Relationship to Hurrians

The Hurrians were an ethnic group with unknown origins that migrated south into northern Mesopotamia and Syria. They are attested to in Mesopotamian literary sources beginning in the third millennium bc. They spoke Hurrian, a language unrelated to either Semitic or Indo-European languages. The Hurrians adopted the cuneiform script used by Akkadian scribes to record their language, but the Hurrian language is still imperfectly understood.

In the early part of the second millennium bc, the Hurrians created a series of city-states throughout northern Mesopotamia and Syria. The kingdom of Mitanni was likely formed sometime in the 16th century by uniting a number of the Hurrian city-states. However, because the Hurrian language is not wholly known, and because no central Mitannian city has been fully excavated, scholars are unable to reconstruct Mitanni’s rise to power.