Shutrukid dynasty
The Shutrukid dynasty was a dynasty of the Elamite empire, in modern Iran. Under the Shutrukids, Elam reached a height in power.
History
Shutruk-Nakhkhunte was the founder of this dynasty. He took as wife a Babylonian princess, the eldest daughter of Melishihu of Babylon. Shutruk-Nakhkhunte and his three sons, Kutir-Nakhkhunte II, Shilhak-In-Shushinak, and Khutelutush-In-Shushinak were capable of frequent military campaigns into Kassite Babylonia, and at the same time were exhibiting vigorous construction activity—building and restoring luxurious temples in Susa and across their Empire. Shutruk-Nakhkhunte raided Babylonia, carrying home to Susa trophies like the statues of Marduk and Manishtushu, the Manishtushu Obelisk, the Stele of Hammurabi and the stele of Naram-Sin. With these trophies, he attempted to give a new aura to Elam, as the conqueror of Babylonia. Shutruk-Nakhunte added his own inscription on the stele of Naram-Sin:In 1158 BC, after much of Babylonia had been annexed by Ashur-Dan I of Assyria and Shutruk-Nakhkhunte, the Elamites defeated permanently the Kassites, a dynasty which had ruled Mesopotamia for four centuries. They killed the Kassite king of Babylon, Zababa-shuma-iddin, and replaced him with Shutruk-Nakhkhunte's eldest son, Kutir-Nakhkhunte, who held it no more than three years before being ejected by the native Akkadian speaking Babylonians. The Elamites then briefly came into conflict with Assyria, managing to take the Assyrian city of Arrapha before being ultimately defeated and having a treaty forced upon them by Ashur-Dan I.
Kutir-Nakhkhunte's son Khutelutush-In-Shushinak was defeated by Nebuchadnezzar I of Babylon, who sacked Susa and returned the statue of Marduk, but who was then himself defeated by the Assyrian king Ashur-resh-ishi I. He fled to Anshan, but later returned to Susa, and his brother Shilhana-Hamru-Lagamar may have succeeded him as last king of the Shutrukid dynasty. Following Khutelutush-In-Shushinak, the power of the Elamite empire began to wane, for after the death of this ruler, Elam disappears into obscurity for more than three centuries.