The Hurrians/Aryans – Armenians
The Hurrians/Aryans
The Hurrians (cuneiform Ḫu-ur-ri) were an ancient people, who spoke a Language Isolate of the Ancient Near East, living in Anatolia and Northern Mesopotamia during the Bronze Age.
Hurrian names occur sporadically in north western Mesopotamia and the area of Kirkuk in modern Iraq by the Middle Bronze Age. Their presence was attested at Nuzi, Urkesh and other sites. They eventually infiltrated and occupied a broad arc of fertile farmland stretching from the Khabur River valley to the foothills of the Zagros Mountains.
The population of the Indo-European speaking Hittite Empire in Anatolia to a large part consisted of Hurrians and Hattians, and there is significant Hurrian influence in Hittite mythology. Hittite (from Hatti), also known as nešili (from Kanesh) was the official language of the Hittite Empire. Hattusa (Ḫa-at-tu-ša) was the capital of the Hittite Empire. By the Early Iron Age, the Hurrians had been assimilated with other peoples, except in the kingdom of Urartu.
Professor Shestokov, a Soviet Russian historian, wrote in 1939: «The oldest states of the Soviet Union were founded 3,000 years ago to the south of Transcaucasia. The oldest among them, that in the Ararat area, by the Lake of Van, was called Urartu. Its kings ruled over Georgian tribes.»
The Khabur River valley became the heart of the Hurrian lands. The first known Hurrian kingdom emerged around the city of Urkesh (modern Tell Mozan) during the third millennium BCE. There is evidence that they were allied with the Akkadian Empire indicating they had a firm hold on the area by the reign of Naram-Sin of Akkad (ca. 2254–2218 BCE). This region hosted other rich cultures (see Tell Halaf and Tell Brak).
The city-state of Urkesh had some powerful neighbors. At some point in the early second millennium BCE, the Amorite kingdom of Mari to the south subdued Urkesh and made it a vassal state. In the continuous power struggles over Mesopotamia, another Amorite dynasty made themselves masters over Mari in the eighteenth century BCE. Shubat-Enlil (modern Tell Leilan), the capital of this Old Assyrian kingdom, was founded some distance from Urkesh at another Hurrian settlement in the Khabur River valley.
The Hurrians also migrated west in this period. By 1725 BCE they are found also in parts of northern Syria, such as Alalakh. The Amoritic-Hurrian kingdom of Yamhad is recorded as struggling for this area with the early Hittite king Hattusilis I around 1600 BCE. Hurrians also settled in the coastal region of Adaniya in the country of Kizzuwatna. Yamhad eventually weakened to the powerful Hittites, but this also opened Anatolia for Hurrian cultural influences. The Hittites were influenced by the Hurrian culture over the course of several centuries.
Urartian, Vannic, and (in older literature) Chaldean (Khaldian, or Haldian) are conventional names for the language spoken by the inhabitants of the ancient kingdom of Urartu that was located in the region of Lake Van, with its capital near the site of the modern town of Van, in the Armenian Highland, modern-day Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey. It was probably spoken by the majority of the population around Lake Van and in the areas along the upper Zab valley.
Ḫaldi (also anglicized as Khaldi) was one of the three chief deities of Ararat (Urartu). The other two chief deities were Theispas of Kumenu, and Shivini of Tushpa. Of all the gods of Ararat (Urartu) panthenon, the most inscriptions are dedicated to him. His wife was the goddess Arubani, the Urartian’s goddess of fertility and art. He is portrayed as a man with or without a beard, standing on a lion.
Khaldi was a warrior god whom the kings of Urartu would pray to for victories in battle. His shrine was at Ardini, Muṣaṣir (Mu-ṣa-ṣir, Akkadian for Exit of the Serpent/Snake ), in Urartian Ardini (likely from Armenian Artin). The temples dedicated to Khaldi were adorned with weapons, such as swords, spears, bow and arrows, and shields hung off the walls and were sometimes known as ‘the house of weapons’.
Shivini or Artinis (the present form of the name is Artin, meaning “sun rising” or to “awake”, and it persists in Armenian names to this day) was a solar god in the mythology of the Urartu. He is the third god in a triad with Khaldi and Theispas. The Assyrian god Shamash is a counterpart to Shivini. He was depicted as a man on his knees, holding up a solar disc. His wife was most likely a goddess called Tushpuea who is listed as the third goddess on the Mheri-Dur inscription. Shivini is generally considered a good god, like that of the Egyptian solar god, Aten, and unlike the solar god of the Assyrians, Ashur to whom sometimes human sacrifices were made.
Theispas (also known as Teisheba or Teišeba) of Kumenu was the Araratian (Urartian) weather-god, notably the god of storms and thunder. He was also sometimes the god of war. He formed part of a triad along with Khaldi and Shivini. The ancient Araratian cities of Teyseba and Teishebaini were named after Theispas. He is a counterpart to the Assyrian god Adad, and the Hurrian god, Teshub. He was often depicted as a man standing on a bull, holding a handful of thunderbolts. His wife was the goddess Huba, who was the counterpart of the Hurrian goddess Hebat.
