Art Elamitas Casitas

[JNES 65 no. 2 (2006)]ç 2006 by The University of Chicago.All rights reserved.0022–2968–2006/6502–0003$10.00.

111

ELAMITES AND KASSITES IN THE PERSIAN GULF*

D. T. POTTS, University of Sydney

I. Introduction

Ever since J. van Dijk’s seminal article on the interdynastic marriages between theKassites and the Elamites,1 the relationship between these two royal houses has been sub-jected to increased scrutiny (see below). Recently, when revisiting the subject of the Kassiteperiod on Bahrain and the contemporary Middle Elamite presence at Liyan near Bushehr(fig. 1), it became apparent to me that few scholars have ever considered the two phenomenain tandem or the implications of Kassite-Elamite relations for the history of Dilmun and thePersian Gulf region. The following reflections are therefore intended to stimulate renewedanalysis of the later second millennium b.c. in the central and northern Persian Gulf, ratherthan providing any definitive answers to the questions addressed.

II. Kassites and Elamites: Some Fundamentals

It may seem superfluous to begin with a consideration of the geographical parametersinvolved in a study of Kassites and Elamites. It is important, however, to dispel any ideathat the two peoples, though culturally distinct, were geographically separated by significantdistances.

By the Middle Elamite period (second half of the second millennium b.c.), the Elamiteswere politically dominant in what is today southwestern Iran. Their largest and most im-portant cities included Susa (Shushan), Haft Tepe (Kabnak?), and Choga Zanbil (Al Untash-Napirisha), in Khuzestan, although many hundreds more archaeological sites in that region,most of which are unexcavated—their ancient names unknown—reflect the existence of amultitude of other settlements of varying sizes as well.2 In Fars we can identify them inthe Kur River basin, at the highland settlement of Tal-e Malyan; in the intermontane valleysbetween Behbehan and Shiraz, around Tol-e Spid, Tol-e Nurabad, and Kurangun; at Tol-eAfghani near Lordegan in the Bakhtiyari mountains; and on the Persian Gulf coast, at Tol-ePeytol, ancient Liyan, near modern Bushehr.

* I would like to express my sincerest thanks toProfessor Emeritus J. A. Brinkman of the OrientalInstitute at the University of Chicago for reading andcritically commenting on an early draft of this paper.Needless to say, he has saved me from numerous errors

and omissions; he does not necessarily agree with allthe positions taken here, but I am extremely grateful forthe time he spent reading my original manuscript andthe references he supplied.

1 J. van Dijk, “Die dynastischen Heiraten zwischenKassiten und Elamern: Eine verhängnisvolle Politik,”Or., n.s., 55 (1986): 159–70.

2 Schacht in F. Hole, The Archaeology of WesternIran: Settlement and Society from Prehistory to theIslamic Conquest (Washington, D.C. and London,1987), pp. 171–203.

Journal of Near Eastern Studies112

By this period, of course, the Kassites were well established in Babylonia. As J. A.Brinkman pointed out in his article on the Kassites for the Reallexikon der Assyriologie,“The earliest attestations of K.[assites], singly or in groups, are in and around Babylonia inthe eighteenth century b.c.; the only locality with which the K. of that time are definitelylinked is Sippar and its tribal environs. By the end of the Old Babylonian period (ca. 1595),K. were living also on the middle Euphrates, settled in the general area of Hana and Terqa,and at Alalah.”3 Yet even if the earliest written references to Kassites place them on Baby-lonian soil, nobody has seriously suggested that the Kassites originated in Babylonia, oralong the Middle Euphrates, a possibility implicitly rejected by most on linguistic grounds(unless of course one believes that Kassite represents a relict linguistic group that was

3 J. A. Brinkman, “Kassiten (Kassû),” RLA, vol. 5(1976–80), p. 465. Cf. the review of the evidencein M. Heinz, “Migration und Assimilation im 2. Jt. v.Chr.: Die Kassiten,” in K. Bartl, R. Bernbeck, and

M. Heinz, eds., Zwischen Euphrat und Indus: AktuelleForschungsprobleme in der vorderasiatischen Archä-ologie (Hildesheim, 1995), pp. 165–68.

Fig. 1.—Map showing the main sites and regions mentioned in the texts

Elamites and Kassites in the Persian Gulf 113

“native” to Babylonia and had been there since prehistoric times), and for over a century4

scholarship on Kassite origins has tended to target the Zagros mountains as their originalhomeland.

