Ancient Israelite History and the Middle East - Lavant

Ancient Israelite History

. The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem -- Photographer: Zangaki Blatchford Collection of Photographs (American University of Beirut)

Excerpts and Definitions and Addendums:

Note and Prologue: Doubtlessly confusing is the fact that (1) the Hebrew people under the patriarchs established Eretz Israel or the land given to them supposedly by God when they conquered the land ofCanaan (hence Israelites); (2) the Kingdom of Israel (10 Northern Tribes: Capital Samaria) was deported by Assyrian King Sargon IIeast and scattered all over Mesopotamia where they lost their (religious) identity; (3) the later Neo-Babylonian captivity and deportation of political and religious leaders of the Kingdom of Judah (2 Southern Tribes: Capital Jerusalem) was more centralized inBabylon facilitating the continuation of their identity and religious beliefs and their eventual repatriation in Judea (hence Jews) ...

Patriarchal Age: The story begins with the departure of Abram, a son of Terah, fromUr, his ancestral homeland in southern Mesopotamia circa 1950 BC. He journeys toHaran, a city in northwestern Mesopotamia and from there to the land of Canaan (Genesis 11:31-12:5). In Canaan Abram's son Isaac is born and Isaac, in turn, becomes the father of Jacob, also called Israel. During a famine Jacob and his 12 sons, the ancestors of the 12 tribes of Israel, leave Canaan and settle in Egypt, where their descendants become slaves (See *1 Below) ...

Israel in Egypt: These Hebrews settled in the region of Goshen in the Nile Delta. Their proliferation and prosperity were perceived as a threat to Egyptian security. Drastic measures were introduced to curb the Hebrew population growth and they were pressed into corvée labour ..... The beginning of the exodus cannot be fixed with certainty at any particular time and most likely it involved thesteady flow of Hebrews from Egypt over hundreds of years; probably peaking in the 12th century BC with the collapse and exhaustion of the two superpowers of the Near East - the Hittites and the Egyptians (ibid) ...

Settlement in Canaan (Judges Period) [Iron Age I Circa 1200-1000 BC]: During the century or so before the closing of the Bronze Age Canaan was organized politically into small city-states. Occasionally these city-states were clustered into small alliances; often they were in conflict with each other. The Hebrews were described as semi-nomads emerging from the desert fringes and as such would have been at a decided disadvantage when encountering the chariots and trained forces of Canaan's strongly fortified city-states. This disparity was compensated for by maximum use of (1) reconnaissance (2) clever strategems such as ambush and pre-emptive strikes and (3) the convenient recruitment of defectors ..... The earliest known reference to the existence of Israel is from the Merneptah Stele which verifies their presence in the central hilly country. The era of settlement in Canaan and theJudges ended and the transition into nationhood and the United Monarchy under Saul occurred during the priestly career of Samuel - the last of the Judges (ibid) ...

United Monarchy: The United Kingdom (1030-931 BC) was the moment of Israel's glory on the international scene. The impetus for its formation was the emergence of thePhilistines in the Gaza Strip. An Ammonite presence also played a role in beginning an end to the loose tribal confederacy. Charismatic tribal leaders whoarose as needed were no longer enough to lead the emerging nation. Under Saul the Israelite monarchy controlled a small and petty territory. Under David - and then Solomon - Israel was transformed into a larger unified kingdom with vassal states subject to it. Other powers - mainly Phoenicia and Egypt - were required to givedue regard to Israel ..... Solomon's death circa 930 BC and the political errors of his son and successor Rehoboam led to the division of the monarchy into the kingdoms of Judah and Israel (ibid) ...

Divided Monarchy: The emergence of strongly centralized governments based in the capital cities of Samaria and Jerusalem and the growth of large regional centres such as Hazor, Megiddo and Dan in the north and Lachish and Beersheba in the south led to a highly stratified society (ibid) ...

Conquest of Israel: In 722 BC the Assyrians conquered Israel. They forced the ten tribes to scatter throughout their empire. One consequence of the Assyrian invasion of Israel involved the settling of Israel by Assyrians. This group settled in Samaria and they took with them Assyrian gods and cultic practices (See*A Below) ...

Conquest of Judah: Judah barely escaped the Assyrian menace but would be conquered by the Chaldeans about a century later. King Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem in 586. The Hebrew Kingdom - started with such promise and glory by David - was now at an end (ibid) ...

Restoration Under the Persians: When Cyrus the Great (Achaemenid Dynasty) conquered Babylon in 539 BC the Persians succeeded Neo-Babylonia as the major imperial power of the Near East. The Achaemenid Persians presented themselves to their subject states as a benevolent power concerned with maintaing peace and order throughout their empire ..... The Cyrus Cylinderdescribes the policy of Cyrus of religious toleration which allowed subject peoples to return to their homelands. The Bible records a similar decree of Cyrus that permitted the Jews to resettle Jerusalem and rebuild their Temple (2 Chronicles 36:23 and Ezra 1:2-4) [See *1 Below] ...

Rebuilding the Temple: There were successive waves of Jewish repatriation under Persian rule. The rebuilding of the Temple becomes a centerpiece of the Book ofHaggai and First Zecchariah (Chapters 1-8) which presumes that this took place in the time of Zerubbabel (520 BC) [ibid] ...

Age of Hellenism: Alexander the Great changed the face of Judea along with the rest of the known world. In 336 BC he became king of Macedomia and of the Greek city-states conquered by his father (Philip II). Within a decade he defeated the Persians and fell heir to their empire. In 332 BC he conquered Judea ..... The Greeks were interested not only in military victories, political expansion and economic gain; thet were also committed to disseminating their way of life. In addition to political hegemony and imposition of taxes, Greek conquest exposed the eastern Mediterranean lands and beyond to Hellenism (ibid) ...

Addendum: The shift from Hellenic to Hellenistic in the history of the Mediterranean world represents the shift from a culture dominated by ethnic Greeks - however scattered geographically - to a (1) culture dominated by Greek-speakers of whatever ethnicity and from (2) the political dominance of the city-state to that of larger monarchies (See WIKIPEDIA) ...

Judas Maccabaeus and the Hasmonean Dynasty (142-37 BC): The Hasmonean rise to power was a long and arduous process that succeeded only after a 25-year struggle. Under the command first of Judah Maccabee the Jews attacked the Seleucid armies as they attempted to reach Jerusalem and reinforce the garrison there (See Antiochus IV and 1and 2 Maccabees). Jewish sovereignty was lost to the Romans when Pompey conquered Judea in 63 BC ... (ibid)

Roman Domination: Some important subjects are (1) the Herodian Dynasty; (2)Christianity; (3) the Jewish Revolt; (4) the destruction of Jerusalem and theSecond Temple in 70 AD and the end of Judaism - at least in Eretz Israel; (5)Masada ...

(*1) Ancient Israel Edited by Hershel Shanks
Library of Congress #DS 121 A53 1999

(*A) The Two Kingdoms (Jewish Virtual Library)
The American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise

The Hebrew People
Any member of an ancient northern Semitic people that were the ancestors of the Jews. Historians use the term Hebrews to designate the descendants of the patriarchs of the Old Testament (Abraham and Isaac and so on) from that period until their conquest of Canaan (Palestine) in the late 2nd millennium BC. Thenceforth these people are referred to as Israelites until their return from the Babylonian Exile in the late 6th century BC from which time on they became known as Jews ...
The Hebrew Language

Semitic language used in Israel principally by Jews. Hebrew is categorized as a part of the Canaanite group of the Semitic languages -- to which also the ancient languages Phoenician and Moabite belonged. The Hebrew of today is a spoken language that is based upon the written Hebrew from old Hebrew texts and is the only colloquial speech in the world based on a written language ...

Philistines (Philistia) in the Gaza Strip

Overview: The Philistines were people who lived in Canaan along the Mediterranean coast at the time the Israelites sought to occupy the land. They were centered in five cities called thePhilistine Pentapolis: Ashkelon Ashdod Ekron Gath and Gaza ...

Excerpt: Amos 1:6–8 Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Gaza and for four I will not revoke the punishment ... I will cut off the inhabitants from Ashdod and the one who holds the scepter from Ashkelon; I will turn my hand against Ekron and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish says the Lord God ...
(See *2 Below)

Prologue: The Philistines are among the most maligned peoples of ancient history. The Bible characterized them as cunning pagan warmongers; the ancient Egyptians as pirates and marauders ... One of the Aegean Sea Peoples who settled on the southern coast of Canaan at the end of the twelfth century BC -- they entered history as the main adversaries of the Israelites
(See *1 Below) ...

The two erstwhile major powers at the time (Egypt and the Hittites) were politically weak and militarily impotent and the Sea Peoples -- among them the Philistines -- exploited this power vacuum by invading areas previously subject to Egyptian and Hittite rule. This confederation of tribes included also the Tjekker –- Sheklesh –-Denyen -– and Weshesh. In wave after wave of land and sea assaults they attacked Syria –- Palestine -– and even Egypt. Ramesses III defeated the invaders at his doorstep but was unable to stop them from subsequently settling on the southern coast of Palestine. There they developed into an independent political entity of major importance and constituted a threat to the disunited Canaannite city-states (See ibid).

