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Important information before the article
Syria
and Syrian is modern terminology. Syria never existed during
time of the Aramean city states. This terminology is only used by
the scholars as a tool of explanation for the readers. In other
words it is an anachronism.
Phoenicia
and Phoenician is used for Canaan and Canaanites and
their language. It’s anachronistic because the Canaanites never
called themselves Phoenicians, nor their language, or their land
as such. It was the Romans and maybe even the Greeks before them
that used these names about them. It was an exonym not an
endonym. It is used as a tool of explanation for the
readers but also used in language trees only to distinguish
between proto-Canaanite, Ugaritic (Canaanite language in local
cuneiform script of ancient Ugarit, modern Ras Shamra in western
Syria) Phoenician and Punic. Modern terminology,
Nimrod is sometimes erroneously used for the ancient Assyrian
capital Kalhu (Calhu) also known as Calah in the Old Testament
of the Bible. The name Nimrod was never used by the ancient
Assyrians in their own records in Akkadian cuneiform (their
mother tongue). It is said that ignorant modern local Arab
Muslims in Iraq called many ancient cities Nimrod including
Calhu. Some scholars and assyriologists unfortunately still use
Nimrod when they refer to Calhu. The Turks have renamed ancient
Commagene by the name Nemrut Dag (Mount Nimrod in Turkish). This
is not the true name of the city. The founder of Commagene was
Antiochus I Soter from the Seleucid dynasty. This dynasty of
kings ruled 40 years after Alexander the Greats death. That is
40 years after the so called Diadochi wars. The Seleucid
dynasty had the title
"King
of Syria"
before the Roman Empire ended their rule during their Eastern
expansion. St Ephrem (306-373 AD) erroneously claimed the
founder of Urhoy (Edessa) was Nimrod. This is not true either
because Nimrod was a mythical king who never existed outside the
Judeo-Christian as well as the Islamic tradition (the story
about him differ in both traditions) . As for Urhoy it was
refounded as Edessa by Seleucus I Nicator who was the founder of
the Seleucid dynasty and one of Alexander the Greats four
generals. This was long after Alexander’s death. Named after the
capital of Greek Macedon (there were no Slavs there like today.
Babylon, Babylonia and Babylonians are non-ethnic names invented
by the Greeks for the city of Babel, while Babylonia and
Babylonians were constructed in Greek at first. After the
Achaemenid Persian king Cyrus the Great conquered Babel he
organized his empire amongst his satraps. The name of Babel was
only used prior to this time only for the city of Babel, while
The Persians expanded the name for the entire southern part of
the Euphrates and Tigris area of modern day Iraq. They used the
Old Persian cuneiform name
"Babiru"and
"Babirush"
and in Elamite they used the name"Papili".
So when Alexander the Great conquered the Persians he must have
annexed this Persian province
"Babiru"
or
"Babirush"
under the name Babylonia and the inhabitants of this former
Persian occupied province. The name of that area was originally
"Mat
Sumer-Akkad",
also
"Mat
Kaldu",
"Karduniash".
There were also 36 Aramean tribes registered there in cuneiform
sources since 1000 BC and the area was later known as
"Beth
Aramaye"
until the 10th century AD in Edessan Aramaic sources.
The name Babylonian empire, regardless if it refers to Old,
Middle or Neo-Babylonian empires was invented by modern scholars
but never used by the ancients themselves when they ruled.
This
article
like
many other books if not most written in modern times use the name
"Mesopotamia"
erroneously - believe it or not - sometimes for the entire area
between the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers in modern Iraq only and
sometimes the explanation given is the land between the Euphrates
and the Tigris (these Rivers pass through modern days Iraq, Eastern
Syria (Jezireh region), and southeastern Turkey. All this is wrong
because according to ancient sources in Egyptian, Akkadian, Aramaic,
Hebrew, Greek and Latin use the following names in their respective
languages for the very same area between the Upper Euphrates and the
Upper Tigris and the tributaries of the first one namely the Balikh
and Khabur. It does not include the rest of the Euphrates or the
rest of the Tigris southwards including the second’s eastern
tributaries the Greater and Lesser Zab which constituted the
original heartland of the ancient Assyrians which was called
"Mat
Ashur"
in Akkadian.
In
Egyptian hieroglyphs this upper area – the original Mesopotamia
– was called
"Nahren",
while the ancient
"Amarna
letters"
excavated in Egypt use the name
"Nahrima".
In Akkadian it was called
"Birit
Narim",
"Mat
Biritim"
and
"Mat
Narayim".
The term
"Beth
Nahrin"
in Edessan Aramaic was never used by the ancient Assyrians nor any
people for that matter in Antiquity before Christ nor was it used
for the entire area between the Euphrates and Tigris. It is only in
modern songs, poems and folklore it is misused as such, regardless
of modern ideologies. As for the Greek and Latin the name
"Mesopotamia"
only mean
"Between
Rivers"
without naming them, but the ancient Greek, geographer and
cartographer Claudius Ptolemaios (also known as Claudius Ptolemy)
used the name
"Mesopotamia"
only for the upper part. Likewise many Roman sources in Latin also
use it this way with the exception of one or a few about emperors
who expanded the roman province of Mesopotamia further south but not
all the way south. In the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible known to
Christians as the Old Testament Bible) the term
"Aramnaharaim"
in Hebrew is used in the same way only for the north, this entered
Edessan Aramaic Christian literature as
"Orom-Nahrin/Aram-Nahrin"
used synonymously with
"Beth
Nahrin".
Edessan Aramaic also has another variant for
"Beth
Nahrin"
known as
"Beth
Nahrawotho/Beth Nahratha".
Edessan Aramaic as an Aramaic dialect from the Late Aramaic period
of the Aramaic language was called
"Nahroyo".
The
Septuagint (oldest translation of the Hebrew Bible into
Greek) in Ptolomean dynasty ruled Alexandria in Egypt in the 3rd
century BC during the rule of Ptolelmy II Philadelphus 72 or 70 wise
Hellenized Jews translated it into koine Greek for the
Alexandrian Library. They translated
"Aramnaharaim"
as
"Mesopotamia"
in Greek. This led some ill-informed historians in modern times as
well as nationalists to erroneously interpret this as
Aramnaharaim was between the entire area of Euphrates and the
Tigris. Having said that, even though there is evidence of Aramean
presence both in history as well as in modern time in the entire
area of the of the both main rivers as well as west of them as well
as in Assyria proper (what used to be the heartland of the ancient
Assyrians before it expanded into an empire).
Palestine is used in the articles as a tool of explanation by modern
scholars through the anachronistic lens of the ancient Romans whom
they know the geography through. Referring to what later in Romans
times became known as the Roman province of “Palestina”. Have in
mind that the articles are not referring to what we in modern times
know as an “Arab nation state” during the articles’ respective
historical context but only to geography pure and simple. Even
though the etymology of the term Palestine or Palestina is derived
etymologically to one of the many so-called “Sea Peoples” namely the
Peleset (better known in the Old Testament books of the Bible
as the Philistines. The modern day “Palestinians” claim an Arab
nationalism. Plus the Aramean small kingdom of Palastin also known
as Walastin should not be misunderstood as referring to the
geography of later “Roman Palestine” because it is closer to the
modern times southern border of modern day Turkey. Helene Sader
wrote the following about it “This area, from the plain of Antioch
in the west to Aleppo and Hamath in the east,” and that the Arameans
took it from the Neo-Hittite rulers.
Activist in the Aramean Democratic Organization
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