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{{Short description|King of Babylon in the early 1300s BC}}

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Kurigalzu I (died c. 1375 BC), usually inscribed ku-ri-gal-zu but also sometimes with the m or d determinative,BOOK, Materials for the Study of Kassite History,weblink I, J. A., Brinkman, Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1976, 205–246, the 17th king of the Kassite or 3rd dynasty that ruled over Babylon, was responsible for one of the most extensive and widespread building programs for which evidence has survived in Babylonia. The autobiography of Kurigalzu is one of the inscriptions which record that he was the son of Kadašman-Ḫarbe.BOOK, Fictional Akkadian Autobiography: A Generic and Comparative Study,weblink Tremper, Longman, Eisenbrauns, July 1, 1990, 88–91, 224–225, 0-931464-41-2, Galzu, whose possible native pronunciation was gal-du or gal-šu, was the name by which the Kassites called themselves and Kurigalzu may mean Shepherd of the Kassites (line 23. Ku-ur-gal-zu = Ri-'-i-bi-ši-i, in a Babylonian name-list).JOURNAL, The Language of the Kassites, Theophilus G., Pinches, Theophilus G. Pinches, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland, Jan 1917, 49, 1, 106, Cambridge University Press, 10.1017/S0035869X00049947, 163104776,weblink He was separated from his namesake, Kurigalzu II, by around forty-five years and as it was not the custom to assign regnal numbers and they both had lengthy reigns, this makes it exceptionally difficult to distinguish for whom an inscription is intended. The later king is, however, better known for his military campaign against the Assyrians than any building work he may have undertaken. It is now thought, however, that it was he who was the Kurigalzu who conquered Susa and was perhaps instrumental in the ascendancy of the Igehalkid dynasty over Elam, ca. 1400 BC.JOURNAL, L'hommage de l'élamite Untash-Napirisha au Cassite Burnaburiash, F., Vallat, Akkadica, 114–115, 2000, 109–117,

Conquest of Elam

When Ḫur-batila, possibly the successor of Tepti Ahar to the throne of Elam, began raiding the Babylonian Empire, he taunted Kurigalzu to do battle with him at Dūr-Šulgi. Kurigalzu launched a campaign which resulted in the abject defeat and capture of Ḫur-batila, who appears in no other inscriptions. He went on to conquer the eastern lands of Susiana and Elam, recorded in the Chronicle PChronicle P (ABC 22), tablet BM 92701, column 3 lines 10 through 19. out of sequence and credited to his later name-sake. This took his army to the Elamite capital, the city of Susa, which was sacked, celebrated in two inscriptions found there bearing his name. It is thought that he may have installed as his vassal, Ige-Halki, the founder of the new dynasty. A small agate tablet, bored lengthways to make a pendant, is engraved with nine lines of Sumerian on one side, the other side bearing an older dedication of the mother of king Šulgi of Ur (2029 – 1982 BC, short chronology) to Ninlil:|sign=Kurigalzu|source=tablet CBS 8598, University Museum, Philadelphia}}The tablet was recovered from Elam during Kurigalzu’s campaign and discovered in a cache of votive inscriptions at Nippur, but was ascribed to Kurigalzu II by earlier historians.

Diplomacy

Through correspondence

(File:Bead with cuneiform inscription of Kurigalzu I or II MET DP364276.jpg|thumb|Bead with cuneiform inscription of Kurigalzu I.)Prior diplomatic correspondence is evident, from study of the Amarna letters and includes evidence of dialogue between Thutmose IV and Kurigalzu as attested to by Amenhotep III in his letter, designated EA 1 (EA for El Amarna), to Kadašman-Enlil. Tablet EA 1, “The Pharaoh complains to the Babylonian King,” BM 029784 in the British Museum, CDLI, ORACC Transliteration line 62, “Regarding the words of my father, you wrote...” Burna-Buriaš II reminded Akhenaten in his letter, EA 11, that Kurigalzu had been sent gold by one of his ancestors, Tablet EA 11, “Proper escort for a betrothed princess,” VAT 151 in the Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin, CDLI, ORACC Transliteration lines 19 to 20. and, in EA 9, reminded Tutankhamen that Kurigalzu had turned down a request from the Canaanites to form an alliance against Egypt. Tablet EA 9, “Ancient loyalties, new requests,” BM 29785 in the British Museum, London, CDLI, ORACC Transliteration lines 19 to 30.