Inscriptions show that the Urartuans had at least 79 different gods known to the Urartians and Hurrians- and this conglomeration of gods were called “Khaldis” (Chaldees). In the inscription of Argistis near Van,it states: “This is the spoil of the cities which I obtained for the people of the Khaldis in one year. To Khaldis, the giver, to the Khaidises, the supreme givers, the children of Khaldis the mighty…”
From this we can derive that the Pantheon – the Khaldis – may also refer to a sphere of religion or cultural influence of a particular way of life the people of the area followed. This Pantheon was the traditional religion in the area.
The Chaldeans, or the Urartians, from which came the name Ararat, is the first known inhabitants of central and eastern Turkey and Armenia. inhabited the area of Pontus and Cappadocia, located in modern Turkey. They lived in the northern area of Anatolia known as Chaldia, near the shores of the Black Sea and as far south as eastern Asia Minor.
The Greeks evidently used the name for all of the inhabitants of the Pontus who traded in iron ore; in some cases we might suspect that the Moschi and/or the Chaldeans were foreign designations for the Chaldians (Halitu) who lived between the Tibareni in the west, the Mosynoeci in the north, and the Matieni in the southeast.
The Chaldeans, Mossynoikoi, and Tubal/Tabal/Tibareni are counted among the first ironsmith nations by classical authors. The tribe’s name in Greek, means “tempered iron, steel”, a term that passed into Latin as chalybs, “steel”. Sayce derived the Greek name Chalybe from Hittite Khaly-wa, “land of Halys”.
Chaldea or Chaldaea was at the same time a marshy land located in south eastern Mesopotamia which came to rule Babylon briefly. Tribes of Semitic settlers who arrived in the region from the 10th Century BC became known as the Chaldeans or the Chaldees. The region in which the Chaldeans settled was in the southern portion of Babylonia, lying chiefly on the right bank of the Euphrates.
It is not certain when they migrated at an unknown period into the country of the Mesopotamian sea-lands about the head of the Persian Gulf. They seem to have appeared there at about the same time that other new Semitic peoples, the Arameans and the Sutu appeared in Babylonia, circa 1000 BC. This was a period of weakness in Babylonia, and its ineffectual kings were unable to prevent new waves of peoples invading and settling in the land. Though belonging to the same Semitic ethnic group, they are to be differentiated from the Aramean stock.
Though the name came to be commonly used to refer to the whole of southern Mesopotamia, Chaldea proper was in fact the vast plain in the far south east formed by the deposits of the Euphrates and the Tigris, extending to about four hundred miles along the course of these rivers, and about a hundred miles in average width.
The Chaldeans, like the rest of Mesopotamia and much of the ancient Near East and Asia Minor, from the 10th to late 7th centuries BC, came to be dominated by the vast Assyrian Empire, based in northern Mesopotamia. The Chaldean king Merodach-Baladan allied with the Elamites during the 8th century BC in numerous failed attempts to wrest Babylon from the Assyrians.
In 626 BC, following the death of Ashurbanipal, a series of bitter wars broke out in the Assyrian Empire over who should rule. These wars greatly weakened the empire. Sensing this weakness, the Chaldeans, Babylonians, Medes and Persians, Scythians and Cimmerians formed a coalition and attacked the Assyrian Empire in 616 BC. In 612 BC they destroyed Nineveh, Harran fell in 609 BC, and the last Assyrian army at Carchemish in 605 BC.
The short-lived 11th dynasty of the Kings of Babylon (6th century BC) is conventionally known to historians as the Chaldean Dynasty, although only the first four rulers of this dynasty were known to be Chaldeans, and the last ruler, Nabonidus (and his son and regent Belshazzar) was known to be from Assyria.
The Babylonians were the late comers and a splinter group of the Chaldees, who came down from Northern Mesopotamia and Syria. They were from the same ancient group of people as the “Arameans”. They had great knowledge, especially in astronomy/astrology. It was the Chaldeans that gave the knowledge of astronomy/astrology to the Babylonians.
Hurrian and Urartian languages must have developed quite independently from approximately 2000 BCE onwards. Although Urartian is not a direct continuation of any of the attested dialects of Hurrian, many of its features are best explained as innovative developments with respect to Hurrian as we know it from the preceding millennium. The closeness holds especially true of the so-called Old Hurrian dialect, known above all from Hurro-Hittite bilingual texts.
Aleppo appears in historical records as an important city much earlier than Damascus. Aleppo has scarcely been touched by archaeologists, since the modern city occupies its ancient site. The site has been occupied from around 5000 BC, as excavations in Tallet Alsauda show. The first record of Aleppo comes from the third millennium BC, when Aleppo was the capital of an independent kingdom closely related to Ebla, known as Armi to Ebla and Armani to the Akkadians.
Ebla, modern Tell Mardikh, between Aleppo and Hama, in western modern Syria, was an ancient city about 55 km southwest of Aleppo. It was an important city-state in two periods, first in the late third millennium BC, then again between 1800 and 1650 BC.
