Aramean Origins: The Evidence from Babylonia

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 Syria and southeast Anatolia), Assyrian (i.e., the which he took a regional approach to the problem, Jezireh6), and Levantine (i.e., central and south Syria). analyzing the various geographical regions in which Younger concludes that “the circumstances facing the the Arameans are encountered.3 After an overview of the textual evidence for Aramean origins, as well as Arameans in the western branch of the Fertile Cresthe 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 Iron I were competing with smaller political entities in beginning with the Western Coastal Sphere, which the west, those city-states made vulnerable by the saw the rise of Phoenician city-states in the wake of same socioeconomic and climatic causes that brought the crisis and collapse around 1200 BCE.4 By “Western Coastal Sphere” Younger, means coastal Syria, an end to the Late Bronze Age empires. In the west, which naturally participated in the Mediterranean maritherefore, the Arameans established new kingdoms time trade network; it is exemplified in palatial commore rapidly. By contrast, the Arameans of the east (i.e., in the Hittite and Assyrian regions of Inland plexes such as those at Alala©, Ugarit, and Ras Ibn 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). Assyrian regions, for which we have considerably 2 ) Schwartz 1989; Pitard 1994: 207-10. For convenient more evidence than the Levantine region.8 Specifisurvey of the issues and more bibliography, see Schniedewind cally, he has identified an Aramaization process in the 2002: esp. 279-80. Schniedewind’s article explores the Assyrian region during the twelfth through tenth censocioanthropological issues at work in the rise of statehood 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 geowhich the Arameans eventually prevailed, bringing graphic/economic spheres in Syria, the Western Coastal MediAssyrian dominion in the Jezireh to an end (ca. 1114terranean Sphere and the Inland Syrian Sphere, is dependent 1056 BCE). During a subsequent period of Assyrian on the work of McClellan (1992). 4 political and military weakness (ca. 1055-935 BCE), ) Younger 2007: 141-43. The causes of the transition Arameans rose to (c) supremacy in the region and the from Late Bronze to Iron I can clearly no longer be attributed simplistically to the so-called “Sea Peoples,” as many acfirst 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 main2000. 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 several factors resulted in the collapse of Bronze Age culture, including but not limited to potential natural catastrophes, technological innovations, shifts in patterns of production, or a combination of these, as well as the arrival of the “Sea Peoples.” Above all, the dramatic changes may be credited to revolutionary military innovations, resulting in a new style of warfare that opened possibilities for small groups raiding the Levant; Drews 1993: 95-225. Archiv für Orientforschung 52 (2011) 5 ) Younger 2007: 140-43. ) The Jezireh (Arabic el-Jezireh, “island”) is the upper Mesopotamian plain, the zone between the Tigris and Euphrates in the north, stretching across modern northwest Iraq, north Syria, and south Turkey. 7 ) Younger 2007: 143-53. 8 ) Younger, forthcoming. Many thanks to the author for a pre-publication copy of this paper. 6 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 political 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, impacted 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 centralized 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, however, the region evinces a mixed Luwian and Aramean population, and in fact, the remarkable characteristic of the region is a relatively peaceful symbiotic relationship between the two. The region’s natural geographic 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 acculturation 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 southern 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 culture 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 at9 ) Younger, forthcoming. ) For details, see again Younger, forthcoming. 11 ) Younger 2007: 145. 10 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 distinction 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 confirms 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 movement into Assyria and other parts of north Mesopotamia 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 suggests 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 tributaries, forming a buffer zone between Babylonia and Elam along the eastern border.16 They generally resisted 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 administrators in Babylonia. Many such letters from Babylon, Nippur, and Uruk, are addressed to Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal revealing what was essentially an intelligence network in Babylonia, reporting conspiracies against the king and other anti-Assyrian activities, 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 southern 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 powerful Aramean Gamb¹lu-tribe through their sheikh B®liq²¡a, in order to create a buffer against Elamite hostilities in the east.21 But then in a letter from Ki¡ or Borsippa from an unknown author, B®l-iq²¡a is accused 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, acquiring it for his own use. The author of the letter reports these activities to the king as suspicious and disturbing.22 17 ) Reynolds 2003: xv-xxxiii. ) For more on each and several others, including speculation on the etymology of each tribal name, see Lipi÷ski 2000: 472-79 (Gamb¹lu), 429-37 (Puq¹du), 482-83 (Gurasimmu), 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 Esarhad18 181 The epistolary evidence sheds light on the hostilities 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 prisoners. 