In the past, the relatively sudden appearance of the Arameans after the crisis of the twelfth century bc led scholars to look for their beginnings in the second or even the third millennium bc. These allegedly early beginnings, however, were later on discredited and the Arameans are now believed to have been a new presence in the Near Eastern scene of the Iron Age. Admittedly, there have been several misconceptions even regarding their sudden appearance. These misconceptions led to the assumption that the Arameans were part of the migrations of Semitic populations taking place at the end ofthe Late Bronze Age. Moreover, the Arameans have often been compared to the Amorites, who appeared a millennium earlier, and the Arabs, who would appear a millennium later. From this point of view, these three populations were envisioned in opposition to the sedentary Canaanites and connected to each other in a typological and linguistic continuity within a large-scale pattern of migrations from deserts to fertile areas.
As has already been seen for Palestine, in reality the contraposition between new populations and the Canaanites is more social than based on their ‘arrival date’. The Arameans were the offspring of those pastoral groups already inhabiting the region and interacting with the sedentary groups living there. During their expansion following the crisis of the twelfth century bc, they began to integrate with the people already living in the region. This process led to a certain degree of assimilation, although this assimilation happened more with the Canaanites, who spoke a similar language, rather than the Neo-Hittites, Hurrians, Assyrians and Babylonians, who had very different cultures and languages.
From a linguistic point of view, there was a continuity of personal names between Canaanites and Arameans, a continuity that had nothing to do with the significant influence on personal names brought by the Amorites a millennium earlier. Moreover, the linguistic differences existing between Aramaic and Canaanite do not indicate the arrival of new groups, but rather a process of progressive differentiation between the two. These differences were either conservative traits typical of a pastoral environment (which was more conservative than the urban one), such as the retaining of interdentals and the long a (rather than changing it into an o like in Phoenician and Hebrew); or the result of different developments from the same linguistic family, such as in the case of the use of a postpositive rather than the Phoenician and Hebrew prepositive article.
Therefore, the Arameans were the descendants of those tribes known as the Sutians in Syria and the Ahlamu in Upper Mesopotamia, which pursued semi-nomadic pastoral activities (alongside occasional raids) in the Late Bronze Age. The earliest Assyrian sources (eleventh century bc) mentioning the ‘Ahlamu of the land of Armaya’ clearly show the transition from the old to the new reality. Moreover, there are Assyrian sources (Tiglath-Pileser I) claiming that the Assyrians sent the Arameans away to the other side of the Euphrates for 28 times in 14 years. This clearly shows the unstoppable movement of the Arameans against which the imperial armies were ultimately powerless. In fact, they could defeat them in battle, but could not stop this pervasive wave of infiltration.
Due to the impact of the crisis and reformation at the end of the twelfth century bc, there were profound differences between the Sutians and Ahlamu of the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries bc and the Arameans of the eleventh and tenth centuries bc. In terms of demography and settlements, the areas that were not particularly suitable for irrigation (such as semi-arid plateaus, hills and mountains) that declined in the Late Bronze Age suddenly became the preferred areas for Iron Age settlements. Sedentarisation, then, led to a significant change in the areas formerly used as pastureland in the Late Bronze Age and to an increase of settlements in the highlands and the hinterland. On a political level, the local power vacuum created by the crisis of the palaces, and the wider vacuum brought about by the fall of regional powers provided the Arameans with unprecedented opportunities and freedom of action. The changes in agricultural settlements and the new interest of nomadic groups in commercial activities allowed tribes to develop and gain an unprecedented importance. Therefore, having ceased to be marginal groups acting against the economic system of the Bronze Age, in the Iron Age tribes (not just pastoral groups) acquired a new role and considerable wealth. Moreover, the new commercial routes placed the Aramean city-states in Syria at the heart of the Near Eastern commercial network.