The site is most famous for the Ebla tablets, an archive of about 20,000 cuneiform tablets found there, dated from around 2250 BC, written in Sumerian script to record the Eblaite language – a previously unknown language that is now the earliest attested Semitic language after the closely related Akkadian.
Eblaite is an Eastern Semitic language like Akkadian, indeed it may be very close to pre-Sargonic Akkadian. It is an extinct Semitic language, which was spoken in the 3rd millennium BC in the ancient city of Ebla. The language is known from about 5,000 tablets written with cuneiform script which were found between 1974 and 1976 in the ruins of the city of Ebla.
About 80% of the tablets are written using the usual Sumerian combination of logograms and phonetic signs, while the others exhibited an innovative, purely phonetic representation using Sumerian cuneiform of a previously unknown Semitic language, which was called Eblaite.
Bilingual Sumerian/Eblaite vocabulary lists were found among the tablets, allowing them to be translated. Ebla’s close link to southern Mesopotamia, where the script had developed, further highlights the links between the Sumerians and Semitic cultures at that time.
The name “Ebla” means “White Rock”, and refers to the limestone outcrop on which the city was built. Although the site shows signs of continuous occupation from before 3000 BC, its power grew and reached its apogee in the second half of the following millennium. Ebla’s first apogee was between ca. 2400 and 2240 BC; its name is mentioned in texts from Akkad from ca. 2300 BC.
Armani; Arman or Armu, was an important Bronze Age city-kingdom during the late third millennium BC located in northern Syria, identified with the city of Aleppo. Aleppo was the capital of the independent kingdom closely related to Ebla, known as Armi to Ebla and Arman or Armani to the Akkadians. Armi is described as Ebla’s alter ego. Naram-Sin of Akkad (or his grandfather Sargon) destroyed both Ebla and Armani in the 23rd century BC.
In the Old Babylonian period, Aleppo’s name appears as Ḥalab (Ḥalba) for the first time. Aleppo was the capital of the important Amorite dynasty of Yamḥad. The kingdom of Yamḥad (ca. 1800-1600 BC), alternatively known as the land of Ḥalab, was the most powerful in the Near East at the time.
Yamḥad was destroyed by the Hittites under Mursilis I in the 16th century BC. However, Aleppo soon resumed its leading role in Syria when the Hittite power in the region waned due to internal strife.
Taking advantage of the power vacuum in the region, Parshatatar, king of the Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni, conquered Aleppo in the 15th century BC. Subsequently, Aleppo found itself on the frontline in the struggle between the Mitanni and the Hittites and Egypt.
The Hittite Suppiluliumas I permanently defeated Mitanni and conquered Aleppo in the 14th century BC. Aleppo had cultic importance to the Hittites for being the center of worship of the Storm-God.
Amorite MAR.TU, Akkadian Tidnum or Amurrūm, Egyptian Amar, refers to an ancient Semitic-speaking people from ancient Syria who also occupied large parts of Mesopotamia from the 21st Century BC. The term Amurru in Akkadian and Sumerian texts refers to them, as well as to their principal deity.
In the earliest Sumerian sources, beginning about 2400 BC, the land of the Amorites (“the MAR.TU land”) is associated not with Mesopotamia but with lands immediately to the West, including what is now modern Syria and Canaan. They appear as nomadic people in the Mesopotamian sources, and they are especially connected with the mountainous region of Jebel Bishri in Syria called the “mountain of the Amorites”.
This term appears in Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, which describes it in the time of Enmerkar as one of the regions inhabited by speakers of a different language. Another text known as Lugalbanda and the Anzud bird describes how, fifty years into Enmerkar’s reign, the Martu people arose in Sumer and Akkad, necessitating the building of a wall to protect Uruk.
The ethnic terms Amurru and Amar were used for them in the Akkadian Empire, Assyria and Egypt respectively. From the 21st century BC and likely triggered by the 22nd century BC drought, a large-scale migration of Amorite tribes infiltrated Mesopotamia. They were one of the instruments of the downfall of the Sumerian Third Dynasty of Ur, and acquired a series of powerful kingdoms, including the founding of Babylon as a state, culminating in the triumph under Hammurabi of one of them, that of Babylon.
Amoritic is known exclusively from non-Akkadian proper names recorded by Akkadian scribes during periods of Amorite rule in Babylonia (end of the 3rd and beginning of the 2nd millennium). Occasionally such names are also found in early Egyptian texts; and one place-name – “Sənīr” for Mount Hermon — is known from the Bible (Deut. 3:9), and oddly enough may be Indo-European in origin (possibly due to Hittite influence).
Amorites (mostly those of Mari) wrote in a dialect of Akkadian found on tablets at Mari dating from 1800–1750 BC, and to a lesser extent Alalakh, Tell Harmal, and Khafajah. Since the language shows many northwest Semitic forms and constructions, the Amorite language was presumably an early northwest Semitic language.
There are also sparse mentions in tablets from Ebla, dating from 2500 BC to the destruction of the city ca. 2250 BC. From the perspective of Ebla, the Amorites were a rural group living in the narrow basin of the middle and upper Euphrates. For the Akkadian kings was MAR.TU one of the “Four Quarters” surrounding Akkad, along with Subartu, Sumer, and Elam. The Akkadian king Naram-Sin records successful campaigns against them in northern Syria ca. 2240 BC, and his successor Shar-Kali-Sharri followed suit.
