Eber-Nari

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Eber-Nari
𒆳𒂊𒄵𒀀𒇉 (
Satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire
c. 539 BC–c. 332 BC
Flag of Eber-Nari
Standard of Cyrus the Great
Historical eraAxial Age
c. 539 BC
c. 332 BC
Preceded by		 Succeeded by
Symbol of the Mesopotamian sun-god Shamash Neo-Babylonian Empire
Macedonian Empire
 Vergina Sun of ancient Greece

Eber-Nari or Ebir-Nari (Akkadian), also Abar-Nahara (Aramaic) or Aber Nahra (Syriac), was a region of the ancient Near East. Translated as "Beyond the River" or "Across the River" in both the Akkadian and Aramaic languages, it referred to the land on the opposite side of the Euphrates from the perspective of Mesopotamia and Persia. In this context, the region is further known to modern scholars as Transeuphratia (French: Transeuphratène). Functioning as a satrapy, it was originally administered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire before being absorbed by the Neo-Babylonian Empire and then by the Achaemenid Empire. During the Greek conquest of Persia, Eber-Nari was, like the rest of the Achaemenid Empire, annexed by the Macedonian Empire of Alexander the Great. It was later dissolved by the Seleucid Empire, which incorporated it into Syria, along with Assyria.

In the "DSf" Achaemenid royal inscription, the Akkadian Eber-Nari is referred to as Athura or Athuriya in Old Persian and as Aššur in Elamite.[1][2] The Targum Onkelos, an Aramaic translation of the Torah, lists Nineveh, Calah, Reheboth, and Resen as being in the Athura jurisdiction.

Etymology

  • Akkadian: 𒆳𒂊𒄵𒀀𒇉, romanized: Eber-Nāri [KUR.e.bir.ID₂], lit. 'trans river' — i.e. the region west of the Euphrates.[3][4]
  • Old Aramaic: עבר נהרה, romanized: ʿAvar Naharā, lit. 'trans river' — i.e. the other side of the Euphrates.[5][6]
  • Hebrew: עבר הנהר, romanized: ʿĒḇer haNāhār, lit. 'the trans river' — i.e. beyond the river.[5][7][8][9]

The province is also mentioned extensively in the Biblical books of Ezra and Nehemiah as עבר הנהר ('Ever Hannahar' in modern pronunciation). Additionally, sharing the same root meaning, Eber (pronounced Evver) was also a character in the Hebrew Bible from which the term Hebrew was widely believed to have been derived (see: Eber), thus the Hebrews were inferred to have been the people who crossed into Canaan across the (Euphrates or the Jordan) river.

History

Phoenicia, Sidon. Uncertain king. Circa 435-425 BC.
Mazaios
, Satrap of Eber-Nari, Sidon, Phoenicia. Circa 353-333 BC.

Assyria

The term was established during the

toponym appears in an inscription of the 7th century BC Assyrian king Esarhaddon. The region remained an integral part of the Assyrian empire until its fall in 612 BC, with some northern regions remaining in the hands of the remnants of the Assyrian army and administration until at least 605 BC, and possibly as late as 599 BC.[10]

Babylonia, Egypt, and Persia

Subsequent to this Eber-Nari was fought over by the Neo-Babylonian Empire (612–539 BC) and Egypt, the latter of which had entered the region in a belated attempt to aid its former Assyrian overlords. The Babylonians and their allies eventually defeated the Egyptians (and remnants of the Assyrian army) and assumed control of the region, which they continued to call Eber-Nari.

The Babylonians were overthrown by the

Persian Achaemenid Empire
(539–332 BC), and the Persians assumed control of the region. Having themselves spent centuries under Assyrian rule, the Achaemenid Persians retained the Imperial Aramaic and Imperial organisational structures of their Assyrian predecessors.

In 535 BC the Persian king

Athura (Assyria) (Achaemenid Assyria).[11]

Relief of a gift-bearing delegation, possibly Syrian or Ionian, at Apadana of Persepolis

The satrap of Eber-Nari resided in Babylon and there were subgovernors in Eber-Nari, one of which was Tattenai, mentioned in both the Bible and Babylonian cuneiform documents.[12] This organization remained untouched until at least 486 BC (Xerxes I's reign), but before c. 450 BC the "mega-satrapy" was split into two—Babylonia and Eber-Nari.[13]

Qedarites,[15] that did not pay taxes but contributed with a tax-like gift of frankincense
.

Greece

Eber-Nari was dissolved during the

Aramean/Phoenician
populations.

Notes

  1. ^ John, Boardman (1991). The Cambridge Ancient History: pt. 1. The prehistory of the Balkans; and the Middle East and the Aegean world, tenth to eighth centuries B.C. Cambridge University Press. pp. 433–434. In the Babylonian version of the text the transportation to Babylon is credited to the people of eber nari, showing that to the scribe or scribes of these inscriptions the Babylonian equivalent of Old Persian Athura was eber nari...
  2. ^ Shawn Tuell, Steven. The Law of the Temple in Ezekiel 40-48. Scholars Press. p. 158. Moreover, in a bilingual building inscription of Darius at Susa, the Old Persian kara hya Athuriya ("people of the Assyrians") is rendered in Akkadian as sabe sa eber nari ("people of eber nari")...
  3. ISBN 978-0-931464-86-7
    . Eber nāri (geo) the region west of the Euphrates, Syria—NA, NB, LB.
  4. ^ "saao/saa01/qpn-x-places/Eber-nari[across the river]". oracc.museum.upenn.edu. Retrieved 2021-03-21.
  5. ^
    ISBN 978-0-567-21617-5
    . The region of Ebir-nari (Transeuphrates, called Avarnaharā' in Aramaic and Ēver-ha-Nāhār in Hebrew)
  6. ^ Thomas Kelly Cheyne; John Sutherland Black (1903). Encyclopædia biblica: a critical dictionary of the literary, political and religious history, the archæology, geography, and natural history of the Bible. A. and C. Black. p. 4857. Image of p. 4857 at Google Books
  7. ^ George V. Wigram (1890). The Englishman's Hebrew and Chaldee Concordance of the Old Testament: Being an Attempt at a Verbal Connection Between the Original and the English Translation: With Indexes, a List of the Proper Names, and Their Occurrences, Etc. Samuel Bagster and sons. pp. 798–799. Image of p. 798 at Google Books
  8. ^ Wilhelm Gesenius; Francis Brown; Samuel Rolles Driver (1906). A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament: With an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic. Houghton, Mifflin. p. 719. Image of p. 719 at Google Books
  9. ISBN 978-0-8028-2400-4
    .
  10. ^ Tuell 1991, p. 51.
  11. ^ Dandamaev 1994.
  12. ^ Olmstead 1944.
  13. ^ Stolper 1989; Dandamaev 1994.
  14. ^ Dandamaev 1994
  15. ^ Dumbrell 1971; Tuell 1991.

References

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Eber-Nari&oldid=1215754077"