THE KASSITE DYNASTY The Hittite raid upon Babylonia left the country leaderless, and gave the Kassite tribesmen who had served Babylonian kings as soldiers in considerable numbers the opportunity to place one of their number on the vacant throne. Thereafter a new political position resulted which has a considerable bearing on the archaeo logical evidence. The land of Assyria had, until the decline of Babylon, been no more than a province of Babylonia, both politi cally and culturally. Shamshi-Adad I., about 184o B.C., created a considerable kingdom of Assyria, but there is no proof of an inde pendent development of civilization in the north until after the advent of Kassite kings at Babylon; from that event, about 1740 B.C., Assyria went its own way, an independent kingdom of Mitanni, centring round the Khabur valley, threw off the Baby lonian overlordship, and the Babylonians ceased to exercise any great influence directly upon these lands. The relations of the Kassite kings with the peoples of the east was, on the other hand, very close, and the Elamite and Babylonian civilizations were once again as closely connected as they had been in the earliest times.
The remains of the Kassite period are very rare, and the dis covery of a site which will throw light on the civilization of the time is an urgent need. A royal inscription makes it clear that there were some interesting developments in the internal decora tion of the temples; Agum-kakrime put figures representing the brood of Tiamat, the dragon of Chaos, on a wall of the temple of Marduk in Babylon, probably in low relief, thus anticipating the work of later times. The building of Kassite kings as yet found are inconsiderable restorations ; the most noteworthy is the only extant standing round arch, at Ur.
are to be found on the stone "boundary-stones," so called by the Babylonians because they were inscribed with charters granting land to royal retainers and others for services rendered ; these stones are ornamented with divine symbols in tended to protect the stone from damage by ill-disposed persons. The symbols may in certain cases be astrological, but are for the most part cult objects associated with certain deities. There are occasional instances of representations of the gods, the king, or the persons concerned in the charter, sometimes of merit. Some suppose that these stones, the tops of which are roughly rounded, were intended to represent phalli; there is no proof of this assumption. The original document was on clay, and the purpose of these stone copies is not certainly known. Some have been found apparently in open fields, others were as clearly dedicated in temples. The custom of setting up these "boundary-stones" was continued in later times, and the best examples are from the period that followed the fall of the Kassites. In later times the stone occasionally took the form of a large tablet. Glazed pottery was first made during this period, and opaque glass beads were fairly common.
Haematite ceased to be popular, and coloured stones, often variegated, were employed ; the cylinders are longer and gen erally larger in diameter than those of the preceding age. The inscriptions often take the form of prayers to a god. The themes are generally very simple; a seated deity, a goddess or two god desses beside the inscription, with arms raised in adoration, rows of prophylactic creatures; e.g., frogs. A symbol constantly em ployed is the Kassite cross, either of the kind called Maltese, or in a simpler form ED. The glyptic art of Babylonia through out this period was very clearly distinguished from that of the rest of western Asia.
