Armi (Syria)

Armi Arman
Unknown–c. 2290 BC
Capital	Halab
Common languages	Eblaite
Religion	Levantine religion (Hadad was the chief deity)
Government	Absolute monarchy
King
Historical era	Bronze Age
• Established	Unknown
• Disestablished	c. 2290 BC
Succeeded by Akkadian Empire
Today part of	Syria

Armi, was an important Bronze Age city-kingdom during the late third millennium BC located in northern Syria, or in southern Anatolia, Turkey, at the region of Cilicia.^[1]

There is a question of whether or not Armi should be identified with Armanum, that is also mentioned in many texts of this period. According to Adelheid Otto (2006), it is "... generally accepted that Armanum should be identified with Armi/Armium of the Ebla texts ...", as opposed to Aleppo.^[2] But other scholars may disagree. Three different identifications of "Armi (Armium)" are given by Edwards (2019).^[3] This includes Samsat, Turkey, and Tall Bazi.

History

Identification

Knowledge about Armi comes from the Ebla tablets. It has been identified with Aleppo,^[4] and with the Tall Bazi/Tall Banat archaeological complex^[5][6] on the bank of the Euphrates 60 km south of Jarabulus.^[7]

Piotr Steinkeller (2021) identifies Armi as a kingdom from Cilicia in southern Anatolia, Turkey, and considers that Ebla got timber from merchants of Armi who obtained it at Nur mountains, which were called "mountains of fir" by the Eblaites.^[8]

Relations with Ebla

Armi is the city most often referred to in the Ebla texts. Armi was a vassal kingdom for Ebla, it had its own kings and worked as a trade center and Trading intermediary for Ebla.^[9] Giovanni Pettinato describes Armi as Ebla's alter ego.^[10] However, the relations between the two cities is complicated, for it wasn't always peaceful: the texts of Ebla mention the exchange of gifts between the kings but also wars between the two kingdoms.^[11]

The relations between the two kingdoms are ambiguous, as ongoing work on the Ebla Tablets has revealed.^[11] Many Eblan merchants were active in Armi and vice versa, but despite intensive commercial exchange, it seems that relations deteriorated during the reign of the Eblan king Irkab-Damu's successor Isar-Damu, whose powerful vizier^[12] Ebrium^[13] waged war against Armi in his ninth year as vizier. The texts mention that the battle happened near a town called Batin (which might be located in northeastern Aleppo),^[14] and that a messenger arrived in Ebla with news of the defeat of Armi.^[14]

Ebrium's son and successor as vizier, Ibbi-Sipish, conducted a military campaign in his third year against the city of Bagara. The scribe who describes the campaign quotes a military expedition against Armi while speaking about the campaign against Bagara, which might mean that Bagara belonged to Armi.^[12]

Ibbi-Sipish conducted more military actions against Armi, and several other texts of his mention his campaigns against the kingdom. For example, he received linen textiles for one of these campaigns.^[15]

Relations between Ebla and Armi are no less complicated than the relations between Ebla and Mari. The Eblan texts mention two interdynastic marriages with the son of the king of Nagar and that of Kish, but despite very close relations between Ebla and Armi an interdynastic marriage is never attested.^[15]

During its final years, Ebla—in alliance with Nagar and Kish—conducted a great military expedition against Armi and occupied it. Ibbi-Sipish's son Enzi-Malik took up residence in Armi.^[15]

Fall

Armi wasn't mentioned after the destruction of Ebla. Many theories have been proposed for this destruction. Historian Michael C. Astour believes that the destruction of Ebla and Armi would have happened c. 2290 BC during the reign of Lugal-zage-si of Sumer, whose rule coincided with Sargon of Akkad's first years.^[16]

King Naram-Sin of Akkad mentions that he conquered Armanum and Ib-la and captured the king of Armanum,^[17] the similarities between the names led historian Wayne Horowitz to identify Armanum with Armi. If Armi was in fact Armanum mentioned by Naram-Sin, then the event can be dated to c. 2240 BC.^[18] In any case, it is clear that the whole of northern Syria including Ebla and Armi was under the domination of the Akkadian empire during the reign of Naram-Sin.^[19][20]

Naram-Sin gives a long description of his siege of Armanum, his destruction of its walls, and the capture of its king Rid-Adad.^[17] Astour believes that the Armanum mentioned in the inscriptions of Naram-Sin is not the same city as the Eblaite Armi, as Naram-Sin makes it clear that the Ebla he sacked (c. 2240 BC) was a border town of the land of Arman, while the Armi in the Eblaite tablets is a vassal to Ebla and (according to Astour), the Syrian Ebla would have been burned in 2290 BC (based on the political map given in the Eblaite tablets) long before the reign of Naram-Sin.^[16]

