up:: World History, Linguistics
Arameans
The Arameans, or Aramaeans (Hebrew: אֲרַמִּים, romanized: arammim; Ancient Greek: Ἀραμαῖοι, romanized: Aramaíoi; Classical Syriac: ܐܪ̈ܡܝܐ, romanized: ārāmāyē, Syriac pronunciation: [ʔɑːrɑːˈmɑːje]), were a tribal Semitic people in the ancient Near East, first documented in historical sources from the late 12th century BCE. Their homeland, often referred to as the land of Aram, originally covered central regions of what is now Syria.
The Arameans were not a single nation or group; Aram was a region with local centers of power spread throughout the Levant. That makes it almost impossible to establish a coherent ethnic category of “Aramean” based on extralinguistic identity markers, such as material culture, lifestyle, or religion. The people of Aram were called “Arameans” in Assyrian texts and the Hebrew Bible, but the terms “Aramean” and “Aram” were never used by later Aramean dynasts to refer to themselves or their country, except the king of Aram-Damascus, since his kingdom was also called Aram. “Arameans” is an appellation of the geographical term Aram given to 1st millennium BCE inhabitants of Syria.
At the beginning of the 1st millennium BCE, the Syro-Hittite states were established throughout the ancient Near East. The most notable was Aram-Damascus, which reached its height in the second half of the 9th century BC during the reign of King Hazael. During the 8th century BC, local Aramaean city-states were conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The policy of population displacement and relocation applied throughout Assyrian domains also affected the Arameans, many of whom were resettled by Assyrian authorities. That caused a wider dispersion of Aramean communities throughout various regions of the Near East, and the range of Aramaic also widened. It gained significance and eventually became the lingua franca of public life and administration as Imperial Aramaic, particularly during the periods of the Neo-Babylonian Empire (612–539 BC) and the Achaemenid Empire (539–330 BC).
Before Christianity, Aramaic-speaking communities had undergone considerable Hellenization and Romanization in the Near East. Thus, their integration into the Greek-speaking world had begun a long time before Christianity became established. Some scholars suggest that Arameans who accepted Christianity were referred to as Syrians by the Greeks. The early Muslim conquests in the 7th century were followed by the Islamization and the gradual Arabization of Aramaic-speaking communities throughout the Near East. That ultimately resulted in their fragmentation and acculturation. Today, their cultural and linguistic heritage continues to be recognized by some Syriac-Christian or Neo-Aramaic speaking groups, such as the Maronites and the Aramean inhabitants of Maaloula and Jubb’adin near Damascus in Syria.
