While the biblical writers remembered them as a legendary people of Canaan who had descended from giants (see p. 52), the Amorites were a nomadic people from Syria, first attested in the third millennium BCE, who became one of the most powerful groups within Mesopotamia. Indeed, many of the famous Mesopotamian kings from this period, such as Hammurabi of Babylon and Zimri-Lim of Mari, were Amorites. But even as the Amorites expanded their power, the language of learning and administration remained Akkadian. This led some scholars to suggest that there was no distinct “Amorite” language but rather that it was […]
