Aramean Origins: The Evidence from Babylonia

By B i l l T. A r n o l d (Wilmore, Kentucky)
Scholars have focused for many years on the problem of Aramean origins, and with good reason.* A model held
sway during most of the twentieth century, portraying the Arameans invading and overwhelming agricultural zones
in “waves” of desert nomads.1 This model has given way in recent decades to a more nuanced understanding of
pastoral nomadism as well as a more mature appreciation for the symbiotic relationship between pastoralists and
sedentary agriculture.2 It is now generally assumed that the Aramean groups did not cause the collapse of Late
Bronze Age and Iron Age I polities, but rather simply filled the power vacuum left by their collapse due to other
causes. Yet we are only now beginning to understand the complexity of these developments, so that neither an
invading-nomadic-waves approach, nor an internal-socioeconomic-collapse explanation is altogether satisfying.
Recently, K. Lawson Younger, Jr. has advanced Hani.5 Younger separates the “Inland Syria Sphere”
our understanding of Aramean origins in an essay in into three regions: Hittite (by which he means north
which he took a regional approach to the problem, Syria and southeast Anatolia), Assyrian (i.e., the
analyzing the various geographical regions in which Jezireh6), and Levantine (i.e., central and south Syria).
the Arameans are encountered.3 After an overview of Younger concludes that “the circumstances facing the
the textual evidence for Aramean origins, as well as Arameans in the western branch of the Fertile Cres-
the meager archaeological evidence, he examines the cent were different from the circumstances in the
various regions in which the Arameans first appear, Hittite or Assyrian regions.”7 In sum, the Arameans of
beginning with the Western Coastal Sphere, which Iron I were competing with smaller political entities in
saw the rise of Phoenician city-states in the wake of the west, those city-states made vulnerable by the
the crisis and collapse around 1200 BCE.4 By “West- same socioeconomic and climatic causes that brought
ern Coastal Sphere” Younger, means coastal Syria, an end to the Late Bronze Age empires. In the west,
which naturally participated in the Mediterranean mari- therefore, the Arameans established new kingdoms
time trade network; it is exemplified in palatial com- more rapidly. By contrast, the Arameans of the east
plexes such as those at Alala©, Ugarit, and Ras Ibn (i.e., in the Hittite and Assyrian regions of Inland
Syria) rose to political eminence much more slowly, if
*) I am grateful to Scott Noegel and Lawson Younger for at all, and tended to sedentarize more gradually.
helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. In a separate article, Younger has considered in
1
) The most influential proponent of this older model was
greater detail the differences between the Hittite and
William F. Albright (see, e.g., Albright 1975: esp. 532).
2
) Schwartz 1989; Pitard 1994: 207-10. For convenient
Assyrian regions, for which we have considerably
survey of the issues and more bibliography, see Schniedewind more evidence than the Levantine region.8 Specifi-
2002: esp. 279-80. Schniedewind’s article explores the cally, he has identified an Aramaization process in the
socioanthropological issues at work in the rise of statehood Assyrian region during the twelfth through tenth cen-
among semi-nomadic pastoralists, concluding that the turies BCE. This process traces the Arameans moving
Arameans are analogous to the Edomites and Nabateans, as from (a) pastoralist expansion (ca. 1197-1114 BCE),
well as the early Israelites. to (b) a period of initial conflict with the Assyrians, in
3
) Younger 2007. His identification of two major geo-
which the Arameans eventually prevailed, bringing
graphic/economic spheres in Syria, the Western Coastal Medi-
terranean Sphere and the Inland Syrian Sphere, is dependent
Assyrian dominion in the Jezireh to an end (ca. 1114-
on the work of McClellan (1992). 1056 BCE). During a subsequent period of Assyrian
4
) Younger 2007: 141-43. The causes of the transition political and military weakness (ca. 1055-935 BCE),
from Late Bronze to Iron I can clearly no longer be attributed Arameans rose to (c) supremacy in the region and the
simplistically to the so-called “Sea Peoples,” as many ac- first impulses of state formation began to emerge (e.g.,
knowledge today (and as Younger states clearly). See Oren B²t Ba©i¤ni, B²t Zam¤ni), while some Arameans main-
2000. Rather than a reductionistic assumption that bellicose tained confederations of disparate sedentary political
“Sea Peoples” led to the collapse of urban life across the
eastern Mediterranean, we must admit that a confluence of
5
several factors resulted in the collapse of Bronze Age cul- ) Younger 2007: 140-43.
