Arameans

This article is about the ancient Arameans. For other uses, see Aramean (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with Armenians or Aromanians.

The Arameans, or Aramaeans (Old Aramaic: 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀, Aramayya; Hebrew: אֲרַמִּים; Ancient Greek: Ἀραμαῖοι; Classical Syriac: ܐܪ̈ܡܝܐ, Aramaye,[1] Syriac pronunciation: [ʔɑːrɑːˈmɑːje]), were a tribal[2] Semitic people[3][4] in the ancient Near East, first documented in historical sources from the late 12th century BC. Their homeland, often referred to as the land of Aram, originally covered central regions of modern Syria.[5]

The Arameans were not a single nation or group; rather, 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 extra-linguistic identity markers such as material culture, lifestyle or religion.[6][7] The people of Aram were called “Arameans” in Assyrian texts[8] and in the Hebrew Bible,[9] but the terms “Aramean” and “Aram” were never used by later Aramean dynasts to refer to themselves or their country, with the exception of the king of Aram-Damascus since his kingdom was also called Aram.[10] "Arameans" is merely an appellation of the geographical term Aram given to 1st-millennium BC inhabitants of Syria.[11][12]

At the beginning of the 1st millennium BCE, several Aramean-ruled city-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 BC, local Aramaean city-states were gradually conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The policy of population displacement and relocation that was applied throughout Assyrian domains also affected 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 common language of public life and administration, 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.[13] Thus, their integration into the Greek-speaking world had begun a long time before Christianity became established.[14] Some scholars suggest that Arameans who accepted Christianity were referred to as Syrians by the Greeks.[15] The early Muslim conquests in the 7th century were followed by the Islamization and the gradual Arabization of Aramaic-speaking communities throughout the Near East. That ultimately resulted in their fragmentation and acculturation.[16] 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.[17][18][19][20]

  1. ^ The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity. p. 234. ISBN 9780192562463.
  2. ^ Sargon II, King of Assyria. p. 179. ISBN 9780884142232. The origin of the Aramean tribal groups in this area still remains unclear, in spite of the several hypotheses proposed.? Aramean tribal groups are attested at least from the eleventh century as new occupants of strategic areas in the Jezirah, northern Mesopotamia, and the Syrian steppe.
  3. ^ The Ancient Assyrians. p. 13. ISBN 9781472848079.
  4. ^ Ancient Egypt and the Near East. p. 140. ISBN 9780761499572.
  5. ^ Studies in the Aramaic Legal Papyri from Elephantine. ISBN 9789004294233. The spread of the Aramaic language from its Syrian homeland resulted in large part from Aramean migration and expansion, and was abetted by the Neo-Assyrian policy of deportation operative during the gth to the 7th cen turies. These factors led to the so-called Aramaization of Assyria and Babylonia, a process that gained momentum in the latter days of the Assyrian Empire.
  6. ^ Doak 2020, p. 51:However, we must be clear at the outset: the Arameans were never, in fact, a single nation or group; rather, Aram was a region with local centers of power spread throughout contemporary Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon, at major cities such as Damascus and Hamath.
  7. ^ Gzella 2017, p. 23:It is nonetheless difficult if not impossible to establish a coherent ethnic category "Aramean" on the basis of extra-linguistic identity markers such as material culture, lifestyle (including cuisine), or religion and other cultural core traditions.
  8. ^ Jan DuĹĄek; Jana MynářovĂĄ. Aramaean Borders. Brill. p. 82. ISBN 9789004398535. Tiglath-pileser III stated: 13 [From] those [Ara]means whom I deported, [I distribut]ed (and) settled [...thousand to the province of] the turtanu, 10,000 (to) the province of the palace herald, [...] thousand (to) the province of the chief cupbearer, ...thousand (to) the province of the land] Barha(l)zi, (and) 5,000 (to) the province of the land Mazamua.
  9. ^ Thomas V Brisco. Holman Bible Atlas. ISBN 9781433670312. The cultural identity of Syria varied historically; but from at least the beginning of the Iron Age (ca. 1200 B.C.), the Arameans increasingly dominated the region. Aramean kingdoms like Aram-Damascus, Aram-zobah, and Hamath appear repeatedly in the biblical record.
  10. ^ Sader 2014, p. 15"It is interesting to note in this context that later Aramaean dynasts never refer to themselves as Aramaeans or to their country as Aram, with the exception of the king of Aram-Damascus since his kingdom was also called Aram."
  11. ^ Berlejung 2014, p. 339.
  12. ^ Sader 2014, p. 16"So Aram is a geographical term that refers at times to part and at others to all of the Syrian territory in the Iron Age, hence the appellation "Aramaeans" given to the 1st - millennium B.C. inhabitants of Syria"
  13. ^ Healey 2019, p. 443.
  14. ^ Healey 2019, p. 444.
  15. ^ Witakowski 1987, p. 76:Ever since the time of christianization those Arameans who embraced the new religion have been referred to as the Syrians, a name of Greek origin which they eventually accepted themselves.
  16. ^ Griffith 1997, p. 11–31.
  17. ^ Syrian Identity in the Greco-Roman World. p. 17. ISBN 9781107244566. As Greek politai became a sub-category for a wider group of Syrians, the Greek peer polity network of Syria and, more broadly, the Roman imperial Syrian ethnos maintained cognitive and performative commonality, even if it did not always enjoy political solidarity or engage in unified mass action. Within it, both ethnic Greeks and ethnic Syrians, whether speaking Greek or Aramaic, deemed ancient (As)Syrians/Arameans among their ethnos civic founders (if not ethnic ancestors), but their historical narratives were often informed by Greek influences and categories. In this sense, Syrians of the Roman imperial era, and even Assyrians or Arameans beyond the frontier, posited links to various ancient Greek or Syrian "founders," with or without positing ethnic descent.
  18. ^ The Maronites in history. p. 177. Lammens states that al-Baladhuri labeled these Maronites al-Anbat to indicate their Aramaic (Syriac) origin.
  19. ^ Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria Institute, Or Philosophical Society of Great Britain. Victoria Institute. p. 51. The only people that remain who might be considered lineal descendants of the Aramean race are the Droozes and Maronites.
  20. ^ Asher Kaufman. Reviving Phoenicia. The Syrians today, Zaydan continued, are divided by their origin into two groups: Muslims and Christians. Most of the Muslims are Arabs. As for the Christians, the majority are descendants of the Arameans, the Arabs and the Greeks. The Arameans were the original inhabitants of the land, then came the Greeks from the West, followed by the Arabs, the Ghasanis, who came from the Hauran in the hinterland. In short, Christian Syrians are not genealogically Arabs, even if there is some Arab blood flowing in their veins. Yet they are considered Arabs because they speak Arabic, they procreate in an Arab land and they live according to Arab morals. Thus, Syria became an Arab country after the Islamic occupation.