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163-663: The Qedarites played an important role in the history of the Levant and North Arabia, where they enjoyed close relations with the nearby Canaanite and Aramaean states and became important participants in the trade of spices and aromatics imported into the Fertile Crescent and the Mediterranean world from South Arabia . Having engaged in both friendly ties and hostilities with the Mesopotamian powers such as

326-628: A sprachbund . Akkadian gradually replaced Sumerian as the spoken language of Mesopotamia somewhere around the turn of the third and the second millennium BC (the precise timeframe being a matter of debate). From c.  5400 BC until the rise of the Akkadian Empire in the 24th century BC, Mesopotamia had been dominated by largely Sumerian cities and city states, such as Ur , Lagash , Uruk , Kish , Isin , Larsa , Adab , Eridu , Gasur , Assur , Hamazi , Akshak , Arbela and Umma , although Semitic Akkadian names began to appear on

489-490: A language isolate , not being native Mesopotamians. It retained the Sumerian language for religious use (as did Assyria which also shared the same Mesopotamian religion as Babylonia), but already by the time Babylon was founded, this was no longer a spoken language, having been wholly subsumed by Akkadian. The earlier Akkadian and Sumerian traditions played a major role in the descendant Babylonian and Assyrian culture, and

652-458: A "holy city" where any legitimate ruler of southern Mesopotamia had to be crowned, and the city was also revered by Assyria for these religious reasons. Hammurabi turned what had previously been a minor administrative town into a large, powerful and influential city, extended its rule over the entirety of southern Mesopotamia, and erected a number of buildings. The Amorite-ruled Babylonians, like their predecessor states, engaged in regular trade with

815-785: A Muslim majority in the Levant is presumed to have been reached by the 13th century. The majority of Levantine Muslims are Sunnis adhering to the four madhhabs ( Hanafi , Shafi'i , Hanbali and Maliki ). Islamic minorities include the Alawites and Nizari Ismailis in Syria, and Twelver Shiites in Lebanon . Levantine Christian groups include Greek Orthodox ( Antiochian Greek ), Syriac Orthodox , Eastern Catholic ( Syriac Catholic , Melkite and Maronite ), Roman Catholic ( Latin ), Nestorian , and Protestant . Armenians mostly belong to

978-846: A bas-relief temple in Uruk and Kurigalzu I (1415–1390 BC) built a new capital Dur-Kurigalzu named after himself, transferring administrative rule from Babylon. Both of these kings continued to struggle unsuccessfully against the Sealand Dynasty. Karaindash also strengthened diplomatic ties with the Assyrian king Ashur-bel-nisheshu and the Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmose III and protected Babylonian borders with Elam. Kadašman-Ḫarbe I succeeded Karaindash, and briefly invaded Elam before being eventually defeated and ejected by its king Tepti Ahar. He then had to contend with

1141-460: A bureaucracy, with taxation and centralized government. Hammurabi freed Babylon from Elamite dominance, and indeed drove the Elamites from southern Mesopotamia entirely, invading Elam itself. He then systematically conquered southern Mesopotamia, including the cities of Isin, Larsa, Eshnunna, Kish, Lagash , Nippur, Borsippa , Ur, Uruk, Umma, Adab, Sippar , Rapiqum , and Eridu. His conquests gave

1304-559: A deliberate archaism in reference to the previous glory of the Akkadian Empire . It was often involved in rivalry with the older ethno-linguistically related state of Assyria in the north of Mesopotamia and Elam to the east in Ancient Iran . Babylonia briefly became the major power in the region after Hammurabi ( fl. c.  1792 –1752 BC middle chronology, or c.  1696 –1654 BC, short chronology ) created

1467-508: A known inscription describes his exploits to the south as follows: The freedom of the Akkadians and their children I established. I purified their copper. I established their freedom from the border of the marshes and Ur and Nippur, Awal , and Kish, Der of the goddess Ishtar , as far as the City of ( Ashur ). Past scholars originally extrapolated from this text that it means he defeated

1630-420: A much reduced Babylon, Samshu-iluna's successor Abi-Eshuh made a vain attempt to recapture the Sealand Dynasty for Babylon, but met defeat at the hands of king Damqi-ilishu II . By the end of his reign Babylonia had shrunk to the small and relatively weak nation it had been upon its foundation, although the city itself was far larger and opulent than the small town it had been prior to the rise of Hammurabi. He

1793-500: A powerful rival of the Neo-Assyrian Empire the form of the kingdom of Urartu , which, just like Assyria, was interested in the rich states of northern Syria , in 743 BC the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III started a series of campaigns in Syria which would result in this region's absorption into the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and the first phase of which was the defeat in that very year of an alliance consisting of Urartu and

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1956-943: A short period of civil war in the Assyrian empire, in the years after the death of Tukulti-Ninurta. Meli-Shipak II (1188–1172 BC) seems to have had a peaceful reign. Despite not being able to regain northern Babylonia from Assyria, no further territory was lost, Elam did not threaten, and the Late Bronze Age collapse now affecting the Levant, Canaan , Egypt , the Caucasus , Anatolia, Mediterranean , North Africa , northern Iran and Balkans seemed (initially) to have little impact on Babylonia (or indeed Assyria and Elam). War resumed under subsequent kings such as Marduk-apla-iddina I (1171–1159 BC) and Zababa-shuma-iddin (1158 BC). The long reigning Assyrian king Ashur-dan I (1179–1133 BC) resumed expansionist policies and conquered further parts of northern Babylonia from both kings, and

2119-537: A short-lived empire, succeeding the earlier Akkadian Empire, Third Dynasty of Ur , and Old Assyrian Empire . The Babylonian Empire rapidly fell apart after the death of Hammurabi and reverted to a small kingdom centered around the city of Babylon. Like Assyria , the Babylonian state retained the written Akkadian language (the language of its native populace) for official use, despite its Northwest Semitic -speaking Amorite founders and Kassite successors, who spoke

2282-526: A specific Hittite king either, Trevor Bryce concludes that there is no doubt that both sources refer to Mursili I and Samsu-ditana . The Hittites, when sacking Babylon, removed the images of the gods Marduk and his consort Zarpanitu from the Esagil temple and they took them to their kingdom. The later inscription of Agum-kakrime , the Kassite king, claims he returned the images; and another later text,

2445-534: A transit zone for the trade of goods imported from ʿAsīr and from Africa across the Red Sea. This, in turn, led to increasing interest to control this region by the Assyrians. Once Tiglath-Pileser III had returned to Assyria, the king Rezin of Damascus organised an anti-Assyrian alliance in Syria which was supported by Pekah of Israel and Hiram II of Tyre, and which started a revolt against Assyrian hegemony by

2608-528: A variety of Arabic descended from the pre-Islamic Arabic dialects of Syria and Hejazi Arabic , but retaining significant influence from Western Middle Aramaic . Levantine Arabic is usually classified as North Levantine Arabic in Lebanon, Syria, and parts of Turkey, and South Levantine Arabic in Palestine and Jordan. Each of these encompasses a spectrum of regional or urban/rural variations. In addition to

2771-765: Is borrowed from the French levant 'rising', referring to the rising of the sun in the east, or the point where the sun rises. The phrase is ultimately from the Latin word levare , meaning 'lift, raise'. Similar etymologies are found in Greek Ἀνατολή Anatolē ( cf. Anatolia 'the direction of sunrise'), in Germanic Morgenland ( lit.   ' morning land ' ), in Italian (as in Riviera di Levante ,

2934-535: Is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is equivalent to Cyprus and a stretch of land bordering the Mediterranean Sea in western Asia: i.e. the historical region of Syria ("Greater Syria"), which includes present-day Israel , Jordan , Lebanon , Syria , the Palestinian territories and most of Turkey southwest of the middle Euphrates . Its overwhelming characteristic

3097-598: Is not clear precisely when Kassite rule of Babylon began, but the Indo-European Hittites from Anatolia did not remain in Babylonia for long after the sacking of the city, and it is likely the Kassites moved in soon afterwards. Agum II took the throne for the Kassites in 1595 BC, and ruled a state that extended from Iran to the middle Euphrates; The new king retained peaceful relations with Erishum III ,

3260-532: Is now in the Louvre . From before 3000 BC until the reign of Hammurabi, the major cultural and religious center of southern Mesopotamia had been the ancient city of Nippur, where the god Enlil was supreme. Hammurabi transferred this dominance to Babylon, making Marduk supreme in the pantheon of southern Mesopotamia (with the god Ashur , and to some degree Ishtar , remaining the long-dominant deity in northern Mesopotamian Assyria). The city of Babylon became known as

