Near East Kingdoms

Bit-Bahiani (Aramaean State) (Northern Mesopotamia)

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In southern Mesopotamia the city states of Sumer formed one of the first great civilisations in human history (see feature link). This Near Eastern civilisation developed out of the end of the Pottery Neolithic across the Fertile Crescent, a period which had seen Neolithic Farmer practices spread far and wide across the Near East and beyond.

As irrigation improved so the more southerly reaches of the Euphrates could at last be occupied by humans and their animals, with permanent settlements arising from the sixth millennium BC. Initially these were pastoralist settlements, but soon farming villages appeared and they gradually grew and improved. At the same time, northern Mesopotamia experienced its own burgeoning development processes, largely starting under the Hassuna culture.

These processes took longer here than they did in the south, in what is now northern Iraq, the western edge of Iran, the south-eastern corner of Turkey, and the eastern wedge of Syria. An urban lifestyle only really appeared in the third millennium BC, thanks in part to such influences being imposed during Sumerian empire-building periods.

The region thrived in the second millennium BC, but not without problems, or sites being abandoned. A mid-millennium social collapse may have been aided by climatic changes (a frequent influencer on ancient Near East social collapse). Cities re-emerged in the next half a century, often under different rulers and sometimes with a fresh population influx already having taken place, quite often involving Aramaeans.

In the tenth century BC, one of the earliest known states to be set up by encroaching Aramaeans was that of Bit-Bahiani. It was centred on the ancient settlement of Tell Halaf, one of the main sites of the Neolithic Halaf culture of around 5500-4500 BC in northern Mesopotamia (now in the Khabur Valley in modern Syria). The Aramaeans named the site and their new town Guzana.

Although the area was one of northern Mesopotamia's earliest centres of habitation, when the Halaf was replaced by the Ubaid culture the site of Tell Halaf itself was abandoned for a large span of time. It took until about the eleventh century BC for it to be reoccupied by Aramaeans.

As a large town and the capital of a small state it flourished for a time under their administration as it controlled important trade routes through the region. Details about the kingdom are limited mostly to references from the Old Testament and Assyrian records, as local inscriptions are very limited in number.

(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information from Mesopotamia: The Invention of the City, Gwendolyn Leick (Penguin Books, 2001), from History of the Ancient Near East c.3000-323 BC, Marc van der Mieroop (Blackwell Publishing, 2004, 2007), from Historical Atlas of the Ancient World, 4,000,000 to 500 BC, John Heywood (Barnes & Noble, 2000), from Mesopotamia: Assyrians, Sumerians, Babylonians, Enrico Ascalone (Dictionaries of Civilizations 1, University of California Press, 2007), from Early Mesopotamia: Society and Economy at the Dawn of History, J N Postgate (Routledge, 1994), from The First Empires, J N Postgate (Oxford 1977), from Mesopotamia, Chris Scarre (Ed, Past Worlds - The Times Atlas of Archaeology, Guild Publishing, London 1989), and from External Links: Tell Halaf (Hittite Monuments).)

c.1000 BC

The small state of Bit-Bahiani emerges as an Aramaean territory which is centred on the town of Guzana (the archaeological site of Tell Halaf, centre of the Halaf culture, and the Old Testament's Gozana).

The modern site of Tell Halaf was, during its existence, later known as Guzana and it also became the capital of the Aramaean kingdom of Bit-Bahiani, despite Assyrian attempts to prevent Aramaeans from settling in Mesopotamia and southern Syria

fl c.950 - 875 BC

Son of Hadianu.

late 900s BC

With the state of Bit-Bahiani reaching its peak under Kapara, the king builds a palace at Guzana in the neo-Hittite style from which one hundred and eighty-seven reliefs will later be discovered by archaeologists.

At this time those reliefs decorate the base of the palace's south wall. The reliefs alternate between red ochre-tinted limestone and black basalt slabs.

894 BC

Adad-Nirari II of Assyria makes Bit-Bahiani tributary to the empire. The ruling house remains on the throne but, as far as the Assyrians are concerned, they are nothing more than governors. The city of Sikani seems to be their religious centre, housing the god Adad.

King of Guzana and Assyrian governor.

fl c.850 BC

King of Guzana, Sikani, & Zarani, and Assyrian governor.

808 BC

Now an island territory which is surrounded by Assyrian conquests, Bit-Bahiani is reduced to a province of the empire. Assyria is comparatively weak at this time, so Bit-Bahiani may even be a western outpost for a time, prior to Assyrian resurgence at the end of the century.

612 - 609 BC

The Assyrian empire collapses with the fall of Kalakh and Nineveh to Media and Babylonia, supported by Egypt and groups such as the Scythians, who divide the spoils between them.

The remaining Assyrians surrender by 609 BC. The former empire's heartland loses its urban characteristics and the population resides in small settlements on top of massive mounds. The king of Babylonia is acknowledged as the new master, while the city of Guzana remains inhabited into the Roman period.