Kingdom Of Mitanni: Forgotten For Millennia But Once Great Power Of Ancient West Asia In 2000 BC

A. Sutherland - AncientPages.com - Forgotten for millennia, the Kingdom of Mitanni was discovered in the nineteenth century, and excavations revealed fascinating facts about this unusual kingdom, which once existed in northern Mesopotamia.

 

Also known as Hanigalbat, Mitanni flourished during the fourteenth century BC and covered what northern Syria, northern Iraq, and southeastern Turkey today are; archaeologists have not determined its capital.

The ethnicity of the people of Mitanni (sometimes called the 'Land of the Hurrians') is not entirely established. Still, it is believed that the civilization of this kingdom was the product of two ethnic groups: the Hurrians and the Indo-Aryans, whose names are associated with the names of several Indo-Aryan deities, such as Indra, Vayu, Svar, Soma, Rta, and the Devas.

The ancient sources of information about Mitanni come from archaeological finds and old reports, which mainly relate to the history of Assyria, Hittites, or Babylonia and only mention the land of the Hurrians. Biblical descriptions and texts unearthed in Egypt (for example, Amarna Letters) are of great value. However, many facts, especially those related to Mitanni's chronology, remain controversial among historians and even contradict each other.

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