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‎Through marriage

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{{Infobox monarch
| name = Kuri-Galzu I
| title = [[List of kings of Babylon|King of Babylon]]
| image= ‘Aqar Qūf.jpg
| caption = ‘Aqar Qūf, ancient Dūr-Kurigalzu (monumental [[ziggurat]] remnant, west of Bagdad)
| reign = x – 1375 BC
| coronation =
| predecessor = [[Kadashman-harbe I|Kadašman-Ḫarbe I]]
| successor = [[Kadashman-Enlil I|Kadašman-Enlil I]]
| spouse =
| royal house = [[Kassites|Kassite]]
| father =
| mother =
| birth_date =
| birth_place =
| death_date =
| death_place =
| buried =}}

'''Kurigalzu I''' (died c. 1375 BC), usually inscribed ''ku-[[ri (cuneiform)|ri]]-[[GAL (cuneiform)|gal]]-zu'' but also sometimes with the m or d determinative,<ref name=brinkman>{{cite book |title=Materials for the Study of Kassite History |url=https://oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/shared/docs/mskh1.pdf |format=PDF |volume=I |first=J. A. |last=Brinkman |publisher=[[Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago]] |year=1976 |pages=205–246}}</ref> the 17th king of the [[Kassites|Kassite]] or 3rd dynasty that ruled over [[Babylon]], was responsible for one of the most extensive and widespread building programs for which evidence has survived in Babylonia. The ''autobiography of Kurigalzu'' is one of the inscriptions which record that he was the son of [[Kadashman-harbe I|Kadašman-Ḫarbe]].<ref name=longman>{{cite book |title=Fictional Akkadian Autobiography: A Generic and Comparative Study |url=https://books.google.es/books?id=wLRaXlgK1QIC&printsec=frontcover |first=Tremper |last=Longman |publisher=[[Eisenbrauns]] |date=July 1, 1990 |pages=88–91, 224–225 |isbn=0-931464-41-2}}</ref> ''Galzu'', whose possible native pronunciation was ''gal-du'' or ''gal-šu'', was the name by which the Kassites called themselves and Kurigalzu may mean ''Shepherd of the Kassites'' (line 23. ''Ku-ur-gal-zu'' = ''Ri-'-i-bi-ši-i'', in a Babylonian name-list).<ref>{{cite journal |title=The Language of the Kassites |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-royal-asiatic-society/article/v-the-language-of-the-kassites/7D4CF56AF7D84752ED82414AD7571438 |first=Theophilus G. |last=Pinches |author-link=Theophilus G. Pinches |journal=[[Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland]] |date=Jan 1917 |volume=49 |issue=1 |page=106 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]}}</ref>

He was separated from his namesake, [[Kurigalzu II]], by around forty-five years and as it was not the custom to assign regnal numbers and they both had lengthy reigns, this makes it exceptionally difficult to distinguish for whom an inscription is intended.<ref name=brinkman/> The later king is, however, better known for his military campaign against the Assyrians than any building work he may have undertaken. It is now thought, however, that it was he who was the Kurigalzu who conquered [[Susa]] and was perhaps instrumental in the ascendancy of the Igehalkid dynasty over [[Elam]], ca. 1400 BC.<ref>{{cite journal |title=L'hommage de l'élamite Untash-Napirisha au Cassite Burnaburiash |first=F. |last=Vallat |journal=Akkadica |issue=114-115 |year=2000 |pages=109–117}}</ref>

==Conquest of Elam==

When Ḫur-batila, possibly the successor of Tepti Ahar to the throne of Elam, began raiding the Babylonian Empire, he taunted Kurigalzu to do battle with him at Dūr-Šulgi. Kurigalzu launched a campaign which resulted in the abject defeat and capture of Ḫur-batila, who appears in no other inscriptions. He went on to conquer the eastern lands of Susiana and Elam, recorded in the ''[[Chronicle P]]''<ref group=i>''Chronicle P'' (ABC 22), tablet BM 92701, column 3 lines 10 through 19.</ref> out of sequence and credited to his later name-sake. This took his army to the Elamite capital, the city of Susa, which was sacked, celebrated in two inscriptions found there bearing his name. It is thought that he may have installed as his vassal, [[Ige-Halki]], the founder of the new dynasty. A small agate tablet, bored lengthways to make a pendant, is engraved with nine lines of Sumerian on one side, the other side bearing an older dedication of the mother of king [[Shulgi|Šulgi]] of [[Ur]] (2029 – 1982 BC, short chronology) to [[Inanna]]:

