1.
Amorite language
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Amorite is an early Northwest Semitic language, spoken by the Amorite tribes prominent in ancient Near Eastern history. Occasionally, such names are found in early Egyptian texts. Notable characteristics include the following, The usual Northwest Semitic imperfective-perfective distinction is found, Yantin-Dagan, Dagon gives, Raṣa-Dagan and it included a 3rd-person suffix -a, and an imperfect vowel, a-, as in Arabic rather than the Hebrew and Aramaic -i-. There was a form with a geminate second consonant — Yabanni-Il. In several cases that Akkadian has š, Amorite, like Hebrew and Arabic, has h, thus hu his, -haa her, the 1st-person perfect is in -ti, -nu, as in the Canaanite languages. D. Cohen, Les langues chamito-semitiques, CNRS, Paris 1985, gelb, La lingua degli amoriti, Academia Nazionale dei Lincei. Amorite Personal Names in the Mari Texts, a Structural and Lexical Study, Baltimore 1965. Notes pour servir d’approche à l’amorrite Travaux 16 – La sémitologie aujourd’hui, Cercle de Linguistique d’Aix-en-Provence, Centre des sciences du language, Aix-en-Provence 2000, M. P. Streck, Das amurritische Onomastikon der altbabylonischen Zeit. Band 1, Die Amurriter, Die onomastische Forschung, Orthographie und Phonologie, Nominalmorphologie, alter Orient und Altes Testament Band 271/1, Münster 2000
2.
Ancient Canaanite religion
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Canaanite religion was polytheistic, and in some cases monolatristic. Baalat or Baalit, the wife or female counterpart of Baal Baal Hadad, holy One, putative goddess of love. Resheph, god of plague and of healing Shachar and Shalim, twin mountain gods of dawn and dusk, Shalim was linked to the netherworld via the evening star and associated with peace Shamayim, god of the heavens, paired with Eretz, the land or earth. Shapash, also transliterated Shapshu, goddess of the sun, sometimes equated with the Mesopotamian sun god Shamash, yarikh, god of the moon and husband of Nikkal Canaanites believed that following physical death, the npš departed from the body to the land of Mot. Bodies were buried with goods, and offerings of food. Dead relatives were venerated and sometimes asked for help, none of the inscribed tablets found in 1929 in the Canaanite city of Ugarit has revealed a cosmology. Any idea of one is often reconstructed from the much later Phoenician text by Philo of Byblos, after much Greek, from the union of El Elyon and his consort were born Uranus and Ge, Greek names for the Heaven and the Earth. In Canaanite mythology there were twin mountains Targhizizi and Tharumagi which hold the firmament up above the earth-circling ocean, thereby bounding the earth. W. F. Albright, for example, says that El Shaddai is a derivation of a Semitic stem that appears in the Akkadian shadû and shaddāû or shaddûa, one of the names of Amurru. Philo of Byblos states that Atlas was one of the Elohim, harriet Lutzky has presented evidence that Shaddai was an attribute of a Semitic goddess, linking the epithet with Hebrew šad breast as the one of the Breast. The idea of two mountains being associated here as the breasts of the Earth, fits into the Canaanite mythology quite well, the ideas of pairs of mountains seem to be quite common in Canaanite mythology. The late period of this makes it difficult to tell what influences may have informed Philos writings. In the Baal Cycle, Baal Hadad is challenged by and defeats Yam, afterward, with the help of Athirat and Anat, Baal persuades El to allow him a palace. El approves, and the palace is built by Kothar-wa-Khasis, after the palace is constructed, Baal gives forth a thunderous roar out of the palace window and challenges Mot. Mot enters through the window and swallows Baal, sending him to the Underworld, with no one to give rain, there is a terrible drought in Baals absence. The other deities, especially El and Anat, are distraught that Baal has been taken to the Underworld, Anat goes to the Underworld, attacks Mot with a knife, grinds him up into pieces, and scatters him far and wide. With Mot defeated, Baal is able to return and refresh the Earth with rain and it is considered virtually impossible to reconstruct a clear picture of Canaanite religious practices. Although child sacrifice was known to surrounding peoples there is no reference to it in ancient Phoenician or Classical texts, the biblical representation of Canaanite religion is always negative
3.
Hadad
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Hadad, Adad, Haddad or Iškur was the storm and rain god in the Northwest Semitic and ancient Mesopotamian religions. It was attested in Ebla as Hadda in c.2500 BC, from the Levant, Hadad was introduced to Mesopotamia by the Amorites, where it became known as the Akkadian god Adad. Adad and Iškur are usually written with the logogram dIM, Hadad was also called Pidar, Rapiu, Baal-Zephon, or often simply Baʿal, but this title was also used for other gods. The bull was the animal of Hadad. He appeared bearded, often holding a club and thunderbolt while wearing a bull-horned headdress, Hadad was equated with the Indo-European Nasite Hittite storm-god Teshub, the Egyptian god Set, the Rigvedic god Indra, the Greek god Zeus, the Roman god Jupiter, as Jupiter Dolichenus. In religious texts, Ba‘al/Hadad is the lord of the sky who governs the rain and he is the protector of life and growth to the agricultural people of the region. The absence of Ba‘al causes dry spells, starvation, death, also refers to the mountain of the west wind. The Biblical reference occurs at a time when Yahweh has provided a strong east wind to push back the waters of the Red or Erythrian Sea, so that the sons of Israel might cross over. In the Ugaritic texts El, the god of the pantheon, resides on Mount Lel. That is perhaps the mythical cosmic mountain, the Ba‘al cycle is fragmentary and leaves much unexplained that would have been obvious to a contemporary. In the earliest extant sections there appears to be sort of feud between El and Ba‘al. El makes one of his sons who is called both prince Yamm and judge Nahar king over the gods and changes Yamms name from yw to mdd ’il, El informs Yamm that in order to secure his power, Yamm will have to drive Ba‘al from his throne. In this battle Ba‘al is somehow weakened, but the divine craftsman Kothar-wa-Khasis strikes Yamm with two clubs, Yamm collapses, and Baal finishes the fight. ‘Athtart proclaims Ba‘als victory and salutes Ba‘al/Hadad as lrkb ‘rpt, a phrase applied by editors of modern English Bibles to Yahweh in Psalm 68.4, at ‘Athtarts urging Ba‘al scatters Yamm and proclaims that Yamm is dead and heat is assured. A later passage refers to Ba‘als victory over Lotan, the many-headed sea-dragon, due to gaps in the text it is not known whether Lotan is another name for Yamm or a reference to another similar story. In the Mediterranean area, crops were often threatened by winds, storms, a palace is built for Ba‘al/Hadad with cedars from Mount Lebanon and Sirion and also from silver and from gold. In his new palace Ba‘al hosts a great feast for the other gods, when urged by Kothar-wa-Khasis, Ba’al, somewhat reluctantly, opens a window in his palace and sends forth thunder and lightning. He then invites Mot Death, another son of El, to the feast, the eater of human flesh and blood will not be satisfied with bread and wine
4.
Absolute monarchy
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Absolute monarchy, or despotic monarchy, is a form of monarchy in which one ruler has supreme authority that is not restricted by any written laws, legislature, or customs. These are often, but not always, hereditary monarchies, in contrast, in constitutional monarchies, the head of states authority derives from and is legally bounded or restricted by a constitution or legislature. Some monarchies have weak or symbolic legislatures and other bodies that the monarch can alter or dissolve at will. Countries where a monarch still maintains absolute power are Brunei, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, the individual emirates composing the United Arab Emirates, Swaziland, in Ancient Egypt, the Pharaoh wielded absolute power over the country and was considered a living god by his people. In ancient Mesopotamia, many rulers of Assyria, Babylonia and Sumer were absolute monarchs as well, in ancient and medieval India, rulers of the Maurya, Satahavana, Gupta and Chalukya Empires, as well as other major and minor empires, were considered absolute monarchs. In the Khmer Empire, the kings were called Devaraja and Chakravartin, in Kingdom of Siam, the kings were esestablished Somburanaya-sittiraj. Throughout Chinese history, many emperors and one empress wielded absolute power through the Mandate of Heaven, in pre-Columbian America, the Inca Empire was ruled by a Sapa Inca, who was considered the son of Inti, the sun god and absolute ruler over the people and nation. Throughout much of European history, the right of kings was the theological justification for absolute monarchy. Many European monarchs, such as those of Russia, claimed supreme autocratic power by right. James VI of Scotland and his son Charles I of Scotland and England tried to import this principle, there is a considerable variety of opinion by historians on the extent of absolutism among European monarchs. Some, such as Perry Anderson, argue that quite a few monarchs achieved levels of absolutist control over their states, a widely held story about Louis XIV of France is that he proclaimed Létat, cest moi. What Louis did say was, The interests of the state come first, when one gives these priority, one labors for ones own good. These advantages to the state redounds to ones glory, although often criticized for his extravagances, such as the Palace of Versailles, he reigned over France for a long period, and some historians consider him a successful absolute monarch. More recently, revisionist historians have questioned whether Louis reign should be considered absolute, the King of France concentrated in his person legislative, executive, and judicial powers. He was the judicial authority. He could condemn men to death without the right of appeal and it was both his duty to punish offenses and stop them from being committed. From his judicial authority followed his power both to make laws and to annul them and this law consequently authorized the king to abolish all other centers of power. Most important was the abolition of the Council of the Realm and his actions largely originated the militaristic streak of the Hohenzollern
5.