3423-610: Is that it represents the land bridge between Africa and Eurasia . In its widest historical sense, the Levant included all of the Eastern Mediterranean with its islands; that is, it included all of the countries along the Eastern Mediterranean shores, extending from Greece in Southern Europe to Egypt and Cyrenaica (Eastern Libya) in Northern Africa . In the 13th and 14th centuries,

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3586-669: The Armenian Apostolic Church . There are also Levantines or Franco-Levantines who adhere to Roman Catholicism . There are also Assyrians belonging to the Assyrian Church of the East and the Chaldean Catholic Church . Other religious groups in the Levant include Jews , Samaritans , Yazidis and Druze . Most populations in the Levant speak Levantine Arabic ( شامي , Šāmī ),

3749-685: The Bronze and Iron age Levant. Other Arabs include the Bedouins of Syrian Desert , Naqab and eastern Syria , who speak Bedouin Arabic . Non-Arab minorities include Circassians , Chechens , Turks , Jews , Turkmens , Assyrians , Kurds , Nawars and Armenians . Overlapping regional designations Subregional designations Others Other places in the east of a larger region Babylonia Babylonia ( / ˌ b æ b ɪ ˈ l oʊ n i ə / ; Akkadian : 𒆳𒆍𒀭𒊏𒆠 , māt Akkadī )

3912-576: The Dynasty IV of Babylon, from Isin , with the first native Akkadian-speaking south Mesopotamian dynasty to rule Babylonia, with Marduk-kabit-ahheshu becoming only the second native Mesopotamian to sit on the throne of Babylon, after the Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta I . His dynasty was to remain in power for some 125 years. The new king successfully drove out the Elamites and prevented any possible Kassite revival. Later in his reign he went to war with Assyria, and had some initial success, briefly capturing

4075-615: The Egyptian chronology . Possible dates for the sack of Babylon are: Mursili I , the Hittite king, first conquered Aleppo , capital of Yamhad kingdom to avenge the death of his father, but his main geopolitical target was Babylon. The Mesopotamian Chronicle 40 , written after 1500 BC, mentions briefly the sack of Babylon as: "During the time of Samsu-Ditana , the Hittites marched on Akkad." More details can be found in another source,

4238-480: The Greek islands ). In 19th-century archaeology, it referred to overlapping cultures in this region during and after prehistoric times, intending to reference the place instead of any one culture. The French mandate of Syria and Lebanon (1920–1946) was called the Levant states. Today, "Levant" is the term typically used by archaeologists and historians with reference to the history of the region. Scholars have adopted

4401-585: The Jabal al-Bišrī to the environs of the city of Damascus , and were able to intensify their pressure on the areas of the Middle Euphrates and of Palmyrena. The Assyrian general Nabȗ-šum-lišir , who served in the region of the south-west border of Babylonia at the time of Šamaš-šuma-ukin's rebellion, is known to have led an attack against the Qedarites and to have defeated them around this time. Once

4564-613: The Judahite king Ahaziah near Ramoth-Gilead in 842 BC; the consequent ascension of Jehu to the throne of Israel did not end the hostilities between Damascus and Israel. Despite this significant change, the Qedarites continued enjoying good relations with Damascus. Shalmaneser III later campaigned to Damascus and Mount Hauran in 841 BCE, but his inscriptions mentioned neither the Qedarite kingdom nor Gindibuʾ himself or any successor of his. The Qedarites were not mentioned either in

4727-807: The Latin Christians of the Levant continue to be called Levantine Christians . The Levant has been described as the "crossroads of Western Asia , the Eastern Mediterranean, and Northeast Africa ", and in geological ( tectonic ) terms as the "northwest of the Arabian Plate ". The populations of the Levant share not only geographic position, but cuisine , some customs, and history . They are often referred to as Levantines . The term Levant appears in English in 1497 , and originally meant 'the East ' or 'Mediterranean lands east of Italy'. It

4890-569: The Marduk Prophesy , written long after the events, mentions that the image of Marduk was in exile around twenty-four years. After the conquest, Mursili I did not attempt to convert the whole region he had occupied from Aleppo to Babylon as a part of his kingdom; he instead made an alliance with the Kassites , and then a Kassite dynasty was established in Babylonia. The Kassite dynasty was founded by Gandash of Mari. The Kassites, like

5053-848: The Masʾaya . the Taymanites , Sabaean traders established in the Hejaz, the Ḫaipaya , the Badanaya , the Hatiaya , and the Idibaʾilaya . The Assyrian annexation of the kingdoms of Damascus and later of Israel would allow the Qedarites, to expand into the pastures within the settled areas of these states' former territories, which improved their position in the Arabian commercial activities. The Assyrians would allow these nomad groups to graze their camels in

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5216-530: The Medes led by Cyaxares rebelled against Assyrian rule again, this time culminating in their destruction of the Neo-Assyrian Empire over the course of 614 to 609 BC. This transitional period saw a resurgent Egypt trying to preserve the Neo-Assyrian Empire and establish its rule on the Levant only for the newly established Neo-Babylonian Empire to gain the upper hand and seize all of Syria and Palestine when Nabopolassar's son and successor Nebuchadnezzar II defeated

5379-703: The Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian empires, the Qedarites eventually became integrated within the structure of the Achaemenid Empire . Closely associated with the Nabataeans , who may have eventually assimilated the Qedarites at the end of the Hellenistic period. The Qedarites also feature within the scriptures of Abrahamic religions , where they appear in the Hebrew and Christian Bible and

5542-769: The Ottoman Sultan in 1579. The English Levant Company was founded in 1581 to trade with the Ottoman Empire , and in 1670 the French Compagnie du Levant  [ fr ] was founded for the same purpose. At this time, the Far East was known as the "Upper Levant". In early 19th-century travel writing , the term sometimes incorporated certain Mediterranean provinces of the Ottoman Empire , as well as independent Greece (and especially

5705-516: The Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Aqaba , as well as its relative water richness and its orchards made it the most important oasis of all North Arabia and gave it the position of being a main stop on the roads which connected al-Ḥīra , Damascus and Yaṯrib . At the time of the 7th century BC, the Qedarites had expanded eastwards so that their kingdom adjoined the western border of Babylonia , In

5868-818: The Qurʾān as the eponymous descendants of Qēḏār/Qaydār , the second son of Yīšmāʿēʾl / ʾIsmāʿīl , himself the son of ʾAḇrāhām / Ibrāhīm . Within Islamic tradition, some scholars claim that the Islamic prophet Muhammad was descended from ʾIsmāʿīl through Qaydār. The name of the Qedarites is recorded in Old Arabic inscriptions written using the Ancient North Arabian script as 𐪄𐪕𐪇 ‎ ( QDR ), and in Classical Arabic as قيدر ( Qaydar ) and قيدار ( Qaydār ). The name of

6031-517: The Sinai Peninsula (Asian Egypt) are sometimes included. As a name for the contemporary region, several dictionaries consider Levant to be archaic today. Both the noun Levant and the adjective Levantine are now commonly used to describe the ancient and modern culture area formerly called Syro-Palestinian or Biblical: archaeologists now speak of the Levant and of Levantine archaeology ; food scholars speak of Levantine cuisine ; and

6194-735: The Southern Levant . While the usage of the term "Levant" in academia has been restricted to the fields of archeology and literature, there is a recent attempt to reclaim the notion of the Levant as a category of analysis in political and social sciences. Two academic journals were launched in the early 2010s using the word: the Journal of Levantine Studies , published by the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and The Levantine Review , published by Boston College . The word Levant has been used in some translations of

6357-466: The Suteans , ancient Semitic-speaking peoples from the southeastern Levant who invaded Babylonia and sacked Uruk. He describes having "annihilated their extensive forces", then constructed fortresses in a mountain region called Ḫiḫi , in the desert to the west (modern Syria ) as security outposts, and "he dug wells and settled people on fertile lands, to strengthen the guard". Kurigalzu I succeeded

6520-535: The Telepinu Proclamation , a Hittite text from around 1520 BC, which states: "And then he [Mursili I] marched to Aleppo, and he destroyed Aleppo and brought captives and possessions of Aleppo to Ḫattuša. Then, however, he marched to Babylon, and he destroyed Babylon, and he defeated the Hurrian troops, and he brought captives and possessions of Babylon to Ḫattuša ." The movement of Mursili's troops