6
ture, including but not limited to potential natural catastro- ) The Jezireh (Arabic el-Jezireh, “island”) is the upper
phes, technological innovations, shifts in patterns of produc- Mesopotamian plain, the zone between the Tigris and Euphra-
tion, or a combination of these, as well as the arrival of the tes in the north, stretching across modern northwest Iraq,
“Sea Peoples.” Above all, the dramatic changes may be north Syria, and south Turkey.
7
credited to revolutionary military innovations, resulting in a ) Younger 2007: 143-53.
8
new style of warfare that opened possibilities for small ) Younger, forthcoming. Many thanks to the author for a
groups raiding the Levant; Drews 1993: 95-225. pre-publication copy of this paper.

Archiv für Orientforschung 52 (2011)

180 Bill T. Arnold
groups or tribal alliances. Finally, with the resurgence
of the Assyrian Empire, (d) a period of renewed
conflict occurred between these new Aramean politi-
cal entities and the Assyrians (934-884 BCE). The
nature of the Jezireh as the natural hinterland of
Assyria, and the Assyrian conviction that the region
rightfully belonged to a unified Assyrian Empire, im-
pacted the role of the Arameans of the region. Thus
the Jezireh evinces Aramean tribal confederations, and
only a few smaller state polities but none with central-
ized monarchies.9
By contrast, we have no evidence of Arameans in
north Syria, the so-called “Hittite Region,” prior to the
first millennium BCE. By the mid-ninth century, how-
ever, the region evinces a mixed Luwian and Aramean
population, and in fact, the remarkable characteristic
of the region is a relatively peaceful symbiotic rela-
tionship between the two. The region’s natural geo-
graphic and ideological connections with Anatolia had
an impact on the rise of Aramean polities. Unlike the
Assyrian region in the Jezireh, north Syria witnessed
the emergence of Aramean dynasts in the form of local
political entities, even though the Arameans had begun
to appear later in the Hittite region. Moreover, the
Hittite region experienced a more peaceful accultura-
tion of Arameans than the Assyrian region. Indeed,
this region may be said to reflect a Luwian-Aramean
material and cultural symbiosis.10
In what follows, I offer a brief study supplementary
to Younger’s work, garnering similar evidence from
southern Mesopotamia in order to complete the picture
he has so ably painted. By considering data from
beyond Syria proper, in particular the data from south-
ern Mesopotamia, we gain a more complete perception
of the advance of the Arameans across the Fertile
Crescent. The resulting portrait confirms Younger’s
east-west distinction, demonstrating that the Arameans
of southern Mesopotamia in the eighth and seventh
centuries BCE progressed in much the same way as
those of the ninth and eighth centuries in Inland Syria,
which likewise confirms Younger’s differentiation of
these developments from those of the Western Coastal
Sphere.
When commenting on the Inland Syrian Sphere,
Younger observed the ethnic complexity evident in the
textual and archaeological sources, in which the cul-
ture of “the occupying or elite/power forces” and a
“lower culture” existed side-by-side. He averred that a
“consciousness of ethnic duality” was observable in
other contexts in which Arameans are attested.11 When
we turn to the “Babylonian Sphere,” a similar situation
presents itself. The ethnic complexity of southern
Mesopotamia in general is self-evident and well at-
9
) Younger, forthcoming.
10
) For details, see again Younger, forthcoming.
