552 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN" INSTITUTION, 193 5 



Soon after 1900 B. C. we find the Hurrians in undisputed occupa- 

 tion of the conquered cities of Nuzi and Tell Billah (just north of 

 Mosul). Not long after, their presence is attested in Palestine and 

 in Syria. The Old Testament calls them Horites, and the Egyptian 

 name for Palestine beginning with the New Kingdom is Haru or 

 Huru. Hurrian names occur in the cuneiform tablets of Taanach. 

 The Tell el-Amarna records and the Hittite archives vouch for their 

 presence at Aleppo and elsewhere. At Ras Shamra, near Latakiyeh, 

 Huri'ian texts in a new cuneiform alphabet have recently com© 

 to light. 



The connection between the spread of the Hurrians and the other 

 great ethnic movements in the first half of the second millennium, 

 namel}^, the Hyksos invasion of Egypt, the Cassite conquest of 

 Babylonia, and the appearance of the Indo-Iranians in Anatolia, 

 is still obscure, because we have no information concerning the place 

 of origin and racial stock of the Hurrians. Their very name is in 

 dispute and appears variously, in recent publications, as Harri, Mitan- 

 nians, and Subareans. 



The kingdom of Mitanni, on the upper Euphrates, is the only 

 Hurrian state that played an important role in international affairs. 

 Its population and its language were primarily Hurrian, but the 

 kingdom was organized and dominated by an Indo-Iranian aristo- 

 cratic minority that exhibited a genius for government and, inci- 

 dentally, a love for the horse that are typically Indo-European. 

 The kingdom of Mitanni, which lasted from the early part of the 

 fifteenth century, B. C, to the middle of the fourteenth, had as 

 its first king Saushattar. the son of Parsashatar : A letter addressed 

 to a local official at Nuzi and bearing his seal was found in the 

 house of Shilwateshub. 



Four groups of documents yield what little information we have 

 about the Hurrian language : A letter of Tushratta, king of Mittani, 

 to Amenophis III of Egypt (found at Tell el-Amarna in Egypt) ; 

 a glossary and some texts found at Ras Shamra, near Latakiyeh; 

 some tablets in the Hittite archives of Boghazkeui; and the tablets 

 from Nuzi, written in Akkadian but containing occasional Hurrian 

 words and thousands of Hurrian personal names. 



The Hurrians that settled in the district of Arrapkha (Kirkuk) 

 not long after 2000 B. C. organized a small kingdom that included 

 the city of Ga-sur, renamed Nuzi by these Hurrian conquerors. One 

 of the early Hurrian kings of Arrapkha was Itkhi-Teshub, the son 

 of Kibi-Teshub. One of his inscriptions and three tablets bearing 

 the impression of his seal have been found at Nuzi, He worshipped 

 Teshub (Adad) and Ishtar of Lubdu. Two other kings mentioned 

 in the tablets from Nuzi, Itkhiya, and Kirenzi may have followed 



