The Arameans, or Aramaeans (; ; , ), were a tribal Semitic people in the ancient Near East, first documented in historical sources from the late 12th century BCE. Their homeland, often referred to as the land of Aram, originally covered central regions of what is now Syria.
The Arameans were not a single nation or group; Aram was a region with local centers of power spread throughout the Levant. That makes it almost impossible to establish a coherent ethnic category of "Aramean" based on extralinguistic identity markers, such as material culture, lifestyle, or religion. The people of Aram were called "Arameans" in Assyrian texts and the Hebrew Bible, but the terms "Aramean" and "Aram" were never used by later Aramean dynasts to refer to themselves or their country, except the king of Aram-Damascus, since his kingdom was also called Aram. "Arameans" is an appellation of the geographical term Aram given to 1st millennium BCE inhabitants of Syria.
At the beginning of the 1st millennium BCE, the Syro-Hittite states were established throughout the ancient Near East. The most notable was Aram-Damascus, which reached its height in the second half of the 9th century BCE during the reign of King Hazael. During the 8th century BCE, local Aramaean city-states were conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The policy of population displacement and relocation applied throughout Assyrian domains also affected the Arameans, many of whom were resettled by Assyrian authorities. That caused a wider dispersion of Aramean communities throughout various regions of the Near East, and the range of Aramaic also widened. It gained significance and eventually became the lingua franca of public life and administration as Imperial Aramaic, particularly during the periods of the Neo-Babylonian Empire (612–539 BCE) and the Achaemenid Empire (539–330 BCE).
Before Christianity, Aramaic-speaking communities had undergone considerable Hellenization and Romanization in the Near East. Thus, their integration into the Greek-speaking world had begun a long time before Christianity became established. Some scholars suggest that Arameans who accepted Christianity were referred to as Syrians by the Greeks. The early Muslim conquests in the 7th century were followed by the Islamization and the gradual Arabization (re-Semiticization after centuries of Hellenization, Persianization and Romanization) of Aramaic-speaking communities throughout the Near East. That ultimately resulted in their fragmentation and acculturation. Today, their cultural and linguistic heritage continues to be recognized by some Syriac-Christian or Neo-Aramaic speaking groups, such as the Maronites and the Aramean inhabitants of Maaloula and Jubb'adin near Damascus in Syria.
Etymology The toponym A-ra-mu appears in an inscription at the East Semitic-speaking kingdom of Ebla listing geographical names, and the term Armi, the Eblaite term for nearby Idlib, occurs frequently in the Ebla tablets (c. 2300 BC). One of the annals of Naram-Sin of Akkad (c. 2250 BC) mentions that he captured "Dubul, the ensí of A-ra-me" (Arame is seemingly a genitive form), in the course of a campaign against Simurrum in the northern mountains. Other early references to a place or people of "Aram" have appeared at the archives of Mari (c. 1900 BC) and at Ugarit (c. 1300 BC). There is no consensus on the origin and meaning of the word "Aram", one of the most accepted suggestions being that it is derived from a Semitic root rwm, "to be high". A newer suggestion is that it as a broken plural meaning "white antelopes" or "white bulls". The earliest undisputed historical attestation of Arameans as a people appears much later, in the inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser I (c. 1100 BC).
History
Origins Although proving the origins of the ancient Arameans has been problematic in the past, scholars have come to a consensus that their homeland was the deserts of Syria and upper Mesopotamia. Nomadic pastoralists have long played a prominent role in the history and economy of the Middle East, but their numbers seem to vary according to climatic conditions and the force of neighbouring states inducing permanent settlement. The Late Bronze Age seems to coincide with increasing aridity, which weakened neighbouring states and induced transhumance pastoralists to spend longer and longer periods with their flocks. Urban settlements (hitherto largely inhabited by Amorite, Canaanite, Hittite, and Ugarite peoples) in the Levant diminished in size until fully-nomadic pastoralist lifestyles came to dominate much of the region. The highly mobile competitive tribesmen, with their sudden raids, continually threatened long-distance trade and interfered with the collection of taxes and tribute.
The people who had long been the prominent population in what is now Syria (called the Land of the Amurru during their tenure) were the Amorites, a Northwest Semitic-speaking people who had appeared during the 25th century BC, destroyed the hitherto dominant state of Ebla, founded the powerful state of Mari in the Levant and during the 19th century BC also Babylonia, in southern Mesopotamia. However, they seem to have been displaced or wholly absorbed by the appearance of a people called the Ahlamu by the 13th century BC and disappear from history. Ahlamû appears to be a generic term for Semitic wanderers and nomads of varying origins who appeared during the 13th century BC across the ancient Near East, the Arabian Peninsula, Asia Minor, and Egypt.
The Arameans would appear to be one part of the larger generic Ahlamû group rather than synonymous with the Ahlamu. The presence of the Ahlamû is attested during the Middle Assyrian Empire (1365–1020 BC), which already ruled many of the lands in which the Ahlamû arose in the Babylonian city of Nippur and even at Dilmun. Shalmaneser I (1274–1245 BC) is recorded as having defeated Shattuara, King of the Mitanni and his Hittite and Ahlamû mercenaries. In the next century, the Ahlamû cut the road from Babylon to Hattusas. Also, Tukulti-Ninurta I (1244–1208 BC) conquered Mari, Hanigalbat and Rapiqum on the Euphrates and "the mountain of the Ahlamû", apparently the region of Jebel Bishri in northern Syria.
