Aram-Damascus

Aram-Damascus ( ) was an Aramean polity that existed from the late 12th century BCE to 732 BCE and was centred on the city of Damascus, in the Southern Levant. Alongside various tribal lands, it was bounded in its later years by the polities of Assyria to the north, Ammon to the south, and Israel to the west.

The compound name "Aram-Damascus" is found only in the Hebrew Bible, where it sometimes also is referred to as simply "Aram" or "Damascus". It is also referred to as "Aram" in some Aramaic inscriptions. In Assyrian sources, "Aram" was never used to designate it, which was often referred to as "Damascus" or "imērīšu" (meaning "his donkey") and sometimes as "Bīt-Ḫaza’ili" (meaning "house of Hazael"), in Assyrian sources.