In Search of the Lost Capital of Mitanni

Ancient sources speak of the great capital of Mitanni, the city of Washukanni. But it has never been found. In this video, Dr. M looks at the evidence.

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[BizNizil]

Your channel is one of those rare few channels that as soon as I see a new video uploaded I immediately hit like before hitting play. Thanks for all your work 🦄

[Imperiused]

You should definitely do more videos on lost capitals or cities! I know it's a bit late in your time period, but you could do a video on Koumbi Saleh, the lost capital of the kingdom of Ghana/Walata.

[bobbykiefer]

Good one. The Mitanni are pretty fascinating and not much is known about them.

[woodearthdvd]

Less than 400 years is still longer than the USA has been in existence. It never ceases to amaze me how long some of the ancient states have been in existence. Truly humbling too.

[hazenoki]

Finding Washukanni could be one of the greatest archaeological discoveries we could make, at least of thing we know exist! Glad to hear about the search, I've always wanted to know more about the Mitanni.

[stuarthumphrey]

As usual, a top quality and in-depth video. I love this channel, always something new to learn

[EtruskenRaider]

A mystery that actually interesting!!!

Oh goodness this is refreshing. I needed this today.

People doing actual science to try and solve real questions about our past.

[petersherman]

Keep it up! Love this channel. I'm a middle school teacher and love studying history and this channel helps scratch the itch for myself and love getting little snippets from here to share with the kids.

[kalenden]

Doctor Miano, you're a great man and communicator! Keep it up, I love it when you bring unresolved scholarly debates like this.

[SidGoyal]

What I find fascinating is that no one is able to clearly say whether Mittanis were pre vedic or post. My hunch is they were pre Vedic but would love to know your view Doc.

[voodu]

Thank you for all your insightful and detailed videos. You’re great at explaining things meticulously and clearly. I always appreciate the knowledge you share and always learn something new!

[olorin]

United kingdom of Ni? I wonder if that’s what their knights say.

[DneilB]

I assume that the researchers checked some of the non-Mitanni letters for their chemical signatures as well, just to make sure that the letters in Amarna were the originals & not copies.

Assuming that, it would seem to me that the next step would be to compare the chemical signatures of the clays in the other proposed sites, to narrow down the focus.

[annepoitrineau]

I find the methods used to determine provenance etc absolutely fascinating. I love learning about these nearly as much as learning about ancient civilisations.

[tomlindsay]

Super fascinating, thanks for posting!

[colinplatt]

Really enjoy the way you cover so many sources of information and opinions! Your even handedness is really very reassuring. That said, the apparent lack of documents from a city this size is intriguing to say the least!

[richardemily]

Just want to share that I most often watch your videos at 1.5 speed. Your presentation is so relaxed and well paced; some of us are a bit too ADHD for it ;)

[Lostboy]

I really enjoyed these videos and while I do focus on east Asian history because of my general interest in that area. One thing would be interesting to fully understand the way archeological work is done the tools and things that used to identify and other things like you mentioned with this clay analysis machine in this video. I thought it was pretty interesting that it could find out the if artifacts were made from certain areas.

[Behindthecurtain-so]

Thank you for the information. I don't know why, but I am obsessed with Ancient History. Especially in the Mesopotamian region.

[davidcaldecoat]

Very Informative David and fascinating as well it is apity there isnt more information on the Mitanni