Karaindash

Karaindaš’ own eleven-line Sumerian inscriptions{{ cite book | title = Materials and Studies for Kassite History, Vol. I | author = J. A. Brinkman | publisher = Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago | year = 1976 | page = 169 }} N. 2.1.For example BM 90287, 11-line brick inscription in the British Museum, [http://cdli.ucla.edu/search/archival_view.php?ObjectID=P427907 CDLI]. adorn bricks from the Temple dedicated to the goddess Inanna, in Uruk, where he commissioned the spectacular façade pictured. It is 205 cm high and would originally have been constructed from around five hundred pre-formed baked bricks, which were set in recessed socles, depicting both male and female deities holding water jugs. The bearded males wear horned flat caps and double streams of water flow symmetrically to frame the niches.{{ cite book | title = The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume II, Part 2, History of the Middle East and the Aegean Region, 1380 – 1000 BC | chapter = XVIII: Assyria and Babylonia, 1370 – 1300 BC; New influences in art | author = C. J. Gadd |editor1=I. E. S. Edwards |editor2=C. J. Gadd |editor3=N. G. L. Hammond |editor4=S. Solberger | publisher = Cambridge University Press | year = 1975 | pages = 44–45 }} Apart from the simple dedication, there are no significant texts adorning the façades.{{ cite book | title = Writing and ancient Near Eastern society: papers in honour of Alan R. Millard |author1=Piotr Bienkowski |author2=Christopher Mee |author3=Elizabeth Slater | page = 178 }}

The temple to Inanna was originally located in a courtyard of the Eanna, or “House of Heaven”, precinct of Uruk{{ cite book | title = 5000 Years of the Art of Mesopotamia | author = Strommenger, Eva | location = New York | publisher = Harry N. Abrams, Inc. | year = 1964 | page = 170 }} and stood until the Seleucid era. It was a rectangular building with a long cella and ante-cella surrounded by corridors and the elaborately decorated external wall with corner bulwarks.{{ cite book | title = A dictionary of ancient Near Eastern architecture | url = https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofanci0000leic | url-access = registration | author = Gwendolyn Leick | publisher = Routledge | year = 1988 | page = [https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofanci0000leic/page/237 237] }} The inner sanctuary had the cult image at the end, instead of the usual siting in the middle of a long wall.{{ cite book | title = The art and architecture of the ancient Orient | url = https://archive.org/details/artarchitectureo00fran | url-access = registration | author = Henri Frankfort | publisher = Yale University Press | year = 1996 |page = [https://archive.org/details/artarchitectureo00fran/page/128 128] }}

It was excavated during the 1928/29 season by a team led by Director Julius Jordan under the auspices of the Deutsche Orient Gesellschaft and Deutsche Not-Gemeinschaft.{{ cite book | title = Reclaiming a Plundered Past: Archaeology and Nation Building in Modern Iraq | author = Magnus Thorkell Bernhardsson | publisher = University of Texas Press | year = 2006 | page = 139 }} A section of the outer wall has been reassembled and moved to the Vorderasiatisches wing of the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. Parts of the façade were in the Iraq Museum in Baghdad, but were stolen during the looting of the museum after the American occupation of Baghdad during the second Gulf War and have since disappeared.{{ cite book | title = The looting of the Iraq Museum, Baghdad: the lost legacy of ancient Mesopotamia | url = https://archive.org/details/lootingofiraqmus00polk | url-access = registration |author1=Milbry Polk |author2=Angela M. H. Schuster | publisher = Harry N. Abrams | date = May 1, 2005 }}

He concluded a boundary treaty (riksu) with Aššur-bêl-nišešu of Assyria (1407-1399; short chronology), “together with an oath (māmītu)” according to the Synchronistic Chronicle.[https://www.livius.org/cg-cm/chronicles/abc21/synchronistic1.html "Synchronistic Chronicle"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160518065126/http://www.livius.org/cg-cm/chronicles/abc21/synchronistic1.html |date=2016-05-18 }} (ABC 21), tablet A, K4401a, lines 1 through 4.{{ cite book | title = Admonition and Curse: The Ancient Near Eastern Treaty/Covenant Form as a Problem in Inter-Cultural Relationships | author = Noel Weeks | publisher = T&T Clark Int'l | year = 2004 | page = 33 }}