The late German Iranologist W. Eilers, for example, was convinced that “Nord-Luristan istdas einstige Land der Kassu,” noting that the name of one of the tributaries of the Saimarreriver, the Kasgan-Rud, can be etymologized as “Kassite river,”5 and in a relatively recentoverview W. Sommerfeld wrote: “It is likely that the Kassites emigrated from Iran overthe Zagros Mountains into Babylonia. Their original home and the route they took are un-known to us, however.”6 No archaeological evidence has appeared to inform this view,which is based, to a great extent, on the identification of the Kassites (Akkadian kassû)with the Kossaioi, a people identified in late sources as neighbors of the Medes (Strabo,Geog. 11.13.6) who lived in the valleys of the Zagros mountains (Polybius, Hist. 5.44.7).Of course, the equation of the second-millennium Kassites and the fourth-century Kossaioi,which has been generally admitted since Delitzsch’s time, may be questioned, but it iswidely accepted.7 Moreover, Neo-Assyrian sources confirm that Kassites were living inthe western Zagros during that period. Although Levine suggested that the Kassites of thistime were located closer to the eastern borderlands of Babylonia, on the eastern side of theLower Zab,8 J. E. Reade9 and R. Zadok10 both located Namri (Kassite Namar),11 calledmat Kassî, “land of the Kassites,” west of Kermanshah or around Shekaft-e Gulgul. Zadokhas undertaken an exhaustive study of the personal names in Neo-Assyrian sources asso-ciated with the toponyms of the western Zagros and found that Kassite names constitutethe second largest group after Iranian ones in what might be called “greater Media.”12 Thus,it is possible that in the first millennium there were Kassite-speaking communities in thewestern Zagros.13

Whether their presence there may be interpreted as evidence of the continuous occu-pation of an original homeland, a view implied if not always explicitly stated by numerouswriters, is not clear. In noting, “By the early twelfth century, Kassite tribes were settledalso in the regions of Namri (Namar) and Habban, at that time reckoned among the north-eastern provinces of Babylonia,” Brinkman was not implying that they had not been thereearlier in history, as there is no evidence on this point one way or the other.14 In the end, we

4 Beginning with F. Delitzsch, Die Sprache derKossäer: Linguistisch-historische Funde und Fragen(Leipzig, 1884); K. Balkan, Kassitenstudien 1: DieSprache der Kassiten (New Haven, 1954).

5 W. Eilers, Geographische Namengebung in undum Iran (Munich, 1982), p. 37.

6 W. Sommerfeld, “The Kassites of Ancient Meso-potamia: Origins, Politics, and Culture,” in J. M. Sasson,ed., Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, vol. 2 (NewYork, 1995), p. 917. Cf. Heinz, “Migration und Assim-ilation im 2. Jt. v. Chr.: Die Kassiten,” p. 167, who wroteof “die Migration der Kassiten aus ihrem vermeintlichenHerkunftsland Iran nach Mesopotamien.”

7 Brinkman, “Kassiten (Kassû),” p. 471.8 L. D. Levine, “Geographical Studies in the Neo-

Assyrian Zagros*—I,” Iran 11 (1973): 22.9 J. E. Reade, “Kassites and Assyrians in Iran,” Iran

16 (1978): 139.

10 R. Zadok, The Ethno-linguistic Character ofNorthwestern Iran and Kurdistan in the Neo-AssyrianPeriod (Jerusalem, 2002), pp. 70 ff.

11 K. Nashef, Die Orts- und Gewässernamen dermittelbabylonischen und mittelassyrischen Zeit (Wies-baden, 1982), p. 202.

12 Zadok, The Ethno-linguistic Character of North-western Iran and Kurdistan, p. 112. The numbers, inabsolute terms, however, continue to be small.

13 Brinkman (personal communication) has ex-pressed his doubt to me that Kassite was a living lan-guage in the Zagros at this date, however.

14 Brinkman, “Kassiten (Kassû),” p. 465. As Brink-man says, “what I had in mind here was the mentionof Namar and Habban in a kudurru from the time ofMarduk-apla-iddina I. And when I said ‘were settled’I meant just that and no more—Kassites were in thestated areas at that time; no implications about where


simply do not know whether this part of the western Zagros was the Urheimat of the Kassitesprior to the Old Babylonian period when the first Kassites are attested in Babylonia.15 Nor dowe know whether such an hypothesized Kassite “homeland” persisted in the Zagros duringthe Kassite period proper, even while some Kassites lived in and ruled over Babylonia.16

Similarly, we do not know whether the Kassite component at Nuzi17 was original, in thesense that it represented a community within the hypothesized original Kassite “homeland,”or whether, like Babylonia itself, Nuzi was in an area that the Kassites had infiltrated fromsomewhere else.