King
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King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen regnant, in the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the title may refer to tribal kingship. Germanic kingship is cognate with Indo-European traditions of tribal rulership In the context of classical antiquity, king may translate Latin rex or either Greek archon or basileus. In classical European feudalism, the title of king as the ruler of a kingdom is understood as the highest rank in the order, potentially subject. In a modern context, the title may refer to the ruler of one of a number of modern monarchies. The title of king is used alongside other titles for monarchs, in the West prince, emperor, archduke, duke or grand duke, in the Middle East sultan or emir, etc. Kings, like other royalty, tend to wear purple because purple was a color to wear in the past. The English term king is derived from the Anglo-Saxon cyning, which in turn is derived from the Common Germanic *kuningaz, the Common Germanic term was borrowed into Estonian and Finnish at an early time, surviving in these languages as kuningas. The English term king translates, and is considered equivalent to, Latin rēx, the Germanic term is notably different from the word for king in other Indo-European languages. It is a derivation from the term *kunjom kin by the -inga- suffix, the literal meaning is that of a scion of the kin, or perhaps son or descendant of one of noble birth. English queen translates Latin regina, it is from Old English cwen queen, noble woman, the Germanic term for wife appears to have been specialized to wife of a king, in Old Norse, the cognate kvan still mostly refers to a wife generally. Scandinavian drottning, dronning is a derivation from *druhtinaz lord. The English word is of Germanic origin, and historically refers to Germanic kingship, the Early Middle Ages begin with a fragmentation of the former Western Roman Empire into barbarian kingdoms. The core of European feudal manorialism in the High Middle Ages were the territories of the kingdom of France, the Holy Roman Empire, in southern Europe, the kingdom of Sicily was established following the Norman conquest of southern Italy. The Kingdom of Sardinia was claimed as a title held by the Crown of Aragon in 1324. In the Balkans, the Kingdom of Serbia was established in 1217, in eastern-central Europe, the Kingdom of Hungary was established in AD1000 following the Christianisation of the Magyars. The kingdoms of Poland and Bohemia were established within the Holy Roman Empire in 1025 and 1198, in Eastern Europe, the Kievan Rus consolidated into the Grand Duchy of Moscow, which did not technically claim the status of kingdom until the early modern Tsardom of Russia. In northern Europe, the kingdoms of the Viking Age by the 11th century expanded into the North Sea Empire under Cnut the Great, king of Denmark, England
6.
Bronze Age
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The Bronze Age is a historical period characterized by the use of bronze, proto-writing, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the principal period of the three-age Stone-Bronze-Iron system, as proposed in modern times by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen. An ancient civilization is defined to be in the Bronze Age either by smelting its own copper and alloying with tin, arsenic, or other metals, or by trading for bronze from production areas elsewhere. Copper-tin ores are rare, as reflected in the fact there were no tin bronzes in Western Asia before trading in bronze began in the third millennium BC. Worldwide, the Bronze Age generally followed the Neolithic period, with the Chalcolithic serving as a transition, although the Iron Age generally followed the Bronze Age, in some areas, the Iron Age intruded directly on the Neolithic. Bronze Age cultures differed in their development of the first writing, according to archaeological evidence, cultures in Mesopotamia and Egypt developed the earliest viable writing systems. The overall period is characterized by use of bronze, though the place and time of the introduction. Human-made tin bronze technology requires set production techniques, tin must be mined and smelted separately, then added to molten copper to make bronze alloy. The Bronze Age was a time of use of metals. The dating of the foil has been disputed, the Bronze Age in the ancient Near East began with the rise of Sumer in the 4th millennium BC. Societies in the region laid the foundations for astronomy and mathematics, the usual tripartite division into an Early, Middle and Late Bronze Age is not used. Instead, a division based on art-historical and historical characteristics is more common. The cities of the Ancient Near East housed several tens of thousands of people, ur in the Middle Bronze Age and Babylon in the Late Bronze Age similarly had large populations. The earliest mention of Babylonia appears on a tablet from the reign of Sargon of Akkad in the 23rd century BC, the Amorite dynasty established the city-state of Babylon in the 19th century BC. Over 100 years later, it took over the other city-states. Babylonia adopted the written Semitic Akkadian language for official use, by that time, the Sumerian language was no longer spoken, but was still in religious use. Elam was an ancient civilization located to the east of Mesopotamia, in the Old Elamite period, Elam consisted of kingdoms on the Iranian plateau, centered in Anshan, and from the mid-2nd millennium BC, it was centered in Susa in the Khuzestan lowlands. Its culture played a role in the Gutian Empire and especially during the Achaemenid dynasty that succeeded it
7.
Ebla
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Ebla, was one of the earliest kingdoms in Syria. Its remains constitute a tell located about 55 km southwest of Aleppo near the village of Mardikh, Ebla was an important center throughout the third millennium BC and in the first half of the second millennium BC. Karl Moore described the first Eblaite kingdom as the first recorded world power, starting as a small settlement in the early Bronze Age, Ebla developed into a trading empire and later into an expansionist power that imposed its hegemony over much of northern and eastern Syria. Ebla was destroyed during the 23rd century BC, it was rebuilt and was mentioned in the records of the Third Dynasty of Ur. The second Ebla was a continuation of the first, ruled by a new royal dynasty and it was destroyed at the end of the third millennium BC, which paved the way for the Amorite tribes to settle in the city, forming the third Ebla. The third kingdom also flourished as a center, it became a subject. Ebla maintained its prosperity through a vast trading network, artifacts from Sumer, Cyprus, Egypt and as far as Afghanistan were recovered from the citys palaces. The kingdom had its own language, Eblaite and the organization of Ebla had features different from the Sumerian model. Women enjoyed a status and the queen had major influence in the state. The pantheon of gods was mainly north Semitic and included deities exclusive to Ebla, the city was excavated starting in 1964, and became famous for the Ebla tablets, an archive of about 20,000 cuneiform tablets found there, dated to around 2350 BC. A possible meaning of the word Ebla is white rock, referring to the outcrop on which the city was built. Ebla was first settled around 3500 BC, its growth was supported by many agricultural settlements. The city benefited from its role as an entrepôt of growing international trade, archaeologists designate this early habitation period Mardikh I, it ended around 3000 BC. Mardikh I is followed by the first and second kingdoms era between about 3000 and 2000 BC, designated Mardikh II. I. J. Gelb consider Ebla as part of the Kish civilization, the early period between 3000 and 2400 BC is designated Mardikh IIA. General knowledge about the history prior to the written archives is obtained through excavations. The first stages of Mardikh IIA is identified with building CC, and structures form a part of building G2. Toward the end of period, a hundred years war with Mari started
8.
Mitanni
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Mitanni, also called Hanigalbat in Assyrian or Naharin in Egyptian texts, was a Hurrian-speaking state in northern Syria and southeast Anatolia from ca.1500 BC–1300 BC. Mitanni came to be a regional power after the Hittite destruction of Amorite Babylon, at the beginning of its history, Mitannis major rival was Egypt under the Thutmosids. However, with the ascent of the Hittite empire, Mitanni, the Mitanni dynasty ruled over the northern Euphrates-Tigris region between c.1475 and c.1275 BC. Eventually, Mitanni succumbed to Hittite and later Assyrian attacks, and was reduced to the status of a province of the Middle Assyrian Empire. While the Mitanni kings were Indo-Iranians, they used the language of the people which was at that time a non Indo-Iranian language. Their sphere of influence is shown in Hurrian place names, personal names and the spread through Syria, the Mitanni controlled trade routes down the Khabur to Mari and up the Euphrates from there to Charchamesh. For a time also controlled the Assyrian territories of the upper Tigris and its headwaters at Nineveh, Arbil, Assur. To the east, they had relations with the Kassites. The land of Mitanni in northern Syria extended from the Taurus mountains to its west and as far east as Nuzi, in the south, it extended from Aleppo across to Mari on the Euphrates in the east. Its centre was in the Khabur River valley, with two capitals, Taite and Washshukanni called Taidu and Ushshukana respectively in Assyrian sources, the whole area allows agriculture without artificial irrigation, cattle, sheep and goats were raised. It is very similar to Assyria in climate, and was settled by both indigenous Hurrian and Amoritic-speaking populations, the Mitanni kingdom was referred to as the Maryannu, Nahrin or Mitanni by the Egyptians, the Hurri by the Hittites, and the Hanigalbat by the Assyrians. The different names seem to have referred to the kingdom and were used interchangeably. Hittite annals mention a people called Hurri, located in northeastern Syria, a Hittite fragment, probably from the time of Mursili I, mentions a King of the Hurri. The Assyro-Akkadian version of the text renders Hurri as Hanigalbat, Tushratta, who styles himself king of Mitanni in his Akkadian Amarna letters, refers to his kingdom as Hanigalbat. Egyptian sources call Mitanni nhrn, which is pronounced as Naharin/Naharina from the Assyro-Akkadian word for river. The name Mitanni is first found in the memoirs of the Syrian wars of the astronomer and clockmaker Amenemhet. The ethnicity of the people of Mitanni is difficult to ascertain, a treatise on the training of chariot horses by Kikkuli contains a number of Indo-Aryan glosses. Kammenhuber suggested that this vocabulary was derived from the still undivided Indo-Iranian language, the common peoples language, the Hurrian language, is neither Indo-European nor Semitic
9.
Syria
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Syrias capital and largest city is Damascus. Religious groups include Sunnis, Christians, Alawites, Druze, Mandeans, Shiites, Salafis, Sunni Arabs make up the largest religious group in Syria. Its capital Damascus and largest city Aleppo are among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, in the Islamic era, Damascus was the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt. The post-independence period was tumultuous, and a number of military coups. In 1958, Syria entered a union with Egypt called the United Arab Republic. Syria was under Emergency Law from 1963 to 2011, effectively suspending most constitutional protections for citizens, Bashar al-Assad has been president since 2000 and was preceded by his father Hafez al-Assad, who was in office from 1970 to 2000. Mainstream modern academic opinion strongly favours the argument that the Greek word is related to the cognate Ἀσσυρία, Assyria, in the past, others believed that it was derived from Siryon, the name that the Sidonians gave to Mount Hermon. However, the discovery of the inscription in 2000 seems to support the theory that the term Syria derives from Assyria. The area designated by the word has changed over time, since approximately 10,000 BC, Syria was one of centers of Neolithic culture where agriculture and cattle breeding appeared for the first time in the world. The following Neolithic period is represented by houses of Mureybet culture. At the time of the pre-pottery Neolithic, people used vessels made of stone, gyps, finds of obsidian tools from Anatolia are evidences of early trade relations. Cities of Hamoukar and Emar played an important role during the late Neolithic, archaeologists have demonstrated that civilization in Syria was one of the most ancient on earth, perhaps preceded by only those of Mesopotamia. The earliest recorded indigenous civilisation in the region was the Kingdom of Ebla near present-day Idlib, gifts from Pharaohs, found during excavations, confirm Eblas contact with Egypt. One of the earliest written texts from Syria is an agreement between Vizier Ibrium of Ebla and an ambiguous kingdom called Abarsal c.2300 BC. The Northwest Semitic language of the Amorites is the earliest attested of the Canaanite languages, Mari reemerged during this period, and saw renewed prosperity until conquered by Hammurabi of Babylon. Ugarit also arose during this time, circa 1800 BC, close to modern Latakia, Ugaritic was a Semitic language loosely related to the Canaanite languages, and developed the Ugaritic alphabet. The Ugarites kingdom survived until its destruction at the hands of the marauding Indo-European Sea Peoples in the 12th century BC, Yamhad was described in the tablets of Mari as the mightiest state in the near east and as having more vassals than Hammurabi of Babylon. Yamhad imposed its authority over Alalakh, Qatna, the Hurrians states, the army of Yamhad campaigned as far away as Dēr on the border of Elam
10.
