The Arameans – Universal History

In the 13th century B.C. C. (around the year 1279), the king of Babylon complained about the bands of the akhlamuthat is to say, of the nomads that later, according to the nickname of one of their clans, would be called aramu either arameansalthough it is also possible that these nomadic bands were made up of a group of different peoples with a common ethnic origin and with related Semitic dialects.
These akhlamu They were sometimes bands of mercenaries, necessary in the service of a power (such as the Hittites), as groups that operated on their own, and it is also possible that they engaged in completely peaceful activities, working in isolated groups, as laborers, on farms.
His perfect knowledge of the desert also made nomads in general (both akhlamu Like the suteos or others) were excellent guides for long journeys.
Assyria, with Tiglat-Pileser I (1115-1077), had reached one of the heights of its power, but also, the permanent threat that the nomads had weighed, many centuries before, on all of Mesopotamia., area fertile and rich, which by force would have to tempt them. Now pushed from west to east by the Invasion of the Sea Peoples and driven by the need to survive, the desert nomads will transform into a defined political entity: the arameans.
Tiglath-Pi-leser I of Assyria was forced to undertake fourteen military campaigns to try to drive them east across the Euphrates to Kar-kemish, from where they scattered south. to the region of Palmyra.
After Tigiat-Pileser I, the Assyrian power suffered a period of stagnation, followed by an inevitable decline, since the sons and/or successors of this king were not up to his task and the multiple alliances that with so much effort had managed to establish the great Assyrian king will be undone, one after another
During this time, in the southern plain of Mesopotamia. the Arameans were lords and masters of Babylon, where one of their chiefs had become king and approximately a century after Tiglath-Pileser I, the Arameans fought against the Israelite kings Saul and David for hegemony in the area of ​​Lebanon and Transjordan northern.

Aramaic migration

Also the occupation of Palestine by the Israelites is integrated into this historical event of great repercussion that is the movement of the Semitic peoples.
Hebrew, Aramaic, Canaanite, Amorite, and Arabic are both Semitic languages ​​of the Western group, appearing at the same time in the border regions of Syria and Palestine and even in Mesopotamia, on the upper reaches of the Euphrates and Tigris. where we find them cited in the royal inscriptions of the Assyrian Middle Kingdom and with equal frequency in the Old Testament, where the Biblical tradition links Aramaeans and Hebrews, making Jacob (Israel) a wandering Aramaic, although from the time of Akad to the 14th century BC C. is found in Mesopotamian, Assyrian and Egyptian texts, isolated references to countries, cities or people designated by the name of Aram or Arami, which could be simple homonyms and the first mention of the Arameans as such a group. ethnic we find him in the inscriptions of Tiglar-Pileser I, in the form Ahlamú-Aramaiawhich could be translated as the Ahlamú that they are Arameans, perhaps indicating that at this time, the Arameans were part of a vast group of tribes that had long been established in the Fertile Crescent.

Consequences

This Aramaean migration constituted the most transcendental event in the history of the Asian Near East, from the 13th century BC. C. as an extension, in addition to originating a series of consequences:
It caused a terrible recession in Assyria and the country withdrew into itself. The dynastic continuity was maintained, but there was a great economic setback, since due to the convulsion caused by the migrations, the commercial relations on the Euphrates were lost and all commercial relations with Anatolia were also interrupted. especially materials such as metals, fabrics and manufactured products. At the same time, industries collapsed in Nineveh and Arbelas, economic weakness produced great social upheavals, also producing the rise of new powers in Babylonia, coming to dominate Syria.
Despite the fact that political vicissitudes were ultimately unfavorable to them, their language supplanted Hebrew in Palestine, it became the official language of the Persian Empire and the Neo-Babylonian Empire. reaching the time of Jesus Christ.
In Mesopotamia, it produced a difficult time around the 11th to 10th centuries BCE. C. that has as common character instability and a progressive economic decline, which degenerated into a social crisis.
All these circumstances produced in the Near East the birth of a situation around the year 900 a. C. completely new from what we knew with the appearance of an authentic mosaic of small States: the Aramaic Principalities.

The Aramaic principalities

These Principalities spread throughout Syria and northern Mesopotamia, south of the Neo-Hittite Principalities, especially in five areas:
a) In Mesopotamia. in the valley of the Balikh and in the upper Khabur (or Habur), there was the Aramaic Principality of Bit-Bakhiani, whose capital was Guzana (today Tell Halaf).
b) Towards the lower course of the Tigris. south of the mouth of the Diyala. other Aramaic tribes established the principalities of Litau, Puqudu, Gambulu and Khindanu.
c) In northern Syria, the Aramaeans took the region of Aleppo and Arpad, founding the kingdoms of Bit-Agusi and Bit-Adini, despite the resistance of the neighboring Neo-Hittite principalities: Karchemish (which remained independent until the reign of Sargon II of Assyria). Hamat, Aleppo and Khattina.
d) Other Aramaic groups, during the 11th to 10th centuries, founded the kingdom of Sam’al (capital Zincirli) in the region to the northwest of Karkemish, towards the Karazu valley.
e) At the end of the 11th century, the entire Orantes valley and southern Syria were controlled by the Arameans, who fought with the first kings of Israel for supremacy in the region. Here were the principalities of Aram-Soba, Aram-Bet-Rehob, Aram-Ma’Ka, Geshur (around Mount Hermon) and the main one: Damascus, which exercised true political hegemony over the whole of this confederation.
Eventually, the Semitic element prevailed throughout this area. And Aramaic became the usual language of the three great empires that will form from now on in this region: The Neo-Assyrian. the Neo-Babylonian and the Persian