Pre-Biblical History of Syria Part 2

 Nadene Goldfoot                                       

Aram-Damascus was an Aramean polity that existed from the late-12th century BCE until 732 BCE, and was centred around the city of Damascus in the Southern Levant. Alongside various tribal lands, it was bounded in its later years by the polities of Assyria to the north, Ammon to the south, and Israel to the west.

                                         

Tanakh-Hebrew Bible of Torah and other Writings-in English and Hebrew

I might add that the Bible has something to say about Damascus:  The Bible, specifically Isaiah 17:1-3, indicates that Damascus will be destroyed and cease to be a city, becoming a ruinous heap. Other verses, like Jeremiah 49:23-27, also prophesy destruction and fear for the city. 

Isaiah 17:1-3 describes the downfall of Damascus, portraying it as a city reduced to a ruinous heap and deserted by its people, with the land reverting to a place where herds graze undisturbed. The passage also indicates the loss of political power and influence for both Ephraim (Northern Israel) and Aram (Syria), with the remnant of Aram becoming like the remnants of Israel. These prophecies are often interpreted as being related to the end times or "Day of the Lord".  Good people are trying to get out of the country of Syriain 2025 now, finding it impossible.   We have a war going on withthe Druze, Syrian army rebels led by Julani-now President, a terrorist, Druze from Israel, Kurds of Syria (SDF),  Turkey, and IDFof Israel.  

Pre-biblical Syria's history is a long and complex one, marked by the rise and fall of numerous empires and civilizations. Early inhabitants included the Eblaites, followed by interactions with Mesopotamian powers like the Akkadians, Sumerians, and Assyrians. The Eblaites established a powerful city-state in northern Syria around 3000BCE.      (Just remember, King David of Israel was born in 1010 BCE) 

The Ebla tablets are a collection of as many as 1,800 complete clay tablets, 4,700 fragments, and many thousands of minor chips found in the palace archives of the ancient city of Ebla, Syria.

Ebla was a site in northern Syria called Tel Mardikh today wherean ancient royal archive was discovered consisting of over15,000 tablets written in Sumerian and a language similar to ancient Akkadian.  They date back from the mid-3rd millenniumBCE.

While only a few texts have been published, it is apparent thatthey are of great value for biblical texts and throw new lighton  the early history of the Land of Israel. 

    Hittites from 15th century BCE extended southward to Syria.Even after the main kingdom fell in 1200, small Hittite kingdomscontinued to flourish in Northern Syria.  Eventually they wereoverrun by the Armenians and the Assyrians.  The Bible connectssthe Hittites with the Canaanites (Gen.10:15). 

Later, the Hittites, Hurrians (Horites) people south of Caucasian Mts who invaded Syria and Palestine in the 17th century BCE, fused Akkadian mythology with their own tradition and were responsible for transmitting Sumero-Akkadian  culture to the Hittites, and Mitanni  (c. 1550–1260 BCE), earlier called Ḫabigalbat in old Babylonian texts, c. 1600 BC; Hanigalbat or Hani-Rabbat in Assyrian records, or Naharin in Egyptian texts, was a Hurrian-speaking state in northern Syria and southeast Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) with Indo-Aryan linguistic and political influences, exerted influence, and the region became a battleground for empires including the Hittites, Egyptians, and Assyrians. The area also saw the rise of  the Canaanites, Phoenicians, and Arameans, with Damascus emerging as a significant city. The region's strategic location on trade routes and its fertile lands made it a coveted prize for various powers. 

• Mesopotamian Influence:

  Sumerians, Akkadians, and Assyrians from Mesopotamia frequently interacted with and sometimes controlled parts of Syria. 
• Hittite and Mitanni Presence:

  The Hittites and Mitanni also held sway over parts of Syria during different periods. 
• Rise of Arameans:

  The Arameans, a Semitic people, established several kingdoms in Syria, with Damascus becoming a major Aramean center. 
• Biblical Accounts:

  The Bible mentions Syria in various contexts, including its interactions with the Israelites and the presence of prominent cities like Damascus and Hamath. 

  Hama is a city on the banks of the Orontes River in west-central Syria. It is located 213 kilometres (132 mi) north of Damascus and 46 km (29 mi) north of Homs. It is the provincial capital of the Hama Governorate. With a population of 996,000 (2023 census), Hama is one of the four largest cities in Syria, with Damascus, Aleppo and Homs, Also notably being the only Governorate with no land borders with any foreign countries,
• Crossroads of Civilizations:

  Syria's location made it a crucial area for trade and cultural exchange between different regions. 
• Ancient Cities:

  

                                     World's 1st alphabet

  Notable ancient cities in Syria include Ebla, Damascus, Ugarit, and Palmyra. 

  The world's first alphabet from the ancient city-state of Ugarit, northern Syria. 15th century BCE.
• End of the Pre-Biblical Era:

  The pre-biblical period in Syria concluded with the conquests of the Persians and Greeks, marking the transition to the Hellenistic and Roman periods. 

Resource:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Syria#:~:text=

From%20the%20third%20millennium%20BCE,BCE)%20

eventually%20left%20controlling%20Syria.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aram-Damascus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitanni

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hama

EBLA KINGDOM Next Door Neighbor To Israel And It's Affect

 Nadene Goldfoot                                        

In 1964, Italian archaeologists began to excavate a mound in northwestern Syria known as Tell Mardikh. From 1975, work concentrated on an area they called “G.” Here was discovered a palace dating to the second half of the third millennium B.C. like the year 2948 BCE, since Abraham was from the 2nd millennium and born in 1948 BCE.  

