Near East Kingdoms

Amorites / Amurru (Marti / Martu) (Syria & Mesopotamia)
Incorporating the Numha

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The fall of Sumerian civilisation in the form of the 'Ur III' dynasty of Ur circa 2004 BC left a vacuum which lasted for about a century. Conflict and chaos in Mesopotamia were eventually overcome as the Semitic-speaking Amorites began to rise in power and importance, having inherited much of their own civilisation and culture from Sumer.

Amorites began to arrive in the territory to the west of the Euphrates, modern Syria, from around 2500 BC. The Akkadians called them Amurru, Ur knew them as Marti or Martu, and like all other Semitic-speakers they probably originated in Arabia (while a less popular theory has them places in India).

Although there was no actual military invasion or even a popular folk invasion, for a period of about five hundred years they drifted down in smaller units into southern Mesopotamia, integrating into Sumerian civilisation where they lived in enclaves.

They were tribally organised, but not necessarily the wild and lawless nomads which Mesopotamian texts tend to portray. They served in the armies of 'Third Dynasty' Ur, and provided general labour both for Ur and for Akkad before that.

As Ur declined alongside the fading Sumerian civilisation, many Amorites rose to positions of power. When the final end of Ur came at the hands of the Simashki rulers of Elam, it was Amorites, virtually Sumerians themselves by now, who were in a strong position to pick up the pieces.

Rather than maintain the Sumerian system of city states in which farms, cattle, and people belonged to the gods or the temples (ie. the king), the Amorites founded kingdoms which had their capitals at many of the old cities, even if some of these new kingdoms were virtually the equivalent of a city state in their size and power.

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(Information by Peter Kessler and from the John De Cleene Archive, with additional information from Unger's Bible Dictionary, Merrill F Unger (1957), from Encyclopaedia Britannica (Eleventh Edition, Cambridge (England), 1910), from Mesopotamia: The Invention of the City, Gwendolyn Leick (Penguin Books, 2001), from The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character, Samuel Noah Kramer ('List 1' of Sumerian rulers, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1963), from Historical Atlas of the Ancient World, 4,000,000 to 500 BC, John Heywood (Barnes & Noble, 2000), from The Ancient Near East, c.3000-330 BC, Amélie Kuhrt (Routledge, 2000, Vol I & II), from Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East, Michael Road (Facts on File, 2000), from Mesopotamia: Assyrians, Sumerians, Babylonians, Enrico Ascalone (Dictionaries of Civilizations 1, University of California Press, 2007), from The Archaeology of Mesopotamia, S Lloyd (Revised Ed, London, 1984), from Early Mesopotamia: Society and Economy at the Dawn of History, J N Postgate (Routledge, 1994), from History of the Ancient Near East c.3000-323 BC, Marc van der Mieroop (Blackwell Publishing, 2004, 2007), from Mesopotamia, Chris Scarre (Ed, Past Worlds - The Times Atlas of Archaeology, Guild Publishing, London 1989), and from External Links: Ancient Worlds, and The Sumerian Kings List, J A Black, G Cunningham, E Fluckiger-Hawker, E Robson, & G Zólyomi ('List 2' of Sumerian rulers, available via the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, Oxford, 1998), and Evolution of Sumerian kingship (Ancient World Magazine).)

c.2500 BC

Sumerians continue to control southern Mesopotamia. By this time the scribes of Abu Salabikh bear Semitic names. Sumer is now a multi-lingual region, with at least two major languages being spoken in the form of Sumerian and Semitic (sometimes labelled proto-Akkadian, with that later being a dominant form of non-Sumerian).

Some of the earliest cities, such as Sippar, Borsippa, and Kish in the north, and Ur, Uruk, and Eridu in the south, formed the endpoints of what became the complex Sumerian network of cities and canals (click or tap on map to view full sized)

Semitic predominates in northern Sumer and in northern Mesopotamia beyond that - such as at Ashur and Nineveh - as this is the route of entry into Sumer itself for Semitic-speakers.

Its use is most notable in early Akkadians, while Sumerian still dominates in the south and Amorites (Martu) are already penetrating into north-western Mesopotamia to assume gradual control of small cities such as Terqa.

c.2334 - 2279 BC

It is Sargon I of Akkad who claims to be the first king to unite Mesopotamia (Sumer and Agade, plus a wide swathe of northern Mesopotamia), although Enshakushanna of Uruk has already achieved that in the mid-twenty-fifth century BC.

