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Kadašman-Enlil I, typically rendered mka-dáš-man-dEN.LÍL in contemporary inscriptions, was a Kassite King of Babylon from ca. 1374 BC to 1360 BC, perhaps the 18th of the dynasty. He is known to have been a contemporary of Amenhotep III of Egypt, with whom he corresponded. This places Kadašman-Enlil securely to the first half of the 14th century BC by most standard chronologies.
Burna-Buriaš II, rendered in cuneiform as Bur-na- or Bur-ra-Bu-ri-ia-aš in royal inscriptions and letters, and meaning servant or protégé of the Lord of the lands in the Kassite language, where Buriaš is a Kassite storm god possibly corresponding to the Greek Boreas, was a king in the Kassite dynasty of Babylon, in a kingdom contemporarily called Karduniaš, ruling ca. 1359–1333 BC, where the Short and Middle chronologies have converged. Recorded as the 19th King to ascend the Kassite throne, he succeeded Kadašman-Enlil I, who was likely his father, and ruled for 27 years. He was a contemporary of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten. The proverb "the time of checking the books is the shepherds' ordeal" was attributed to him in a letter to the later king Esarhaddon from his agent Mar-Issar.
Enlil-nirari was King of Assyria from c. 1327 BC to 1318 BC during the Middle Assyrian Empire. He was the son of Aššur-uballiṭ I. He was apparently the earliest king to have been identified as having held eponym, or limmu, office.
Kurigalzu I, usually inscribed ku-ri-gal-zu but also sometimes with the m or d determinative, the 17th king of the Kassite or 3rd dynasty that ruled over Babylon, was responsible for one of the most extensive and widespread building programs for which evidence has survived in Babylonia. The autobiography of Kurigalzu is one of the inscriptions which record that he was the son of Kadašman-Ḫarbe. Galzu, whose possible native pronunciation was gal-du or gal-šu, was the name by which the Kassites called themselves and Kurigalzu may mean Shepherd of the Kassites.
The First Sealand dynasty, (URU.KÙKI) or the 2nd Dynasty of Babylon, very speculatively c. 1732–1460 BC, is an enigmatic series of kings attested to primarily in laconic references in the king lists A and B, and as contemporaries recorded on the Assyrian Synchronistic king list A.117. The dynasty, which had broken free of the short lived, and by this time crumbling Old Babylonian Empire, was named for the province in the far south of Mesopotamia, a swampy region bereft of large settlements which gradually expanded southwards with the silting up of the mouths of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Sealand pottery has been found at Girsu, Uruk, and Lagash but in no site north of that. The later kings bore pseudo-Sumerian names and harked back to the glory days of the dynasty of Isin. The third king of the dynasty was even named for the ultimate king of the dynasty of Isin, Damiq-ilišu. Despite these cultural motifs, the population predominantly bore Akkadian names and wrote and spoke in the Akkadian language. There is circumstantial evidence that their rule extended at least briefly to Babylon itself. In later times, a Sealand province of the Neo-Babylonian Empire also existed.
Shamshi-Adad II or Šamši-Adad II, inscribed m(d)Šam-ši-dIM, was an Old Assyrian king who ruled in the mid-second millennium BC, c. 1585–1580 BC. His reign falls within the "dark age" period of Assyrian history from which written records are scarce.
Burna-Buriyåš I, meaning servant of the Lord of the lands, was the first Kassite who really ruled over Babylonia, possibly the first to occupy the city of Babylon proper around 1500 BC, culminating a century of creeping encroachment by the Kassite tribes. He was the 10th king of this dynasty to be listed on the Assyrian Synchronistic Kinglist.
Kadašman-Ḫarbe I, inscribed in cuneiform contemporarily as Ka-da-áš-ma-an-Ḫar-be and meaning “he believes in Ḫarbe ,” was the 16th King of the Kassite or 3rd dynasty of Babylon, and the kingdom contemporarily known as Kar-Duniaš, during the late 15th to early 14th century, BC. It is now considered possible that he was the contemporary of Tepti Ahar, King of Elam, as preserved in a tablet found at Haft Tepe in Iran. This is dated to the “year when the king expelled Kadašman-KUR.GAL,” thought by some historians to represent him although this identification has been contested. If this name is correctly assigned to him, it would imply previous occupation of, or suzerainty over, Elam.
Ulam-Buriaš, contemporarily inscribed as Ú-la-Bu-ra-ra-ia-aš or mÚ-lam-Bur-áš in a later chronicle and meaning “son of Buriaš”, was a Kassite king of Sealand, which he conquered during the second half of 16th century BC and may have also become king of Babylon, possibly preceding or succeeding his brother, Kaštiliašu III. His reign marks the point at which the Kassite kingdom extended to the whole of southern Mesopotamia.
Kaštiliašu III, inscribed phonetically in cuneiform as mKaš-til-ia-šu, is a possible Kassite king of Babylonia in the 15th century BC. He is known only from the Assyrian Synchronistic King List, a copy of a monumental inscription, which gives his genealogy, and references in the Chronicle of Early Kings.
Kadašman-Turgu, inscribed Ka-da-aš-ma-an Túr-gu and meaning he believes in Turgu, a Kassite deity, was the 24th king of the Kassite or 3rd dynasty of Babylon. He succeeded his father, Nazi-Maruttaš, continuing the tradition of proclaiming himself “king of the world” and went on to reign for eighteen years. He was a contemporary of the Hittite king Ḫattušili III, with whom he concluded a formal treaty of friendship and mutual assistance, and also Ramesses II with whom he consequently severed diplomatic relations.
