Apiru
| Apiru in hieroglyphics | |||||
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Aper ˁpr 1) winemaker / grape elder 2) Hebrew ? |
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The Apiru ( Ugaritic ˁapiru ; Babylonian Ḫabiru, Chabiru ; ancient Egyptian Aper (u) ) are a group of people in the Levant region around 1200 BC known from various ancient oriental sources . Chr.
etymology
The etymology is not clear. Serving as the basis of Akkadian verb HPR designated individuals who become a Apiru , referring volatile debtor or slaves . From this form the Babylonian form Ḫabiru developed . The possible meanings cross, loot, dusty are without evidence and are therefore conjectures.
Similar Babylonian names šaggāšum, SA.GAZ, ḫabbâtum are possibly in connection with the Amurrian Apiru , which probably refers to robbers, highwaymen and homeless people and perhaps means outlaws or rightsless in a broader sense .
There are different meanings of the name for ancient Egypt. The term ˁpr (w) could be used for ship's crew, company, vintner and grape-grape elder ; in the extension ˁpr (w) -sẖ3w also for the Pylen workers' team , which possibly comprised 200 men.
meaning
The Apiru are often associated with the Hebrews of the Tanakh and are possibly one of several social or ethnic groups from which the people of Israel emerged during the so-called conquest period .
The Apiru, however, are to be understood specifically in social categories. In the Amarna letters, for example, they appear as gangs that unsettled society in the city-states of the time through raids and extortion of protection money or who hired themselves out as mercenaries for changing city-states. They were made up of men cast out by society due to indebtedness, crime, or family problems. Through their contribution to the general uncertainty in the Levant region around 1200 BC. They were an important factor in the subsequent deurbanization that lasted up to the 1st millennium .
See also
- Amarna letters
- on the etymological relationship of ʿapiru and Hebrews: The ʿapiru of the Amarna letters
literature
- Gary Arthur Thomson: Habiru: The Rise of Earliest Israel. iUniverse, 2011, ISBN 1462039960
- Rainer Hannig: Large Concise Dictionary Egyptian-German: (2800-950 BC) . von Zabern, Mainz 2006, ISBN 3-8053-1771-9 , p. 150.
- Rainer Kessler : Social history of ancient Israel. An introduction , Darmstadt 2006.
- Oswald Loretz: Habiru-Hebräer: A socio-linguistic study on the origin of the gentilizium cibrí from the appellative habiru. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1984, ISBN 3110097303
- Helmut Engel: The ancestors of Israel in Egypt: research history overview of the representations since Richard Lepsius (1849). Josef Knecht, 1979, ISBN 378200437X
Web links
- D. Jericke: Hapiru. In: Michaela Bauks, Klaus Koenen, Stefan Alkier (Eds.): The Scientific Biblical Lexicon on the Internet (WiBiLex), Stuttgart 2006 ff.
Remarks
- ↑ a b There is no reliable translation for Hebrews ; according to Rainer Hannig: Large Concise Dictionary Egyptian-German . P. 110.
- ↑ a b Klaas R. Veenhof: History of the Ancient Orient up to the time of Alexander the Great . Pp. 170-171.
- ^ Israel Finkelstein, Neil Asher Silberman: No Trumpets Before Jericho , p. 118