Turkey
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Turkey, officially the Republic of Turkey, is a transcontinental country in Eurasia, mainly in Anatolia in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. Turkey is a democratic, secular, unitary, parliamentary republic with a cultural heritage. The country is encircled by seas on three sides, the Aegean Sea is to the west, the Black Sea to the north, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. The Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles, Ankara is the capital while Istanbul is the countrys largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Approximately 70-80% of the countrys citizens identify themselves as ethnic Turks, other ethnic groups include legally recognised and unrecognised minorities. Kurds are the largest ethnic minority group, making up approximately 20% of the population, the area of Turkey has been inhabited since the Paleolithic by various ancient Anatolian civilisations, as well as Assyrians, Greeks, Thracians, Phrygians, Urartians and Armenians. After Alexander the Greats conquest, the area was Hellenized, a process continued under the Roman Empire. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, the empire reached the peak of its power in the 16th century, especially during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. During the war, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian, Assyrian, following the war, the conglomeration of territories and peoples that formerly comprised the Ottoman Empire was partitioned into several new states. Turkey is a member of the UN, an early member of NATO. Turkeys growing economy and diplomatic initiatives have led to its recognition as a regional power while her location has given it geopolitical, the name of Turkey is based on the ethnonym Türk. The first recorded use of the term Türk or Türük as an autonym is contained in the Old Turkic inscriptions of the Göktürks of Central Asia, the English name Turkey first appeared in the late 14th century and is derived from Medieval Latin Turchia. Similarly, the medieval Khazar Empire, a Turkic state on the shores of the Black. The medieval Arabs referred to the Mamluk Sultanate as al-Dawla al-Turkiyya, the Ottoman Empire was sometimes referred to as Turkey or the Turkish Empire among its European contemporaries. The Anatolian peninsula, comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest permanently settled regions in the world, various ancient Anatolian populations have lived in Anatolia, from at least the Neolithic period until the Hellenistic period. Many of these peoples spoke the Anatolian languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family, in fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical centre from which the Indo-European languages radiated. The European part of Turkey, called Eastern Thrace, has also been inhabited since at least forty years ago. It is the largest and best-preserved Neolithic site found to date, the settlement of Troy started in the Neolithic Age and continued into the Iron Age
11.
Semitic people
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Semitic people or Semitic cultures was a term for an ethnic, cultural or racial group who speak or spoke the Semitic languages. The terminology was first used in the 1770s by members of the Göttingen School of History, the term Semitic, together with the parallel terms Hamitic and Japhetic, is now largely obsolete outside of linguistics. However, in archaeology, the term is used informally as a kind of shorthand for ancient Semitic-speaking peoples. In the racialist classifications of Carleton S, some recent genetic studies have found that they have some common ancestry. The terms anti-Semite or antisemitism came by a route to refer more narrowly to anyone who was hostile or discriminatory towards Jews in particular. Steinthal summed up these predispositions as Semitism, and so Steinschneider characterised Renans ideas as anti-Semitic prejudice and he accused them of being liberals, a people without roots who had Judaized Germans beyond salvation. In 1879 Marrs adherents founded the League for Anti-Semitism, which concerned itself entirely with anti-Jewish political action, Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples Hamitic Japhetites Generations of Noah Anidjar, Gil. Semitic genetics Semitic language family tree included under Afro-Asiatic in SILs Ethnologue, the south Arabian origin of ancient Arabs The Edomite Hyksos connection The perished Arabs The Midianites of the north Ancient Semitic peoples
12.
Aleppo
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Aleppo is a city in Syria, serving as the capital of the Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Syrian governorate. With an official population of 2,132,100, Aleppo was the largest Syrian city before the Syrian Civil War, however, now Aleppo is likely the second-largest city in Syria after the capital Damascus. Aleppo is an ancient city, and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, such a long history is attributed to its strategic location as a trading center midway between the Mediterranean Sea and Mesopotamia. For centuries, Aleppo was the largest city in the Syrian region, and it was also one of the largest cities in the Levant before the advent of the Syrian Civil War. The citys significance in history has been its location at one end of the Silk Road, when the Suez Canal was inaugurated in 1869, trade was diverted to sea and Aleppo began its slow decline. At the fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, Aleppo ceded its northern hinterland to modern Turkey, in the 1940s, it lost its main access to the sea, Antakya and İskenderun, also to Turkey. Finally, the isolation of Syria in the past few decades further exacerbated the situation and this decline may have helped to preserve the old city of Aleppo, its medieval architecture and traditional heritage. It won the title of the Islamic Capital of Culture 2006, during the Battle of Aleppo the city suffered massive destruction, and has been the worst-hit city in the Syrian Civil War. In December 2016, the Syrian government achieved full control of Aleppo following a successful offensive, modern-day English-speakers commonly refer to the city as Aleppo. It was known in antiquity as Khalpe, Khalibon, and to the Greeks, during the Crusades, and again during the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon of 1923–1946, the name Alep was used. Aleppo represents the Italianised version of this, the original ancient name, Halab, has survived as the current Arabic name of the city. Some have proposed that halab means iron or copper in Amorite languages, the modern-day Arabic nickname of the city, ash-Shahbaa, which means the white-colored, also allegedly derives from the famous white marble of Aleppo. From the 11th century it was common usage to apply the term Aram-Zobah to the area of Aleppo. Aleppo has scarcely been touched by archaeologists, since the city occupies its ancient site. The site has been occupied from around 5000 BC, as shown by excavations in Tallet Alsauda, Aleppo appears in historical records as an important city much earlier than Damascus. The first record of Aleppo comes from the third millennium BC, some historians, such as Wayne Horowitz, identify Aleppo with the capital of an independent kingdom closely related to Ebla, known as Armi, although this identification is contested. The main temple of the storm god Hadad was located on the hill in the center of the city. In the Old Babylonian and Old Assyrian Empire period, Aleppos name appears in its form as Ḥalab for the first time
13.
Yamhad dynasty
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Yamhad dynasty, was an ancient Amorite royal family founded in c.1810 BC by Sumu-Epuh of Yamhad who had his capital in the city of Aleppo. At its height the dynasty controlled most of northern Syria and the modern Turkish province of Hatay with a cadet branch ruling in the city of Alalakh. Idrimi a member of the dynasty was able to conquer Alalakh leaving his descendents to rule until the last of them was dethroned by the Hittite king Suppiluliuma I in c.1344 BC, in all likelihoods Yamhad was a tribal name. The dynasty entered the records when the founder Sumu-Epuh was mentioned as an enemy in the inscriptions of Yahdun-Lim of Mari. Sumu-Epuh faced dangerous enemies most important of them was Shamshi-Adad I of Assyria and was killed in one of the battles. The war continued for years and ended with the sacking of Aleppo. After the assassination of Mursili, Sarra-El a prince and a son of Yarim-Lim III regained aleppo. Two cadet branches ruled Alalakh, the first was founded by Yarim-Lim son of Hammurabi I in c,1735, he had an exceptional long reign so did his successor Ammitakum who started to reign at the beginning of Niqmi-Epuh term and died shortly before the sack of Alalakh. The second branch was established by Idrimi the son of Ilim-Ilimma I who managed to conquer Alalakh seven years after his escape from aleppo which fell to the hands of the Mitannian king Parshatatar. King of Aleppo - King of Alalakh - Queen - Prince - Princess - Doted line, list of rulers of Aleppo Amorites
14.
Mari, Syria
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Mari, was an ancient Semitic city in Syria. Its remains constitute a tell located 11 kilometers north-west of Abu Kamal on the Euphrates river western bank and it flourished as a trade center and hegemonic state between 2900 BC and 1759 BC. Mari was first abandoned in the middle of the 26th century BC but was rebuilt and this second Mari engaged in a long war with its rival Ebla, and is known for its strong affinity with the Sumerian culture. It was destroyed in the 23rd century BC by the Akkadians who allowed the city to be rebuilt, the governors later became independent with the rapid disintegration of the Akkadian empire and rebuilt the city as a regional center in the middle Euphrates valley. The Shakkanakkus ruled Mari until the half of the 19th century BC when the dynasty collapsed for unknown reasons. A short time after the Shakkanakku collapse, Mari became the capital of the Amorite Lim dynasty, the Mariotes worshiped both Semitic and Sumerian deities and established their city as a center of old trade. The Amorites were West-Semites who began to settle the area before the 21st century BC, by the Lim dynastys era and they also revealed the wide trading networks of the 18th century BC, which connected areas as far as Afghanistan in Southern Asia and Crete in the Mediterranean region. The city is difficult to excavate, as it is buried deep under the layers of habitation. A defensive system against floods, composed of an embankment was unearthed. Other findings include one of the city gates, a beginning at the center and ending at the gate. The city was abandoned at the end of the Early Dynastic period II c.2550 BC for unknown reasons, around the beginning of the Early Dynastic period III, Mari was rebuilt and populated again. The new city kept many of the first city exterior features, including the internal rampart and gate. Also kept was the outer circular embankment measuring 1.9 km in diameter, at the heart of the city, a royal palace was built which also served as a temple. Four successive architectural levels from the second kingdoms palace have been unearthed, the first two levels were excavated, the findings include a temple named Enceinte Sacrée, which was the largest in the city but it is unknown for whom it was dedicated. Also unearthed were a pillared throne room and a hall that have three double wood pillars leading to the temple, six more temples were discovered in the city, including the temple called the Massif Rouge, and temples dedicated for Ninni-Zaza, Ishtarat, Ishtar, Ninhursag and Shamash. 2350 BC, which was sent to Irkab-Damu of Ebla, and in it, however, the reading of this letter is still problematic and many interpretations have been presented by scholars. The next king mentioned in the letter is Saʿumu, who conquered the lands of Raak and Nirum, the war continued with Išhtup-Išar of Mari conquest of Emar, at a time of Eblaite weakness in the mid-24th century BC. King Igrish-Halam of Ebla had to pay tribute to Iblul-Il of Mari, Enna-Dagan also received tribute, and his reign fell entirely within the reign of Irkab-Damu of Ebla, who managed to defeat Mari and end the tribute
15.
