Arameans

Arameans

The Arameans, or Aramaeans (Hebrew: אֲרַמִּים, romanized: ʾĂrammîm; Ancient Greek: Ἀραμαῖοι, romanized: Aramaíoi; Classical Syriac: ܐܪ̈ܡܝܐ, romanized: ārāmāyē, Syriac pronunciation: [ʔɑːrɑːˈmɑːje]), were a tribal Semitic people in the ancient Near East, first documented in historical sources from the late 12th century BCE. Their homeland, often referred to as the land of Aram, originally covered central regions of what is now Syria.

The Arameans were not a single nation or group; 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 extralinguistic identity markers, such as material culture, lifestyle, or religion. The people of Aram were called "Arameans" in Assyrian texts and the Hebrew Bible, but the terms "Aramean" and “Aram” were never used by later Aramean dynasts to refer to themselves or their country, except the king of Aram-Damascus, since his kingdom was also called Aram. "Arameans" is an appellation of the geographical term Aram given to 1st millennium BCE inhabitants of Syria.

At the beginning of the 1st millennium BCE, the Syro-Hittite 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 BCE, local Aramaean city-states were conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The policy of population displacement and relocation applied throughout Assyrian domains also affected the 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 lingua franca of public life and administration as Imperial Aramaic, 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. Thus, their integration into the Greek-speaking world had begun a long time before Christianity became established. Some scholars suggest that Arameans who accepted Christianity were referred to as Syrians by the Greeks. The early Muslim conquests in the 7th century were followed by the Islamization and the gradual Arabization (re-Semiticization after centuries of Hellenization, Persianization and Romanization) of Aramaic-speaking communities throughout the Near East. That ultimately resulted in their fragmentation and acculturation. 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.

Etymology

Arameans

The toponym A-ra-mu appears in an inscription at the East Semitic-speaking kingdom of Ebla listing geographical names, and the term Armi, the Eblaite term for nearby Idlib, occurs frequently in the Ebla tablets (c. 2300 BC). One of the annals of Naram-Sin of Akkad (c. 2250 BC) mentions that he captured "Dubul, the ensí of A-ra-me" (Arame is seemingly a genitive form), in the course of a campaign against Simurrum in the northern mountains. Other early references to a place or people of "Aram" have appeared at the archives of Mari (c. 1900 BC) and at Ugarit (c. 1300 BC). There is no consensus on the origin and meaning of the word "Aram", one of the most accepted suggestions being that it is derived from a Semitic root rwm, "to be high". A newer suggestion is that it as a broken plural meaning "white antelopes" or "white bulls". The earliest undisputed historical attestation of Arameans as a people appears much later, in the inscriptions of Tiglath Pileser I (c. 1100 BC).

History

Origins

Although proving the origins of the ancient Arameans has been problematic in the past, scholars have come to a consensus that their homeland was the deserts of Syria and upper Mesopotamia. Nomadic pastoralists have long played a prominent role in the history and economy of the Middle East, but their numbers seem to vary according to climatic conditions and the force of neighbouring states inducing permanent settlement. The Late Bronze Age seems to coincide with increasing aridity, which weakened neighbouring states and induced transhumance pastoralists to spend longer and longer periods with their flocks. Urban settlements (hitherto largely inhabited by Amorite, Canaanite, Hittite, and Ugarite peoples) in the Levant diminished in size until fully-nomadic pastoralist lifestyles came to dominate much of the region. The highly mobile competitive tribesmen, with their sudden raids, continually threatened long-distance trade and interfered with the collection of taxes and tribute.

The people who had long been the prominent population in what is now Syria (called the Land of the Amurru during their tenure) were the Amorites, a Northwest Semitic-speaking people who had appeared during the 25th century BC, destroyed the hitherto dominant state of Ebla, founded the powerful state of Mari in the Levant and during the 19th century BC also Babylonia, in southern Mesopotamia. However, they seem to have been displaced or wholly absorbed by the appearance of a people called the Ahlamu by the 13th century BC and disappear from history. Ahlamû appears to be a generic term for Semitic wanderers and nomads of varying origins who appeared during the 13th century BC across the ancient Near East, the Arabian Peninsula, Asia Minor, and Egypt.

