Who Were the Amorites.pdf

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Who Were the Amorites? by Alfred HaldarReview by: Michael C. AstourJournal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 34, No. 3 (Jul., 1975), pp. 217-219Published by: The University of Chicago Press

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BOOK REVIEWS 217

(p. 74) but in Gutium, in the Zagros range east

of Assyria. "West Semitic tribes appeared in the

region of the Upper Euphrates" not "at the

beginning of the second millennium B.c." (p. 124)

but very considerably earlier. Philo of Bybloslived ca. A.D. 100, not "c. 100 B.C." (p. 126); the

"Phoenician priest called Sanchuniaton" was not

Philo's "informant" (p. 144) and could not have

"told him" anything (p. 126), because, accordingto Philo, he lived at the time of the Trojan War.

The period covered by the Ras Shamra texts is

not "c. 1440-1360 B.C." (p. 127) but rather ca.

1380-1194. "The name of the queen HIurai"cannot be compared to that of the Hurrians (p.

154) for phonetic reasons (the latter ethnonymn is

1Iry in Ugaritic). It is not true that "cAthtart

(cAshtart, Astarte) is mentioned in Ugaritictexts only in formulaic phrases and in cultic and

liturgical texts" (p. 147): Ringgren himself (p.

146) quotes an epic poem in which this goddess is

an acting character. The statement about the

Sun-goddess Shapash that "in sacrificial and

similar lists she does not occur at all" (p. 144) is

also wrong. It is impossible to guess the reason

for Ringgren's assertion that "the Aramaic

Sefire inscription . . . contains the text of a state

treaty between three minor princes" (p. 169).

Ringgren introduces in one and the same passage

"Panammuwa of Ya"udi" and "on the otherhand, Kilamuwa of Zenjirli" (p. 170), as thoughYa udi and "Zenjirli" (Zincirli) were two dis-

crete political entities, and on page 135 he

locates "the Kilamuwa inscription" in Phoenicia.

The quoted slips are not the only ones in

Ringgren's book. True, most of them are

marginal and do not affect very deeply the

basic subject of the book, but the author

should have taken greater care of his chrono-

logical, historical, and

geographicalback-

ground data. These inaccuracies could have

easily been detected and weeded out duringthe preparation of the English edition.

MICHAEL C. ASTOUR

Southern Illinois UniversityEdwardsville

Who Were the Amorites? By ALFRED HALDAR.

"University of Uppsala Monographs on the

Ancient Near East," no. 1. Leiden: E. J.

Brill, 1971. Pp. viii + 93. 25 guilders.In a limited number of unusually wide,

almost square, and closely printed pages,

Alfred Haldar presents a new attempt to

summarize and solve the complicated prob-

lem of Amorites in the ancient Near East.

The first of the book's six chapters, entitled

"Introduction" (pp. 1-5), begins the survey

of written evidence on the Amorites with a

quotation from, of all places, chapter 14 of

Genesis. "I shall not enter upon the mysteries

of the chapter from which a verse was

quoted," says Haldar, "but I simply want to

note the fact that Abram, the Hebrew (i.e.,

the Habiru), reckoned Amorite groups as his

confederates." If the chapter is full of

"mysteries," can any of its statements betaken as a "fact"? There follows a summary

of other Old Testament references to

Amorites, without mentioning the frequently

adduced possibility that the use of the term

"Amorites" in the E and D sources reflects

the contemporaneous Assyro-Babylonian de-

signation of Syria-Palestine as Amurru, and

not a remembrance of the ethnographic situ-

ation in the Bronze Age. Only after this tribute

to the Scripture does Haldar turn to the

testimony of Sumerian and Akkadian texts.

Chapter 2, "Where Was the Land of the

Amorites Situated?" (pp. 6-28), is rather

loosely constructed, with unjustified chrono-

logical and geographical zigzagging. Haldar's

thesis is that Akkadian Amurru derives from

Sumerian Mar.tu, and the latter from the

city name Mari (pp. 19-21); few will acceptthis theory. In the interpretation of the

tantalizingly polyvalent term Mar.tu/Amur-

ru, Haldar adheres to a simplistic solution:

it is a designation of "the 'Westland', i.e.,

the territory between the Euphrates and the

Mediterranean" (p. 27); "The term mar.tu

and its Akkadian equivalent having a purely

geographical significance, they had no ethnic

or linguistic connotations" (p. 27); "From

what has been said, it is sufficiently clear

that all Amorites did not speak a Semitic

language" (p. 28). But earlier (p. 3) he agreesto the existence of "the 'Amorite' language"