Among the Aramean city-states there were: Bet Rehob, Ma‘akah and Geshur in the Upper Jordan; Damascus; Zobah in the Beqa Valley; Hama in the Orontes Valley; Bit Agushi and its capital Arpad in the Aleppo area; Bit Adini and its capital Til Barsip (Tell Ahmar) on the Euphrates; and Ya’udi and its capital Sam’al (Zincirli) in the Taurus foothills. In Upper Mesopotamia the situation was similar, with Bit Bahyani and its capital Guzana (Tell Halaf), Nasibina and other states in the Khabur Triangle and Bit Zamani in the Upper Tigris (Figure 25.1).
Meanwhile, the situation in Lower Mesopotamia was very different. This was due to the marked contrast between the desert and the alluvial plain, and the strong political unity and level of urbanisation of the area. The Aramean tribes thus remained marginalised and had minimal access to cultivated areas, leading to a slow and partial sedentarisation. Instead of becoming states centred on cities, the tribes continued to exist. There were: Laqe in the Middle Euphrates, Hatallu in the Wadi Tharthar, Utuate in the Middle Tigris, Puqudu, Gambulu and other groups to the east of the Lower Tigris. As we will see, the rise of the Chaldeans in Lower Mesopotamia was different in terms of their origins (in that they came from the south), their later arrival in Mesopotamia, their more flourishing economy with several commercial traits and their gravitation towards the old Babylonian cities.
In the Canaanite areas, the Aramean element constituted a local development, characterised by continuity in terms of language and personal names. This continuity facilitated the assimilation of the old nomadic groups and the old agricultural communities into homogeneous national entities. The situation was very different in areas where the Aramean element had to assimilate with completely different cultures. This was the case of the Neo-Hittites of northern Syria, the Hurrians in the Khabur and Upper Tigris, the Assyrians in the Middle Euphrates and Middle Tigris and the Babylonians in Lower Mesopotamia. In these cases, we see a juxtaposition of Aramean and local elements. For instance, Syrian states such as Hama or Sam’al used Aramaic and Neo-Hittite in their texts and personal names, whilst in Lower Mesopotamia, there is a visible distinction between Chaldeans and Babylonians. This distinction, however, does not mean that the urban population marginalised these nomadic groups, but that the new tribal element constituted a political and military elite supported by an unchanged local economy.
On an ideological and institutional level, the kinship model became the core aspect of the territorial state, making blood relations and descendancy (expressed through linguistic and religious affinities) important criteria for social identity. In this regard, the formulas ‘house (bit/bet) of X and ‘sons of X, used to
Figure 25.1 The Arameans in Syria and Upper Mesopotamia, ca. 900—700 bc.
Designate a state and its members, are a clear expression of this phenomenon. The division between a tribal elite and the groups responsible for production is also expressed in the inscriptions from Sam’al. The latter make a clear distinction between the ‘fierce/wild’ (b'rrm), namely, the nobility of nomadic origins and the farmers (mskbm). Similarly, the inscriptions from Sefire distinguish in more general terms the ‘population’ (‘m) from the ‘lords’ (b‘lm). Therefore, the members of the leading family in the city, made of former tribal leaders, ruled this composite entity. The king thus ruled alongside the leaders of the tribal clans he came from. These leaders maintained a certain degree of (mainly kin-based) authority. For this reason, we find the king of Arpad, Matti-El, ruling alongside the ‘kings of Arpad’ and the king of Zobah, Hadad-ezer, with his servants, the ‘kings of Zobah’.
This new type of government followed the procedures characteristic of city-states. On an ideological level, however, it still maintained its kin-based tribal aspects, which had been characteristic of the Amorite phase and were later abandoned in the Late Bronze Age. The king was seen as both mother and father of his people and his main requirements were a sense ofjustice, wisdom and kindness. Moreover, the king became the proclaimer of utopic social changes, such as ‘whoever never saw the face of a sheep, I made him owner of a flock’. The Late Bronze Age gap between rulers and subjects was now in part solved. After all, the reaction to this issue constituted one of the main factors allowing the rise of this new social and political order. Propagandistic expressions therefore marked the renewed attention of the king towards the interests of his subjects. The role of the king was, however, balanced by the role of his subjects, who, through their kin-based hierarchy, were responsible for the selection of the king and the administration of power.
World History