Bibliography and Online Links

(*1) People of the Sea by Trude and Moshe Dothan
The Search for the Philistines (1992)
Library of Congress # DS 90 D63

(*2) Philistines: Giving Goliath His Due by Neal Bierling
New Archaeological Light on the Philistines (1992)

(*3) The Sea Peoples and the Philistines on the Web 
(Penn State Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies)

Ancient Ammonites

The Material Civilization of the Ammonites (JSTOR)
George Landes -- Biblical Archaeologist 1961:24:3:65-86

The ancient Biblical Kingdom of the Ammonites inPalestine was east of the River Jordan and North ofMoab. The kingdom flourished from the 13th century BC to the eighth century AD. The Semitic Ammonites took their name from their presumed ancestor -- Ben Ammi -- son of Lot and citizen of the biblical city of Sodom (Genesis 19:29-38). They warred frequently with the Hebrews and the Ammonite King Nahash -- who had a reputation for cruelty -- was defeated by the first Hebrew King Saul. His successor David (reigned circa 1010 to 972 BC) succeeded in capturing their capital Rabbath Ammon (Amman). The war -- among other things -- was over control of north-south trade routes east of the Jordan River. The Ammonites regained independence after Solomon succeeded David as King of the Hebrews in 972 BC. Ammon was absorbed by the Arabs in the eighth century AD. Excavations in Jordan have revealed a highly developed civilization. One of their chief gods was Milcom ... (AHSFC)

The History of the Ancient Near East Electronic Compendium

Canaan and Palestine

Called by the Egyptians Rhetenu or Kharu -- by the Syrians of the second millenium BC Canaan -- by the Hebrews Israel -- and by the Greeks Romans and Saracens Palestina -- the Holy Land has remained over the centuries a land that displays no inherent unity or cultural autochthony ... (*)

Canaan: The fourth son of Ham ... Genesis 10:6

And the sons of Ham; Cush and Mizraim and Phut and Canaan

Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
(Crosswalk Bible Study Tools)

His eldest son Zidon was the father of the Sidonians and Phoenicians. He had eleven sons who were the founders of as many tribes ... Genesis 10:15-18

10:15 And Canaan begat Sidon his firstborn and Heth10:16 And the Jebusite and the Amorite and the Girgasite
10:17 And the Hivite and the Arkite and the Sinite
10:18 And the Arvadite and the Zemarite and the Hamathite: and
afterward were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad ...

The area derived its name from the preceding. In the time of Moses and Joshua it denoted the land to the west of the Jordan and the Dead Sea ...

The land known as Canaan was situated in the territory of the southern Levant which today encompasses Israel -- the West Bank and Gaza Strip -- Jordan and the southern portions of Syria and Lebanon. Throughout time many names have been given to this area including Palestine -- Eretz-Israel -- Bilad es-Shem -- Holy Land -- Djahy. The earliest known name for this area was Canaan. The inhabitants of Canaan were never ethnically or politically unified as a single nation. They did however share sufficient similarities in language and culture to be described together as Canaanites.

Israel refers to both a people within Canaan and later to the political entity formed by those people. To the authors of the Bible Canaan is the land which the tribes of Israel conquered after an Exodus from Egypt and the Canaanites are the people they disposed from this land. The Old Testament of the Bible is principally concerned with the religious history of Israel in Canaan ...

Selected Excerpts on Canaan (Palestine)

(1) Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times (2) The Neolithic of the Levant (A) Neolithic 2 Palestine (Page 211) (B) Neolithic 3 Palestine (Pages 359-360) (C) Neolithic 3 South Palestine (Pages 360-368)(D) Neolithic 3 North Palestine (Pages 368-380)

Ancient Phoenicia History

Phoenician Cities: Tyre - Sidon - Arwad - Byblos - Amrit - Tripoli
Laodicea - Berytus - Achzib - Acco - Dor - Joppa - Tartus - Sarafand

Prologue: If we use the term "Phoenician" in its broadest sense and include evidence of the people both in its land of origin and in the Mediterranean diaspora, which extended to the limits of the then known West, then we have to distinguish the largest Phoenician colony - Carthage - as having built up a vast empire. "Punic" was the Latin adaptation of the word "Phoenician" and applied by the Romans to the Carthaginians (See Page 16 of *3 Below) .....

Until the advent of the Iron Age around 1200 BC the history of Canaan does not differentiate the centres on the coast that were to constitute Phoenicia from the centres inland. It was the arrival of the Sea Peoples in the region - and more specifically the Philistine son the Mediterranean coast south of Phoenicia - that resulted in their cities emerging as independent entities. Their freedom from vassalage was the by-product of the Sea Peoples driving out the great neighbouring powers of Egypt and Mesopotamia beyond the boundaries of the area: the emerging Hebrew state and Aram thus prospered and the Phoenician cities were compressed against the coast. Thus came into being the impetus for expansion into the only corridor now available to them - the Mediterranean Sea - and the resulting maritime trade
(See Page 24 ibid) .....

Geographical Overview: At the eastern end of the Mediterranean facing towards the west and looking out on the Levantine Sea or "Sea of the Rising Sun" was the scanty but fortunately situated tract which the Greeks and Romans knew as Phoenicia or "the Region of Palms" (See Page 1 of *1 Below) .....

Phoenicia was not a centralised nation with a single recognizable capital like Judea - Samaria - Syria - Assyria - Babylonia. It was a congeries of homogeneous tribes who had never been amalgamated into a single political entity and who clung fondly to the idea of seperate independence. The nearest approach to such a period of time when all the city-states acknowledged a single one as their mistress or suzerain was when Sidon - Byblos - Aradus (Arvad) all appear as subject to Tyre (Ezekiel 27:8 - 11) a little preceding the siege of that city by the Chaldean King Nebuchadnezzar in the last quarter of the sixth millennium BC (Ezekiel 26:7 - 12). The cities of Phoenicia numbered about twenty-five and ranged from Laodicea (Phoenician Ramitha) in the extreme north to Joppa in the extreme south (See Pages 64-5 of *2 Below) ...

The Phoenicians descended from the original Canaanites who dwelt in the region during the earlier Bronze Age (3000-1200 BC). Despite the fact that the coastal cities were occupied without interruption or change in population the term "Phoenician" is now normally applied to them in the Iron Age onward when the traits that characterize Phoenician culture evolved: long-distance seafaring, trade and colonization, and distinctive elements of their material culture -- language -- script ...

Bibliography

(*1) The Story of the Nations: The Story of Phoenicia (1889)
George Rawlinson (Publisher: Putnam of New York)

Camden Professor of Ancient History at the University of Oxford

(*2) History of Phoenicia by George Rawlinson (1889)
Publisher: Longmans - Green and Company of London

(*3) The Phoenicians by Sabatino Moscati (1988)

Ancient Amorites (Amurru)

Overview: The Amorites were members of an ancient Semitic-speaking people who dominated the history of Mesopotamia -- Syria -- Palestine from about 2000 to about 1600 BC. In the oldest cuneiform sources the Amorites were equated with the West; although their true place of origin was most likely Arabia -- not Syria. They were troublesome nomads and were believed to be one of the causes of the downfall of the 3rd Dynasty of Ur...

Selected Excerpt on the Amorites

Excerpts and Definitions and Addendums:

Abram (Abraham) the Hebrew (Habiru) reckoned Amorite groups as his confederates. Without regard to the date reflected in this tradition we may be justified in concluding that it reveals conditions of times long since passed when there existed friendly relations between the Habiru/Hebrews and the Amorites. It also reveals conditions prevailing during that time when local Amorite centers -- not to say kingdoms -- existed in Palestine. This is by no means astonishing for there is also in late tradition a clear consciousness of the fact that the Amorites were an important ethnic group merging into the Israelite people once upon a time (Ezekiel 16:1-3).

16:1 Again the word of the LORD came unto me saying:16:2 Son of man cause Jerusalem to know her abominations16:3 And say "Thus saith the Lord GOD unto Jerusalem; Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an AMORITE and thy mother an Hittite"

This of course is implying that the Hebrews were defiled in the process of conquering -- assimilating -- propagating (and thus becoming what were called Israelites) with these Canaanite idol worshippers and their abominations in the sight of the Lord. In Genesis X:15-16 the "Amorite" is said to be a son of Canaan ...

10:15 And Canaan begat Sidon his firstborn and Heth10:16 And the Jebusite and the AMORITE and the Girgasite

In Genesis X:6 of the same chapter Canaan is said to be the youngest son of Ham ...

10:6 And the sons of Ham; Cush and Mizraim and Phut and Canaan

If we were to take such genealogical statements literally the Canaanites should be regarded as a younger branch of the Hamites and the Amorites as a younger branch of the Canaanites. However there is practically general agreement that the Old Testament genealogies are to be considered aspects of relations between peoples different from those of modern anthropology. Geographical neighborhood or cultural connections for instance might be reasons why the ancestors of two peoples were considered to be genealogically related.

According to Old Testament tradition there were a number of local Amorite Kingdoms in Palestine and Syria during the second millenium BC. In some passages of the Bible there is a clear distinction between Amorites and Canaanites; in others the two terms would seem to overlap. But the usages of the two terms are not consistent nor the general view of the character of the Amorites. The main groups of the Semites are the following ...

East Semites: Akkadians / Assyrians / Babylonians

West Semites: Amorites / Canaanites / Hebrews / Aramaeans / Phoenicians

South Semites: North Arabs / South Arabs / Ethiopians

Since modern anthropological research has revealed the fact that racial distinctions are hardly possible in prehistoric and early historic times the various semitic branches are distinguished solely by their languages. It was only after the "Amorite" language had been recognized that the discussion of Amorite history began ...