(albeitin

quotation marks),and

later (p. 81)he quotes an Ur III text mentioning "an

interpreter of the Amorites." For the sake

of a balanced presentation, Haldar should







218 JOURNAL OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIES

have made a reference to an alternative view

of Amurru as originally an ethnonym, de-

rived from the Semitic root mrr, as proposed

by G. Buccellati, The Amorites of the Ur III

Period (1966), pp. 133-34 (see this reviewer's

remarks in JNES 28 [1969]: 223). Then "the

land of the Amorites" would have acquired

its meaning "Westland" through secondary

development (cf. "sea" for "west," "dry

land" for "south," and "lookout point" for

"north" in Hebrew). Otherwise, the chapter

contains a great amount of historical data

relating to early Sumerian and Akkadian

contacts with Syria and to the penetration of

nomadicgroups, usually designated

as

Amorites, into Mesopotamia. Many of the

author's remarks merit attention-for ex-

ample, his doubt about the role of the

Amorites in the late third millennium de-

structions of some Palestinian cities and

Byblos, as postulated by K. Kenyon and M.

Dunand (p. 14). A similar objection to

attaching an ethnic label to mute archaeo-

logical traces has been raised by C. H. J. de

Geus in Ugarit-Forschungen 3 (1971): 41-60.

On the other hand, one also finds in this

chapter inexact statements and poorly

worded, and hence misleading, sentences.

We read, for example, that "finally, Ham-

murabi (in his 32nd, or 33d year) captured

Mari, although Zimri-Lim continued his

reign, until he was defeated by the Kassites"

(p. 20)-surely this statement needs sub-

stantiation-or, "in the Mari texts, the North

Palestinian city Hasor is mentioned, the

center of an important Amorite kingdom"

(p. 21)-the Mari texts do not say that it

was Amorite-or that "from the Amarna

letters it would in any case seem evident that

Canaan and Ugarit were two distinct king-

doms" (p. 28)-a "kingdom of Canaan"

never existed, and speaking of Amarna

letters, one of them (EA 151) does seem to

include Ugarit in Canaan as a wider geogra-

phical entity.

Chapter 3, "Questions Connected with the

Historyof Settlement"

(pp. 29-42),involves

the author in lengthy discussions of pre-

historic human settlements in such divergent

areas as Anatolia, Cyprus, Kurdistan, Balu-

chistan, ancient Sumer, and such high

epochs as "11,000 to 9,000 years ago" (p. 33)

and even "somewhere between 44,400 and

28,500" (p. 35). Only on page 40 does Haldar

announce that "we will return to Syria," and

the remaining three pages of the chapter are

the only ones that are related to the basic

topic of the book.

Chapter 4, "Reasons for Discontinuity of

Settlement" (pp. 43-50), is largely devoted

to the theory of climatic changes in the Near

East as the driving force behind population

shifts and large-scale nomadic invasions.

Haldar presents a fairly comprehensive sum-

mary of recent statementsby experts

in

palaeoclimatology, and he cautiously accepts

the link between dessication of steppe areas

and such historical events as the overthrow of

the Ur III Dynasty by the Amorites (p. 49).

But this theory is subject to serious doubt.

The period of prolonged abnormal aridity is

believed to have lasted from 2300 to 2000

B.C. (see A. D. Crown, JNES 31 [1972]: 312-

30), which agrees well with the crisis of urban

life in Palestine; but nothing of the kind

occurred in Syria, where all excavated sites,even those located near the desert fringe,

show intensive and uninterrupted occupation

during that very period. This has been pointed

out by M. van Loon (AJA 73 [1969]: 276-77)on the basis of the Danish excavations at

Hama and his own at Salankahiyah on the

Euphrates; the same is true for the nearby

HIabbfibah el-Kabirah (E. Heinrich et al.,MDOG 101 [1969]: 27-67; 102 [1970]: 27-85),and for Tell Mardih (reports of the Italian

Archaeological Mission in Syria, 1964, 1965,and 1966). Haldar, whose acquaintance with

the important excavations at Tell Mardih is

limited to the first preliminary report of the

director, P. Matthiae (AAS 15, vol. 2 [1965],

pp. 83-100), draws from it a one-sided con-

clusion: "[I]t is evident that there were

reasons for people's migrations away from

the areas under the menace, and to them

belonged, for instance, the region south and

east[sic]

ofAleppo, where, according to the

excavator, shortage of water was the cause

of the region being abandoned" (p. 47). But

on page 41 he quotes Matthiae as having said







BOOKREVIEWS 219

of the assumed depopulation of Tell Mardih

in the first half of the second millennium B.C.

that "il pourrait s'agir de guerres ou bien de

causes naturelles telles que le dissechement

des puits"-a far less categoric statement;

and in the light of the subsequent campaigns,

Matthiae declared, "It is unlikely, however,

that the site was ever completely abandoned

for any length of time" (Archaeology 24

[1971]: 60).

