Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Horrible Histories: Casualty Kassites


"Unfinished" Kudurru, Kassite period, attributed to the reign of Melishipak, 1186–1172 B.C.E., found in Susa, where it had been taken as war booty in the 12th century B.C.E.

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. ….


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