Kadashman-Harbe I
{{Infobox royalty
| name = Kadašman-Ḫarbe I
| title = King of Babylon
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| reign = ca. 1400 BC
| coronation =
| predecessor = Karaindaš
| successor = Kurigalzu I
| spouse =
| royal house = Kassite
| father =
| mother =
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| death_date =
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Kadašman-Ḫarbe I, inscribed in cuneiform contemporarily as Ka-da-áš-ma-an-Ḫar-be and meaning “he believes in Ḫarbe (a Kassite god equivalent to Enlil),” was the 16th King of the Kassite or 3rd dynasty of Babylon,{{cite book | title = Materials and Studies for Kassite History, Vol. I (MSKH I) | author = J. A. Brinkman | publisher = Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago | year = 1976 | pages = 15, 147 }} and the kingdom contemporarily known as Kar-Duniaš, during the late 15th to early 14th century BC. It is now considered possible that he was the contemporary of Tepti Ahar, King of Elam, as preserved in a tabletTablet H.T. 38 (472) with seal of Tepti Ahar at the end of the text. found at Haft Tepe in Iran. This is dated to the “year when the king expelled Kadašman-KUR.GAL,”The year name reads: “MU EŠŠANA KA-da-aš-ma-an dKUR.GAL ú-sà-aḫ-ḫi-ru” where KUR.GAL is taken as a metonym for Ḫarbe. thought by some historians to represent him{{cite journal | title = Tepti-ahar, King of Susa, and Kadašman-dKUR.GAL |author1=Cole, S. W. |author2=De Meyer, L. | journal = Akkadica | year = 1999 | number = 112 | pages = 44–45 }} although this identification (KUR.GAL = Ḫarbe) has been contested.{{ cite journal | title = dKUR.GAL à Suse et Haft-tépé | author = Jean-Jacques Glassner | author-link = Jean-Jacques Glassner | journal = NABU | issue = 2 | year = 2000 | page = 40 }} no. 36. If this name is correctly assigned to him, it would imply previous occupation of, or suzerainty over, Elam.{{cite book | title = Excavations at Haft Tepe, Iran |author1=Ezat O. Negahban |author2=ʻIzzat Allāh Nigāhbān | publisher = University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology | year = 1999 | pages = 108, 138 }}
His provenance
His immediate predecessor may have been Karaindaš, but he was certainly father to the better known King, Kurigalzu I, who succeeded him, as attested by his son in his autobiographical inscription, of which there are two copies, one a hexagonal prismPrism BM 108982. and the other a cylinder.Cylinder NBC 2503.{{cite journal | title = Kurigalzu I and the restoration of Babylon | author = T Clayden | journal = Iraq | volume = 58 | pages = 109–121 | publisher = British Institute for the Study of Iraq | year = 1996 | doi = 10.2307/4200423 | jstor = 4200423 }}{{cite book | title = Fictional Akkadian autobiography: a generic and comparative study | author = Tremper Longman | publisher = Eisenbrauns | date = July 1, 1990 | pages = 88–91 | isbn = 0-931464-41-2 }} for the complete text.
Two baked-clay conesCones BM 91036 and BM 135743 in the British Museum. report Kadašman-Enlil’s honoring a land deed to Enlil-bānī made by Kurigalzu son of Kadašman-Ḫarbe.{{rp|K.a.3.2.}} A legal text,Tablet CBS 12914. dating perhaps to the reign of Nazi-Maruttaš, refers to him as the father of Kurigalzu.{{cite journal | author = A. Ungnad | year = 1923 | title = Schenkungsurkunde des Kurigalzu mar Kadasman-Harbe | journal = ANET | pages = 57–59 | publisher = S. N. Kramer }}
Campaign against the Sutû
The most significant event of his reign appears to have been his aggressive campaign against the Sutû, a nomadic people along the middle Euphrates related to the Arameans, and is described in the Chronicle P,{{cite web | title = Chronicle P, ABC 22, column 1 lines 6 through 9 | url = https://www.livius.org/cg-cm/chronicles/abc22/p.html | access-date = July 29, 2011 | archive-date = June 14, 2016 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160614035627/http://www.livius.org/cg-cm/chronicles/abc22/p.html | url-status = dead }} in a somewhat garbled passage which superimposes events relating to the accession of Kurigalzu II, four generations later.{{cite book | title = Symposia celebrating the seventy-fifth anniversary of the founding of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 1900-1975 | editor = Frank Moore Cross | publisher = American Schools of Oriental Research | year = 1979 }} He claims to have “annihilated their extensive forces", then constructed fortresses in a mountain region called Ḫiḫi, in the Syrian desert as security outposts, and “he dug wells and settled people on fertile lands, to strengthen the guard”.{{cite book | title = Babylonians | author = H. W. F. Saggs | publisher = British Museum Press | year = 2000 | page = 117 }} These events seem to be confirmed in the opening six lines of text from an unpublished kudurru in the Yale Babylonian CollectionKudurru YBC 2242. which describes his efforts to expel the Suteans from Babylonia.{{ cite book | title = American Oriental Society: Abstracts of the two hundred and fourteenth meeting | chapter = New Light on Chronicle P from an Unexpected Source: YBC 2242 | author = Kathryn E. Slanski | location = San Diego | date = April 4–7, 2003 | page = 14 }}
It has been suggested that the Babylonian work “King of all Habitations”, which is commonly referred to as the Epic of the plague-god Erra, is a Kassite period-piece which includes the description of a raid on Uruk by the Sutû and the subsequent cries for vengeance upon them.{{cite book | title = Cambridge Ancient History, Volume 2, Part 2, History of the Middle East and the Aegean Region, c. 1380-1000 BC | editor = I. E. S. Edwards | publisher = Cambridge University Press | year = 1975 | page = 30 }} The epic consists of five tablets comprising some 750 lines and reached its final form with the Assyrians in the eighth century, but includes older elements.
The canal of Diniktum
On a tabletTablet Ni. 3199, the earliest known Kassite economic text. which was found at Nippur, a date “the year [in which] Kadašman-Ḫarbe, the king, dug the canal of Diniktum”,mu Ka-da-áš-ma-an-Ḫar-be lugal-˹e˺ íd Di-nik-tum ˹mu˺-un-b[al?] is attested. Diniktum has tentatively been identified as Tell Muhammad.{{cite web | title = Cultural Property Training Resource | publisher = U.S. Department of Defense | url = http://www.cemml.colostate.edu/cultural/09476/iraq05-094.html | access-date = July 29, 2011 }} Kadašman-Ḫarbe’s reign has been identified as the point when literary activity resumed at Nippur after three centuries of silence.{{cite journal | title = Archaeology | volume = 29-30 | publisher = Archaeological Institute of America | year = 1976 }}
Inscriptions
Notes
References
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{{Babylonian kings}}
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Category:15th-century BC kings of Babylon