Sargon's exploits create a realm which stretches from Anatolia and the Mediterranean, covering Amorites on the western side of the Euphrates (who for now appear not to be pressing to enter Mesopotamia), up to Apum in northern Mesopotamia, over to Elam in the east, and down to Magan in the south.

Sargon 'the Great', the warrior king of apparently humble origins, unified Sumer for (perhaps) the first time in recorded history through a series of campaigns and the defeat of the current holder of Sumer's equivalent of a high kingship

c.2004 - 1900 BC

With the collapse of the Sumerian city states, Mesopotamia endures a century or so of chaos. The Amorites, who for several centuries had been living amongst the Sumerians, rise to power in southern and central Mesopotamia, as well as in northern Mesopotamia and Syria.

They found or expand cities and create kingdoms of their own, such as Amrit, Amurru, Andarig, Arvad, Dilbat, Ekallatum, Eshnunna, Hamath, Isin, Karana, Qattara, Razama, Sadduwatum, Terqa, and Tuttul (and probably Der as well, although records here are sketchy).

They also assume control of older city states throughout Mesopotamia, Syria, and Canaan, such as Alalakh, Alep (Aleppo), Borsippa, Carchemish, Ebla, Gebal, Jericho, Kazallu, Kish, Lagash, Larsa, Mari, Nippur, Qatna, Sippar, Tuba, Ur and Uruk.

What in the twentieth century was known as the 'Sea Gate' of the Amorites is dated to about 2000 BC and would appear to be the Canaanite city gate of Ashkelon, which enjoyed good access to the sea

c.1940 BC

The early Assyrians, under Ilushuma and from their base in Ashur, begin making raids into central and southern Mesopotamia, attacking Amorite city states which include Isin and Babylon. Illushuma takes the title 'governor of the god Ashur' who is named for the city and whose cult appears to take hold during this century.

c.1897 BC

Although records are sketchy and imprecise, the small Amorite kingdom of Babylon seems to emerge approximately a century after the collapse of Sumer.

By now, many cities in northern Mesopotamia and Syria are under Amorite control, with each local ruler being associated with a city, such as Tuttul, and a land or territory which bears a tribal (and state) name, such as Amnanum, and this evidently refers to the ruler's less sedentary Amorite subject peoples. This practice is prevalent down to the smallest tribal 'kingdoms' such as Yaminite Samanum and Abattum in the middle Euphrates, near Terqa.

Shown here are Amorites, Semitic-speaking farmers from the south who integrated over the course of centuries into Sumerian Mesopotamia, and then into Syria and Canaan

c.1750 BC

Terah leads his Israelite people to settle in Harran, a city far up and to the east of the Euphrates. When he does there, his son, Abraham, inherits leadership of his community.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica, eleventh edition of 1910, suggests that he and his people are Semitic-speaking Amorites rather than Semitic-speaking migrants from Ur. In fact the two options need not be opposing, as Amorites have had about three centuries to integrate into Mesopotamia before this point. Terah's migration probably even mirrors gradual Amorite infusion into Canaan.

c.1740 BC

According to the Old Testament, the Moabites first occupy the highlands close to the Dead Sea, from which they expel the native Emim. Moab son of Lot of the recently-arrived Israelites is the eponymous founder of the kingdom, while Ben Ammi, an illegitimate son of Lot, gains Ammon, east of the River Jordan and on Moab's northern border.

This slightly fanciful view of the migrating Israelites does show a surprisingly small number of participants (more are cropped off from the left, but even so their numbers are very finite)

Soon afterwards the Moabites themselves are driven further south by Amorite tribes, beyond the River Arnon which subsequently forms their new northern border. The move south does not save them, it seems, and they are conquered and dominated for an unknown period by Amorites.

c.1600 - 1100 BC

In the dark age of approximately a century and a half which is triggered by a general power vacuum in the region, and during which the Kassites take over Babylonia, the language of the Amorites disappears from southern and central Mesopotamia.

However, in Syria and Canaan it becomes dominant (in Bashan, for example), with perhaps Ammon being the southernmost state to have an Amorite influence (which excludes Moab from having been converted during its period of Amorite domination).

While southern Mesopotamia flourished during the third millennium BC, it took longer for the same effect to be felt in northern Mesopotamia, with the first larger cities and city states only really emerging towards the end of the millennium (click or tap on map to view full sized)

In Assyrian inscriptions from about 1100 BC, the term Amurru designates part of Syria and all of Phoenicia and Palestine but no longer refers to any specific kingdom, language, or population.