Gutians
Years: 2230BCE - 2050BCE
The Gutians (also Guteans or Guti) are a tribe that overruns southern Mesopotamia when the Akkadian empire collapses in approximately 2154 BCE.Sumerian sources portray the Gutians as a barbarous, ravenous people from Gutium or Qutium in the mountains, presumably the central Zagros in the Kurdish area of Iraq.
The Sumerian king list represents them as ruling over Sumer for a short time after the fall of the Akkadian Empire, and paints a picture of chaos within the Gutian administration.
Next to nothing is known about their origins, as no "Gutian" artifacts have surfaced from that time; little information is gleaned from the contemporary sources.
Nothing is known of their language either, apart from those Sumerian king names, and that it was distinct from other known languages of the region (such as Sumerian, Akkadian, Hurrian, Hittite and Elamite).