These were 1,000 years older than Abraham!  Thousands of well-preserved cuneiform tablets were found in palace G demonstrating Ebla’s close links to southern Mesopotamia, where the script had developed. In one of the palace rooms, over 14,000 tablets were excavated. The larger tablets had originally been stored on shelves but had fallen onto the floor when the palace was destroyed. The find spots of the tablets allowed the excavators to reconstruct their original position: they were stored by subject.  

The Ebla tablets of the 3rd millennium BCE found  record the cultural, economic, and political life of northern Syria. The majority of the tablets are inscribed in the local Semitic language, known today as Eblaite. Other artifacts provide evidence of Ebla's close relationship with the Mediterranean world and Egypt.  Abraham was born and lived in the 2nd millennium BCE, thought to be 1948 BCE.  

 Ebla, just north of Canaan existed 4,423 years ago.  Many ancient Hebraic names that have not been found in other Near Eastern languages have been reported to occur in similar forms in Eblaite (Adamu, H'à-wa, Jabal, Abarama, Bilhah, Ishma-el, Isûra-el, Esau, Mika-el, Saul, David). Jabal (a descendant of Cain) was the son of Lamech and Adah, and the brother of Jubal, half-brother of Tubal-cain and Naamah. He is described as the "ancestor of all who live in tents and raise livestock." That certainly describes the Israelites in Egypt living in Goshen---thus their line of ancestry.

                    Cover of Sephardic Jews' Bible יהוה in Hebrew; spelling using Yud Hey vuv Hey..in English as (YHWH),  Hawa could mean YHWH orYahweh.  Judaism considers some names of God so holy that, once written, they should not be erased: 

Also among Pettinato's claims, rituals like the release of a scape goat laden with impurities in purification rites connected with a wedding and enthronement were immediately recognized as ancient Near Eastern parallels to Hebrew practice in the first millennium, recorded in Leviticus 16. Other claims included the election of local kings, claimed to be uniquely reminiscent of practices in early Israel.                     

                                               

            What was Ebla is now Lebanon and Syria.  

Ebla was a hereditary monarchy, like Israel became, and contrary to many earlier claims, the present consensus is that "Ebla has no bearing on the Minor Prophets, the historical accuracy of the biblical Patriarchs, Yahweh worship, or Sodom and Gomorrha".  

No?  But it had cultural heredity of language and social patterns.                            

 It has been proved that Ebla was an important powerful kingdom, in the third and second millennia BC. Ebla has been considered something resembling a missing link, which now provides information on a kingdom that had important trading contacts with the Akkadians and Sumerians in Iraq, and north into Anatolia. 

Ebla the ancient city found at Tell Mardikh is one of the most important archaeological discoveries in Syria. In 1964 an Italian excavation team began to dig here and discovered this bronze age city. Ebla has been mentioned as one of the cities conquered in 2250 BC by the Akkadians from Mesopotamia under Naram Sin.

Not much is known about the people of this kingdom, although it is thought that the founders are of Amorite descent. Their language is known as Eblaic, and it was recorded on clay tablets in the Akkadian cuneiform. Ebla flourished greatly between 2400 and 2250 BC, as a trading city with a sophisticated economic and social system. It was destroyed by the Akkadians under Naram Sin in 2250 BC, and in 2000 BC was annexed into the Aleppo kingdom of Yamkhad. In 1600 BC it was conquered and heavily damaged by the Hittites. In 1450 BC it is recorded at Karnak by the Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmose III as a city that the Egyptians went through on their way to the Euphrates. 

The supposed Eblaite connections with the Bible are now widely dismissed as unsubstantiated. The studies on Ebla focus on the civilization of the city. The controversy cooled after much scholarly conflict as well as what some described as interference by the Syrian authorities on political grounds.  Note:  it wasn't the rabbis who ended the discourse.  This was getting interesting.  Why?

Three tablets containing almost the same text have been found. According to Pettinato, they describe an Eblaite creation hymn, and they have been translated by him as :

Lord of heaven and earth:

the earth was not, you created it,

the light of day was not, you created it,

the morning light you had not [yet] made exist.

These lines seem to have points in common both with known Sumerian creation stories and with the biblical account. 

Language from neighbors seeps into each other's language, which we call "cognates"  such as Spanish words into English- Problema – problem; Hospital – hospital Personal – personal

, TV, eema for ma (mom)  with Israel and other countries; and from language we receive ideas and customs.  Amen, Messiah/Moshiakh

Arabic and Hebrew are Semitic languages. They have a lot of common vocabulary. Here are 3 usable nouns:

Father אב أب;  (ab, av);  Motherאם أُمّ;  (um, em);  Brother אח أخ;  (aẖ)

Definition:  A millennium consists of one-thousand years. The word itself derives from the Latin word mille, meaning one-thousand. The adjective used to describe a millennium is ''millennial.'' Historians often refer to the first millennium AD as the period between 1 and 1000 AD, and the second millennium AD as the period from 1001 to 2001 AD.

Resource:

http://www.middleeast.com/ebla#:~:text=Ebla%20the%20ancient%20city%20found,from%20Mesopotamia%20under%20Naram%20Sin.

https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/ebla/hd_ebla.htm#:~:text=The%20Ebla%20tablets%20record%20the,the%20Mediterranean%20world%20and%20Egypt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God_in_Judaism#:~:text=Judaism%20considers%20some%20names%20of,%D7%90%D6%B5%D7%9C%20%D7%A9%D6%B7%D7%81%D7%93%D6%B7%D6%BC%D7%99%20(El%20Shaddai%20transl.

https://blog.busuu.com/spanish-words-in-english/#:~:text=Cognates%20are%20words%20that%20come,guess%20the%20meanings%20of%20words.

https://www.quora.com/Are-there-similar-nouns-between-Arabic-and-Hebrew-cognates-1

https://www.mezzoguild.com/learn/hebrew/vocabulary/cognates/