Through marriage

He gave his daughter to Amenhotep III, who was a serial practitioner of diplomatic marriages with two Mitannite princesses and one from Arzawa in his harem, and who would even later go on to wed Kurigalzu's granddaughter, the daughter of Kadašman-Enlil.JOURNAL, Diplomatic Marriage in the Egyptian New Kingdom, Alan R., Schulman, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 38, 3, July 1979, University of Chicago Press, 183–184, 10.1086/372739, 161228521, A Neo-Babylonian copy of a literary text which takes the form of a letter,Tablet VAT 17020, “the Berlin Letter”, CDLI now located in the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin, is addressed to the Kassite court by an Elamite King and details the genealogy of the Elamite royalty of this period. Apparently, he married his sister to the Elamite king Paḫir-iššan, the son of Ige-Halki, and a daughter to his successor, Ḫumban-numena. This may have been Mishim-ruh, who is cited in royal inscriptions. The princess went on to bear Untash-Napirisha, the next king who subsequently married Burna-Buriaš’ daughter. The author of the letter is thought to be Shutruk-Nahhunte, ca. 1190-1155 BC, who claims descent from Kurigalzu’s eldest daughter and also wed the eldest daughter of Meli-Šipak, the 33rd Kassite king. Unfortunately the letter inserts Nabu-apla-iddina (888 – 855 BC) “an abomination, son of a Hittite”, into the narrative in the place one might have supposed that Marduk-apla-iddina I was to appear, the substitution of dAMAR.UTU by dAG being an unlikely slip of the stylus, making a chronological conundrum and this may be the purpose of the “letter”, to denigrate the later king through the tongue of the earlier one.BOOK, The Archaeology of Elam: Formation and Transformation of an Ancient Iranian State,weblink D. T., Potts, Cambridge University Press, July 29, 1999, 206–208, 9780521564960,

Building works

Kurigalzu’s construction efforts are attested to at no less than eleven Babylonian cities.BOOK, Mesopotamian Dark Age Revisited, Babylonian chronology of the second half of the second millennium BC, Leonhard Sassmannshausen, Hermann Hunger, Regine Pruzsinszky, Vienna, 2004, 61–70, He was responsible for rebuilding the Ningal Temple at Ur, incorporating fragments of the Ur-Nammu Stela in buildings on the ziggurat terrace, the Edublal-Maḫ of Sîn buildings, or “house for hanging up the exalted tablets”, and the building of the gateway.BOOK, The Ur-Nammu Stela, Jeanny Vorys, Canby, Jeanny Canby, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, 2001, 6, (File:Door socket from Dur-Kurikalzu.JPG|thumb|Door socket from Dur-Kurigalzu)He was the first king to build a royal residence bearing his name,BOOK, History of Humanity: From the third millennium to the seventh century B.C., The Kassite Period 1500 – 700 BC, Georges Roux, Sigfried J. de Laet, Ahmad Hasan Dani, Routledge, 1996, 484, a new capital city founded over an older settlement and built around 1390 BC, named Dur-Kurigalzu, or 'fortress of Kurigalzu', in the far north of Babylonia (modern ‘Aqar Qūf).JOURNAL, Kurigalzu I and the restoration of Babylon, T Clayden, Iraq, 58, 109–121, British Institute for the Study of Iraq, 1996, 10.1017/S0021088900003211, 4200423, 194075108, It was positioned to protect an important trade route that led east across the Iranian plateau to Afghanistan, the source of lapis lazuli.BOOK, Ancient Mesopotamia: new perspectives, Jane McIntosh, ABC-CLIO, Inc., 2005, 91, The 170-foot-high ziggurat of Enlil can still be seen on the western outskirts of Baghdad, with its reinforcing layers of reed matting and bitumen and the remains of three temples at its foot. Rawlinson first identified the site in 1861 from the brick inscriptions. Excavated in 1942–45 by Seton Lloyd and Taha Baqir, the city covered 225 hectares and included the Egal-kišarra, or “Palace of the Whole World”, a vast palatial and administrative complex.BOOK, Dictionary of the ancient Near East, Piotr Bienkowski, Alan Ralph Millard, British Museum, 2000, 22–23, In an adoption contract which sternly warns the adoptee, “If [Il]i-ippašra says, ‘you are not my father’, they shall shave his head, bind him and sell him for silver,”BOOK, General studies and excavations at Nuzi 9/1, Two Documents from the Diverse Collections in Istanbul, Veysel Donbaz, Martha A. Morrison, David I. Owen, Eisenbrauns, 1987, 73, the date formula used, “in the month of Šabatu, the 19th day, the year Kurigalzu, the king, built the Ekurigibara,” predates that which was introduced during the reign of Kadašman-Enlil I and that had become de rigueur by the later reign of Kurigalzu II.JOURNAL, Mesopotamia, Università di Torino, Centro scavi di Torino per il medio oriente e l'Asia, 28, Giappichelli, 1993, 42, The Ekurigibara of Enlil was a temple in Nippur.During the excavation of Dur-Kurigalzu 5 fragments of a larger than life size statue were discovered. They contain the longest yet found Kassite Sumerian inscriptions.Kramer, S. N.; Baqir, T.; and Levy, S. J., "Fragments of a Diorite Statue of Kurigalzu in the Iraq Museum.", Sumer, vol. 4, pp. 1–38, 1948weblink Niek Veldhuis, "Kurigalzu's Statue Inscription", Journal of Cuneiform Studies, vol. 60, pp. 25-52, 2008

