advocated by a number of syriac christians most notably members of the syriac orthodox church and syriac catholic church, modern arameans claim to be the descendants of the ancient arameans who emerged in the levant during the late bronze age, who following the bronze age collapse formed a number of small ancient aramean kingdoms before they were conquered by the neo-assyrian empire in the course of the 10th to late 7th centuries bc. they have maintained linguistic, aramean and cultural independence despite centuries of arabization, islamization as well as turkification, although levantine western aramaic now has very few native speakers. they were among the first peoples to embrace christianity during the 1st and 2nd centuries ad. during horatio southgate's travels through mesopotamia, he encountered indigenous christians and stated that the jacobites in the region of levant called themselves for syrians "whose chief city was damascus".