The Arameans would appear to be one part of the larger generic Ahlamû group rather than synonymous with the Ahlamu. The presence of the Ahlamû is attested during the Middle Assyrian Empire (1365–1020 BC), which already ruled many of the lands in which the Ahlamû arose in the Babylonian city of Nippur and even at Dilmun. Shalmaneser I (1274–1245 BC) is recorded as having defeated Shattuara, King of the Mitanni and his Hittite and Ahlamû mercenaries. In the next century, the Ahlamû cut the road from Babylon to Hattusas. Also, Tukulti-Ninurta I (1244–1208 BC) conquered Mari, Hanigalbat and Rapiqum on the Euphrates and "the mountain of the Ahlamû", apparently the region of Jebel Bishri in northern Syria.

Aramean states

Map of the Aramean states and other post-Hittite states

The emergence of the Arameans occurred during the Bronze Age collapse (1200–900 BC), which saw great upheavals and mass movements of peoples across the Middle East, Asia Minor, the Caucasus, the East Mediterranean, North Africa, Ancient Iran, Ancient Greece and the Balkans and led to the genesis of new peoples and polities across those regions. The Middle Assyrian Empire (1365–1050 BC), which had dominated the Near East and Asia Minor since the first half of the 14th century BC, began to shrink rapidly after the death of Ashur-bel-kala, its last great ruler in 1056 BC. The Assyrian withdrawal allowed the Arameans and others to gain independence and take firm control of Eber-Nari in the late 11th century BC.

Some of the major Aramean-speaking city states included Aram-Damascus, Hamath, Bet-Adini, Bet-Bagyan, Bit-Hadipe, Aram-Bet Rehob, Aram-Zobah, Bet-Zamani, Bet-Halupe, and Aram-Ma'akah, as well as the Aramean tribal polities of the Gambulu, Litau and Puqudu. Akkermans and Schwartz note that in assessing Luwian and Aramean states in ancient Syria, the existing information on the ethnic composition of the regional states in ancient Syria primarily concerns the rulers and so the ethnolingustic situation of the majority of the population of the states is unclear. They, and other scholars, suggest that the material culture shows no distinctions between states dominated by the Luwians or the Arameans.

Aramean tribal groups were identified by family names that often began with the Semitic prefix Bit, meaning "house of", such as "Bit Adini". This naming convention was influenced by the writing system used by the coastal Phoenicians. Each tribe's name signified the house or ancestral lineage to which it belonged. The term "Aram" sometimes referred only to a part and other times to the whole of the Syrian region during the Iron Age. The expressions “All Aram” and “Upper and Lower Aram” in Sefire treaty inscriptions have been variously interpreted, but can suggest a degree of political and cultural unity among some of the polities in the area. In earlier Assyrian sources from the late 2nd millennium BC references are made to "the land of the Arameans", while in 1st millennium BC references, "Aram" became a topographical term. Aram extended eastward from the Anti-Lebanon mountains to past the Euphrates.

Biblical sources tell that Saul, David and Solomon (late 11th to 10th centuries BC) fought against the small Aramean states ranged across the northern frontier of Israel: Aram-Sôvah in the Beqaa, Aram-Bêt-Rehob (Rehov) and Aram-Ma'akah around Mount Hermon, Geshur in the Hauran, and Aram-Damascus. An Aramean king's account dating at least two centuries later, the Tel Dan stele, was discovered in northern Israel and is famous for being perhaps the earliest non-Israelite extra-biblical historical reference to the Israelite royal dynasty, the House of David. In the early 11th century BC, much of Israel came under foreign rule for eight years according to the Book of Judges until Othniel defeated the forces led by Cushan-Rishathaim, who was titled in the Bible as ruler of Aram-Naharaim.

Further north, the Arameans gained possession of Neo-Hittite Hamath on the Orontes River and became strong enough to dissociate with the Indo-European-speaking Neo-Hittite states. The Arameans, together with the Edomites and the Ammonites, attacked Israel in the early 11th century BC, but were defeated.

During the 11th and the 10th centuries BC, the Arameans conquered Sam'al and renamed it Bît-Agushi,. They also conquered Til Barsip, which became the chief town of Bît-Adini, also known as Beth Eden. North of Sam'al was the Aramean state of Bit Gabbari, which was sandwiched between the Luwian states of Carchemish, Gurgum, Khattina, Unqi and Tabal (region). One of their earliest semi-independent kingdoms in northern Mesopotamia was Bît-Bahiâni (Tell Halaf).

