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Aram Damascus was an Aramaean state around Damascus
Damascus

Damascus is the capital and largest city of Syria. It is List of oldest continuously inhabited cities and its current population is estimated at about 4,000,000....
 in Syria
Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is an Arab-majority country in Southwest Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Israel to the southwest, Jordan to the south, Iraq to the east, and Turkey to the north....
, from the late 12th century BCE to 734 BCE.

Sources for this state come from texts that can be divided into three categories: Assyria
Assyria

Assyria was a political state centered on the Upper Tigris river, in Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times in history....
n annals, Aramaean texts, and the Hebrew Bible
Hebrew Bible

The term Hebrew Bible is a generic reference to those books of the Bible originally written mostly in Biblical Hebrew with some Biblical Aramaic....
.

The largest portion of the textual sources come from Assyria. There are, however, often several copies of the same texts. Most of the texts are annals
Annals

Annals are a concise form of history writing which record events chronologically, year by year....
 from the Assyrian kings Shalmaneser III
Shalmaneser III

Shalmaneser III was king of Assyria , and son of the previous ruler, Ashurnasirpal II.His long reign was a constant series of campaigns against the eastern tribes, the Babylonians, the nations of Mesopotamia and Syria, as well as Kizzuwadna and Urartu....
, Adad-Nirari III
Adad-nirari III

Adad-nirari III was King of Assyria from 811 to 783 BC. He was the son and successor of Shamshi-Adad V, and was apparently quite young at the time of his accession, because for the first five years of his reign his mother Shammuramat acted as regent, which may have given rise to the legend of Semiramis....
, and Tiglath-Pileser III.






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Aram Damascus was an Aramaean state around Damascus
Damascus

Damascus is the capital and largest city of Syria. It is List of oldest continuously inhabited cities and its current population is estimated at about 4,000,000....
 in Syria
Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is an Arab-majority country in Southwest Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Israel to the southwest, Jordan to the south, Iraq to the east, and Turkey to the north....
, from the late 12th century BCE to 734 BCE.

Sources for this state come from texts that can be divided into three categories: Assyria
Assyria

Assyria was a political state centered on the Upper Tigris river, in Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times in history....
n annals, Aramaean texts, and the Hebrew Bible
Hebrew Bible

The term Hebrew Bible is a generic reference to those books of the Bible originally written mostly in Biblical Hebrew with some Biblical Aramaic....
.

The largest portion of the textual sources come from Assyria. There are, however, often several copies of the same texts. Most of the texts are annals
Annals

Annals are a concise form of history writing which record events chronologically, year by year....
 from the Assyrian kings Shalmaneser III
Shalmaneser III

Shalmaneser III was king of Assyria , and son of the previous ruler, Ashurnasirpal II.His long reign was a constant series of campaigns against the eastern tribes, the Babylonians, the nations of Mesopotamia and Syria, as well as Kizzuwadna and Urartu....
, Adad-Nirari III
Adad-nirari III

Adad-nirari III was King of Assyria from 811 to 783 BC. He was the son and successor of Shamshi-Adad V, and was apparently quite young at the time of his accession, because for the first five years of his reign his mother Shammuramat acted as regent, which may have given rise to the legend of Semiramis....
, and Tiglath-Pileser III. The texts mention Aram-Damascus from an Assyrian perspective, but are in many ways informative of the strength of the state, and give us several names of its rulers.

Aramaean royal inscriptions are rare, and only one royal stele
Stele

A stele is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected for funerals or commemorative purposes, most usually decorated with the names and titles of the deceased or living ? inscribed, carved in relief , or painted onto the slab....
 from Aram-Damascus proper has been identified — the Tel Dan Stele
Tel Dan Stele

The Tel Dan Stele is a black basalt stele erected by an Aramaean king in northernmost Israel containing an Aramaic inscription to commemorate his victory over the ancient Hebrews....
. Other sources in Aramaic that shed light on the history of Aram-Damascus include two "booty inscriptions" from Eritrea
Eritrea

Eritrea , officially the Country of Eritrea, is a country in Northeast Africa. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast....
 and Samos
Samos Island

Samos is a Greece island in the North Aegean sea, south of Chios, north of Patmos and the Dodecanese, and off the Ionian coast of Turkey....
, and the Zakkur stele.

