Mesopotamia to the end of the Achaemenian period

Question 1

dark ages

Answer 1

• 150 years after the death of Hammurabi
• 1560 BCE-1440 BCE
• Akkadian and Sumerian continued or were reestablished
• cuneiform continued as the only form of writing

Question 2

The Kassites in Babylonia

Answer 2

• settled by 1800 BCE in what is modern day western Iran
• polytheistic, 30 gods are known
• Kassite upper class, always a small minority, had been largely “Babylonianized.”
• decline of Babylonian culture at the end of the Old Babylonian period continued for some time under the Kassites

Question 3

The Hurrian and Mitanni kingdoms

Answer 3

• weakening of the Semitic states in Mesopotamia after 1550 enabled the Hurrians to penetrate deeper into this region
• After 1500, isolated dynasties appeared with Indo-Aryan names, but the significance of this is disputed
• Some time after 1500 the kingdom of Mitanni (or Mittani) arose near the sources of the Khābūr River in Mesopotamia
• By 1420 the domain of the Mitanni king Saustatar (Saushatar) stretched from the Mediterranean all the way to the northern Zagros Mountains, in western Iran, including Alalakh, in northern Syria, as well as Nuzi, Kurrukhanni, and Arrapkha
• kingdom of Mitanni was a feudal state led by a warrior nobility of Aryan or Hurrian origin
• The king of the gods was the weather god Teshub

Question 4

The rise of Assyria

Answer 4

• old lists of kings suggest that the same dynasty ruled continuously over Ashur from about 1600
• Although Assyria belonged to the kingdom of the Mitanni for a long time, it seems that Ashur retained a certain autonomy
• Documents and letters show the important role that agriculture played in the development of the state.
• less dependent on artificial irrigation than was Babylonia
• architecture, derived from a combination of Mitannian and Babylonian influences, developed early quite an individual style.