The Rise and Fall of the Aramaeans in the Ancient Near East, from Their First Appearance until 732 BCE

The author offers a new overview to the Aramean history on the foundation of the researches in the last 50 years. Incorporated are two excurses about the newest palaeographic results to the second line of the Melqart or Bar-Hadad-Stela and a new transcription and translation of the Têl Dan-Stela fragments.

In the early nineties, after Reinholds first publication »Die Beziehungen Altisraels zu den aramäischen Staaten in der israelitisch-judäischen Königszeit« an archaeological find came to light with the broken pieces of the early Aramaic written Têl Dan Stela, which has greatly illuminated the portrait of Aram and ancient history of Israel. The author offers a renewed overview to the Aramaean history on the foundation of the forced researches in the last 50 years. This begins with the early testifying of Aram in cuneiform sources of the 3rd/2nd Mill. B.C. from the Mesopotamian and Syrian area and ends with the decline of Aram-Damascus. The Volume incorporates a revised edition of the researches history and two excurses about the newest palaeographic results to the second line of the Bar-Hadad Stela of Aleppo in Syria on the base of precision photographs and computer-enhancements and presents a new transcription and translation of the Têl Dan Stela fragments. These are a certain basis to build on the royal line of sucession in Aram-Damascus and to illuminate their historical background in the Ancient Near East. Reinhold emphasizes, that the results of archaeology could always be adapted or replaced by recent discoveries; but he hopes that the «New Studies on Aram and Israel» will be served as a base for the future research of the Near Eastern Archaeology and History.

Inhalt

The Attestation of Aram in the Oldest Written Materials from Syria and Mesopotamia during the 3rd and 2nd Millennia BCE The Developement of Aramean Tribes during the Second Half of the Second until the Beginning of the First Millennium BCE Toward the Origin of the Arameans in the Hebrew Bible Aram's Ascent to Power at the End of the 2nd and Beginning of the 1st Millennium BCE until the End of its Rule Excursus III: The Melqart or Bir/Bar-Hadad Stela The fragments of the Têl Dan Stela.