Everything about Carchemish totally explained
Carchemish (called
Europus by the
Greco-Romans) was an important ancient city of the
Mitanni and
Hittite empires, now on the frontier between
Turkey and
Syria. It was the location of an
important battle between the
Babylonians and
Egyptians, mentioned in the
Bible. The city is said to be known locally as
Jarablos (also
Jarâblos)
(External Link
), linking it to the
Biblical city of
Jerablus; a corrupted form of the name is
Djerabis. Indeed, just to the south of the Turkish-Syrian border lies the town of
Carablus; the other side of the border hosts the Turkish town of
Karkamis.
The site
Carchemish is now an extensive set of ruins, located on the West bank of
Euphrates River, about 60 km southeast of
Gaziantep,
Turkey and 100 km northeast of
Aleppo,
Syria. The site lies in Turkish territory near the frontier between the two countries. A Turkish military base has been built on the Carchemish
acropolis, and access to the site is presently restricted. Part of the location of the city may also lie on Syrian territory.
In ancient times, the city commanded the main ford across the
Euphrates, a situation which must have contributed greatly to its historical and strategic importance.
History
The site has been occupied since the Neolithic period, with pottery finds from ca.
3000 BC and tombs from ca.
2300 BC (Early
Bronze Age). The city is mentioned in documents found in the
Ebla archives of the
3rd millennium BC. According to documents from the archives of
Mari and
Alalakh, dated from ca.
1800 BC, Carchemish was then ruled by a king named
Aplahanda, and an important center of timber trade. It had treaty relationships with
Ugarit and
Mitanni (
Hanilgalbat).
Pharaoh Thutmose I of the
Eighteenth Dynasty erected a stela near Carchemish to celebrate his conquest of Syria and other lands beyond the Euphrates.
Around the end of the reign of Pharaoh
Akhenaten, Carchemish was captured by king
Suppiluliuma I of the
Hittites (ca.
14th century BC), who made it into a kingdom ruled by his son
Piyashshili.
The city became one of the most important centres in the Hittite Empire, during the Late Bronze Age, and reached its apogee around the
11th century BC. While the Hittite empire fell to the
Sea Peoples during the
Bronze Age collapse, Carchemish survived the Sea People's attacks to continue to be the capital of an important "
Neo-Hittite" kingdom in the
Iron Age, and a trading center. Although Ramesses III states in an inscription dating to his 8th Year from his Medinet Habu mortuary temple that Carchemish was destroyed by the Sea Peoples, the city evidently survived the onslaught of the Sea Peoples. King Kuzi-Tesup I is attested in power here and was the son of
Talmi-Teshub who was a contemporary of the last surviving Hittite king,
Suppiluliuma II. He and his successors ruled a small empire stretching from Southeast Asia Minor to Northern Syria and the West Bend of the Euphrates. under the title of 'Great Kings.' This suggests that Kuzi-Tesub saw himself as the true heir of the line of the great Suppiliuma I and that the central dynasty at Hattusa was now defunct. This Empire lasted from c.1175 to 990 BC when it lost control of its imperial possessions and became a mere local city state centred around Carchemish.
The patron of Carchemish under the Hittites was
Kubaba, a goddess of apparently
Hurrian origins. She was represented as a dignified woman wearing a long robe, standing or seated, and holding a mirror.
In the
9th century BC, the city paid tribute to Kings
Ashurnasirpal II and
Shalmaneser III of
Assyria, and was conquered by
Sargon II in
717 BC, in the reign of King
Pisiris.
In the summer of
605 BC (or
607 BC by some sources), an important battle was fought there by the
Babylonian army of
Nebuchadrezzar II and that of Pharaoh
Necho II of Egypt (Jer. 46:2). The aim of Necho's campaign was to contain the Westward advance of the Babylonian Empire and cut off its trade route across the Euphrates. However, the
Egyptians were defeated by the unexpected attack of the Babylonians and were eventually expelled from Syria.
Rediscovery and exploration
Carchemish has always been well-known to scholars because of several references to it in the Bible (Jer. 46:2; 2 Chr. 35:20; Isa. 10:9) and in Egyptian and Assyrian texts. However, its location was identified only in
1876 by
George Smith. The city had been previously identified, incorrectly, with
Circesium at the confluence of the
Chebar and the Euphrates. It has also been identified with the
Hierapolis Bambyce of the
Greek, although the modern
Pamukkale in Turkey also had that name.
The site was initially excavated by the
British Museum, chiefly between
1911 and
1914, by
D. G. Hogarth,
R. C. Thompson,
C. L. Woolley, and
T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia"). These expeditions uncovered substantial remains of the Assyrian and Neo-Hittite periods, including defensive structures, temples, palaces, and numerous basalt statues and reliefs with
Luwian hieroglyphic inscriptions.
Kings of Carchemish
Further Information
Get more info on 'Carchemish'.
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