¿Un pueblo imaginario? La creación de la identidad amorrea en los estudios asiriológicos

The association of the term mar-tu, documented in the 3rd millennium texts, with the Amorites of the 2nd millennium has contributed to the consolidation of the idea that both terms would refer to the same historic phenomenon. From this point of view, mar-tu would designate the 3rd millennium Amorites, which would confirm the principle of the existence of migratory flow which would have led these populations from Syria to Mesopotamia. In this historic construction, the image of the Amorites of the 2nd millennium projects into the past as a means for interpreting the evidence of mar-tu in the 3rd millennium. This view has been uncritically assumed and transmitted without taking into account the varied (epigraphic, lexicographic, historic) problems intrinsic to this issue. In the present article I propose some considerations of methodological nature, as well as some rebuttals of this partial view several interpretative proposals for the term mar-tu.