Aram-Damascus
Aram-Damascus | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| c. 12th century BCE–732 BCE | |||||||||
| Capital | Damascus | ||||||||
| Common languages | Old Aramaic | ||||||||
| Religion | Ancient Semitic religion | ||||||||
| King | |||||||||
• 885–865 BCE | Ben-Hadad I | ||||||||
• 865–842 BCE | Ben-Hadad II | ||||||||
• 842–796 BCE | Hazael | ||||||||
• 796–792 BCE | Ben-Hadad III | ||||||||
• 754–732 BCE | Rezin (last) | ||||||||
| History | |||||||||
• Established | c. 12th century BCE | ||||||||
| 732 BCE | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Today part of | Syria Jordan Israel Lebanon | ||||||||
Aram-Damascus (/ˈærəm ... / ARR-əm ...) was an Aramean polity that existed from the late-12th century BCE until 732 BCE, and was centred around the city of Damascus in the Southern Levant. Alongside various tribal lands, it was bounded in its later years by the polities of Assyria to the north, Ammon to the south, and Israel to the west.
The compound name "Aram-Damascus" is only found in the Hebrew Bible, where it sometimes also is referred to as simply "Aram" or "Damascus". It is also referred to as "Aram" in some Aramaic inscriptions. In Assyrian sources, "Aram" was never used to designate it. It was often referred to as "Damascus" or "imērīšu" (meaning "his donkey"), and sometimes "Bīt-Ḫaza’ili" (meaning "house of Hazael"), in Assyrian sources.