Burna-Buriash
Encyclopedia
Burna-Buriaš II, meaning servant of the Lord of the lands, where Buriaš is a Kassite
storm god possibly corresponding to the Greek Boreas, was a king in the Kassite dynasty of Babylon
, in a kingdom called Karduniaš at the time, ruling ca. 1359–1333 BC (short chronology
). Recorded as the 19th King to ascend the Kassite throne, he succeeded Kadašman-Enlil I
, who was likely his father, and ruled for 27 years. He was a contemporary of the Egypt
ian Pharaoh Akhenaten
.
, designated EA 6 to 14. The relationship between Babylon and Egypt during his reign was friendly at the start (EA 6), and a marriage alliance was in the making. “From the time my ancestors and your ancestors made a mutual declaration of friendship, they sent beautiful greeting-gifts to each other, and refused no request for anything beautiful.” Burna-Buriaš was obsessed with being received as an equal and often refers to his counterpart as “brother”. They exchanged presents, horses, lapis-lazuli and other precious stones from Burna-Buriaš and ivory, ebony and gold from Akhenaten.
But then things began to go sour. On EA 7, lines 69 to 72, he complains that the gold sent was underweight. “You have detained my messenger for two years!” he declares in consternation. He reproached the Egyptian for not having sent his condolences when he was ill and, when his daughter's wedding was underway, he complained that only five carriages were sent to convey her to Egypt. The bridal gifts filled 4 columns and 307 lines of cuneiform inventory on tablet EA 13.
Not only were matters of state of concern. “What you want from my land, write and it shall be brought, and what I want from your land, I will write, that it may be brought.” But even in matters of trade, things went awry and, in EA 8, he complains that Egypt's Canaanite
vassals had robbed and murdered his merchants. He demanded vengeance, naming Šum-Adda, the son of Balumme, affiliation unknown, and Šutatna
, the son of Šaratum of Akka
, as the villainous perpetrators.
In his correspondence with the Pharaohs’, he did not hesitate to remind them of their obligations, quoting ancient loyalties: -
Posterity has not preserved any Egyptian response, however, Abdi-Heba
, the Canaanite Mayor of Jerusalem, then a small hillside town, wrote in EA 287 that Kassite agents had attempted to break into his home and assassinate him.
The letters present a playful, forthright and at times petulant repartee, but perhaps conceal a cunning interplay between them, to confirm their relative status’, cajole the provision of desirable commodities and measure their respective threat, best exemplified by Burna-Buriaš’ feigned ignorance of the distance between their countries, a four month journey by caravan. Here he seems to test Akhenaten to shame him into sending gold or perhaps just to gage the extent of his potential military reach.
, was conducted through royal marriages. A Neo-Babylonian copy of a literary text which takes the form of a letter, now located in the Vorderasiatisches Museum
in Berlin, is addressed to the Kassite court by an Elamite King. It details the genealogy of the Elamite royalty of this period, and from it we find that Pahir-Ishshan married Kurigalzu I’s sister and Humban-Numena married his daughter and their son, Untash-Napirisha
was betrothed to Burna-Buriaš’s daughter. This may have been Napir-asu, whose headless statue now resides in the Louvre in Paris.
It is likely that Suppiluliuma I
, king of the Hittites
, married yet another of Burna Buriaš’s daughters, who thereafter became known as Tawananna, and this may have been the cause of his neutrality in the face of the Mitanni
succession crisis. He refused asylum to the fleeing Shattiwaza
, who received a more favorable response in Hatti, where Suppiluliuma I supported his reinstatement in a diminished vassal state. According to her step son Mursili II
, she became quite a troublemaker, scheming and murderous, as in the case of Mursili’s wife, foistering her strange foreign ways on the Hittite court and ultimately being exiled. His testimony is preserved in two prayers in which he condemned her.
