Mittani

Mitanni or Hanigalbat was a loosely organized Hurrian-speaking state in northern Syria from ca. 1500 BC–1300 BC. During the Amarna Period, around 1350 BC, Mitanni was a major international power.

No native sources for the history of Mitanni (i.e. Hanilgalbat) have been found so far. The account is mainly based on Assyrian, Hittite and Egyptian sources, as well as inscriptions from nearby places in Syria. Often it is not even possible to establish synchronicity between the rulers of different countries and cities, let alone give uncontested absolute dates. The definition and history of Mitanni is further beset by a lack of differentiation between linguistic, ethnic and political groups.

At the height of its power, during the 14th century BC, it had outposts centered around its capital Washukanni on the headwaters of the river Habur. The kingdom of Mitanni was a feudal state led by a warrior nobility of Indo-Iranian origin, who entered the region of Aram-Naharaim (Upper Mesopotamia) on the Orontes River south of Mukis and Niya and North of Aram during the 17th century BC as vassals of the Hittites.

The ethnicity of the people of Mitanni is difficult to ascertain. A treatise on the training of chariot horses contains a number of Indo-Aryan glosses. The names of the Mitanni aristocracy frequently are of Indo-Aryan origin, but it is specifically their deities which show Indo-Aryan roots (Mitra, Varuna, Indra, Nasatya), though some think that they are probably more immediately related to the Kassites. The common people's language, the Hurrian language is neither Indo-European nor Semitic. Hurrian, and thus the Hurrians, are relatives of Urartu, both belonging to the Hurro-Urartian language family. A Hurrian passage in the Amarna letters – usually composed in Akkadian, the lingua franca of the day – indicates that the royal family of Mitanni was by then speaking Hurrian as well.

Based on Wikipedia content that has been reviewed, edited, and republished under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 license. Last reviewed by Jan van der Crabben on 28 April 2011. Please help and improve this definition!