Ḫepat was a goddess associated with Aleppo, originally worshiped in the north of modern Syria in the third millennium BCE. Her name is often presumed to be either a feminine nisba referring to her connection to this city, or alternatively a derivative of the root ḫbb, "to love". Her best attested role is that of the spouse of various weather gods. She was already associated with Adad in Ebla and Aleppo in the third millennium BCE, and in later times they are attested as a couple in cities such as Alalakh and Emar. In Hurrian religion she instead came to be linked with Teshub, which in the first millennium BCE led to the development of a tradition in which she was the spouse of his Luwian counterpart Tarḫunz. Associations between her and numerous other deities are described in Hurrian ritual texts, where she heads her own kaluti, a type of offering lists dedicated to the circle of a specific deity. She commonly appears in them alongside her children, Šarruma, Allanzu and Kunzišalli. Her divine attendant was the goddess Takitu. In Hittite sources, she could sometimes be recognized as the counterpart of the Sun goddess of Arinna, though their respective roles were distinct and most likely this theological conception only had limited recognition. In Ugarit the local goddess Pidray could be considered analogous to her instead.

Yamhad (Yamḫad) was an ancient Semitic-speaking kingdom centered on Ḥalab (Aleppo) in Syria. The kingdom emerged at the end of the 19th century BC and was ruled by the Yamhad dynasty, who counted on both military and diplomacy to expand their realm. From the beginning of its establishment, the kingdom withstood the aggressions of its neighbors Mari, Qatna and the Old Assyrian Empire, and was turned into the most powerful Syrian kingdom of its era through the actions of its king Yarim-Lim I. By the middle of the 18th century BC, most of Syria minus the south came under the authority of Yamhad, either as a direct possession or through vassalage, and for nearly a century and a half, Yamhad dominated northern, northwestern and eastern Syria, and had influence over small kingdoms in Mesopotamia at the borders of Elam. The kingdom was eventually destroyed by the Hittites, then annexed by Mitanni in the 16th century BC.