Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c14.14

c14.14

About the beginning of the sixteenth century B.C. Mesopotamia suffered once again from the inroads of the mountaineers from the north on the break-up of the First Dynasty of Babylon, which had been brought to its climax by the great Hammurabi, and a new dynasty was set up under the Kassites, whose monarchs bear Indo-European names. They must have come from the north or north-east, and indicate the beginning of the great dispersal of Indo-European speakers eastwards. Little is known of the dynasty, which, however, endured for over five hundred years; but during this time we have the first intimations of another Indo-European group on the north-west frontier of the Kassite kingdom, the Mitanni, who occupied the district round the headwaters of the Khabur River, and exercised authority over a considerable portion of Northern Syria.