"العراق والخليج الفارسي" [ظ‎‎١‎٥‎٢] (٨٦٢/٣٠٩)

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HRMBmWiUl&iS
212 HISTORY
made themselves paramount in Naharin, the steppe country between
Euphrates and Orontes. They thus controlled the whole of the
great route from Aleppo to the Tigris. Neither Mitanni nor Kassites
affected the civilization of Mesopotamia. They were simply a ruling
class of uncivilized but not brutal invaders, who adopted the way of
life and even the religion of the countries which they ruled.
Egyptians and Hittites, 1500-1300 b.c.
In the fifteenth century b.c. another foreign power, Egypt,
intervened drastically in the affairs of the Mesopotamian states. A
nationalist upheaval had followed the expulsion of the Hyksos
invaders who had scourged Egypt for more than 150 years (c. 1750-
1573) and the great kings of the Eighteenth Dynasty, notably
Thothmes III (1501-1447), made all Syria tributary as far as the
Euphrates, and checked the influence in Syria both of Mitanni and
of Babylon. Later Amenhetep II (c. 1447-1421 b.c.) invaded
Mitanni itself and made it a subject-ally of Egypt, while Thothmes IV
(1421-1412) confirmed the alliance by a political marriage with a
Mitanni princess who became his chief wife.
The Egyptian conquest of northern Mesopotamia meant that the
two great and distinct civilizations of Egypt and Babylonia were
directly intermingled. Both Mitanni and its client state of Assyria
were affected. Remarkable evidence of this interfusion exists in the
letters, found at Tel el Amarna, of King Dushratta of Mitanni to
Amenhetep III (1395-1375) and his wife Tii, and to Amenhetep IV
Akhnaton (1375-1358), the famous religious heretic and father of
Tutankhamen. Presents were exchanged between the kings, and
the holy statue of the goddess Ishtar of Nineveh was twice sent on a
visit to Egypt. The Kassite kings of Babylon, who also corresponded
with these pharaohs, maintained their equality in alliance. The
letters of Burrubiash (Buruniabash c. 1365-1355) to Amenhetep IV
are directly concerned with trade and the protection of trade routes.
Tf thou dost not kill these people they will come again and will kill
my caravans, or even thy messengers, and the trade between us will
be destroyed, and the people [of Canaan] will become estranged
from thee.’ This Burrubiash had protested to Amenhetep against
his treatment of the Assyrian king Ashur-Uballit, who had thrown
off the yoke of Mitanni (p. 214), as an independent monarch. But
later either he or his son had to admit the independence of Assyria
and even married an Assyrian princess. Other events were clearing
the road for the rise of Assyria.