Nearly a century ago G. Hüsing suggested, on the basis of faulty etymologies and veryimperfect historical knowledge, that the Kassites were in fact an Elamite tribe (Stamm).18

Even if this can now be rejected on linguistic grounds—the Kassite language, to the extentthat it is known from Kassite personal names, is distinct from Elamite and unrelated to anyother known language family—the geographical proximity of the Kassites and Elamites,well documented in the post-Kassite era and hypothesized for the earlier periods, has rarelybeen commented upon. The location of at least some Kassites in the southern and perhapscentral Zagros suggests that the two groups may well have had close ties for centuries priorto the first-attested royal marriages. Considering the fact that in the mid-first millenniumb.c. there were Elamite-speakers, with Elamite personal names, using Neo-Elamite, aroundPol-e Dokhtar in southern Luristan,19 it may be justifiable to characterize the southern Zagrosas a “contact zone” between Elamites and Kassites where such interaction took place in-dependent of the élite intermarriages that linked the two royal houses.

III. Kassite and Elamite Dynastic Marriage

It has been nearly two decades since van Dijk’s publication20 of VAT 17020, a Neo-Babylonian text in the Pergamon Museum, in Berlin, brought to light the pattern and ped-igree of a series of marriages that took place between the fourteenth and twelfth centuriesb.c., linking the royal families of the Kassites and the Elamites, more specifically the rulingfamily known as the Igihalkids. Since van Dijk’s article appeared, several other studies havetreated the synchronisms and implications of these marriages within the context of Elamite-Babylonian political history.21 In the most recent analysis of the identities involved, the

they were before that time (whether there or else-where)—that we simply don’t know. Anything else isinference, not justified by the text” (personal commu-nication, e-mail of 17 May 2005).

15 W. A. J. De Smet, “ ‘Kashshû’ in Old-BabylonianDocuments,” Akkadica 68 (1990): 1–19; K. De Graef,“Les étrangers dans les textes paléobabyloniens tardifsde Sippar (Abi-esuh—Samsuditana), 1ère partie: sur lesinconnus ‘connus’: Cassites, Elamites, Sutéens, Su-héens, Gutéens et Subaréens,” Akkadica 111 (1999):5–15.

16 J. A. Brinkman, A Catalogue of CuneiformSources Pertaining to Specific Monarchs of theKassite Dynasty, Materials and Studies for Kassite-History, vol. 1 (Chicago, 1976).

17 Brinkman, “Kassiten (Kassû),” p. 465.

18 G. Hüsing, Der Zagros und seine Völker: Einearchäologische-ethnographische Skizze (Leipzig, 1908),p. 23.

19 Witness the inscribed silver vessels in the Kalma-karreh hoard; see W. Henkelman, “Persians, Medesand Elamites: Acculturation in the Neo-Elamite Pe-riod,” in G. B. Lanfranchi, M. Roaf, and R. Rollinger,eds., Continuity of Empire (?): Assyria, Media, Persia(Padua, 2003), pp. 214–27.

20 Van Dijk, “Die dynastischen Heiraten zwischenKassiten und Elamern.”

21 M.-J. Steve and F. Vallat, “La dynastie desIgihalkides: nouvelles interprétations,” in L. de Meyerand E. Haerinck, eds., Archaeologia Iranica et Orien-talia: Miscellanea in Honorem Louis Vanden Berghe(Louvain, 1989), pp. 223–38; F. Vallat, “L’hommage de