6683-455: The destruction of the city of Babylon itself in 689 BC, in 691 BC he conducted a campaign against the Qedarites, who by then had grown enough powerful to pose a danger to Assyrian interests. At this time, the Qedarites were ruled by Yaṯiʿe's successor, the priestess-queen Teʾelḫunu and her husband, King Ḫazaʾil , and who was attacked by the Assyrians while encamped in an oasis in the western borderlands of Babylonia; Teʾelḫunu, who had come with

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6846-505: The 20th century BC had asserted itself over the northeast Levant and central Mesopotamia. After a protracted struggle over decades with the powerful Assyrian kings Shamshi-Adad I and Ishme-Dagan I , Hammurabi forced their successor Mut-Ashkur to pay tribute to Babylon c.  1751 BC , giving Babylonia control over Assyria's centuries-old Hattian and Hurrian colonies in Anatolia. One of Hammurabi's most important and lasting works

7009-414: The 3rd millennium BC, an intimate cultural symbiosis occurred between Sumerian and Akkadian-speakers, which included widespread bilingualism . The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian and vice versa is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a massive scale, to syntactic, morphological, and phonological convergence. This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the third millennium as

7172-430: The Akkadians fully attain ascendancy over the Sumerians and indeed come to dominate much of the ancient Near East . The empire eventually disintegrated due to economic decline, climate change, and civil war, followed by attacks by the language isolate speaking Gutians from the Zagros Mountains to the northeast. Sumer rose up again with the Third Dynasty of Ur ( Neo-Sumerian Empire ) in the late 22nd century BC, and ejected

7335-562: The Amorite and Canaanite city-states to the west, with Babylonian officials or troops sometimes passing to the Levant and Canaan, and Amorite merchants operating freely throughout Mesopotamia. The Babylonian monarchy's western connections remained strong for quite some time. Ammi-Ditana , great-grandson of Hammurabi, still titled himself "king of the land of the Amorites". Ammi-Ditana's father and son also bore Amorite names: Abi-Eshuh and Ammi-Saduqa . Southern Mesopotamia had no natural, defensible boundaries, making it vulnerable to attack. After

7498-428: The Amorite rulers who had preceded them, were not originally native to Mesopotamia. Rather, they had first appeared in the Zagros Mountains of what is today northwestern Iran. The ethnic affiliation of the Kassites is unclear. Still, their language was not Semitic or Indo-European , and is thought to have been either a language isolate or possibly related to the Hurro-Urartian language family of Anatolia, although

7661-407: The Amorite states of the Levant (modern Syria and Jordan ) including the powerful kingdoms of Mari and Yamhad . Hammurabi then entered into a protracted war with the Old Assyrian Empire for control of Mesopotamia and dominance of the Near East. Assyria had extended control over much of the Hurrian and Hattian parts of southeast Anatolia from the 21st century BC, and from the latter part of

7824-425: The Arab camps, burning down their tents, capturing ʿAmmu-laddin and ʿAṭīya, and taking so many people, donkeys, camels, sheep, and goats, that it caused a drastic drop in the prices of slaves and camels in Assyria. The Qedarites were so severely defeated and Assyrian influence had increased so much in the desert that Yauṯaʿ himself was unable returning to his tribe to resume his rule, and he was instead forced to flee to

7987-432: The Arabs near the Mount Ḫukkurina (one of the elevations of the al-Lajāʾ ), where they captured Abyaṯiʿ and Ayammu, the latter of whom was flayed alive. Due to the Assyrian campaign, the Šumuʾilu rebelled against Yuwaiṯiʿ ben Birdāda and handed him over to the Assyrians. After the victory over the Qedarites, the Assyrians campaigned against the Nabataeans. After Ashurbanipal's death, the Babylonians led by Nabopolassar and

8150-471: The Aramaean states of Melid , Gurgum , Kummuḫ , Bit Agusi , and ʿUmqi , after which he besieged Bit Agusi's capital of Arpad , which was Urartu's principal ally, for two years before capturing it. While Tiglath-Pileser III was campaigning against Urartu in 739 BC, the Levantine states formed a new alliance, headed by the king Azriyau of Ḥamat , and including various Phoenician cities ranging from Arqa to Ṣumur and multiple Aramaean states from Śamʾal in

8313-438: The Assyrian administration as part of this policy. This in turn allowed the Arabs integrated into the Assyrian administration to further expand into the Levantine settled regions around Damascus and the Anti-Lebanon until the Valley of Lebanon . In 729 BC, Tiglath-Pileser III proclaimed himself King of Babylon, thus marking the renewal of the importance of southern Mesopotamia and starting the resurgence of Babylon. This revival

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8476-412: The Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta I (1243–1207 BC) routed his armies, sacked and burned Babylon and set himself up as king, ironically becoming the first native Mesopotamian to rule the Mesopotamian populated state, its previous rulers having all been non-Mesopotamian Amorites and Kassites. Kashtiliash himself was taken to Ashur as a prisoner of war. An Assyrian governor/king named Enlil-nadin-shumi

8639-477: The Assyrian king) in 1333 BC, a usurper named Nazi-Bugaš deposed him, enraging Ashur-uballit I , who invaded and sacked Babylon, slew Nazi-Bugaš, annexed Babylonian territory for the Middle Assyrian Empire, and installed Kurigalzu II (1345–1324 BC) as his vassal ruler of Babylonia. Soon after Arik-den-ili succeeded the throne of Assyria in 1327 BC, Kurigalzu II attacked Assyria in an attempt to reassert Babylonian power. After some impressive initial successes he

8802-547: The Assyrian official Bēl-liqbi, who was stationed in Ṣupite , wrote a letter to Sargon II demanding the permission to transform an old caravanserai which had since become an archers' camp back into a caravanserai. During this period, the Assyrians imposed prohibition on selling iron , which was important for Assyrian armament, to the Arabs to prevent them from developing more efficient weaponry, and instead permitted only copper to be sold to them. Some Arabs, of unclear relation with both those which were then moving into Babylonia and

8965-519: The Assyrian practice of controlling vassal populations by raising their rulers at the Assyrian court, while Hazael had retained his position, but as an Assyrian vassal, and he sent Sennacherib continuous tribute until the latter's death. Sennacherib also retained the idols of the Arabian gods as a way to ensure that they would remain loyal to Assyrian power and as a punishment against them in accordance with his heavy-handed policy with respect to Babylonia and its surrounding regions. From this period onwards,

9128-413: The Assyrian war in Elam was complete, in 645 BC Ashurbanipal attacked the Qedarites and the Nabataeans during a three-months campaign with the goal of subjugating the Arabs permanently. The Assyrian armies first attacked from Ḫadattā , passing through the desert between Laribda , Ḫuraruna and Yarki before reaching Azalla after defeating the joint forces of the Qedarites, Nabataeans, and another tribe,

9291-468: The Assyrians after they had introduced the use of the dromedary in this region. In 716 BC, the Qedarite queen Šamši joined a local Egyptian kinglet of the Nile Delta and the mukarrib Yiṯaʿʾamar Watar I of Sabaʾ in offering lavish presents consisting of gold, precious stones, ivory, willow seeds, aromatics, horses, and camels to the Assyrian king Sargon II to normalise relations with Assyria and to preserve and expand their commercial relations with

9454-401: The Assyrians and Peqaḥ was assassinated, Tiglath-Pileser III allowed Šamši to retain her position as the ruler of the Qedarites and appointed an Arab as qēpu (overseer for the count of Assyria) in Qedar to prevent her from providing aid to Damascus during the campaign in which the Assyrians annexed its territory, and to manage the Qedarites' commercial activities. This mild treatment of Šamši

9617-432: The Assyrians would attempt to control the North Arabian populations through vassals, although these vassals would themselves often rebel against the Neo-Assyrian Empire. When Sennacherib's son Esarhaddon succeeded him in 681 BC, Hazael went to Nineveh to request from him that Tabūʿa and the idols of the Qedarite gods be returned to him. Esarhaddon, after having had his own name as well as "the might of Aššur " inscribed on

9780-409: The Assyrians, although the Nabataean king Nadnu refused when approached by join the revolt by Yauṯaʿ, who, along with the king ʿAmmu-laddin of another sub-group of Qedarites, attacked the western regions of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in Transjordan and southern Syria, while Yauṯaʿ's wife ʿAṭīya, who had come with the nomads to invade the settled areas attacked by the Qedarites, stayed behind in a camp behind

