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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, not far from the historical city of Jerablus in Syria. A Turkish military base has been built on the Carchemish acropolis, and access to the site is presently restricted.
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.
The site has been occupied since the Neolithic period, with pottery finds from ca. 3000 BC and tombs from ca. 2300 BC (Early Bronze AgeThe Bronze Age is a period in a civilization's development when the most advanced metalworking has developed the techniques of smelting copper from natural outcroppings and alloys it to cast bronze. The Bronze Age is part of the Three-age system for prehi). The city is mentioned in documents found in the EblaEbla was an ancient city located in northern Syria, about 55 km southwest of Aleppo. It was an important city-state in two periods, first in the late third millennium BC, then again between 1800 and 1650 BC. The site is known today as Tell Mardikh and is archives of the 3rd millennium BC4th millennium BC 3rd millennium BC 2nd millennium BC other millennia) Events Foundation of the city of Mari ( Syria) ( 29th century BC ) Creation of the Kingdom of Elam ( Iraq) Germination of the Bristlecone pine tree "Methuselah" about 2700 BC, the olde. According to documents from the archives of MariThis article is about a Volga-Finnic people. See also Mari, Syria, Anbotoko Mari and Mari, Greece, a village in Laconia. The Mari (also known as Cheremis in Russian and irmes in Tatar) are a Volga-Finnic people in the Volga area, the natives of Mari El, R and AlalakhAlalakh is the name of an ancient city and its associated city-state of the Amuq River valley, located in the Hatay region of southern Turkey near the city of Antakya (ancient Antioch), and now represented by an extensive city-mound known as Tell Atchana, 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 Suppiluliumas 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 in the Hittite Empire, during the Late Bronze Age, and reached its apogee around the 9th century BC.
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.
After the Hittite empire fell to the Sea Peoples, Carchemish continued to be the capital of an important "Neo-Hittite" kingdom in the Iron Age, and important trade center.
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 of Egypt (Jer. 46:2). The aim of Necho's campaign was to contain the Westward advance of the Persian 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.