Reference: Who Were the Amorites (1971) Alfred Haldar (University of Uppsala) 
Monographs of the Ancient Near East #1 (Library of Congress # DS 72.5 H35)

Ancient Arameans (Aramaeans)

Aram: the son of Shem in Genesis 10:22

The children of Shem; Elam and Ashur
and Arphaxad and Lud and ARAM ...

Overview: Ancient country roughly equivalent to modern Syria that stretched from the Lebanon Mountains to beyond the Euphrates River. It was named after the Aramaeans who first occupied the region between the 14th and 12th centuries BC and in the process established what were to become many illustrious city kingdoms in the 10th century BC. Of these the most famous was Damascus. Aram is frequently mentioned in the Bible and Jesus most likely spoke Aramaic ...

Selected Excerpt on the Aramaic Language

Although there is evidence of the Aramaic language in records of the second millennium B.C. the historic texts begin in the eighth century in the city-states of Aram or inland Syria when it displaced Phoenician as the lingua franca in Syria and nearby coastal Asia Minor. By the end of the century Aramaic had already won for itself the role of international language in official circles from at least Assyria to Judah (2 Kings 18:17-26 -- the date is 701 BC). The achievement is the more remarkable since the Arameans never forged a great empire but spread the language through relatively peaceful means -- notably tribal migrations and trade. The Achaemenians used Aramaic as their interprovincial tongue -- at least for the areas west of Iran. Indeed parts of the Bible are written in Aramaic. So great was this language that it was destined to replace the native languages of all Semitic Asia outside of Arabia and it remained unchallenged until the Islamic Conquest in the seventh century AD ...

The Ancient Near East (1965) Cyrus Gordon

Ancient Arabian Peninsula 

Neolithic Period (5000-3000 BC)

There is no evidence that farming was practised in the Arabian Neolithic. The people were probably nomadic or semi-nomadic and the lifestyle may have been similar to that of the bedouin of recent times. Important differences are that cattle as well as sheep and goats were herded and that the camel had not yet been domesticated. Fishing was also very important as was gathering shellfish for eating. Hunting supplemented the diet. Building remains of this period are scarce probably because tents and other temporary structures are more suited to a mobile lifestyle. Arabian Neolithic sites frequently survive only as scatters of flint or as extensive shell mounds on the coast ...

Painted pottery was not made by the Arabian Neolithic people though coarse red ware may have been manufactured by them in the Central Gulf region. The stone tools of the Arabian Neolithic are different from the Ubaid material -- tending to be made from shorter flakes which have been chipped on both sides. This local tool-kit is called the Arabian Bifacial Tradition ...

The Arabian-Ubaid Interaction

During the 6th and 5th millennium BC the peoples of Ubaid in Mesopotamia and the Arabian Neolithic met and interacted. This was first realised when numerous sites were identified in the Central Gulf region which contained pottery in the Ubaid style. These were mostly coastal sites and were mainly found in the northeastern province of Saudi Arabia though sites were also identified in Bahrain and Qatar. The majority were small and ephemeral but a handful were large with deep deposits and abundant pottery. This part of Arabia had enjoyed a close and integral relationship with Southern Mesopotamia. More controversially it was suggested that the Mesopotamian and Ubaidian related Arabian sites should be regarded as part of the same social and economic system ...

Bronze Age Period (3000-1300 BC)

This period shows the establishment of a population in Sharjah where agriculture and grazing flourished and increased. As the 3rd millennium BC draws near there is evidence for renewed contact with Southern Mesopotamia. From the late 4th millennium BC there are references in the earliest Mesopotamia texts to a place named Dilmun(Bahrain). Dilmun is mentioned along with two other places: Magan (Southeast Arabia) and Meluhha (Indus Valley). These city-states supplied southern Mesopotamia with a wide range of raw materials and exotic goods. These include timber -- stone -- and above all copper. In prehistoric times in southern Arabia we have evidence of human settlement for all major periods of the Stone Age so it can hardly be assumed that there was no continuous human settlement in Southern Arabia prior to the first millennium BC ...

Iron Age Period Onwards

From circa 1200 BC the region of the Southern Arabian Peninsula was ruled by three successive civilisations. The (1) Mineans (1200-650 BC) -- (2)Sabeans (Sheba) (1000 BC - 570 AD) -- (3)Himyarite (2nd to 6th centuries AD) brought with them the rudiments of what was to become the highly developed civilization of Southern Arabia. These three kingdoms all depended for their wealth on the spice trade. Aromatics such as myrrh and frankincense were greatly prized in the ancient civilised world and were used as part of various rituals in many cultures including Egypt Greece and Roman ...

In the 11th century BC land routes through Arabia were greatly improved by using the camel as a beast of burden and frankincense was carried from its production centre at Qana to Gaza in Egypt. The camel caravans also carried gold and other precious goods which arrived in Qana by sea from India ...

The chief incense traders were the Minaeans who established their capital Karna before they were superseded by the Sabeans in 950 BC. The Sabean capital was Marib where a large temple was built. The mighty Sabean civilization endured for about 14 centuries and was based not only on the spice trade but also on agriculture. The impressive dam built at Marib in the 8th century provided irrigation for farmland and stood for over a millennium. Some Sabean carved inscriptions from this period are still extant ...

The Himyarites established their capital at Dhafar and gradually absorbed the Sabean Kingdom. They were culturally inferior to the Sabeans and traded from the port of Muza on the Red Sea. By the first century BC the Romans had conquered the area ...

Ancient Gaza

A site of ancient Palestine underlying the modern town of Gaza. No excavations have taken place but it is known to have had Philistine - Egyptian - Sea Peoples occupation ...

The first reference to the town of Gaza comes during the reign of Tuthmose III. It is also mentioned in the Tell Amarna Letters. Its strategic location on the coastal road connecting Egypt to Palestine made it a thriving trade center and an important Egyptian outpost. Three hundred years of Egyptian occupation were ended when the Philistines, a tribe of the Sea Peoples, captured the city ...

Gaza is the most southern as well as the most famous of the five federated cities of the Philistines. Being situated on the great coastal highway between Egypt and Mesopotamia and at a junction of the trade route from south and central Arabia it was an important commercial and military center from Canaanite times ...

Ancient Tell Amarna

Tell (mound) Amarna is the Arab name for the virgin site in the desert north of Thebes where Pharaoh Akhenaton (1375 to 1358 BC) built his pristine royal city Akhet-Aton or Horizon of Aton. It lasted only a few years before being destroyed by those loyal to the old gods of Egypt. But for those few brief years it was for Egypt a kind of mysterious Camelot whose hold on the imagination of future generations persists to this day.

Much light was thrown on writing -- history -- politics -- trade relations as well as manners and customs of Bible lands when in 1887 a peasant woman dug for fertile soil in the mound of Amarna and uncovered the royal archives of Amenhotep III and his royal son Amenhotep IV who early in his career changed his religion and became known as Akhenaton. Eventually more than 350 cuneiform tablets were recovered -- most of which were frank personal letters and dispatches from kings -- governors -- officers located in cities and fortresses of Babylonia -- Mitanni -- Phoenicia -- Syria -- Palestine.

The tablets were written between 1400 and 1358 BC and sent to these two pharaohs at the Egyptian court. Most of these tablets were written in the cuneiform language of Babylonia and revealed the fact that for an extended period of time the various peoples of western Asia used the cuneiform as their common language. These clay tablets described Palestine and the surrounding countries as being in a state of turmoil within and as being attacked from without. The governor or officer in charge at Gezer wrote to the pharaoh saying in part:

Let my lord the king, the sun in heaven, take heed unto his land, for the Khabiri are mighty against us; and let the king my lord stretch out his hand unto me and let him deliver me from their hands so that they may not make an end of us .....

The tablets show the frequent use of the name Khabiri in speaking of those who were over-running the country. Many of the very finest scholars regard Khabiri as Egyptian for Hebrew and the whole framework fits in well with the early date (1400 BC) for the beginning of the Hebrew conquest of Canaan under Joshua ...

Ancient Mesopotamia

Expedia Map of Mesopotamia / Ancient Mesopotamia King Lists

Mesopotamia is a Greek word meaning between the rivers. The rivers are the Tigris and Euphrates which flow through modern Iraq. The Euphrates also flows through much of Syria. Early civilizations first developed in Mesopotamia over six thousand years ago ... The British Museum

Selected Excerpts on Mesopotamia

(1) The Advent of the Era of Townships in Northern Mesopotamia (2) The Uruk Expansion:
Cross Cultural Exchange in Early Mesopotamian Civilization (3) The Early PreHistory of Mesopotamia

The Advent of the Era of Townships in Northern Mesopotamia
Abdul Jalil Jawad - Thesis - Doctor of Philosophy
Department of Anthropology - University of Chicago 1962
Library of Congress # DS 70.9 J3

Excerpts and Definitions and Addendums:

In the range of time spanning the development of Sumerian civilization in southernMesopotamia, Temple Center and City-States have been suggested as designations for successive levels of complexity.

This dissertation seeks to show that human cultures did not advance along parallel lines in northern and southern Mesopotamia, and further, that in the North, the era of village farming communities was followed instead by an era of Townships (as compared to Temple Center and later City-States in the South) which represent a long time span extending into Akkadian or even later times.