Chapters 5, "The Amorites as a Problem

in the History of Settlement" (pp. 51-66),

and 6, "The Amorites' Position in Society"

(pp. 67-83), are probably the best written

in the book. The book ends with a "Post-

script" (pp. 84-86), dated April 11, 1971,

which adds some linguistic remarks. There

are also indexes of "Modern Authors" and

of "Selected Names." The former contains

145 names; nevertheless, Haldar's bibliog-

raphy is not satisfactory even for a small

book on a very wide subject. There are some

important studies which should not have been

omitted in a book which is largely built on

setting forth and commenting upon the

opinions of other authors. Missing are, interalia, I. J. Gelb, La lingua degli Amoriti,

Rendiconti dell'Accademia Nazionale dei

Lincei, vol. 13 (1958), pp. 143-64; S. Moscati,

The Semites in Ancient History: An Inquiry

Into the Settlement of the Beduin and Their

Political Establishment (1959); J.-R. Kupper,

"Le r6le des nomades dans l'histoire de la

M'sopotamie ancienne," JESHO 5 (1959):

113-25; M. Liverani, "Variazioni climatiche

e fluttuazioni demografiche nella storia

siriana," Oriens Antiquus 7 (1968): 77-89;

idem, "Per una considerazione storica del

problema amoreo," Oriens Antiquus 9 (1970):

5-27; and the three volumes of Missione

Archeologica Italiana in Siria, published in

1965, 1966, and 1967. Gaps in Haldar's

documentation sometimes lead him to erro-

neous assertions, such as, "when 17 early

Assyrian kings are said to have lived in tents,

they may rather be characterized as warriors

than as nomads" (p. 52). Had Haldar used

F. R. Kraus's-nige, die in"Zelten wohnten,

Mededelingen der Koninklyke Nederlandse

Akademie, vol. 28 (1965), pp. 123-40, and

J. J. Finkelstein's "The Genealogy of the

Hammurapi Dynasty," JCS 20 (1966): 95-

118, he would not have made such a state-

ment. The genealogical tablet published and

interpreted by Finkelstein is of exceptional

interest for the Amorite problem in more ways

than one; it shows what Amorite kings

themselves thought of their tribal origin, and

how they understood the term Amurru.

Haldar still believes that "dawidum ... was

probably a military leader" (p. 59), ignoring

the investigation of that expression by

Kupper, Les Nomades en Mesopotamie au

temps des rois de Mari, pp. 60-62, B. Lands-

berger apud

H. Tadmor, JNES 17 (1958):

130, and Gelb, JNES 20 (1960): 194-96,

which made it certain that dawdam (sic) ddku

simply means "to inflict a defeat." He repeats

the obsolete etymology of Nuhasse as "Cop-

per Land" (p. 74), which is absolutely ex-

cluded by the Egyptian and Ugaritic spellings

of that geographical name, as pointed out

by Liverani in Mlissione Archeologica (1964),

p. 128, n. 91.

To conclude, Haldar has not succeeded in

ascertaining "who were the Amorites" be-yond what has already been known, but this

is not entirely his fault. His book has its

shortcomings, but if used with caution, it

can serve as a fairly comprehensive and even

stimulating introduction to one of the crucial

problems of ancient Near Eastern history.

MICHAEL C. AsTOUR

Southern Illinois UniversityEdwardsville

Technical Arabic. By VERNON DAYKIN.

London: Lund Humphries, Ltd., 1972.

Pp. 131. ?2.75.

In the foreword to the Oxford English-

Arabic Dictionary, N. S. Doniach mentions

in his acknowledgements that "for close on

two years the project had the services of

Vernon Daykin for three days a week, who

divided his time between help in the English

and checking certain aspects of the Arabic."

Evidently, Mr. Daykin spent the other four

days of his week during those years carefully

compiling and translating this very neat little





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