The Amorites: From Arabia to the Levant 2500BC-1200BC

• published: 11 Dec 2007
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Tracing the Amorites migration from Arabia to the Levant. The western Semitic speaking Amorites sprung out Arabia in waves of tribal federations roaming the desert/semidesert region between the Euphrates in the west and the Mediterrianean sea in the East. They were restricted from Mesopotamia by their Eastern Semitic kinsmen, the Akkadians. The Amorites of the North will settle the highlands and later fall under Hittie influence, after the fall of the Hittites they will emerge as the highlanders (Arameans). The Amorites of Western Canaan will establish the coastal Canaanite towns that will later evolve into Phoenicia and Philistia. The third group of the Amorites were the East Cannanites (lowlanders) concentrated along the Euphrates, mainly following the water and pasture in the midwest Euphrates region. The Meso-Akkadians regarded the Amorites as an uncivilized unproductive group because they didn't have a harvest they can loot or a town to sack to supply their growing empire. To them the Amorites were troublesome Nomadic shepherds a people with no submission and no house in a lifetime! The Amorites viewed the Akkadians as the oppressive imperial power that controlled their only source for survival; the Euphrates water and the needed pasture for their livestock. This Mesopotamian animosity between the Akkadians and Amorites will give birth to the Zodiac as we know it. THe Amorites marked their age with the fall of the Akkadian empire 2160BC (the Akkadian Bull) and the start of the Shepherds age (The Ram). At this point The Zodiac was still two ages and will later become divided into 12 astrological ages once the Amorites enter Babylon. By the 20th Century BC the Amoires were already established in mid-Mesopotamia and started sacking the Neo-Sumerian towns; eventually conquering Babylon, making it their capital in 1959BC. UR survived another 9 years, until it was taken by the Elamites. The Amorites established their authority as he absolute Arabian/Semitic dynasty by crushing the Elamites, starting the Old Babylonian Kingdom. Hammurabi receiving he laws from the sun god. With the death of Hammurabi The Kingdom disintegrated into smaller city states ruled by weak kings. Babylon proper survived for another 100 years. In 1659BC the technologically advanced Hitties conquered Babylon. 1659BC - 1648BC: After the fall of Babylon, the Amorite dialect disappeared from Babylon and was replaced by an Assyro-Akkadian dialect interrupting the gap between Old and Neo-Babylonian and clearly shows that the East-Canaanites disappeared from Mesopotamia. 1649BC: The Amorites conquered Egypt, starting the 15th dynasty. The Amorites will control Egypt for 108 years as the elite class in Egypt. The Amorite Hyksos ruled Egypt for 108 years. However, the Egyptian-born Amorites lacked what their Nomadic ancestors had three generations earlier. By the 1540s BC the East Canaanite Amorites (Hyksos) lost control of Egypt and sensed the danger of remaining in Egypt after the atrocities the first generation commited in Egypt, so they escaped to Sinai fleeing the angry Egyptians. The Hykso escape from Egypt is very similar to the later Judean biblical folkore (the Exodus). In Against Apion, the 1st century historian Josephus simply equates the ProtoHebrews with the Hyksos. In the three centuries between the Exodus and the appearance of the Hebrews. The Egyptians documented raids by Semitic tribes into Canaan. The Egyptians knew them as the HABIRU this group included the remains of the Hyksos and the Pre-Hyksos East Canaanites who remained in Souther Canaan. The Egyptian and Hittite Imperial powers will clash in Kadesh 1274BC The treaty of Kadesh was the beginning of the end of the Imperial influence in Canaan. The power vacuum of the 1200s in Canaan allowed the Phoenician and Philistinian Semitic cultures to flourish on their own. Taking advantage of the Egyptian absence, the Hebrews moved into Central Canaan pushing into the Egyptian protected Philistia. هجرة العمور من الحجاز الى الشام خرج العمور من شبه الجزيرة العربية في موجات من القبائل التي جابت المنطقة الصحراويه/الشبه الصحراويه بين الفرات و البحر المتوسط