Armanum, was a
city-state
A city-state is an independent sovereign city which serves as the center of political, economic, and cultural life over its contiguous territory. They have existed in many parts of the world since the dawn of history, including cities such as ...
in the ancient Near East whose location is still unknown. It lies in the same general area as
Mari and
Ebla
Ebla ( Sumerian: ''eb₂-la'', ar, إبلا, modern: , Tell Mardikh) was one of the earliest kingdoms in Syria. Its remains constitute a tell located about southwest of Aleppo near the village of Mardikh. Ebla was an important center t ...
. It is known from texts of the
Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to:
* Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire
* Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language
* Akkadian literature, literature in this language
* Akkadian cuneiform
Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic ...
period, during the reign of
Naram-Sin of Akkad
Naram-Sin, also transcribed Narām-Sîn or Naram-Suen ( akk, : '' DNa-ra-am D Sîn'', meaning "Beloved of the Moon God Sîn", the "𒀭" being a silent honorific for "Divine"), was a ruler of the Akkadian Empire, who reigned c. 2254–2218 BC ...
. The proposed site of Armanum is
Tall Bazi
Tall Bazi, is an ancient Near East archaeological site in Raqqa Governorate of Syria in the same general area as Mari and Ebla. It is located on the Euphrates river in upper Syria, about 60 kilometers south of Turkey near the abandoned town of Ta ...
.
Armanum is mentioned in three sources:
*Year Name of Naram-Sin - Rulers of that period named the years of their reign after major events that occurred in them, in this case "The year in which Naram-Sin conquered Armanum and tore d
wn itswalls".
*Royal Tutelary - Afterwards, Naram-Sin added "conqueror of Armanum and Ebla" to his tutelary.
*Statue Inscription - A Old Babylonian table fragment (UET 1 275) was found in
Ur which was a copy of an inscription on a statue of Naram-Sin which at that time stood in the Temple of Sin next to a statue of
Sin-Eribam, a ruler of Larsa. It described the military campaign during which Armanum was defeated. The text begins "As to the fact that from immemorial time, since the creation of mankind, no king among kings had plundered Armanum and Ebla with the axes of Nergal, he (= Dagan) opened the path of Naram-Sin the mighty and gave him Armanum and Ebla." It includes a detailed description of Armanum as being ona high hill with three concentric city walls. In 2009, a Akkadian Period inscription fragment (IM 221139) was found during excavations by Iraqi archaeologists at
Tulul al-Baqarat which also carried part of the Naram-Sin Syrian military campaign and permitted a more complete reconstruction including the capture of 80,508 prisoners. One passage reads "
ndeed,with the weapon of Dagan, the one who magnifies his kingship, Naram-Sin the mighty conquered Armanum and Ebla. (120–230) Moreover, from the edge of the Euphrates as far as Ulisum, he smote the peoples whom Dagan had newly bestowed upon him so that they (now) carry the (work) basket of
Ilʾaba, his god and took full control of the Amanus, the cedar mountain.".
[Nashat Alkhafaji and Gianni Marchesi, "Naram-Sin's War against Armanum and Ebla in a Newly-Discovered Inscription from Tulul al-Baqarat", Journal of Near Eastern Studies, vol. 79, no. 1, pp. 1-20, 2020]
See also
*
Cities of the ancient Near East
The earliest cities in history were in the ancient Near East, an area covering roughly that of the modern Middle East: its history began in the 4th millennium BC and ended, depending on the interpretation of the term, either with the conquest by ...
References
{{Reflist
Ancient cities of the Middle East
Akkadian cities