kingdom · Anatolia and the Levant

Bit Bahiani

950 BCE – 808 BCE (approx.) · capital Guzana

Bit Bahiani, an Aramaean kingdom of the upper Khabur centred on Guzana, famous for the sculpted palace of King Kapara at Tell Halaf.

Origins

Aramaean tribes took over the upper Khabur in the 10th century BCE, and the House of Bahiani ruled from Guzana, at Tell Halaf on the Syrian-Turkish border. In 894 BCE its king Abi-salamu paid tribute to Adad-nirari II of the Assyrian Empire.

Rule and society

King Kapara built a palace whose facade had colossal statues of gods on animals and dozens of carved stone reliefs. Excavated by Max von Oppenheim from 1911, they were shattered by bombing in Berlin in 1943 and painstakingly restored. A bilingual statue of the ruler Hadad-yith'i in Assyrian and Aramaic shows the kingdom adapting to Assyrian rule.

Decline and legacy

Bit Bahiani became an Assyrian vassal and finally a province c. 808 BCE. Guzana is the Gozan of the Bible, where Israelites were deported after the fall of Samaria.

Connections (2)

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Cite this page
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Bit Bahiani. In The Epoch Institute States Register. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/bit-bahiani
MLA
“Bit Bahiani.” The Epoch Institute States Register, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/bit-bahiani. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Bit Bahiani.” The Epoch Institute States Register. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/bit-bahiani.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Bit Bahiani’, The Epoch Institute States Register. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/bit-bahiani (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random state ↻