyond: see Sargon), what is referred to in the Omens and the
Chronicle 26,472 may be, as Winckler argued (Or. Lit.-Zeit. 1907,
col. 296), an immigration of new elements into Suri—in that
case perhaps one of the early representatives of the “Hittite”
group. According to the Omens text Sargon seems to have
settled colonies in Suri, and suggestions of an anticipation of
the later Assyrian policy of transportation have been found
by King (op. cit.) under the rulers of this time, and there are
evidences of lively intercommunication. Mesopotamia certainly
felt the Sumero-Babylonian civilization early. It was from the
special type of cuneiform developed there, apparently, that the
later Assyrian forms were derived (Winckler, Altorient. Forsch.
i. 86 seq.). What the “revolt of all lands” ascribed to the later
part of Sargon’s reign means is not yet clear; but he or his son
quickly suppressed it. Mesopotamia would naturally share in
the wide trade relations of the time, probably reaching as far as
Egypt. The importance of Ḥarrān was doubtless due not only
to its fame as a seat of the Moon-god Sin, honoured also west of
the Euphrates, and to its political position, but also to its trade
relations. Contemporary records of sales of slaves from Amurru
are known.
When the Semitic settlers of the age of Sargon, whom it is now common with some justice to call Akkadians (see Sumer), had become thoroughly merged in the population, there appeared a new immigrant element, the Amurru, whose advance as far as Babylonia is to be traced in the troubled history of the post-Gudean period, out of the confusion of which there ultimately emerged the Khammurabi dynasty. That the Amurru passed through Mesopotamia, and that some remained, seems most probable. Their god Dagan had a temple at Tirqa (near ʽIshāra, a little below Circesium), the capital of Khana (several kings of which we now know by name), probably taking the place of an earlier deity. At Tirqa they had month names of a peculiar type. It is not improbable that the incorporation of this Mesopotamian kingdom with Babylon was the work of Khammurabi himself.
Not quite so successful eventually was the similar enterprise farther north at Asshur [or Assur (q.v.)] on the east margin of Mesopotamia, although we do not know the immediate outcome of the struggle between Asshur and the first Babylonian king, Sumu-abi. Possibly the rulers of Babylon had a freer hand in a city that they apparently raised to a dominant position than the Semitic rulers of Asshur, who seem to have succeeded to men of the stock which we have hitherto called Mitanni, if we may judge from the names of Ushpia who, according to Shalmaneser I. and Esarhaddon, built the temple, and Kikia who, according to Ashur-rem-nisheshu, built the city wall.[3] The considerable number of such names already found in First Dynasty records seems to show that people of this race were to be found at home as far south as Babylonia. Whether they were really called Shubarū, as Ungnad suggests, we may know later.
When Khammurabi’s fifth successor saw the fall of the Amorite dynasty in consequence of an inroad of “Hittites,” these may have been Mesopotamian Shubarū-Mitanni; but, they may, as Ungnad suggests, represent rather ancestors of the Hittites of later times. It is difficult in any case not to connect with this catastrophe the carrying Hittite Times. away to Khani of the Marduk statue afterwards recovered by Agum, one of the earlier kings of the Kassite dynasty. Whether Hittites were still resident at Khana we do not know. The earlier Kassite kings of Babylon still maintained the Amorite claim to “the four quarters;” but it is improbable that there was much force behind the claim, although we have a document from Khana dated under Kashtiliash. It is just as uncertain how long Asshur remained under the Babylonian suzerainty of which there is evidence in the time of Khammurabi, and what the relation of Asshur to western Mesopotamia was under the early kings whose names have lately been recovered. All these matters will no doubt be cleared up when more of the many tells of Mesopotamia are excavated. Only two have been touched: ʽArbān on the Khābūr, where remains of a palace of uncertain date, among other things an XVIII. dynasty scarab, were found by Layard in 1851, and Tell Khalaf, where the confluents join, and remains of the palace of a certain Kapar, son of Hanpan of “Hittite” affinities but uncertain date, were found by von Oppenheim in 1899. A long inscription of a certain Shamshi-Adad [Samsi-Hadad], extracts from which are quoted by Delitzsch (Mitt. d. Deutsch Or.-Gesellschaft No. 21 p. 50), unfortunately cannot be dated exactly, or with certainty even approximately; but if Delitzsch and Ed. Meyer are right, it belongs to a time not many generations after Agum recovered the Marduk statue. Shamshi-Adad’s claims extend over the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates, and he says that he erected memorials of himself on the shore of the Great Sea.
The mystery of the Hyksos has not yet been solved; but it is not impossible that they had relations with Mesopotamia. After they had been driven out of Egypt (q.v.), when Aḥmōse, the officer of Tethmosis (Thutmose) I., mentions Naharin (late 16th century), he does not say anything about the inhabitants. He seems to imply, however, that there was more than one state. The first mention of Mitanni, as we saw, is under Tethmosis III., who clearly crossed the Euphrates. It is at least possible that common enmity to Mitanni led to a treaty with Assyria (under Ashur-nadin-akhe).[4] Victorious expeditions into Naharin are claimed for Amenophis II., Tethmosis IV. and Amenophis III. The Egyptian references are too contemptuous to name the rulers; but Shaushatar may have begun his reign during the lifetime of Tethmosis III., and from cuneiform sources we know the names of six other Mitanni rulers. As they all bear Aryan names, and in some of their treaties appear Aryan deities (Indra, Varuna, Mithra, &c.), it is clear that Mesopotamia had now a further new element in its population, bearing apparently the name Kharri.[5] Many of the dynasts in North Syria and Palestine in the time of Tushratta bear names of the same type. The most natural explanation is that Aryans had made their way into the highlands east of Assyria, and thence bands had penetrated into Mesopotamia, peacefully or otherwise, and then, like the Turks in the days of the Caliphate, founded dynasties. The language of the Mitanni state, however, was neither Aryan nor Semitic, and may very well be that of the mysterious “Hittite” hieroglyphic inscriptions (see Hittites). Mitanni was one of the great powers, alongside of Egypt and Babylonia, able to send to Egypt the Ninevite ’Ishtar; and at this time as much as at any
- ↑ On the theory that it was climatic changes in Arabia that drove the Semites to seek new homes along the route mentioned above, see L. W. King, History of Sumer and Akkad (1910), which appeared after this article was written.
- ↑ See the preceding note.
- ↑ Ungnad, Beitr. z. Assyr. VI. v. 13.
- ↑ See e.q. P. Schnabel, Stud. z. bab.-ass. Chron. p. 25 (1908).
- ↑ Winckler has identified the Kharri with the Aryans, to whom he assigns a state in Armenia (Or. Lit.-Zeit., July 1910).