The autobiography of Kurigalzu

(File:Autobiography of Kurigalzu.jpg|thumb|240px|Autobiography of Kurigalzu.)A neo-Babylonian copy of a text recording the endowment by Kurigalzu, son of Kadašman-Ḫarbe, of a temple of Ištar with an estate situated on the Euphrates near Nippur, is known as the autobiography of Kurigalzu and comes in the form of a small hexagonal prismPrism BM 108982 in the British Museum, CDLI. of light-yellow baked clayBOOK, Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets, &c., in the British Museum, C. J. Gadd, XXXVI, 1921, 7, 16 and 17, Plates 6 and 7 show a sketch of the obverse and reverse of this prism. and a fragmentary cylinder.Cylinder NBC 2503 in the James B. Nies Collection, Yale University, CDLI. In it, he takes credit for being theHe “caused Anu the father of the great gods to dwell in his exalted sanctuary”, which is suggested to be referring to the restoration of the Anu cult. The text lacks the linguistic features and script characteristics which would bring one to suppose it is a genuine copy of an ancient inscription and was probably created in late Babylonian times to enhance the prestige of the Ištar cult. The extent to which it preserves tradition from the actual events of the reign of Kurigalzu cannot as yet be determined.Susanne Paulus. “Fraud, Forgery, and Fiction: Is There Still Hope for Agum-Kakrime?” Journal of Cuneiform Studies, vol. 70, 2018, pp. 115–66

Other sources

Kurigalzu is mentioned in a hieroglyphic inscription on a carnelian cylinder seal that was found in a tomb at Metsamor in the Ararat valley of Armenia, providing evidence for the extent of Kassite influence during his reign. Metsamor was an important Hurrian center for metal forging.JOURNAL, A Cylinder Seal with Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Inscription from the Metsamor Gravesite, E. V. KhanzadIan and B. B. Piotrovskii, Anthropology & Archeology of Eurasia, 30, 4, Spring 1992, 67–74, 10.2753/aae1061-1959300467, A seal is inscribed nur-[d]-x, son of Kurigalzu, and claims the title NU.ÈŠ [d]en.líl, nišakku-priest, which is shared with others, including three governors of Nippur and other princes. He rewarded an individual with this title in a dedicatory cone known as the Enlil-bānī land grant kudurru. The precise meaning of this title and the identity of the Kurigalzu, I or II, are uncertain.JOURNAL, Review: Administration and Society in Kassite Babylonia, Reviewed work(s): Beiträge zur Verwaltung und Gesellschaft Babyloniens in der Kassitenzeit by Leonhard Sassmannshausen, J. A. Brinkman, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 124, 2, Apr–Jun 2004, 283–304, 10.2307/4132216, 4132216,

Inscriptions

References

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