By the time of the last days of the Sumerian Ur III empire, immigrating Amorites had become such a force that kings such as Shu-Sin were obliged to construct a 170 miles (270 km) long wall from the Tigris to the Euphrates to hold them off.
These Amorites appear as nomadic clans ruled by fierce tribal chiefs, who forced themselves into lands they needed to graze their herds. Some of the Akkadian literature of this era speaks disparagingly of the Amorites, and implies that the Akkadians and Sumerians viewed their nomadic way of life with disgust and contempt, for example:
Mari (modern Tell Hariri, Syria) has been classified by the archaeologists as the “most westerly outpost of Sumerian culture”. It was an ancient Sumerian and Amorite city, located 11 kilometers north-west of the modern town of Abu Kamal on the western bank of Euphrates river, some 120 km southeast of Deir ez-Zor, Syria.
Mari is thought to have been inhabited since the 5th millennium BC, although it flourished with series of superimposed palaces that spans a thousand years, from 2900 BC until 1759 BC, when it was sacked by Hammurabi.
Mari had been inhabited since the 5th millennium BC, but the real significance of the city was during the third and second millennia BC. The city flourished from about 2900 BC, since it was strategically important as a relay point between the Sumerian cities of lower Mesopotamia, and the cities of northern Syria. Sumer required building materials such as timber and stone from northern Syria, and these materials had to go through Mari to get to Sumer.
The growth of the city from a small village to an important trading center was due to its diverse economy in the ancient world. The city came to control the trade lanes between different regions such as western Iran, Mesopotamia, Carchemish, and parts of Anatolia. Cities that Mari is confirmed to have traded with include Ur, Aleppo, and Ugarit.
The citizens of Mari were well known for elaborate hair styles and dress, and were considered to be part of Mesopotamian culture, It is theorized by some that Mari functioned as a trading post for southern Mesopotamia. Through Mari’s extensive trade network, Sumerian gods and goddesses were taken to non-Sumerian cities such as Ebla and Ugarit and incorporated into their native religions.
After a period of eminence, Mari was destroyed in the mid-24th century BC. This destruction brought a period of relative decline in importance in the region, and the city was reduced to no more than a small village. Historians are divided as to who destroyed the city; some name Sargon of Akkad (who stated that he had passed through Mari on his famous campaign to the west), while others say it was the Eblaites, Mari’s traditional commercial rivals.
The status of the city was revived again under an Amorite dynasty. Amorites, a Semitic people, also set up dynasties in Assyria and Babylon during this period. The second golden age commenced around 1900 BC.
Mari was destroyed again around 1759 BC by Hammurabi, sixth king of Babylon. This is known from the numerous state archives tablets that recount Hammurabi turning on his old ally Zimrilim, and defeating him in battle. After this destruction, it was inhabited sporadically by Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians but the city remained a village until the arrival of the Greeks, and vanished from history thereafter.
Since the beginning of excavations, over 25,000 clay tablets in Akkadian language written in cuneiform, which give information about the kingdom of Mari, its customs, and the names of people who lived during that time, has been discovered in Mari.
Almost all of the tablets found were dated to the last 50 years of Mari’s independence (ca. 1800-1750 BC). Contemporary archives have been found, among others, in Tell Leilan in the Upper Khabur area and Tell Shemshara in the Zagros Mountains.
Tell Leilan is an archaeological site situated near the Wadi Jarrah in the Khabur River basin in Al-Hasakah Governorate, northeastern Syria. The city originated around 5000 BC as a small farming village and grew to be a large city ca. 2600 BC, three hundred years before the Akkadian Empire. During the late third millennium, the site was known as Shekhna.
A 3-foot layer of sediment at Tell Leilan containing no evidence of human habitation offered clues as to the cause of the demise of the Akkadian imperialized city; analysis indicated that at around 2200 BC, a three-century drought was severe enough to affect agriculture and settlement.
The conquest of the region by Shamshi-Adad I (1813–1781 BC) revived the abandoned site of Tell Leilan. The Assyrian king Shamshi-Adad saw the great potential in the rich agricultural production of the region and made it the capital city of his empire of northern Mesopotamia. He renamed it from Shehna to Shubat-Enlil, or Šubat-Enlil, meaning “the residence of the god Enlil” in the Akkadian language. The city prospered until the king Samsu-iluna of Babylon sacked it in 1726 BC. Shubat-Enlil was never reoccupied.
Tell Shemshara is an archaeological site located along the Little Zab, a tributary of the Tigris, in Sulaymaniyah Governorate, northeastern Iraq. The excavations showed that the site was occupied, although not continuously, from the Hassuna period (early sixth millennium BCE) until the 14th century CE.
A small archive recovered from the Middle Bronze Age layers (early second millennium BCE) revealed that, at least in that period, the site was called Shusharra and was the capital of a small, semi-independent polity. Its strategic location in the northeastern corner of the Ranya Plain in the Zagros Mountains gave Shemshara control over travelling routes in all directions, particularly toward the north and east.
