- published: 30 Dec 2015
- views: 6
Amorite is an early Northwest Semitic language, spoken by the Amorite tribes prominent in ancient Near Eastern history. It is known exclusively from non-Akkadian proper names recorded by Akkadian scribes during periods of Amorite rule in Babylonia (end of the 3rd and beginning of the 2nd millennium), notably from Mari, and to a lesser extent Alalakh, Tell Harmal, and Khafajah. Occasionally such names are also found in early Egyptian texts; and one place-name — "Sənīr" (שְׂנִיר) for Mount Hermon — is known from the Bible (Deut. 3:9), and oddly enough may be Indo-European in origin (possibly due to Hittite influence). Notable characteristics include:
Amorite (Sumerian 𒈥𒌅 MAR.TU, Akkadian Tidnum or Amurrūm, Egyptian Amar, Hebrew אמורי ʼĔmōrī) refers to an ancient Semitic people from ancient Syria who also occupied large parts of Mesopotamia from the 21st Century BC. The term Amurru in Akkadian and Sumerian texts refers to them, as well as to their principal deity.
In the earliest Sumerian sources, beginning about 2400 BC, the land of the Amorites ("the Mar.tu land") is associated not with Mesopotamia but with lands immediately to the West, including what is now modern Syria and Canaan. They appear as nomadic people in the Mesopotamian sources, and they are especially connected with the mountainous region of Jebel Bishri in Syria called the "mountain of the Amorites". The ethnic terms Amurru and Amar were used for them in the Akkadian Empire, Assyria and Egypt respectively. From the 21st century BC and likely triggered by the 22nd century BC drought, a large-scale migration of Amorite tribes infiltrated Mesopotamia. They were one of the instruments of the downfall of the Sumerian Third Dynasty of Ur, and acquiring a series of powerful kingdoms,including the founding of Babylon as a state, culminating in the triumph under Hammurabi of one of them, that of Babylon.