{{quote|text=Kurigalzu, the king of Karduniyas, conquered the palace of the city of Šaša in Elam and gave (this object) for the sake of his life as a gift to Ninlil, his lady.<ref>{{cite book |title=Ancient Near East: Historical Sources in Translation |url=https://books.google.es/books?id=ss48JJIq9YEC |first=Mark W. |last=Chavalas |chapter=Inscription of Kurigalzu I |editor-first=Frans |editor-last=van Koppen |publisher=[[Wiley (publisher)|Wiley]] |date=July 21, 2006 |pages=140–141 |isbn=9780631235811}}</ref>|sign=''Kurigalzu''|source=tablet CBS 8598, University Museum, Philadelphia}}

The tablet was recovered from Elam during Kurigalzu’s campaign and discovered in a cache of votive inscriptions at Nippur, but was ascribed to Kurigalzu II by earlier historians.

==Diplomacy==

===Through correspondence===

Prior diplomatic correspondence is evident, from study of the [[Amarna letters]] and includes evidence of dialogue between [[Thutmose IV]] and Kurigalzu as attested to by [[Amenhotep III]] in his letter, designated EA 1 (EA for ''El Amarna''), to [[Kadashman-Enlil I|Kadašman-Enlil]]. <ref group= i>Tablet EA 1, “The Pharaoh complains to the Babylonian King,” BM 029784 in the [[British Museum]], [http://cdli.ucla.edu/search/archival_view.php?ObjectID=P270887 CDLI], [http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/contrib/amarna/P270887/html ORACC Transliteration] line 62, “Regarding the words of my father, you wrote...”</ref> [[Burna-Buriash II|Burna-Buriaš II]] reminded [[Akhenaten]] in his letter, EA 11, that Kurigalzu had been sent gold by one of his ancestors, <ref group=i>Tablet EA 11, “Proper escort for a betrothed princess,” VAT 151 in the [[Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin]], [http://cdli.ucla.edu/search/archival_view.php?ObjectID=P271037 CDLI], [http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/contrib/amarna/P271037/html ORACC Transliteration] lines 19 to 20.</ref> and, in [[Amarna letter EA 9|EA 9]], reminded [[Tutankhamen]] that Kurigalzu had turned down a request from the [[Canaan]]ites to form an alliance against Egypt. <ref group=i>Tablet EA 9, “Ancient loyalties, new requests,” BM 29785 in the British Museum, London, [http://cdli.ucla.edu/search/archival_view.php?ObjectID=P270888 CDLI], [http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/contrib/amarna/P270888/html ORACC Transliteration] lines 19 to 30.</ref>

===Through marriage===

He gave his daughter to Amenhotep III, who was a serial practitioner of diplomatic marriages with two [[Mitanni]]te princesses and one from [[Arzawa]] in his harem, and who would even later go on to wed Kurigalzu's granddaughter, the daughter of Kadašman-Enlil.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Diplomatic Marriage in the Egyptian New Kingdom |url=http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/372739 |first=Alan R. |last=Schulman |journal=[[Journal of Near Eastern Studies]] |volume=38 |issue=3 |date=July 1979 |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]] |pages=183–184 |doi=10.1086/372739}}</ref>

A Neo-Babylonian copy of a literary text which takes the form of a letter,<ref group=i>Tablet VAT 17020, “the Berlin Letter”, [http://cdli.ucla.edu/search/archival_view.php?ObjectID=P347210 CDLI]</ref> now located in the [[Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin|Vorderasiatisches Museum]] in Berlin, is addressed to the Kassite court by an Elamite King and details the genealogy of the Elamite royalty of this period. Apparently, he married his sister to the Elamite king Paḫir-iššan, the son of Ige-Halki, and a daughter to his successor, Ḫumban-numena. This may have been Mishim-ruh, who is cited in royal inscriptions. The princess went on to bear Untash-Napirisha, the next king who was destined to marry Burna-Buriaš’ daughter. The author of the letter is thought to be Shutruk-Nahhunte, ca. 1190-1155 BC, who claims descent from Kurigalzu’s eldest daughter and also wed the eldest daughter of [[Meli-Shipak II|Meli-Šipak]], the 33rd Kassite king. Unfortunately the letter inserts [[Nabu-apla-iddina]] (888 – 855 BC) “an abomination, son of a [[Hittites|Hittite]]”, into the narrative in the place one might have supposed that [[Marduk-apla-iddina I]] was to appear, the substitution of dAMAR.UTU by dAG being an unlikely slip of the stylus, making a chronological conundrum and this may be the purpose of the “letter”, to denigrate the later king through the tongue of the earlier one.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Archaeology of Elam: Formation and Transformation of an Ancient Iranian State |url=https://books.google.es/books?id=mc4cfzkRVj4C |first=D. T. |last=Potts |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |date=July 29, 1999 |pages=206–208 |isbn=9780521564960}}</ref>

