Aram

The first genuine reference to Aram is in a 14th-century bce text of Amenhotep III and attests to a region located in north-central Syria. In the 11th-century bce Middle Assyrian texts, Aram appears in connection with Ahlamû (i.e., nomadic) groups and refers to the area between the Khabur and the Euphrates and even beyond, since these Ahlamû of the Land Aram or “Aramaeans” seem to move freely also west of the Euphrates as far as Jebel Bishri, Palmyra, and Mount Lebanon. In the 8th-century bce Aramaic inscription of Sfire there is mention of “All” and “Upper and Lower Aram.” These terms refer most probably to a geographical area that seems to cover roughly the boundaries of modern Syria. In the 8th-century bce Aramaic inscriptions of Breij and Afis, Aram is the name of a south Syrian kingdom the capital of which was Damascus. This latter use of Aram is attested to in the Old Testament, where the term appears associated also with specific geopolitical entities such as the chiefdoms of Aram-Ṣobah and Aram Beth–Rehob. In short, the available written sources indicate that Aram is a geographical term that refers at times to a specific polity, and, at others, to a wider geographical area located within the territory of present-day Syria. Modern scholarship designates as “Aramaean” any of the Iron Age polities of Syria that bore the characteristic appellation Bīt-PN, and/or whose rulers bore Aramaic names and left inscriptions in the West Semitic dialect known as Aramaic. The inhabitants of these states are referred to as Aramaeans. Regarding the etymology of the name “Aram,” there is no scholarly consensus on the origin and meaning of the word. Among the most commonly accepted suggestions is an etymology derived from a Semitic root rwm (“to be high”). Another suggestion interprets the name as a broken plural meaning “white antelopes” or “wild bulls.”