Hurrians

The Hurrians (cuneiform Ḫu-ur-ri) were an ancient people, who spoke a Language Isolate of the Ancient Near East, living in Anatolia and Northern Mesopotamia during the Bronze Age. The largest and most influential partly Hurrian nation was the kingdom of Mitanni, though the Mitanni were an Indo-Aryan speaking people who formed a ruling class over the Hurrians. The population of the Indo-Aryan speaking Hittite Empire in Anatolia to a large part consisted of Hurrians and Hattians, 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 I.M. Diakonoff and S. Starostin, the Hurrian, Hattic, and Urartian languages are related to the Northeast Caucasian languages.