Under Neo-Assyrian rule

Aramean king Hazael of Aram-Damascus

Illustration by Gustave Doré from the 1866 La Sainte Bible depicting an Israelite victory over the army of Ben-Hadad, described in 1 Kings 20:26–34

The first certain reference to the Arameans appears in an Assyrian inscription of Tiglath-Pileser I, designating them as the 'Ahlamu of the land Armaya.' Shortly afterward, the Ahlamû disappear from Assyrian annals and are replaced by the Arameans (Aramu, Arimi). That indicates that the Arameans had risen to dominance amongst the nomads. Among scholars, the relationship between the Akhlame and the Arameans is a matter of conjecture. By the late 12th century BC, the Arameans had been firmly established in Syria; however, they were conquered by the Middle Assyrian Empire.

Assyrian annals from the end of the Middle Assyrian Empire c. 1050 BC and the rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 911 BC contain numerous descriptions of battles between Arameans and the Assyrian army. The Assyrians launched repeated raids into Aramean lands, Babylonia, Ancient Iran, Elam, Asia Minor, and even as far as the Mediterranean to keep its trade routes open. The Aramean city-states, like much of the Near East and Asia Minor, were subjugated by the Neo Assyrian Empire from the reign of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, who cleared Arameans and other tribal peoples from the borders of Assyria and began to expand in all directions. The process was continued by Ashurnasirpal II and his son Shalmaneser III, who destroyed many of the small Aramean tribes and conquered Aramean lands for the Assyrians.

In 732 BC, Aram-Damascus fell and was conquered by Assyrian King Tiglath-Pileser III. The Assyrians named their Aramean colonies Eber Nari, but still used the term "Aramean" to describe many of its peoples. The Assyrians conducted forced deportations of hundreds of thousands of Arameans to both Assyria and Babylonia, where a migrant population already existed. Conversely, the Aramaic language was adopted as the lingua franca of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the 8th century BC, and the native Assyrians and Babylonians began to make a gradual language shift towards Aramaic as the most common language of public life and administration.

The Neo Assyrian Empire descended into a series of brutal internal wars from 626 BC that weakened it greatly. That allowed a coalition of many its former subject peoples (Babylonians, Chaldeans, Medes, Persians, Parthians, Scythians, Sagartians and Cimmerians) to attack Assyria in 616 BC, sack Nineveh in 612 BC and finally defeat it between 605 and 599 BC. During the war against Assyria, hordes of horse-borne Scythian and Cimmerian marauders ravaged through the Levant and all the way into Egypt.

As a result of migratory processes, various Aramean groups were settled throughout the ancient Near East, and their presence is recorded in the regions of Assyria, Babylonia, Anatolia, Phoenicia, Palestine, Egypt and Northern Arabia. Population transfers, conducted during the Neo-Assyrian Empire and followed by the gradual linguistic Aramization of non-Aramean populations, created a specific situation in the regions of Assyria proper among ancient Assyrians, who originally spoke the ancient Assyrian language, a dialect of Akkadian, but later accepted Aramaic.

Neo-Babylonian Empire

Eber-Nari was then ruled by the succeeding Neo-Babylonian Empire, which was initially headed by a short-lived Chaldean dynasty. The Aramean regions became a battleground between the Babylonians and the 26th Dynasty of Egypt, which had been installed by the Assyrians as vassals after they had defeated and ejected the previous Nubian-ruled 25th Dynasty. The Egyptians, having entered the region in a belated attempt to aid their former Assyrian masters, fought the Babylonians, initially with the help of remnants of the Assyrian army, in the region for decades before they were finally vanquished.

The Babylonians remained masters of the Aramean lands only until 539 BC, when the Persian Achaemenid Empire overthrew Nabonidus, the Assyrian-born last king of Babylon, who had himself overthrown the Chaldean dynasty in 556 BC.

Under Achaemenid and Hellenistic rule

The Arameans were later conquered by the Achaemenid Empire (539–332 BC). However, little changed from the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian times, as the Persians, seeing themselves as successors of previous empires, maintained Imperial Aramaic as the main language of public life and administration. Provincial administrative structures also remained the same, and the name Eber Nari still applied to the region.