11
) Younger 2007: 145.
tested.12 The Arameans of southern Mesopotamia were
part of a cultural heterogeneity unmatched in the
ancient world, in which numerous ethnic groups are
attested. Yet paradoxically, the diverse population of
the eighth and seventh centuries BCE was stratified
into only two social groups: the older Babylonian
inhabitants of urban centers, about which I will say
more below, and the tribal groups who were relative
newcomers (Arameans and Chaldeans). This distinc-
tion between urban elites and semi-nomadic pastoralists
is the dominant cultural characteristic of Babylonia
during the centuries best attested in our sources related
to the Arameans.
The Arameans had begun appearing in sources
from the late-twelfth and eleventh centuries BCE in
central and northern Mesopotamia.13 Younger’s work
traces their role in history in the Syrian Sphere down
to the ninth and eighth centuries BCE. Aramean groups
appear in the sources of southern Mesopotamia from
the beginning of the first millennium,14 which con-
firms a gradual infiltration (I intentionally avoid words
such as “invasion” or “incursion”) along the Euphrates
of northern and central Mesopotamia into the alluvial
plain formed by the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers just
south of modern Baghdad extending southeastward to
the Persian Gulf; that is, southern Mesopotamia
proper.15
Although it is clear that the older model of
Arameans as invading waves of desert nomads is no
longer tenable, the evidence suggests a certain degree
of Aramean infiltration southeastward from northern
Mesopotamia during the early first millennium, which
appears to be a continuation of their eastward move-
ment into Assyria and other parts of north Mesopota-
mia begun in the early-eleventh century BCE. Many of
the cities of central Babylonia began to experience
their presence in the tenth century, and evidence sug-
gests they began to control the trade route along the
Euphrates at this time. By the eighth century, Arameans
were divided into as many as forty tribal groups
distributed principally along the Tigris or its tributar-
ies, forming a buffer zone between Babylonia and
Elam along the eastern border.16 They generally re-
sisted sedentarization and assimilation into Babylonian
12
) On ethnic diversity in Middle and Early Neo-Babylonian
times, see Brinkman 1981.
13
) The sources have been summarized by Younger 2007:
134-39 and 154-58.
14
) On the Arameans of Babylonia generally, see Brinkman
1968: 267-85; Brinkman 1984: 12-14; Dietrich 1970; and
Lipi÷ski 2000: 409-89.
15
) On the climatic and geographical differences between
“south Mesopotamia” and “north Mesopotamia,” and the
significance of these differences for ancient history, see
Arnold 2004: 3-4.
16
) For references and discussion, see Brinkman 1968:
270, and Brinkman 1979: 226.
 Aramean Origins: The Evidence from Babylonia
life. In addition to the official royal inscriptions of the
Assyrian empire giving witness to these developments,
we also have correspondence between Assyrian kings
and their pro-Assyrian governors and municipal ad-
ministrators in Babylonia. Many such letters from
Babylon, Nippur, and Uruk, are addressed to Esarhad-
don and Assurbanipal revealing what was essentially
an intelligence network in Babylonia, reporting con-
spiracies against the king and other anti-Assyrian ac-
tivities, military actions, general crimes against the
crown, and frequently asserting loyalty to the king and
appealing for Assyrian help against rebels in the south.17
These letters shed further light on several Aramean
tribes during the eighth and seventh centuries BCE,
mentioning inter alia the Gamb¹lu along the Elamite
border, the Puq¹du also on the Elamite border and
near Uruk (the “Pekod” of Jer. 50:21 and Ezek. 23:23),
the Gurasimmu near Ur, and the RuÝa near Nippur.18
Instead of a single chieftain, these tribes appear to
have operated with numerous simultaneous sheikhs
(nas²ku).19
The Babylonian letters together with the Assyrian
royal inscriptions give us a general portrait of the
Arameans of the eighth and seventh centuries in south-
ern Mesopotamia. The epistolary evidence from the
urban centers, in particular, reveals the degree to
which Assyrian imperial ambitions depended on the
pro-Assyrian parties in the Babylonian cities, but also
reflects the turbulent relationship between the urban
elites and the Aramean and Chaldean tribal groups so
prevalent throughout Babylonia. 20 For example,
Esarhaddon had established relations with the power-
ful Aramean Gamb¹lu-tribe through their sheikh B®l-
iq²¡a, in order to create a buffer against Elamite hos-
tilities in the east.21 But then in a letter from Ki¡ or
Borsippa from an unknown author, B®l-iq²¡a is ac-
cused of building a powerful network, especially by
means of political marriages of three of his daughters
to prominent individuals in Babylon and Borsippa.