Qatna
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Qatna is an archaeological site in the Wadi il-Aswad, a tributary of the Orontes,18 km northeast of Homs, Syria. It consists in a tell occupying 1 km², which makes it one of the largest Bronze Age towns in western Syria, the tell is located at the edge of the limestone-plateau of the Syrian desert towards the fertile Homs-Bassin. The tell is named after the adjacent modern town of al-Mishirfeh, the first finds at Qatna date to the mid- to late 3rd millennium BC, although this early period is not well represented. The find of a 12th Dynasty Egyptian sphinx belonging to Princess Ita, daughter of Amenemhat II shows early Egyptian influence, the first king of Qatna known by name from the Mari archives is Ishi-Adad, an Amurru or Amorite. He was a confederate of Shamshi-Adad of Upper Mesopotamia and he was succeeded by his son Amut-pî-el who had been governor of Nazala as crown prince. This was in the time of Hammurabi of Babylon, beltum, the sister of Amut-pî-el was married to Jasmah-Addu of Mari. Contracts between Mari and Qatna define her as the wife of Jasmah-Addu. Her mother might have been Lammassi-Ashur from Assur or Ekallatum, zimrilim of Mari was married to another princess from Qatna, Dam-hurasim. At its height, Qatna extended from Palmyra in the east, after the destruction of Mari by Hammurapi, the written sources become sparse. Aleppo now became Qatnas most powerful neighbour, during the reign of Yarim-Lim III Qatna was temporarily dominated by Aleppo, with the development of the Mitanni empire in Upper Mesopotamia, Qatna was incorporated but was located in disputed territory between the Mitanni and Egypt. The inscriptions of the so-called Nin-Egal temple show that Mittanni were resident in Qatna, the campaigns of Pharaohs Amenhotep I and Thutmose I in Syria might have reached Qatna, but there is no conclusive evidence. On the 7th Pylon of the temple of Amun in Karnak, Amenhotep II was attacked by the host of Qatnawhile crossing the Orontes, but he remained victorious and acquired booty, among which the equipment of a Mitanni charioteer is mentioned. Qatna is mentioned in Egyptian topographic lists till the time of Ramesses III, cuneiform tablets discovered under the Royal palace in Qatna mention a previously unknown king Idanda who ruled ca.1400 BC. During this same Amarna letters period, Prince Akizzi wrote 5 letters to Akhenaten, texts from Emar describe how Qatna was attacked by Aramaic tribes in the late Bronze Age, so the town must still have been in existence. The tell was settled in Neo-Babylonian times as well, but the town remained insignificant as nearby Emesa had taken over its position on the trade routes, in the 2nd Millennium BC trade routes developed connecting Mesopotamia with Cyprus, Crete and Egypt. Qatna was then situated near the end of the road connecting the middle Euphrates valley, another route started from Aleppo, left the Euphrates at Emar and led via Halab, Qatna and Hazor to Egypt. The valley of Homs formed a connection to the Mediterranean near the port of Byblos and Tripoli, Qatna is mentioned in the tin trade, which went from Mari via Qatna to the Mediterranean, Cypriote copper was transported in the other direction. The Mari texts mention cloth, clothing, a kind of bows, jewellery, woods, wine and two-wheeled chariots as trade goods reaching Mari via Qatna
16.
Old Assyrian Empire
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The Old Assyrian Empire is one of four periods in which the history of Assyria is divided, the other three being, the Early Assyrian Period, the Middle Assyrian Period and the New Assyrian Period. Assyria was a major Mesopotamian Afro-Asiatic-speaking kingdom and empire of the ancient Near East, centered on the Tigris-Euphrates River System in Upper Mesopotamia, the Assyrian people came to rule powerful empires at several times. Assyria is named for its capital, the ancient city of Aššur. Assyria was also known as Subartu and Azuhinum prior to the rise of the city-state of Aššūr, after which it was Aššūrāyu. Assyria can also refer to the region or heartland where Assyria, its empires. The modern Eastern Aramaic-speaking Christian ethnic minority in northern Iraq, north east Syria, southeast Turkey, in the Old Assyrian Empire, Assyria established colonies in Asia Minor and the Levant and, under king Ilushuma, it asserted itself over southern Mesopotamia. The first written inscriptions by urbanized Assyrian kings appear c.2450 BC, the land of Assyria as a whole then consisted of a number of city-states and small Semitic kingdoms, some of which were initially independent of Assyria. The foundation of the first major temple in the city of Aššur was traditionally ascribed to king Ushpia who reigned c.2050 BC, possibly a contemporary of Ishbi-Erra of Isin, between c.2500 BC and c.2400 BC, Assyrian kings were pastoral leaders. The main rivals, neighbors or trading partners to early Assyrian kings between c.2200 BC and c, Assyria became a regionally powerful nation in the Old Assyrian Empire from c.2100 BC to c.1800 BC. The Amorites had overrun the kingdoms of southern Mesopotamia and the Levant between c.2100 BC and c.1900 BC, but had hitherto been successfully repelled by the Assyrian kings during this period. However, Erishum II was to be the last king of the dynasty of Puzur-Ashur I, in c.1808 BC he was deposed and the throne of Assyria was usurped by Shamshi-Adad I in the expansion of Amorite tribes from the Khabur River delta in the north eastern Levant. Assyria remained untroubled by the emergence of the Hittite Empire and Kingdom of Mitanni, after securing its borders on all sides, Assyria entered into a quiet and peaceful period in its history which lasted for two and a half centuries. The emergence of the Mitanni Empire in c.1600 BC did eventually lead to a period of sporadic Mitannian-Hurrian domination in c.1500 BC. The Indo-European language-speaking Mitannians are thought to have conquered and formed the class over the indigenous Hurrians of eastern Anatolia. The Hurrians spoke a language isolate, i. e. neither Semitic nor Indo-European, Assyria is named after its first capital city, Assur. The city Assur is itself named after its patron deity, Ashur, Assyria was also sometimes known as Azuhinum, prior to the rise of the city-state of Assur, after which it was referred to as Aššūrāyu. Assur was the city of Assyria c.2025 BC – c.1754 BC. The oldest remains of the city were discovered in the foundations of the Ishtar temple, Assur developed rapidly into a center for trade, and trade routes led from the city to Anatolia, where merchants from Assur established trading colonies
17.
Mesopotamia
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In the Iron Age, it was controlled by the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires. The Sumerians and Akkadians dominated Mesopotamia from the beginning of history to the fall of Babylon in 539 BC. It fell to Alexander the Great in 332 BC, and after his death, around 150 BC, Mesopotamia was under the control of the Parthian Empire. Mesopotamia became a battleground between the Romans and Parthians, with parts of Mesopotamia coming under ephemeral Roman control. In AD226, eastern part of it fell to the Sassanid Persians, division of Mesopotamia between Roman and Sassanid Empires lasted until the 7th century Muslim conquest of Persia of the Sasanian Empire and Muslim conquest of the Levant from Byzantines. A number of primarily neo-Assyrian and Christian native Mesopotamian states existed between the 1st century BC and 3rd century AD, including Adiabene, Osroene, and Hatra, Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BC. The regional toponym Mesopotamia comes from the ancient Greek root words μέσος middle and ποταμός river and it is used throughout the Greek Septuagint to translate the Hebrew equivalent Naharaim. In the Anabasis, Mesopotamia was used to designate the land east of the Euphrates in north Syria, the Aramaic term biritum/birit narim corresponded to a similar geographical concept. The neighbouring steppes to the west of the Euphrates and the part of the Zagros Mountains are also often included under the wider term Mesopotamia. A further distinction is made between Northern or Upper Mesopotamia and Southern or Lower Mesopotamia. Upper Mesopotamia, also known as the Jazira, is the area between the Euphrates and the Tigris from their sources down to Baghdad, Lower Mesopotamia is the area from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf and includes Kuwait and parts of western Iran. In modern academic usage, the term Mesopotamia often also has a chronological connotation and it is usually used to designate the area until the Muslim conquests, with names like Syria, Jazirah, and Iraq being used to describe the region after that date. It has been argued that these later euphemisms are Eurocentric terms attributed to the region in the midst of various 19th-century Western encroachments, Mesopotamia encompasses the land between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, both of which have their headwaters in the Armenian Highlands. Both rivers are fed by tributaries, and the entire river system drains a vast mountainous region. Overland routes in Mesopotamia usually follow the Euphrates because the banks of the Tigris are frequently steep and difficult. The climate of the region is semi-arid with a vast desert expanse in the north which gives way to a 15,000 square kilometres region of marshes, lagoons, mud flats, in the extreme south, the Euphrates and the Tigris unite and empty into the Persian Gulf. In the marshlands to the south of the area, a complex water-borne fishing culture has existed since prehistoric times, periodic breakdowns in the cultural system have occurred for a number of reasons. Alternatively, military vulnerability to invasion from marginal hill tribes or nomadic pastoralists has led to periods of trade collapse and these trends have continued to the present day in Iraq
18.