The conquests of Alexander the Great marked the beginning of a new era in the history of the entire Near East, including the regions inhabited by Arameans. By the late 4th century BC, two newly created Hellenistic states emerged as main pretenders for regional supremacy: the Seleucid Empire (305–64 BC) and the Ptolemaic Empire (305–30 BC). Since earlier times, ancient Greeks commonly used "Syrian" labels as designations for Arameans and heir lands, but it was during the Hellenistic (Seleucid-Ptolemaic) period that the term "Syria" was finally defined to designate the regions west of the Euphrates, as opposed to the term "Assyria", which designated the regions further east.

In the 3rd century BC, various narratives related to the history of earlier Aramean states became accessible to wider audiences after the translation of the Hebrew Bible into the Greek language. Known as Septuagint, the translation was created in Alexandria, the capital of Ptolemaic Egypt that was the most important city of the Hellenistic world and was one of the main centres of Hellenization. Influenced by Greek terminology, translators decided to adopt ancient Greek custom of using "Syrian" labels as designations for Arameans and their lands and thus abandon the endonymic (native) terms that were used in the Hebrew Bible. In Septuagint, the region of Aram was commonly labelled as "Syria", and the Arameans were labelled as "Syrians". When reflecting on traditional influences of Greek terminology on English translations of the Septuagint, American orientalist Robert W. Rogers noted in 1921 that it was unfortunate that the change also affected later English versions. In Greek sources, two writers spoke particularly clearly on the Arameans. Posidonius, born in Apamea, as quoted by Strabo, writes: "Those people whom we Greeks call Syrioi, call themselves Aramaioi". Further, Josephus, who was born in Jerusalem, defines the regions of "Aram's sons" as the Tranchonitis, Damascus "midway between Palestine and Coelo-Syria", Armenia, Bactria, and the Mesene around Spasini Charax.

Osroene and Edessa

After the establishment of Roman Syria in the 1st century BC, historically Aramean lands became the frontier region between two empires, Roman and Parthian, and later between their successor states, the Byzantine and Sasanid Empires. Several minor states also existed in frontier regions, most notably the Kingdom of Osroene, centred in the city of Edessa, known in Aramaic as Urhay. Akopian describes Osrhoene as the second Aramean state, after Palmyra, to emerge after the fall of the ancient Aramean kingdoms, lasting from 132 BC until its incorporation into the Roman Empire in 242 AD. Its strong local Aramean character is evidenced by inscriptions on the bronze coins of the Abgarid kings and on the fortress walls of Edessa and other cities. Many of the Abgarids proved to be proponents and protectors of local Aramean heritage and traditions, and the rich cultural life of Osroene represented an Aramean counteraction to Greek-language Hellenism. Edessa became the place where Arameans finally succeeded in depriving the Jews of their centuries-old domination in literary activities in Aramaic and started a rich literature which eventually exceeded in volume everything written in all other Aramaic dialects combined. Under Abgar VIII the Great (177–212), Osroene reached its cultural heyday, and Edessa emerged as a major centre of Aramean cultural life.

Self-designation and the term Syrian

Romans and Greeks, for their part, believed that the people they called "Syrians" typically called themselves "Arameans" in their own language. The geographer Strabo reported this synonymy in multiple passages, and Josephus stated that Aram was the common ancestor of all Arameans, but the Greeks called them Syrians. Josephus further distinguished the Syrians from the Assyrians, holding that Aramus was the ancestor whom the Greeks called Syrians, and that his four sons had settled the land stretching from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf.

Ārāmāyē is the indigenous Aramaic word meaning "Aramean." Before the fifth century, Syriac speakers exclusively used this term to describe themselves. In pre-modern Syriac sources more broadly, the typical self-designations for individuals belonging to the Syriac heritage were Ārāmāyē ("Aramean") and Suryāyā ("Syrian"), along with its truncated variant Surāyā. The term Āthorāyā ("Assyrian"), by contrast, was not the typical self-designation. Bardaiṣan (154–222), for instance, is described both as Ārāmāyē and Suryāyā in the Syriac version of Eusebius of Caesarea's Ecclesiastical History, which was translated before 420. Those adjectives served as the typical self-designations for Syriac Christians throughout the pre-modern sources.

Ephrem the Syrian, in his polemical writings against Bardaisan, referred to this native of Edessa as "the philosopher of the Arameans" (pilāsupā d-Ārāmāyē) and as "the Aramean philosopher." In another work, Ephrem again used "Aramean" when mentioning Bardaisan in the context of ridicule among both Arameans and Greeks. Before the terminological shift, Syriac-speaking intellectuals used the term "Aramean" without reservation as a self-referential ethnonym. Ephrem's usage of Ārāmāyē represents the oldest firmly dated attestation of this practice.

