Ancient Kingdoms History Nearly Forgot

A royal letter written more than 3,000 years ago, addressed from one king to another as an equal, survived in the ruins of an Egyptian city long after the kingdom that sent it was gone. Its sender ruled Mitanni, a Near Eastern power that later records barely mention and whose capital archaeologists still cannot locate. Plenty of cultures met the same fate. War, famine, and the simple absence of written records erased some of the ancient world’s most consequential kingdoms so thoroughly that scholars had to recover them through excavation and the occasional lucky find. The examples below range across three continents, and each one came close to vanishing from the record entirely.

Map of the kingdom of Mitanni. Sémhur, Zunkir, rowanwindwhistler, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons During the Late Bronze Age, the Kingdom of Mitanni was one of the major powers of the ancient Near East. Centered in northern Mesopotamia and the Khabur River region, it controlled territory across parts of what are now Syria, Turkey, and Iraq during its height in the 15th and 14th centuries BCE. Its population was largely Hurrian-speaking, although the names of several Mitanni kings and some religious and technical terms show Indo-Aryan connections whose exact origins remain debated.

Mitanni was powerful enough to fight Egypt over control of Syria. Pharaoh Thutmose III campaigned across the Euphrates into Mitanni territory, but relations eventually changed dramatically. By the 14th century BCE, the two kingdoms were arranging royal marriages and exchanging diplomatic letters and gifts. King Tushratta of Mitanni corresponded with Pharaoh Amenhotep III and later Akhenaten, and some of these messages survived among the famous Amarna Letters found in Egypt. Mitanni therefore belonged to the small circle of states whose rulers addressed one another as diplomatic equals during the Late Bronze Age.

Its position eventually became less secure. The expanding Hittite Empire attacked Mitanni under King Suppiluliuma I, while Assyria was becoming increasingly powerful to the east. Mitanni lost much of its territory and eventually disappeared as an independent great power. One reason it remains comparatively obscure is that its capital, Washukanni, has still not been identified with certainty and no great royal archive from the capital has been recovered. Much of its history therefore has to be reconstructed through Egyptian, Hittite, and Assyrian records.

Ancient Chinese cultural relics from the Shang Dynasty. Via Shutterstock / Chloe-H Though traditional Chinese history states that China’s first dynasty began around 4,000 years ago in the form of the Xia dynasty, many historians have questioned the Xia’s historicity, noting the lack of contemporary written records that can securely connect archaeological remains to the dynasty. For a long time, some Western scholars were skeptical of the Shang Dynasty as well. That changed beginning in the late 19th century, when scholars recognized inscriptions on bones and turtle shells as records from the Shang period. More than 150,000 of these inscribed “oracle bones” dating primarily to the later Shang Dynasty have since been discovered, with most coming from the ruins of the Shang capital at Anyang.

These oracle bones contain records of questions posed during royal divination. Ancient Chinese diviners applied heat to prepared cattle bones or turtle shells and interpreted the resulting cracks, sometimes recording the question, prediction, and outcome in inscriptions. Today, scholars have used these writings to reconstruct the lineage of Shang rulers and learn about warfare, agriculture, religious practices, royal affairs, and other aspects of Shang society. Archaeological discoveries at sites such as Erlitou also demonstrate that complex states existed in China during the period traditionally associated with the Xia, although scholars continue to debate whether these remains can be identified with the dynasty described in later histories. The discovery of the Shang oracle bones showed how archaeological evidence could confirm parts of China’s early historical tradition, leaving open the possibility that future discoveries could clarify the question of the Xia as well.

Van Fortress is a massive fortification built by the ancient kingdom of Urartu around the 8th century BC. Via Shutterstock / s bayram More than four centuries after Mitanni’s decline, another powerful kingdom took shape in the highlands north of Mesopotamia. Urartu developed around Lake Van in eastern Anatolia during the ninth century BCE, with its capital at Tushpa, near modern Van in Türkiye. The kingdom eventually controlled territory extending into present-day Armenia and northwestern Iran. Its most dangerous neighbor was Assyria, whose scribes repeatedly described Urartu as a northern enemy.