pattern that emerges spans roughly 120 years (ca. 1290 to 1170 b.c.). Following Goldberg’srecent proposals,22 the marriages involving Elamite princes and Kassite princesses are listedin table 1 (see above). Because of the existence of multiple, homonymous Kassite rulers,such as Kurigalzu and Burnaburiash, Goldberg’s reconstruction is not without its critics.While the principle of interdynastic marriage is in no doubt, the main quarrel is over thechronology, and some scholars23 suggest, for example, that Pahir-Ishshan married a daughter(or sister) of Kurigalzu I, who is believed to have reigned sometime before 1375 b.c. Thisis not the place to debate the identities of the Kassites referred to in the Berlin letter, thoughindeed the higher dating, beginning in the reign of Kurigalzu I, would add roughly another85 years to the history of interdynastic marriage between the two royal houses. Be that asit may, perhaps the most important implication of these marriages, and one that is buttressedby Untash-Napirisha’s dedication of a statue of the god Immiriya at Choga Zanbil in honorof his father-in-law Burnaburiash, is “éliminer tout conflit entre Mésopotamiens et Cassites,au moins pendant les cinq premières générations de la dynastie des Igihalkides.”24 Withthis in mind, let us turn now to the history of the Kassite political presence in Dilmun.

IV. The Kassites on Bahrain

As a phenomenon, the Kassite control of Dilmun has been known to scholars since theearly 1950s, when Albrecht Goetze’s publication of two texts from Nippur in the IstanbulMuseum identified one of the interlocutors as Illiliya, otherwise known as Enlil-kidinni,governor of Nippur in the reigns of Burnaburiash II (1359–1333 b.c.) and Kurigalzu II(1332–1308 b.c.), making it likely that his “brother,” Ili-ippashra, from whom the letterswere sent, was his equal in rank and therefore a Kassite governor in Dilmun.25 Any doubtsabout the possibility of a Kassite governor having been present in Dilmun during the four-teenth century b.c. were dispelled when J. Reade published a cylinder seal in the BritishMuseum (but of unknown provenance), bearing the name Uballissu-Marduk, who is called

l’élamite Untash-Napirisha au Cassite Burnaburiash,”Akkadica 114–15 (1999): 109–17; see my The Archae-ology of Elam: Formation and Transformation of anAncient Iranian State (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 207–12and table 7.5; J. Goldberg, “The Berlin Letter, MiddleElamite Chronology and Sutruk-Nahhunte I’s Geneal-ogy,” Iranica Antiqua 39 (2004): 33–42.

22 Goldberg, “The Berlin Letter, Middle ElamiteChronology and Sutruk-Nahhunte I’s Genealogy,” fig. 1.

23 Vallat, “L’hommage de l’élamite Untash-Napirisha au Cassite Burnaburiash,” p. 112; see again

my Archaeology of Elam, p. 207.24 Vallat, “L’hommage de l’élamite Untash-

Napirisha au Cassite Burnaburiash,” pp. 112 and 116.25 A. Goetze, “The texts Ni. 615 and 641 of the

Istanbul Museum,” JCS 6 (1952): 142– 45. A verybadly preserved, third letter (BE XVII 88) has alsobeen identified. See E. Olijdam, “Nippur and Dilmunin the Second Half of the Fourteenth Century BC: ARe-evaluation of the Ili-ippasra Letters,” Proceedingsof the Seminar for Arabian Studies 27 (1997): 200.

TABLE 1

Elamite King Kassite Princess Date (approx.)

Pahir-Ishshan eldest daughter of Kurigalzu II 1290Untash-Napirisha daughter of prince Burnaburiash 1250Kidin-Hutran daughter of prince . . . -duniash 1230Shutruk-Nahhunte I eldest daughter of Melishihu 1170


great-grandson of Usiananuri-, sakkanakku (governor) of Dilmun.26 Although none of thesmall group of Kassite-era texts found by the Danish expedition on Bahrain were dated,27

a lot of approximately 50 tablets and fragments was discovered a decade ago by the Frenchmission at Qalat al-Bahrain. One of these texts is dated to the fourth year of the reign ofAgum.28 Three Kassite monarchs are known by this name. Reasoning that Agum I probablyreigned early in the seventeenth century, which seems a priori unrealistically early, giventhat Kassite control in Babylonia had not even been established by that date, and thatAgum II, who reigned around 1570 b.c., came to power when southern Babylonia was stillunder the control of the First Dynasty of the Sealand, B. André-Salvini and P. Lombardhave suggested that the Bahrain text should probably be dated in the reign of Agum III,ca. 1450 b.c. Interestingly, this Agum, called son of Kashtiliash, is said in the Chronicleof Early Kings to have “called up his army and campaigned against the Sealand,”29 and it ispossible that such a campaign may have been a prelude to the extension of Kassite controlover Dilmun.