Elam
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The modern name Elam stems from the Sumerian transliteration elam, along with the later Akkadian elamtu, and the Elamite haltamti. Elamite states were among the political forces of the Ancient Near East. In classical literature, Elam was also known as Susiana, which is a derived from its capital. Elam was part of the early urbanization during the Chalcolithic period, the emergence of written records from around 3000 BC also parallels Sumerian history, where slightly earlier records have been found. In the Old Elamite period, Elam consisted of kingdoms on the Iranian plateau, centered in Anshan and its culture played a crucial role during the Persian Achaemenid dynasty that succeeded Elam, when the Elamite language remained among those in official use. Elamite is generally accepted to be an isolate unrelated to the much later arriving Persian. The Elamites called their country Haltamti, Sumerian ELAM, Akkadian Elamû, female Elamītu resident of Susiana, the Elamite civilization was primarily centered in the province of what is modern-day Khuzestān and Ilam in prehistoric times. The modern provincial name Khuzestān is derived from the Persian name for Susa, Old Persian Hūjiya Elam, in Middle Persian Huź Susiana, in geographical terms, Susiana basically represents the Iranian province of Khuzestan around the river Karun. In ancient times, several names were used to describe this area, the great ancient geographer Ptolemy was the earliest to call the area Susiana, referring to the country around Susa. Another ancient geographer, Strabo, viewed Elam and Susiana as two different geographical regions and he referred to Elam as primarily the highland area of Khuzestan. Disagreements over the location also exist in the Jewish historical sources says Daniel T. Potts, some ancient sources draw a distinction between Elam as the highland area of Khuzestan, and Susiana as the lowland area. Yet in other ancient sources Elam and Susiana seem equivalent, the uncertainty in this area extends also to modern scholarship. Since the discovery of ancient Anshan, and the realization of its importance in Elamite history. Some modern scholars argued that the centre of Elam lay at Anshan and in the highlands around it and they were Anshanites, Marhashians, Shimashkians, Zabshalians, Sherihumians, Awanites, etc. That Anshan played a role in the political affairs of the various highland groups inhabiting southwestern Iran is clear. Knowledge of Elamite history remains largely fragmentary, reconstruction being based on mainly Mesopotamian sources, the history of Elam is conventionally divided into three periods, spanning more than two millennia. At least three proto-Elamite states merged to form Elam, Anshan, Awan and Shimashki, references to Awan are generally older than those to Anshan, and some scholars suggest that both states encompassed the same territory, in different eras. To this core Shushiana was periodically annexed and broken off, in addition, some Proto-Elamite sites are found well outside this area, spread out on the Iranian plateau, such as Warakshe, Sialk and Jiroft in Kerman Province
19.
Hittites
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The Hittites were an Ancient Anatolian people who established an empire centered on Hattusa in north-central Anatolia around 1600 BC. Between the 15th and 13th centuries BC the Hittite Empire came into conflict with the Egyptian Empire, Middle Assyrian Empire, the Assyrians eventually emerged as the dominant power and annexed much of the Hittite empire, while the remainder was sacked by Phrygian newcomers to the region. They referred to their land as Hatti. The conventional name Hittites is due to their identification with the Biblical Hittites in 19th century archaeology. Before the discoveries, the source of information about Hittites had been the Old Testament. Francis William Newman expressed the view, common in the early 19th century. Uriah was a captain in King Davids army and counted among one of his mighty men in 1 Chronicles 11, french scholar Félix Marie Charles Texier discovered the first Hittite ruins in 1834, but did not identify them as Hittite. The first archaeological evidence for the Hittites appeared in tablets found at the Assyrian colony of Kültepe, some names in the tablets were neither Hattic nor Assyrian, but clearly Indo-European. The script on a monument at Boğazköy by a People of Hattusas discovered by William Wright in 1884 was found to match peculiar hieroglyphic scripts from Aleppo, in 1887, excavations at Tell El-Amarna in Egypt uncovered the diplomatic correspondence of Pharaoh Amenhotep III and his son Akhenaton. Shortly after this, Archibald Sayce proposed that Hatti or Khatti in Anatolia was identical with the kingdom of Kheta mentioned in these Egyptian texts, as well as with the biblical Hittites. Others, such as Max Müller, agreed that Khatti was probably Kheta, sayces identification came to be widely accepted over the course of the early 20th century, and the name Hittite has become attached to the civilization uncovered at Boğazköy. He also proved that the ruins at Boğazköy were the remains of the capital of an empire that, at one point, under the direction of the German Archaeological Institute, excavations at Hattusa have been under way since 1907, with interruptions during the world wars. Kültepe was successfully excavated by Professor Tahsin Özgüç from 1948 until his death in 2005, the Hittites used Mesopotamian Cuneiform script. The Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara, Turkey houses the richest collection of Hittite, the Hittite kingdom was centred on the lands surrounding Hattusa and Neša, known as the land Hatti. For example, the reward for the capture of a slave after he managed to flee beyond the Halys is higher than that for a slave caught before he could reach the river. To the west and south of the core territory lay the region known as Luwiya in the earliest Hittite texts and this terminology was replaced by the names Arzawa and Kizzuwatna with the rise of those kingdoms. Nevertheless, the Hittites continued to refer to the language originated in these areas as Luwian. Prior to the rise of Kizzuwatna, the heart of territory in Cilicia was first referred to by the Hittites as Adaniya
20.
Amorites
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The term Amurru in Akkadian and Sumerian texts refers to them, as well as to their principal deity. The ethnic terms Mar. tu, Amurru and Amar were used for them in Sumerian, Akkadian, from the 21st century BC, possibly triggered by a long major drought starting about 2200 BC, a large-scale migration of Amorite tribes infiltrated southern Mesopotamia. Known Amorites wrote in a dialect of Akkadian found on tablets at Mari dating from 1800–1750 BC, since the language shows northwest Semitic forms, words and constructions, the Amorite language is a Northwest Semitic language, and possibly one of the Canaanite languages. The main sources for the limited knowledge about Amorite are the proper names, not Akkadian in style. The Akkadian language of the native Semitic states, cities and polities of Mesopotamia, was from the east Semitic, in the earliest Sumerian language texts, all western lands beyond the Euphrates, including the modern Levant, were known as the land of the mar. tu. This term appears in Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, which describes it in the time of Enmerkar as one of the inhabited by speakers of a different language. Another text known as Lugalbanda and the Anzud bird describes how, fifty years into Enmerkars reign, for the Akkadian kings of central Mesopotamia Mar. tu was one of the Four Quarters surrounding Akkad, along with Subartu/Assyria, Sumer, and Elam. Naram-Sin of Akkad records successful campaigns against them in northern Syria c.2240 BC and these Amorites appear as nomadic clans ruled by fierce tribal chiefs, who forced themselves into lands they needed to graze their herds. TU who know no grain. The MAR. TU who know no house nor town, the boors of the mountains, the MAR. TU who digs up truffles. Elsewhere, the armies of Elam in southern Iran were attacking and weakening the empire, many Amorite chieftains in southern Mesopotamia aggressively took advantage of the failing empire to seize power for themselves. Leaders with Amorite names assumed power in various places, usurping native Akkadian rulers, including in Isin, Eshnunna, Babylon, hitherto a small, politically and military unimportant town was raised to the status of a minor independent city state under Sumu-abum in 1894 BC. The Elamites finally sacked Ur in c.2004 BC, some time later, the Old Assyrian Empire became the most powerful entity in Mesopotamia immediately preceding the rise of the Amorite king Hammurabi of Babylon. There is a range of views regarding the Amorite homeland. One extreme is the view that kur mar. tu/māt amurrim covered the area between the Euphrates and the Mediterranean Sea, the Arabian Peninsula included. The other extreme is the view that the “homeland” of the Amorites was an area in northern Syria. The rise of the Amorite kingdoms in Mesopotamia brought about deep and lasting repercussions in its political, social, the division into kingdoms replaced the Babylonian city-states in southern Mesopotamia. Men, land, and cattle ceased to belong physically to the gods or to the temples, the priest assumed the service of the gods, and cared for the welfare of his subjects, but the economic life of the country was no longer exclusively in their hands. The religious, ethical, technological, scientific and artistic directions in which Mesopotamia had been developing since the fourth millennium BC were not greatly affected by the Amorites hegemony
21.
Hurrians
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The Hurrians, also called Hari, Khurrites, Hourri, Churri, Hurri or Hurriter, were a people of the Bronze Age Near East. They spoke a Hurro-Urartian language called Hurrian, and lived in Anatolia, the largest and most influential Hurrian nation was the multi-ethnic kingdom of Mitanni, the Mitanni perhaps being Indo-European speakers who formed a ruling class over the Hurrians. The population of the Indo-European-speaking Hittite Empire in Anatolia included a population of Hurrians. By the Early Iron Age, the Hurrians had been assimilated with other peoples and their remnants were subdued by a related people that formed the state of Urartu. According to a hypothesis by I. M. Diakonoff and S. Starostin, the present-day Armenians are an amalgam of the Indo-European groups with the Hurrians and Urartians. The Hurrians spoke an ergative-agglutinative language conventionally called Hurrian, which is unrelated to neighbouring Semitic or Indo-European languages, the Iron Age Urartian language is closely related to or a direct descendant of Hurrian. Several notable Russian linguists, such as S. A. Starostin and V. V. Ivanov, have claimed that Hurrian and Hattic were related to the Northeast Caucasian languages. Texts in the Hurrian language in cuneiform have been found at Hattusa, Ugarit, as well as in one of the longest of the Amarna letters, written by King Tushratta of Mitanni to Pharaoh Amenhotep III. It was the only long Hurrian text known until a collection of literature in Hurrian with a Hittite translation was discovered at Hattusa in 1983. Hurrian names occur sporadically in northwestern Mesopotamia and the area of Kirkuk in modern Iraq by the Middle Bronze Age and their presence was attested at Nuzi, Urkesh and other sites. They eventually infiltrated and occupied a broad arc of fertile farmland stretching from the Khabur River valley in the west to the foothills of the Zagros Mountains in the east, the Khabur River valley became the heart of the Hurrian lands for a millennium. The first known Hurrian kingdom emerged around the city of Urkesh during the third millennium BCE, there is evidence that they were initially allied with the east Semitic Akkadian Empire of Mesopotamia, indicating they had a firm hold on the area by the reign of Naram-Sin of Akkad. This region hosted other rich cultures, the city-state of Urkesh had some powerful neighbors. At some point in the second millennium BCE, the Northwest Semitic speaking Amorite kingdom of Mari to the south subdued Urkesh. The Assyrians then made themselves masters over Mari and much of north east Amurru in the late 19th, shubat-Enlil, was made the capital of this Old Assyrian empire by Shamshi Adad I at the expense of the earlier capital of Assur. The Hurrians also migrated further west in this period, by 1725 BCE they are found also in parts of northern Syria, such as Alalakh. The mixed Amorite–Hurrian kingdom of Yamhad is recorded as struggling for this area with the early Hittite king Hattusilis I around 1600 BCE, Hurrians also settled in the coastal region of Adaniya in the country of Kizzuwatna, southern Anatolia. Yamhad eventually weakened vis-a-vis the powerful Hittites, but this also opened Anatolia for Hurrian cultural influences, the Hittites were influenced by both the Hurrian and Hattian cultures over the course of several centuries
22.
