GUTIAN

This tribe, who migrated to Mesopotamia around the end of the third millennium, is significant in the history of the Ancient Near East. The Gutians ruled Ancient Mesopotamia [i] for about a hundred years and were one of the most critical elements in the destruction of the Akkadians known widely as history's first empire. With the foundation of the Neo Sumerian State, this process, which can be considered an interim period in Mesopotamian history, came to an end. Gutians, who were forced to return from Mesopotamia to the Zagros Mountains [ii], maintained their power in the Near East until the first millennium BCE.

The Gutian monarchs, who ruled for around a century (until c. 2130), do not appear to have ruled over all of Babylonia at the time. This is evidenced by independent rulers in other sections of Babylonia, such as Sumer [iii]. Little is known about the Gutian territory, and it appears that the period was marked by political upheaval and cultural stagnation. The four cardinal points were denoted by the words ‘Amurru, Akkad, Elam, and Subartu’ in the first millennium B.C.E. ‘Subartu’ was interchangeable with ‘Gutium’, and refers to the north east area of the Zagros mountains and north of Elam [iv].

A tablet with regal engravings was built by the Gutian lord Erridu-pizir [v] of the imperative city of Nippur [vi]. This shows that Gutian rulers’ influence spanned widely. A Sumerian Lord List gives numerous names of Gutian lords that have ruled, and points to the diverse cities led by Gutian rulers. Gutian's proximity to Babylonia did not span more than fifty years, as they were removed by a local ruler of Uruk-- yet like other powers that briefly controlled parts of Babylonia, the Gutians did not expel their language and the Gutian dialect remains known [vii] from a few individual names in historic records.

The Gutian’s first known documentation was c. 2350-2200 B.C.E. They are portrayed as marauders who disturbed agrarian life and are known as marking the end of the Akkad line. It is likely Gutians took advantage of the political challenges of the Akkadian lords to pick up a powerful presence in a few cities. The Sumerian Ruler List [viii], a record of early lords of Babylonia and the lengths of their rules, shows a Gutian ruling presence after the Akkads’ fall. The list shows somewhere between twenty-one or twenty-three lords of the region, offering a window into the area’s ruling history.

While numerous references to Gutians and Gutium were collected, these pieces of history leave much unknown about the Gutian peoples’ full story. The Mesopotamians utilized the term “Gutian” in an assortment of ways, depending on the setting. At times they may have referred to a specific locale, and at other times the name was used to differentiate non-Mesopotamian lands or peoples. The Gutian line ultimately ended around 2130, when Utu-khegal of Uruk vanquished the final Gutian lord. Even though the Gutian people persisted in other lines and kingdoms, they were never again able to require control of southern Mesopotamia.

The terms Gutium and Gutians [ix] proceeded were referenced in writings from northern and southern Mesopotamia for years after the group’s downfall. These texts demonstrated that the term ‘Gutian’ often had no attachment to a particular group-- as references only allude to a general group of “uncivilized individuals from the Zagros”. Any antagonistic bunch from the region might have been called ‘Gutian’. The Assyrian royal archives discuss ‘Gutians’ when referring to Iranian populaces known as the Medes [x]. The negative picture of this group endures in historic recounts from the fifteenth century in which the Babylonian ruler Agum-kakrime calls them “a brutal people” [xi].

When Cyrus The Great conquered Babylonia in 539 B.C.E., he did so with the assistance of Ugbaru, Nabonidus’ representative from Gutium [xii]. In this context, the term “Gutium” alludes to an expansive locale east of the Tigris, which Cyrus utilized as a propelling cushion for his attack. They are continuously depicted in greatly negative terms including one record that states “They don't perform legitimate devout custom and mishandle the individuals of Babylonia.” From this it can be concluded that parts of Babylonia were politically controlled by individuals called ‘Gutians’, who were seen as non-legitimate and primitive by the local populace.