Kudur-Enlil, rendered in cuneiform as Ku-durdEN.LÍL, “son of Enlil,” was the 26th king of the 3rd or Kassite dynasty of Babylon. He reigned into his ninth year, as attested in contemporary economic tablets. His relationship with his predecessor and successor is uncertain and does not appear in contemporary inscriptions. The personal name “Marduk is king of the gods” first appears during his reign marking the deity’s ascendancy to the head of the pantheon.
Enlil-nādin-šumi, inscribed mdEN.LĺL-MU-MU or mdEN.LĺL-na-din-MU, meaning “Enlil is the giver of a name,” was a king of Babylon, c. 1224 BC, following the overthrow of Kaštiliašu IV by Tukulti-Ninurta I of Assyria. Recorded as the 29th ruler of the Kassite dynasty, his reign was a fleeting one year, six months before he was swept from power by the invasion of the Elamite forces under the last king of the Igehalkid dynasty, Kidin-Hutran III.
Kadašman-Ḫarbe II, inscribed dKa-dáš-man-Ḫar-be, Kad-aš-man-Ḫar-be or variants and meaning I believe in Ḫarbe, the lord of the Kassite pantheon corresponding to Enlil, succeeded Enlil-nādin-šumi, as the 30th Kassite or 3rd dynasty king of Babylon. His reign was recorded as lasting only one year, six months, c. 1223 BC, as "MU 1 ITI 6" according to the Kinglist A, a formula which is open to interpretation.
Adad-šuma-uṣur, inscribed dIM-MU-ŠEŠ, meaning "O Adad, protect the name!," and dated very tentatively ca. 1216–1187 BC, was the 32nd king of the 3rd or Kassite dynasty of Babylon and the country contemporarily known as Karduniaš. His name was wholly Babylonian and not uncommon, as for example the later Assyrian King Esarhaddon had a personal exorcist, or ašipu, with the same name who was unlikely to have been related. He is best known for his rude letter to Aššur-nirari III, the most complete part of which is quoted below, and was enthroned following a revolt in the south of Mesopotamia when the north was still occupied by the forces of Assyria, and he may not have assumed authority throughout the country until around the 25th year of his 30-year reign, although the exact sequence of events and chronology remains disputed.
The early Kassite rulers are the sequence of eight, or possibly nine, names which appear on the Babylonian and Assyrian King Lists purporting to represent the first or ancestral monarchs of the dynasty that was to become the Kassite or 3rd Dynasty of Babylon which governed for 576 years, 9 months, 36 kings, according to the King List A. In all probability the dynasty ruled Babylon for around 350 years.
Kadašman-Buriaš, meaning “my trust is in the Buriaš,” was the governor of the Babylonian province of Dūr-Kurigalzu possibly late in the reign of Marduk-šāpik-zēri, who ruled ca. 1082–1069 BC. He was reportedly captured and deported during a campaign conducted by the Assyrian king Aššur-bel-kala during 1070 B.C.
The office of šandabakku, inscribed 𒇽𒄘𒂗𒈾 (LÚGÚ.EN.NA) or sometimes as 𒂷𒁾𒁀𒀀𒂗𒆤𒆠, the latter designation perhaps meaning "archivist of Enlil," was the name of the position of governor of the Mesopotamian city of Nippur from the Kassite period onward. Enlil, as the tutelary deity of Nippur, had been elevated in prominence and was shown special veneration by the Kassite monarchs, it being the most common theophoric element in their names. This caused the position of the šandabakku to become very prestigious and the holders of the office seem to have wielded influence second only to the king.
Chronicle P, known as Chronicle 22 in Grayson’s Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles and Mesopotamian Chronicle 45: "Chronicle of the Kassite Kings" in Glassner's Mesopotamian Chronicles is named for T. G. Pinches, the first editor of the text. It is a chronicle of the second half of the second millennium BC or the Kassite period, written by a first millennium BC Babylonian scribe.
The Enlil-bānī land grant kudurru is an ancient Mesopotamian narû ša ḫaṣbi, or clay stele, recording the confirmation of a beneficial grant of land by Kassite king Kadašman-Enlil I or Kadašman-Enlil II to one of his officials. It is actually a terra-cotta cone, extant with a duplicate, the orientation of whose inscription, perpendicular to the direction of the cone, in two columns and with the top facing the point, indicates it was to be erected upright,, like other entitlement documents of the period.
References
- ↑ Leonhard Sassmannshausen (2004). "Babylonian Chronology of the 2nd Half of the 2nd Millennium B.C.". In H. Hunger and R. Pruzsinszky (ed.). Mesopotamian Dark Age Revisited (PDF). Vienna: Verlag Der Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften. pp. 157–177.
- ↑ J. A. Brinkman (1976). "Agum". Materials for the Study of Kassite History, Vol. I (MSKH I). Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. pp. 98–99.
- ↑ J. A. Brinkman (Jul 1972). "Foreign Relations of Babylonia from 1600 to 625 B. C.: The Documentary Evidence". American Journal of Archaeology. 76 (3): 271–281.
- ↑ I. E. S. Edwards, ed. (1978). The Cambridge Ancient History. Cambridge University Press. p. 433.
- ↑ Niek Veldhuis (2000). "Kassite Exercises: Literary and Lexical Extracts". Journal of Cuneiform Studies (52): 67–94.
- ↑ D. T. Potts (April 2006). "Elamites and Kassites in the Persian Gulf". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 65 (2): 111–119. doi:10.1086/504986.