Greek-speaking Christians in Syria attributed to Ephrem the status of poet of the Syrian people as a whole. Theodoret of Cyrrhus described Ephrem as one who "daily waters the ethnos of Syrians (to Surôn ethnos) with streams of grace." Sozomen claimed that Ephrem surpassed the Greeks in wisdom and noted the broad diffusion of his works among Greek Christians by his own lifetime. Theodoret could praise the Syriac poet Ephrem for not being contaminated by Greek paideia while treating his own mastery of the classical Greek corpus as unproblematic for his status as a Christian pitted against "Greeks."

Late Antiquity and the rise of Suryāyā

As Greek civic institutions and the structures of the provincial and regional koina eroded, the Roman imperial administration and networks of Christian bishops and their churches increasingly oversaw the organising principles and maintained the interconnectedness of Syrian cities. As Christianity spread, many churchmen perceived the Greek civic-cultic performances of the past to be tainted with pagan connotations. Amid these transformations, the inhabitants of the Syrian provinces increasingly disassociated their civic behaviours from concepts of Greek performance, and authors writing in both Greek and Syriac reserved the term "Greek" or "Hellene" for practitioners of Greek literary and cultural paideia, the inhabitants of Greece itself, or, according to Christian perceptions, pagans. The term Hellēn could be used generically for a pagan, while its Syriac counterpart Yawnāyē was used more specifically for pagans associated with Greek paideia. Syrians increasingly perceived themselves to be members of a cohesive regional and social collectivity, or ethnos, that incorporated Greek and Aramean elements. Authors increasingly described members of the Syrian ethnos as "Syrian by birth (genos)" regardless of their genealogies. By contrast, they no longer necessarily conceived of their cities as constituting "Greek" collectivities.

During Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, the Greek custom of using Syrian terms for Aramean communities and their collective identity gained acceptance among Aramaic-speaking literary and ecclesiastical elites. The practice of using Syrian labels as designations for Arameans was very common among ancient Greeks, and under their influence, the practice also became common among the Romans and Byzantines. Suryāyā is not a native Aramaic word but a loanword from Greek, derived from the noun Σύρος ("Syrian"), augmented with the Syriac gentilic ending -āyā. In Syriac sources, this term as a group designation is only attested from the fifth century onward. Among the earliest attestations are the fifth-century Syriac version of Eusebius' On the Theophany and the canons of Marutha of Maipherqat.

A presbyter named Pelagios of Antioch is recorded in the acts of the Second Council of Ephesus (449) as declaring: "I am from the people of Syrians (ʿamā d-Suryāyē), from Antioch, the city located towards sunrise."

A clear illustration of this transition involves the biblical figure of Naaman from 2 Kings 5, described as "Syrian" (Ναιμὰν ὁ Σύρος) in Luke 4:27. In early Syriac Christian tradition, Naaman's designation was rendered as "Aramean" (Ārāmāyē). In later Syriac tradition, such as the seventh-century Harklean version, it was changed to "Syrian" (Suryāyā). The Arabic version of Tatian's Diatessaron preserves the older usage, translating Naaman's designation with the Arabic al-Nabāṭī ("Nabataean"), which was the standard Arabic word for "Aramean," rather than al-Šāmī ("Syrian") as in later Arabic Bibles.

In Jewish texts of the early centuries BC and AD, "Aramean" acquired a third sense: "non-Jew, Gentile." This usage was taken over into early Syriac Christianity. In New Testament passages such as Acts 19:10 and Galatians 2:14, where the Greek text contrasts Ioudaioi/Jews with Hellenes/Gentiles, the corresponding Syriac translation uses Ārāmāyē for "Gentiles." Subsequently, in both Jewish and Syriac Christian usage, a distinction in pronunciation was introduced, so that Ārāmāyē denoted "Aramaic, Aramean," but Armāyā denoted "gentile, pagan." Within the early Judeo-Christian communities of North Mesopotamia, which were initially composed mostly of Jews, the surrounding Arameans long represented the main body of Gentiles. As the first Aramaic translations of the Christian Holy Scriptures were made in these communities, the term became associated with paganism. Consequently, the Christian Arameans of Osroene adopted the self-designation Suryāyā ("Syrian"). Since the words "Syria" and "Syrian" as synonyms of "Aram" and "Aramean" were already widely used by Greek authors, evident in the Septuagint and other biblical translations, no artificial innovation was involved. A further incentive arose from the subsequent unification of Jews and Arameans into a single Christian community in Osroene, since Jews could hardly call themselves "Arameans" either, not only because of the pagan connotation, but also out of purely ethnic considerations.

