THE AMORREANS - AN ANCIENT PEOPLE OF SYRIA

 Written by Giuditta Andrei

Syria is just one of the countries in the Middle East that have shaped the entire history of the world. After a recent past at the centre of prolonged episodes of warfare that led to its geographical obliteration according to geo-political mechanisms that we will not delve into in this article, the proper study of Syria's history allows us to bring this country back to the centre of the world stage.

Knowing the history of a country that for many is merely a theatre of war and nothing else, nowadays, helps us better understand our present.

Syria holds a unique place in the annals of world history and few other lands boast such intellectual and spiritual progress as its own. Considered the cradle of Judaism, Christianity and the historical pivot of Islam, Syria has flourished with religious inspiration and inventiveness since ancient times.

The history of this country inextricably linked to its geographical location dates the first human settlement from a cave near Aleppo called the cave of Dederiyeh to at least 700,000 years ago. In the pre-Christian period, the area known as the Levant, which comprised present-day Syria, Lebanon and Palestine, was defined first by Mesopotamian civilisation and later by biblical books as Eber-Nari, or 'across the river'.

The history of the peoples who inhabited Syria can be divided into four categories:

1. The Semitic period, which began approximately in 2500 BC with the Amorites and ended with the fall of the Babylonian-Chaldean empire in 538 BC and anticipated Persian rule

2. The Greco-Roman period that was as it were 'inaugurated' by the conquest by Alexander the Great in 333 BC and ended with the Arab invasion between 633-640 AD

3. The Muslim period that lasted until the Ottoman conquest in 1516 A.D.

4. Finally, the Ottoman period that ended with the start of World War I.

The name 'Syria' in its present form is derived from Greek. The term, it is thought, first appeared as 'Shryn' in Ugaritic literature and as 'Syrion' in Hebrew. Ugaritic, a now extinct Semitic language that is thought to have been a dialect of the Amorites, was first discovered by French archaeologists in 1928, when several cuneiform character tablets were found in the ancient port city of Ugarit in present-day Ras Shamra, north of modern Laodicea. It is believed that most modern alphabets such as Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Cyrillic and Arabic derive from the Ugaritic alphabet, consisting of 27 basic consonants and dating back to around the 2nd millennium BC.

Ugaritic, whose lexicon to date consists of more than 2,000 words, is thought to have been essentially a local language that, according to the texts, was used to recount mythical deeds about the gods and how they influenced weather events and daily agricultural work. A number of Ugaritic tablets tell of the exploits of the god Baal (a term meaning storm) the son of El (the Creator) known as the god of storms or Cloud Rider. These tales known as the Myth of Baal-Aliyan and the Death of Baal are collectively collected in the so-called 'Cycle of Baal'.

In the fertile areas of the Syrian territory, the most frequent trade was with Mesopotamia and Egypt and usually, compared to the Ugaritic, the Akkadian-Sumerian language and cuneiform writing was used for commercial transactions, learning and administration.

The first major community or ethnic group of Semitic origin to inhabit Syria was the Amorite people. The term Amorrean or Amorite is derived from the Akkadian adjective Amurru, which corresponds to the Sumerian Mardu. This term, meaning 'western' according to many, was coined by their own neighbours, the Sumerians, to refer to the so-called peoples outside the civilised areas of ancient Mesopotamia.

The first reference to the land of the Amorites, whose presence was concentrated in present-day Central Syria, Lebanon and southern Palestine, dates back to around 2450 BC, even before the first Akkadian king Sargon the Great. Lebanon in particular, and the present-day cities of Sidona and Ascalona were known to be the main centres of the Amorites.

The Amorrean capital was Mari, an ancient city-state near present-day Abu Kamal (eastern Syria) on the western banks of the Euphrates River, known to be an ancient and flourishing trade centre. It is from the ancient writings of the Palace of Mari where between 15,000 and 20,000 cuneiform tablets dating back to the reign of King Zimri-Lim (1775-1761 BC) were discovered that the wealth of information about the Amorites comes.

