The ruins of Carchemish, powerful city-state and Hittite capital, lie near the Syrian town of Jerablus, just across the border in Turkish territory.
In the inscriptions of Ramses II, Carchemish usually called Kadesh. Carchemish means the city of Chemosh. Being a city named after or dedicated to a god, it was a holy city.
The location of Carchemish at a major east-west crossing of the Euphrates as well as it position on the Euphrates assured the site’s importance as a principal thoroughfare in the ancient world.
Carchemish was important from ancient times because of its strategic position on the westernmost point of Syria and convenient crossing place on the upper Euphrates River where trade route from the lower Euphrates turned west to Anatolia.
In the late Bronze Age, Carchemish was already ringed by storing protective walls.
It was an important vassal and ally Assyria in the late nineteenth and early eighteenth centuries BC and from the time Assyria seized the throne of Mari until Mari’s destruction by Hammurabi of Babylon, Carchemish was vassal.
The chief significant of Carchemish from a biblical perspective is that it was the site of the victory of the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar II against the Egyptians under Pharaoh Necho II in 605 century.
The Battle of Carchemish in 605 BC resulted in a crushing defeat for the Egyptians, the victorious Babylonians pursuing them southward.
Ancient city of Carchemish
