Mitanni Empire

Towards the end of the third millennium BC, a new population group arrived in Mesopotamia. The Hurrians founded large colonies in the upper reaches of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.

These colonies were the forerunners of the Mitanni Empire. By around 1500 BC, the Hurrian Mitanni kingdom had come to dominate northern Mesopotamia.

The disintegration of the Babylonian Empire after the Hittites defeated Babylonian king Samsudinata in 1595 BC might have created the opportunity for the political organization of Mitanni/Hurrians to establish the new kingdom.

The early years of the Mitanni Empire were occupied in the struggle with Egypt for control of Assyria. The greatest Mitanni king was Saukshatra who reigned during the time of Tuthmose III. Agreement with Egypt shortly after 1400 BC established a boundary between the two empires by signed a treaty of alliance with the Mitanni king Artatama, one of whose daughters was given to the Egyptian king as wife.

Mitanni state was a confederacy of powerful sub-kings linked by a fealty and kinship to a center ‘great king’.

The kingdom subjugated Assyria, maintaining regional control for the next century, while Hittites were establishing their rival empire to the north.

At its peak, the Mitanni Empire stretched from Kirkuk and the Zagros mountains in western Iran in the east, through Assyria to the Mediterranean sea in the west. It center was in the region of the Khabur River, where its capital, Wassukkani was probably located.

Around 1363 BC, while the Mitanni were preoccupied with the Hittites, the Assyria king Ashur-ubalit I successfully attacked the Mitanni.

The much reduced Mitanni kingdom of the eastern Hurrians proved a tempting prey of the Assyrians. Under Shalmaneser (1274-1244 BC), they attacked what remained of Mitanni.
Mitanni Empire