5.2 The near east: 3000 to 1500 b.c.  (Page 4/5)

Additional Notes

2. syria and adjacent areas

Recent excavations in northwestern Syria between what was subsequently Ugarit and Carchemish, indicate that a great empire with a capital city of Ebla existed prior to and after the 23rd century B.C. Fifteen thousand cuneiform tablets with commercial records, treaties and chronicles have been found, written in a previously unknown Semitic language. This is four times the number of all previously found texts of this period. It is evident that metallurgy, textiles, ceramics and woodworking were well developed. Thirty thousand people in the City were surrounded by about 250 million in the immediate area.

More than five thousand geographic names appear, indicating far greater settlement of the Near East at that ancient time than previously believed. Beirut and Byblos, Damascus and Gaza, as well as Sodom and Gomorrah are all mentioned. Some people named may be the Abraham, Esau and Saul, of the Bible. The language and culture of Ebla may have survived in such later Canaanite centers as Ugarit and even Palestine. Thriving by 2,400 B.C. (or even 2,500), Ebla's kings apparently contended with Sargon of Akkad for domination of the Euphrates area. Sargon's grandson, Naram-Sin, conquered Ebla, but it rose again, only to fall once more about 2,000 B.C., perhaps wiped out by the Amorites. Their language has been identified as a forerunner of all the Canaanite dialects, which include Ugaritic, Phoenician and Hebrew. Translation became possible because of the finding of some dual language dictionaries, containing both Sumerian and Eblaite. (Ref. 117 )

At times war and at times periods of cooperation occurred with another powerful city, Mari, about half-way down the Euphrates from Ebla to Babylon. The French excavations at Mari show a royal palace of three hundred rooms and courts and evidence of Egyptian trade. At one time Mari was ruled by Shura-Damu, son of Ebrium who had been probably Ebla's greatest king. These kings were elected and Ebrium had served four terms of seven years each. (Ref. 117 )

To the northwest were the Assyrians who began to rise as a militant power by 1,700 B.C. and to the southwest, between the Assyrians and the Egyptians, was another Semitic tribe which was originally a Bedouin group appearing from the Syrian desert and whose descendants are today's true Syrians. They may have been pushed north and east as the Hyksos were expelled from Egypt. They made Damascus their chief city. Of greatest importance, however, was the migration of the Amorites who came out of the desert about 2,100 B.C. to take over most of the entire area, including the city of Babylon and then the entire Euphrates Valley. (Please see paragraphs above on Mesopotamia, proper .)

Finally, coming out of their original homeland east and north of Lake Van (Armenia) as early as the late 3rd millennium B.C. were an Asianic-speaking people called Hurrians, who settled in large numbers in northern Syria and Mesopotamia. Although the Hurrians, themselves, may well have been of the old, original Caucasian race, they apparently had an aristocracy of Indo-European origin called "Mitanni". By 1,600 B.C. they had a series of kingdoms. Some authorities believe that they introduced the horse and chariot to the Near East as war vehicles. What is often called the Mitanni Kingdom was actually a federation of Hurrian states under the kings of Wahukanni. At one period, King Tushratta captured and held the stone capital of Assyria, Nineveh. (Ref. 136 , 45 )