Alongside the territorial meaning of "Syrian," a more exclusive understanding of the label emerged that emphasised inherited and cultural dimensions. A gloss found in some manuscripts of Photius' Bibliotheca distinguishes between two kinds of "Syrians": those Greek settlers who merely inhabit Syria, and the "true" Syrians, the autochthonous population who preserve their customs. Jerome described the holy man Malchus as "Syrian by origin and tongue" (Syrus natione et lingua), and Theodoret of Cyrus described the heresiarch Audaeus as "Syrian, both by origin and by speech." In the sociolinguistic context of the late Roman Near East, origin and inherited cultural markers constituted the most salient signs of ethnic identity.

Syriac literary expressions of identity

Jacob of Sarug appears to have been the first Syriac author to use the abstract term Ārāmāyuta ("Arameandom") as a collective designation. In a mēmrā dedicated to Ephrem, he praised the Church Father as "the crown of the entire Arameandom" (klilā l-kulāh Ārāmāyuta). Jacob also characterised the legendary Edessene king Abgar, a central figure in local Syriac Christian identity, as "the son of the Arameans" (bar Ārāmāyē) on multiple occasions. An anonymous mēmrā dedicated to Jacob himself later celebrated him by stating that "the whole party of Arameandom (kulēh gabā d-Ārāmāyuta) was illuminated through him." Jacob's use of the concept of "Arameandom" also appears in another hymn about Ephrem, where Jacob described him as a wondrous "rhetor" who "triumphed over the Greeks (Yawnāyē)," and called Ephrem the "crown of all the Aramean people (Ārāmāyuta)" and the great rhetor "among the Syrians (Suryāyē)". Jacob of Sarug's homily on Ephrem perhaps also framed the Syrians as a regional collective distinct from Greeks. A mēmrā written by Jacob's disciple George praised him as a source of spiritual sustenance for "the nation of Syrians" (gensā d-bēt Suryāyē).

Philoxenus of Mabbug and John of Ephesus

Philoxenus of Mabbug characterised Ephrem as "the teacher of us Syrians," regarding him as the only Syriac Church Father who could stand alongside Greek-speaking touchstones of orthodoxy such as Athanasius, the Cappadocian Fathers, and Cyril of Alexandria.

John of Ephesus referred to himself as "John the Syrian" because of his Syrian origins. In one of his works, he described himself as being a member of a genos (gensā) designated as Syrian, though at the same time he noted that he came from the vicinity of the Roman-Persian frontier. John conceived of the eastern Roman empire as being divided between "every land of Greeks and Syrians," with "the land of the Syrians" constituting the parts of Oriens where Syrians lived.

Around the year 700, Jacob of Edessa (d. 708) described how people had rendered biblical works into "the Syrian (Suryāyā) language," and he referred to such translators as "Greeks" (Yawnāyē), while noting that "other Syrians (Suryāyē)," that is, Syriac Christians, had received and transmitted their works. Jacob thus hinted that speakers of both Greek and Syriac could be reckoned Syrian due to their regional origins. He later specified that Syriac Christians could be called either "Arameans" (Ārāmāyē) or "Syrians" (Suryāyē), with these being roughly synonymous names. Jacob therefore operated with at least two definitions: "Syrians" as a regional category applying to all inhabitants of the Syrian provinces regardless of background, and "Syrians (or Arameans)" as an ethnic designation for Aramean Christians specifically. Akopian notes that Jacob of Edessa was one of those Syriac authors who described their heritage as "Syriac, that is Aramean" (Suryāyā awket Ārāmāyē). Fluent in Greek and a Hellenist by culture, Jacob of Edessa was nevertheless a prominent advocate of Syriac-Aramean identity.

Ḥasan bar Bahlūl explained in his Lexicon that "at first Syrians were called Arameans; and after Syros began his reign over them they began to be called Syrians." A Judaeo-Christian basis for this distinction appears in the surviving Armenian translation of the Chronicle of Eusebius of Caesarea, where Ashur and Aram are sons of Shem, Ashur's descendants are the Assyrians, and the Arameans, who were called Syrians, descend from Aram. The Chronicle of Zuqnin (eighth century) variously described Syrian Orthodox Christians as Syrians, Arameans, and "sons of Aram."

