From the 16th to 12th centuries BC, kings of Kassite origin ruled in Babylon until they were overthrown by the Elamites.

Based on the patchy distribution of extant cuneiform texts, the Semitic Akkadian language of the native Babylonians was mostly used for economic transactions during the Kassite period, with Sumerian used for monumental inscriptions.

It is not clear whether Kassite was a distinct language in the Hurro-Urartian phylum, or simply a Southern dialect of Hurrian.

If it was the latter rather than the former, it could be surmised that the Kassites were merely a tribe of Hurrians that expanded from the north into the south and settled in Mesopotamia.

On the other hand, if Kassite is the former rather than the latter, this suggests that Hurro-Urartian was an even larger language group and more significant to the region than historical experts have observed, and was perhaps spoken by far more people than previously thought.