Aram (biblical region)

Aram is the name of a region mentioned in the Bible located in central Syria, including where the city of Aleppo (aka Halab) now stands. 
==History==
Aram stretched from the Lebanon mountains eastward across the Euphrates, including the Habur valley in northwestern Mesopotamia. The name is traditionally derived from Aram, son of Shem, a grandson of Noah in the Bible.See Genesis 10:22
Two medium-sized Aramaean kingdoms, Aram-Damascus and Hamath, along with several smaller kingdoms and independent city-states, developed in the region during the first millennium BCE.
==Early references==
An inscription of Naram-Sin of Akkad (c. 2250 BC) provides the earliest reference to Aram as a place name, but scholars have disagreed as to its actual location and significance. Other early references to a place or people of Aram have appeared at the archives of Mari (c. 1900 BC) and at Ugarit (c. 1300 BC). The indisputable presence of the Aramaeans (speakers of Aramaic) in the region dates to the late 12th century BC.
A few stele that name kings of this period have been found (see, for example, the Zakkur stele). The Chaldeans who settled in southern Babylonia around 1000 BCE were founders of the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 625 BCE are also believed to have been an Aramaean tribe. However, this is not certain and some dispute the alleged Aramaean ethnicity among the Chaldean dynasty.
==Modern times==
As Christians began to inhabit that area of Syria, a dialect of Aramaic, Syriac, was born. Hence Syriac has been associated with Christian Syrians.
Today in this same area, there are several Eastern Catholic Churches that are distinct from the Latin Rite. Two of these are the Maronite Church and the Melkite Greek-Catholic Church, both common to Syria and Lebanon.
==See also==
*Aram-Naharaim
*Aram Rehob
==References==
Category:Torah places
Category:History of Syria
Category:Hebrew Bible nations