The Amorites

The History and Legacy of the Nomads Who Conquered Mesopotamia and Established the Babylonian Empire

By: Charles River Editors

Narrated by: Colin Fluxman

"There is no king who is mighty by himself. Ten or 15 kings follow Hammurabi the ruler of Babylon, a like number of Rim-Sin of Larsa, a like number of Ibal-pi-el of Eshnunna, a like number of Amud-pi-el of Qatanum, but twenty follow Yarim-Lim of Yamhad." - A tablet sent to Zimri-Lim of Mari, describing Yarim-Lim I’s authority.

Animal and plant domestication first began during the Neolithic Period around 12000 BCE in the swath of land known as the Fertile Crescent, which included all of Mesopotamia and then arched in northern Mesopotamia/Assyria, before covering most of the Levant, which is roughly equivalent with the modern nation-states of Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria. The process from nomadic hunter-gatherer societies to sedentary agriculture-based societies was gradual, though, and took place over a 2,000-year period. By about 8000 BCE, the first notable cities had formed, although they were more like towns by today’s standards in terms of size. Jericho in the Levant was one of the earliest notable towns, and by 6000 BCE, settlements had sprung up across the Fertile Crescent (Haywood 2005, 22).

The creative impetus of organized society in the Fertile Crescent initially came from southern Mesopotamia, where the Sumerians introduced writing and other hallmarks of civilization to the region just before 3000 BCE, but in less than 1,000 years, things changed dramatically. Mesopotamia experienced the rise and fall of the Sumerian based dynasty in Uruk in the early third millennium BCE, followed by the Akkadian Dynasty in the mid-third millennium, and the Third Dynasty of Ur in the late third millennium. Each of these dynasties claimed hegemony over large parts of Mesopotamia during the apogees of their power, with the Ur III Dynasty even expanding its influence (but not control) into Syria and Persia. However, when these great regional powers collapsed, it created a vacuum in which new city-states would form, grow, and repeat the process. The city-states that were in the middle of Mesopotamia would either reap the benefits of this process by taking land and cities, or they would experience the pitfalls by being conquered or destroyed, but those on the periphery had a unique perspective and experience.

As the Canaanites established themselves in most of the Levant and the Hurrians carved out space for themselves in northwestern Syria, a West Semitic ethnic group known as the Amorites entered Mesopotamia and Syria from the Arabian Desert. The movement of the Amorites and Hurrians coincided with the collapse of the Ur III Dynasty after 2004 BCE (Haywood 2005, 28), although it is not known for sure if the collapse of Ur III led to the movement of peoples, or if the movement at least partially led to the collapse. As the Ur III Dynasty grew weak internally, it could be that the Amorite attacks were a major factor in the destruction of the state. It must be stated, though, that it was the Elamites who ultimately delivered the coup de grace that brought Ur III to its knees. The more likely scenario is that the Amorites simply took advantage of the power vacuum that was created when Ur III collapsed.

The Amorites actually belonged to several sub-tribes and did not necessarily move in unison, but they did migrate in such large numbers that they were able to overwhelm much of Mesopotamia and northeastern Syria by about 1800 BCE. All of the notable political dynasties and city-states from this period - Babylon, Mari, Assyria, Eshnunna, and Yamhad - were established by ethnic Amorites (Haywood 32-33), although only traces of the Amorite identity were retained.

©2021 Charles River Editors (P)2021 Charles River Editors

A glimpse into lost kingdoms.

Like most western traditional academic historians, Charles River Editors frame the Amorites within a recently successful Sumerian culture's evolution and new transition into a foundational culture. It was the culture of elites using writing and artistic expression to advertise superiority over the surrounding world, using mega-sized architecture and bedazzled leaders who claimed space for themselves among the gods. The early Amorites lacked these desirable things and joined in, eventually taking over. That is the story.

What is missing from the story is that the rise of culture was more complex, and spread more broadly, than Western Historians are comfortable with. The pastoralist early Amorites were much more than primitive herdsmen folk. They represented the many remains of the many even more ancient cultures that are now forgotten and so ignored. These cultures contributed more to the Sumerians than Western Historians can explain. These ancient cultures became middlemen between Sumerian and Egyptian grain producers, and fairly soon the world figured out shipping.

This book barely mentions that Amorites first appear in the midst of a very important and misunderstood moment in history, when it first became possible to ship loads of grain to river port cities, and then distribute the grain by ox-pulled wagon and camel to a large area that could not have born so many people before. The population growth around the known world created riches for Egypt and the Sumerians, and the many kings who controlled the flow of trade. It would soon cause the Indus river to become a vast urbanized farming region. Every part of Europe was being settled by new people who were eager to invent new lives in all the new lands they could reach. Populations that once were the only settlers around where soon surrounded by new people importing animals from surrounding herdsmen tribes and exchanging boat-loads and wagon loads of whatever people could afford to ship.

Everywhere new grain-hungry people brought tribute to the great grain production kingdoms. First Akkadians and then Amorites took over those grain producing lands, and tried to improve on the exchange and production systems that were now generating such great wealth. They knew that their pastoral roots were more than half of what made grain producing cities profitable: bringing in the wealth from the surrounding lands to exchange for grain, and for all the trinkets and crafty things that could be worked up sitting snug in a disease and disaster prone city. The perfect ox, the perfect sheep, were things developed in pasture lands far away, by the wise folk who's web of life defined the early Amorites, and who's kings sent these perfectly domesticated animals in droves as wealth to trade for cart-loads and camel-loads of grain, taken back to feed their people out on the land. The many great kings of the Amorites became the equals to the old city nobles, and had more freedom, and ultimately more power. They added old cities and their gods of abundance like gems on their crown.

So in a way, this book is a story from the perspective of the city dwellers who thought they ruled the world, as they suddenly came to be owned by the pasture's rising Akkadian and Amorite kings. And that was just the local news.

We are arrogant slaves who deny our station, by blinding ourselves with logic-breaking ideologies. In that sense, we are all descendants of the high cultures after the Amorites and pastureland kings took us over.

Enjoy the story.