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Kurda

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Map of Mesopotamia in 1770 BCE

Kurda was an ancient city-state and a Middle Bronze petty kingdom located in the region of the Sinjar Plain in Northern Mesopotamia.[1] It is mentioned along with Andarig and Apum.

Location[edit]

At its height the kingdom might have stretched from the Upper Khabur basin in what is today north-eastern Syria, to the steppes of Sinjar mountain, modern north-western Iraq.[2][3][4][5][6][7][8] The capital city's location is debated; it was either located to south of Sinjar mountain, or along the Khabur river.[3]

History[edit]

Early Bronze[edit]

Early Dynastic Period[edit]

Kurda emerged during the Early Dynastic Period (Mesopotamia) and is attested in the administrative texts of this era as a city state and geographical territory in Upper Mesopotamia corresponding to modern northern Iraq.[9][10][11]

Akkadian Period[edit]

The city-state of Kurda is again attested by the Akkadian king Naram Sin in 23rd century BCE in his military campaigns in the land of Subarians.[12][13] Various Archives of Mari around 18th century BCE mention Kurda as an independent Kingdom, sometimes in alliance with Babylon and sometimes allied with Mari.[14][15]

Middle Bronze[edit]

The city was the Amorite Numha tribe's center,[16][17] it controlled a small area and included the nearby city of Kasapa.[18] The east Semitic deity Nergal was Kurda's chief god.[19][20]

In the 18th century BC, Kurda was involved in a military dispute with the neighboring kingdom of Andarig, which ended in peace.[21] However, Kurda was later subdued by Andarig and its master, the king of Elam.[22] The kingdom tried switching its loyalty to Babylon but was stopped by the Elamites who were defeated by a Babylonian-Mariote alliance in 1764 BC,[22] giving Kurda the chance to form an alliance with the kingdom of Apum to face Andarig.[23] Kurda annexed the city of Ashihum,[24] then became a vassal of Babylon,[25] and ended its relation with Mari in response to the latter role in supporting Andarig.[26]

Rulers[edit]

King Reigned
Simah-ilane
Bunu-Estar
Hammurabi Middle 18th century BC
Ashtamar-Adad 1760s BC

Late Bronze[edit]

In the Late Bronze, Kurda was within the Mitanni Empire. Following the Fall of the Mitanni Empire, the region was contested between the Hittites in the west and Assyrians in the east. In between was a buffer zone with the remnants of the Mitanni Empire. Kurda is mentioned in the Shattiwaza Treaty during the reign of Suppiluliuma I of Hatti.

Kurda is also mentioned in the Tell Fekheriye tablets of the Assyrian kings Šalmaneser I (1263–1234 BC) and Tukulti-Ninurta I (1233–1198 BC), as one of the conquered territories in the Mitannian Empire.[27]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

Citations[edit]