Iranian Plateau
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The Persian Plateau, or Iranian Plateau, is a geological formation in Western Asia and Central Asia. As a historical region, it includes Parthia, Media, Persis, the Zagros Mountains form the plateaus western boundary, and its eastern slopes may be included in the term. The Encyclopædia Britannica excludes lowland Khuzestan explicitly and characterizes Elam as spanning the region from the Mesopotamian plain to the Iranian Plateau, from the Caspian in the northwest to Baluchistan in the south-east, the Iranian Plateau extends for close to 2,000 km. It is a geologically well-studied area because of general interest in continental collision zones, the Iranian plateau in geology refers to a geographical area north of the great folded mountain belts resulting from the collision of the Arabian plate with the Eurasian plate. In this definition, the Iranian plateau does not cover southwestern Iran and it extends from East Azerbaijan Province in northwest of Iran all the way to Pakistan west of the Indus River. It also includes parts of the Republic of Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. Its mountain ranges can be divided into five major sub-regions, the region is known as the Anti-Taurus, and the average elevation of its peaks exceeds 3,000 m. Mount Ararat, at 5,137 meters the highest point in Turkey, is located in the Anti-Taurus, Lake Van is situated in the mountains at an elevation of 1,546 meters. Several small streams empty into the Black Sea or landlocked Lake Van also originate in these mountains. The Indus River begins in the highlands of Tibet and flows the length of Pakistan almost tracing the eastern edge of the Iranian plateau, the Indus River forms the Iranian plateaus eastern boundary. Southeast Anatolia lies south of the Anti-Taurus Mountains and it is a region of rolling hills and a broad plateau surface that extends into Syria. Elevations decrease gradually, from about 800 meters in the north to about 500 meters in the south, traditionally, wheat and barley are the main crops of the region. The kingdoms of Aratta known from cuneiform sources may have located in the Central Iranian Plateau. In classical antquity the region was known as Persia, due to the Persian Achaemenid dynasty, originating in Persia proper, the Middle Persian Erān began to be used in reference to the state from the Sassanid period. Oak forests are found around Shiraz, aspen, elm, ash, willow, walnut, pine, and cypress are also found, though the latter two are rare. As of 1920, poplar was harvested for making doors, other trees like acacia, cypress, and Turkestan elm were used for decorative purposes. Flower wise, the plateau can grow lilac, jasmine, hawthorn and Cercis siliquastrum are common, which are both used for basket weaving. The Iranian plateau harvests trees for making doors, ploughs, pears, apples, apricots, quince, plums, nectarines, cherries, mulberries, and peaches were commonly seen in the 20th century
23.
Alalakh
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Alalakh was an ancient city-state, a late Bronze Age capital in the Amuq River valley of Turkeys Hatay Province. It was occupied from before 2000 BC, when the first palace was built, the city contained palaces, temples, private houses and fortifications. Modern Antakya has developed near the site, the remains of Alalakh have formed an extensive mound, the modern archaeological site is known as Tell Atchana. It was first excavated in the 1930s and 1940s by a British team, a team sponsored by the University of Chicago started surveys in the late 20th century, and has conducted excavations led by K. Aslihan Yener in the early 21st century. She is now leading work sponsored by Mustafa Kemal University and the Turkish government, Alalakh was founded by the Amorites during the Middle Bronze Age in the 2nd millennium BC. The first palace was built c.2000 BC, contemporary with the Third Dynasty of Ur, the written history of the site may begin under the name Alakhtum, with tablets from Mari in the 18th century BC, when the city was part of the kingdom of Yamhad. A dossier of tablets records that King Sumu-Epuh sold the territory of Alakhtum to his son-in-law Zimri-Lim, king of Mari, after the fall of Mari in 1765 BC, Alalakh seems to have come under the rule of Yamhad again. King Abba-El I of Aleppo bestowed it upon his brother Yarim-Lim, Abba-El had destroyed the latter after it revolted against his brother Yarim-Lim. A dynasty of Yarim-Lims descendents was founded, under the hegemony of Aleppo, according to the short chronology found at Mari, at that time Alalakh was destroyed, most likely by Hittite king Hattusili I, in the second year of his campaigns. After a hiatus of less than a century, written records for Alalakh resume, at this time, it was again the seat of a local dynasty. Most of the information about the founding of this dynasty comes from a statue inscribed with what seems to be an autobiography of the founding king. The inscription records Idrimis vicissitudes, after his family had forced to flee to Emar, he left them. However, according to the archeological site report, this statue was discovered in a level of occupation dating several centuries after the time that Idrimi lived, there has been much scholarly debate as to its historicity. Archeologically-dated tablets recount that Idrimis son Niqmepuh was contemporaneous with the Mitanni king Saushtatar and this seems to support the inscription on the statue claiming that Idrimi was contemporaneous with Barattarna, Saushtatars predecessor. The socio-economic history of Alalakh during the reign of Idrimis son and grandson, Niqmepuh, Idrimi is referred to rarely in these tablets. In the mid-14th century BC, the Hittite Suppiluliuma I defeated king Tushratta of Mitanni and assumed control of northern Syria, then including Alalakh, which he incorporated into the Hittite Empire. A tablet records his grant of much of Mukishs land to Ugarit, after the king of Ugarit alerted the Hittite king to a revolt by the kingdoms of Mukish, Nuhassa, and Niye. Alalakh was probably destroyed by the Sea People in the 12th century BC, as were other cities of coastal Anatolia
24.
Holy City
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Holy city is a term applied to many cities, all of them central to the history or faith of specific religions. Such cities may also contain at least one headquarters complex which constitutes a major destination of traffic, or pilgrimage to the city. A holy city is a city, representing attributes beyond its natural characteristics. Marketing experts have suggested that cities may be the oldest brands. These cities include, Abydos Aksum Alexandria Harar Heliopolis Nkamba Ife Kairouan Lalibela Moulay Idriss Zion City Moria Ewu, the second most visited Catholic site and third most visited religious site in the world
25.
Babylonia
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Babylonia was an ancient Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in central-southern Mesopotamia. A small Amorite-ruled state emerged in 1894 BC, which contained at this time the city of Babylon. Babylon greatly expanded during the reign of Hammurabi in the first half of the 18th century BC, during the reign of Hammurabi and afterwards, Babylonia was called Māt Akkadī the country of Akkad in the Akkadian language. It was often involved in rivalry with its older fellow Akkadian-speaking state of Assyria in northern Mesopotamia and it retained the Sumerian language for religious use, but by the time Babylon was founded, this was no longer a spoken language, having been wholly subsumed by Akkadian. The earliest mention of the city of Babylon can be found in a tablet from the reign of Sargon of Akkad. During the 3rd millennium BC, a cultural symbiosis occurred between Sumerian and Akkadian-speakers, which included widespread bilingualism. The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian and vice versa is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a scale, to syntactic, morphological. This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the millennium as a sprachbund. Traditionally, the religious center of all Mesopotamia was the city of Nippur. The empire eventually disintegrated due to decline, climate change and civil war. Sumer rose up again with the Third Dynasty of Ur in the late 22nd century BC and they also seem to have gained ascendancy over most of the territory of the Akkadian kings of Assyria in northern Mesopotamia for a time. The states of the south were unable to stem the Amorite advance, King Ilu-shuma of the Old Assyrian Empire in a known inscription describes his exploits to the south as follows, The freedom of the Akkadians and their children I established. I established their freedom from the border of the marshes and Ur and Nippur, Awal, past scholars originally extrapolated from this text that it means he defeated the invading Amorites to the south, but there is no explicit record of that. More recently, the text has been taken to mean that Asshur supplied the south with copper from Anatolia and these policies were continued by his successors Erishum I and Ikunum. During the first centuries of what is called the Amorite period and his reign was concerned with establishing statehood amongst a sea of other minor city states and kingdoms in the region. However Sumuabum appears never to have bothered to give himself the title of King of Babylon, suggesting that Babylon itself was only a minor town or city. He was followed by Sumu-la-El, Sabium, Apil-Sin, each of whom ruled in the same manner as Sumuabum. Sin-Muballit was the first of these Amorite rulers to be regarded officially as a king of Babylon, the Elamites occupied huge swathes of southern Mesopotamia, and the early Amorite rulers were largely held in vassalage to Elam
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Yahdun-Lim
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Yahdunlim was the name of two different kings in Upper Mesopotamia, one of Mari during the 19th century BC and one of Karkemish during the 18th century BC. The former, of Amorite origin, became king after the death of his father Iagitlim, Yahdunlim built Mari up to become one of the major powers of the region. He led a campaign to the coast of the Mediterranean. His kingdom was threatened by incursions from various tribes, such as the Canaanites. After having established internal peace, he built a temple to the god Shamash, elsewhere, Shamshi-Adad I had made himself King of Assyria, and Yahdunlim received pleas for help from kings threatened by Shamshi-Adads expansionist plans. But before Yahdunlim could move against Shamshi-Adad, he was assassinated by his own servants, in the chaos that followed, Shamshi-Adad occupied Mari. Zimrilim, Iakhdunlims son and heir, was forced to flee to Aleppo, where he would remain as an exile until Shamshi-Adads death
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Royal intermarriage