The Hebrew Bible gives more detailed accounts of Aram-Damascus' history, mainly in its interaction with Israel
Israel

Israel officially the State of Israel , is a country in the Middle East located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area....
, however, these accounts have been dated much later.

The sources for the early history of Aram-Damascus are almost nonexistent. In an annal dating to Tiglath-Pileser I
Tiglath-Pileser I

Tiglath-Pileser I was a Kings of Assyria of Assyria during the Middle Assyrian period . According to Georges Roux, Tiglath-Pileser was, "one of the two or three great Assyrian monarchs since the days of Shamshi-Adad I"....
 (1114-1076 BCE), we learn that Aramaean people have begun settling in the southern half of Syria. There are also texts of the Bible mentioning David
David

David , was the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel according to the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. He is depicted as a righteous king, although not without fault, as well as an acclaimed warrior, musician and poet ....
's battles against Aramaeans in southern Syria in the 10th century BCE.

The first reliable data can be found in the 9th century BCE when Aramaean, Assyrian, and Hebrew texts all mention a state with its capital in Damascus. The state seems to have reached its peak in the late 9th century BCE under Hazael
Hazael

Hazael was a court official and later an Aramean Monarch who appeared in the Bible. He was first referred to by name in Books of Kings 19 when God told the prophet Elijah to anoint him king over Aram....
, who, according to Assyrian texts, fought against the Assyrians, and according to Aramaean texts, had some influence over the north Syrian state Unqi, and according to Hebrew texts, conquered all of Israel
Israel

Israel officially the State of Israel , is a country in the Middle East located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area....
.

Archaeological evidence of Aram-Damascus is close to nothing. Excavations in Damascus are hard to perform, owing to the continuous settlement of the city. Other cities of Aram-Damascus have not been positively identified from textual sources, and excavations of Iron Age
Iron Age

In archaeology, the Iron Age was the stage in the development of any people in which tools and weapons whose main ingredient was iron were prominent....
 sites around Damascus are almost nonexistent. The material culture at sites farther south (e.g. Tell-Ashtara
Tell-Ashtara

Tell-Ashtara, or Tell-'Ashtara, also A?tartu, was a site south of Damascus mentioned in the Amarna letters Text corpus of 1350 BC. In the Amarna letters the city is named: A?tartu, and is the Bible 'Ashtarot'....
, Tell er-Rumeith, et-Tell
Et-Tell

Et-Tell is an archaeology site in the West Bank that is popularly thought to be the Bible city of Ai .Location and identification ...
, Tel-Dan, Tell el-Oreme, to name but a few) do not show many features distinguishing from the material culture of northern Israel.

Kings

  • Hadadezer
    Hadadezer

    Hadadezer ; also known as Adad-Idri and possibly the same as Bar-Hadad II ]]; Ben-Hadad II , was the king of Aram Damascus at the time of the battle of Qarqar against the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III in 853 BCE....
     880-842 BCE
  • Hazael
    Hazael

    Hazael was a court official and later an Aramean Monarch who appeared in the Bible. He was first referred to by name in Books of Kings 19 when God told the prophet Elijah to anoint him king over Aram....
     842-805 or 796 BCE
  • Ben-Hadad III
    Ben-Hadad III

    Bar-Hadad III or Ben-Hadad III was the son of Hazael, and succeeded him after his death as king of Aram Damascus. His succession is mentioned in Books of Kings 13:3, 24....
     796 to 792 BCE


See also

  • Aram (Biblical region)
    Aram (Biblical region)

    Aram is the name of a region mentioned in the Bible located in central Syria, including where the city of Aleppo now stands. Aram stretched from the Lebanon mountains eastward across the Euphrates, including the Habur valley in northwestern Mesopotamia....
  • Aram Naharaim
  • Aram Rehob
    Aram Rehob

    Aram Rehob was an early Aramaean kingdom, of which the chief city was Rehob or Beth-Rehob, associated with Aram-Zobah as hostile to King David. Book of Numbers xiii.21 and Book of Judges xviii.28 place a Beth-Rehob in the Lebanon region near Tel Dan....