11-E Aramaeans

aRamaean, one of a confederacy of tribes that spoke a North Semitic language (Aramaic) and, between the 11th and 8th century bc, occupied Aram, a large region in northernSyria. In the same period some of these tribes seized large tracts of Mesopotamia.
In the Old Testament the Aramaeans are represented as being closely akin to the Hebrews and living in northern Syria around Harran from about the 16th century bc. The Aramaeans are also mentioned often in Assyrian records as freebooters. The first mention of the Aramaeans occurs in inscriptions of the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser I (1115–1077). By the end of the 11th century bc, the Aramaeans had formed the state of Bit-Adini on both sides of the Euphrates Riverbelow Carchemish and held areas in Anatolia and northern Syria and in the Anti-Lebanon area, including Damascus. About 1030 bc a coalition of the southern Aramaeans, led by Hadadezer, king of Zobah, in league with the Ammonites, Edomites, and the Aramaeans of Mesopotamia, attacked Israel but was defeated by King David

To the east, however, the Aramaean tribes spread into Babylonia, where an Aramaean usurper was crowned king of Babylon under the name of Adad-apal-iddin. By the 9th century the whole area from Babylon to the Mediterranean coast was in the hands of the Aramaean tribes known collectively as Kaldu (or Kashdu)—the biblical Chaldeans. Assyria, nearly encircled, took the offensive, and in 853 the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III fought a battle at Karkar against the armies of Hamath, Aram, Phoenicia, and Israel. This battle was indecisive, but in 838 Shalmaneser was able to annex the area held by the tribes on the middle Euphrates.
Between Israel and Damascus, intermittent wars continued until Tiglath-pileser III of Assyria captured Arpad, the centre of Aramaean resistance in northern Syria, in 740 bc. He overthrew Samaria in 734 and Damascus in 732. Finally, the destruction of Hamath by Sargon II of Assyria in 720 marked the end of the Aramaean kingdoms of the west.
Aramaeans along the lower Tigris River maintained their independence longer. In 626 a Chaldean general, Nabopolassar, proclaimed himself king of Babylon and joined with the Medes and Scythians to overthrow Assyria. In the New Babylonian, or Chaldean, empire, Chaldeans, Aramaeans, and Babylonians became largely indistinguishable.

Hittites, Asyrians and Aramaeans

From those they overran, the Hittites learned how to make bronze. And sometime after the coming of the Kassites to Mesopotamia, the Hittites acquired horses and chariots. With horses and light chariots, the well trained, highly disciplined Hittites launched a new conquest of neighboring peoples in Asia Minor. A horse pulling a man on a lightweight chariot was faster than a horse carrying a man on its back, and the Hittites were able to move rapidly, sometimes under the cover of darkness, and spring surprise assaults upon their adversaries.

In Mesopotamia the Hurrians weakened themselves with internal conflict. The Hittites warred with and further weakened the Hurrians, and this helped Assyrians in northeastern Mesopotamia free themselves from Hurrian domination.

Having experienced oppression under the Hurrians, the Assyrians were motivated to build a great military machine, led by their horse-breeding and landed nobility. The Assyrian king, Ashur the Great (who ruled from 1365 to 1330), married his daughter to a Babylonian, and he invaded Babylon after Kassite nobles there murdered his grandchild. Ashur's successors continued Assyria's war against the Babylonians and the Hurrians, and by around 1300 the Assyrians controlled all of Mesopotamia.

More Invasions

Between 1200 and 1000 BCE, nomads called Chaldeans pushed against the Babylonians and against the Assyrians. A camel breeding Bedouin people called Aramaeans from northern Arabia also marauded their way across Mesopotamia. The Chaldeans settled near what had been Sumer. The Aramaeans settled around the upper Euphrates River and in Syria and established numerous city-kingdoms. Assyria became exhausted from warring against the invaders. Its trade fell, but it held onto much of Mesopotamia and territory as far as the Caucasus Mountains. With the passing of generations, some Aramaeans maintained their nomadic ways and became the foremost traders in West Asia. Their language spread, and in the coming centuries Aramaic would be the most widely spoken language in West Asia – the language resorted to for diplomacy and business, and a language spoken by those called Hebrews.