Michael the Great elaborated most extensively on the relationship between Ārāmāyā and Suryāyā in an appendix to his world chronicle, dedicated to "the kingdoms that have come about in ancient times from our people (umthā), the Arameans (Ārāmāyē), i.e., sons of Aram, (who) were called Syrians (Suryāyē), i.e., sons of Syria." Michael thus explicitly equated Arameans with Syrians and framed the Syriac-speaking Christians as the descendants and national heirs of the ancient Arameans. Debié observes that this is one of the few instances where the word "race" or "nation" is used for the Syrians, and suggests that by Michael's time the Syrians may have come to consider themselves an ethnos, possibly as a consequence of contact with the Byzantines and the Franks.

According to Debié, both Jacob of Edessa and Dionysius of Tel Mahre stressed that the Chaldean, or synonymously Assyrian, kings, the alleged ancestors of the Syrians, "used our Aramaic tongue and script" and "belonged to our tongue." Jacob stated that the Arameans were called Syrians "by the Greeks," and he expressed his goal of demonstrating that "an empire of our tongue and script existed until the time of Cyrus the Persian." Dionysius followed Jacob in this, and Michael the Great placed the testimony of both, one after the other, in his appendix. Debié notes that the question of origins in this appendix had more to do with the use of a common language than with ethnicity or geographical location.

After the collapse of Roman and Persian authority in the Near East, the inhabitants of Syria increasingly used the term "Syrian" to refer to the Syriac-speaking Christians in territories once controlled by both Persia and Rome, and they often referred to themselves as both Syrians and Arameans, or "sons of Aram." Michael the Syrian, citing Dionysius of Tel Mahre, maintained that those who were correctly called Syrians were inhabitants of territory west of the Euphrates River, though he stressed that many misinformed people believed that all Aramaic speakers from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf were Syrians. During the period of Arab control, the terms "Syrian" and "Aramean" became increasingly synonymous and could refer to all Christian Syriac speakers regardless of geographic location.

Culture

Arameans

The Iron Age culture of Syria is a topic of interest among scholars, but is never referred to simply as "Aramean". Scholars have difficulty in identifying and isolating characteristic Aramean elements in the culture. Even in North Syria, where more substantial evidence is available, scholars still find it difficult to identify what is genuinely Aramean from what is borrowed from other cultures. Widespread scholarly opinion still maintains that since several ethnic groups, such as Luwians and Aramaeans, interacted in the region, one material culture with "mixed" elements resulted. The material culture appears to be so homogeneous that it "shows no clear distinctions between states dominated by Luwians or Aramaeans".

Language

Ancient mosaic from Edessa in Osroene (2nd century AD) with inscriptions in early Edessan Aramaic

Initial area of the Aramaic language in the 1st century, and its gradual decline

Arameans were mostly defined by their use of the West Semitic Old Aramaic language (1100 BC – 200 AD), which was first written using the Phoenician alphabet, but over time modified to a specifically-Aramaic alphabet. Aramaic first appeared in history during the opening centuries of the Iron Age, when several newly-emerging chiefdoms decided to use it as a written language. The process coincided with a change from syllabic cuneiform to alphabetic scribal culture and the rise of a novel style of public epigraphy, which was formerly unattested in Syria-Palestine. The language is considered a sister branch of the idiom used in the Bronze-Age city-state of Ugarit, on the one hand, and Canaanite, which comprises languages further south in the speech area such as Hebrew, Phoenician, and Moabite, on the other hand. All three branches can be subsumed under the more general rubric Northwest Semitic and thus share a common origin. The earliest direct witnesses of Aramaic, which were composed between the 10th and 8th centuries BC, are unanimously subsumed under the term "Old Aramaic". The early writings exhibit variation and anticipate the enormous linguistic diversity within the Aramaic language group. Despite the variation, they are connected by common literary forms and formulaic expressions.

The language had no linguistic similarities to the Akkadian dialect spoken in Babylonia or Assyria. As early as the 8th century BC, Aramaic competed with the East Semitic Akkadian language and script in Assyria and Babylonia and then spread throughout the Near East in various dialects. By around 800 BC, Aramaic had become the lingua franca of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, which continued during the Achaemenid period as Imperial Aramaic. Although it was marginalized by Greek during the Hellenistic period, Aramaic in its varying dialects remained unchallenged as the common language of all Semitic peoples of the region until the Arabs' Islamic conquest of Mesopotamia in the 7th century AD, when the language became gradually superseded by Arabic.