Kassite influence reached to Bahrain, ancient Dilmun
, where two letters found in Nippur were sent by a Kassite official, Ilī-ippašra
, in Dilmun to Ililiya, a hypocoristic form of Enlil-kidinni, who was the governor, or šandabakku, of Nippur during Burna Buriaš’s reign and that of his immediate successors. In the first letter, the hapless Ili-ippašra complains that the anarchic local Aḫlamû tribesmen have stolen his dates and “there is nothing I can do” while in the second letter they “certainly speak words of hostility and plunder to me”. An inscribed cylinder seal makes reference to a governor (šakkanakku) of Dilmun.
in Larsa
. A tablet provides an exhortation to Enlil and a brick refers to work on the great socle
of the Ekiur of Ninlil in Nippur
. A cylinder inscription of Nabonidus
recalls Burna-Buriaš’ earlier work on the temenos
at Sippar
:
There are around 87 economic texts, most of which were found at successive excavations in Nippur, providing a date formula based on reignal years, which progress up to year 27. Many of them are personnel rosters dealing with servile laborers, who were evidently working under duress as the terms ZÁḤ, “escapee”, and ka-mu, “fettered”, are used to classify some of them. Apparently thousands of men were employed in construction and agriculture and women in the textile industry. An oppressive regime developed to constrain their movements and prevent their escape. Other texts include two extispicy
reports provide divinations based on examination of animal entrails. Nippur seems to have enjoyed the status of a secondary capital. The presence of the royal retinue replete with scribes would have provided the means for the creation of business records for the local population.
n king Aššur-uballiṭ I
was received at the Egyptian court by Tutankhamen, who had by then ascended the throne. This caused a great deal of dismay from Burna-Buriaš who claimed the Assyrians were his vassals, “Why have they been received in your land? If I am dear to you, do not let them conclude any business. May they return here with empty hands!” on EA 9. Finally released from beneath the yoke of Mitannite hegemony, Assyria emerged as a great power during his reign, threatening the northern border of the kingdom.
Perhaps to patch up relations, Muballiṭat-Šērūa, daughter of Aššur-uballiṭ, was married to either Burna-Buriaš or possibly his son, Kara-ḫardaš, the historical sources do not agree, however, the scenario proposed by Brinkman has come to be considered the orthodox interpretation of these events. A poorly preserved letter in the Pergamon Museum
possibly mentions him and a princess or mārat šarri. Kara-ḫardaš was murdered, shortly after succeeding his father to the throne, during a rebellion by the Kassite army in 1333 BC. This incited Aššur-uballiṭ to invade, depose the usurper installed by the army, one Nazi-Bugaš or Šuzigaš, described as "a Kassite, son of a nobody", and install Kurigalzu II
, “the younger”, variously rendered as son of Burnaburiaš and son of Kadašman-Ḫarbe, likely a scribal error for Kara-ḫardaš. Note, however, that there are more than a dozen royal inscriptions of Kurigalzu II identifying Burna-Buriaš as his father.
Kassites
The Kassites were an ancient Near Eastern people who gained control of Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire after ca. 1531 BC to ca. 1155 BC...
storm god possibly corresponding to the Greek Boreas, was a king in the Kassite dynasty of Babylon
Babylon
Babylon was an Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...
, in a kingdom called Karduniaš at the time, ruling ca. 1359–1333 BC (short chronology
Short chronology timeline
The short chronology is one chronology of the Near Eastern Bronze and Early Iron Age, which fixes the reign of Hammurabi to 1728 BC – 1686 BC and the sack of Babylon to 1531 BC....
). Recorded as the 19th King to ascend the Kassite throne, he succeeded Kadašman-Enlil I
Kadashman-Enlil I
Kadašman-Enlil ITypically rendered mka-dáš-man-dEN.LÍL in contemporary inscriptions. was a Kassite King of Babylon from ca. 1374 BC to 1360 BC , perhaps the 18th of the dynasty. He is known to have been a contemporary of Amenhotep III of Egypt, with whom he corresponded...
, who was likely his father, and ruled for 27 years. He was a contemporary of the Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
ian Pharaoh Akhenaten
Akhenaten
Akhenaten also spelled Echnaton,Ikhnaton,and Khuenaten;meaning "living spirit of Aten") known before the fifth year of his reign as Amenhotep IV , was a Pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt who ruled for 17 years and died perhaps in 1336 BC or 1334 BC...
.