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 evidence suggests at least two and perhaps three Assyrian deportations of Puq¹dian-tribesmen shortly before the end of the war. The pro-Assyrian forces were apparently 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 suggests 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 threatening 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 centuries in the Levant and in northern Mesopotamia.32 Like other non-urban pastoralists across the Fertile Crescent, the Arameans lived for centuries as nomadic or semi-nomadic tribalists, leaving us entirely dependent on meager textual evidence, as well as general sociopolitical 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 individual Arameans, at times providing data for prosopography, 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 b²ttribal 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, limited centralized Aramean states emerged, each apparently 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, forthcoming. 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 sociopolitical 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 b²ttribal names. This leads us naturally to the question of the relationship between the Arameans of Babylonia and the Chaldeans. Just as we have questions about the relationship 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, although only three played significant roles in the history of Babylonia. The largest and most influential were B²t-Dak¹ri south of Borsippa, B²t-Amuk¤ni further 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,” illustrating this as a sociopolitical appellation rather than an ethnicspecific 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 annex Marad, a city of Babylonia, wresting it from the authority of the Assyrian king (either Esarhaddon or Assurbanipal), and stealing with it horses and chariots; Reynolds 2003: 4346. Three additional letters from the king himself, presumably Esarhaddon, complain about Dak¹rean imposters pretending 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 simultaneously.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 powerful Chaldean monarch of Babylonia, taking full advantage of a temporarily weakened Assyria. Later tradition 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, repaired 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 national autonomy free of Assyrian rule. This drive toward independence was characteristic of the Chaldeans, and together with other factors in the region, culminated in the rise of the so-called “Chaldean Dynasty,” more appropriately known as the NeoBabylonian Empire.44 Thus the Chaldeans were consistently distinct from the Arameans of southern Babylonia, both sociologically and politically, and even the native Assyrian and Babylonian sources distinguish between them. We may conclude that the Chaldeans and Arameans were distantly related ethnically 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 recently, the dominance of Aramaic presents an interesting anomaly in the history of world languages.46 During the very period in which Aramaic became the dominant vehicle for administration and communication, it nevertheless failed to serve as a dominant cultural vehicle, such as happens typically with international languages (e.g., Akkadian, Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, 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 surprisingly failed to transmit religious or cultural influence.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 devel44 ) Arnold 2004: 91-105. ) 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 Proverbs were genuine Aramaic literature from the West, transplanted to Mesopotamia, whereas the two Aramaic texts in Demotic script from Egypt show cultural influence in the opposite direction in that they preserve Mesopotamian literature in the Aramaic language; Beaulieu 2006: 197. 45 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 unlike 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 citystates 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 observations confirm Younger’s work, especially his east-west distinction detailing the different ways in which the Arameans acculturated and related to their surroundings. Ultimately, we may be able to refine this eastwest 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 Mesopotamia.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 population and they appear to have coexisted with the Luwians so that we may speak of a common LuwianAramean material culture at the root of the Neo-Hittite states. Finally, we may speak of (3) the AssyroBabylonian 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. References Cited Albright, William F. 1975: “Syria, the Philistines, and Phoenicia,” History of the Middle East and Aegean Region, c. 1380-1000 B.C. (Cambridge Ancient History 2/2, third ed.), Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 507-536. Arnold, Bill T. 1985: “Babylonian Letters from the Kuyunjik Collection: Seventh Century Uruk in Light of New Epistolary Evidence,” Unpublished Ph.D. diss., Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion. Arnold, Bill T. 1992: “An Early Neo-Babylonian Formula from Uruk,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 112/3: 383-387. Arnold, Bill T. 2004: Who Were the Babylonians? (SBLABS 10), Boston - Atlanta, Brill - SBL. Beaulieu, Paul-Alain 2006: “Official and Vernacular Languages: The Shifting Sands of Imperial and Cultural Identities in First-Millennium B.C. Mesopotamia,” in Seth L. Sanders, ed., Margins of Writing, Origins of Cultures (University of Chicago Oriental Institute Semithe issue may prove to be one of timing. In other words, the Arameans of the Jezireh may have simply been a century or two ahead of those of southern Mesopotamia in the process of sedentarization and statehood. In this scenario, the eighth and seventh century Arameans of Babylonia were akin to the tenth and ninth century Arameans of the Jezireh, but for a variety of reasons, statehood failed to emerge among the Arameans of Babylonia. Aramean Origins: The Evidence from Babylonia nars 2), Chicago, Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, pp. 187-216. Brinkman, John A. 1964: “Merodach-baladan II,” in Robert D. Biggs and John A. Brinkman, eds., Studies Presented to A. 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