It can be asserted here that if northern Mesopotamian pre and (*)proto history and even early history is viewed as a succession of cultural eras, it is only the later prehistory and the earlier part of protohistory which parallels the supposed (*)stadial sequences in the southern (*)alluvial era where civilization had come into being.

[In this sense of the word, history pertains to a definition where prehistory is before writing, or the ability to record history. Indeed, the term civilization in this sense inherently includes writing as a prerequisite to being civilized. Thus the protohistory of Sumer thus would include and parallel the first fledgling attempts at writing. But civilization and writing came into being much later in time in northern Mesopotamia].

Later northern Mesopotamia's development may be of a kind not shared with the nuclear zone of urban growth in the South. In other words, in the beginning, the greater potential (in the earlier phases of the terminal food collecting and the beginnings of food production) was in the North and along the hill flanks, [in this case the Zagros Mountain flanks of northeastern Iraq] and was not, in fact, paralleled by anything in the South.

By about Samarran / Halaf [overlapping cultures representing Northern Mesopotamian prehistoric village farming communities] or Eridu [culture representing Southern Mesopotamian prehistoric village farming communities; indeed Eridu was the most southerly and possibly also the earliest city of Sumer] levels of complexity, the South and the North were about parallel, as far as we can now guess. Then the South began to draw ahead.

In brief, this work will attempt to demonstrate that the era of the Temple Centerwas missing in northern Mesopotamia and its flanks. This striking contrast in cultural development between northern and southern Mesopotamia tends to support seperating the former from the latter for study.

Early attempts at domesticating the wild plants and wild animals on the hilly flanks of northern Mesopotamia made possible the appearance of the earliest village farming communities [Jarmo and lower levels of Hassuna, etcetera].

Judging by the archeological evidence from northern Mesopotamia, farming does not seem to have been detached from the occupations of the urban community either. Farming cannot be entirely excluded from the definition of a town.

I may define the town, then, as a non-urban community in which the majority of the population are still dedicated to farming, and to which features such as fortifications, temples, fairly large settlements, not highly developed social stratifications, trade, cylinder seals, and sculpture are added.

THE GEOGRAPHY OF MESOPOTAMIA

The Mesopotamian (*)Trough

Two subdivisions have been asigned to this region:

Upper Mesopotamia or Jazirah

Upper Mesopotmaia is a vast rolling plain country bounded mainly by the sharp valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Its altitude varies from 500 feet to 1000 feet above sea level with a number of small closed basins from which there is no drainage outlet. The climate of this plain is rather mixed. In the northern parts the rainfall is sufficient for agriculture, especially if supplemented by irrigation. The southern portion of upper Mesopotamia is (*)steppe or even desert land suited only for nomads or (*)pasturalists and sparsely populated by them. These peoples, together with those of the Western [Syrian] desert (although some did at times incline to settle down to agricultural pursuits) have had a disposition to plunder caravans and wage continuous raids for securing wealth from the urban settlements of the Tigris and Euphrates valleys in times past.

Lower Mesopotamia or the Alluvial Plain

Lower Mesopotamia or the alluvial plain has been built up by sediments brought by the Tigris and its tributaries, by the Euphrates, and by the Kerkhah and Karum rivers from the mountains of Persia [Western Iran Zagros].

The alluvial plain can be distinguished from that of Upper Mesopotamia by a theoretical line passing through Hit on the Euphrates and Samarra on the Tigris ..... (MAP)

From this line down to the Persian Gulf, the whole area is extremely flat. At no point is the plain higher than 150 feet above sea level. Here, the Twin Riversflow above the plain level, building up natural levees, and raising their beds so that their overflow tends to form permanent lakes and marshes, and their courses are subject to considerable variation. Thus, unless canals are dug and kept open and the dangerous fancies of the rivers brought under control, settled life is impossible.

The annual rainfall in the alluvial plain is very little; it averages only about 2-6 inches. Furthermore, the (*)regime of the Tigris and the Euphrates does not conform with the agricultural requirements of the area. While crops are planted in September or October, the meltwater run off does not reach the alluvial plains before April or May. Cultivation, therefore, depends largely on irrigation. It follows also that since southern alluvial Mesopotamia has undergone no important changes in climate since the last 5,000 or 4,000 years, it is expected that it could not have been densely populated before the development of irrigation ...

* Proto: first in time
* Stadial: having to do with stages or gradations
* Alluvial: the deposit of soil (alluvium) of a stream or river
* Trough: a long shallow often V-shaped channel or depression
* Steppe: vast usually level and treeless tracts
* Pasturalism: social organization based on
livestock raising as the primary economic activity
*G Regime: a regular pattern of occurrence or action (as of seasonal rainfall)

The Uruk Expansion: Cross Cultural Exchange in Early Mesopotamian Civilization
Guillermo Algaze in Current Anthropology Volume 30:5:1989 (571-608)

Pre-History and Archaeology Glossary

Excerpts and Definitions and Addendums:

Early Mesopotamian civilization arose in the alluvial lowlands of what is now southern Iraq during the Uruk Period, sometime in the second half of the 4th millennium BC. The marked contrasts between the lowlands and the surrounding plains and valleys imposed a number of constraints on the development of societies in each of these areas. A crucial one is that in the alluvium, a land devoid of resources other than the most basic ones provided by agriculture and animal husbandry, a substantial proportion of the material requiremnts needed to sustain highly stratified social systems had to be imported. The necessary resources were largely to be found in distant highland areas inhabited by communities which were characterized - at least prior to the 3rd millennium BC - by a significantly lower level of civilization.

Thus the origins of Mesopotamian civilization can only be understood within a framework in which cross cultural exchange occupies a prominent position ...... The expansion was an attempt to control the critical lines of communication through which flowed needed resources. This expansion took a variety of forms ranging from trade contacts and networks and/or military expeditions and raids to territorial annexation or (*)provinces.

Contacts between communities in the northern periphery and the alluvial lowlands were based on the flow from highland sources of raw materials such as copper, timber, limestone, marble, flint, basalt, obsidian, bitumen, gold, silver, lead, lapis lazuli, etcetera; and occasionally dependent labor (slaves and prisoners of war) either under duress in the form of tribute or plunder or, more commonly, in return for labor intensive processed and semi-processed goods. These principal resources exported from Mesopotamia were: surplus grain, leather products, dried fish, dates, and textiles.

ENCLAVES: ... Three Uruk enclaves have been identified along the great bend of the Euphrates: Samsat and Carchemish in southeastern Turkey and Habuba Kabira (Tell Qannas) in northeastern Syria [See Map Above]. Along the Euphrates, Samsat controls the main ford on the route from the Kurdish Anti-Taurus (Commagene) into northern Mesopotamia via Urfa, Harran, and and the upper reaches of the UpperKhabur (Amuda and Nisibin). Carchemish, another of the historical Euphrates fords, connects the northern Syrian steppe and the environs of the fertile Aleppo plain with the northern Mesopotamian plains east of the river and ultimately the Tigris via the middle reaches of the Balikh (Ain el Arus) and the Upper Khabur (Ras el Ain). And finally, the Tabqa Dam area in the lower corner of the great bend of the Euphrates represents the last major ford before the onset of the Syrian Desert --- the traditional terminus of overland caravans alongside the Euphrates before cutting across directly west in the direction of Hamah on the Orontes River or, alternatively, northwest across the Syrian steppe in the direction of Aleppo, the Amanus (cedar mountains) in Lebanon, and ultimately Cilicia in Anatolia.

The location of Mesopotamian enclaves along the Upper Khabur and Upper Tigris basins is also best understood in terms of a strategy for ensuring control of overland routes. Tell Brak, for example, is well situated to control overland north-south traffic from the Euphrates alongside the Khabur. Of equal importance, however, it lies at the juncture of the Jaghjagh and an important classical route that crosses the Euphrates at either Zeugma or Carchemish and cuts across Ras el Ain before heading towards the Tigris via the Jebel Sinjar. The Nineveh / Mosularea was historically the most important of the Upper Tigris fords, and Nineveh is situated at the intersection of the river and several of the main overland routes from the Euphrates. Moreover, traditionally the Tigris was also an important thoroughfare for downstream navigation, and the convergence of complementary overland and waterborn routes at Nineveh makes the site an ideal transshipment point where the overland traffic from the west could be easily and cheaply funneled south downstream on the river.

There is no need to presume that all the enclaves were established as part of a single coherent effort. On the contrary, the long sequence of Uruk deposits uncovered at sites such as Brak, Nineveh, and Carchemish contrast starkly with the more explosive growth of the Habuba/Qannas/ enclave, which thus represents the culmination of a long organic process of expansion ...

(*) province: a country or region brought under the control of a foreign government ...

The Early PreHistory of Mesopotamia [2000]
(500,000 to 4500 BC) by Roger Matthews
SUBARTU V [LC # DS 69.5 M38 2000]

The series SUBARTU is devoted to Upper Mesopotamia from prehistory to the present day.
SUBARTU is edited by the European Centre for Upper Mesopotamian Studies .....