The Amorites called their country (Syria today) A-MUR-RU or MART-U, the name of the deity of hunting and war. This name, in a way, persisted even later when the Babylonians called the Mediterranean 'the great sea of Amurru'.

Many of these accounts describe the Amorites as a semi-nomadic people who, on their travels in the region between the Middle Euphrates and the Syrian steppes, transported livestock. Gradually infiltrating the Babylonia of the 3rd millennium BC, the Amorites emerged as an influential group in the urbanised city-states. During the Early Bronze Age, they developed powerful states such as Ebla, Carchemish and Aleppo, building great fortified walls and elaborate palaces and temples to rival those found in Egypt and Mesopotamia. The Amorrean artistic and architectural style was undoubtedly influenced by the Mesopotamian style. When the influential dynasties of the Amorites came to control many of the cities of Babylonia, the most famous ruler among them was Hammurabi who reigned from 1792 to 1750 B.C. whose Codex, represents one of the earliest examples of written laws in human history.

It is thought that in their nomadic life they travelled accompanied by donkeys rather than camels, as, according to some, the camel had not yet been domesticated. As the Amorites gradually approached Babylon, a contemporary Sumerian poet who lived before 2000 BC reported:

For the Amorites, the weapon in their company

...knows no submission.

They eat raw meat,

Throughout their entire existence they do not own a home,

They do not bury their dead comrades.

Now Martu owns a home...

Now Martu owns grain.

The social life of the Amorites has been deduced from tablets found at Mari and we know that the population was organised into tribes and clans with a chief (sugagu) at their head.

Their economy was mainly based on animal husbandry and agriculture, which consisted of seasonal transhumance of small livestock, cultivation of cereals such as barley and sesame, hunting and trade.

The prosperity of their land was essentially due to the irrigation capacity of their cultivated fields and more mainly on trade relations with their neighbours. Syria, which had always been a natural corridor for trade, favoured the Amorites in assuming a key and strategic role in holding trade relations from Mesopotamia to the Persian Gulf and as far as the Nile delta.

The Amorites spoke a north-western Semitic language related to Ugaritic, Aramaic and modern Hebrew, Amorrean. In Mesopotamia, the dominant language of the time, Akkadian, had several linguistic borrowings from Amorrean. This language has left no particular traces of itself, except for a few names of places, gods and rulers.

The Amorrean term occurs eighty-eight times in the Hebrew Bible; the first is identified within the so-called Table of Nations in Genesis 10.

Canaan was the father of Sidon, his firstborn, and of the Hittites, Jebusites, Amorites, Girgusees, Hivites, Achites, Sinites, Arvadites, Zemarites and Hamathites.

Genesis 10:15-18

The main worship of the Amorites included the worship of various gods, and their names often reflected their devotion. A sacred monolith was stretched to represent the tribal deity, to whom human sacrifices were often offered, religious practices that would be carried on by their successors, the Canaanites, a people belonging to their own ethnic migration. In particular, attested by Akkadian texts, in addition to the veneration of Baal, there was the worship of Dagan, the god of agriculture and grain, Sîn, the moon god, Hadda, the god of time and mountains,

Other related deities were Erra, god of war and disease, Aštar, goddess of love and fertility, Nabû, god of wisdom and writing, Šamaš, the sun god, and Yammu, the god of water or the sea.

Akkadian-Amorrean Writing

In this regard, many of the personal names often recalled the names of deities. The most common names were Admu, Amiu, Annu, Erra, Aštar, Baal, Dagan, Hadda, Nabû, Sîn, Šamaš, Yammu, Yaraḫ, Dagan or the appellation Ilu/Elu meaning 'god'.

Alongside these names were the epithets: ab-u (father), aḫ-u (brother), amm-u (uncle), ḫāl-u (aunt). While to designate a group of people, ḫāl-u (tribe) or lîm-u (clan) was used.