Correspondence with Egypt
The diplomatic correspondence with the Pharaohs' is preserved in nine of the Amarna lettersAmarna letters
The Amarna letters are an archive of correspondence on clay tablets, mostly diplomatic, between the Egyptian administration and its representatives in Canaan and Amurru during the New Kingdom...
, designated EA 6 to 14. The relationship between Babylon and Egypt during his reign was friendly at the start (EA 6), and a marriage alliance was in the making. “From the time my ancestors and your ancestors made a mutual declaration of friendship, they sent beautiful greeting-gifts to each other, and refused no request for anything beautiful.” Burna-Buriaš was obsessed with being received as an equal and often refers to his counterpart as “brother”. They exchanged presents, horses, lapis-lazuli and other precious stones from Burna-Buriaš and ivory, ebony and gold from Akhenaten.
But then things began to go sour. On EA 7, lines 69 to 72, he complains that the gold sent was underweight. “You have detained my messenger for two years!” he declares in consternation. He reproached the Egyptian for not having sent his condolences when he was ill and, when his daughter's wedding was underway, he complained that only five carriages were sent to convey her to Egypt. The bridal gifts filled 4 columns and 307 lines of cuneiform inventory on tablet EA 13.
Not only were matters of state of concern. “What you want from my land, write and it shall be brought, and what I want from your land, I will write, that it may be brought.” But even in matters of trade, things went awry and, in EA 8, he complains that Egypt's Canaanite
Canaan
Canaan is a historical region roughly corresponding to modern-day Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and the western parts of Jordan...
vassals had robbed and murdered his merchants. He demanded vengeance, naming Šum-Adda, the son of Balumme, affiliation unknown, and Šutatna
Satatna
Satatna, or Sitatna, and also Šutatna/Shutatna-, was a 'Mayor'/Ruler of Akka, or Acco, modern Acre, Israel, during the 1350-1335 BC Amarna letters correspondence....
, the son of Šaratum of Akka
Acre
The acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. The most commonly used acres today are the international acre and, in the United States, the survey acre. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.The acre is related...
, as the villainous perpetrators.
In his correspondence with the Pharaohs’, he did not hesitate to remind them of their obligations, quoting ancient loyalties: -
Posterity has not preserved any Egyptian response, however, Abdi-Heba
Abdi-Heba
Abdi-Heba was a local chieftain of Jerusalem during the Amarna period . Abdi-Heba's name can be translated as "servant of Hebat", a Hurrian goddess. Some scholars believe the correct reading is Ebed-Nob...
, the Canaanite Mayor of Jerusalem, then a small hillside town, wrote in EA 287 that Kassite agents had attempted to break into his home and assassinate him.
The letters present a playful, forthright and at times petulant repartee, but perhaps conceal a cunning interplay between them, to confirm their relative status’, cajole the provision of desirable commodities and measure their respective threat, best exemplified by Burna-Buriaš’ feigned ignorance of the distance between their countries, a four month journey by caravan. Here he seems to test Akhenaten to shame him into sending gold or perhaps just to gage the extent of his potential military reach.
International Relations
Diplomacy with Babylon's neighbor, ElamElam
Elam was an ancient civilization located in what is now southwest Iran. Elam was centered in the far west and the southwest of modern-day Iran, stretching from the lowlands of Khuzestan and Ilam Province, as well as a small part of southern Iraq...
, was conducted through royal marriages. A Neo-Babylonian copy of a literary text which takes the form of a letter, now located in the Vorderasiatisches Museum
Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin
The Vorderasiatisches Museum is an archaeological museum in Berlin. It is in the basement of the south wing of the Pergamon museum and has one of the world's largest collections of Southwest Asian art. 14 halls distributed across 2000 square meters of exhibition surface display southwest Asian...
in Berlin, is addressed to the Kassite court by an Elamite King. It details the genealogy of the Elamite royalty of this period, and from it we find that Pahir-Ishshan married Kurigalzu I’s sister and Humban-Numena married his daughter and their son, Untash-Napirisha
Untash-Napirisha
Untash-Napirisha was king of Elam from about 1275 to 1240 BC.He was the son of the previous king, Khumban-Numena. His original name was 'Untash-Khumban', but out of respect, he later changed the last half of his name to napirisha...
was betrothed to Burna-Buriaš’s daughter. This may have been Napir-asu, whose headless statue now resides in the Louvre in Paris.