Pottery, which has only been found in abundance in layers 13–9, shows stylistic links with that of Hassuna and Tell es-Sawwan. Obsidian was the preferred material for stone tools, with flint making up only 15 percent of the total assemblage. Whereas the flint was procured locally, the obsidian was obtained from two sources in eastern Turkey – one as yet unidentified, the other one being the volcanic Nemrut Dağ more than 300 kilometres away from Shemshara.
Whereas the main mound seems to have been abandoned after the Hassuna occupation, scarce archaeological material from the Uruk (fourth millennium BCE) and Jemdet Nasr periods (early third millennium BCE) has been found on the lower town.
Both the main mound and the lower extension were re-occupied during the Middle Bronze Age (early second millennium BCE). The palace was destroyed by fire, and through analysis of the archive it has been proposed that this happened in year 30 of the reign of Shamshi-Adad I in the first quarter of the 18th century BCE. I became a vassal of Shamshi-Adad, who at that time had already conquered Mari and Shubat-Enlil and was now campaigning in the Zagros Mountains.
In general terms, Mesopotamian civilization survived the arrival of Amorites, as the indigenous Sumerian-Akkadian civilization had survived domination during the restless period that had preceded the rise of the Third Dynasty of Ur.
The religious, ethical, and artistic directions in which Mesopotamia had been developing since earliest times, were not greatly impacted by the Amorites’ hegemony. They continued to worship the Sumerian gods, and the older Sumerian myths and epic tales were piously copied, translated, or adapted, generally with only minor alterations. As for the scarce artistic production of the period, there is little to distinguish it from the preceding Ur III era.
The eras of the Amorite kingdoms, ca. 2000–1595 BC, is sometimes known as the “Amorite period” in Mesopotamian history. The principal Amorite dynasties arose in Mari, Yamkhad, Qatna, Assyria (under Shamshi-Adad I), Isin, Larsa, and also Babylon, which was founded as an independent state by an Amorite named Sumuabum in 1894 BC.
This era ended in northern Mesopotamia with the expulsion of the Amorite dominated Babylonians from Assyria by king Adasi circa 1720 BC, and in the south with the Hittite sack of Babylon (c. 1595 BC) which brought new ethnic groups – particularly Kassites – to the forefront in southern Mesopotamia. From the 15th century BC onward, the term Amurru is usually applied to the region extending north of Canaan as far as Kadesh on the Orontes.
The Kassites gained control of Babylonia after the Hittite sack of the city in 1585 BC, and estabilshed a dynasty based in Dur-Kurigalzu. The Kassites were members of a small military aristocracy but were efficient rulers and not locally unpopular, and their 500 year reign laid an essential groundwork for the development of subsequent Babylonian culture. The horse, which the Kassites worshiped, first came into use in Babylonia at this time.
The Hittites had carried off the idol of the god Marduk, but the Kassite rulers regained possession, returned Marduk to Babylon, and made him the equal of the Kassite Shuqamuna.
The Kassite language is thought to have been related to Hurrian, and not Indo-European or Semitic although the evidence for its genetic affiliation is meager due to the scarcity of extant texts. However, several Kassite leaders bore Indo-European names, and they might have had an Indo-European elite similliar to the Mitanni.
After their expulsion from Mesopotamia, the Amorites of Syria came under the domination of first the Hittites and from the 14th century BC, the Assyrians. They appear to have been displaced or absorbed by a new wave of semi nomadic Semites, the Arameans, from circa 1200 BC onwards. And from this period the region they had inhabited became known as Aram (Aramea).
The Arameans, or Aramaeans were a Northwest Semitic semi-nomadic and pastoralist people who originated in what is now modern Syria (Biblical Aram) during the Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age. Large groups migrated to Mesopotamia where they intermingled with the native Akkadian (Assyrian and Babylonian) population.
The Arameans never had a unified nation; they were divided into small independent kingdoms across parts of the Near East, particularly in what is now modern Syria. After the Bronze Age collapse, their political influence was confined to a number of Syro-Hittite states, which were entirely absorbed into the Neo-Assyrian Empire by the 8th century BC.
By contrast, the Aramaic language came to be the lingua franca of the entire Fertile Crescent, by Late Antiquity developing into the literary languages such as Syriac and Mandaic. Scholars have used the term “Aramaization” for the process by which the Akkadian/Assyro-Babylonian peoples became Aramaic-speaking during the later Iron Age.
The origin of the Arameans is still uncertain, arising from the limited amount of evidence regarding the mention of Arameans in Mesopotamian inscriptions. The toponym A-ra-mu appears in an inscription at Ebla listing geographical names, and the term Armi, which is the Eblaite term for nearby Aleppo, occurs frequently in the Ebla tablets (ca. 2300 BC).
One of the annals of Naram-Sin of Akkad (c. 2250 BC) mentions that he captured “Dubul, the ensi 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 little agreement concerning what, if any, relationship there was between these places, or if the Aramu were actually Arameans; the earliest undisputed mention of Arameans as a people is in the inscriptions of Tiglath Pileser I (c. 1100 BC).