Aramean states
The emergence of the Arameans occurred during the Bronze Age collapse (1200–900 BC), which saw great upheavals and mass movements of peoples across the Middle East, Asia Minor, the Caucasus, the East Mediterranean, North Africa, Ancient Iran, Ancient Greece and the Balkans and led to the genesis of new peoples and polities across those regions. The Middle Assyrian Empire (1365–1050 BC), which had dominated the Near East and Asia Minor since the first half of the 14th century BC, began to shrink rapidly after the death of Ashur-bel-kala, its last great ruler in 1056 BC. The Assyrian withdrawal allowed the Arameans and others to gain independence and take firm control of Eber-Nari in the late 11th century BC.
Some of the major Aramean-speaking city states included Aram-Damascus, Hamath, Bet-Adini, Bet-Bagyan, Bit-Hadipe, Aram-Bet Rehob, Aram-Zobah, Bet-Zamani, Bet-Halupe, and Aram-Ma'akah, as well as the Aramean tribal polities of the Gambulu, Litau and Puqudu. Akkermans and Schwartz note that in assessing Luwian and Aramean states in ancient Syria, the existing information on the ethnic composition of the regional states in ancient Syria primarily concerns the rulers and so the ethnolingustic situation of the majority of the population of the states is unclear. They, and other scholars, suggest that the material culture shows no distinctions between states dominated by the Luwians or the Arameans.
Aramean tribal groups were identified by family names that often began with the Semitic prefix Bit, meaning "house of", such as "Bit Adini". This naming convention was influenced by the writing system used by the coastal Phoenicians. Each tribe's name signified the house or ancestral lineage to which it belonged. The term "Aram" sometimes referred only to a part and other times to the whole of the Syrian region during the Iron Age. The expressions "All Aram" and "Upper and Lower Aram" in Sefire treaty inscriptions have been variously interpreted, but can suggest a degree of political and cultural unity among some of the polities in the area. In earlier Assyrian sources from the late 2nd millennium BC references are made to "the land of the Arameans", while in 1st millennium BC references, "Aram" became a topographical term. Aram extended eastward from the Anti-Lebanon Mountains to past the Euphrates.
Biblical sources tell that Saul, David and Solomon (late 11th to 10th centuries BC) fought against the small Aramean states ranged across the northern frontier of Israel: Aram-Sôvah in the Beqaa, Aram-Bêt-Rehob (Rehov) and Aram-Ma'akah around Mount Hermon, Geshur in the Hauran, and Aram-Damascus. An Aramean king's account dating at least two centuries later, the Tel Dan stele, was discovered in northern Israel and is famous for being perhaps the earliest non-Israelite extra-biblical historical reference to the Israelite royal dynasty, the House of David. In the early 11th century BC, much of Israel came under foreign rule for eight years according to the Book of Judges until Othniel defeated the forces led by Cushan-Rishathaim, who was titled in the Bible as ruler of Aram-Naharaim.
Further north, the Arameans gained possession of Neo-Hittite Hamath on the Orontes River and became strong enough to dissociate with the Indo-European-speaking Neo-Hittite states. The Arameans, together with the Edomites and the Ammonites, attacked Israel in the early 11th century BC, but were defeated.
During the 11th and the 10th centuries BC, the Arameans conquered Sam'al and renamed it Bît-Agushi. They also conquered Til Barsip, which became the chief town of Bît-Adini, also known as Beth Eden. North of Sam'al was the Aramean state of Bit Gabbari, which was sandwiched between the Luwian states of Carchemish, Gurgum, Khattina, Unqi and Tabal. One of their earliest semi-independent kingdoms in northern Mesopotamia was Bît-Bahiâni (Tell Halaf).
Under Neo-Assyrian rule
The first certain reference to the Arameans appears in an Assyrian inscription of Tiglath-Pileser I, designating them as the 'Ahlamu of the land Armaya.' Shortly afterward, the Ahlamû disappear from Assyrian annals and are replaced by the Arameans (Aramu, Arimi). That indicates that the Arameans had risen to dominance amongst the nomads. Among scholars, the relationship between the Akhlame and the Arameans is a matter of conjecture. By the late 12th century BC, the Arameans had been firmly established in Syria; however, they were conquered by the Middle Assyrian Empire.
Assyrian annals from the end of the Middle Assyrian Empire c. 1050 BC and the rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 911 BC contain numerous descriptions of battles between Arameans and the Assyrian army. The Assyrians launched repeated raids into Aramean lands, Babylonia, Ancient Iran, Elam, Asia Minor, and even as far as the Mediterranean to keep its trade routes open. The Aramean city-states, like much of the Near East and Asia Minor, were subjugated by the Neo-Assyrian Empire from the reign of in 911 BC, who cleared Arameans and other tribal peoples from the borders of Assyria and began to expand in all directions. The process was continued by Ashurnasirpal II and his son Shalmaneser III, who destroyed many of the small Aramean tribes and conquered Aramean lands for the Assyrians.