ARWAD before the Phoenicians.
A few
kilometers away from the Syrian coast lies a small island: er-Ruad. Nowadays it
is used by some fishermen. However this island was in antiquity a very
important town. For the beginning we must go back in time to at least the
second millennium BC.
In the
Akkadian language it was called Ar-ma-da, Ar-ru-da-ai or Ar-ru-ad-da. The
Phoenicians named it ‘RWD. The Greeks: Arados and in latin: Aradus.
Arwad
became one of the important cities of the Phoenicians, but before that the town
existed already in the time of the Canaanites.
The town
was mentioned in Ebla
(as A-ra-wa-ad) and that is all the way in the third millennium BC. Arwad was
also known in Ugarit
and Alalakh. The Egyptians under Thutmose III (1479-1425 BC) came nearby during
the 29th year of his reign. He plundered the farms and land on the
mainland behind Arwad.
Even the
bible in Genesis X 15-18 gives attention to the place:
“Canaan became the father of Sidon , his firstborn and Heth and the
Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, the Arkites, the
Sinites, the Arwadites, the Zemites and the Hamathites.”
We
encounter the first man of Arwad with a name on a temple of pharaoh Seti I
(1317-1301 BC) at Abydos in Egypt . The
inscription (SYRIA XLVII, 1970, p.371) says:
“I, Abdo,
son of [….], the Arwadite (h’rwdy).”
Probably
the earliest clear mention of Arwad comes out of the so-called el-Amarna
letters as Ar-wa-da or Er-wa-da. In the 14th century BC the Amurru
under the guidance of Abdi-Ashirta and his son Aziru tried to reach the coast
and took several towns in the province Canaan of Egypt. And here Arwad is
beginning to play a significant role. Rib-Addi of Byblos writes about that a message to the
pharaoh Amenophis III (1402-1364 BC) in the letter EA 53-63:
“Zimrida of
Sidon and Aziru, the rebel against the king, and
the people of Arwad has consulted with each-other and made a conspiracy and the
have gathered ships, war-chariots and their ‘niru’soldiers in order to capture Tyre ….”
In reality
Tyrus would be invaded much later. In the beginning this peculiar coalition succeeded
in conquering Ullaza and Sumur. Later the fleet of Arwad blocked the harbour of Byblos and in the end many harbours on
the coast of the Libanon went over to the Amurru and their allies.
Seti I and
Ramses II are trying to restore the Egyptian province of Canaan ,
but after the undecided battle of Kadesj the region of Arwad stays for a
century under the Hittite influence.
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