Centuries of migrations into Mesopotamia resulted in genetic and cultural blending. Sumerians had integrated with Semites. Hittite queens had Hurrian names. Kassites had integrated with the Amorites. Aramaeans assimilated and intermarried with various peoples. At least one Aramaean married Assyrian royalty, and around the year 1050 another Aramaean became king of Babylon. Cities in Mesopotamia, Syria and Canaan – especially port cities – had become cosmopolitan. And in much of Mesopotamia, Syria and Canaan an ethnic tolerance had developed.

The people of different areas in Mesopotamia had come to worship gods that were similar in character and sometimes in name. The goddess Ishtar was worshiped in various cities, but with different characteristics in different cities. The Sumerian god Enlil was also worshiped among various peoples in Mesopotamia. Enlil was looked upon as the force behind hurricanes and floods, and being the creator of floods he was viewed as the god of punishment. It was to Enlil that the righteous prayed in attempts to inflict punishments on those they thought to be sinners. Another god worshiped across Mesopotamian was Ea, who, as described in the Gilgamesh epic, was a god of knowing, understanding and wisdom. Mesopotamians also believed in a sun god commonly called Shamash, who was the giver of light and life. They saw Shamash as a giver of justice and as able to see wickedness and evil in people.

Mesopotamians continued to believe that not fearing the gods was the greatest of human errors. They believed in discovering what they had done wrong in the eyes of the gods so that they could make amends. Someone suffering from an ailment might ask himself whether he had alienated a son from his father or a father from his son, or a daughter from her mother or a mother from her daughter, or a brother from brother, or a friend from a friend. He might ask whether he had offended his father or mother, sister or brother, or a god or goddess. He might ask whether he had used false scales or had erroneously moved a boundary stone. He might consider whether he had approached his neighbor's wife, carried off his neighbor's clothes, told lies or whether his heart had been untrue. To avoid wrongdoing, one scribe suggested charity: responding with kindness to "an evil doer," or providing an enemy with justice, or honoring and clothing one who begs for alms.

Meanwhile, Mesopotamians living in villages and towns faced the problem of rubbish, sewage and contaminated water. Royal families and some others among the wealthy had indoor lavatories, but most people in villages and within town walls used nearby fields or orchards as their lavatory. Most towns or cities had no rubbish collection. Refuse was often merely thrown into the streets, where pigs, dogs and rats were free to scavenge. Often corpses were buried in very shallow graves. And with rains and a waterlogged ground, sewage and refuse washed into local rivers and contaminated water supplies. The result was typhus and other epidemics, which spread and lasted for years, while people saw disease as the result of sin or the work of demon-gods or someone's witchcraft.

In addition to appealing to the gods, Mesopotamians saw remedy to illness in sprinkling cleansing water upon the sick. Coincidences led them to believe a variety of specious remedies and things to avoid. In Babylon, the sick were left in the street so that any passerby might advise them. There and other places in Mesopotamia, priests attempted to foretell the course of a disease by examining the livers of sacrificed animals.

The Aramaeans are best understood as a group of city states and semi-nomadic tribes from the Iron Age, speaking related West-Semitic languages, in the area of what is now called Syria. They were certainly not the only inhabitants: they shared this region with people with Hittite ancestors, who venerated the ancient Hittite gods, continued Hittite artistic traditions, and were also called Hittites (or “Neo-Hittites” by modern scholars).

The Aramaeans have their origin in the collapse of the old Bronze Age system in the first half of the twelfth century BCE. Syria, which had been part of the Hittite Empire, witnessed the rise of several new political entities, where people spoke Aramaic (a language related to Phoenician and Hebrew). Their names suggest a tribal nature: for instance, Bit Agusi an Bit Adini (“Land of Gusi” and “Land of Adin”) are named after the eponymous ancestors of these tribes.note However, although there was undoubtedly a tribal, pastoral element in Aramaic society, there were also Aramaeans who cultivated the soil.

It has been thought that these people were immigrants, but it is also possible that they had always been there, but left no traces in the written (Akkadian) record, as we would expect from peasants and shepherds. They could become “visible” only after the collapse of the Bronze Age system.

It is hard to distinguish the Aramaeans from the Neo-Hittites. In Sam’al, the capital of Bit Gabbar, for example, we find a state that first used to be ruled by kings with Hittite names, but later by kings with Aramaic names. There may have been a political change, but it is also possible that the old names just went out of fashion.