MITANNIANS, a race dwelling in Meso potamia in the 2d millenium s.c and that came to light by the discovery of some cuneiform tablets found in the rock tombs of Tell-el Amarna in Upper Egypt (between Memphis and Thebes) in 1::7-88. These clay tablets contained Egyptian correspondence with Babylonia, Assyria and other ancient nations. In these tablets, through the scholarship of learned Orientalists, it was discovered that there was a kingdom of Mitanni in northern Mesopotamia which had important relations with Egypt. Moreover, this country was identified as Aram-Naharayim (Aram of the Two Rivers), called in Syriac, Beth-Nahrin, i.e., °the land of the rivers"—Euphrates and Tigris —and meaning particularly the northern por tion of Mesopotamia. Aram-Naharayim, in other words Mitanni, was the home of Balaam and probably his famous for in Dent. xxiii, 4 Balaam is called a native of Aram Naharayim and Numbers xxiii, 7 reads that Balaam was brought "'from Amin out of the mountains of the east" The Mitannian kings whose names have been discovered seem to have belonged to the Hittites or Harri, whose capital was at 13oghaz Keui, North Cappadocia, explored in 1907. One of these kings, Dushratta whose letters were discovered in the Tell-el-Amarna tablets, was the father-in-law of Amenhotep III of Egypt (1411-1389 a.c.). He was also a contemporary of Subbiluliuma, the Hittite monarch, who seems to have obtained lasting dominion in Syria by subduing Dushrhtta. Three kings of the same dynasty Saushshatar, Artatama I and Sutarna I, preceded Dushratta and Ortatama II Artashshumara, Mattuaza and Sultarna II fol lowed him. Some authorities think that this dynasty took possession of the native Mitan nians; other authorities find grounds for be lieving the Mitannians to have been the Hittites, who in 1932 B.C. put an end to the Amoritish dynasty in Babylon and established themselves in Mesopotamia thereafter. Hittite hiero glyphics and cuneiform script were both used among the Mitannians. The gods of this race . were the same as in the Babylonian and As syrian pantheons.
"'The discovery of the Tell-el-Amarna tablets revealed to us," writes Dr. A. H. Sayce, "the existence of a new language, once spoken northern Mesopotamia in the kingdom of Mitanni, the Aram-Naharayim of the Old Testament. One of the letters addressed to Dushratta, king of Mitanni, to the Egyptian Pharaohs is in the native language of his country and its length is such that a compari son of it with those of his letters which are written in Assyrian makes a partial decipher ment of it possible. Shortly after the publica
tion of the cuneiform text by Winckler and Abel in 'Mittheilungen aus den orientalischen Sammlungen' (I No. 27) attempts at the de cipherment of the language by Professor Brfumow, Professor Jensen and myself ap peared simultaneously in the Zeitschrift fur Assyriologie (Vol. II and III, 1890.) The cunei form text has recently been subjected to a very careful re-examination by Dr. Knudtzon and the result of his labors is given in the Beitritge sur semitischen Sprachunssenschaft (IV, pp. 134-153). In one of the letters of Dushratta one of his envoys is called Tunip-ipri" (Tell-el Amarna Tablets in the British Museum, 9, 47) "the king of Tunip. This raises a presumption that the power of Mitanni extended as far as Tunip, the modern Tennip, and that the Mitannian language was spoken there. The presumption is confirmed by a letter sent to the Pharaoh by the people of Tunip in which the native words added to the Assyrian trans lation, where the latter did not seem quite clear or literal enough, all belong to the language of NEtarini. In the Mitannian fetter of Dushratta itself the meaning of a few words and forms is cleared up by the ideographs attached to them.
"It is clear that Mitannian is in its general structure a Caucasian language. It resembles Georgian in its habit of piling suffix upon suf fix, pronoun upon pronoun, until the verbal forms become almost impossible to analyze. Like Georgian, i also, it occupies a middle posi tion between inflection and agglutination. In this respect 'it Iisembles the ancient ages of Asia Minor, so far as we know them, though it is to be noticed that it illustrates the fact 'that, as we pass eastward, agglutination is more prominent, while westward, as in the case of Lycian, inflection is more pronounced." See 'Hirrercs: Consult Tell-el-Amarna Tablets in the British Museum' (1892) - Davies, 'Rock Tombs of Ell-Amarna' (1903) ; Bezold, C., 'Oriental Diplomacy: the transliterated text of the Cuneiform 'Despatches discovered at Tell el-Amarna' (1893) ; 'The Tell-el-Amarna Let ters,' English translation by M. Winckler (Berlin 1896) ; • Knudtzon, J. A., 'Die El - Amarna Tafeln) (Leipzig 1907-09) ; Petrie, W. M. F., I Syria and Egypt from the Tell-el Amarna Letters' (1898) ; Bork, Ferdnand, 'Die Mitanni• 'sprach& ' (Berlin 1909) ; Winckler, CVorderasien im zweiten Jahrtausend' (Leip zig 1913), and Sayte, A. H., 'The Language of Mitanni' in Proceedings of The Society of Biblical Archaeology (June 1900).