Language

The inscriptions of Armi, dated ca. 2500-2300 BC, are thought to contain the earliest attested Anatolian (and Indo-European) language — namely, a list of male personal names ending in -adu (such as La-wadu and Mu-lu-wa-du).^[21]

See also

• Ebla
• Hadad
• Cities of the ancient Near East

References

1. Steinkeller, Piotr, (2021). "International trade in Greater Mesopotamia during late Pre-Sargonic times: The case of Ebla as illustrated by her participation in the Euphratean timber trade", in Lorenz Rahmstorf, Gojko Barjamovic, Nicola Ialongo, (eds.), Merchants, Measures and Money: Understanding Technologies of Early Trade in a Comparative Perspective, Hamburg, p. 184.
2. Adelheid Otto 2006, Archeological Perspectives on the Localization of Naram-Sin's Armanum. Journal of Cuneiform Studies, 2006, Vol. 58 (2006), pp. 1-26
3. Steven Edwards 2019, Ebla’s Hegemony and Its Impact on the Archaeology of the Amuq Plain in the Third Millennium BCE. PhD Thesis. University of Toronto. p.65
4. Wayne Horowitz, Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography, Eisenbrauns 1998 ISBN 0-931464-99-4
5. Projekt Tall Bazi, http://www.vorderas-archaeologie.uni-muenchen.de/forschung/projekt_syrien/lage-und-beschreibung/index.html
6. Paolo Matthiae; Nicoló Marchetti (2013-05-31). Ebla and its Landscape: Early State Formation in the Ancient Near East. Left Coast Press. p. 501. ISBN 9781611322286.
7. Adelheid Otto (2006). "Archeological Perspectives on the Localization of Naram-Sin's Armanum" (PDF). Journal of Cuneiform Studies. pp. 1–26.
8. Steinkeller, Piotr, (2021). "International trade in Greater Mesopotamia during late Pre-Sargonic times: The case of Ebla as illustrated by her participation in the Euphratean timber trade", in Lorenz Rahmstorf, Gojko Barjamovic, Nicola Ialongo, (eds.), Merchants, Measures and Money: Understanding Technologies of Early Trade in a Comparative Perspective, Hamburg, p. 184: "...Beginning with the question of the sources of Ebla's timber, one thinks here, firstly, of the Amanus range (modern Nur Mountains)...There is every reason to think that it is this mountain range that was known in Ebla as the "mountains of fir", the place from which the merchants of Armi(um) and Kakmium obtained their fir. If Armi(um) and Kakmium indeed represent Cilicia and the Amuq Valley (= the Plain of Antioch) respectively, the route over which timber was transported would mostly likely follow the following course..."
9. Cyrus Herzl Gordon; Gary Rendsburg; Nathan H. Winter (1987). Eblaitica: Essays on the Ebla Archives and Eblaite Language, Volume 4. Eisenbrauns. p. 130. ISBN 9781575060606.
10. Pettinato, Giovanni (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991) Ebla, a new look at history p.135
11. Paolo Matthiae; Licia Romano (2010). 6 ICAANE. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. p. 482. ISBN 9783447061759.
12. Paolo Matthiae; Licia Romano (2010). 6 ICAANE. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. p. 485. ISBN 9783447061759.
13. Cyrus Herzl Gordon; Gary Rendsburg; Nathan H. Winter (1987). Eblaitica: Essays on the Ebla Archives and Eblaite Language, Volume 4. Eisenbrauns. p. 218. ISBN 9781575060606.
14. Paolo Matthiae; Licia Romano (2010). 6 ICAANE. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. p. 484. ISBN 9783447061759.
15. Paolo Matthiae; Licia Romano (2010). 6 ICAANE. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. p. 486. ISBN 9783447061759.
16. Cyrus Herzl Gordon; Gary Rendsburg; Nathan H. Winter (1987). Eblaitica: Essays on the Ebla Archives and Eblaite Language, Volume 4. p. 63,64,65,66. ISBN 9781575060606.
17. William J. Hamblin (2006-09-27). Warfare in the Ancient Near East to 1600 BC. Routledge. p. 220. ISBN 9781134520626.
18. Barbara Ann Kipfer (2000-04-30). Encyclopedic Dictionary of Archaeology. Springer. p. 334. ISBN 9780306461583.
19. William J. Hamblin (2006-09-27). Warfare in the Ancient Near East to 1600 BC. Routledge. p. 98. ISBN 9781134520626.
20. Benjamin R. Foster, "The Siege of Armanum," JANES, vol. 14, pp. 27–36, 1982
21. Laroche E. Les noms des Hittites. P. 1966. P. 26–27, 106, 118, 120, 329.