9943-409: The Biblical Ishmaelites ( Biblical Hebrew : יִשְׁמְעֵאלִים‎ , romanized:  Yīšməʿēlīm ) and considered the Akkadian name Šumuʾilu as derivative of Yīšməʿēlīm , the scholar Israel Ephʿal has criticised this identification on several grounds: During the 9th century BCE, the Qedarite confederation was centered around the region of the Wādī Sirḥān , and it had commercial interests in

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10106-446: The Canaanite kingdoms of Ammon , Judah , and Moab, followed by the Persian Achaemenid 's annexation of Babylonia, the Qedarites expanded westwards into the eastern and southern Levant until their territory included the northern Sinai and they controlled the desert region which bordered ancient Israel and the eastern border of Egypt and of the Nile Delta . The Qedarites were an Arab tribal confederation who were closely related to

10269-410: The Egyptians at Carchemish in 605 BC. It is unknown what was the role of the Arab populations during these events, although the Qedarites appear to not have pressed against the Transjordanian region during the period which oversaw the collapse of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and its replacement by the Neo-Babylonian Empire , and the Canaanite kingdoms of Palestine were strong enough to resist the Arabs once

10432-433: The Elamite capital, the city of Susa, which was sacked. After this a puppet ruler was placed on the Elamite throne, subject to Babylonia. Kurigalzu I maintained friendly relations with Assyria, Egypt and the Hittites throughout his reign. Kadashman-Enlil I (1374–1360 BC) succeeded him, and continued his diplomatic policies. Burna-Buriash II ascended to the throne in 1359 BC, he retained friendly relations with Egypt, but

10595-402: The Elamite kings who had supported Šamaš-šuma-ukin, the southern Phoenician cities and the kingdom of Judah seized the opportunity and rebelled against Assyrian authority. Taking advantage of this situation, the Qedarites, led by Abyaṯiʿ, Ayammu, and Yuwaiṯiʿ ben Birdāda, allied with the Nabataeans led by Nadnu, conducted raids against the western borderlands of the Neo-Assyrian Empire ranging from

10758-438: The Elamite ruler Shutruk-Nakhunte eventually conquered most of eastern Babylonia. Enlil-nadin-ahhe (1157–1155 BC) was finally overthrown and the Kassite dynasty ended after Ashur-dan I conquered yet more of northern and central Babylonia, and the equally powerful Shutruk-Nahhunte pushed deep into the heart of Babylonia itself, sacking the city and slaying the king. Poetical works have been found lamenting this disaster. Despite

10921-485: The Gutians from southern Mesopotamia in 2161 BC as suggested by surviving tablets and astronomy simulations. They also seem to have gained ascendancy over much of the territory of the Akkadian speaking kings of Assyria in northern Mesopotamia for a time. Followed by the collapse of the Sumerian "Ur-III" dynasty at the hands of the Elamites in 2002 BC, the Amorites ("Westerners"), a foreign Northwest Semitic-speaking people, began to migrate into southern Mesopotamia from

11084-458: The Hittites under king Mursili I is considered crucial to the various calculations of the early chronology of the ancient Near East , as it is taken as a fixed point in the discussion. Suggestions for its precise date vary by as much as 230 years, corresponding to the uncertainty regarding the length of the "Dark Age" of the much later Late Bronze Age collapse , resulting in the shift of the entire Bronze Age chronology of Mesopotamia with regard to

11247-459: The Isammeʾ, in the region between Yarki and Azalla; the Assyrians then proceeded from Azalla to Quraṣiti , where they attacked Yuwaiṯiʿ ben Birdāda, who fled, captured his mother, sister and family, many prisoners, as well as donkeys, camels, sheep, and goats, and seized the tribe's idols, and dispatched them all through the Damascus road; finally, the Assyrians marched out from Damascus till Ḫulḫuliti , and from there carried out their final attack on

11410-423: The Neo-Assyrian Empire's economy. The arrangement between the Assyrians and the Qedarites established at the end of Tiglath-Pileser III's campaign in Palestine satisfied both parties enough that Šamši remained loyal to Assyria and later paid Tiglath-Pileser III a tribute of 125 white camels. Among the other Arabian populations around the southern Levant who offered tribute to Tiglath-Pileser III after his campaign were

11573-485: The Neo-Babylonian emperor, rebelled against his brother Ashurbanipal in 652 BC, Abyaṯiʿ supported the revolt; this Qedarite policy towards the Assyrians was dictated by their interests in the trade routes in the region, which were threatened by Assyrian encroachment. Abyaṯiʿ, along with his brother Ayammu, as well as Yauṯaʿ's cousin, the king Yuwaiṯiʿ ben Birdāda of the Šumuʾilu, led a contingent of Arab warriors to Babylon, where they arrived shortly before Ashurbanipal besieged

11736-656: The Qedarites are referred to as Gidrāya , reflecting the use of a voiced qāf , similarly to the one used in the present-day Hejazī dialect of Arabic. In the Hebrew Bible , the Qedarites are referred to in Hebrew as קֵדָ֥ר ( Qēḏār ; Ancient Greek : Κηδάρ , romanized :  Kēdár ). The Qedarites were also mentioned in Old South Arabian inscriptions as the 𐩤𐩵𐩧𐩬 QDRN ( Qadirān or Qadrān ). Latin sources mention

11899-593: The Qedarites as an Assyrian vassal, and Esarhaddon soon allowed Tabūʿa to return to Dūmat and appointed her as queen of the Qedarites at some point before 678 or 677 BC. Around the same time, Hazael died and was succeeded as king by his son Yauṯaʿ with the approval of Esarhaddon, who demanded from him a heavier tribute consisting of 10 minas of gold, 1000 gems, 50 camels, and 1000 spice bags. Yauṯaʿ agreed to these conditions due to his dependence on Assyria and to consolidate his precarious position of rulership. Hazael and his son Yauṯaʿ might have been seen as Assyrian agents by

12062-786: The Qedarites as the Cedrei . During the second half of the 9th century BC, the Qedarites were living to the east of Transjordan and to the south-east of Damascus , within the southwestern Syrian Desert in the region of the Wādī Sirḥān , more specifically in the Jauf depression in its eastern part, where was located the Qedarites' main centre of Dūmat or ad-Dūmat ( Ancient North Arabian : 𐪕𐪃𐪉 ‎ , romanized:  DMT ; recorded in Akkadian as Adummatu ). Dūmat's location halfway between Syria and Babylonia and halfway between

12225-643: The Qedarites depended, especially during periods of drought, Šamši followed Rezin, Pekah, and Hiram II in rebelling against Assyrian authority in 733 BC. During the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III itself, the Qedarites invaded Moab and killed the inhabitants of its capital city of Qir-Mōʾāb . When Judah remained loyal to Assyria, Rezin and Pekah attacked it, starting the Syro-Ephraimite War , in retaliation of which Tiglath-Pileser III in turn attacked Damascus in 733 and 732 BC. As part of his intervention in Syria, Tiglath-Pileser III also attacked and defeated

12388-553: The Qedarites despite some of these settlements having names including Arabic components which would later be borne by several Qedarite kings, such as Dūr-Uait (from Arabic Yuwaiṯiʿ ) and Dūr-Birdada in Bīt-Amukkani, and Dūr-Abiyataʾ (from Arabic Abyaṯiʿ ) in Bīt-Dakkūri; among the settlements attacked by Sennacherib was Qidrina, in the territory of Bīt-Dakkūri , suggesting that these Babylonian Arabs might have been connected with

12551-588: The Qedarites in the region of Mount Saqurri (Often identified with Jabal ad-Durūz ), forcing Šamši to flee to the Wādī Sirḥān, and taking significant spoils from them, including spices, which are first mentioned in relation with the Qedarites in Tiglath-Pileser III's records relating to this campaign, and cultic utensils like the resting places of the Qedarite gods as well as their goddess's sceptres. While Rezin would be executed and his kingdom annexed by

12714-647: The Qedarites is recorded in Aramaic as 𐡒𐡃𐡓𐡉𐡍 ‎ ( QDRYN ) in Achaemenid and Hellenistic period ostraca found at Maresha . Assyrian records have transcribed in Neo-Assyrian Akkadian various variants of the name of the Qedar tribe under the forms of Qidri , Qīdri , Qidrāya , Qidari , Qadari , Qādri , Qidarāya , and Qudari . In one Neo-Assyrian letter,