B®l-iq²¡a allegedly also confiscated a field rightly
belonging to Babylon, rich in dates and grain, acquir-
ing it for his own use. The author of the letter reports
these activities to the king as suspicious and disturb-
ing.22
17
) Reynolds 2003: xv-xxxiii.
18
) For more on each and several others, including specu-
lation on the etymology of each tribal name, see Lipi÷ski
2000: 472-79 (Gamb¹lu), 429-37 (Puq¹du), 482-83 (Gura-
simmu), 464-66 (RuÝa).
19
) Brinkman 1984: 13-14; Lipi÷ski 2000: 494-96.
20
) For seventh century Uruk, as example, see Arnold
1985; Reynolds 2003: 61-65. On the nature of these letters as
historical sources, see Arnold 1992.
21
) Brinkman 1984: 78. On B®l-iq²¡a, see Radner 1998:
1/II, 315-16, and Lipi÷ski 2000: 476-78.
22
) ABL 336; Reynolds 2003: 41-43. The same author,
either Ninurta-a[©©®-x] or Ninurta-na‚ir, also warns Esarhad-
181
The epistolary evidence sheds light on the hostili-
ties between the Puq¹du-Arameans near Uruk and the
pro-Assyrian inhabitants of the city. Hostilities reached
a climax during the term of a certain Nabû-u¡ab¡i,
governor of Uruk during the civil war between the
brothers Assurbanipal of Assyria and Šama¡-¡um-uk²n
in Babylon (652-648 BCE).23 The Puq¹du tribesmen
were one of several Aramean groups countering the
Assyrian Empire’s interests in southern Babylonia.24
Sometime during the internecine conflict, the Puq¹dians
entered pro-Assyrian Uruk and carried off ten prison-
ers. One report, presumably a letter of Nabû-u¡ab¡i
himself, has the Urukian governor marching against
the Aramean tribesmen, killing a number of them and
capturing their commander.25 The captured Puq¹dian
admitted their purpose was to abduct a citizen of Uruk
who could inform them of the size of the Assyrian
forces at the garrison there. Additional epistolary evi-
dence suggests at least two and perhaps three Assyrian
deportations of Puq¹dian-tribesmen shortly before the
end of the war. The pro-Assyrian forces were appar-
ently able, in this instance, to defeat the Aramean tribe
and deport them to safer locales, perhaps in the city of
RuÝa, of unknown identification.26
Altogether, the evidence of the Assyrian Royal
Inscriptions combined with the Babylonian letters sug-
gests that the Puq¹dian Arameans were instrumental in
threatening the pro-Assyrian stronghold at Uruk, and
that partly because of their assistance the city nearly
fell into the hands of Šama¡-¡um-uk²n early in the
war.27 But as the war progressed, the position of Uruk
was strengthened and late in his term Nabû-u¡ab¡i was
eventually successful against the Arameans.28 Another
letter dated to the month Ayy¤ru, most likely in the
year 648 BCE, reports concluding battles in the final
stage of the civil war in which Assurbanipal conducts
final victories around Uruk. It specifically records
don of certain Chaldeans of the B²t-Dak¹ri tribe who intend
to use large amounts of silver to purchase horses, and who
have refused to turn over captives requested by the Assyrian
king; all of this should be understood as warnings to the
king.
23
) Kuhrt 1994: 587-89.
24
) Brinkman 1968: 268-72; Lipi÷ski 2000: 485-89.
25
) ABL 1028; see Arnold 1985: 64-67.
26
) Another fragmentary letter mentions establishing “the
feet of the Puqudians” in the land, which is likely an allusion
to the Assyrian deportation of Puq¹du-Aramean tribesmen
during the gubernatorial term of Nabû-u¡ab¡i; CT 54 459; see
Arnold 1985: 177-78.
