The Middle East: 1773–1630 BCE

Hammurabi's Legacy, Cultural Integration, and Expanding Influence

Hammurabi’s Legal and Cultural Innovations

The civilizing trends initiated at Sumer evolved dramatically during the reign of Hammurabi (1792–1750 BCE). His sophisticated legal principles, encapsulated in the Code of Hammurabi, reflect a highly advanced civilization, revealing social interactions extending far beyond kinship bonds. Hammurabi's laws, encompassing commerce, land tenure, marital laws, inheritance, debt, public order, and labor conditions, illustrate a diversified economy and extensive trade networks. Politically, Hammurabi's code further delineates religious authority from secular governance, signifying a maturation of Mesopotamian administrative complexity.

Babylon's Cultural and Urban Ascendancy

Babylon, capital of Babylonia, becomes the world's largest city by approximately 1770 BCE, surpassing Thebes in Egypt. Babylonian scholars significantly advance astronomy, and cuneiform evolves into a more flexible syllabic script, enhancing literacy and communication across the region. Babylonian architecture also flourishes, characterized by massive brick platforms and the iconic ziggurat structures.

Amorite Integration and Linguistic Evolution

By 1700 BCE, the Semitic Amorite language fully replaces Sumerian, though Akkadian cuneiform remains the lingua franca of the Near East, influencing other regional languages, including those of the Kassites, Hittites, Hurrians, and later Persians. Amorite culture integrates deeply with surviving Sumerian traditions, preserving administrative, architectural, and economic institutions.

Rise and Fall of Mari under Zimrilim

Mari experiences a second golden age under King Zimrilim (c. 1701 BCE), who expands the city-state’s influence along the Euphrates and Khabur valleys. Zimrilim’s extensive palace, boasting over three hundred rooms, exemplifies the prosperity of Mari, vividly decorated with murals. Despite earlier alliances, Mari is ultimately destroyed by Hammurabi around 1687 BCE, marking the end of its prominence.

Trade Networks and Regional Dynamics

Trade networks continue to evolve, illustrated by the wealth of maritime trade centers such as Dilmun, though its economic significance declines around 1800 BCE due to emerging alternative routes linking India directly with Mediterranean ports through the Red Sea. Meanwhile, Cyprus (Alashiya) becomes a key player in Mediterranean trade, exporting copper and fostering cosmopolitan settlements.

Assyrian Decline and Anatolian Transformations

In Anatolia, significant upheaval occurs around 1740 BCE when the prosperous trade city Kanesh (Kültepe) is again destroyed by fire, disrupting Assyrian trading colonies (karum) that had thrived since its re-establishment in 1798 BCE. Concurrently, the Indo-European-speaking Hittites consolidate control, adopting Akkadian cuneiform for inscriptions, notably under rulers such as Anitta of Nesa.

Hurrian Expansion and Influence

The Hurrians, originally from the Khabur River Valley and speaking a distinct agglutinative language, expand westward into northern Syria by 1725 BCE, notably into cities such as Alalakh (Tell Atchana). Their adoption of Akkadian cuneiform script integrates them further into regional culture, significantly influencing the linguistic and cultural landscapes.

Kassite Incursions and Elamite Influence

The Kassites, originating in the Zagros Mountains, begin periodic incursions into Mesopotamia around the mid-second millennium BCE. Initially repelled by Babylonian rulers like Samsu-iluna (1749–1712 BCE), their continued presence heralds future political shifts. Simultaneously, Elamite influence peaks under the Epartid dynasty (c.1900–1700 BCE)in Susa, notably under rulers like Siwe-Palar-Khuppak and Kudur-Nahhunte, before being driven back by Babylon.

Babylonian Cultural and Scientific Contributions

Babylonians excel in mathematics, capable of solving quadratic and cubic equations. Their base-60 arithmetic system greatly simplifies computations, surpassing contemporary Egyptian methods. Babylonian astrology, encapsulated in texts like the Enuma Anu Enlil, also emerges prominently during this period, emphasizing celestial phenomena and their purported influences.

Religious Developments and Urban Life

The worship of Marduk, Babylon’s chief deity, gains prominence during Hammurabi’s reign, centralizing Babylonian religious identity around the myth of creation detailed in the Enuma Elish. In daily life, Babylonians adopt garments such as ankle-length tunics and fringed shawls, influencing later cultures significantly. Veterinary practices also emerge in written records, underscoring the civilization's complexity and attention to practical needs.

This era sees an integration of diverse cultures, significant scientific advancements, and substantial political restructuring, setting the stage for subsequent empires and cultural evolution in the ancient Middle East.

Six Indo-European Anatolian languages comprise the Hittite-Luwian group: Hittite, Palaic, and Lydian form one subgroup; Cuneiform Luwian, Hieroglyphic Luwian, and Lycian form a second. (Some modern linguists have proposed three other languages of southern Anatolia—Carian, Pisidian, and Sidetic—as additions to the Hittite-Luwian group, but evidence remains scanty.)

Hittite, the most important language of the group—uniquely—maintains certain features that have been lost in all the other Indo-European languages.

Written from at least 1700, Hittite employs a form of Akkadian cuneiform writing, contains numerous loan words from Luwian, Hattic, and Hurrian, and seems to use, randomly, vocabulary from both Akkadian and Sumerian.

The earliest known member of a Hittite-speaking dynasty, Pithana, was based at the city of Kussara.

In the eighteenth century BCE, Anitta, his son and successor, makes the Hittite speaking city of Nesa into one of his capitals and adopts the Hittite language for his inscriptions there.

Near Alaca Höyük is the site of present Boğazkale, a village in north central Turkey about one hundred and twenty-five miles (two hundred kilometers) east of Ankara, first inhabited in the late third millennium BCE.

Boğazkale is best known as the site of the ancient Hittite city of Hattusa, within the great loop of the Kizil River, and the rock shrine at Yazilikaya.

A settlement of the apparently indigenous Hatti people had been established before 2000 BCE on sites that had been occupied even earlier.

The earliest traces of settlement on the site are from the sixth millennium BCE.

Merchants from Assur in Assyria established a trading post here in the nineteenth and eighteenth centuries BCE, setting up in their own separate quarter of the city.

The center of their trade network was located in Kanesh (Neša) (modern Kültepe).

Business dealings require record-keeping: the trade network from Assur introduced writing to Hattusa, in the form of cuneiform.

A carbonized layer apparent in excavations attests to the burning and ruin of the city of Hattusa around 1700 BCE.

The responsible party appears to have been King Anitta from Kussara (a city possibly to be identified with Alişar), who took credit for the act and erected an inscribed curse for good measure.

A Hittite-speaking king chooses the site as his residence and capital only a generation later.

The Hittite language had been gaining speakers at Hattic's expense for some time.

The Hattic "Hattus" now becomes Hittite "Hattusa,” and the king takes the name of Hattusili I, the "one from Hattusa.” Hattusili marks the beginning of a non-Hattic-speaking "Hittite" state, and of a royal line of Hittite Great Kings—of whom twenty-seven are now known by name.