Aamu

Aamu (Egyptian language: 𓂝𓄿𓅓𓅱 ꜥꜣmw) was an Egyptian word used to designate Western Asians in antiquity. It is commonly translated as “Western Asiatic,” however some argue that it could refer to the Canaanites or Amorites:

○ Canaan was a Semitic-speaking culture and territory of the Southern Levant in the Ancient Near East that existed in the late second millennium BC. Canaan was important geopolitically during the Late Bronze Age Amarna Period (14th century B.C.) because it was the point at where the domains of interest of the Egyptian, Hittite, Mitanni, and Assyrian Empires intersected or overlapped. Much of what we know about Canaan now comes from archaeological excavations in the area at sites like Tel Hazor, Tel Megiddo, En Esur, and Gezer.

○ The Amorites were an ancient Northwest Semitic-speaking Bronze Age people from the Levant. They first appeared in Sumerian records around 2500 B.C. and spread and dominated the majority of the Levant, Mesopotamia, and parts of Egypt from the 21st century BC to the late 17th century B.C. They constructed numerous significant city-states in existing locations, including Isin, Larsa, Mari, and Ebla, before founding Babylon and the Old Babylonian Empire. They also established the Fourteenth Dynasty of Egypt in the Nile Delta, which was distinguished by monarchs with Amorite names such as Yakbim and was most likely a branch of the later Hyksos. In Akkadian and Sumerian writings, Amurru alludes to the Amorites, their primary deity, and an Amorite empire. The Amorites are referenced in the Hebrew Bible as Canaanite people before and after Joshua’s conquest of the region.

During the wars against the Hyksos, Egyptian records referred to the Aamu as ꜥꜣmw. Although they left no inscriptions in their own language, several of their personal names have appeared in Egyptian records, which are syntactically and lexically similar to West Semitic dialects.

Scenes from the tomb of 12th Dynasty official Khnumhotep II at Beni Hasan (c. 1900 B.C.) shows a group of West Asiatic foreigners, possibly Canaanites, labelled as Aamu (ꜥꜣmw), including the leading man with a Nubian ibex, he is named; “Abisha the Hyksos” (𓋾𓈎𓈉 ḥḳꜣ-ḫꜣsw, Heqa-kasut for “Hyksos”).

The “Aamu of Shu” (West Asia/Eastern Mediterranean/Semites) were being led by “Abisha the Hyksos”, visiting the nomarch, Khnumhotep II for trade.

In this scene below we see a caravan of men, women, children, cattle and donkey’s visit Egypt in this scene from the tomb of the 12th dynasty official Khnumhotep II at Beni Hasan. They are being led by a man described as “Abisha the Hyksos” (𓋾𓈎𓈉 ḥḳꜣ-ḫꜣswt, Heqa-kasut for “Hyksos”). This is one of the earliest known uses of the term “Hyksos”. Hyksos is the Greek translation of the Egyptian title Heka Khasut, which means “rulers of foreign lands/hill countries.” While much is misunderstood, we do know that the Hyksos were a small population of West Asians who governed Northern Egypt, particularly the Delta, in the Second Intermediate Period.

The Aamu on this relief are also labelled as being from the territory of Shu, which may be located with some uncertainty as the area of Moab in southern Palestine (region), along the Jordan River, or generally the southern Levant, just east of the Jordan River and the Red Sea.

It is proposed that the Biblical Abraham may have been linked to the Aamu or Retjenu. A Western Asian people who entered Egypt in the second millennium B.C.

British Egyptologist David Rohl proposed that Abraham may be identified with the Aamu, who are well documented in Egyptian records as a West Asian people.
In Egyptian, the reading of the second aleph (aleph is the first letter of the Semitic abjads), when there are two consecutive alephs in a word, change to “r” or “l”, so that the word Aamu, which has traditionally been suspected to mean Amorites, may actually be read “Aramu“, referring to the Arameans, and associated with Abraham through the name given to his people;

Deuteronomy 26:4-6:

4 And the priest shall take the basket out of thine hand, and set it down before the altar of the Lord thy God.

⁵ “And thou shalt speak and say before the Lord thy God: ‘A Syrian ready to perish was my father; and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous.

⁶ And the Egyptians evilly treated us and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage.

The Arameans (Old Aramaic: 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; Hebrew: אֲרַמִּים; Ancient Greek: Ἀραμαῖoι; Classical Syriac: ܐܪ̈ܡܝܐ, romanized: Ārāmāyē) were an ancient Semitic-speaking people in the Near East who were first recorded in historical sources from the late 12th century B.C. The Aramean country, also known as the Land of Aram, included the central portions of modern Syria.

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