27
) Arnold 1985: 90-91.
28
) In another letter, presumably from the same time, the
pro-Assyrian author from Uruk identifies himself as a
Babylonian (LÚ akkadû an¤ku, “a Babylonian am I”) in
order to distinguish himself from the tribal groups threaten-
ing the city, and to declare his loyalty to the Assyrian cause;
CT 54 65, rev. 6', and for translation and commentary, see
Arnold 1985: 127-29.
182 Bill T. Arnold
victory over the Aramean tribes in southern Babylonia
months before Babylon itself fell.29 The Puq¹dians
especially appear to have led a counterattack, only to
be driven back by the pro-Assyrian forces. Similarly,
Gambulian and Puq¹dian Arameans were in control of
regions east and southeast of Nippur respectively, so
much so that the Assyrians called their territory
“Aram”.30 The history of the city of Nippur from 745
to 612 BCE is one of dramatic vacillation between
pro- and anti-Assyrian sentiment, largely because the
city was trapped between Assyrian forces along the
Tigris to its northeast and the Aramean tribal lands
flanking it in the south and southeast, as well as
Chaldean pressures to its west.31
The Arameans of southern Babylonia had an
economy dependent upon animal husbandry, and they
seem to have occupied few cities and villages. They
left behind little in the way of material culture that
could be attested in archaeological evidence, as
Younger observed for the Arameans of earlier centu-
ries in the Levant and in northern Mesopotamia.32 Like
other non-urban pastoralists across the Fertile Cres-
cent, the Arameans lived for centuries as nomadic or
semi-nomadic tribalists, leaving us entirely dependent
on meager textual evidence, as well as general socio-
political changes occurring in the urban centers, from
which we can deduce certain developments and for
which the epistolary data are so vital.
The epistolary evidence occasionally refers to indi-
vidual Arameans, at times providing data for proso-
pography, otherwise rare in such reconstructions. Their
personal names consist of the name itself followed by
a gentilic adjective designating the specific tribe (e.g.,
PN LÚ Puq¹dayu), as distinct from the patronymics
used by Babylonian urban elites.33 One oddity about
the social and political organization of the Arameans
of southern Mesopotamia is the general absence of b²t-
tribal names so common in the west. One of our
earliest Assyrian sources mentioning the Aramean
tribes, dated to the eleventh century BCE, used the
phrase b²t¤t m¤t Aram¤ya, “houses of the Arameans.”34
So in Syria and northern Mesopotamia generally, lim-
ited centralized Aramean states emerged, each appar-
ently ruled by a member of the dominant tribe, which
was often named after the eponymous founder of a
dynasty, and so using b²t-PN, “the house of PN.” In
29
) CT 54 591, although the exact location cannot be
positively identified. See Arnold 1985: 217-29.
30
) Cole 1996: 25-26, and on the Arameans around Nippur
generally, 23-29.
31
) Cole 1996: 73.
32
) Younger 2007: 140.
33
) Brinkman 1977: esp. 307.
34
) Assyrian Chronicle: Fragment 4; Grayson 1975 [2000]:
189; Glassner 2004: 188-91. For discussion, see Younger
2007: text 5, pp. 155-56, and 148-49, and Younger, forth-
coming.
the west and north, such tribes included B²t-Zam¤ni,
B²t-Ba©i¤ni, B²t-¿alupe, B²t-Ad²ni, B²t-Ag¹si, etc. By
contrast, in southern Mesopotamia, it was the Chaldean
tribes that often used these b²t-names, leading early
scholars to identify the Chaldeans and Arameans as
one and the same (on which, see more below). It
seems likely that the b²t-tribal names bore socio-
political significance rather than serving as indication
of ethnicity or gentilic reference.35 The Chaldean tribes
of southern Mesopotamia reached this level and bore
such names. But their Aramean counterparts never
reached this level of statehood in the south, at least in
as much as this can be deduced from their lack of b²t-
tribal names.
