Carchemish

Listen first. Below the mound, the Euphrates runs wide and green, and the wind carries the sound of water over stones. The ground underfoot is pale and dusty, scattered with broken pottery. Chips of basalt, dark and heavy, catch the sun. This quiet stretch of riverbank, on the frontier between Syria and Turkey, was once one of the great crossroads of the ancient Near East. Its name was Carchemish.

The position explains everything. Here the Euphrates could be crossed. Roads from Mesopotamia ran northwest toward Anatolia, the high plateau that is now central Turkey. Other routes led west toward the Mediterranean coast. Whoever held this ford controlled trade, armies and taxes. So for thousands of years, empires wanted it. Some of the earliest written records from the region already mention the city. Clay tablets from Mari and Ebla, two Bronze Age kingdoms of Syria, name it as a place of merchants and kings.

Today the ancient city is split by a modern border. This surprises many visitors. The high citadel mound and most of the inner town lie on the Turkish side. Part of the outer town, which spread to the south, lies here in Syria, close to the town of Jarabulus. A railway line runs along the boundary, cutting through ground that was once a single city. When you look north across the fences, you are looking at the heart of Carchemish.

In the Late Bronze Age, Carchemish fell under the Hittites. The Hittites were a powerful empire based in central Anatolia. They made the city the seat of a viceroy, a royal prince who governed their Syrian territories. This was a position of real power. The viceroys of Carchemish handled diplomacy, trade and war on the empire's southern edge. Their seals and letters appear in archives far from this riverbank.

Then, around 1200 BCE, the Hittite Empire collapsed. Its capital in Anatolia was abandoned. Carchemish did not fall with it. Instead, the city survived and became the centre of its own kingdom. Historians call these successor states Neo-Hittite, or Syro-Hittite, kingdoms. Their rulers kept Hittite traditions alive for centuries. They used a script called Luwian hieroglyphs, a picture-based writing system, carved into stone. Here was a piece of a lost empire, still governing itself long after the empire was gone.

Those carvings are the real fame of Carchemish. The kings of this age lined their gates and processional ways with slabs of black basalt and pale limestone. Archaeologists call these slabs orthostats, which simply means upright stones set along the base of a wall. They show soldiers, chariots, gods, musicians and members of the royal family. One famous group shows a queen and her children, including a small child playing with toys. The alternating light and dark stone made a strong visual rhythm along the walls.

Here is the second surprise. In the years just before the First World War, the British Museum excavated Carchemish. The work began under David Hogarth. Later it was led by Leonard Woolley, who would become famous for excavating Ur in Iraq. One of his young assistants was T. E. Lawrence. Years later, the world would know him as Lawrence of Arabia. Before the desert campaigns, he spent his days here, recording sculpture and managing workmen on this mound.

At the same time, German engineers were building the Berlin to Baghdad railway. Their route crossed the Euphrates right here, beside the ancient ruins. So the archaeologists dug while a modern bridge rose nearby. Great powers were once again competing for this crossing point. The war soon stopped the excavation. Many of the sculptures found in those years later went to museums, especially the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara, with other pieces in the British Museum in London.

Now to the most famous event in this place. In 605 BCE, a great battle was fought at Carchemish. On one side stood the army of Egypt under Pharaoh Necho the Second, supporting the last forces of the Assyrian Empire. On the other side stood the Babylonians, led by the crown prince Nebuchadnezzar. The Babylonians won decisively. The result changed the map of the region, and it gave Babylon control over Syria and the lands to the south.

That battle echoes far beyond archaeology. The Hebrew Bible mentions it in the Book of Jeremiah. So people who have never heard of Luwian hieroglyphs may still know the name Carchemish from scripture. Earlier, in the late eighth century BCE, the city had already lost its independence. The Assyrian king Sargon the Second captured it and absorbed the kingdom into his empire. Much later, in Hellenistic and Roman times, a smaller town stood here under a new name, Europos.

In the twenty-first century, work began again on the Turkish side. A joint Turkish and Italian team returned to the mound, uncovering more walls, gates and sculpture. The citadel area has since been developed for visitors. On the Syrian side, the story is harder. Years of conflict have affected this whole border region. The outer town here has received far less study. Much of what lies under these fields remains unexcavated, and unknown.

So as you stand here, use your eyes carefully. Look at the slope of the land toward the river. Notice how the citadel mound rises sharply above the flat plain. That height was not natural luck alone. It grew over thousands of years, as people built new houses on the ruins of old ones. Each layer of mud brick and stone added to the hill. The mound is, in a real sense, made of the city itself.

Before you leave, turn toward the Euphrates once more. The same water ran past here when Hittite viceroys wrote their letters. It ran past when chariots gathered for the battle of 605 BCE. It ran past when a young Lawrence sat sketching broken sculpture in the heat. Listen to the wind again, and look at the dark stones by your feet. As you walk away, you are crossing ground that empires once fought to hold.