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Royal intermarriage is the practice of members of ruling dynasties marrying into other reigning families. It was more commonly done in the past as part of diplomacy for national interest. Although sometimes enforced by legal requirement on persons of royal birth, monarchs were often in pursuit of national and international aggrandisement on behalf of themselves and their dynasties, thus bonds of kinship tended to promote or restrain aggression. Marriage between dynasties could serve to initiate, reinforce or guarantee peace between nations, alternatively, kinship by marriage could secure an alliance between two dynasties which sought to reduce the sense of threat from or to initiate aggression against the realm of a third dynasty. In parts of Europe, royalty continued to marry into the families of their greatest vassals as late as the 16th century, thenceforth. In other parts of the world royal intermarriage was less prevalent, there are often political or other non-romantic functions that must be served and the relative wealth and power of the potential spouses may be considered. Marriage for political, economic, or diplomatic reasons, the marriage of state, was a pattern seen for centuries among European rulers, at times, marriage between members of the same dynasty has been common in Central Africa. In West Africa, the sons and daughters of Yoruba kings were given in marriage to their fellow royals as a matter of dynastic policy. Sometimes these marriages would involve members of other tribes, erinwinde of Benin, for example, was taken as a wife by the Oba Oranyan of Oyo during his time as governor of Benin. Their son Eweka went on to birth to the dynasty that rules the Kingdom of Benin today. Marriages between the Swazi, Zulu and Thembu royal houses of southern Africa are common, for example, the daughter of former South African president and Thembu royal Nelson Mandela, Zenani Mandela, in 1977 married Prince Thumbumuzi Dlamini, a brother of Mswati III, King of Swaziland. Elsewhere in the region, Princess Semane Khama of the Bamangwato tribe of Botswana married Kgosi Lebone Edward Molotlegi of the Bafokeng tribe of South Africa. This is in due to Section 11 of 1924 Palace Law of Succession which excludes members of the royal family from the line of succession if they marry a non-Thai national. The most recent king, Bhumibol Adulyadej, is a first-cousin once removed of his wife, Sirikit, Chulalongkorn married a number of his half-sisters, including Savang Vadhana and Sunandha Kumariratana, all shared the same father, Mongkut. The Lý dynasty which ruled Dai Viet married its princesses off to regional rivals to establish alliances with them. One of these marriages was between a Lý princess and a member of the Chinese Trần clan, which enabled the Trần to then topple the Lý and established their own Trần dynasty. The Cambodian King Chey Chettha II married the Vietnamese Nguyễn lord Princess Nguyễn Thị Ngọc Vạn, marriage policy in imperial China differed from dynasty to dynasty. Several dynasties practiced Heqin, which involved marrying off princesses to other royal families, the Xiongnu practiced marriage alliances with Han dynasty officers and officials who defected to their side
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Carchemish
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Carchemish, also spelled Karkemish, was an important ancient capital in the northern part of the region of Syria. At times during its history the city was independent, but it was part of the Mitanni, Hittite. Today it is on the frontier between Turkey and Syria and it was the location of an important battle, about 605 BC, between the Babylonians and Egyptians, mentioned in the Bible. Carchemish is now a set of ruins, located on the West bank of Euphrates River, about 60 kilometres southeast of Gaziantep, Turkey. The site is crossed by the Baghdad Railway that now forms the Turco-Syrian border, a Turkish military base has been built on the Carchemish acropolis and Inner Town, and access to that part of the site is presently restricted. Most of the Outer Town lies in Syrian territory, Carchemish has always been well known to scholars because of several references to it in the Bible and in Egyptian and Assyrian texts. However, its location was identified only in 1876 by George Smith, the site was excavated by the British Museum, between 1878 and 1881 through Consul Patrick Henderson and between 1911 and 1914 under the direction of D. G. Hogarth. In 1911 on the field there were D. G. Hogarth himself, R. C. Thompson, and T. E. Lawrence, from 1912 to 1914 C. L. Woolley and T. E. Lawrence, while a last campaign took place in 1920 with C. L. Woolley and Philip Langstaffe Ord Guy. Excavations were interrupted in 1914 by World War I and then ended in 1920 with the Turkish War of Independence, with the completion of mine clearing operations on the Turkish portion of the site, archaeological work was resumed in September 2011. Excavations in the Inner and Outer Towns were carried out by a joint Turco-Italian team from the Universities of Bologna, Gaziantep and Istanbul under the direction of Prof. Dr. Nicolò Marchetti. The second season, from August to November 2012, brought new art findings and archaeological discoveries. In the Neo Assyrian period that courtyard was covered by a floor made of river pebbles forming squares alternating in black. Lawrences excavation house was completely excavated, the sixth season, from 2 May to 20 July 2016, saw a number of excavation areas opened also near the border, due to the added security represented by the construction of the wall. Thus, in 2016 a complete record was obtained also for peripheral areas. Among the finds, in addition to new sculpted artworks from the Iron Age, fragments of Imperial Hittite clay cuneiform tablets, conservation and presentation works have now been completed in view of the opening on 2 May 2017 of an archaeological park at the site. The field assessment of the Syrian part of the Outer Town documented that parts of the border town of Jerablus encroached upon the Outer Town. In February 2016, a prefabricated security wall has been completed by the Turkish Army to the south of the railway, the site has been occupied since the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods, with cist tombs from ca.2400 BC
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Zimri-Lim
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Zimri-Lim was king of Mari from about 1775 to 1761 BC. Zimri-Lim was the son or grandson of Iakhdunlim, but was forced to flee to Yamkhad when his father was assassinated by his own servants during a coup, the city was occupied by Shamshi-Adad I, the king of Assur, who put his own son Yasmah-Adad on the throne. Shortly after the death of Shamshi-Adad I, Zimri-Lim returned from exile and was able to oust Yasmah-Adad from power with the help of Yarimlim, the king of Yamhad. Zimri-Lim ruled Mari for about thirteen years, and campaigned extensively to establish his power in the areas along the Euphrates. He extended his palace in the city, which was possibly the largest at the time and he was also active on a wider stage, and for a time was allied with Hammurabi in his wars against Elam, Eshnunna, and Larsa. Zimri-Lim lent troops to Hammurabis campaigns, and although the two kept extensive diplomatic contacts, it appears they never met in person, after the defeat of Elam, there was no outside force to keep the precarious balance of power between the Kings of Mesopotamia. The alliance between Zimri-Lim and Hammurabi deteriorated after Babylons conquest of Larsa, in 1762 BC, Hammurabi conquered and sacked Mari, despite the previous alliance. At this time Zimri-Lim disappears from view, and is presumed to have been killed. Zimri-Lims personal life is known through tablets preserved in the state archive of Mari. He married Shibtu, a princess of Yamkhad, and is known to have had at least eight daughters through various wives, several of his daughters were married to rulers of local towns, and two others are known to have become priestesses. Correspondence between the king and his daughters provides evidence that Zimri-Lim thought highly of women and considered them competent at making decisions
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Yasmah-Adad
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Yasmah-Adad was the younger son of the Amorite king of Upper Mesopotamia, Shamshi-Adad I. He was put on throne of Mari by his father after a military attack following the assassination of Yahdun-Lim of Mari in 1795 B. C. E. He was responsible for the section of his fathers kingdom including the Balikh River, Habur River. Yasmah-Adads administrative district bordered the state of Yamkhad and the Syrian steppe and his father controlled the northern part of the kingdom from Shubat-Enlil, and his older brother, Ishme-Dagan, ruled over the southeast area from Ekallatum. C. The sources do not fully agree, but state that he was chased out of his borders or killed before being allowed to flee. Shamshi-Adad I played a role in his sons life and frequently micro-managed his sons affairs. As a result, he relegated Beltum, his second wife, Shamshi-Adad I was angry with Yasmah-Adad at his refusal to follow orders, and forced him to keep Beltum by his side in the palace. Some may argue that this instance of control demonstrated the extent of power Shamshi-Adad I had over his sons, Yasmah-Adad is most well known for the criticism he received from his father. Yasmah-Adad was accused of being lazy, self indulgent and not applying himself to his kingly duties and he was once chided for dallying with women and abandoning his duties for his sexual pleasures. The correspondence between the father and sons was found in the archives of the city of Mari and provides an interesting and he was ridiculed frequently by both his brother Ishme-Dagan and his father and was accused of inactive leadership over his district. Yasmah-Adads character was attacked within a letter from his father Shamshi-Adad I, are you a child, and not an adult. Dont you have a beard on your chin, when are you going to take charge of your house. Dont you see that your brother is leading vast armies, so, you too, take charge of your palace, your house. Many of these arose from Yasmah-Adads failure to perform the political duties that were his to deal with. Yasmah-Adads critiques did not come solely from his father, however, Ishme-Dagan scolds his brother, Why are you setting up a wail about this thing. That is not great conduct, and eventually advises him to communicate with their father through him as intermediary and this might have been out of a desire to help his younger brother, but it could also have been a maneuver to gain Ishme-Dagan more political standing. Another example of the complicated, strained relationship between the brothers is found in a written by Yasmah-Adad to his brother Ishme-Dagan, Thus Yasmah-Addu. I listened to the Tablet which Daddy sent me, which ran as follow, How much longer do we have to keep you on a leading rein and you are a child, you are not a man, you have no beard on your chin
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Hammurabi
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Hammurabi was the sixth king of the First Babylonian Dynasty, reigning from 1792 BC to 1750 BC. He was preceded by his father, Sin-Muballit, who abdicated due to failing health and he extended Babylons control throughout Mesopotamia through military campaigns. Hammurabi is known for the Code of Hammurabi, one of the earliest surviving codes of law in recorded history, the name Hammurabi derives from the Amorite term ʻAmmurāpi, itself from ʻAmmu and Rāpi. Hammurabi was an Amorite First Dynasty king of the city-state of Babylon, Babylon was one of the many largely Amorite ruled city-states that dotted the central and southern Mesopotamian plains and waged war on each other for control of fertile agricultural land. Though many cultures co-existed in Mesopotamia, Babylonian culture gained a degree of prominence among the literate classes throughout the Middle East under Hammurabi, the kings who came before Hammurabi had founded a relatively minor City State in 1894 BC which controlled little territory outside of the city itself. Babylon was overshadowed by older, larger and more powerful kingdoms such as Elam, Assyria, Isin, Eshnunna, thus Hammurabi ascended to the throne as the king of a minor kingdom in the midst of a complex geopolitical situation. The powerful kingdom of Eshnunna controlled the upper Tigris River while Larsa controlled the river delta, to the east of Mesopotamia lay the powerful kingdom of Elam which regularly invaded and forced tribute upon the small states of southern Mesopotamia. The first few decades of Hammurabis reign were quite peaceful, Hammurabi used his power to undertake a series of public works, including heightening the city walls for defensive purposes, and expanding the temples. In c.1801 BC, the kingdom of Elam. With allies among the states, Elam attacked and destroyed the kingdom of Eshnunna, destroying a number of cities. In order to consolidate its position, Elam tried to start a war between Hammurabis Babylonian kingdom and the kingdom of Larsa. Hammurabi and the king of Larsa made an alliance when they discovered this duplicity and were able to crush the Elamites, although Larsa did not contribute greatly to the military effort. Angered by Larsas failure to come to his aid, Hammurabi turned on that southern power, as Hammurabi was assisted during the war in the south by his allies from the north such as Yamhad and Mari, the absence of soldiers in the north led to unrest. Continuing his expansion, Hammurabi turned his attention northward, quelling the unrest, next the Babylonian armies conquered the remaining northern states, including Babylons former ally Mari, although it is possible that the conquest of Mari was a surrender without any actual conflict. Hammurabi entered into a war with Ishme-Dagan I of Assyria for control of Mesopotamia. Eventually Hammurabi prevailed, ousting Ishme-Dagan I just before his own death, mut-Ashkur the new king of Assyria was forced to pay tribute to Hammurabi, however Babylon did not rule Assyria directly. In just a few years, Hammurabi had succeeded in uniting all of Mesopotamia under his rule, however, one stele of Hammurabi has been found as far north as Diyarbekir, where he claims the title King of the Amorites. Vast numbers of contract tablets, dated to the reigns of Hammurabi and his successors, have been discovered, as well as 55 of his own letters
