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The original homeland of the Kassites is obscure, but appears to have been located in the Zagros Mountains. Their first historical appearance occurred in the 18th century BC when they attacked Babylonia in the 9th year of the reign of Samsu-ilana (reigned 1749 BC - 1712 BC ), the son of Hammurabi. They subsequently gained control of northern Babylonia sometime after the fall of Babylon to the Hittites in 1595 BC, and conquered the southern part of the kingdom by about 1475 BC. The circumstances of their rise to power are unknown due to a lack of documentation from this so-called "Dark Age" period. Babylon under Kassite rulers re-emerged as a political and military power in the Near East.
Their success was built upon the relative political stability that the Kassite monarchs achieved. They ruled Babylonia practically without interruption for over four hundred years - the longest rule by any dynasty in Babylonian history. Even after a minor revolt in 1333 BC and a seven-year Assyrian hiatus in the 13th century BC, the ruling Kassite family managed to regain the throne.
The transformation of southern Mesopotamia into a national state made Babylonia an international power. Kassite kings established trade and diplomacy with Assyria, EgyptAncient Egypt (also see Ancient Egyptian) was the civilization of the Nile Valley between about 3000 BC and the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great in 332 BC. As a civilization based on irrigation it is the quintessential example of an hydraulic empi, ElamThe ancient Elamite Empire lay to the east of Sumer and Akkad, in what is now southwestern Iran. The Elamites called their country haltamtu or hallatamti which was translated as Elam by the neighboring Akkadians. The high country of Elam was later more an, and the Hittites, and the royal house intermarried with their royal families. There were foreign merchants in Babylon and other cities, and Babylonian merchants were active from Egypt (a major source of gold) to Assyria and Anatolia. Kassite seals and weights, the packet-identifying and measuring tools of commerce, have been found in ThebesFor the ancient capital of Upper Egypt, see Thebes, Egypt. Thebes #x303 Thivai) was a city in ancient Greece, situated to the north of the Cithaeron range, which divides Boeotia from Attica, and on the southern edge of the Boeotian plain. In ancient times in Greece, in southern ArmeniaArmenia ( Armenian: ''Hayastan is a landlocked country in southern Transcaucasia, between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia to the north, Azerbaijan in the east and Iran and the Naxcivan exclave of Azerbaijan in th, and even in a shipwreck off the southern coast of Turkey.
The Kassite kings maintained control of their realm through a network of provinces administered by governors. Almost equal with the royal cities of Babylon and Dur-KurigalzuDur-Kurigalzu was a city in southern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) near the confluence of the Tigris and Diyala rivers, at a site now known as Aqa Quf (coordinates 33º21'N 44º21'E) about 30 km west of Baghdad. It was founded by a Kassite king of Babylon, Kuri, the revived city of Nippur was the most important provincial center. The formerly great city of Nippur, which had been virtually abandoned about 1730 BC, was rebuilt in the Kassite period, with temples meticulously re-sited on their old foundations.
Other important centers during the Kassite period were Larsa, Sippar and Susa. Even after the Kassite dynasty was overthrown in 1155 BC , the system of provincial administration continued and the country remained united under the succeeding rule, the Second Dynasty of Isin. Comparisons of Kassite Babylonia with feudalism are now considered more misleading than useful, but the prestige of Nippur was enough for a series of 13th century Kassite kings to reassume the title 'governor of Nippur' for themselves.
Documentation of the Kassite period depends heavily on the scattered and disarticulated tablets from Nippur, where thousands of tablets and fragments have been excavated. They include administrative and legal texts, letters, seal inscriptions, kudurrus (comparable to land grants and administrative prerogatives), private votive inscriptions, and even a literary text (usually identified as a fragment of a historical epic).
Kassite rulers in Babylon were also scrupulous to follow existing forms of expression, and the public and private patterns of behavior 'and even went beyong that — as zealous neophytes do, or outsiders, who take up a superior civilization — by favoring an extremely conservative attitude, at least in palace circle.' ( Oppenheim , p. 62). In the course of centuries, however, the Kassites were absorbed into the Babylonian population. Eight among the last kings of the Kassite dynasty have Akkadian names, and Kassite princesses married into the royal family of Assyria. The contributions that Kassites brought to native Babylonian culture are still being debated, partly through identifying the few later Akkadian words of Kassite origin.
The Kassite tribe of Khabira seems to have settled in the Babylonian plain. Remnants of Kassite tribes were living in the mountains northwest of Elam, immediately south of Holwan, when Sennacherib attacked them in 702 BC. They are the Kossaeans of Ptolemy, who divides Susiana between them and the Elymaea ns; according to Strabo (xi. 13,3,6) they were the neighbours of the Medes. Th. Nöldeke (Gott. G. G., 1874, pp. 173 seq.) has shown that they are the Kissians of the older Greek authors who are identified with the Susians by Aeschylus (Choeph. 424, Pers. 17, 120) and Herodotus (v. 49, 52).
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