INTRODUCTION

Pre-History and Archaeology Glossary

Excerpts and Definitions and Addendums:

Editorial Note: Subartu is the region to the northwest of Assyria that is referred to in southern Mesopotamian texts of the 3rd and early 2nd millennia BC. Shamshi-Adad of Assyria established his short-lived capital Shubat-Enlil in Subartu in about 1800 BC but the region was otherwise of little political or cultural significance in this period ..... (Andromeda Oxford Ltd 1998)

The early prehistory of Mesopotamia provides a uniquely rich and significant contribution to the study of the human past. Early forms of hominid - probablyHomo erectus and certainly Neanderthal - passed innumerable millennia in this part of the world to be succeeded by anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens). Following the end of the last Ice Age at circa 10000 BC the pace of human activity in Mesopotamia increased. Settled communities appeared for the first time followed by the extensive exploitation and domestication of plants and animals .....

By 4500 BC human communities in northern Mesopotamia had been evolving in a continuum of occupation which had lasted for many millennia back into the Upper Palaeolithic Period ...

Early Hominids and Modern Humans: The Hunting
and Gathering Life Circa 500,000 to 10,000 BC

Prior to the time of the arrival of Homo sapiens, earlier hominids lived in northern Mesopotamia for countless millennia, leaving little in the way of material evidence to testify to the extent and nature of their occupation. The available data indicates an extremely slow rate in change of material culture throughout the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic Periods. In many ways this is a reflection of the considerable evolutionary success which early hominids enjoyed.Homo erectus appears to have survived largely unchanged for at least one and a half million years and Neanderthal forms also seem to have led an essentially consistent mode of life for tens of millennia. Anatomically modern humans have found success by employing a different strategy; that of the ability to change [manipulate] material and social culture [to their own liking] to meet widely differing circumstances.

In the very long term it remains to be seen whether this strategy will meet with the success attained by earler hominid forms .....

The Lower Palaeolithic Period:
Circa 500,000 to 100,000 BC

Direct evidence of Lower Palaeolithic occupation in Mesopotamia proper is extremely scant. As for excavated sites the sole example is Barda Balka near Chemchemal in northeastern Iraq. Site locations clearly demonstrate a preference for open air habitation with ready access to lakes - swamps - woodlands - open grasslands. Cave sites are extremely rare in contrast to Middle and Upper Palaeolithic occupation. Animals exploited included large herbivores such as elephant and hippopotamus with substantial use of equid - gazaeele - deer. Early hominids also made use of a range of plant foodstuffs such as nuts - fruits - tubers ...

The Middle Palaeolithic Period:
Circa 100,000 - 40,000 BC

This period in the Near East is defined principally by the appearance of distinctive stone tool assemblages of Mousterian type.

NOTE: The Mousterian is traditionally a tool culture traditionally associated with Neanderthal man in Europe but was adopted as a framework for use in the Near East as well ...

In general these assemblages mark a transition away from hand-axes and irregular flake tools towards a wider range of more specialised tools made from carefully produced flakes such as points - side scrapers - perforators - engravers.

The cave sites of Shanidar and Hazar Merd in northern Iraq represent the only excavated Middle Palaeolithic sites in this region but survey work has revealed an extensive distribution of sites across almost the entire span of Mesopotamia excepting only the southern alluvium where relatively recent river deposits now cover any evidence which may once have existed.

The sites can be divided into two categories based upon their stone tool assemblages. The northeastern or Zagros [Mountain] group of sites and comparable ones in western Iran share a generally similar stone tool assemblage which does not make extensive use of the Levallois core preparation technique. The other group includes sites in western and southern Iraq which have tool assemblages showing frequent use of the Levallois technique. These have their best parallels to the Middle Palaeolithic sites of the Levant ...

 The Ancient Levant

Selected Excerpt on the Levant

Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times
Donald Redford -- Princeton University (1992)

Designation of the region in the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea: Israel -- Lebanon -- Syria -- Jordan. The word comes from the French word lever which means to rise in English and is an equivalent of the Arabic Mashriq -- the country where the sun rises. The introduction of the word in world vocabulary came with the French mandate of Syria and Lebanon which lasted from 1920 until the mid-1940's ...

Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times 
Donald Redford -- Princeton University (1992)

Winner of the 1993 Best Scholarly Book in Archaeology
Award of the Biblical Archaeological Society

The Great Kingdoms of the Levant

Excerpts and Definitions and Addendums:

...... In Palestine and Syria too by the mid-nineteenth century Amorite communities were in the ascendancy. Yamkhad, centered upon Aleppo in North Syria, was for its contemporaries the most powerful of all the Amorite kingdoms, deferred to by both Zimri-Lim of Mari and the famous Hammurabi of Babylon. One of its kings, Yamri-Lim, possessed a fleet of five hundred merchant vessels, which plied the Euphrates and intervened effectively in Mesopotamian politics. Located athwart the major trade routes, Yamkhad could tap commerce coming from as far west as Cyprus and the Aegean and as far east as Iran. Qatanum, enjoying an optimum location on the upper Orontes in central Syria with access to the Mediterranean through the Eleutheros Valley, was the major power on Yamkhad's southern flank. Geography made it a close partner with Mari on the middle Euphrates: joint military operations were undertaken from time to time, trade flourished, and Mari citizens even had rights to sheep pasturing in Qatanum.Hazor dominated southern Syria and northern Palestine from its optimum position in the upper Jordan valley. Messengers passed to Mari, Babylon, and Ugarit, and its trade extended in the west to the Aegean. It may well be that the statement in Joshua 11:10 that Hazor formerly was head of all those kingdoms stems from a dim memory of the Middle Bronze Age place.

The picture painted by the textual sources from Mari, Alalakh, Babylon, and other similar archive-bearing sites is born out by the archaeological record, which is extensive and impressive ...

Ancient Aleppo (Halab)

City and capital of Aleppo province in the NW part of Syria. Situated at the crossroads of caravan routes between Europe and Asia it was for centuries one of the world's main trade centers. Originally a Hittite town it was contested by Egypt in the second millennium BC and was under the Kingdom of Urartu in the ninth and eighth centuries BC. Thereafter it came under many rulers including the Assyrians --Persians -- Romans -- Byzantines -- Arabs ... (AHSFC)

Cradled in a bowl of dry hills in northern Syria, the city of Aleppo presents an austere facade to those entering her ancient gates. Serious -- tightlipped -- sober; the adjectives often applied to her people convey a dignity befitting Aleppo's age for she vies with Damascus and Sana'a as the oldest existing city in the world.

Although ancient Aleppo's roots lie buried out of reach beneath the modern city legend connects the site to the prophet Abraham. As he journeyed southward to the land of Canaan he paused in Aleppo. He milked his cow on the citadel hill; thus the city's Arabic name Halab which is derived from the word for milk (halib) ...

Ancient Persia (Achaemenid Dynasty)

Selected Excerpt on Persia

The Uruk Expansion: Cross Cultural Exchange in Early Mesopotamian Civilization
Guillermo Algaze in Current Anthropology Volume 30:5:1989 (571-608)

2 Chronicles 36: 22) Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying:

23) Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, All the kingdoms of the earth hath the LORD God of heaven given me; and he hath charged me to build him an house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? The LORD his God be with him, and let him go up ...

King James Version With Strong's Numbers
and Study Tools (Bible Study Tools Net)

Persia was an ancient empire, extending from the Indus to Thrace, and from the Caspian Sea to the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. The Persians were originally a Medic tribe which settled in Persia, on the eastern side of the Persian Gulf. They were Aryans, their language belonging to the eastern division of the Indo-European group. One of their chiefs, Teispes, conquered Elam in the time of the decay of the Assyrian Empire, and established himself in the district of Anzan. His descendants branched off into two lines, one line ruling in Anzan, while the other remained in Persia. Cyrus II, king of Anzan, finally united the divided power, conquered Media, Lydia, and Babylonia, and carried his arms into the far East. His son, Cambyses, added Egypt to the empire, which, however, fell to pieces after his death. It was reconquered and thoroughly organized by Darius, the son of Hystaspes, whose dominions extended from India to the Danube ... (Easton)

INTRODUCTION

During the winter of 1930-31 the Oriental Institute organized a Persian Expedition to conduct excavations in the largely unexplored mountainous regions east and southeast of the Mesopotamian plain. James Henry Breasted requested and was granted a concession to excavate the remains of Persepolis, an Achaemenid royal administrative center in the province of Fars. Thanks to an anonymous benefactress work started the same year under the direction of Ernst Herzfeld, Professor of Oriental Archaeology at the University of Berlin. Herzfeld served as director of the Persian Expedition until the end of 1934 when he was succeeded by Erich Schmidt who continued to excavate in the region until 1939.

Over an eight year period the Persian Expedition worked not only in the royal center of Persepolis but also at a number of sites that fell within a radius of 10 kilometers - the two prehistoric mounds of Tall-e-Bakun and Tall-i-Bakun, an Achaemenid tower and tombs of the Achaemenid kings at Naqsh-i Rustam and portions of the Sasanian city of Istakhr. In addition Erich Schmidt led two air reconnaissance and ground expeditions into the mountains of Luristan in 1935-36 and 1937 ...

