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In the letters there is a remark of the king of Alashia recommending Pharaoh to exchange no more gifts with “the kings of the Hittites and of Shankhar.” Mitani is, perhaps, here named Shankhar from its dependencies in Asia Minor, or we may suppose it to have been the name of Tushratta’s residence.
Two others are addressed, “The handmaid to my mistress”; perhaps they were sent along with Tushratta’s letters to his daughter in Egypt and were from one of her playfellows or relatives.
And I also will grant all the gifts that my brother asks. For this land is my brother’s land, and this my house is his house.” All Tushratta’s letters are written in this tone with the exception of the last. Nimmuria felt his end approaching, and entreated the aid of “Our Lady of Nineveh.” Such an expedient was not foreign to Egyptian thought.
Nimmuria indeed, seems to have had a weakness for this worthy brother-in-law and his ingenuous manner of approaching him, and spared neither presents nor promises; at his death, however, some of the latter remained unfulfilled. Evidently neighbouring kings heard at length of Tushratta’s financial success and were naturally envious.
A late inscription professes to tell how a certain divine image was sent from Thebes to a distant land for the healing of a foreign princess. From Tushratta’s answer also it appears that the statue of the goddess Ishtar had once before been taken from Nineveh to Thebes.
Tushratta’s dominion was wide, extending from south-eastern Cappadocia to beyond the later Assyrian capital, Nineveh. But the kingdom of Mitani, occasionally called after the northern fatherland of its people, Hanirabbat, was nearing its fall.
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