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1595 BCEReputable source · 2 sourcesWell documented

The Hittite Sack of Babylon Ends Amorite Rule

A Hittite king raided Babylon, took its treasures, and left, opening the door for the Kassites

On the timeline · around 1595 BCE · Old Assyria and Old BabylonOld Assyria and Old BabylonThe Hittite Sack of Babylon Ends Amorite Rule1,800 BCE1,700 BCE1,600 BCE1,500 BCE1,400 BCE1,300 BCE

Quick facts

Hittite king
Mursili I
Sack of Babylon
1595 BCE
Dynasty ended
Amorite dynasty founded by Hammurabi
Successor rule
Kassite dynasty, ruling roughly 400 years

What happened

In 1595 BCE, the Hittite king Mursili I marched south from Anatolia and sacked Babylon, ending the Amorite dynasty that Hammurabi had founded roughly a century and a half earlier. The Hittites did not stay to occupy Babylon or claim it as territory; they raided the city and withdrew, but the political vacuum this left behind opened the door for the Kassites, a people originally from the Zagros Mountains northeast of Babylonia, to take power in Babylon itself. World History Encyclopedia describes the sack as marking the start of Babylonian 'dark ages,' a period of reduced textual and archaeological evidence before the Kassite dynasty stabilized its rule and held power in Babylon for roughly four hundred years, until 1155 BCE, an era also called the Middle Babylonian Period.

Why it matters

The Hittite sack shows how thoroughly interconnected the Bronze Age Near East had become. A raid launched from central Anatolia, hundreds of miles from Babylon, could topple a Mesopotamian dynasty founded by Hammurabi himself, and the resulting vacuum was filled not by the raiders but by an entirely different people, the Kassites, who went on to rule Babylon longer than almost any dynasty in its history.

How we know

The Hittite raid and Amorite dynasty's end are recorded in later Babylonian chronicle traditions, and the near-total gap in dated administrative texts from Babylon immediately afterward is itself the primary evidence historians point to for the following 'dark age' in the textual record.

Sources

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The Hittite Sack of Babylon Ends Amorite Rule · Ancient Mesopotamia · SourcedStory