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The Arameans*

Among other things, the Arameans played a major role in the spread of the alphabet eastward from where it originated in Canaan--the present-day coast of Syria and Lebanon. Yet few people seem to be aware of this significant contribution. Even in Syria where the Arameans eventually settled, most people are simply unaware of their Aramean ancestry and heritage.

The first Semitic migration from the Arabian Peninsula to the Fertile Crescent is believed to have occurred in 3500 BC. The people in this first wave were known as the Amorites. Around 1500 BC, these tribes had already settled on the banks of the middle Euphrates--the northeastern part of present-day Syria and Iraq. There, they developed a culture and language, and a sense of national identity.

The Aramean migration which occurred between 1500 and 1200 BC, formed the third wave of migration from the Arabian Peninsula to the Fertile Crescent. By the end of the 13th century BC the Arameans were settled in their new homes on the banks of the Euphrates. One Aramean state was Harran in Mesopotamia. Situated on a great trade route, Harran, whose name means "route," developed into one of the great centers of Aramean culture.

According to the Hebrew tradition, the Patriarchs--the founders of the Hebrews--came from that district before settling in Palestine. Also, Abraham sent his messenger to Harran in quest of a wife, Rebekah, for his son Isaac, and dispatched Jacob in person to marry Leah and Rachel (see Genesis 24:4; 29:21 seq.). Accordingly, the maternal ancestry of Jacob's children is Aramean.

Damascus, seat of the future Aramean state, was already peopled by Arameans in 1200 BC. The annals of the Egyptian King Ramses III (1198 - 1167 BC) give the Aramaic spelling of the name. The Arameans assimilated smoothly with the Canaanites and Amorites among whom they settled (after all, as peoples they were branches from the Arameans' same origins), but quite significantly, they retained their own language. Established in the late eleventh century BC, Damascus developed into a major state with its frontier extended on one side to the Euphrates and on the other to the Yarmuk River.

In 734 BC the areas around Damascus were overrun by the Assyrians and the city was laid to siege before it was taken in 732 BC. Despite this military defeat, peaceful dissemination of Aramean commerce and culture proved more important to the spread of the Aramean language than did political and military means. The Aramean culture attained its height in the ninth and eighth centuries BC. Aramean merchants were most responsible for spreading their language and culture. Once restricted to being the mercantile language of a people living in present-day Syria, by about 500 BC, Aramaic had become the universal language of commerce, culture, and government throughout the entire Fertile Crescent.

It became the language of Jesus and his people. By the sixth century AD, the Aramaic language was still of such influence that it gave birth in northern Mesopotamia to Syriac, which has survived to become the liturgic language of several Eastern churches. In fact Aramaic dialects are still spoken in some parts of the Near East, in particular among the Christian communities in northern Iraq, and in a small mountain village just outside of Damascus.

Nor was the dissemination of Aramaic confined to the Semitic areas. Under the Persian Emperor Darius the Great (521 - 486 BC), it was made the official, interprovincial language of the Persian government.

As the Aramaic language developed, it incorporated the Phoenician alphabet; and with the spread of Aramaic, the Phoenician alphabet, which the Arameans were the first to adopt, also spread and was passed on to other languages in Asia. The Hebrews got their alphabet from the Arameans between the sixth and fourth centuries. The North Arabians received their alphabet from the Aramaic via the Nabataeans who lived in southern Syria. Likewise, as the distinguished scholar Philip K. Hitti stresses in his book History of Syria, the Pahlawi and Sanskrit characters are of Aramean origin.

Aramean history is not aggression-free, however. At the height of Damascus's regional dominance, King Ben-Hadad II (about 879 - 842 BC) created a great coalition of small regional kingdoms. Some joined by force (as in the historical states of Israel and Judah) but most joined by diplomatic persuasion. The coalition was intended to fight the threat coming from neighboring superpower Assyria to the East. Even with the alliances, the initial encounter between Ben-Hadad and the Assyrians, at Qarqar on the Orontes river (853 BC), proved indecisive.

That was only the prelude to almost a century of Assyrian attacks on the Aramean confederacy. Finally, in 732 BC, King Tiglathpileser III of Assyria ended Aramean rule of the region and divided it into six provinces centered around Damascus, and pro-Assyrian rulers were established. Thus the Levant became a buffer zone for the Assyrians against threats from the north--i.e., from Anatolia and Armenia. However, Aramaic as a language survived until the fourth or Arab migration from the Arabian Peninsula (seventh century AD).

Indeed, the Arameans had little political influence on the Levant compared with the major powers of the Assyrians and the Egyptians but they have done humanity a great service by transmitting the alphabet eastward from Syria. Furthermore, few languages in the world have had such a long and continuous tradition. Clearly, while the Arameans seemed simply to be nomads, they have contributed a great deal to history by transmitting the alphabet eastward, and by introducing a language that influenced many others and that outlasted most languages of the Levant.

Exploring Ancient World Cultures: The Near East

Hitti, Philip K., History of Syria, Macmillan, 1951.

The Penguin Encyplodia of Ancient Civilizations, Ed. by Cottrell, Arthur; Penguin Books, 1988.

Roux, Georges, Ancient Iraq, Penguin Books, 1980.

On Semitic Languages

* This article originally appeared in june issue of Alamouna webzine.

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