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Eshnunna
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Eshnunna was an ancient Sumerian city and city-state in central Mesopotamia. Although situated in the Diyala Valley north-east of Sumer proper, the city nonetheless belonged securely within the Sumerian cultural milieu, the tutelary deity of the city was Tishpak. Occupied from the Jemdet Nasr period, about 3000 BC, Eshnunna was a city during the Early Dynastic period. Beginning with the rise of the Akkadian Empire, Eshnunna oscillated between periods of independence and domination by empires such as the Third Dynasty of Ur and Isin. Because of its promise of control over trade routes, Eshnunna could function somewhat as a gateway between Mesopotamian and Elamite culture. The trade routes gave it access to exotic, sought-after goods such as horses from the north, copper, tin. In a grave in Eshnunna, a pendant made of copal from Zanzibar was found, thereafter, the city appears but rarely in cuneiform textual sources, reflecting its probable decline and eventual disappearance. The expeditions field secretary was Mary Chubb, despite the long passage of time since the excavations at Tell Asmar, the work of examining and publishing the remaining finds from that dig continues to this day. These finds include roughly 1500 cuneiform tablets, in the late 1990s, Iraqi archaeologists worked at Tell Asmar. The results from that excavation have not yet been published, the Laws of Eshnunna consist of two tablets, found at Shaduppum and a fragment found at Tell Haddad, the ancient Mê-Turan. They were written sometime around the reign of king Dadusha of Eshnunna, when the actual laws were composed is unknown. They are similar to the Code of Hammurabi, during the Early Dynastic period, the Abu Temple at Tell Asmar went through a number of phases. This included the Early Dynastic Archaic Shrine, Square Temple, and they, along with sculpture found there, helped form the basis for the three part archaeological separation of the Early Dynastic period into ED I, ED II, and ED III for the ancient Near East. A cache of 12 gypsum temple sculptures, in a style, were found in the Square Temple. They are some of the best known examples of ancient Near East sculpture, the group, now split up, show gods, priests and donor worshippers at different sizes, but all in the same highly simplified style. All have greatly enlarged inlaid eyes, but the tallest figure, city In the Sand, Mary Chubb, Libri,1999, ISBN 1-901965-02-3 R. M. Whiting Jr. Old Babylonian Letters from Tell Asmar, Assyriological Studies 22, Oriental Institute,1987 I. J, Gelb, Sargonic Texts from the Diyala Region, Materials for the Assyrian Dictionary, vol. 1, Chicago,1961 Maria deJong Ellis, Notes on the Chronology of the Later Eshnunna Dynasty, Journal of Cuneiform Studies, vol
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Tuttul
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The Bronze Age town of Tuttul is identified with the archaeological site of Tell Bia in Raqqa Governorate, northern Syria. Tell Bia is located near the city of Raqqa and the confluence of the rivers Balikh. During the Middle Bronze Age, Tuttul was city sacred to the god Dagan, however, the settlement at Tell Bia had been occupied since the mid-3rd millennium BCE. However, this is a debated issue, the identification of the so-called Southern Tuttul with modern Hit is uncertain, as Hit is referenced to several times in the Mari archives via its modern name
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Shibtu
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Shibtu was the wife of Zimrilim and queen consort of the ancient city-state of Mari in modern-day Syria. Historian Abraham Malamat described her as the most prominent of the Mari ladies, Shibtu was born to the royal family of the kingdom of Yamhad. Her parents were Yarim-Lim I, king of Yamhad, and Gashera, Zimrilim was forced to flee Mari when his father the king, Iakhdunlim, was assassinated in a palace coup and Yasmah-Adad usurped the throne. Zimrilim allied himself with Yarimlim of Yamhad who helped him regain his throne in Mari, Zimrilim and Shibtus offspring included at least seven daughters. Shibtu enjoyed extensive administrative powers as queen, during Zimrilims absence, Shibtu handled the administration of the city, the royal palace and the temple. The tablets found at Mari reveal regular correspondence between Shibtu and her husband in his absence, the letters were mostly administrative in nature, including reports on the state of the city and military and intelligence briefings. Personal letters were exchanged, including one notifying the king of her giving birth to a boy. Shibtus letters reflected deep affection for her husband and concern over his health, Zimrilim, likewise, sent letters back updating her on his battles and whereabouts, and instructing her on the running of the city. In one of her letters, Shibtu informs Zimrilim, upon his request, the prophecy, however, was wrong and the Babylonians under Hammurabi sacked Mari in 1761 BC
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Babylon
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Babylon was a major city of ancient Mesopotamia in the fertile plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The city was built upon the Euphrates and divided in parts along its left and right banks. Babylon was originally a small Semitic Akkadian city dating from the period of the Akkadian Empire c.2300 BC, the town attained independence as part of a small city-state with the rise of the First Amorite Babylonian Dynasty in 1894 BC. Babylon grew and South Mesopotamia came to be known as Babylonia, the empire quickly dissolved after Hammurabis death and Babylon spent long periods under Assyrian, Kassite and Elamite domination. After being destroyed and then rebuilt by the Assyrians, Babylon became the capital of the Neo-Babylonian Empire from 609 to 539 BC, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. After the fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, the city came under the rule of the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian, Roman, and Sassanid empires. It has been estimated that Babylon was the largest city in the world from c.1770 to 1670 BC and it was perhaps the first city to reach a population above 200,000. Estimates for the extent of its area range from 890 to 900 hectares. The remains of the city are in present-day Hillah, Babil Governorate, Iraq, about 85 kilometres south of Baghdad, comprising a large tell of broken mud-brick buildings, the English Babylon comes from Greek Babylṓn, a transliteration of the Akkadian Babili. The Babylonian name in the early 2nd millennium BC had been Babilli or Babilla, by the 1st millennium BC, it had changed to Babili under the influence of the folk etymology which traced it to bāb-ili. The Gate of God or Gate of El being from the Aramaic Hebrew Bab for Gate and El for God and this being similar to the Hebrew word for confusion Balal. In the Bible, the name appears as Babel, interpreted in the Hebrew Scriptures Book of Genesis to mean confusion, the modern English verb, to babble, or to speak meaningless words, is popularly thought to derive from this name, but there is no direct connection. The remains of the city are in present-day Hillah, Babil Governorate, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad, comprising a large tell of broken mud-brick buildings and debris. The site at Babylon consists of a number of mounds covering an area of about 2 by 1 kilometer, oriented north to south, along the Euphrates to the west. Originally, the river roughly bisected the city, but the course of the river has since shifted so that most of the remains of the western part of the city are now inundated. Some portions of the city wall to the west of the river also remain, remains of the city include, Kasr—also called Palace or Castle, it is the location of the Neo-Babylonian ziggurat Etemenanki and lies in the center of the site. Amran Ibn Ali—the highest of the mounds at 25 meters, to the south and it is the site of Esagila, a temple of Marduk which also contained shrines to Ea and Nabu. Homera—a reddish colored mound on the west side, most of the Hellenistic remains are here
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Larsa
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Larsa was an important city of ancient Sumer, the center of the cult of the sun god Utu. It lies some 25 km southeast of Uruk in Iraqs Dhi Qar Governorate, the historical Larsa was already in existence as early as the reign of Eannatum of Lagash, who annexed it to his empire. The city became a force during the Isin-Larsa period. From there, Ishbi-Erra recaptured Ur as well as the cities of Uruk and Lagash, subsequent Isin rulers appointed governors to rule over Lagash, one such governor was an Amorite named Gungunum. He eventually broke with Isin and established an independent dynasty in Larsa, to legitimize his rule and deliver a blow to Isin, Gungunum captured the city of Ur. As the region of Larsa was the center of trade via the Persian Gulf, Isin lost an enormously profitable trade route. Gungunums two successors, Abisare and Sumuel, both took steps to cut Isin completely off from access to canals, after this period, Isin quickly lost political and economic force. Larsa grew powerful, but it never accumulated a large territory, at its peak under king Rim-Sin I, Larsa controlled only about 10-15 other city-states — nowhere near the territory controlled by other dynasties in Mesopotamian history. Nevertheless, huge building projects and agricultural undertakings can be detected archaeologically, after the defeat of Rim-Sin I by Hammurabi of Babylon, Larsa became a minor site, though it has been suggested that it was the home of the 1st Sealand Dynasty of Babylon. Larsa is thought to be the source of a number of tablets involving Babylonian mathematics, the remains of Larsa cover an oval about 4.5 miles in circumference. The highest point is around 70 feet in height, the site of Tell es-Senkereh, then known as Sinkara, was first excavated by William Loftus in 1850 for less than a month. In those early days of archaeology, the effort was focused on obtaining museum specimens than scientific data and niceties like site drawings. Loftus recovered building bricks of Nebuchadnezzar II of the Neo-Babylonian Empire which enabled the sites identification as the ancient city of Larsa, much of the effort by Loftus was on the temple of Shamash, rebuilt by Nebuchadnezzar II. Inscriptions of Burna-Buriash II of the Kassite dynasty of Babylon and Hammurabi of the First Babylonian Dynasty were also found, Larsa was also briefly worked by Walter Andrae in 1903. The site was inspected by Edgar James Banks in 1905 and he found that widespread looting by the local population was occurring there. The first modern, scientific, excavation of Senkereh occurred in 1933, Parrot worked at the location again in 1967. In 1969 and 1970, Larsa was excavated by Jean-Claude Margueron, between 1976 and 1991, an expedition of the Delegation Archaeologic Francaise en Irak led by J-L. Huot excavated at Tell es-Senereh for 13 seasons,1, pp. 1–23,1993 T. Breckwoldt, Management of grain storage in Old Babylonian Larsa, Archiv für Orientforschung, no
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