This leads us naturally to the question of the rela-
tionship between the Arameans of Babylonia and the
Chaldeans. Just as we have questions about the rela-
tionship of the Arameans with similar pastoralist groups
in the earlier periods of their history (i.e., A©lamû,
Sutians), so the precise connection between the
Arameans of the eighth and seventh centuries BCE
and the Chaldeans is somewhat in doubt. Earlier
Assyriologists assumed for many decades the two
were one and the same, and with good reason. The
Chaldean tribes of southern Babylonia first appear in
the Assyrian sources in the early ninth century BCE.36
Like the Arameans, the Chaldeans were tribalists, who
were nevertheless organized in larger tribes which
were generally more involved in Babylonian politics.
We have evidence of five such Chaldean tribes, al-
though only three played significant roles in the his-
tory of Babylonia. The largest and most influential
were B²t-Dak¹ri south of Borsippa, B²t-Amuk¤ni fur-
ther south along the Euphrates, and B²t-Yak²ni to the
east along the Tigris.37 Presumably the name of each
35
) Similarly, the Assyrians referred to Omri’s dynasty in
northern Israel as B²t-¿umr², “the house of Omri,” illustrat-
ing this as a sociopolitical appellation rather than an ethnic-
specific one; see Younger 2000: 270.
36
) Frame 1992: 36; Brinkman 1968: 260; Beaulieu 2006:
187-216, and esp. 194-96, where Beaulieu concludes the
Chaldeans were “a branch of the Arameans.”
37
) Arnold 2004: 87-88; Brinkman 1984: 15. So, for
example, Dak¹rean Chaldeans were powerful enough to an-
nex Marad, a city of Babylonia, wresting it from the authori-
ty of the Assyrian king (either Esarhaddon or Assurbanipal),
and stealing with it horses and chariots; Reynolds 2003: 43-
46. Three additional letters from the king himself, presum-
ably Esarhaddon, complain about Dak¹rean imposters pre-
tending to be Babylonians, who have misappropriated land
belonging to Babylon; Reynolds 2003: 4; Frame 1992: 79-80.
Similarly, a Dak¹rean leader by the name of B®l¡unu was in
frequent conflict with Nippur during Assurbanipal’s reign;
Reynolds 2003: 160-167. On B®l¡unu, see Radner 1998: 1/II,
331-32; Cole 1996: 33. At one point, Illil-bani, the governor
of Nippur, accuses the Arameans and Chaldeans of writing
lies and disinformation to the king while making peace with
Assyria’s enemies, and threatening the security of the city
 Aramean Origins: The Evidence from Babylonia
tribe using b²t ..., “house of ...,” was taken from an
eponymous ancestor, as was done among Aramean
tribes in the western Fertile Crescent, perhaps adding
confusion to the distinctive origins of the Chaldeans
and Arameans. Yet the Chaldean tribes of southern
Babylonia were generally larger and more unified than
Aramean contemporaries. Each was under the control
of a single Chaldean chieftain, unlike the Aramean
tendency to work with more than one sheikh simulta-
neously.38
The Chaldeans of southern Babylonia also tended
to sedentarize more readily and were more unified
politically than Aramean tribes. They adapted to
Babylonian culture quickly, taking Babylonian names
and economic activities, while maintaining their tribal
structure and identity. They learned to control the
trade routes of the Persian Gulf and appear to have
accumulated considerable wealth with which they paid
handsome tribute to the Assyrians.39 They gradually
became embroiled in Babylonian political life. Their
paying tribute to the Assyrians during the ninth and
early eighth centuries was a ploy, since all the while
they were gaining in number and strength. In the
eighth century, a Chaldean chieftain of the B²t-Yak²ni
tribe, a certain Er²ba-Marduk, became the first power-
ful Chaldean monarch of Babylonia, taking full advan-
tage of a temporarily weakened Assyria. Later tradi-
tion honors him with the title “re-establisher of the
foundation(s) of the land.”40 He appears to have driven
out the Arameans from Babylon and Borsippa, re-
paired the throne of Marduk at Esagil, and conducted
other building activities. A few short decades later,
another Chaldean chieftain, (Nabû-)muk²n-z®ri, of the
B²t-Amuk¤ni tribe, assumed the throne in Babylon in
731.41 He was deposed by Tiglath-Pileser three years
later, but the Chaldeans of Babylonia were clearly
becoming a prominent political force. Soon after the
death of Shalmaneser III (722), another Chaldean,
Merodach-Baladan II, seized the Babylonian throne
and consolidated his hold by uniting the Chaldean
tribes of the south.42 This tribal prince from B²t-Yak²ni
secured military alliances with Elam, and is known
from the Hebrew Bible to have attempted international
coalitions against the Assyrians (2 Kings 20:12-19;
Isaiah 39).43 He managed to rule Babylonia for a full
decade (721-710 BCE), illustrating the role of the
generally; CT 54 15+ABL 240; Reynolds 2003: 164-65; Cole
1996: 79.