==Building works==

Kurigalzu’s construction efforts are attested to at no less than eleven Babylonian cities.<ref>{{cite book | title = Mesopotamian Dark Age Revisited | chapter = Babylonian chronology of the second half of the second millennium BC | author = Leonhard Sassmannshausen | editors = Hermann Hunger and Regine Pruzsinszky | location = Vienna | year = 2004 | pages = 61–70 }}</ref> He was responsible for rebuilding the Ningal Temple at [[Ur]], incorporating fragments of the [[Code of Ur-Nammu|Ur-Nammu Stela]] in buildings on the ziggurat terrace, the Edublal-Maḫ of Sîn buildings, or “house for hanging up the exalted tablets”, and the building of the gateway.<ref>{{cite book | title = The Ur-Nammu Stela | first= Jeanny Vorys|last= Canby|authorlink=Jeanny Canby | publisher = University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology | location = Philadelphia | year = 2001 | page = 6 }}</ref>

[[File:Door socket from Dur-Kurikalzu.JPG|thumb|Door socket from Dur-Kurikalzu]]

He was the first king to build a royal residence bearing his name,<ref>{{cite book | title = History of Humanity: From the third millennium to the seventh century B.C. | chapter = The Kassite Period 1500 – 700 BC | author = Georges Roux | editor = Sigfried J. de Laet, Ahmad Hasan Dani | publisher = Routledge | year = 1996 | page = 484 }}</ref> a new capital city founded over an older settlement and built around 1390 BC, named [[Dur-Kurigalzu]], or 'fortress of Kurigalzu', in the far north of Babylonia (modern ''‘Aqar Qūf'').<ref>{{cite journal | title = Kurigalzu I and the restoration of Babylon | author = T Clayden | journal = Iraq | volume = 58 | pages = 109–121 | publisher = British Institute for the Study of Iraq | year = 1996 | jstor = 4200423 }}</ref> It was positioned to protect an important trade route that led east across the Iranian plateau to Afghanistan, the source of [[lapis lazuli]].<ref>{{cite book | title = Ancient Mesopotamia: new perspectives | author = Jane McIntosh | publisher = ABC-CLIO, Inc. | year = 2005 | page = 91 }}</ref> The 170-foot-high ziggurat of Enlil can still be seen on the western outskirts of Baghdad, with its reinforcing layers of reed matting and bitumen and the remains of three temples at its foot. [[Sir Henry Rawlinson, 1st Baronet|Rawlinson]] first identified the site in 1861 from the brick inscriptions. Excavated in 1942–45 by [[Seton Lloyd]] and [[Taha Baqir]], the city covered 225 hectares and included the Egal-kišarra, or “Palace of the Whole World”, a vast palatial and administrative complex.<ref>{{cite book | title = Dictionary of the ancient Near East | editor = Piotr Bienkowski, Alan Ralph Millard | publisher = British Museum | year = 2000 | pages = 22–23 }}</ref>

In an adoption contract which sternly warns the adoptee, “If [[Ilī-ippašra|[Il]i-ippašra]] says, ‘you are not my father’, they shall shave his head, bind him and sell him for silver,”<ref>{{cite book | title = General studies and excavations at Nuzi 9/1 | chapter = Two Documents from the Diverse Collections in Istanbul | author = Veysel Donbaz | editors = Martha A. Morrison, David I. Owen | publisher = Eisenbrauns | year = 1987 | page = 73 }}</ref> the date formula used, “in the month of Šabatu, the 19th day, the year Kurigalzu, the king, built the Ekurigibara,” predates that which was introduced during the reign of [[Kadashman-Enlil I|Kadašman-Enlil I]] and that had become ''de rigueur'' by the later reign of Kurigalzu II.<ref>{{cite journal | title = Mesopotamia | author = Università di Torino, Centro scavi di Torino per il medio oriente e l'Asia | volume = 28 | publisher = Giappichelli | year = 1993 | page = 42 }}</ref> The Ekurigibara of [[Enlil]] was a temple in [[Nippur]].

