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'''Beth Nahrain''' (Syriac: ܒܝܬ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ; "the house of the rivers") refers to the rivers form the borders of the lands of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Canaan and Palestine. ''Bayn Nahrayn'' is also found in Arabic (Arabic: بين نهرين; "between two rivers").
The area where rivers define borders encompasses much of the Middle East, but there is particular interest in as the Egyptians called it "the house of the rivers", Nahryn or Naharin.
The land of Retnu or the Orontes river is bordered by the Ammuru or Martu to the west and the river people in the east from the Golan heights north until the mountains run out approaching Damascus. North of Damascus is the territory of Mari as far west as Aleppo and as far north as Hamath.
The land of Beth Nahrain is first referenced in the Mari letters and a little later in the stories of Abraham and Rebecca as it refers to the border lands of el Shadai or Shamsi Adad of Mari. A little after that it turns up in the references of

Amenhotep's first campaign was so successful that he is recorded as having captured a vast amount of war booty "consisting of 6,800 deben of gold and 500,000 deben of copper (about 1,643 and 120,833 pounds respectively), as well as 550 mariannu captives, 210 horses and 300 chariots."[26] In April of his seventh year, Amenhotep was faced with a major rebellion in Syria by the vassal states of 'Naharin' and dispatched his Army to the Levant to suppress it. This rebellion was likely instigated by Egypt's chief Near Eastern rival, Mitanni.

As its borders move south parallel to and inland of the Amurru who control the coastal regions from Hazor north through Byblos Arvad to Ugarit in the wars of Egypt with the king of Kadesh in the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt and the Nineteenth dynasty of Egypt, along with the aftermath in terms of the emergence of the Sea Peoples, Phoenicia, Assyria, Persia and Greece.
Those rivers whose watershed from antiquity defined a border are still fought over today as those who control the water in a desert control the land. In some cases this applies even to the wells which tap underground rivers or aquifers and in the case of the rivers of the Middle East may apply to what would elsewhere be called a creek, brook or irrigation ditch.
^[1]
"Nahrainean" or "Nahrainian" is an Anglicization for the shared Afroasiatic stem, Semitic and IE root "''Nahraya''", used by Accadian ^[2] , Egyptian, Hittite, Assyrian, Hebrew, Aramaic and Syriac scribes to refer to the Mitanni or Meryannu, to the MARTU or nomads, and to the "people of the river land".^[3]

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See also

References

See also

★ Aram-Naharaim

★ Mesopotamia

★ Canaan

★ Philistia

★ Phoenicia

★ Aramaea

★ Assyria

★ Babylonia

★ Akkad

★ Sumer

★ Chaldea

References

1. Simo Parpola, Assyrian Identity in Ancient Times and Today, Lecture given at the March 27, 2004 historical seminar of the Assyrian Youth Federation in Sweden (AUF)
2. Treaty Between Mursilis And Duppi-Tessub Of Amurru
3. Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies Past and Present, Perceptions of Syriac Literary Tradition by Lucas VAN ROMPAY