Mitanni: the Hurrian kingdom between Egypt and the Hittites
In upper Mesopotamia the kingdom of Mitanni takes shape—a rival and then an in-law of the pharaohs; the Hittites break it.
Around 1500 BCE the Hurrian lands between the Euphrates and the Tigris gather into the kingdom of Mitanni, with its capital at Washukanni, which is still being sought. Its kings bear names of Indo-Aryan sound and swear their treaties by Mitra, Varuna and Indra. At first Mitanni fights Egypt over Syria, then makes peace: daughters of the Mitannian kings marry pharaohs, and the Amarna archive holds the letters of King Tushratta to Amenhotep III and Akhenaten, asking for gold and complaining of neglect. Around 1340 BCE the Hittite king Suppiluliuma I defeats Mitanni and installs a dependent ruler; Assyria absorbs what remains. For the history of Canaan this is the neighbouring power of the very century the Amarna letters describe.
Sources
Documents of the period
- the Amarna letters — the letters of Tushratta to the pharaohs and the marriage alliances
Scholarship
- history of the ancient Near East — the dating of the kingdom and its defeat under Suppiluliuma I
Basis: documents and evidence.