Kadesh
| Kadesh in hieroglyphics | ||||||
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Qedeschu Qdšw Qades / Kadesh |
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Coordinates: 34 ° 33 ′ 28.1 ″ N , 36 ° 31 ′ 10.6 ″ E
Kadesch , also Qadeš, Qadesch, Kinza , today Tell Nebi Mend , was an important city in ancient times on the Orontes River in Syria .
location
The excavation mound ( Tell ) is located about 25 km southwest of the city of Homs and southwest of Katna . A fortress offered protection for the townspeople and those passing through. As a fortress, Kadesh was not the decisive power factor. Only the special location on the northern edge of the Lebanon Mountains raised Kadesch to the class of important places. Only from here could the Mediterranean be reached comfortably . The trade routes from Damascus to Aleppo and from Amurru to Palmyra also crossed here, and then to Mesopotamia . Through this central location, Kadesh controlled the trade.
history
The name of the city is mainly associated with the battle of Kadesch in 1274 BC. In which the Hittite king Muwatalli II repulsed a campaign by Pharaoh Ramses II . Some time before that, King Bentešina of Amurru had ignored the vassal treaty with the Hittites and went over to the other great power Egypt . Amurru extended over parts of present-day Syria and present-day northern Lebanon and bordered on the Egyptian-ruled Palestine . The small kingdom formed a buffer between the northern provinces of the Pharaoh and the Hittite Empire. After the battle, Kadesh remained in the hands of the Hittites.
Kings of Kadesh
literature
- Alexander Ahrens: A city between the fronts. Tell Nebi Mend - Kadesch (Syria): A settlement in the border area of the great powers of the Middle East. Antike Welt 3/2005, pp. 62–64.
- Alan Millard: The Cuneiform Tablets from Tell Nebi Mend. In: Levant - Journal of the Council for British Research in the Levant 42 (2010), pp. 226-236.
- Peter J. Parr (Ed.): Excavations at Tell Nebi Mend, Syria (= Levant Supplementary Series 16). Oxbow Books, Oxford 2015. ISBN 978-1-78297-786-5
- Maurice Pézard: Qadesh: Mission archéologique à Tell Nebi Mend, 1921–1922 (= Bibliothèque archéologique et historique 15). Geuthner, Paris 1931.
Web links
- Christopher Davey: Qadesh on the Orontes. (PDF; 1 MB) March 1976