38
) Brinkman 1979: 226; Brinkman 1984: 13-14.
39
) Frame 1992: 37.
40
) Arnold 2004: 89.
41
) Brinkman 1984: 235-40.
42
) Arnold 2004: 90. This chieftain had ironically been
pro-Assyrian during the Muk²n-z®ri rebellion, a reversal now
confirmed by Saggs 1996: 384-90.
43
) Brinkman 1964; van der Spek 1978.
183
Chaldeans in Babylonia in the movement toward na-
tional autonomy free of Assyrian rule. This drive
toward independence was characteristic of the Chalde-
ans, and together with other factors in the region,
culminated in the rise of the so-called “Chaldean
Dynasty,” more appropriately known as the Neo-
Babylonian Empire.44 Thus the Chaldeans were con-
sistently distinct from the Arameans of southern
Babylonia, both sociologically and politically, and
even the native Assyrian and Babylonian sources dis-
tinguish between them. We may conclude that the
Chaldeans and Arameans were distantly related ethni-
cally but were nevertheless distinct groups.45
A final observation may be added here regarding
the role of Aramaic as the lingua franca of the first
millennium BCE. As has been discussed again re-
cently, the dominance of Aramaic presents an interest-
ing anomaly in the history of world languages.46 Dur-
ing the very period in which Aramaic became the
dominant vehicle for administration and communica-
tion, it nevertheless failed to serve as a dominant
cultural vehicle, such as happens typically with inter-
national languages (e.g., Akkadian, Greek, Latin, San-
skrit, Arabic). This may be explained partly as the
result of Aramaic’s adoption by the Assyrians in the
eighth century BCE, who used it as the imperial
language in a political strategy to integrate the western
provinces into the empire.47 Even as it was being
promoted as the official language of the Assyrian,
Babylonian, and Achaemenid Persian empires, and at
the peak of its internationalization, Aramaic surpris-
ingly failed to transmit religious or cultural influ-
ence.48 Causes for its adoption as the international
language must be sought in the perfunctory advantages
of the alphabetic script, which the Arameans brought
with them west-to-east across the Fertile Crescent,
combined with its administrative function in the
Assyrian empire. Reasons for its failure to function as
a cultural vehicle may be directly related to the devel-
44
) Arnold 2004: 91-105.
45
) So the two groups were certainly distinct culturally
and socio-economically, but we should use caution in this
conclusion about their ethnic distinctiveness because our
knowledge is limited to onomastica; Lipi÷ski 2000: 416-22;
Brinkman 1968: 266-67 and 273-75.
46
) Beaulieu 2006: esp. 208.
47
) Schniedewind 2006: 138-39.
48
) On the other hand, Aramaic clearly served as the
vehicle for a measure of wisdom literature, as illustrated by
the Proverbs of Ahiqar, which appear to have been composed
in Aramaic rather than Akkadian or Hebrew as some have
argued; Lindenberger 1983: 16-17. This suggests the Prov-
erbs were genuine Aramaic literature from the West, trans-
planted to Mesopotamia, whereas the two Aramaic texts in
Demotic script from Egypt show cultural influence in the
opposite direction in that they preserve Mesopotamian litera-
ture in the Aramaic language; Beaulieu 2006: 197.
