Royal Family of Emesa

The Emesani dynasty or the Sempsigerami of Emesa (Arabic: آل شميس غرام‎‎), sometimes known as the Sampsiceramids were a ruling Roman client dynasty of priest-kings in Emesa, Syria Province (modern Homs, Syria). They were Arabs.

Emesa was famous for the worship of the strong ancient pagan cult El-Gebal, also known as Elagabal. The city was renowned for El-Gebal’s place of worship the Temple of the Sun. El-Gebal was worshipped in the form of a conical black stone. El-Gebal was the Aramaic name for the Syrian Sun God and means God of the Mountain.

A resident of Emesa could be called an Emesan, Emesani or Emesene (plural Emesenes). Sampsiceramus I was the founding Priest-King of the Emesani dynasty who lived in the 1st century BC and was an Aramean chieftain or Phylarch. The ancestors of Sampsiceramus I were Bedouins who had travelled the Syrian terrain, before deciding to settle in the Orontes Valley and South of the Apamea region. Sampsiceramus I, his family and his ancestors in Syria had lived under the Greek rule of the Seleucid Empire. Sampsiceramus I was a son of Aziz (Azizus, c. 94 BC); paternal grandson of Iamblichus (c. 151 BC) and there was a possibility he may have had a brother called Ptolemaeus (c. 41 BC) who may have had descendants through his son.

In Emesa, Aramaic and Greek were commonly spoken languages and later Latin was probably commonly spoken in the city. Through the rule and influence of the Seleucid dynasty and Greek settlement in the Seleucid Empire, Emesa was assimilated into the Greek language and culture of the Hellenistic period. Hence, Sampsiceramus I and his ancestors became Hellenized through the Greek rule of Syria and the surrounding territories.

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