  1. ^ Liverani, Mario (2013). The Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy. Routledge. p. 610. ISBN 978-1-134-75091-7.
  2. ^ The Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy, Mario Liverani, Routledge, Dec 4, 2013, 648 pages, see page 226
  3. ^ a b Ferdinand Hennerbichler (2010). Die Herkunft der Kurden: interdisziplinäre Studie. Peter Lang. p. 106. ISBN 9783631593271.
  4. ^ M. B. Rowton, Urban Autonomy in a Nomadic Environment. In: Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 32, No. ½ (Jan.-Apr., 1973), pp. 201-215
  5. ^ Postgate, John Nicholas, The Archives of Urad-Serua and His Family: A Middle Assyrian Household in Government Service. Publicazioni del Progetto "Analisi electronic del cuneiforme" Corpus Medio-Assiro. Roma (Roberto Denicola) 1988, Zittierte Archiv-Nummer: 56
  6. ^ Charpin, Dominique,. La "toponymie en miroir" dans le Proche-Orient amorrite. Revue d’assyriologie et d’archéologie orientale. Volume 97 2003/1, pp. 3–34.
  7. ^ Jean Robert Kupper (Liége) Les nomads en Mésopotamie au temps des roi de Mari. Société d’Èdition ’Les Belles Letters’, Paris 1957.
  8. ^ Ferner in: Birot,, Maurice, Kupper, Jean-Robert, Rouault,olivier. Répertoire analytique (2e volume). Tomes I-XIV, XVIII. Première partie. Noms propers (ARM 16/1), Paris 1979: Kurda.
  9. ^ Bramanti, Armando (2020). The Pottesman Collection in the British Museum: Early Dynastic and Sargonic Administrative Texts, in "The Third Millennium", V.50. published by Brill.
  10. ^ "CDLI-Archival View". cdli.ucla.edu. Retrieved 2021-02-04.
  11. ^ "Tex no. P221673, published by Sollberger & Edmond, 1972, in CDLI-Found Texts". cdli.ucla.edu. Retrieved 2021-02-04. Written forms: iri kur-da. Normalized forms: Kurda
  12. ^ Potts, D. T.; Radner, Karen; Moeller, Nadine (2020). The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East: Volume I: from the Beginnings to Old Kingdom Egypt and the Dynasty of Akkad. Oxford University Press. pp. 729–31. ISBN 978-0-19-068785-4.
  13. ^ Hennerbichler, Ferdinand (2010). Die Herkunft der Kurden: interdisziplinäre Studie (in German). Peter Lang. p. 105. ISBN 978-3-631-59327-1.
  14. ^ Heimpel, Wolfgang (2003). Letters to the King of Mari: A New Translation, with Historical Introduction, Notes, and Commentary. Eisenbrauns. ISBN 978-1-57506-080-4.
  15. ^ Munn-Rankin, J. M. (1956). "Diplomacy in Western Asia in the Early Second Millennium B.C." IRAQ. 18 (1): 68–110. doi:10.2307/4199599. ISSN 0021-0889. JSTOR 4199599. S2CID 163095769.
  16. ^ Trevor Bryce (2009). The Routledge Handbook of the Peoples and Places of Ancient Western Asia: The Near East from the Early Bronze Age to the fall of the Persian Empire. Routledge. p. 516. ISBN 9781134159079.
  17. ^ Daniel Fleming (2012). The Legacy of Israel in Judah's Bible: History, Politics, and the Reinscribing of Tradition. Cambridge University Press. p. 219. ISBN 9781107024311.
  18. ^ Trevor Bryce (2009). The Routledge Handbook of the Peoples and Places of Ancient Western Asia: The Near East from the Early Bronze Age to the fall of the Persian Empire. Routledge. p. 373. ISBN 9781134159079.
  19. ^ Martha A. Morrison, David I. Owen (1981). In honor of Ernest R. Lacheman on his seventy-fifth birthday, April 29, 1981, Volume 2. Eisenbrauns. p. 86. ISBN 9780931464089.
  20. ^ Izak Cornelius (1994). The Iconography of the Canaanite Gods Reshef and Baʻal: Late Bronze and Iron Age I Periods (C 1500-1000 BCE). University Press. p. 91. ISBN 9783525537756.
  21. ^ Trevor Bryce (2009). The Routledge Handbook of the Peoples and Places of Ancient Western Asia: The Near East from the Early Bronze Age to the fall of the Persian Empire. Routledge. p. 398. ISBN 9781134159079.
  22. ^ a b Dominique Charpin (2012). Hammurabi of Babylon. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 49. ISBN 9781848857520.
  23. ^ Trevor Bryce (2009). The Routledge Handbook of the Peoples and Places of Ancient Western Asia: The Near East from the Early Bronze Age to the fall of the Persian Empire. p. 45. ISBN 9780415394857.
  24. ^ Trevor Bryce (2009). The Routledge Handbook of the Peoples and Places of Ancient Western Asia: The Near East from the Early Bronze Age to the fall of the Persian Empire. p. 76. ISBN 9780415394857.
  25. ^ Gordon Douglas Young (1992). Mari in retrospect: fifty years of Mari and Mari studies. p. 13. ISBN 9780931464287.
  26. ^ Wolfgang Heimpel (2003). Letters to the King of Mari: A New Translation, with Historical Introduction, Notes, and Commentary. p. 161. ISBN 9781575060804.
  27. ^ Bonatz, Dominik (2014-04-01). The Archaeology of Political Spaces: The Upper Mesopotamian Piedmont in the Second Millennium BCE. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 73–5. ISBN 978-3-11-026640-5.
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