Nomadic pastoralists have always been a feature of the Middle East, but their numbers seem to vary according to climatic conditions and the force of neighbouring states inducing permanent settlement.
The period of the Late Bronze Age seems to have been one of increasing aridity, weakening neighbouring states, and inducing transhumance pastoralists to spend longer and longer periods with their flocks. Urban settlements diminished in size, until eventually fully nomadic pastoralist lifestyles came to dominate the region.
These highly mobile, competitive tribesmen with their sudden raids, were a continued threat to long distance trade and interfered with the collection of taxes and tribute. In the early 14th century BC, much of Israel was under Arameans rule for eight years according to the Biblical Book of Judges, until Othniel defeated the forces led by Chushan-Rishathaim, the King of Aram-Naharaim. Other entities mentioned in the Hebrew Bible include Aram Damascus and Aram Rehob.
The Ahlamû (= wanderers) are first mentioned in the el-Amarna letters alluding to the king of Babylon; the presence of the Ahlamû are also attested in Assyria, Nippur and even at Dilmun (Bahrain); Shalmaneser I (1274-1245 BC) defeated the Shattuara, King of Mitanni and his Hittite and Ahlamû mercenaries are mentioned in the Jazirah.
The term appears equivalent to the Egyptian term Shasu (Shsw = wanderer), who replaced the outlaw ‘Apiru (cuneiform SA.GAZ) as the major source of instability in the Egyptian Levantine empire from the reign of Tutankhamun onwards.
In the following century, the Ahlamû cut the road from Babylon to Hattusas, and Tukulti-Ninurta I (1244-1208 BC) claims that he conquered Mari, Hana and Rapiqum on the Euphrates and “the mountain of the Ahlamû”, apparently the region of Jebel Bishri.
For the first time, an inscription of Tiglath-Pileser I (1115-1077 BC) refers to the “Ahlamû-Aramaeans” (Ahlame Armaia) and shortly after, the Ahlamû rapidly disappear from Assyrian annals, to be replaced by the Aramaeans (Aramu, Arimi).
“Ahlamû-Aramaeans” would consider the Arameans as an important and in time dominant faction of the Ahlamû tribes, however it is possible that the two peoples had nothing in common, but operated in the same area.
It is conceivable that the name “Aramaeans” was a more accurate form of the earlier ethnonym Martu (Amorites, westerners) in the Assyrian tablets.
The Arameans were, in the 11th century BC, established in Syria. The Bible tells us that Saul, David and Solomon (late 11th to 10th centuries) fought against the Arameans kingdoms across the northern frontier of Israel: Aram-Sôvah in the Beq’a, Aram-Bêt-Rehob and Aram-Ma’akah around Mount Hermon, Geshur in the Hauran, and Aram-Damascus.
An Arameans 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. Farther north, the Arameans were in possession of Hamath on the Orontes and were soon to become strong enough to dissociate with the Neo-Hittite block.
The largest and most influential partly Hurrian nation was the kingdom of Mitanni. This kingdom was known as the Maryannu, Nahrin or Mitanni to the Egyptians, Hurri to the Hittites and Hanigalbat to the Assyrians. Egyptian sources call Mitanni “nhrn”, which also is the name used for the river Eufrath, and which is usually pronounced as Naharin/Naharina from the Assyro-Akkadian word for “river”.
Aram-Naharaim is a region that is mentioned five times in the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament. It is commonly identified with Nahrima mentioned in three tablets of the Amarna correspondence as a geographical description of the kingdom of Mitanni.
In Genesis, it is used somewhat interchangeably with the names Paddan Aram and Haran to denote the place where Abraham stayed briefly with his father Terah’s family after leaving Ur of the Chalees, while en route to Canaan (Gen. 11:31), and the place to which later patriarchs obtained wives, rather than marry daughters of Canaan.
Paddan Aram refers to the part of Aram-Naharaim along the upper Euphrates, while Haran is mainly identified with the ancient city of Harran on the Balikh River. According to one rabbinical Jewish tradition, the birthplace of Abraham (Ur) was also situated in Aram-Naharaim.
Aram is usually regarded as being the eponymous ancestor of the Aramean people of Northern Mesopotamia and Syria.
One translation of the name “Aram-Naharaim” is “Aram of Two Rivers”. The actual rivers referred to are not explicitly named in the Bible, although it is generally agreed that the first was the Upper Euphrates. The name Nahrima in the Amarna letters denoted the region of the Upper Euphrates and its tributaries – the Balikh and the Khabur rivers.
Both Josephus and the Septuagint translate the name as Mesopotamia. Ancient writers elsewhere used the name “Mesopotamia” for all the land between the Tigris and Euphrates. However the usage of the Hebrew name “Aram-Naharaim” does not match this general usage of “Mesopotamia”, the former being used exclusively for a northern region.
The Book of Jubilees places Aram’s portion between the Tigris and Euphrates, but lying north of the Chaldeans (Jubilees 9:5): And for Aram there came forth the fourth portion, all the land of Mesopotamia [Naharaim] between the Tigris and the Euphrates to the north of the Chaldees to the border of the mountains of Asshur and the land of Arara (Ararat/Urartu).