12877-408: The Qedarites king-less for the rest of Esarhaddon's rule. After Esarhaddon died and was succeeded as king of Assyria by his son Ashurbanipal in 669 BC, Yauṯaʿ returned, and requested from the Assyrian king the return of the idol of ʿAttar-Šamē, which Ashurbanipal granted after Yauṯaʿ swore his allegiance to him. Yauṯaʿ however soon led the Qedarites and the other Arab peoples into rebelling against

13040-617: The Qedarites until Kapanu near the eastern border of the Canaanite kingdom of Ammon, following which Hazael surrendered to Sennacherib and paid him tribute. The rich booty captured by the Assyrians at Dūmat included camels as well as luxuries which the Qedarite rulers had acquired from the Arabian trade routes, such as spices, precious stones, and gold. Teʾelḫunu was taken to the Neo-Assyrian capital of Nineveh in 689 or 698 BC, where Sennacherib raised her daughter Tabūʿa , following

13203-530: The Qedarites would later offer the Assyrians because they had not yet become participants in the trade of aromatics produced in South Arabia. Tiglath-Pileser III's inscriptions recording this tribute payment constitutes the first explicit mention of the Qedarites by name. During the 8th century itself, the North Arabian region acquired increased economic importance, with the northern Hejaz becoming

13366-553: The Qedarites, and the Arabian population in Babylonia remained in close contact with the Qedarites in the desert, who by this time had expanded eastwards so that they adjoined the western border of Babylonia. These Arabians might have been settled in Mesopotamia by the Assyrian kings themselves, especially by Sargon II and his son and successor Sennacherib, and some of these might have in turn been resettled in Media as camel tamers by

13529-478: The Qedarites, and, sometime between 676 and 673 BC, one Wahb united the Arab tribes in a revolt against Yauṯaʿ. The Assyrians intervened by suppressing Wahb's rebellion, capturing him and his people, and deporting them to Nineveh to be punished as enemies of the king of Assyria. When the Assyrians invaded Egypt in 671 BC, Yauṯaʿ was one of the Arab kings summoned by Esarhaddon to provide water supplies to his army during

13692-547: The Qedarites, were at this time also living in Upper Mesopotamia , where they might have been settled by Sargon II and Sennacherib , and where their camels used to graze between Aššur and Ḫindanu , under the authority of the governor of Kalḫu . Due to inadequate rainfall, the governor of Kalḫu lost control of these Upper Mesopotamian Arabs, who in 716 BC engaged in raids in the regions around Suḫu and Ḫindanu and even further south-east till Sippar , possibly with

13855-438: The Qedarites. Through a series of campaigns conducted from 703 to 700 BC, Sennacherib was able to establish control over the settled parts of Babylonia, as well as over the nomads of the desert to the immediate west of it, and according to his annals, members of the Taymanites and of the Qedarite sub-group of the Šumuʾilu, the latter of whom lived in the eastern Syrian Desert bordering on Babylonia, went to offer him tribute in

14018-626: The Transjordanian Canaanite kingdoms of Ammon, Edom, Judah and Moab, as well as the Qedarites, to ally with Egypt while leaving the Babylonian provinces of central and southern Syria which directly depended on the Babylonian military vulnerable to attacks from the Arabs, including the Qedarites. Nebuchadnezzar II responded by personally returning to Syria in 599 BC, establishing his base possibly in Damascus, and conducting raids over

14181-524: The Wādī Sirḥān region, passing through the Jawf depression and along the road near the city of Babylon which went from Yaṯrib to Borsippa , before finally settling into Bīt-Dakkūri and Bīt-Amukkani , but not Bīt-Yakīn or the region of the Persian Gulf; the name of one of these settlements, Qidrina, located in the territory of Bīt-Dakkūri , suggests that these newcomers might have been connected with

14344-419: The alliance headed by Damascus continued its anti-Assyrian activities, which caused the pro-Assyrian alliance to disintegrate, with Ashkelon and Edom soon defecting to the pro-Assyrian side. And since the Qedarites were still participating in the trade networks passing through Damascus and Israel, who themselves controlled important parts of the Arabian commercial route as well as pasture and water sources on which

14507-665: The area that is bounded by the Taurus Mountains of Turkey in the north, the Mediterranean Sea in the west, the north Arabian Desert and Mesopotamia in the east, and Sinai in the south (which can be fully included or not). Typically, it does not include Anatolia (also known as Asia Minor), the Caucasus Mountains, or any part of the Arabian Peninsula proper. Cilicia (in Asia Minor) and

14670-526: The boundaries of the Levant as follows. A distinction is made between the main subregions of the Levant, the northern and the southern: The island of Cyprus is also included as a third subregion in the archaeological region of the Levant: The vast majority of Levantines are Muslims . After the Muslim conquest of the Levant in the 7th century, Islam was first introduced into the region. However,

14833-722: The cities on the coast of the Levant. Tiglath-Pileser III retaliated by campaigning in 734 BC against the southern Levantine coast until the Brook of Egypt and successfully managed to establish control over the commercial activities between the Phoenicians , the Egyptians and the Philistines . Among the many rulers in the western Fertile Crescent who pledged allegiance to Tiglath-Pileser III as result of this campaign in Palestine

14996-409: The city. The Qedarite troops were defeated by the Assyrian army and they retreated into Babylon, where they became trapped once the siege had started. Shortly before the Assyrians stormed Babylon and destroyed the city, the Arabs tried to break out of the city, but they were defeated again by the Assyrians. While the Arab intervention in Babylonia in support of Šamaš-šuma-ukin was happening, Yauṯaʿ, who

15159-529: The commercial importance of the northern Hejaz and of Palestine and Syria and the adjoining regions. And, under Sargon II, the Arabs within Syria, who may or may not have included Qedarites, were continuing to participate in the caravan traffic in close cooperation with the Assyrian authorities, especially in the area of the Homs plain, which itself extended eastwards towards Palmyra, and where these Arabs were allowed to graze their camels. As part of this collaboration,

15322-497: The course of 599 to 598 BC against the Qedarites from his Syrian provinces with the aim of pacifying the desert, and culminating in the Babylonians capturing the idols of the Qedarites' gods, thus placing them under Babylonian overlordship. This led to Ammon and Moab defecting to the Babylonian side and joining Babylonian subjects in Damascus in attacking Judah. In 597 BC, Nebuchadnezzar II himself attacked Judah, captured its king,

15485-549: The crossing of the Sinai Desert separating southern Palestine from Egypt. Yauṯaʿ however soon took advantage of Esarhaddon being preoccupied with his operations in Egypt to rebel against Assyria, likely in reaction to the hefty tribute required from him. The Assyrian army intervened against Yauṯaʿ and defeated him, and captured the idols of the Qedarites, including that of their god ʿAttar-Šamē , while Yauṯaʿ himself fled, leaving

15648-416: The cult of the god ʾAšīmaʾ in the region of Samaria. Due to the revival of Babylonia which had started under Tiglath-Pileser III, nomads had also migrated over the course of the middle 8th century BC to the east into Babylonia, where they settled down and either founded their own settlements or became the majority population in pre-existing local settlements there. These Arabs appear to have originated from

15811-497: The death of Hammurabi, his empire began to disintegrate rapidly. Under his successor Samsu-iluna (1749–1712 BC) the far south of Mesopotamia was lost to a native Akkadian-speaking king Ilum-ma-ili who ejected the Amorite-ruled Babylonians. The south became the native Sealand Dynasty , remaining free of Babylon for the next 272 years. Both the Babylonians and their Amorite rulers were driven from Assyria to

15974-409: The desert and border routes where Gindibuʾ had economic interests under threat of Assyrian disruptions, fearing which Gindibuʾ led 1000 camelry troops at the battle of Battle of Qarqar in 853 BCE on the side of the alliance led by Aram-Damascus and Israel against Shalmaneser III of Assyria. Before the ascent of Assyrian hegemony, the Qedarite confederation was a polity of significant importance in

16137-470: The domestication of the camels had made it possible for the Qedarites populations to travel further south the Arabian Peninsula, thus competing with the regional maritime trade routes. During the 7th century BC, this ability to travel so far to the south led to the establishment of the import of frankincense from the kingdom of Sabaʾ , thus forming the incense trade route , and further increasing