Ancient Jerusalem

Selected Excerpt on Jerusalem

Excavations at Jerusalem by Kathleen Kenyon
Antiquity: Volume XXXVI (June 1962)

Holy City in Palestine occupied for more than 4000 years. Many excavations have taken place since 1860 but because of the long history of destruction and rebuilding on the site it has been difficult to reconstruct the development of the city. Sporadic traces of 4th and 3rd millennium BC occupation occur but the first substantial settlement with a town wall belongs to the 2nd millennium BC. The town of this period was on the spur of Ophel in the southeastern part of the city and when David captured Jerusalem from the Jebusites circa 1000 BC he retained the existing defences. Solomon built his temple and palace on the higher ridge to the north. In the 8th - 7th centuries BC part of the western ridge was also incorporated in the town walls though the southeast part of this ridge was not included until the time of Herod Agrippa (AD 40 - 44) in a second phase of growth after the destruction by the Neo-Babylonians in 587 BC and later resettlement. Few early buildings survive; one exception is the rock cut water tunnel constructed by Hezekiah in the late 8th century BC. Some remains of the Herodian and Roman period also survive ... (AHSFC)

Ancient Tell Atchana (Alalakh)

PDF Document: Tal Atchana -- Leonard Woolley (JSTOR)
The Journal of Hellenic Studies Volume 56:2:1936:125-132
Article contains high-quality images ... (1.83 MB)

A mound (Tell) on the Amuq plain of northern Syria identified as the ancient city of Alalakh. Excavations by Woolley in the early part of the century revealed occupation levels running from the 4th to the late 2nd millennium BC. In level VII dated to the 18th and 17th centuries BC the palace of Yaram Lim II demonstrates an early form of architecture which was characteristic of Syria in which stone -- timber -- mud-brick were all used as well as basalt for orthostats. Another palace was excavated in level IV of the late 15th and early 14th centuries belonging to Niqmepa; this consisted of a number of rooms around a central court. In the official quarters a large quantity of tablets were found. These were written in Akkadian cuneiform and demonstrate intense trading with othcr cities including Ugarit and the Hittite capitalHattusas and involved food products such as wheat -- wine -- olive oil. Later in the 14th century the city fell to the Hittites and became a provincial capital of the Hittite Empire. It was eventually abandoned after destruction circa 1200 BC perhaps at the hands of the Sea Peoples ... (AHSFC)

FOOTNOTE: ... Leonard Woolley initially excavated the Syrian port site of Al Mina -- located in the delta of the Orontes River. Disappointed that Al Mina yielded primarily classical and Iron Age levels he moved his operations upriver to the inland Amuq Valley and chose to excavate Tell Atchana -- one of the 178 sites surveyed by Robert Braidwood and his teammates from the Oriental Institute ...(SEE ALALAKH: A LATE BRONZE AGE CAPITAL IN THE AMUQ VALLEY - SOUTHERN TURKEY -- ORIENTAL INSTITUTE)


Ancient Hazor (Arabic Tell Qedah)

Hazor is the largest biblical-era site in Israel covering some 200 acres. The population of Hazor in the second millennium BC is estimated to have been about 20,000 making it the largest and most important city in the entire region. Its size and strategic location on the route connecting Egypt and Babylonia made it the head of all those kingdoms (Joshua 11:10). Hazor's conquest by the Israelites opened the way to the conquest and settlement of the Israelites in Canaan. The city was rebuilt and fortified by King Solomon (1 Kings 9:15) and prospered in the days of Ahab and Jeroboam II until its final destruction by the Assyrians (2 Kings 15:29) in 732 BC ...


Ancient Babylon -- Babel -- Babil
PDF Document: Excavations at Babylon -- L. W. King
The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs (2.41 MB)
(JSTOR) Volume 26:144:1915:244-245 and 248-250
This PDF article contains high-quality images ...
The capital of the Old Kingdom of Babylonia situated on the Euphrates River south of Baghdad in modern Iraq. Thc city was occupied from the 3rd millennium BC but became important early in the 2nd millennium under the kings of the First Dynasty of Babylon. The sixth king of this dynasty was Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC) who made Babylon the capital of a vast empire and is best remembered for his code of laws. This period was brought to an end by the Hittites when in 1595 BC Babylon is sacked by King Mursili I. The city then had a mixed history until the Neo-Babylonian Period of the 7th-6th centuries BC. It once again achieved pre-eminence when Nebuchadnezzar II (605-562 BC) extended the Chaldean Empire over most of Western Asia. Babylon fell to Cyrus the Great of Persia in 539 BC; occcupation continued in the Achaemenid Period. The city was taken by Alexander the Great in 331 BC. Babylon subsequently declined and was eventually abandoned after the Muslim conquest of AD 641 ...

The site encompassed some 2100 acres and is probably the largest in southern Mesopotamia. Excavations by the Deutsche Orient Gesellschaftfrom 1899 to 1917 uncovered substantial remains of the time of the Neo-Babylonian Period: fortifications including a double gateway (Ishtar Gate) whose walls were decorated with molded reliefs of lions -- bulls -- dragons; and also many temples including Esagila or the Temple of Marduk with its ziggurat -- the biblical Tower of Babel ...

Ancient Cyprus History
Although an island in comparison to the surrounding countries Cyprus was destined to play a very important role in the history of mankind. This was bound to be so since the island is located in the centre of the ancient world which is known as the cradle of western civilisation.
Asia Minor is only 40 miles away and the Syrian coast only 60 miles from the easternmost tip of the Karpass Peninsula. Egypt and the Aegean Sea are 240 miles apart. Therefore it was only natural that a great civilisation flowered in Cyprus beginning as early as the 8th millennium BC when stone was the only material used either for weapons or utensils.

The discovery of copper which occurred in the 3rd millennium marked the turning point in the history of the island which gradually turned it into a bone of contention among the more powerful neighbours. The Hittites in Anatolia and Egypt in the south claimed the island as their possession but the Greeks from the west were those who stamped its destiny when in the late 13th -- 12th -- 11th centuries BC they established themselves as permanent settlers. Despite the fact that the island fell prey to all the big powers of the day the presence of Greeks gave Cyprus a historical and cultural continuity ever since ...

Ancient Kurdistan (Kardouchoi)


Southeastern Turkey together with fair sized portions of the Zagros mountain slopes in Iraq and Iran is inhabited by people known as the Kurds. They speak an Indo-Aryan language. It is generally agreed that they were undoubtedly the people called the Kardouchoi who even then (406 BC) caused Xenophon and his Ten Thousand great trouble ...
THE JOINT PREHISTORIC PROJECT
Robert J. Braidwood and Linda S. Braidwood
Oriental Institute in Chicago
The Karduchians or Kurds belong by speech to the Iranian stock forming in fact their farthest outpost to the west. They are little given to agriculture but chiefly to the breeding of cattle. Their name was pronounced Kardu by the ancient Syrians and Assyrians and Kordu by the Armenians.It first appears in its narrower sense in western literature in the pages of the eye witness Xenophon. Later writers knew of a small kingdom here at the time of the Roman occupation ruled by native princes who after Tigranes II (about 80 BC) recognised the overlordship of the Armenian king. Later it became a province of the Sassanid Kingdom and as such was in 297 AD handed over among the regiones transtigritanae to the Roman empire but in 364 was again ceded to Persia ...
A Manual of Ancient Geography
Kiepert - Heinrich - Page 47
In the ancient world the Kurdish people formed three kingdoms; the Gutium Kingdom, the Kingdom of Lullu and the Urartu Kingdom and also two empires; the Kassite Empire and the Hurrian-Mitanni Empire. As a matter of fact during the empire period of the second millennium BC the Kassite Empire and the Hurrian-Mitanni Empire had control over the ancient world. Under the new axis of power the power of the ancient Kurds declined and became nominally under the domination of the Achaemenian, Parthian and Sassanid empires. The warlike tradition of the ancient Kurds contributed valuable military assistance to the three monarchies in their struggle with the Greeks and Romans. This east-west power struggle commenced when the Achaemenians came to power in 553 BC and continued until the rise of Islam in AD 630. The Islamic army destroyed both the Sassanids and the Roman Empire. Consequently the Kurds became part of the Islamic world from AD 632 to 1258. The Kurds were nominally under Islamic rule but remained practically speaking independent ...
History and Tradition
The ancient Kurds were mountain people who were the native inhabitants of the Zagros highlands at the time when the Sumerians established themselves in the southern plain of Mesopotamia around 3000 BC.

In ancient times the Zagros was inhabited by mountaineer groups of people or tribes who were more or less homogeneous in speech and ethnically related. Among these Zagros groups the Elamites and Kurds were the most prominent. The Elamites were living in the southern part of the Zagros in the territory of the ancient kingdom of Elam with its capital city in Susa. The territory of the ancient Kurds commenced just north of Elam and covered most parts of the Zagros highlands ...


Ancient Damascus (Damashqa)
Modern capital of Syria. A rich oasis city, Damascus was occupied by the 3rd millennium BC but the settlements of the prehistoric, biblical and Roman periods underlie the modern and medieval city and are therefore not readily available for excavation. Egyptian texts and references in the Bible attest the city's importance in international trade from the 16th century BC; it appears as Damashqa in the Tell Amarna documents. The Aramaeans conquered Damascus in the late 2nd millennium BC and it was subsequently annexed by the Assyrians (8th century BC). By 85 BC it had become capital of the Nabatean Kingdom; by 64 BC it was a Roman city of commercial and strategic importance and subsequently a major Byzantine garrison ...
---------------------------------------------------------
The Neolithic of the Levant (1978)
A.M.T. Moore [Oxford University]
... the Damascus basin was also flooded during the Würm glacial stage and there was a small lake in the Barada gorge. Large bodies of freshwater such as the Damascus basin lakes would have created highly favorable environments for man. They contained an abundance of fish and molluscs while their marshy shores would have attracted wildfowl and game ...