The new text from Qalat al-Bahrain, when combined with the Nippur letters, suggeststhat Kassite control over Dilmun endured from ca. 1450 until sometime in the late four-teenth century b.c. Lombard points to a serious fire in the main, palatial building, wherethe tablets were found, and dates this conflagration to the mid-fourteenth century. If theNippur letters indeed refer to the island of Bahrain, then the fire might have happened in thereign of either Burnaburiash II (1359–1333 b.c.) or Kurigalzu II (1332–1308 b.c.), whenEnlil-kidinni served as governor of Nippur. After the destruction by the fire, Lombardsuggests, the palace “was probably re-occupied by ‘squatters’, but was never rebuilt. It isquite possible that, from this time, the seat of the Kassite administration at Dilmun wastransferred to the island of Failaka (Kuwait).”30

V. Contemporary Developments on the Iranian Coast

The extent of Elamite control over the Iranian coast of the Persian Gulf, as opposedto the hinterland in Fars and Khuzestan provinces, is very poorly known. Although it ispossible that numerous, otherwise unlocated, toponyms in Elamite cuneiform texts referto towns along the coast, only the identification of one such site, namely, the great moundof Tol-e Peytol, near Bushehr, can be confirmed. Inscribed bricks from the surface of thesite identify it as Elamite Liyan.31 Although occupied by the early second millennium b.c.,it is the Middle Elamite occupation that is of relevance here. Around 1270–1250 b.c., if

26 J. E. Reade, “Commerce or Conquest: Variationsin the Mesopotamia-Dilmun Relationship,” in H. A.Al Khalifa and M. Rice, eds., Bahrain through theAges: The Archaeology (London, 1986), fig. 137. Cf.J. A. Brinkman, “A Kassite Seal Mentioning a Baby-lonian Governor of Dilmun,” NABU 1993/106.

27 J. Eidem, “Cuneiform Inscriptions,” in F. Højlundand H. H. Andersen, Qalaªat al-Bahrain, vol. 2, TheCentral Monumental Buildings (Aarhus, 1997), pp.76–80.

28 B. André-Salvini and P. Lombard, “La découverteépigraphique de Qalªat al-Bahreïn: un jalon pour lachronologie de la phase Dilmoun moyen dans le Golfe

arabe,” Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies27 (1997): 167.

29 Brinkman, Catalogue of Cuneiform Sources,p. 98.

30 P. Lombard, “The Occupation of Dilmun by theKassites of Mesopotamia,” in Bahrain: The Civilisa-tion of the Two Seas (Paris, 1999), p. 124.

31 For full references to Liyan, see my Archaeologyof Elam, pp. 173, 180, 212, and 237–38, and my article“Anshan, Liyan, and Magan circa 2000 BCE,” in N. F.Miller and K. Abdi, eds., Yeki Bud, Yeki Nabud: Essayson the Archaeology of Iran in Honor of William M.Sumner (Los Angeles, 2003), pp. 156–59.


we follow Goldberg’s recent revisions of Middle Elamite chronology and reanalysis of theBerlin letter, Humban-numena built a kukunnum, or high temple, to the chief goddess ofthe city, Kiririsha-of-Liyan, and later both Kutir-Nahhunte and Shilhak-Inshushinak re-stored the building. There can thus be no doubt that Liyan was a town of significance tothe Elamites and perhaps even their major port on the Persian Gulf.

The physical proximity of Liyan to the centers of Kassite power in the Persian Gulf—Bahrain, Failaka, and perhaps an as yet unidentified port somewhere below modern Basra—has scarcely received comment in discussions of the Kassite political presence in Dilmun.Yet, according to Reed’s Tables of Distances, Bushehr is only 175 nautical miles fromBahrain, 150 nautical miles from Kuwait, and 140 nautical miles from Fao in southern Iraq.32

This situation is interesting to consider in light of the specific Elamite kings known to havebeen active at Liyan and the history of the interdynastic (Elamite-Kassite) relationship.

VI. Destabilization and Restoration of Kassite Rule

and the Kassite-Elamite Marriage Pattern

The first of the Middle Elamite kings active at Liyan—Humban-numena—is thought byGoldberg to have married a daughter of Pahir-Ishshan and the eldest daughter of Kuri-galzu II sometime around 1290 b.c.

