town or village

Carchemish

Today Jerabis

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Events

c. 1327 BCSuppiluliuma I takes Carchemish
717 BCSargon II annexes Carchemish

Battles and sieges

605 BCNebuchadnezzar defeats Egypt at Carchemish Jer 46:2
Nebuchadnezzar, crown prince of Babylon, against the army of Pharaoh Necho. The Egyptian army is smitten in the fourth year of Jehoiakim; Babylon takes the west.

History

Carchemish stood on the west bank of the Euphrates at the main crossing of the river in northern Syria; its ruins lie on today's border between Turkey and Syria, beside Karkamış and Jarabulus. The site was settled in the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods, and the city is named in the archives of Ebla in the third millennium BC. In the eighteenth century BC the letters of Mari show its kings, among them Aplahanda, ruling an important centre of trade. In the fourteenth century BC the Hittite king Suppiluliuma I captured Carchemish and made his son Piyassili, also called Sharri-Kushuh, its king, and it became the seat of Hittite power in Syria.

When the Hittite empire fell about 1200 BC, Kuzi-Teshub, of the same royal line, ruled on at Carchemish as Great King, and the city became the leading Neo-Hittite state, known for its Luwian hieroglyphic inscriptions and carved stone reliefs. Its king Sangara paid tribute to Shalmaneser III in 853 BC, and Pisiri paid tribute to Tiglath-pileser III. In 717 BC, Sargon II records, Pisiri broke his oath and sent hostile messages to Mita, king of Mushki; Sargon led him away in bonds with his family and settled Assyrians in the city. Isaiah has the Assyrian king boast: "Is not Calno as Carchemish?"

In 605 BC the army of Pharaoh Necho of Egypt lay at Carchemish. The Babylonian Chronicle relates that the crown prince Nebuchadnezzar crossed the Euphrates, defeated the Egyptians there and overtook the survivors in the district of Hamath, so that not one man escaped home. Jeremiah dates this defeat of Necho's army at Carchemish to the fourth year of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and 2 Chronicles also tells of Necho going up to fight at Carchemish. The victory opened the lands west of the Euphrates to Babylon.

Afterwards Carchemish was a lesser place. Excavations have found settlement in the Persian period, rebuilding in Hellenistic times, monumental buildings of the late Roman period and an early Byzantine phase. The British Museum dug at the site in 1878–1881 and again in 1911–1914 and 1920, under D. G. Hogarth and then Leonard Woolley, with T. E. Lawrence among the staff; since 2011 a Turkish and Italian team led by Nicolò Marchetti has resumed work on the Turkish side.

Scripture: Isa 10:8–9; Jer 46:2; 2 Chr 35:20

Sources

Shalmaneser III, Kurkh Monolith (D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia I, 610: tribute of Sangara of Carchemish, 853 BC)
Tiglath-pileser III, RINAP 1, Tiglath-pileser III 14 line 10; 35 iii 15-17 (tribute of Pisiri)
Sargon II, Khorsabad Annals (RINAP 2, Sargon II 1) lines 72-76 (Pisiri, 717 BC)
Babylonian Chronicle ABC 5 (Jerusalem Chronicle) obv. 1-8 (the battle of 605 BC)
H. G. Güterbock, 'The Deeds of Suppiluliuma as Told by His Son, Mursili II', JCS 10 (1956)
D. G. Hogarth, C. L. Woolley and R. D. Barnett, Carchemish: Report on the Excavations at Djerabis on behalf of the British Museum, Parts I-III (1914-1952)
J. D. Hawkins, Corpus of Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscriptions I: Inscriptions of the Iron Age (2000)
T. Bryce, The World of the Neo-Hittite Kingdoms (2012)

Checked against its sources; not yet read by a historian.

Verses (3)

2 Chr 35:20: After all this, when Josiah had prepared the temple, Necho king of Egypt came up to fight against Carchemish by Euphrates: and Josiah went out against him.
Isa 10:9: Is not Calno as Carchemish? is not Hamath as Arpad? is not Samaria as Damascus?
Jer 46:2: Against Egypt, against the army of Pharaoh-necho king of Egypt, which was by the river Euphrates in Carchemish, which Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon smote in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah.

King James Version