According to Sassmannshausen,{{ cite book | title = Mesopotamian Dark Age Revisited | chapter = Babylonian Chronology of the 2nd Half of the 2nd Millennium B.C. | author = Leonhard Sassmannshausen |editor1=H. Hunger |editor2=R. Pruzsinszky | url = http://www.austriaca.at/0xc1aa500d_0x00160e42.pdf | publisher = Verlag Der Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften | location = Vienna | year = 2004 | pages = 157–177 }} it is very likely that Karaindaš was the Babylonian king who sent precious gifts, including lapis lazuli, to pharaoh Thutmosis III during his 8th campaign, the attack on the Mitanni, according to the annals of Thutmosis III. This was conducted in the 33rd of his reign{{ cite book | title = The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt | url = https://archive.org/details/oxfordhisto00shaw | url-access = registration | author = Betsy M. Bryan | chapter = The 18th Dynasty Before the Amarna Period | editor = Ian Shaw | publisher = Oxford University Press | year = 2000 | page = [https://archive.org/details/oxfordhisto00shaw/page/246 246] }} or around 1447 BC according to the Low Chronology of Ancient Egypt, suggesting Karaindaš had a very long reign if this chronology coincides with that of the short chronology used for the Near East, but there are chronological difficulties trying to correlate Tuthmosis and Karaindaš.{{ cite book | title = The ancient Near East, c. 3000-330 BC | url = https://archive.org/details/ancientneareastc00akuh | url-access = registration | author = Amélie Kuhrt | publisher = Routledge | year = 1995 | page = [https://archive.org/details/ancientneareastc00akuh/page/n179 340] }}

Burna-Buriash II, in his Amarna correspondence with Pharaoh Akhenaten, in the tablet designated EA 10,El Amarna tablet EA 10 (BM 029786, in the British Museum), [http://cdli.ucla.edu/search/archival_view.php?ObjectID=P270889 CDLI], [http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/contrib/amarna/P270889/html ORACC Transliteration] lines 8 to 10. describes him as the first to enter into friendly relations with Egypt, “Since the time of Karaindaš, since messengers of your ancestors have come regularly to my ancestors, up to the present they (the ancestors of the two lands) have been good friends.” {{ cite book | title = Brotherhood of Kings: How International Relations Shaped the Ancient Near East | author = Amanda H. Podany | publisher = Oxford University Press | year =2010 | page= 181 }} The Annals of Tuthmosis, inscribed on the inside walls of the corridor which surrounds the granite holy of holies of the Great Temple of Amun at Karnak, record the tribute of Babylon, and include a lapis lazuli ram's head amongst the inventory.{{cite book | title = Ancient Records of Egypt, Vol. II: The Eighteenth Dynasty | author = James Henry Breasted | publisher = University of Chicago Press | year = 1906 | page = 204 }}

File:Seal of Izkur-Marduk.jpg, Philadelphia).]]

A brown agate cylinder seal (pictured), which is in the University Museum in Philadelphia, is inscribed “Oh [Shuqamuna], lord who advances in brilliance by your fullness … your light is indeed favourable: Izkur-Marduk, son of Karaindaš, who prays to you and reveres you.”{{ cite book | title = First impressions: cylinder seals in the ancient Near East | author = Dominique Collon | publisher= British Museum Press | year = 2005 | page = 58 }}CBS 1108 brown agate seal bearing 7 line Sumerian inscription, University Museum, Philadelphia. Shuqamuna was a Kassite male god symbolized by a bird on a perch often accompanied by his consort, Shumaliya, associated with the investiture of kings. Izkur-Marduk's name is wholly Babylonian and translates as “he has invoked Marduk”.{{ cite journal | title = Five Royal Seal Cylinders | author = Leon Legrain | journal= The Museum Journal | volume = XIII | publisher = The University Museum, Philadelphia | date = March 1922 | pages = 70–77 }}

His renown was apparently so great, that Shutruk-Nahhunte who would go on to ransack Babylon around 250 years later, boasted “I destroyed Karaindaš”, i.e. Babylonia.{{ cite book | title = The Archaeology of Elam: Formation and Transformation of an Ancient Iranian State (Cambridge World Archaeology) | author = Daniel T. Potts | publisher = Cambridge University Press |date =August 13, 1999 | page = 233 }}

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Category:15th-century BC kings of Babylon

Category:Kassite kings

Category:15th-century BC people