The
Hurrians (;
cuneiform: ; transliteration:
Ḫu-ur-ri), also called Hari, Khurrites, Hourri, Churri, Hurri or Hurriter, were a people of the
Bronze Age Near East. They spoke a
Hurro-Urartian language called
Hurrian, and lived in
Anatolia and
Northern Mesopotamia. The largest and most influential Hurrian nation was the multi-ethnic kingdom of
Mitanni, the Mitanni perhaps being
Indo-European speakers who formed a ruling class over the Hurrians. The population of the Indo-European-speaking
Hittite Empire in Anatolia included a large population of Hurrians, and there is significant Hurrian influence in
Hittite mythology. By the
Early Iron Age, the Hurrians had been assimilated with other peoples, except perhaps in the kingdom of
Urartu. According to a hypothesis by
I.M. Diakonoff and
S. Starostin, the Hurrian and
Urartian languages are related to the
Northeast Caucasian languages while present day
Armenians are an amalgam of both Hurrians and
Urartians.