It is likely that Suppiluliuma I
Suppiluliuma I
Suppiluliuma I was king of the Hittites . He achieved fame as a great warrior and statesman, successfully challenging the then-dominant Egyptian empire for control of the lands between the Mediterranean and the Euphrates....
, king of the Hittites
Hittites
The Hittites were a Bronze Age people of Anatolia.They established a kingdom centered at Hattusa in north-central Anatolia c. the 18th century BC. The Hittite empire reached its height c...
, married yet another of Burna Buriaš’s daughters, who thereafter became known as Tawananna, and this may have been the cause of his neutrality in the face of the Mitanni
Mitanni
Mitanni or Hanigalbat was a loosely organized Hurrian-speaking state in northern Syria and south-east Anatolia from ca. 1500 BC–1300 BC...
succession crisis. He refused asylum to the fleeing Shattiwaza
Shattiwaza
Shattiwaza , was a king of the Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni in the fourteenth century BC.Shattiwaza was the brother of king Tushratta. His Hurrian name was Kili-Tešup. In the political turmoil following the death of his predecessor, the usurper Shuttarna tried to murder Shattiwaza...
, who received a more favorable response in Hatti, where Suppiluliuma I supported his reinstatement in a diminished vassal state. According to her step son Mursili II
Mursili II
Mursili II was a king of the Hittite Empire ca. 1321–1295 BC .-Family:Mursili II was the younger son of Suppiluliuma I, one of the most powerful rulers of the Hittite Empire...
, she became quite a troublemaker, scheming and murderous, as in the case of Mursili’s wife, foistering her strange foreign ways on the Hittite court and ultimately being exiled. His testimony is preserved in two prayers in which he condemned her.
Kassite influence reached to Bahrain, ancient Dilmun
Dilmun
Dilmun or Telmun is a land mentioned by Mesopotamian civilizations as a trade partner, a source of the metal copper, and an entrepôt of the Mesopotamia-to-Indus Valley Civilization trade route...
, where two letters found in Nippur were sent by a Kassite official, Ilī-ippašra
Ilī-ippašra
Ilī-ippašra, meaning "My god became reconciled with me", was a Babylonian who may have been adopted or apprenticed during the reign of Kassite king Kurigalzu I, ending ca. 1375 BC, and rose to become an official, possibly the governor of Dilmun, ancient Bahrain, during the later reign of...
, in Dilmun to Ililiya, a hypocoristic form of Enlil-kidinni, who was the governor, or šandabakku, of Nippur during Burna Buriaš’s reign and that of his immediate successors. In the first letter, the hapless Ili-ippašra complains that the anarchic local Aḫlamû tribesmen have stolen his dates and “there is nothing I can do” while in the second letter they “certainly speak words of hostility and plunder to me”. An inscribed cylinder seal makes reference to a governor (šakkanakku) of Dilmun.
Domestic Affairs
Building activity increased markedly in the latter half of the fourteenth century with Burna-Buriaš and his successors undertaking restoration work of sacred structures. Inscriptions from three door sockets and bricks, some of which are still in situ, bear witness to his restoration of the Ebabbar of the sun god ŠamašShamash
Shamash was a native Mesopotamian deity and the sun god in the Akkadian, Assyrian and Babylonian pantheons. Shamash was the god of justice in Babylonia and Assyria, corresponding to Sumerian Utu...
in Larsa
Larsa
Larsa was an important city of ancient Sumer, the center of the cult of the sun god Utu. It lies some 25 km southeast of Uruk in Iraq's Dhi Qar Governorate, near the east bank of the Shatt-en-Nil canal at the site of the modern settlement Tell as-Senkereh or Sankarah.-History:According to...
. A tablet provides an exhortation to Enlil and a brick refers to work on the great socle
Socle
Socle may refer to:* Socle * Socle...
of the Ekiur of Ninlil in Nippur
Nippur
Nippur was one of the most ancient of all the Sumerian cities. It was the special seat of the worship of the Sumerian god Enlil, the "Lord Wind," ruler of the cosmos subject to An alone...
