Carchemish

   An ancient Near Eastern city strategically located - on the upper Euphrates in northern Syria - on one of the main trade routes linking Mesopotamia to the Mediterranean world. Archaeological evidence indicates that the site of carchemish was inhabited at least as early as circa 3000 b.c. Over time its involvement in trade made it prosperous, and it became an alluring prize for the large empires that rose around it in the second millennium b.c. Mitanni, Hatti (land of the Hittites), and Assyria all captured carchemish. Under Hittite domination, which lasted more than two centuries, the city's patron goddess was Kubaba, who may have been an early version of Cybele, an Anatolian deity widely worshipped in the Mediterranean world in the late first millennium b.c. Assyria's King Sargon II seized Carchemish in about 717 b.c., but only a century later Assyria collapsed. In 605 b.c. the city was the site of a large battle fought between the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II and the Egyptian pharaoh Necho, in which the Babylonians were victorious.

   In modern times, the ruined site of Carchemish was first surveyed in 1876 by Assyriologist George Smith. After his death a team from the British Museum explored the site between 1911 and 1914. Among the diggers were the great archaeologist Charles Leonard Woolley and T.E. Lawrence, who later became famous as "Lawrence of Arabia." They uncovered temples, a fortress, and many sculpted reliefs and statues.

   See also: Hittites; Mitanni; Smith, George; trade