16300-459: The early Amorite rulers were largely held in vassalage to Elam. Babylon remained a minor town in a small state until the reign of its sixth Amorite ruler, Hammurabi , during 1792–1750 BC (or c.  1728 –1686 BC in the short chronology ). He conducted major building work in Babylon, expanding it from a small town into a great city worthy of kingship. A very efficient ruler, he established

16463-542: The economic and structures of the newly established western borderlands of the Neo-Assyrian Empire following the Assyrian annexation of Damascus and Israel. Assyrian records referred to these three rulers as the "kings of the seashore and the desert," reflecting their influence in the trade networks which spanned North Arabia, the Syrian desert, and the northern part of the Sinai. In the late 8th century BC, shortly before 700 BC,

16626-530: The evidence for its genetic affiliation is meager due to the scarcity of extant texts. That said, several Kassite leaders may have borne Indo-European names , and they may have had an Indo-European elite similar to the Mitanni elite that later ruled over the Hurrians of central and eastern Anatolia, while others had Semitic names. The Kassites renamed Babylon Karduniaš and their rule lasted for 576 years,

16789-580: The former kingdom as well as to the southern border regions of Palestine, and some sedentary Qedarites might have been present among the Arabians resettled by the Assyrians as colonists in the hill country around Samaria to perform economic activities as part of the Assyrian diversion of some of the Spice trade to Tyre through Samaria so as to increase both Assyrian control over it and imperial revenue from this commercial traffic. These Arabian settlers introduced

16952-457: The frontlines to remain out of danger should the Qedarite forces be defeated. The Assyrian troops stationed in the region, from Ṣupite to Edom , and the armies of the local Assyrian vassal kings, especially of Moab , repelled the Arab attacks, with ʿAmmu-laddin being defeated and captured by the Moabite king Kamasḥalta . Kamasḥalta and the Assyrian army then carried out counter-attacks against

17115-499: The idols, acquiesced to Hazael's demand in exchange for an additional tribute of 65 camels, with this light tribute being motivated by Esarhaddon's desire to maintain Hazael's loyalty. This was motivated by Esarhaddon's view that the desert populations were required to maintain control of Babylonia, hence why he adopted the same conciliatory attitude towards the Arabs that he had towards Babylonia itself, and Hazael in consequence ruled over

17278-496: The invading Amorites to the south and Elamites to the east, but there is no explicit record of that, and some scholars believe the Assyrian kings were merely giving preferential trade agreements to the south. These policies, whether military, economic or both, were continued by his successors Erishum I and Ikunum . However, when Sargon I (1920–1881 BC) succeeded as king in Assyria in 1920 BC, he eventually withdrew Assyria from

17441-746: The island of Cyprus in Levantine studies, including the Council for British Research in the Levant , the UCLA Near Eastern Languages and Cultures department, Journal of Levantine Studies and the UCL Institute of Archaeology, the last of which has dated the connection between Cyprus and mainland Levant to the early Iron Age . Archaeologists seeking a neutral orientation that is neither biblical nor national have used terms such as Levantine archaeology and archaeology of

17604-528: The king lists of some of these states (such as Eshnunna and Assyria ) between the 29th and 25th centuries BC. Traditionally, the major religious center of all Mesopotamia was the city of Nippur where the god Enlil was supreme, and it would remain so until replaced by Babylon during the reign of Hammurabi in the mid-18th century BC. The Akkadian Empire (2334–2154 BC) saw the Akkadian Semites and Sumerians of Mesopotamia unite under one rule, and

17767-437: The late 690s at the Assyrian capital of Nineveh , where they had to pass through a then recently built gate of the city called the abul madbari (Desert Gate). Although Sennacherib had regained control of Babylon in 703 BC, the Babylonians revolted against Assyrian rule with Elamite help yet again in 694 BC, and the Qedarites supported them again. As part of Sennacherib's repression of this new rebellion, which would end with

17930-470: The list of rulers, including those of distant places such as Philistia , Edom , and Israel , who paid tribute to Adad-nirari III after the latter's defeat of Bar-Hadad III of Damascus in 796 BCE. This reason for absence the Assyrian records is that the kingdom of Gindibuʾ was far from the campaign routes of the Assyrians during the later 9th century BCE. Following the rise in the Armenian highlands of

18093-544: The longest dynasty in Babylonian history. This new foreign dominion offers a striking analogy to the roughly contemporary rule of the Semitic Hyksos in ancient Egypt . Most divine attributes ascribed to the Amorite kings of Babylonia disappeared at this time; the title "god" was never given to a Kassite sovereign. Babylon continued to be the capital of the kingdom and one of the holy cities of western Asia, where

18256-593: The loss of territory, general military weakness, and evident reduction in literacy and culture, the Kassite dynasty was the longest-lived dynasty of Babylon, lasting until 1155 BC, when Babylon was conquered by Shutruk-Nakhunte of Elam, and reconquered a few years later by the Nebuchadnezzar I , part of the larger Late Bronze Age collapse. The Elamites did not remain in control of Babylonia long, instead entering into an ultimately unsuccessful war with Assyria, allowing Marduk-kabit-ahheshu (1155–1139 BC) to establish

18419-477: The mountains of what is today northwest Iran. Babylon was then attacked by the Indo-European-speaking , Anatolia-based Hittites in 1595 BC. Shamshu-Ditana was overthrown following the "sack of Babylon" by the Hittite king Mursili I . The Hittites did not remain for long, but the destruction wrought by them finally enabled their Kassite allies to gain control. The date of the sack of Babylon by

18582-647: The native Mesopotamian king of Assyria, but successfully went to war with the Hittite Empire , and twenty-four years after, the Hittites took the sacred statue of Marduk , he recovered it and declared the god equal to the Kassite deity Shuqamuna . Burnaburiash I succeeded him and drew up a peace treaty with the Assyrian king Puzur-Ashur III , and had a largely uneventful reign, as did his successor Kashtiliash III . The Sealand Dynasty of southern Mesopotamia remained independent of Babylonia and like Assyria

18745-441: The nomads to invade the settled areas attacked by the Qedarites, stayed behind in a camp behind the frontlines to remain out of danger should the Qedarite forces be defeated. Teʾelḫunu and Hazael fled deep into the desert, to the Qedarite capital of Dūmat , where the Assyrians overtook and captured Teʾelḫunu and her daughter Tabūʿa, and took them as hostages to Assyria along with the idols of the Qedarites' gods, and continued pursuing

18908-428: The north by an Assyrian-Akkadian governor named Puzur-Sin c.  1740 BC , who regarded king Mut-Ashkur as both a foreign Amorite and a former lackey of Babylon. After six years of civil war in Assyria, a native king named Adasi seized power c.  1735 BC , and went on to appropriate former Babylonian and Amorite territory in central Mesopotamia, as did his successor Bel-bani . Amorite rule survived in

19071-426: The north to Ḥamat in the south, which was defeated by Tiglath-Pileser III in 738 BC. After this triumph of Assyrian hegemony in the western Fertile Crescent, the rulers of Damascus, Tyre and Israel accepted Assyrian overlordship and paid tribute to Tiglath-Pileser III. Since the Qedarite rulers participated in the trade which passed through Damascus and Tyre, they sought to preserve the Arabian commercial activities and

19234-423: The north. Around 1894 BC, an Amorite chieftain named Sumu-abum appropriated a tract of land which included the then relatively small city of Babylon from the neighbouring minor city-state of Kazallu , of which it had initially been a territory, turning his newly acquired lands into a state in its own right. His reign was concerned with establishing statehood amongst a sea of other minor city-states and kingdoms in

19397-655: The north. Two minority languages are recognized: Armenian , and Cypriot Maronite Arabic , a hybrid of mostly medieval Arabic vernaculars with strong influence from contact with Turkish and Greek, spoken by approximately 1,000 people. Western Neo-Aramaic is additionally spoken in three villages in Syria: Maaloula , Jubb'adin and Bakhah . Among diaspora communities based in the Levant, Greek , Armenian and Circassian are also spoken. According to recent ancient DNA studies, Levantines derive most of their ancestry from ancient Semitic-speaking peoples of

19560-498: The northern Levant , gradually gaining control over most of southern Mesopotamia, where they formed a series of small kingdoms, while the Assyrians reasserted their independence in the north. The states of the south were unable to stem the Amorite advance, and for a time may have relied on their fellow Akkadians in Assyria for protection. King Ilu-shuma ( c.  2008 –1975 BC) of the Old Assyrian period (2025–1750 BC) in