More arid conditions during the late glacial caused the Damascus basin lake to diminish in area. This happened some time after 20,000 BC and the end of the regression phase itself had a single carbon 14 determination of 17,040 +/- 520 BC ... (Pages 12-13)

Ancient Nineveh (Kuyunjik Palace)
Selected Excerpt on Nineveh
The Uruk Expansion: Cross Cultural Exchange in Early Mesopotamian Civilization


One of the most important of the ancient Mesopotamian cities situated circa 400 kilometres north of Baghdad on the Tigris River opposite Mosul in Iraq. The site today consists of several mounds - the main one being the palace of Kuyunjik. It was occupied from the 6th millennium BC (a test pit beneath the Temple of Ishtar the Goddess of Love produced material of the Hassuna Culture at the bottom) until it was destroyed by the Medes late in the 7th cenutury BC. Even after this date settlement continued but not on the plain next to the river and it subsequently became a suburb of the expanding city of Mosul. The heyday of the city was in the 7th century BC when Sennacherib made it the capital of Assyria and most of the surviving remains date from this period. They include parts of the city wall which was 12 kilometres in circumference and the great palace of Sennacherib with its splendid reliefs. Some of these reliefs together with the great archives of cuneiform tablets which constituted the two libraries of Sennacherib himself and his grandson Assurbanipal were transferred to the Louvre and the British Museum during the 19th century ... (AHSFC)


Nabateans (400 BC -- 100 AD)
Selected Excerpt on the Nabatean
The Nabateans: A Historical Sketch
The Biblical Archaeologist (Jean Starcky)
Before Alexander’s conquest a thriving new civilization had emerged in southern Jordan. It appears that a nomadic tribe known as the Nabateans began migrating gradually from Arabia during the sixth century BC. Over time they abandoned their nomadic ways and settled in a number of places in southern Jordan; the Negev desert in Palestine and in northern Arabia. Their capital city was the legendary Petra which is now Jordan’s most famous tourist attraction.

Although Petra was inhabited by the Edomites before the arrival of the Nabateans the latter carved grandiose buildings, temples and tombs out of solid sandstone rock. They also constructed a wall to fortify the city although Petra was almost naturally defended by the surrounding sandstone mountains. Building an empire in the arid desert also forced the Nabateans to excel in water conservation. They were highly skilled water engineers and irrigated their land with an extensive system of dams, canals and reservoirs ...

Ancient Edomites (Idumea)

Edom: (red) the name Edom was given to Esau, the first-born son of Isaac and twin brother of Jacob, when he sold his birthright to the latter for a meal of lentil pottage. The country which the Lord subsequently gave to Esau was hence called the country of Edom and his descendants were called Edomites. Edom was called Mount Seir and Idumea also. Edom was wholly a mountainous country. It embraced the narrow mountainous tract (about 100 miles long by 20 broad) extending along the eastern side of the Wadi Arabah from the northern end of the Gulf of Elath to near the southern end of the Dead Sea. The ancient capital of Edom was Bozrah. Petra appears to have been the principal stronghold in the days of Amaziah (BC 838). Elath and Ezion Geber were the seaports ...

Esau's bitter hatred to his brother Jacob for fraudulently obtaining his blessing appears to have been inherited by his latest posterity. The Edomites peremptorily refused to permit the Israelites to pass through their land. For a period of 400 years we hear no more of the Edomites. They were then attacked and defeated by Saul and some forty years later by David. In the reign of Jehoshaphat (BC 914) the Edomites attempted to invade Israel but failed. They joined Nebuchadnezzar when that king besieged Jerusalem. For their cruelty at this time they were fearfully denounced by the later prophets. After this they settled in southern Palestine and for more than four centuries continued to prosper. But during the warlike rule of the Maccabees they were again completely subdued and even forced to conform to Jewish laws and rites and submit to the government of Jewish prefects. The Edomites were now incorporated with the Jewish nation. They were idolaters. Their habits were singular. The Horites, their predecessors in Mount Seir, were as their name implies troglodytes or dwellers in caves; and the Edomites seem to have adopted their dwellings as well as their country. Everywhere we meet with caves and grottos hewn in the soft sandstone strata ...


Ancient Petra

Ancient Petra lies in the southeastern desert of modern Jordan. The city was cut into the rocks - many of them with intricate structures and columns. The approach to the city is through a ravine that sometimes is less than 4 metres wide. The name Petra comes from Greek and can be translated as City of Rock. The Petra Basin - in which the ancient city site rests - was occupied from Neolithic times but gained its first prominence as a stronghold and probable capital city of the biblical Edomites ...
Next to enter the area are the Nabatu - very possibly the descendants of Nebayoth; the eldest son of Ishmael. Situated along the western edge of the Arabian Peninsula the Nabatu may have represented a confederacy of nomadic or seminomadic tribes. They eventually wandered noth-ward to take refuge at Petra. Some combination of pressure from the incoming Nabatu and the weakened condition of southern Judah caused a western Edomite migration. Although the chronology is not yet clear it appears that some Edomites remained behind in the Edom area while others moved westward to settle in southern Judah and became known as the Idumaeans of the Bible. Eventually the merging of the sedentary Edomites who still shared the area with the wandering Nabatu led to the formation of the Nabateans of history ... Thus the city is a former capital of the Nabateans when the Arab people dominated this region before the conquest by the Romans ...

Old Babylonian Period

Selected Excerpts on Babylonia

(1) Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times

(2) The Greatness That Was Babylon

Since the area near where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers emptied into the Persian Gulf had two dominant groups -- the Sumerians and Akkadians -- it is often referred to as Sumer-Akkad. As part of an almost endless pattern other people kept trying to take control of this area's land -- mineral resources -- and trade routes ...

Eventually they succeeded. Semitic Amorites from theArabian Peninsula gained control over most of Mesopotamia by about 1900 BC. They centralized their monarchical government over the city-state just north of Sumer -- in Babylon -- the area formerly called Akkad (Agade). The three centuries of their domination is known as the Old Babylonian Period ...

Babylonians believed the king held power because of the gods; moreover they thought their king was a god. To maximize his power and control a bureaucracy and centralized government were established along with the inevitable adjuncts -- taxation -- and involuntary military service ...

The Sumerians already had laws but they were administered jointly by individuals and the state. With a divine monarch came divinely inspired laws -- violation of which was an offense to the state as well as the gods. The Babylonian King (1728-1686 BC) Hammurabi codified the laws in which (as distinct from the Sumerian) the state could prosecute on its own behalf. The Code of Hammurabi is famous for demanding punishment to fit the crime (lex talionis or an eye for an eye) with different treatment for each social class. The Code is thought to be Sumerian in spirit but with a Babylonian inspired harshness ...

Hammurabi also united the Assyrians to the north and the Akkadians and Sumerians to the south. Trade with Anatolia -- Syria -- and Palestine spread Babylonian influence further. He further consolidated his Mesopotamian empire by building a network of roads and a postal system ...

In religion there was not much change from Sumer/Akkad to Babylonia. Hammurabi added a Babylonian Marduk -- as chief god -- to the Sumerian pantheon. The Epic of Gilgamesh is a Babylonian compilation of Sumerian tales about a legendary king of the city-state of Uruk and a flood story ...

When in the reign of Hammurabi's son the horse-back invaders known as the Kassites made incursions into Babylonian territory the Babylonians thought it punishment from the gods; but they managed to recover and stayed in (limited) power until the beginning of the 16th century B.C. when the Hittites sacked Babylon -- only to withdraw later because the city was too distant from their own capital. Eventually the Assyrians suppressed them but even that was not the end of the Babylonians for they rose again in the Chaldean (or Neo-Babylonian) era from 612-539 BC; made famous by their great King Nebuchadnezzar. In 539 the Persian King Cyrus invaded. Babylonia remained under Persian rule until the time of Alexander the Great ...

Ancient Assyria
ARRAPHA (KIRKUK) / ASHUR (QALAT SHARQAT) / CALAH (NIMRUD)
NINEVEH / ERBIL (IRBIL) / KHORSABAD (DUR SHARRUKIN)
The continuous history of the geographical region (not the political state) of Assyria -- in the earliest period known as Subartu -- goes back at least to the period of the Halaf Culture of which it was the centre and probably the cradle ...
 .......... 
Selected Excerpts on Assyria

(1) Might That Was Assyria (2) The Advent of the Era of Townships in Northern Mesopotamia
(3) Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times



Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times
Donald Redford -- Princeton University (1992)
Winner of the 1993 Best Scholarly Book in Archaeology
Award of the Biblical Archaeological Society
Excerpts and Definitions and Addendums:

..... The great empire of Ur in southern Babylonia (circa 2050 - 1950 BC), which had included most of western Asia as its sphere of influence, collapsed in the middle of the twentieth century BC and on its ruins arose a group of warlike successor states. The ruling classes and most of the population of these states spoke a West Semitic language generally dubbed Amorite, but while they could look back on an early stage in their development when they had lived a rustic, nomadic life on the steppes, they had by now for several generations been exposed to the influences of Akkadian culture. In Mesopotamia the historic focus is on the states of Isin, Larsa, Eshnunna, and (later) Babylon in the south; Mari and Khana on the middle Euphrates, and Assyria on the upper Tigris; and the historic process at work is the gradual subversion of all these states through intestine feuding to the rule of Babylon by 1700 BC ...



