Arameans and Suteans in the Middle Assyrian Administrative Corpus

Abstract The Middle Assyrian onomasticon contains a small number of West Semitic names. Some of these can be connected to the Suteans, a group of Amorite tribes already attested in the Old Babylonian period. Some people with Assyrian names were marked as Suteans, whereas Sutean became a personal name used for one local governor of the town of Ḫarbe. Other identifiable groups are Aramaic people and a number of foreigners from outside the borders of the Assyrian empire. In this paper, the language and ethnic designations of these names will be analyzed. Most of these names can be classified as Amorite, but some Aramaic elements may be visible. The paper will draw data from Tell Ṣabi Abaḍ, a fortified farmstead where the Assyrians were in close contact with the local Sutean tribes and clans.