The translation of the name as “Mesopotamia” was not consistent – the Septuagint also uses a more precise translation “Mesopotamia of Syria” as well as “Rivers of Syria”. Josephus refers to the subjects of Chusan, king of Aram Naharaim, as “Assyrians”.
In Hebrew Ashur denotes the region of Assyria containing the Tigris and is listed as distinct from Aram Naharaim in Jubilees. Aram Naharaim lay west of Ashur as it contained Haran. Haran itself lies on the west bank of the Balikh, east of the Upper Euphrates.
The traditional Jewish location of Ur Kasdim (at Edessa) and the Balikh itself lie west of the Khabur implying that the second river was understood to be the latter by those maintaining this tradition. Jubilees however associates the city of Ur Kesed (Ur Kasdim) not with the descendants of Aram who received Aram Naharaim as an inheritance, but rather with those of Arpachshad, his brother, who was Abram’s ancestor.
Both Jonathan ben Uzziel and Onkelos translate Aram Naharaim “Aram which is on the Euphrates” as Joshua explicitly stated: ‘Long ago your ancestors lived on the other side of the Euphrates.’ (Joshua 24, 2-3)
Mitanni (Mi-ta-an-ni, also Mittani Mi-it-ta-ni) or Hanigalbat (Assyrian Hanigalbat (An-i-gal-bat), Khanigalbat (Ka-ni-gal-bat – Kanesh (Neša)/Kültepe) was an Hurrian-speaking state in northern Syria and south-east Anatolia from ca. 1500 BC–1300 BC.
Some theonyms, proper names and other terminology of the Mitanni are considered to form part of an Indo-Aryan superstrate, suggesting that an Indo-Aryan elite imposed itself over the Hurrian population in the course of the Indo-Aryan expansion.
The names of the Mitanni aristocracy frequently are of Indo-Aryan origin, though some think that they are more immediately related to the Kassites, an Near Eastern people who gained control of Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire after ca. 1531 BC to ca. 1155 BC.
In a treaty between the Hittites and the Mitanni (between Suppiluliuma and Shattiwaza, ca. 1380 BC), the deities Mitra, Varuna, Indra, and Nasatya (Ashvins) are invoked. The Mitanni warriors were called marya (Hurrian: maria-nnu), the term for (young) warrior in Sanskrit as well.
Mithra (Avestan: Miθpa) is the Zoroastrian divinity (yazata) of covenant and oath. In addition to being the divinity of contracts, Mithra is also a judicial figure, an all-seeing protector of Truth, and the guardian of cattle, the harvest and of The Waters.
Archaeologists have attested a striking parallel in the spread to Syria of a distinct pottery type associated with what they call the Kura-Araxes culture, a civilization that existed from 3400 BC until about 2000 BC, and Mitanni.
The earliest evidence for this culture is found on the Ararat plain; thence it spread to Georgia by 3000 BC (but never reaching Colchis), and during the next millennium it proceeded westward to the Erzerum plain, southwest to Cilicia, and to the southeast into an area below the Urmia basin and Lake Van, and finally down to the borders of present day Syria. Altogether, the early Trans-Caucasian culture, at its greatest spread, enveloped a vast area approximately 1,000 km by 500 km.
Hurrian and Urartian elements are quite probable, as are Northeast Caucasian ones. Some authors subsume Hurrians and Urartians under Northeast Caucasian as well as part of the Alarodian theory. The presence of Kartvelian languages was also highly probable. Influences of Semitic languages and Indo-European languages are also highly possible, though the presence of the languages on the lands of the Kura–Araxes culture is more controversial.
In the Armenian hypothesis of Indo-European origins, this culture (and perhaps that of the Maykop culture) is identified with the speakers of the Anatolian languages.
The Yamna culture is identified with the late Proto-Indo-Europeans (PIE), and is one candidate for the Urheimat (homeland) of the Proto-Indo-European language, along with the preceding Sredny Stog culture.
The Yamna cultures of ca. 3200-2800 BC might represent the Greek-Armenian-“Aryan”(=Indo-Iranian) ancestors (Graeco-Aryan, Graeco-Armenian), and the Catacomb culture (ca. 2800-2200 BC) that of the “unified” (to ca. 2500 BC) and then “differentiated” Indo-Iranians.
The earlier history of the Armenian language is unclear and the subject of much speculation. It is clear that Armenian is an Indo-European language, but its development is opaque. In any case, Armenian has many layers of loanwords and shows traces of long language contact with Hurro-Urartian, Greek and Indo-Iranian.
The Armenians are an amalgam of the Hurrians (and Urartians) and Hattians, the Anatolian Luvians and Hettites, and the Mushki, or Armeno-Phrygians, who carried their IE language eastwards across Anatolia.
Two different groups are called Muški in the Assyrian sources, one from the 12th to 9th centuries, the Eastern Mushki, and the other in the 8th to 7th centuries, the Western Mushki. Assyrian sources identify the Western Mushki with the Phrygians, while Greek sources clearly distinguish between Phrygians and Moschoi.
