Amorites

Amorites were an ancient Semitic-speaking people who inhabited large parts of the Near East during the Bronze Age, especially in Mesopotamia and the Levant. They first appear in written records in the early 2nd millennium BCE and by that time began to wield political influence in central Mesopotamia and Syria.

In Mesopotamia they established city-states and dynasties in Isin, Larsa, and Babylon. The rise of the Amorite dynasty in Babylon culminated with Hammurabi (reigned about 1792–1750 BCE), who expanded Babylon into a regional power and left a lasting legal and administrative legacy. Amorite rulers and administrators also controlled other polities at various times, and Amorite influence persisted into the Old Babylonian period before Assyrian and native Babylonian powers predominated.

The Amorites spoke a Northwest Semitic language, known from a small corpus of inscriptions and from the onomastics of names preserved in cuneiform texts. Their language is related to other West Semitic languages of the region. They usually wrote using Akkadian cuneiform for administration, and they incorporated Mesopotamian cultural practices and legal traditions into their political structures.

Geographically, Amorite influence extended from the Syrian steppe into central and southern Mesopotamia. Socially, they are described in sources as tribal or kin-based groups that organized into city-based polities through alliances and intermarriage with existing Mesopotamian populations.

As a historical designation, "Amorite" gradually fades from political usage after the middle of the 2nd millennium BCE, but the term reflects a real and influential cultural horizon that helped shape Mesopotamian governance, law, and diplomacy during the 18th century BCE.