Tushratta

(reigned middle to late 1300s b.c.)

   The son of the Mitannian king Shuttarna II and the last major ruler of the Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni. The surviving Amar-na Letters, exchanged between the Egyptian pharaohs Amenhotep III and Amenhotep IV, better known as Akhenaten, and a number of other Near Eastern rulers, show that Tushratta (or Tusratta) desired closer relations with Egypt. This was likely because hostile feelings were mounting between Mitanni and Hatti, and the Mi-tannian king hoped that an alliance with powerful Egypt would make the Hittites think twice about attacking him. Tushratta's eagerness for friendship with the Egyptian royal house is more than plain in this gushing letter addressed to Queen Tiye, wife of Amenhotep III and mother of Akhenaten:

   To Tiye, Lady of Egypt. Thus speaks Tushratta, King of Mitanni Everything is well with me. May everything be well with you. May everything go well for your house. . . . You are the one whoknowsthatIhavealwaysfelt friendship for Amenhotep, your husband, and that . . . your husband . . . always felt friendship for me. And the things that I wrote and told . . . your husband, and the things that [he] told me incessantly, were known to you.

   . . . Butitisyou whoknows better than anybody, the things we have told each other. . . . You should continue sending joyful embassies, one after another. Do not suppress them. I shall not forget the friendship [I have] with . . . your husband. At this moment and more than ever, I have ten times more friendship for your son, Akhenaten. (Amarna Letters EA 26)

   To foster this friendship, Tushratta sent his daughter, Tadukhipa, to Egypt to become a member of Amenhotep III's harem. By the time she arrived, however, the pharaoh was dead. So she ended up marrying his successor, Akhenaten, and may have become the Egyptian queen Kiya. The sudden passing of Amenhotep, probably coupled with Akhenaten's obsession with religious matters and neglect of foreign policy, turned out to be unfortunate for Tushratta and his kingdom. The Hittite king Suppiluliumas I invaded Mitanni in at least two campaigns. No Egyptian aid, which apparently Tushratta had been counting on, was forthcoming.

   Part of Suppiluliumas's success was due to the fact that Mitanni was wracked by civil dissent during Tushratta's reign. And Tushratta met his end at the hands of one of his own sons, perhaps in revenge for not being chosen as the royal successor. The rightful heir to the throne, Tushratta's other son, Shattiwaza, fled to Babylon and eventually to Hatti, which had by that time turned Mitanni into a Hittite vassal state. For an excerpt from another of the Amarna Letters, see Burn-aburiash II.

   See also: Hittites; Mitanni; Suppiluliumas I