hello everyone and welcome in this episode i want to talk about groups of people that i've mentioned several times in various programs but not gone into too much detail about the aramains they played a huge role in the history of the ancient near east and beyond the name aramaian has been given to various population groups of the iron age who inhabited large areas of the fertile crescent especially what's today northern syria and iraq they're named as such because they spoke versions of a western semitic language that we call aramaic scholars though debate their origins and how they entered into mesopotamia were they new tribal and pastoral groups that migrated into the region or were they simply the iron age descendants of older bronze age populations such as the amorites who had occupied much of the same region since at least the second millennium bce the first written mention of a people known as the aramaians comes from the 11th century bce text of the assyrian king tiglat pelazar the first who calls them ahlamu and claims that they were a great nuisance he reports crossing the euphrates river at least 28 times to confront aramaians who were causing trouble on his western borders and says in one of his annals i marched against the alamo i plundered from the edge of the land of suhu to the city of carchemish of the land of hati in a single day i massacred them and carried back their booty possessions and goods without number the rest of their troops crossed the euphrates i crossed the euphrates after them i conquered six of their cities at the foot of mount bishri burnt raised and destroyed them one of his successors asher balcala who reigned from 1073 to 1056 bce also reported numerous campaigns against them by then though the aramaians had spread deep into babylonia here though they didn't have states of their own but lived as migrants on the periphery of society despite this they were still able to make trouble for the locals at least according to the records from the time that have survived the babylonian king adad apla idina of the second dynasty of isin reports how the aramaians had attacked and desecrated the holy sanctuaries of his kingdom including those of dare sippar agade and even the holy city of nipur the age of the aramaians had arrived around the 11th century bce several small aramaian kingdoms emerged northern mesopotamia some of the more well-known kingdoms for those of bidsamani bitpahiani bittadini bitgabari yadiya bitagusi and probably the most famous aram damascus the prefix bit roughly means house of and probably refers to the tribal origins of their respective states despite assyrian expansion into and the eventual conquest of their territory the aramaian kingdoms never really formed any sort of union other than the occasional alliance to stem off a specific threat such as the one put together in 853 bce to fight against salmanizer iii known as the battle of qarqar the anti-assyrian coalition was mostly led by king hadad of aram damascus and king ishulani of hamath who allied with the kings of israel amon and several others though most scholars have concluded that the battle ended in a stalemate the coalition was able to stem syria's westward expansion that is until they started squabbling amongst themselves and one by one fell to chalmenezer iii about a decade later the assyrian king who perhaps had both the most contentious as well as fruitful relationship with the aramaians was tiglat pelazar iii he probably realized that it was nearly impossible to get rid of them since they occupied all parts of his realm from the levant to southern babylonia they created the most problems though in the northern regions of the euphrates river where they controlled several lucrative trade routes and could draw support from their allies on a serious periphery which at times included other less established aramaian tribes neo-hittite kingdoms and even on occasion the kingdom of urartu in what's today southeastern anatolia and armenia during tigalath plaza the third's reign between 745-727 bce he conquered or annexed several aramaian kingdoms and lands with a sort of carrot and stick strategy knowing that the various aramaian tribes and kingdoms were extremely divided he allowed those aramaian rulers who willingly submitted to him to remain in power and run their kingdoms with a relatively large degree of autonomy provided that they remained loyal to assyria this meant though that they had to also fight against other aramaian states who may have been enemies of the assyrian crown thus the aramaian states quickly fell into pro-assyrian or anti-assyrian camps this policy tended to work in tigath palesar's favor and allowed future assyrian kings to keep a relatively firm grip on the aramaian lands of the northeastern levant almost up until the fall of the assyrian empire between the years 1615 to 1610 bce though at times there were conflicts the majority of aramaian states peacefully coexisted with their neighbors especially with the neo-hittite kingdoms of southwestern anatolia and the phoenician city-states of the coast this was probably in part due to their strong commercial relationships with each other the aramain's greatest contribution to world history was their language in order to help prevent massive revolts as well as make certain areas of the empire more productive most new assyrian kings had a policy of deporting the surviving populations of their conquered enemies to other areas of their realm perhaps the most well-known instance of this was the deportation of the surviving population of the northern kingdom of israel by sargon ii it's likely that within a generation or two such populations were assimilated into their new surroundings with their distinct culture and language slowly being phased out of existence interestingly enough this was not the case for the aramaians in fact the destruction and deportations of aramaian populations actually expanded their influence all over the ancient middle east especially with regard to their language because the aramaians were arguably the most populous of the various peoples during the iron age their dispersal by the assyrians led to large numbers of them ending up in all parts of greater assyria babylonia southwestern anatolia and of course the levant due to this aramaic became the lingua franca or main language of communication throughout the region replacing even acadian which for over a thousand years had previously been the standard international language of diplomacy aramaic was also relatively easy to use because its written form used an alphabetic script that was modified from that developed by the phoenicians which made writing it and using it for quick correspondence much more practical than the old cuneiform script that had up until then been the standard despite the widespread adoption of the aramaic language and script there's actually very little written about the aramaians their history and culture outside of assyrian and biblical texts and that too mainly of the major kingdoms and states there were many other aramaian tribes who lived outside of these areas but at the moment relatively little was known about them so if you didn't before i hope that you now have a general idea of who the aramaians were and what their role was in the ancient near east as always thanks so much for stopping by i really appreciate it if you learned something or simply just enjoyed the video please don't hesitate to hit that like button because it helps the channel out a lot also check out the history with psy podcast where i go into more detail with regard to some of the topics discussed on the channel you can also follow history with psy on instagram facebook and twitter thanks again and i'll catch you in the next episode take care and stay safe