Assyria (Damascus) & The Caspian
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DAMASCUS, a city in Syria that has been inhabited as early as 8,000 to 10,000 BC, is known to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world along with Varanasi, Aleppo and Jericho. Damascus is designated as having been part of the ancient province of Amurru in the Hyksos Kingdom, from 1720 to 1570 BC. The god Amurru was identified with the constellation Perseus: a northern constellation, named after the Greek hero who slew the monster Medusa. Damascus is not documented as an important city until the coming of the Aramaeans, Semitic, seminomadic and pastoralist people who originated and had lived in upper Mesopotamia and Syria who arrived from the Arabian peninsula. The peninsula is thought to have been the original homeland of the Proto-Semitic peoples, ancestors of all the Semitic peoples in the region — the Akkadians, Arabs, Assyrians, Hebrews, etc. Linguistically, the Peninsula was the cradle of the Arabic language (spread beyond the Peninsula with the Islamic religion during the expansion of Islam beginning in the 7th century CE.) A plateau more than 2,500 feet high extends across much of the Arabian peninsula. The plateau slopes eastwards from the massive, rifted escarpment along the coast of the Red Sea, to the shallow waters of The Gulf. The interior is characterised by cuestas and valleys, drained by a system of wadis. A crescent of sand and gravel deserts lies to the east. |
The traditional etymology for the ethnology is from Armenak or Aram, the great-grandson of Haik's great-grandson, and another leader who is, according to Armenian tradition, the ancestor of all Armenians. Akkadian language inscriptions (2400 BCE) mention Armani, locating them in the southern Armenian Highlands near Lake Van. Armani was the earlier form of Armens who were of Proto-Indo-European descent; Assyrians (direct descendents of Akkadians) refer Armenians by their inscription form Armani.
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The word CASPIAN is derived from the name of the Caspi, an ancient a pre-Indo-European people that lived to the west of the sea in Transcaucasia (Southern Caucsus) - the southern portion of the Caucasus region between Europe and Asia, extending from the Greater Caucasus to the Turkish and Iranian borders, between the Black and Caspian Seas with all of Armenia which lies among both the Russian and Western spheres of influence. The Kassites conquered Mesopotamia, bringing the Old Babylonian era to an end and for the first time welding together the network of independent, feuding city-states into a territory that can be called BABYLONIA . Their first historical appearance occurred in the 18th century B.C. when they attacked Babylonia in the 9th year of the reign of Samsu-Iluna (reigned 1749 B.C. - 1712 BC), the son of Hammurabi. The transformation of southern Mesopotamia (UR) into a territorial state made Babylonia an international power. |
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Eight among the last kings of the Kassite dynasty have Akkadian names.
Kassite princesses married into the royal family of Assyria. The Elamites conquered Babylonia in the 12th century BC, thus ending four hundred years of Kassite rule. Kassite is not descended from Indo-European languages; remnants of Kassite tribes were living in the mountains northwest of Elam, immediately south of Holwan, when Sennacherib attacked them in 702 BC. Alexander the Great battled Kossaeans in the winter of 323 B.C. on his way from Ecbatana to Babylon; according to Strabo (xi. 13,3,6) the Kossaeans were the neighbours of the Medes.
Nomadic pastoralists have always been a feature of the Middle East, but their numbers seem to vary according to climatic conditions and the force of neighbouring states inducing permanent settlement. The period of the Late Bronze Age seems to have been one of increasing aridity, weakening neighbouring states, and inducing transhumance pastoralists to spend longer and longer periods with their flocks. The Ahlamû (= wanderers) are first mentioned in the el-Amarna letters alluding to the king of Babylon; the presence of the Ahlamû are also attested in Assyria, Nippur and even at Dilmun (Bahrain); Shalmaneser I (1274-1245 BC) defeated the Shattuara, King of Mitanni and his Hittite and Ahlamû mercenaries are mentioned in the Jazirah.
For the first time, an inscription of Tiglath-Pileser I (1115-1077 BC) refers to the ‘Ahlamû-Aramaeans’ (Ahlame Armaia) and from then on, the Ahlamû rapidly disappear from Assyrian annals -- to be replaced by the Aramaeans (Aramu, Arimi). ‘Ahlamû-Aramaeans’ would consider the Aramaeans as an important and in time dominant faction of the Ahlamû tribes, however it is possible that the two peoples had nothing in common, but operated in the same area. It is conceivable that the name 'Arameans' was a more accurate form of the earlier ethnonym Martu (Amorites, westerners) in the Assyrian tablets.
The Aramaeans were, in the 11th century BC, established in Syria. The same network was later improved by the Romans and the Umayyads, and still forms the basis of the water system of the old part of Damascus today. In 1100 BC, the city became the center of a powerful Aramaean state called Aram Damascus. The greatest portion of the textual sources come from Assyria. There are, however, often several copies of the same texts so the material of the texts is rather limited. Most of the texts are annals from the Assyrian kings Shalmaneser III, Adad-Nirari III, and Tiglath-Pileser III. Aramean royal inscriptions are rare, and only one royal stele from Aram-Damascus proper has been identified, the stele from Tel Dan- an area in upper Galilee in Northern Israel; fed by melt water from the snows of mount Hermon, it is well watered by streams and covered with lush vegetation that seems out of place amidst its arid surroundings. It is quite securely identified with Dan mentioned in Judges 18:29. In ancient times the area was the principal settlement of the Tribe of Dan, one of the twelve tribes of Israel.