Aramaea
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Aramaea is the land of the Arameans. In the Hebrew Bible, it is called "Aram-Naharaim", meaning "Aram of two rivers", to distinguish it from other Arams.
Aramaea was located in central Syria, including where the city of Aleppo (aka Halab) now stands. It is where the Aramaic language originated.
The Arameans (speakers of Aramaic) never succeeded in unifying their city states into a single "kingdom of Aramaea". However, history reveals that before 1300 BC when they were conquered by Assyria, these same people spoke Hurrian, and had a rather large feudal empire in the same area, known as Mitanni (Hanigalbat) - and possibly the same as the biblical Harran (though this is contested.)
As Christians began to inhabit that area of Syria, a dialect of Aramaic, Syriac was born. Hence Syriac has been associated with Christian Syrians.
Today in this same area, there are several Catholic Rites that are distinct from the Roman Rite. Two of these are the Maronite Catholic Rite and the Melkite Catholic Rite, both common to Syria and Lebanon.
Some Arameans of today dream of an Aramaea in Lebanon where the Syriac Maronites (who are Arameans) now predominate. Aramaic, the language of Jesus, would replace the Arabic language as the official language in this future state.
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