by
Damien F. Mackey
“Unfortunately, we are not much better off as
regards the period of Kassite domination in Iraq … all we have at present is
about two hundred royal inscriptions – most of them short and of little
historical value – sixty kudurru …
and approximately 12,000 tablets … less than 10 per cent of which has been
published. This is very little indeed for four hundred years – the length of
time separating us from Elizabeth 1”.
Georges Roux
On a previous
occasion, I wrote regarding a Velikovskian type downward revision of Babylonian
(Kassite) history:
However,
for a 500-year lowering of so-called ‘Middle’ Mesopotamian kings to be
complete, one must also be able to show how these Mesopotamian kings, Kassites,
are to be merged with the ‘Neo’ Babylonian kings ….
Also,
though most of the Hammurabic dynasty would have concluded before this period,
its final (weaker) kings, who would date to the very period under
consideration, would need to be accounted for. Here is my proposal. Hammurabi
and his powerful son, Samsuiluna, would now fit into the uncertain phase of
Babylonian history of the first half of the C10th BC. The next son, Abi-eshuh,
under extreme pressure from the Kassite, Kashtiliash, would be a contemporary
of Tukulti-Ninurta, who defeated a Kashtiliash. As the Kassites had increased
their pressure, Hammurabi’s later successors were driven northwards; so that,
by the time of Shamsi-Adad V, son of Shalmaneser III, ‘descendants of
Hammurabi’ are found in the Mari region. Thus there is no crush, with, all at
once, Babylonian, Kassite and Assyrian kings occupying Babylon at the one
approximate time.
The
Kassites
… Kassites;
likewise an ‘Indo-European’ people … a single quote from Roux might suffice
here: ….
“Hittites,
Mitannians and the ruling class of the Kassites belonged to a very large
ethno-linguistic group called ‘Indo-European’, and their migrations were but
part of wider ethnic movements which affected Europe and India as well as
Western Asia”.
The
Kassites, ‘Mitannians’ and Hurrians all seem to have expanded to approximately
the same places eastwards at approximately the same time (by the revision). The
Subarians and Lullubi are sometimes linked with these. An ‘Indo-European’
connection as noted by Roux, especially between the Kassites and the so-called
‘Mitannians’, would certainly account for the skilled horsemanship attributed
to the Kassites …. The ‘Mitannians’, like the Kassites … seem to have been
something of a horseriding aristocracy or élite amongst the Hurrians and other
associated nations. The Hurrians (already discussed in Chapter Two) are
often linked with the ‘Mitannians’ as Hurri-Mitannian – but were
apparently though neither Semitic nor ‘Indo-European’ in the language they
spoke. It has sometimes been called Asianic.
It is not
I think too much to say that the Kassites are an enigma for the over-extended
conventional scheme. Roux has given the standard estimate for the duration of
Kassite rule of Babylonia: … “… a long line of Kassite monarchs was to govern
Mesopotamia or, as they called it, Kar-Duniash for no less than four
hundred and thirty-eight years (1595-1157 B.C.)”. This is a substantial period
of time; yet archaeology has surprisingly little to show for it.
Roux
again: ….
“Unfortunately,
we are not much better off as regards the period of Kassite domination in Iraq
… all we have at present is about two hundred royal inscriptions – most of them
short and of little historical value – sixty kudurru … and approximately
12,000 tablets (letters and economic texts), less than 10 per cent of which has
been published. This is very little indeed for four hundred years – the length
of time separating us from Elizabeth 1”.
[Seton] Lloyd,
in his book dedicated to the study of Mesopotamian archaeology, can give only a
mere 4 pages (including pictures) to the Kassites, without even bothering to
list them in the book’s Index at the back. ….
Incredibly,
though the names of the Kassites “reveal a clearly distinct language from the
other inhabitants in the region”, as van de Mieroop writes, “and Babylonian
texts indicate the existence of a Kassite vocabulary, no single text or
sentence is known in the Kassite language”. ….
Obviously,
new interpretations are required. The Kassite period is thought to have been
brought to its end by the Elamites in the mid-C12th BC. But there emerges quite
a new picture about the Kassites when their history is condensed in the context
of Velikovsky’s EA revision (VLTF) and this people is re-located well down the
time scale. When this is done, the extremely meagre archaeological and
historical traces of the Kassites become supplemented by the abundant
archaeology and documentation from Syro-Mitanni through to Babylonia during the
early to mid C1st millennium BC. ….
