Name of Syria

[citation needed] Etymologically, the name Syria is linked to Assyria (Akkadian Aššur), which was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization founded in modern-day northern Iraq in the 25th century BC.

Theodor Nöldeke in 1871 was the second to give philological support to the assumption that Syria and Assyria have the same etymology,[5][6] following a suggestion going back to John Selden (1617).

[9] In contrast, Baalshamin (Imperial Aramaic: ܒܥܠ ܫܡܝܢ, romanized: Lord of Heaven(s)),[10][11] was a Semitic sky-god in Canaan/Phoenicia and ancient Palmyra.

The majority of modern scholars strongly support the already dominant position that Syrian and Syriac indeed derived from Assyrian,[14][15] and the recent (1997) discovery of the bilingual Çineköy inscription from the 8th century BCE,[16] written in the Luwian and Phoenician languages, seems to clearly confirm that Syria is ultimately derived from the Assyrian term Aššūrāyu.

[19] The question was addressed from the Early Classical period through to the Renaissance era by the likes of Herodotus, Strabo, Justinus, Michael the Syrian and John Selden, with each of these stating that Syrian/Syriac was synonymous with and derivative of Assyrian.

Acknowledgments were being made as early as the 5th century BC in the Hellenistic world that the Indo-European term Syrian was derived from the much earlier Assyrian.

Syria is known as Ḫrw (Ḫuru, referring to the Hurrian occupants prior to the Aramaean invasion) in the Amarna Period of Egypt, and as Ărām (אֲרָם) in Biblical Hebrew.

[22] Theodor Nöldeke in 1871 gave philological support to the assumption that Syria and Assyria have the same etymology,[5][17][18] a suggestion going back to John Selden (1617) rooted in his own Hebrew tradition about the descent of Assyrians from Jokshan.

That process was finalized already during the Seleucid era (312–64 BCE), when Hellenistic (Greek) notions were applied in the region, and specific terms like Coele-Syria were introduced, corresponding to western regions (ancient Aram), unrelated to ancient Assyria which was still extant as a geopolitical entity in Mesopotamia, southeastern Anatolia and northeastern Syria.

[8] The new provincial law was implemented in Damascus in 1865, and the reformed province was named Suriyya or Suriye, reflecting a growing historical consciousness among the local intellectuals.