19723-568: The other ancient Arabian populations of North Arabia and the Syrian Desert. Under the reigns of the Neo-Assyrian kings Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal , Assyrian records referred to the Qedarites as being almost synonymous with the Arabs as a whole. Although the Assyriologists Friedrich Delitzsch , R.C. Thompson and Julius Lewy had identified the Qedarite tribe of the 𒆳𒋢𒈬𒀭 ( ᵏᵘʳŠumuʾilu ) with

19886-440: The policy of supporting Assyria's enemy once Syria was firmly under Assyrian control after the previous one and half a century of trying to remain on good terms with the powers governing Syria, including Assyria. During his repression of the Babylonian revolt in 702 BC, Sennacherib also attacked several Arab walled towns surrounded by unwalled villages in Babylonia, although it is unclear what relation existed between these Arabs and

20049-642: The portion of the Liguria coast east of Genoa ), in Hungarian Kelet ('east'), in Spanish and Catalan Levante and Llevant , ('the place of rising'), and in Hebrew מִזְרָח mizraḥ ('east'). Most notably, "Orient" and its Latin source oriens meaning 'east', is literally "rising", deriving from Latin orior 'rise'. The notion of the Levant has undergone a dynamic process of historical evolution in usage, meaning, and understanding. While

20212-407: The priests of the ancient Mesopotamian religion were all-powerful, and the only place where the right to inheritance of the short lived old Babylonian empire could be conferred. Babylonia experienced short periods of relative power, but in general proved to be relatively weak under the long rule of the Kassites, and spent long periods under Assyrian and Elamite domination and interference. It

20375-424: The reason why the term Levant has come to be used more specifically to refer to modern Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Jordan, and the island of Cyprus . Some scholars mistakenly believed that it derives from the name of Lebanon. Today the term is often used in conjunction with prehistoric or ancient historical references. Another term for "Syria-Palestine" is Ash- Shaam ( Arabic : ٱلشَّام , /ʔaʃ.ʃaːm/ ),

20538-594: The region had come under Babylonian hegemony. From Judah , King Jehoiakim was initially an ally of the Egyptians until the Babylonian triumph of 605 BC forced him to change his alignment and become a Babylonian vassal. After the attempt by Nabopolassar's son and successor, Nebuchadnezzar II, to invade Egypt itself failed in 601 BC, the Babylonian control over Syria became weaker, and Nebuchadnezzar II had to reorganise his army in Babylon and could not carry out military activities, allowing Jehoiakim to rebel against Babylonian rule and to realign himself with Egypt, thus allowing

20701-466: The region of the Syrian Desert, and, beginning in the 8th and lasting until the 5th or 4th centuries BCE, the Qedarites were the hegemons among the Syrian Desert nomads, dominating the northwestern section of the Arabian peninsula in alliance with the local rulers of the kingdom of Dadān . The alliance of Qarqar soon fell apart after Hadadezer of Damascus died and was succeeded by his son Hazael , who declared war on Israel and killed its king Jehoram and

20864-416: The region stability after turbulent times, and coalesced the patchwork of small states into a single nation; it is only from the time of Hammurabi that southern Mesopotamia acquired the name Babylonia . Hammurabi turned his disciplined armies eastwards and invaded the region which a thousand years later became Iran , conquering Elam , Gutium , Lullubi , Turukku and Kassites . To the west, he conquered

21027-477: The region would remain an important cultural center, even under its protracted periods of outside rule. Mesopotamia had already enjoyed a long history before the emergence of Babylon, with Sumerian civilization emerging in the region c.  5400 BC , and the Akkadian-speakers who would go on to form Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia appearing somewhere between the 35th and 30th century BC. During

21190-648: The region, preferring to concentrate on continuing the vigorous expansion of Assyrian colonies in Anatolia at the expense of the Hurrians and Hattians and the Amorite inhabited Levant , and eventually southern Mesopotamia fell to the Amorites. During the first centuries of what is called the "Amorite period", the most powerful city-states in the south were Isin , Eshnunna and Larsa , together with Assyria in

21353-410: The region. However, Sumu-abum appears never to have bothered to give himself the title of King of Babylon , suggesting that Babylon itself was still only a minor town or city, and not worthy of kingship. He was followed by Sumu-la-El , Sabium , and Apil-Sin , each of whom ruled in the same vague manner as Sumu-abum, with no reference to kingship of Babylon itself being made in any written records of

21516-408: The resurgent Middle Assyrian Empire (1365–1050 BC) to the north was now encroaching into northern Babylonia, and as a symbol of peace, the Babylonian king took the daughter of the powerful Assyrian king Ashur-uballit I in marriage. He also maintained friendly relations with Suppiluliuma I , ruler of the Hittite Empire . He was succeeded by Kara-ḫardaš (who was half Assyrian, and the grandson of

21679-422: The revenues that they acquired from these, and consequently the Qedarite queen Zabibe joined the kings Rezin of Damascus, Menahem of Israel, Hiram II of Tyre, as well as other various rulers from southern Anatolia, Syria and Phoenicia in acknowledging Assyrian hegemony and paying tribute to Tiglath-Pileser III in 738 BC. The tribute of Zabibe consisted of camels, but did not include frankincense or perfumes as

21842-566: The rising of the Sun in the east, and is broadly equivalent to the term al-Mashriq ( Arabic : ٱلْمَشْرِق , [ʔal.maʃ.riq] ), meaning "the eastern place, where the Sun rises". In 1581, England set up the Levant Company to trade with the Ottoman Empire . The name Levant States was used to refer to the French mandate over Syria and Lebanon after World War I . This is probably

22005-399: The settled areas and integrate them into their control structure of the border regions of Palestine and Syria, which consisted of a network of sentry stations, check posts and fortresses at key positions, and administrative and governmental centres in the cities, and which would ensure that these Arabs would remain loyal to the Assyrians and would prevent the encroachment of other Arab nomads on

22168-408: The settled areas; thus, several letters to Tiglath-Pileser III by two Assyrian officials stationed in the Levant, respectively named Addu-ḫati and Bēl-liqbi, mention the participation of Arabs in several caravanserais in the region, including the one located at Hisyah ; moreover, one Arabian chief from Tiglath-Pileser III's time, named Badiʾilu, was given a grazing permit and appointed as an official of

22331-473: The son and successor of Jehoiakim, Jeconiah , and turned it into a Babylonian vassal. Levant The Levant ( / l ə ˈ v æ n t / lə- VANT ) is a term used to define the historical and geographical subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west and core West Asia , or by the political term, Middle East to the east . In its narrowest sense, which

22494-506: The summer pastures of the lower Orontes or the Anti-Lebanon mountains in Ṣoba while spending the winter in the regions to the east and south-east of these mountains. The earliest known activities of the Qedarites date from between 850 and 800 BC, when their king Gindibuʾ allied with his powerful neighbours, the kings Hadadezer of Aram-Damascus and Ahab of Israel, against the rising Neo-Assyrian Empire . Although Gindibuʾ's kingdom

22657-400: The support of Assyrian officials. The increased importance of Babylonia during this period was reflected by several anti-Assyrian revolts in Babylonia led by Marduk-apla-iddina II and supported by Elam , and when he recaptured Babylon and revolted against the Assyrians again in 703 BC with the support of the Elamites, the Qedarites supported him, with this policy of theirs being motivated by

22820-636: The term ash-Shām as used by the organization known as ISIL, ISIS, and other names , though there is disagreement as to whether this translation is accurate. In The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Levant: c. 8000–332 BCE (OHAL; 2013), the definition of the Levant for the specific purposes of the book is synonymous to that of the Arabic " bilad al-sham , 'the land of sham [Syria]'", translating in Western parlance to greater Syria . OHAL defines

22983-465: The term levante was used for Italian maritime commerce in the Eastern Mediterranean, including Greece, Anatolia , Syria-Palestine , and Egypt , that is, the lands east of Venice . Eventually the term was restricted to the Muslim countries of Syria-Palestine and Egypt. The term entered English in the late 15th century from French. It derives from the Italian levante , meaning "rising", implying

23146-543: The term "Levantine" originally referred to the European residents of the eastern Mediterranean region, it later came to refer to regional "native" and "minority" groups. The term became current in English in the 16th century, along with the first English merchant adventurers in the region; English ships appeared in the Mediterranean in the 1570s, and the English merchant company signed its agreement (" capitulations ") with