33 In the decades following Humban-numena’s marriageboth Untash-Napirisha (ca. 1270 b.c.) and Kidin-Hutran (ca. 1250 b.c.) married Kassiteprincesses (table 1). Thus, for almost half a century the Igihalkids in Elam and the reign-ing Kassite dynasty were intimately connected and, one assumes, deeply interested in eachother’s political success and stability. During this period, therefore, it is anything but correctto suggest that Babylonia and Elam were enemies.34

Kassite political fortunes changed dramatically, however, when the Middle Assyrian kingTukulti-Ninurta I (1243–1207 b.c.) deposed his Kassite counterpart Kashtiliashu IV (1232–1225 b.c.) around 1225 b.c. and installed a client ruler, Enlil-nadin-shumi, on the Babylonianthrone. This must have had serious repercussions in Elam, since the Elamites were in effect“blood brothers”—sons-in-law and cousins—of the Kassite kings by marriage. Accordingto Chronicle P, Tukulti-Ninurta ruled Babylonia for seven years, but this must be construedas including the reigns of his clients Enlil-nadin-shumi (18 months), Kadashman-Harbe(18 months), and Adad-shuma-iddina (6 years?). During the latter’s reign, an Elamite in-vasion led by Kidin-Hutran (called Kidin-Hudrudish) is attested.35 By 1216, however,Kashtiliashu’s son, Adad-shuma-usur, had regained the throne, and stability was seeminglyrestored, judging by the 30-year duration of his reign, which lasted until 1187. Whether

32 H. Whittingham and C. T. King, Reed’s Tablesof Distances between Ports and Places in all Parts ofthe World (Sunderland, England, 1920), p. 85.

33 Goldberg, “The Berlin Letter, Middle ElamiteChronology and Sutruk-Nahhunte I’s Genealogy,” p. 38.In Brinkman’s chronology, Kurigalzu II reigned from1332–1308 b.c. See Brinkman, Catalogue of Cunei-form Sources, p. 31.

34 B. R. Foster, Before the Muses: An Anthology ofAkkadian Literature, vol. 1 (Bethesda, Maryland, 1993),p. 282. It is important to emphasize this point because

many presentations of the eventual invasion of Baby-lonia by Shutruk-Nahhunte I simply portray it as a mani-festation of traditional Elamite-Babylonian animosity,whereas, in fact, it had a very specific context (seep. 118 below).

35 Chronicle P iv 17–22. See Brinkman, Catalogueof Cuneiform Sources, p. 87. Vallat, “L’hommage del’élamite Untash-Napirisha au Cassite Burnaburiash,”p. 111, has discussed the possibility of there havingbeen three monarchs named Kidin-Hutran in the Igi-halkid dynasty.


Kidin-Hutran’s raid proved the impetus for a revolt by members of the deposed Kassiteroyal family or whether Kidin-Hutran moved on Babylonia at the request of his wife’s familyin order to help them regain their former position of supremacy, we do not know. It is tempt-ing to speculate that something along these lines may have occurred.

Following this “restoration,” the pattern of Elamite-Kassite interdynastic marriage appearsto have been resumed even though it is impossible to determine the identity of the Kassiteprincesses who married Napirisha-Untash (ca. 1210 b.c.) and Hutelutush-Inshushinak (ca.1190). The last Elamite king attested in the schema is Shutruk-Nahhunte, who married theeldest daughter36 of the Kassite king Meli-shihu (1186–1172 b.c.). Kassite dynastic stability,which was restored under the 30-year reign of Adad-shuma-usur, continued throughoutthe 15-year reign of his son Meli-shihu, and his grandson Marduk-apla-iddina I, who in turnreigned for another 13 years. Marduk-apla-iddina, however, was succeeded by Zababa-shuma-iddina, a Babylonian/Kassite ruler without apparent ties to the royal family37 intowhich the Elamite rulers had been intermarried for several generations. Whether Zababa-shuma-iddina had effected a coup and overthrown the line that included Shutruk-Nahhunte’sfather-in-law, we cannot say for certain. Nor can we say what relationship Zababa-shuma-iddina’s ascension to the throne may have had to the activities of the Assyrian king Assur-Dan I against Babylonia around this time.38 Be that as it may, Shutruk-Nahhunte’s resentmentat not sitting on the Babylonian throne himself (as detailed in the Berlin letter),39 coupledwith Zababa-shuma-iddina’s arrival on the scene and his own (i.e., Shutruk-Nahhunte’s)father-in-law’s overthrow (by whatever means) would certainly have given the Elamite kingample justification for launching an assault on Babylonia. Even if his father-in-law had diedof natural causes, Shutruk-Nahhunte may have reacted just as aggressively at Zababa-shuma-iddina’s elevation to the Kassite kingship. In attacking Babylonia, the Elamite king maywell have been following in the footsteps of Kidin-Hutran, whose earlier invasion seemsto have been linked with the demise of Adad-shuma-iddina and the restoration of Adad-shuma-usur.