Urartu was far more than a collection of mountain fortresses. Its kings organized large construction projects and left hundreds of inscriptions recording military campaigns, religious ceremonies, buildings, and waterworks. Fortified administrative centers helped control agricultural land, while an elaborate system of dams and irrigation channels allowed communities to make greater use of the dry highland environment. Urartian metalworkers also produced distinctive bronze shields, helmets, and belts.

For several generations, Urartu was one of the few states capable of seriously challenging Assyria. That rivalry influenced the politics of the northern Near East and forced Assyrian kings to devote major military resources to the region. Urartu survived Assyrian attacks but suffered widespread destruction during the late seventh and early sixth centuries BCE, and archaeologists still debate exactly who was responsible. In later centuries, its ruins were sometimes connected with legendary figures rather than the kings who actually built them. Modern study of its inscriptions gradually recovered the history of a state that had once rivaled Assyria itself.

Olmec head made of stone in the National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City. Editorial credit: JC Gonram / Shutterstock.com The Olmecs are perhaps most famous today for the massive stone heads they left behind in southern Mexico, but elements of Olmec culture and art turn up across ancient Mesoamerica. One of the region’s earliest major civilizations, Olmec culture took hold along the Gulf Coast of present-day Veracruz and Tabasco, particularly between roughly 1200 and 400 BCE. The Olmecs are sometimes called the “mother culture” of Mesoamerica because of similarities between their art, religious imagery, and monumental construction and practices found among later cultures. However, scholars continue to debate whether later Mesoamerican traditions developed primarily through Olmec influence or through exchanges and innovations among several different cultures.

Modern understanding of the Olmecs developed gradually. A colossal stone head was documented as early as 1862, while Smithsonian archaeologist Matthew Williams Stirling’s excavations between 1938 and 1946 helped establish the antiquity and importance of Olmec sites such as Tres Zapotes, La Venta, and San Lorenzo. Besides the famous colossal heads, which are generally believed to depict rulers or other powerful individuals, the Olmecs left behind statues, monumental stone sculptures, ceramics, and massive earthen platforms and mounds. Evidence also suggests they cultivated maize while making use of the rich resources of the Gulf Coast environment. Olmec sites have produced some of the earliest evidence associated with the Mesoamerican ball game, including ancient rubber balls, although the oldest known ballcourt comes from elsewhere in Mesoamerica and the Olmecs cannot confidently be credited with inventing the game. A possible Olmec inscription known as the Cascajal Block may also represent one of the earliest known writing systems in the Americas, although questions about its precise date and context remain.

Kushite prisoners of war watched waiting to be deported into Egypt. Mike Knell, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons South of Egypt, the Kingdom of Kush became one of the longest-lasting major powers in ancient northeastern Africa. Centered first around Napata and later Meroë in what is now Sudan, the Kushite kingdom rose to particular prominence during the eighth century BCE. King Piye invaded Egypt and defeated competing Egyptian rulers, beginning a period in which Kushite kings governed Egypt as its 25th Dynasty.

Kushite control of Egypt ended after invasions by the Assyrians during the seventh century BCE, but that did not end the kingdom. Its rulers remained powerful farther south. Meroë eventually became the principal royal center, positioned near important Nile and overland trade routes. The Kushites produced their own distinctive art, royal burial traditions, and industries, along with a written form of the Meroitic language. Meroitic writing can be sounded out today, but the language is still not completely understood, leaving major gaps in historians’ ability to read indigenous records.

The kingdom was also capable of resisting another Mediterranean superpower. After Rome conquered Egypt, conflict broke out with Kush in the late first century BCE. Kushite forces under Queen Amanirenas attacked Roman-controlled territory, and Roman troops retaliated by marching south and sacking Napata. The fighting ended with an agreement around 20 BCE that established a frontier and was followed by centuries of generally peaceful relations. Kush therefore remained independent despite facing an empire that controlled nearly the entire Mediterranean. The kingdom survived until roughly the fourth century CE. Its decline was probably caused by several pressures rather than one dramatic invasion, with changing trade patterns, political instability, environmental change, and the growing power of Aksum all potentially contributing.

A written historical record is one of humanity’s own inventions, and it captures only a sliver of what came before. Being “lost to time” is closer to the norm than the exception, an idea that is at once exciting and unsettling. Each of the kingdoms above came within reach of that same erasure, and each left behind some fragment durable enough to survive until scholars pieced it back together. That they were recovered at all raises an obvious question about everything that was not.