The vernacular dialects of Eastern Old Aramaic, spoken during the Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and Achaemenid Persian empires, developed into various Eastern Middle Aramaic dialects. Among these were the Aramaic dialects of the ancient region of Osrhoene, one of which later became the liturgical language of Syriac Christianity. In the first centuries AD, the Christian Bible was translated into Aramaic and by the 4th century, the local Aramaic dialect of Edessa (Syriac: Urhay) had evolved into a literary language known as Edessan Aramaic (Syriac: Urhaya). Since Edessan Aramaic (Urhaya) was the primary liturgical language of Aramaic Christianity, it also became known as Edessan Syriac and was later defined by Western scholars as Classical Syriac. This laid the foundation for the term Syriac Christianity. The Eastern Orthodox patriarchates were dominated by Greek episcopate and Greek linguistic and cultural traditions. The use of the Aramaic language in liturgical and literary life among Melkites of Jewish descent persisted throughout the Middle Ages until the 14th century, as exemplified in the use of a specific regional dialect known as Christian Palestinian Aramaic or Palestinian Syriac in the Palestine region, Transjordan and Sinai.

Descendant Neo-Aramaic languages of the Eastern Aramaic branch continue to serve as the spoken and written languages of the Assyrians, Mandeans and Mizrahi Jews. These languages are primarily found in Iraq, northwestern Iran, southeastern Turkey and northeastern Syria, and to a lesser extent, in migrant communities in Armenia, Georgia, Russia, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan and Azerbaijan, as well as in Assyrian diaspora communities in the West, particularly in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Sweden, Australia and Germany.

Western Neo-Aramaic, the only surviving modern variety of the Western branch, is now spoken by Muslims and Christians solely in Maaloula and Jubb'adin in the Qalamoun mountains of southwestern Syria.

During the early modern period, the study of the Aramaic language, both ancient and modern, was initiated among Western scholars. This led to the formation of Aramaic studies as a broader multidisciplinary field, encompassing the study of the cultural and historical heritage of Aramaic. The linguistic and historical aspects of Aramaic studies have been further expanded since the 19th century through archaeological excavations of ancient sites in the Near East.

Religion

What is known of the religion of the Aramean groups is derived from excavated objects and temples and by Aramaic literary sources, as well as the names they had. Their religion did not feature any particular deity that could be called an Aramean god or goddess. It appears from their inscriptions and their names that the Arameans worshipped Canaanite and Mesopotamian gods such as Hadad, Sin, Ishtar (whom they called Astarte), Shamash, Tammuz, Bel and Nergal, and Canaaite-Phoenecian deities such as the storm-god, El, the supreme deity of Canaan, in addition to Anat (‘Atta) and others.

The Arameans who lived outside their homelands apparently followed the traditions of the countries in which they settled. The King of Damascus, for instance, employed Phoenician sculptors and ivory-carvers. In Tell Halaf-Guzana, the palace of Kapara, an Aramean ruler (9th century BC) was decorated with orthostates and with statues that display a mixture of Mesopotamian, Hittite and Hurrian influences.

Legacy

Arameans

Limestone relief; stele. This unusual stele depicts an unidentified Aramaean king holding a tulip in one hand while grasping a staff or a spear in the other hand. 11th century BC. From Tell es-Salihiyeh, Damascus

The legacy of ancient Arameans became of particular interest for scholars during the early modern period and resulted in the emergence of Aramaic studies as a distinctive field, dedicated to the study of the Aramaic language. By the 19th century, the Aramean question was formulated, and several scholarly theses were proposed regarding the development of the language and the history of the Arameans.

Modern identity

In modern times, an Aramean identity is held mainly by a number of Syriac Christian groups, predominantly from southeastern Turkey and parts of Syria. Aramean identity is most predominant among Syriac Christians, and as such, is most often used in the diaspora, especially in Germany and Sweden. However, other groups such as Maronites, Arab Christians, and the Arameans of Maaloula and Jubb'adin may also identify strongly under the label.

In 2014, Israel officially recognised Arameans as a distinctive minority. Questions related to the minority rights of Arameans in some other countries were also brought to international attention.