184 Bill T. Arnold
opments traced briefly in this paper. The various
Aramean groups were never unified and certainly never
created an empire, and without such a hegemonic base,
their language never had the cultural influence most
international languages wield.
In sum, the evidence for the origins of the Arameans,
and to a lesser extent, the Chaldeans, suggests a
gradual process of expansion into Babylonia, not un-
like that outlined by Younger for what he calls the
“Inland Syria Sphere” and distinct from circumstances
in the western branch of the Fertile Crescent. More
specifically, in the coastal regions and in north Syria,
Arameans rose more rapidly because of the power
vacuum left by the collapse of the small city-states at
the end of the Bronze Age, and it is there we see the
Arameans settling and establishing new kingdoms.49
This is most evident in the Hittite region in north
Syria, while it was predominantly the Phoenician city-
states that emerged in the western “Coastal Sphere.”
By contrast, in the central and eastern portions of the
Fertile Crescent, Arameans sedentarized much slower
and seldom rose to political prominence. As we have
seen, the role of the Arameans in southern Babylonian
in the eighth and seventh centuries BCE, is much akin
to their presence in the Assyrian Jezireh. This brief
study has confirmed, first, that Assyrian assumptions
about their claim to rule the Jezireh as a rightful
portion of the Assyrian Empire are similar to their
perceptions of southern Babylonia. There are very
subtle differences as well, most of them having to do
with Assyria’s perduring cultural infatuation with the
south. But the presence of the Arameans in both
regions was undoubtedly seen as an illegitimate
Landnahme, and led in both cases to conflict between
Assyrians and Arameans.50 Secondly, these observa-
tions confirm Younger’s work, especially his east-west
distinction detailing the different ways in which the
Arameans acculturated and related to their surround-
ings. Ultimately, we may be able to refine this east-
west distinction further, as one marked by statehood or
the lack of statehood. So Aramean groups of the west
may be seen as evolving into states in some cases,
whether “tribal states” (those without an urban center)
or “city-states” (those with an urban center).51 If so,
statehood of either type emerges in the Western Coastal
Sphere and the Inland Syria Sphere, with exception of
the Jezireh, where the Arameans were culturally and
socially more akin to their cousins of southern Meso-
potamia.52
49
) Younger 2007: 140-53; Kuhrt 1994: 401.
50
) Or in the case of Babylonia, conflict between Arameans
and Assyrian surrogates among the urban elites of the south,
as I have illustrated with Uruk.
51
) As defined by Lipi÷ski 2000: 512-14.
52
) On the other hand, some Aramean groups in the
Jezireh do, in fact, show reflexes of early statehood, so that
Perhaps Younger’s regional approach should be
adjusted slightly to define three separate “spheres” for
the entire Fertile Crescent rather than McClellan’s two
geographic/economic spheres of Syria (cf. note 3
above), at least as these relate to Aramean origins and
the regions in which they first appear. Thus, perhaps
we should speak of (1) the Western Coastal Sphere,
where Arameans were present at the transition to the
Iron Age, but where they played a minor role, and
Phoenician city-states emerged instead. Then perhaps
one should speak of (2) North Syria as a separate
sphere, the “Hittite region,” where the political and
cultural continuity with the Hittite Empire in Anatolia
was paramount. Aramean polities emerged here but
with relatively little conflict with the indigenous popu-
lation and they appear to have coexisted with the
Luwians so that we may speak of a common Luwian-
Aramean material culture at the root of the Neo-Hittite
states. Finally, we may speak of (3) the Assyro-
Babylonian region, which combines the Jezireh and
southern Mesopotamia, or the peripheral fringes of
Assyria, where conflict characterized the relationship
between the Assyrians and Arameans. Developments
in Babylonia in the eighth and seventh centuries BCE
are thus similar to those outlined by Younger for the
Assyrian Jezireh in the ninth and eighth centuries, and
this progression is likely a genetic continuation of
those developments.
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