The Greatness That Was Babylon by H.W.F. Saggs
Professor Emeritus of Semitic Languages
University College in Cardiff (1962)
Library of Congress # DS 70.7 S27
Chapter 2: Babylonia and Assyria (Circa 2000-1350 BC)
Pre-History and Archaeology Glossary
Excerpts and Definitions and Addendums:
For Dates See Regnal Chronologies

A Historical Interlude

At the end of the third and the beginning of the second millennia BC there was a movement of West Semitic peoples eastward into centralMesopotamia and Babylonia. Already under the empire of the Third Dynasty of Ur there was a considerable amount of peaceful penetration into Babylonia. The immigrants concerned (Amorites) settled in a number of ancient centres where they formed kingdoms. Although the disappearance of the Third Dynasty of Ur under Ibbi-Sin
Ibbi-Sin...................................2029-2002
marks the end of the Sumerians as an independent and distinct political entity, it would present a totally false conception to speak of the defeat of the Sumerians. There is no evidence of a conscious realization in the ancient world of a conflict of Sumerian versus Semite (Akkad).
[The Third Dynasty of Ur came to an end when the Elamites destroyed the city and captured Ibbi-Sin and thusly deported him to Elam]
The city-state ruler who finally achieved a temporary supremacy, and whose dynasty was in some senses the heir to the Third Dynasty of Ur, was Ishbi-Erra ofIsin, whose reign may be taken as 2017 - 1985 BC. The legitimacy of Ishbi-Erra's supremacy was recognized as far afield as Arrapha in the north and Dilmun in the south. Ishbi-Erra was succeeded in the direct line for four generations by rulers of whom for the most part little is known. Conditions for the restoration of the internal and foreign trade which had flourished in the Third Dynasty of Ur period began to reappear.
Ishbi-Erra.................................2017-1984
Shu-Ilishu.................................1984-1974
Iddin-Dagon................................1974-1953
Ishme-Dagon................................1953-1934
Lapit-Ishtar...............................1934-1923
Waves of semites invaders from the desert continued to thrust into Babylonia and politically the fragmentation of the Isin Kingdom, which began to appear in the reign of Ishme-Dagan, was strongly marked at the time of Lipit-Ishtar. A beneficiary of Isin's weakness was Larsa, which managed to carve out an independent kingdom in the south.
[Larsa alternated with Isin in controlling southern Mesopotamia in the first two centuries of the 2nd millennium BC] Neither state could properly be regarded as sole legitimate ruler of Babylonia.
Details of events are very ill known but Larsa emerges as a definite rival to Isin and a number of military operations by Gungunum
Gungunum...................................1932-1905
are mentioned, notably the capture of Ur, the main sea port for the whole of Mesopotamia. The successors of Gungunum extended their power by military measures towards north Babylonia, ultimately absorbing a number of cities, in particularNippur, the religious centre of Babylonia, and Uruk, which had formerly belonged to Isin.
Eventually Isin declined in impotance and finally it was conquered and its dynasty brought to an end by Rim-Sin of Larsa
Rim-Sin I..................................1822-1763
This event made him sole ruler of middle and southern Babylonia and at last there was a legitimate heir to the title of the Third Dynasty of Ur. Larsa's defeat of Isin fell at the very end of the reign of Sin-Muballit of Babylon,
Sin-Muballit...............................1812-1792
who was Hammurabi's father. Although not a few independent states yet remained [unconquered], notably Mari and Eshnunna, this was a critical development, in that it represented the elimination of the remaining buffer between the two rising powers, Babylon and Larsa.
Hammurabi thus came to the throne with an apparently powerful and expanding state extending from his borders [in the north part of Babylonia] to the Persian Gulf and Elam. His ultimate success in gaining control of all Babylonia is perhaps a tribute as much to his administrative and diplomatic skill as to his military achievements .....

The Rise of Babylon

The second successor of Gungunum, Sumuel of Larsa,
Sumuel.....................................1894-1865
was contemporary with the beginning of the famous dynasty commonly known as
First Dynasty of Babylon (Amorite) [1894 - 1595 BC]
Sumu-Abum...................................1894-1880
Sumu-Lael...................................1880-1844
Sabium.....................................1844-1830
Apil-Sin...................................1830-1812
Sin-Muballit...............................1812-1792
Hammurabi..................................1792-1749
Under the Third Dynasty of Ur Babylon had been a small city ruled by an ensi, but it is not known whether it was subsequently part of the region ruled by the kings of Isin. The founder of the First Dynasty, Sumu-Abum, was of West Semitic origin, but whether he had formerly been in the service of another Mesopotamian state or he conquered Babylon direct from the desert is at present unknown.
The simultaneous expansion of Larsa in the south and Babylon in the north inevitably led in the end to conflict between these two powers, but it would be an over simplification to regard a struggle between these two city-states as the key to the history of Mesopotamia during the succeeding century. From Mari on the [middle] Euphrates to the Diyala and the Elamite border a considerable number of other city-states still existed which, though destined ultimately to be absorbed by Babylon or Larsa and finally unified under Hammurabi, for the present enjoyed in varying degrees, independence and the possibility of territorial expansion.
At this time a situation of coalitions and counter coalitions is explicitly referred to in a document from Mari which says:
There is no king who of himself alone is strongest. Ten or fifteen kings [of city-states] follow Hammurabi of Babylon, the same number follow Rim-Sin of Larsa, the same number follow Ibal-Piel of Eshnunna, the same number follow Amut-Piel of Qatna, and twenty kings follow Yarim-Lim of Yamkhad .....
[This may be misleading but not so if we realize that this is primarily a history of the hegemony in southern Mesopotamia (Babylonia) and not outlying regions such as the Kingdom of Yamkhad which was centered at Aleppo in Syria or Qatna (which was also in Syria). Eshnunna, although a Sumerian city-state in the proper sense of the word, was NE in the Diyala Valley area and was the centre of an independent kingdom of some size and importance]
In Hammurabi's twenty ninth year he defeated a coalition headed by Elam and Eshnunna at the bequest of Mari and established himself decisively as the major power in the area. Since Rim-Sin of Larsa had long controlled virtually the whole of southern Babylonia, two powerful kingdoms were now face to face. In the following year Hammurabi overthrew Rim-Sin, thereby making himself sole ruler of Babylonia in 1763 BC.
The political and military activities of Hammurabi had thus converted a city-state into the centre of an empire. Hammurabi welded into one kingdom the many city-states of Sumer and Akkad.
Hammurabi's military achievements, however, did not long survive Hammurabi himself. The stirrings of the Indo-European tribes beyond the Caucasus and the effects of their southward migration now began to be felt farther afield. Early in the reign of Hammurabi's son
Samsu-Iluna.................................1749-1711
a Kassite army made a raid from the Elamite border, and though subsequently repelled by the Babylonians, succeeded in conquering Ur and Uruk.
These Kassites, who later established a dynasty which ruled Babylonia for several centuries, were an Indo-European people who came from the Zagros hills. Individual Kassites are found in Babylonia already during the early part of the First Dynasty. From this time onwards Kassites began to settle in the northeast of Babylonia under their own kings.
In the twenty-eighth year of Samsu-Iluna there was a revolt in the south of Babylonia (the marsh country known as the Sealands) which he was unable to suppress, and so arose the so-called Dynasty of the Sealands, which continued to control a region approximating to the ancient Sumer for more than two hundred years, outliving, indeed, the First Dynasty of Babylon.
The end of the Third Dynasty of Babylon represents one of the landmarks of ancient history. Suddenly in 1595 BC, the thirteenth year of
Samsu-Ditana................................1625-1595
Mursilis I, the fourth ruler of the Hittite Empire, swept out of Asia Minor into Syria (where he took Aleppo), and down the Euphrates, sacking Mari on his way. The conqueror reached Babylon, which he plundered and burnt, and then returned to his capital apparently as suddenly as he came. His sojourn in Babylon had, however, been long enough to disrupt government and administration there, and Babylonia fell an easy prey to a horde of Kassites who, after the Hittites had retreated, swept down from the mountains to the north-east. The conquering Kassite king, Agum II, apparently managed to extend his authority up the middle Euphrates as far as the kingdom of Hana, and also claimed the kingship of Guti in the hills east of Assyria.
The acievements of Hammurabi thus finally been brought to an end. Babylonian culture, however, continued to exercise a vast influence throughout the Near East. The Kassite kings adopted the Akkadian language and cuneiform script of Babylonia.
The Kassite Dynasty in Babylonia succeeded in consolidating its position and in once again unifying the country and in protecting it from the pressure of Assyria and Elam. In domestic policy Kassite government seems to have been mild and unoppressive and the apparent absence of native uprisings may well have been related to their liberality.
The military conquest of the Sealand Dynasty in the south was effected by Ulamburiash during the reign of Kashtiliash III, his older brother. Ulamburiash, after serving as viceroy in the Sealands, succeeded to the Kassite throne in about 1450 BC, and in doing so reunited Babylonia after a partition lasting over two hundred years.

[But the Kassites are gone within a blink of an eye, as wave after wave of migrations put pressure on their fragile hold on power. By 1200 BC all the great Indo-European kingdoms, that great human experiment in transforming Mesopotamia into an Indo-European culture, had been weakened by the incessant troubles of war and invasion, and the Assyrians, a Semitic people angered by Indo-European domination, would return the area to Semitic control. Under the Assyrian King Ashur-Dan, the last Kassite king was driven from the Babylonian throne in the first quarter of the twelfth century BC .....]

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