. A cylinder inscription of Nabonidus
Nabonidus
Nabonidus was the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, reigning from 556-539 BCE.-Historiography on Nabonidus:...
recalls Burna-Buriaš’ earlier work on the temenos
Temenos
Temenos is a piece of land cut off and assigned as an official domain, especially to kings and chiefs, or a piece of land marked off from common uses and dedicated to a god, a sanctuary, holy grove or holy precinct: The Pythian race-course is called a temenos, the sacred valley of the Nile is the ...
at Sippar
Sippar
Sippar was an ancient Near Eastern city on the east bank of the Euphrates river, located at the site of modern Tell Abu Habbah in Iraq's Babil Governorate, some 60 km north of Babylon and 30 km southeast of Baghdad....
:
There are around 87 economic texts, most of which were found at successive excavations in Nippur, providing a date formula based on reignal years, which progress up to year 27. Many of them are personnel rosters dealing with servile laborers, who were evidently working under duress as the terms ZÁḤ, “escapee”, and ka-mu, “fettered”, are used to classify some of them. Apparently thousands of men were employed in construction and agriculture and women in the textile industry. An oppressive regime developed to constrain their movements and prevent their escape. Other texts include two extispicy
Extispicy
Extispicy is the practice of using anomalies in animal entrails to predict or divine future events. Organs inspected include the liver, intestines, and lungs. The animal used for extispicy must often be ritually pure and slaughtered in a special ceremony.The practice was first common in ancient...
reports provide divinations based on examination of animal entrails. Nippur seems to have enjoyed the status of a secondary capital. The presence of the royal retinue replete with scribes would have provided the means for the creation of business records for the local population.
Kara-ḫardaš, Nazi-Bugaš and the events at end of his reign
Later in his reign the AssyriaAssyria
Assyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the mid–23rd century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...
n king Aššur-uballiṭ I
Ashur-uballit I
Ashur-uballit I , was king of the Assyrian empire . His reign marks Assyria's independence from the kingdom of Mitanni, by defeating Shuttarna II; and the beginning of Assyria's emergence as a powerful empire...
was received at the Egyptian court by Tutankhamen, who had by then ascended the throne. This caused a great deal of dismay from Burna-Buriaš who claimed the Assyrians were his vassals, “Why have they been received in your land? If I am dear to you, do not let them conclude any business. May they return here with empty hands!” on EA 9. Finally released from beneath the yoke of Mitannite hegemony, Assyria emerged as a great power during his reign, threatening the northern border of the kingdom.
Perhaps to patch up relations, Muballiṭat-Šērūa, daughter of Aššur-uballiṭ, was married to either Burna-Buriaš or possibly his son, Kara-ḫardaš, the historical sources do not agree, however, the scenario proposed by Brinkman has come to be considered the orthodox interpretation of these events. A poorly preserved letter in the Pergamon Museum
Pergamon Museum
The Pergamon Museum is situated on the Museum Island in Berlin. The site was designed by Alfred Messel and Ludwig Hoffmann and was constructed in twenty years, from 1910 to 1930. The Pergamon houses original-sized, reconstructed monumental buildings such as the Pergamon Altar and the Market Gate...
possibly mentions him and a princess or mārat šarri. Kara-ḫardaš was murdered, shortly after succeeding his father to the throne, during a rebellion by the Kassite army in 1333 BC. This incited Aššur-uballiṭ to invade, depose the usurper installed by the army, one Nazi-Bugaš or Šuzigaš, described as "a Kassite, son of a nobody", and install Kurigalzu II
Kurigalzu II
Kurigalzu II was the twenty second king of the Kassite dynasty that ruled over Babylon. In more than twelve inscriptions, Kurigalzu names Burna-Buriaš II as his father...
, “the younger”, variously rendered as son of Burnaburiaš and son of Kadašman-Ḫarbe, likely a scribal error for Kara-ḫardaš. Note, however, that there are more than a dozen royal inscriptions of Kurigalzu II identifying Burna-Buriaš as his father.