It is believed that the Phrygians, an ancient Indo-European people, initially coming from the Indoeuropean Urheimat to the southern Balkans, migrated to Anatolia via the Hellespont. The state of Phrygia arose in the 8th century BC with its capital at Gordium. During this period, the Phrygians extended eastward and encroached upon the kingdom of Urartu, the descendants of the Hurrians, a former rival of the Hittites.
Hayasa-Azzi or Azzi-Hayasa was a Late Bronze Age confederation formed between two kingdoms of Anatolia, Hayasa and Azzi. The Hayasa-Azzi confederation were in conflict with the Hittite Empire in the 14th century BC, leading up to the collapse of Hatti around 1290 BC.
After the Phrygian invasion of Hittites the Armeno-Phrygians settled in Hayasa-Azzi, where they merged with the local people, who were possibly already spread within the western regions of Urartu. After the fall of the latter, and the rise of the Kingdom of Armenia under the Artaxiad dynasty, Hayasan nobility (the armenians) assumed control of the region and the people would have adopted their language to complete the amalgamation of the proto-Armenians, giving birth to the nation of Armenia as we know it today.
The similarity of the name Hayasa to the endonym of the Armenians, Hayk or Hay and the Armenian name for Armenia, Hayastan has prompted the suggestion that the Hayasa-Azzi confereration was involved in the Armenian ethnogenesis.
After the Proto-Armenian king Shattuara of Mitanni was defeated by Adad-nirari I of Assyria in the early 13th century BC, he then became ruler of a reduced vassal state known as Shubria or Subartu.
The Arme-Shupria people were local people who lived in the area at the time of the arrival of the Indo-European tribes. The name Shupria (Shubria) or Arme-Shupria (Sumerian: Shubur, Akkadian: Armani-Subartu) for the region is attested from the time of the earliest Mesopotamian records (mid 3rd millennium BC).
Arme-Shupria was a Proto-Armenian kingdom located in the Armenian Highland, to the southwest of Lake Van, bordering on Ararat proper. The name Arme or Armani has been linked to the name Armenia. From the point of view of the Akkadian Empire, Subartu marked the northern geographical horizon, just as Martu, Elem and Sumer marked “west”, “east” and “south”, respectively.
The Sumerian mythological epic Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, one of a series of accounts describing the conflicts between Enmerkar, king of Unug-Kulaba (Uruk), and the unnamed king of Aratta (probably somewhere in modern Iran or Armenia, lists the countries where the “languages are confused” as Subartu, Hamazi, Sumer, Uri-ki, and the Martu land.
Similarly, the earliest references to the “four quarters” by the kings of Akkad name Subartu as one of these quarters around Akkad, along with Martu, Elam, and Sumer. Subartu in the earliest texts seem to have been farming mountain dwellers, frequently raided for slaves.
Eannatum of Lagash was said to have smitten Subartu or Shubur, and it was listed as a province of the empire of Lugal-Anne-Mundu; in a later era Sargon of Akkad campaigned against Subar, and his grandson Naram-Sin listed Subar along with Armani (Armenians) among the lands under his control. Ishbi-Erra of Isin and Hammurabi also claimed victories over Subar.
Nairi was the Assyrian name (Na-i-ri, also Na-‘i-ru) for an Armenian tribe in the Armenian Highlands, roughly corresponding to the modern Van and Hakkâri provinces of modern Turkey. Nairi has sometimes been equated with Nihriya, known from Mesopotamian, Hittite, and Urartean sources. However, its co-occurrence with Nihriya within a single text may argue against this.
During the Bronze Age collapse (13th to 12th centuries BC), the Nairi tribes were considered a force strong enough to contend with both Assyria and Hatti. The Battle of Nihriya, the culminating point of the hostilities between Hittites and Assyrians for control over the remnants of the former empire of Mitanni, took place there, circa 1230. The Nairi tribes may have been a Hurrian tribe, related to contemporary Mitanni. Nairi was incorporated into Urartu during the 10th century BC.
It is believed that Nairi extended from the Tur-Abdin mountains in the south to the mountainous area southwest of Lake Van in the north. The Nairi fought against the southern incursions of the Assyrians and would later unite into Urartu.
Together with Armani-Subartu (Hurri-Mitanni), Hayasa-Azzi and other Indo-European populations of the region such as the Nairi fell under Kingdom of Ararat rule in the 9th century BC, and their descendants later contributed to the ethnogenesis of the early Armenians.
The invading Indo-Europeans called themselves the Hayatsa people and came in time to dominate the Armenian highland and assimilate the Arme-Shuprias.
According to De Morgan: “These newly settled Armenians would live with an imperturbable will in their newly conquered country for centuries and defend it with their inborn courage, language and their customs up until the present day, while almost every other people, whom the Armenians came to make acquaintance with during their childhood, disappeared slowly in history.”
After arriving in its historical territory, Proto-Armenian would appear to have undergone massive influence on part the languages it eventually replaced. Armenian phonology, for instance, appears to have been greatly affected by Urartian, which may suggest a long period of bilingualism.
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