{"id":118,"date":"2015-09-13T11:47:08","date_gmt":"2015-09-13T01:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/?p=118"},"modified":"2015-09-13T11:49:36","modified_gmt":"2015-09-13T01:49:36","slug":"notes-on-the-demography-of-the-land-in-the-isin-larsa-period","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/2015\/09\/13\/notes-on-the-demography-of-the-land-in-the-isin-larsa-period\/","title":{"rendered":"Notes on the Demography of the Land in the Isin-Larsa Period"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

The principal cause of the \u2018End of Sumer\u2019 was the influx of new people. It has already been noted that there had always been, so far as we can tell, a mixture of populations in the Land. Besides the ethnic Sumerians (the original speakers of Sumerian) themselves, there is strong evidence of a population speaking a Semitic language (Semites) in the late prehistoric period, which may or may not have been the same population as the original Akkadian-speaking peoples (ethnic Akkadians) known to have been present since earliest historical times. There was also in all likelihood a Proto-Euphratean, or \u2018Ubaidan population which may have been superseded by an incoming Sumerian population.[1]<\/a>\u00a0 It has also been noted that whereas the ethnic Sumerians had no possibility of reinforcement from outside the Land, the same was not true for the Semites. In particular, as the records from Ebla now show, the Semitic element of the early third millennium BC could be refreshed from a vast area inhabited by Semitic populations that stretched from North Syria through the Syro-Arabian Desert down to Ki\u0161, and encompassing the Jazirah and Assyria south to the Diyala valley. This being the case, those other elements could \u2013 and eventually would \u2013 overwhelm the static Sumerian population if that did not have the internal vitality to maintain its dominance.<\/span><\/p>\n

Akkadians<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The first of these renewing elements that we know of was the Akkadian. Throughout the earlier part of the third millennium and for some time before that, these Semites continued to move into the Land to settle and in large part to adopt the prevailing culture. By the time that Ur III fell we no longer hear of Akkadians immigrating into the country or featuring amongst the nomads of Mesopotamia, and we must conclude that their sources of replenishment had dried up by this time.<\/span><\/p>\n

As a distinct ethnos, it is certainly identifiable only by the use of its language. We have already looked at the changes that are supposedly due to their specific influence \u2013 so far as it can be identified \u2013 but for the most part, as a people who had long connections with the settled life of the southern cities, and had long participated in the development of that culture, they did not cause great cultural disruption. Their influence could be absorbed, even when they constituted a majority in many places.<\/span><\/p>\n

Amorites<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

A second element we know as the Amorites; a term from the Bible where it translates the Hebrew word \u2018emori<\/em>. Their name is written MAR.TU by the Sumerians, which is interpreted as martu<\/strong>, and they are named Amurru<\/em> by the Akkadians, which is assumed to be related to the Hebrew name. They are a western people, and so the Sumerian and Akkadian names for the people became their terms for West itself. The proposal that MAR.TU originally meant West and that the direction gave its name to the people is unlikely since there is a well-attested third millennium BC Eblaite term Martu<\/em>(m<\/em>) referring to a region or place in the Semitic-speaking region roughly East of that city. It is assumed that this term names an Amorite homeland at the time, but the names of the kings and inhabitants of that land don\u2019t appear to be particularly \u2018Amorite\u2019 so the relationship is not undisputed. An alternative name for these people was Tidnu (G\u00ccR.G\u00ccR) but what its relation to the other terms might be is unknown.[2]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

As a people they are, like the Akkadians before them, identifiable only by their language; but, unlike the Akkadians, their language is known almost exclusively from their names. In fact, it may well be that there are several closely related languages spoken by the Amorites, who would be better thought of as a group of closely related peoples.[3]<\/a> Moreover, it may even be possible to detect different waves of immigration by noting the different dialects evidenced by these names. Thus the earliest immigrants had names ending with \u2013anum<\/em>, whereas the names beginning about the middle of the Isin-Larsa period belong to a different dialect. There are no inscriptions in the language(s), and no version of it was ever adopted as a language of rule. When the Amorites wrote they wrote in Akkadian. Identification of Amorite persons by their names alone, however, is rather risky, since it was not unusual for names to be taken from languages other than one\u2019s own. Thus Akkadians are known who had Amorite names and vice versa.<\/span><\/p>\n

The earliest mention of this people is in a tablet from \u0160urrupak dated to about the middle of the 3rd<\/sup> M BC on which a person is described as MAR.TU. The first evidence of the Amorites as a large-scale nuisance appears in a date formula of \u0160ar-kali-\u0161arri, fifth king of Akkad, where he describes a defeat of these people at Mount Basor (now Jebel Bi\u0161ri<\/em>.) Soon they became a constant threat to the settled peoples requiring frequent repulsion. By the time of the Ur III kings it was even felt necessary to build a wall to keep them out. This project of \u0160ulgi completed by \u0160u-Sin was, of course, a failure. Mesopotamia is too open for such walls to be effective, and the semi-nomads are too well-motivated by desire for the wealth of the settled lands to be so easily deterred. It is likely that the constant influx of these tribally organized persons into the Land and the establishment (however fleetingly) of areas in which the writ of their chieftains ran supreme contributed to the collapse of the Ur III state. Certainly, by the time that Ur III was in process of collapse, much of the blame was placed on these intruding Amorites. A letter[4]<\/a> to Ibbi-Sin from I\u0161bi-Erra complains that:<\/span><\/p>\n

Now the Martu \u2013 all of them \u2013 have entered the midst of the land (Sumer) (and) have seized the great fortresses one after the other. Because of the Martu, I am not able to transport (?) that grain; they are too strong for me, and I am immobilized.<\/span><\/p>\n

As Ur fell, it was necessary for an accommodation to be made with the intruders, so that at E\u0161nunna, for example, Bilalama felt it appropriate to contract a marriage with a daughter of Abda-El, a chieftain of the Amorites (rabian amurrim<\/em>,) and for U\u0161u\u0161um, son of Abda-El, to marry one of his cousins. It is precisely by such marriages that the Amorites might be introduced to polite society, just as the myth tells us that the god Martu was introduced to the Sumerian pantheon, overcoming his barbaric non-city ways.[5]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The influx continued unabated during the years that followed the fall of Ur, and the influence of the Amorite tribesmen grew, for within a century we find that cities such as Larsa, Ki\u0161, Babylon, Sippar, Marad, and Uruk were in their power and that the Amorites had established themselves as a significant element of the settled population. We now find many names that we recognise as Amorite and we do not find people being distinguished as Amorite as if that was somehow unusual. On the other hand, there is not much else than the name which marks someone as being Amorite: those who had settled into city life were apparently integrated into the Sumero-Akkadian world as completely as the Akkadians themselves had been into the Sumerian.<\/span><\/p>\n

Notwithstanding this apparent integration, however, the Amorites continued to be aware of their own descent and to appeal to it as a special form of bond. The rulers, in particular, would use this supposed link to reach across the city boundaries in ways that the Sumerians could not. Thus, for example, Anam of Uruk could appeal to Sin-muballit of Babylon for assistance as a fellow member of the Amnanu-Yah?ruru tribe.<\/span><\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> p. 3.10<\/span><\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Whiting, pp. 1231 ff.<\/span><\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Gadd:B, pp. 33 ff.<\/span><\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> p. 16.4<\/span><\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> p. 4.33<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 The principal cause of the \u2018End of Sumer\u2019 was the influx of new people. It has already been noted that there had always been, so far as we can tell, a mixture of populations in the Land. Besides the ethnic Sumerians (the original speakers of Sumerian) themselves, there is strong evidence of a population […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":120,"href":"https:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions\/120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}