VII. Conclusion

The link between Shutruk-Nahhunte’s invasion of Babylonia and the overthrow of theKassites has long been appreciated, but the more specific familial relationship, by marriage,to Meli-shihu, and the antipathy to Zababa-shuma-iddina that Shutruk-Nahhunte may wellhave felt when his father-in-law lost his throne, has not always been recognized. Beyond that,the interdynastic alliance, I believe, offers an interesting context in which to consider thecoexistence of Elamites and Kassites in the Persian Gulf, particularly with respect to prob-able Elamite attitudes towards Kassite hegemony in the western Persian Gulf. Although

36 The name of one of Meli-shihus’s daughters,Hunnubat-Nana(ya), is attested on a kudurru fromSusa (MDP 10, no. 93 viii 4–5, 18–19). See Brinkman,Catalogue of Cuneiform Sources, pp. 253, 255, s.v.S.2.8. Whether she was the wife of Shutruk-Nahhunte Iwe cannot say.

37 Brinkman, Catalogue of Cuneiform Sources,p. 321.

38 Ibid.

39 There Shutruk-Nahhunte inveighs against the factthat Adad-shuma-usur, “from the region by the bankof the Euphrates,” was chosen to sit on the throneahead of himself, likewise Nabu-apal-iddina (i.e.,Marduk-apal-iddina I), whom he calls “the son of aHittite (fem.), an abomination for Babylon, a Hittite(masc.), whom you chose to the detriment (?) ofBabylon.” See my Archaeology of Elam, table 7.6.


an apparently important base, possibly even a main port of trade, was maintained by theElamites at Liyan, it may be suggested that the Elamites respected the Kassite sphere ofinfluence in the western Persian Gulf, just as the Kassites respected the Elamite sphere ofinfluence in the eastern Persian Gulf. If this surmise is correct, it would help to explain thepaucity of Middle Elamite material culture on the eastern seaboard of Arabia, including theislands of Failaka and Bahrain. For whereas Failaka, Bahrain, and, to some extent, Qatarall show ample signs, ranging from ceramics and seals to cuneiform texts, of being withinthe Kassite sphere of influence, the only real signs of contact between the western PersianGulf and Elam in this period consist of a typical Middle Elamite, faience cylinder seal andpossibly a few sherds with Elamite-looking profiles, all from Tell Abraq.40 Rather thanviewing this as a sign of lack of interest on the part of the Elamites in trade or evenpolitical hegemony in eastern Arabia, I suggest rather that this pattern can be explained bya deliberate attitude of noninterference in a zone that was clearly perceived as lying wellwithin the sphere of influence of their Kassite relations-by-marriage.

One final consideration arises that may possibly belie a late “reflex” of the Kassite-Elamite pattern of interdynastic marriage on Dilmun. Many years ago Ran Zadok dem-onstrated that names such as Hundaru/Ahundara and Uperi—two of the names borne byDilmunite kings during the Neo-Assyrian period—are linguistically Elamite.41 Yet noplausible explanation has ever been offered to account for this phenomenon. Could itbe that Kassite-Elamite intermarriage led to intermarriage between Elamite princes and“aristocratic” Kassite families in Dilmun? Could some of the scions of such unions haveeventually established the ruling house on Dilmun that emerged after the poorly documentedearly first millennium, indeed that reused the very same palatial building established by theKassites?42 Could this account for Elamite anthroponymy in the ruling house of Dilmunca. 700 b.c.?

40 See my A Prehistoric Mound in the Emirate ofUmm al-Qaiwain: Excavations at Tell Abraq in 1989(Copenhagen, 1990), figs. 46.1, 47.2, 87.1–2, 90.6, 98.8,105.8 (pottery), and 150–51 (seal).

41 R. Zadok, The Elamite Onomasticon (Naples,1984), pp. 13 and 60. More recently, the editorialcommittee of The Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian

Empire has placed a question mark after the referenceto the Elamite etymology of Hundaru, s.v., in S. Parpola,ed., The Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian Empire,vol. 2/1 (Helsinki, 2000), p. 479.

42 Højlund and Andersen, Qalaªat al-Bahrain, vol. 2,pp. 87–110.