The extent of the Babylonian Empire during the
Kassite dynasty
Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in
central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), with Babylon as
its capital. The founder and first king of an independent Babylon
was a certain Amorite chieftain named Sumuabum who declared
independence from the neighboring city-state of Kazallu in 1894 BC,
and was a contemporary of Erishum I of Assyria. Babylonia
emerged as a powerful nation when the Amorite king Hammurabi (fl.
c. 1792 – 1750 BC) created a short lived empire out of
the territories of the former Akkadian Empire. Babylonia adopted
the written Semitic Akkadian language for official use, and
retained the Sumerian language for religious use, which by that
time was no longer a spoken language. The Akkadian and Sumerian
traditions played a major role in later Babylonian culture, and the
region would remain an important cultural center, even under
outside rule, throughout the Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age.
Babylon as an independent state was founded by and rose to
prominence under non native Amorites and spent the most part of its
history ruled by their fellow Mesopotamians, the Assyrians or by
foreign dynasties such as Kassites, Elamites, Hittites, Arameans,
Chaldeans, Persians, Greeks and Parthians.
The earliest mention of the city of Babylon can be found in a
tablet from the reign of Sargon of Akkad, dating back to the
23rd century BC. Approximately one hundred years after the
collapse of the last Sumerian "Ur-III" dynasty at the hands of the
Elamites (2002 BC traditional, 1940 BC short), the Amorites gained
control over most of Mesopotamia, where they usurped the thrones of
Assyria, Mari, Eshnunna, Ur, Isin, Larsa and other already long
established states in Mesopotamia and formed a series of small
kingdoms. During the first centuries of what is called the "Amorite
period", the most powerful city states in the south were the former
Sumerian cities of Isin and Larsa, although Shamshi-Adad I of
Assyria united the more northern regions around Ashur and Mari. One
of these Amorite dynasties established the city-state of Babylon in
the 19th century BC, which would over a hundred years later
briefly take over the others and form the first Babylonian empire,
during what is also called the Old Babylonian Period.