Sumur (Levant)

{{short description|Former city of Phoenicia}}

{{Infobox ancient site

|name = Sumur

|native_name =

|alternate_name = Sumura, Zemar, etc.

|image = Towns_of_aram.jpg

|alt =

|caption = The location of Zimyra/Sumur (in the north)

|map_type = Syria

|map_alt =

|map_size = 250

|location = Syria

|region = Tartus Governorate

|coordinates = !{{coord|34.7081|N|35.9861|E|source:wikidata|display=inline,title}}

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File:Monnaie - Hémidrachme, argent, Phénicie, Simyra - btv1b10322944n (2 of 2).jpg

Sumur (Biblical Hebrew: {{Script/Hebrew|צְמָרִי}} [collective noun denoting the city inhabitants]; Egyptian: Smr; Akkadian: Sumuru; Assyrian: Simirra) was a Phoenician city in what is now Syria. It was a major trade center. The city has also been referred to in English publications as Simyra,{{cite book|author=Archibald Henry Sayce|title=The Hittites: the story of a forgotten empire|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KC8YAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA164|year=1903|publisher=The Religious Tract Society|page=164}} Ṣimirra, Ṣumra,{{cite book|author=Oded Lipschitz|title=The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem: Judah Under Babylonian Rule|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=78nRWgb-rp8C&pg=PA5|year=2005|publisher=Eisenbrauns|isbn=978-1-57506-095-8|page=5}} Sumura,{{cite book|author1=Shlomo Izre'el|author2=Itamar Singer|author3=Ran Zadok|title=Past Links: Studies in the Languages and Cultures of the Ancient Near East|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fKTRZrWTHh4C&pg=PA393|year=1998|publisher=Eisenbrauns|isbn=978-1-57506-035-4|page=393}} Ṣimura,{{cite book|author=Niels Peter Lemche|title=The Canaanites and Their Land: The Tradition of the Canaanites|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8jJvSOigpEcC&pg=PA78|date=1 March 1991|publisher=A&C Black|isbn=978-1-85075-310-0|page=78}} Zemar,{{cite book|author=Archibald Henry Sayce|title=Patriarchal Palestine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AJQrkLxjxJwC&pg=PT24|year=1895|publisher=Library of Alexandria|isbn=978-1-4655-5042-2|page=24}} and Zimyra.{{cite book|author1=I. E. S. Edwards|author2=C. J. Gadd|author3=N. G. L. Hammond|author4=E. Sollberger|title=The Cambridge Ancient History|url=https://archive.org/details/cambridgeancient02edwa_0|url-access=registration|date=3 May 1973|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-08230-3|page=[https://archive.org/details/cambridgeancient02edwa_0/page/863 863]}}

Sumur (or "Sumura") appears in the Amarna letters (mid-14th century BCE); Ahribta is named as its ruler. It was under the guardianship of Rib-Addi, king of Byblos, but was conquered by Abdi-Ashirta's expanding kingdom of Amurru. Pro-Egyptian factions may have seized the city again, but Abdi-Ashirta's son, Aziru, recaptured Sumur. Sumur became the capital of Amurru.{{cite book|author=Trevor Bryce|title=The Kingdom of the Hittites|page=182}}

It is likely, although not completely certain, that the "Sumur" of the Amarna letters is the same city later known as "Simirra."{{cite book|author=Trevor Bryce|title=The Routledge Handbook of the Peoples and Places of Ancient Western Asia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AwwNS0diXP4C&pg=PA654|date=10 September 2009|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-134-15907-9|page=672}} Simirra was claimed as part of the Assyrian empire by Tiglath-Pileser III in 738 BCE, but rebelled against Assyria in 721 at the beginning of the reign of Sargon II.{{cite book|author=Trevor Bryce|title=The Routledge Handbook of the Peoples and Places of Ancient Western Asia: The Near East from the Early Bronze Age to the fall of the Persian Empire|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AwwNS0diXP4C&pg=PA654|date=10 September 2009|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-134-15907-9|page=654}}

It has been linked by Maurice Dunand and N. Salisby to the archaeological site of Tell Kazel in 1957.[https://www.jstor.org/pss/25066965 Badre, Leila., Tell Kazel-Simyra: A Contribution to a Relative Chronological History in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Late Bronze Age, American University of Beirut, Lebanon, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 2006.]