==The autobiography of Kurigalzu==

[[File:Autobiography of Kurigalzu.jpg|thumb|240px|Autobiography of Kurigalzu.]]

A neo-Babylonian copy of a text recording the endowment by Kurigalzu, son of Kadašman-Ḫarbe, of a temple of [[Ishtar|Ištar]] with an estate situated on the Euphrates near Nippur, is known as the ''autobiography of Kurigalzu'' and comes in the form of a small hexagonal prism<ref group=i>Prism BM 108982 in the British Museum, [http://cdli.ucla.edu/search/archival_view.php?ObjectID=P345491 CDLI].</ref> of light-yellow baked clay<ref>{{cite book | title = Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets, &c., in the British Museum | author = C. J. Gadd | volume = XXXVI | year = 1921 | pages = 7, 16 and 17 }} Plates 6 and 7 show a sketch of the obverse and reverse of this prism.</ref> and a fragmentary cylinder.<ref group=i>Cylinder NBC 2503 in the James B. Nies Collection, Yale University, [http://cdli.ucla.edu/search/archival_view.php?ObjectID=P297256 CDLI].</ref> In it, he takes credit for being the

{{quote|…finisher of the wall, ''kišuru'', and the one who completed the Ekur, provider for Ur and [[Uruk]], the one that assures the integrity of the rites of [[Eridu]], the constructor of the temple of An and [[Inanna]], the one who ensures the integrity of the ''Sattukku'' (food allowance) offerings of the great gods.<ref name=longman/>|''Autobiography of Kurigalzu''|Prism BM 108982 and Cylinder NBC 2503}}

He “caused [[Anu]] the father of the great gods to dwell in his exalted sanctuary”, which is suggested to be referring to the restoration of the Anu cult.<ref name=longman/> The text lacks the linguistic features and script characteristics which would bring one to suppose it is a genuine copy of an ancient inscription and was probably created in late Babylonian times to enhance the prestige of the Ištar cult. The extent to which it preserves tradition from the actual events of the reign of Kurigalzu cannot as yet be determined.<ref name=longman/>

==Other sources==

Evidence of the stretch of Kassite influence comes to us from a tomb at [[Metsamor]] where a remarkable carnelian [[cylinder seal]] with a hieroglyphic inscription mentioning the Kassite king Kurigalzu I was found. Situated in Armenia, in the middle of the Ararat valley, Metsamor was an important [[Hurrians|Hurrian]] center for metal forging<ref>{{cite journal | title = A Cylinder Seal with Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Inscription from the Metsamor Gravesite | author = E. V. KhanzadIan and B. B. Piotrovskii | journal = Anthropology & Archeology of Eurasia | volume = 30 | issue = 4 | date = Spring 1992 | pages = 67–74 | doi=10.2753/aae1061-1959300467}}</ref>

A seal is inscribed ''nur-''[d]-x, son of Kurigalzu, and claims the title NU.ÈŠ [d]''en.líl'', ''[[nišakku]]-''priest, which is shared with others, including three governors of Nippur and other princes. He rewarded an individual with this title in a dedicatory cone known as the [[Enlil-bānī land grant kudurru]]. The precise meaning of this title and the identity of the Kurigalzu, I or II, are uncertain.<ref>{{cite journal | title = Review: Administration and Society in Kassite Babylonia, Reviewed work(s): Beiträge zur Verwaltung und Gesellschaft Babyloniens in der Kassitenzeit by Leonhard Sassmannshausen | author = J. A. Brinkman | journal = Journal of the American Oriental Society | volume = 124 | issue = 2 | date = Apr–Jun 2004 | pages = 283–304 | doi=10.2307/4132216}}</ref>

==Inscriptions==

<references group="i"/>

==References==

{{Reflist}}

{{Babylonian kings}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kurigalzu I}}
[[Category:Babylonian kings]]
[[Category:Kassite kings]]
[[Category:14th-century BC people]]
[[Category:1370s BC deaths]]
[[Category:Year of birth unknown]]

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