Description : Carchemish ( kar-KEM-ish), also spelled Karkemish (Hittite: Karkamiš; Turkish: Karkamış; Greek: Εὔρωπος; Latin: Europus), was an important ancient capital in the northern part of the region of Syria. At times during its history the city was independent, but it was also part of the Mitanni, Hittite and Neo-Assyrian Empires. Today it is on the frontier between Turkey and Syria. It was the location of an important battle, about 605 BC, between the Babylonians and Egyptians, mentioned in the Bible (Jer. 46:2). Modern neighbouring cities are Karkamış in Turkey and Jarabulus in Syria (also Djerablus, Jerablus, Jarablos, Jarâblos); the original form of the modern toponym seems to have been Djerabis or Jerabis, likely derived from Europos, the ancient name of the Hellenistic-Roman settlement. Chalcolithic periods (pot burials), with cist tombs from ca. 2400 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 c. 1800 BC, Carchemish was then ruled by a king named Aplahanda and was an important center of timber trade. It had treaty relationships with Ugarit and Mitanni (Hanilgalbat). In ancient times, the city commanded the main ford in the region across the Euphrates, a situation which must have contributed greatly to its historical and strategic importance. Pharaoh Thutmose I of the Eighteenth Dynasty erected a stele 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 (c. 14th century BC), who made it into a kingdom ruled by his son Piyassili. The city became one of the most important centres in the Hittite Empire, during the Late Bronze Age, and reached its apogee around the 13th century BC. While the Hittite empire fell to the Sea Peoples during the Bronze Age collapse, Carchemish survived the Sea Peoples' 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. King Kuzi-Tesup I is attested in power here and was the son of Talmi-Teshub who was a contemporary of the last Hittite king, Suppiluliuma II. He and his successors ruled a "mini-empire" stretching from Southeast Asia Minor to Northern Syria and the West bend of the Euphrates under the title "Great King". 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 powerful polity lasted from c.1175 to 975 BC when it began losing control of its farther possessions and became gradually a more local city state centered around Carchemish. The patron goddess of Carchemish was Kubaba, a deity of apparently Hurrian origins. She was represented as a dignified woman wearing a long robe, standing or seated, and holding a mirror. The main male deity of the town was Karhuha, akin to the Hittite stag-god Kurunta. In the 9th century BC, King Sangara paid tribute to Kings Ashurnasirpal II and Shalmaneser III of Assyria. It was conquered by Sargon II in 717 BC, in the reign of King Pisiri. In 2015, for the first time, the name of Sangara has been documented in a hieroglyphic inscription originally coming from the site itself (it is the top part of the stele drawn in 1876 by G. Smith, on whom see below, and transported in 1881 to the British Museum). The Assyrians turned the site into an important provincial capital. In the summer of 605 BC, the Battle of Carchemish was fought there by the Babylonian army of Nebuchadnezzar II and that of Pharaoh Necho II of Egypt and the remnants of the Assyrian army (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. After a brief Neo-Babylonian occupation, the Turco-Italian excavations found evidence for three phases of Achaemenid occupation, a significant reconstruction in Hellenistic times, a monumental phase from the Late Roman period, an Early Byzantine and three Abbasid phases before the final abandonment of the site until the early 1900s.
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