Dur-Kurigalzu in the context of "Ziggurat"

The Kassites (/ˈkæsaɪts/) were a people of the ancient Near East. They controlled Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire from c. 1531 BC until c. 1155 BC (short chronology).

The Kassites gained control of Babylonia after the Hittite sack of Babylon in 1531 BC, and established a dynasty generally assumed to have been based first in that city, after a hiatus. Later rule shifted to the new city of Dur-Kurigalzu. By the time of Babylon's fall, the Kassites had already been part of the region for a century and a half, acting sometimes with Babylon's interests and sometimes against. There are records of Kassite and Babylonian interactions, in the context of military employment, during the reigns of Babylonian kings Samsu-iluna (1686 to 1648 BC), Abī-ešuh, and Ammī-ditāna.

Kurigalzu II (c. 1332–1308 BC) was the 22nd king of the Kassite or 3rd dynasty that ruled over Babylon. In more than twelve inscriptions, Kurigalzu names Burna-Buriaš II as his father. Kurigalzu II was placed on the Kassite throne by the Assyrian king Aššur-Uballiṭ I, reigned during a period of weakness and instability for twenty five years, eventually turning on his former allies and quite possibly defeating them at the battle of Sugagu. He was once thought to have been the conqueror of the Elamites but this now tends to be assigned to the earlier king of this name, together with the Chronicle P account.

There is a gap of a little over forty years between his reign and that of his earlier namesake, Kurigalzu I and, as it was not customary to assign regnal year numbers, and they both had lengthy reigns, this makes it exceptionally difficult to distinguish for whom an inscription is intended. A few royal inscriptions are clearly assignable to Kurigalzu II since they give the name of his father, Burna-Buriaš, but these record either the dedication of objects, such as eye stones, beads, axe-heads, etc., or appear on the cylinder seals of his servants, such as the accountant, Uballissu-Marduk. 167 economic texts, mostly from Nippur, are assigned to him based on the style of the date formula and record up to the 24th year of his reign. An inscribed brick of Kurigalzu II was found at Dur-Kurigalzu.

Adab (Sumerian: 𒌓𒉣𒆠 Adab, spelled UD.NUN) was an ancient Sumerian city between Girsu and Nippur, lying about 35 kilometers (22 miles) southeast of the latter. It was located at the site of modern Bismaya or Bismya in the Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate of Iraq. The site was occupied at least as early as the 3rd millennium BC, through the Early Dynastic, Akkadian Empire, and Ur III Empire periods, into the Kassite period in the mid-2nd millennium BC. It is known that there were temples of Ninhursag/Digirmah, Iskur, Asgi, Inanna and Enki at Adab and that the city-god of Adab was Parag'ellilegarra (Panigingarra) "The Sovereign Appointed by Enlil".

Bismaya is not to be confused with the small, later (Old Babylonian and Sassanian periods) archaeological site named Tell Bismaya, 9 kilometers (5.6 miles) east of the confluence of the Diyala and the Tigris rivers, excavated by Iraqi archaeologists in the 1980s or Tell Basmaya, southeast of modern Baghdad, excavated by Iraqi archaeologists in 2013-2014.