Burnaburiash II

(reigned ca. 1375-1347 b.c.)

   One of the more prominent Kassite kings of Babylonia. Burnaburiash maintained good relations with Assyria by marrying the daughter of the Assyrian king Ashur-uballit I. Burnaburiash also sought good relations and commercial ties with Egypt, as revealed in three of the famous Amarna Letters, a surviving set of correspondence between the pharaoh Akhenaten (reigned 1352-1336 b.c.) and other Near Eastern rulers. These letters reveal Burnaburiash to be somewhat pompous and quite demanding, as when he chides the Egyptian ruler for not sending enough gold as an official gift. In the letter excerpted here, Burn-aburiash complains about his agents and merchants being robbed and killed in Egyptian-controlled Canaan in Palestine:

   To Akhenaten, King of Egypt, my brother, to say: Thus speaks Burnaburiash King of Babylon, your brother. I am well. To your country, your house, your women, your sons, your ministers, your horses, your chariots, many greetings. . . . And now, my merchants who traveled with Ahutabu delayed in Canaan for business. After Ahutabu set out on his way to my brother and in the town of Ha-natun ... [men working for the local ruler] beat my merchants and stole their money. . . . Canaan is your country and its kings are your slaves. . . . [I ask you to] bind them and return the money they robbed. And the men who murdered my slaves, kill them and avenge their blood. Because if you do not kill these men, they will again murder my caravans and even my ambassadors, and the ambassadors between us will cease. (Amarna Letters EA 8)

   See also: Babylon; Kassites. And for an excerpt from another of the Amarna Let-ters, see Tushratta