23309-514: The term Levant to identify the region due to its being a "wider, yet relevant, cultural corpus" that does not have the "political overtones" of Syria-Palestine. The term is also used for modern events, peoples, states or parts of states in the same region, namely Cyprus , Egypt , Iraq , Israel , Jordan , Lebanon , Palestine , Syria , and Turkey are sometimes considered Levant countries (compare with Near East , Middle East , Eastern Mediterranean and West Asia ). Several researchers include

23472-505: The territory of the Nabataeans , whose king Nadnu refused to grant him asylum and instead swore allegiance to the Assyrians and handed over Yauṯaʿ to Ashurbanipal, who punished Yauṯaʿ by imprisoning him in a cage. One Abyaṯiʿ ben Teʾri, who appears to have been unrelated to Yauṯaʿ, became king of the Qedarites with Assyrian approval after going to Nineveh to swear his allegiance to Ashurbanipal and pledge to pay him tribute. When Esarhaddon's elder son, Šamaš-šuma-ukin, who had succeeded him as

23635-428: The throne, and soon came into conflict with Elam, to the east. When Ḫur-batila , the successor of Tepti Ahar took the throne of Elam, he began raiding the Babylonia, taunting Kurigalzu to do battle with him at Dūr-Šulgi . Kurigalzu launched a campaign which resulted in the abject defeat and capture of Ḫur-batila, who appears in no other inscriptions. He went on to conquer the eastern lands of Elam. This took his army to

23798-489: The time. Sin-Muballit was the first of these Amorite rulers to be regarded officially as a king of Babylon , and then on only one single clay tablet. Under these kings, Babylonia remained a small nation which controlled very little territory, and was overshadowed by neighbouring kingdoms that were both older, larger, and more powerful, such as; Isin, Larsa, Assyria to the north and Elam to the east in ancient Iran. The Elamites occupied huge swathes of southern Mesopotamia, and

23961-549: The trade and border routes of the Syrian Desert . To the west, the borderlands of the Qedarites bordered on the powerful kingdoms of Damascus and Israel in the west, although the Qedarites themselves were independent of Damascene hegemony. The Qedarite king Gindibuʾ during this period enjoyed good relations with the Aramaean kingdom of Ṣoba , and, the Qedarites being transhumant nomads, they would bring their flocks to

24124-415: The trade relations which existed between Qedar and Babylon. One of the Arab supporters of Marduk-apla-iddina II, a chieftain by the name of Bašqanu, was captured by the Assyrian king Sennacherib when he suppressed the Babylonian revolt that same year. This Bašqanu was the brother of an Arab queen named Yaṯiʿe , who appears to have been a Qedarite queen and a successor of Šamši; the Qedarites had thus adopted

24287-400: The varieties normally grouped together as "Levantine", a number of other varieties and dialects of Arabic are spoken in the Levant area, such as Levantine Bedawi Arabic (by Bedouins ) and Mesopotamian Arabic (in eastern Syria). Of the languages of Cyprus , the two official languages are Turkish and Greek. The most used languages by population are Greek in the south followed by Turkish in

24450-718: The western Syrian Desert, the Qedarites adjoined the western section of the Fertile Crescent on the eastern border of the Levant, and before the conquest of Syria by the Neo-Assyrian Empire , the neighbours of the Qedarite Arabs to the west were the Aramaean kingdom of Damascus and the Canaanite kingdoms of Ammon , Edom , Israel , and Moab . After the Neo-Babylonian Empire destroyed

24613-462: Was an ancient Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Syria and Iran ). It emerged as an Akkadian populated but Amorite -ruled state c.  1894 BC . During the reign of Hammurabi and afterwards, Babylonia was retrospectively called "the country of Akkad" ( māt Akkadī in Akkadian),

24776-529: Was around 800 km from the conquered Aleppo to reach the Euphrates, located to the east, skirting around Assyria, and then to the south along the course of the river to reach finally Babylon. His conquest of Babylon brought to an end the dynasty of Hammurabi, and although the Hittite text, Telipinu Proclamation, does not mention Samsu-ditana, and the Babylonian Chronicle 20 does not mention

24939-412: Was due to the fact that the Qedarites by then had become wealthier and more powerful, and the Assyrians were interested in products, such as camels, cattle and spices which they could obtain from the Qedarites, as well as in preserving the administrative and social structures of the peoples of the Assyrian border regions who played an important role in international commerce and thus ensured the stability of

25102-442: Was followed by Ammi-Ditana and then Ammi-Saduqa , both of whom were in too weak a position to make any attempt to regain the many territories lost after the death of Hammurabi, contenting themselves with peaceful building projects in Babylon itself. Samsu-Ditana was to be the last Amorite ruler of Babylon. Early in his reign he came under pressure from the Kassites , a people speaking an apparent language isolate originating in

25265-419: Was in native Akkadian-speaking hands. Ulamburiash managed to attack it and conquered parts of the land from Ea-gamil , a king with a distinctly Sumerian name, around 1450 BC, whereupon Ea-Gamil fled to his allies in Elam. The Sealand Dynasty region still remained independent, and the Kassite king seems to have been unable to finally conquer it. Ulamburiash began making treaties with ancient Egypt , which then

25428-401: Was itself related to the formation of new commercial links between Babylonia and the Persian Gulf and its surrounding regions, which would eventually lead to Aramaeans as well as Arabs moving into the region. After the annexation of the kingdom of Israel to the Neo-Assyrian Empire by the Assyrian king Sargon II in c.  720 BC , the Assyrians transferred some Arabs to the territory of

25591-410: Was not in danger of being attacked by the Assyrians, the Qedarite rulers participated in the trade which passed through Damascus and Tyre , and Damascus and Israel controlled crucial parts of the trade routes as well as the pastures and water sources which were of vital importance to the nomadic Qedarites, especially in drought periods. This meant that the rise of Assyrian power in the 9th century BCE put

25754-538: Was placed on the throne to rule as viceroy to Tukulti-Ninurta I, and Kadashman-Harbe II and Adad-shuma-iddina succeeded as Assyrian governor/kings,also subject to Tukulti-Ninurta I until 1216 BC. Babylon did not begin to recover until late in the reign of Adad-shuma-usur (1216–1189 BC), as he too remained a vassal of Assyria until 1193 BC. However, he was able to prevent the Assyrian king Enlil-kudurri-usur from retaking Babylonia, which, apart from its northern reaches, had mostly shrugged off Assyrian domination during

25917-459: Was ruling southern Canaan , and Assyria to the north. Agum III also campaigned against the Sealand Dynasty, finally wholly conquering the far south of Mesopotamia for Babylon, destroying its capital Dur-Enlil in the process. From there Agum III extended farther south still, invading what was many centuries later to be called the Arabian Peninsula or Arabia , and conquering the pre-Arab state of Dilmun (in modern Bahrain ). Karaindash built

26080-416: Was still a prisoner in Assyria, went to Nineveh to attempt to request Ashurbanipal to restore him as king of the Qedarites. Ashurbanipal however saw Yauṯaʿ as incapable of regaining his leadership over the Qedarites and instead punished him for his previous disloyalty. Following the complete suppression of the Babylonian revolt in 648 BC, while the Assyrians were busy until 646 BC conducting operations against

26243-447: Was the Qedarite queen Šamši . Tiglath-Pileser III's campaign had not only disrupted the interests of Tyre, Damascus, Israel and the Qedarites but also resulted in the formation of a pro-Assyrian alliance consisting of Arwad , Ashkelon and Gaza , soon joined by Judah , Ammon , Moab , and Edom, who became players in Syrian politics with the goal of countering the anti-Assyrian alliance led by Damascus, Israel, Qedar and Tyre. However,

26406-419: Was the compilation of the Babylonian law code , which improved the much earlier codes of Sumer , Akkad and Assyria. This was made by order of Hammurabi after the expulsion of the Elamites and the settlement of his kingdom. In 1901, a copy of the Code of Hammurabi was discovered on a stele by Jacques de Morgan and Jean-Vincent Scheil at Susa in Elam, where it had later been taken as plunder. That copy

26569-518: Was ultimately defeated, and lost yet more territory to Assyria. Between 1307 BC and 1232 BC his successors, such as Nazi-Maruttash , Kadashman-Turgu , Kadashman-Enlil II , Kudur-Enlil and Shagarakti-Shuriash , allied with the empires of the Hittites and the Mitanni (who were both also losing swathes of territory to the resurgent Assyrians), in a failed attempt to stop Assyrian expansion. This expansion, nevertheless, continued unchecked. Kashtiliash IV 's (1242–1235 BC) reign ended catastrophically as

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