Til Barsip
Coordinates: 36 ° 42 '5 " N , 38 ° 5' 11.5" E
Til Barsip is the ancient name of today's Tell Aḥmar ("Red Hill") on the east bank of the Euphrates at the mouth of the Sajur . It was the capital of the small Aramaic empire of Bit Adini . The native name in the Hittite period was Mazuwati and in the Iron Age hieroglyphic Luwish Masuwari . In Assyrian inscriptions by Sulmanu-ašared III. (reigned 858-824) the place is called Til Barsip . After his conquest in 856, the Assyrian king renamed it Kar-Šulmanu-asared (Kar Salmanasser), but the old name remained and was even mostly in use. In ancient times the place was called Bersiba (Βέρσιβα).
Cityscape
Tell Aḥmar is located in northern Syria about 20 kilometers south of Karkemiš (Turkish border). The ancient settlement hill rises in the middle of a fertile river plain. The place used to be of strategic importance at the intersection of highways. It was divided into a semicircle in an acropolis , a middle town to the west of it and a lower town in the north. The city area was 60 hectares.
history
The earliest traces of settlement (ceramic finds) date from the Obed period of the 5th millennium. There is evidence of a small settlement from the beginning of the 3rd millennium. A large chamber grave ( hypogeum ), which was uncovered on the edge of the hill, dates from the middle of the 3rd millennium . In the Iron Age, at the end of the 2nd millennium, the city was of national importance. It was conquered by the Hittites, the palace dates back to Assyrian times. The city was a center of worship of the weather god , a late Hittite statue of the same from the 10th or 9th century has also been found, which is currently in the Louvre . A statue of the Assyrian king Assurhaddon also comes from Til Barsip .
In post-Assyrian times the place was still inhabited. The Greek geographer Ptolemy called the place Bersiba. It was given up in late antiquity. It was not until the middle of the 19th century that the settlement hill was repopulated.
Ruler
Seven rulers are known from hieroglyphic inscriptions, but not all of them by name.
| Surname | Reign | Remarks |
|---|---|---|
| Hapatila | late 10th to early 9th centuries | Dynasty A |
| Ariyahina | late 10th to early 9th centuries | Grandson of Hapatila, Dynasty A |
| Father of Hamiyata | late 10th to early 9th centuries | Usurper , Dynasty B |
| Hamiyata | late 10th to early 9th centuries | Dynasty B |
| Son of Hamiyata | early to mid 9th century | Dynasty B |
| Son of Ariyahina | Mid 9th century | Dynasty A |
| Aḫuni | 856 | Bit adini |
Excavations
The first excavations were carried out in 1908 by David G. Hogarth, who found a lion with cuneiform writing , and from 1929 to 1931 French excavators under François Thureau-Dangin uncovered the Assyrian palace. Guy Bunnens from the University of Liège worked here in the 1980s . The modern residential development so far only allowed exploratory cuts. Since the completion of the Tabqa dam, the water of the Euphrates reaches up to the settlement hill.
literature
- François Thureau-Dangin, Maurice Dunand: Til Barsip. P. Geuthner, Paris 1936. Haut-commissariat de la République française en Syrie et au Liban, Service des antiquités. Bibliothèque archéologique et historique 33.
- Guy Bunnens: Tell Ahmar: 1988 season. (= Publications of the Melbourne University Expedition to Tell Ahmar 1; Abr-Nahrain Supplement Series 2). Leuven 1990, ISBN 90-6831-322-3 .
- Guy Bunnens: Tell Ahmar II: a new Luwian stele and the cult of the Storm-God at Til Barsib-Masuwari. Peeters, Louvain 2006. (Publications de la Mission archéologique de l'Université de Liège en Syrie), ISBN 978-90-429-1817-7 .
- Stephanie Dalley: Neo-Assyrian Tablets from Til Barsib. In: Abr-Nahrain. 34 (1996/97), pp. 66-99.
- Elisabeth Fontan: Les peintures murales de Til Barsip. In: Dossiers d'Archéologie. No. 171, 1992, p. 83.
- Fred C. Woudhuizen : The Recently Discovered Luwian Hieroglyphic Inscription from Tell Ahmar. In: Ancient West & East. 9, (2010), pp. 1-19.
- Andrew Jamieson: Tell Ahmar III. Neo-Assyrian Pottery from Area C. (= Ancient Near Eastern Studies Supplement Series 35). Peeters, Leuven 2012, ISBN 978-90-429-2364-5 .
Web links
- Case Study: Tell Ahmar (Til Barsib). Neo-Assyrian Urban Center, Northern Syria. Archaeo-Physics, 2009 Mapping by geomagnetic surveying
Individual evidence
- ^ J. David Hawkins: The Hittite Name of Til Barsip: Evidence from a New Hieroglyphic Fragment from Tell Ahmar. In: Anatolian Studies 33 (1983 - Special Number in Honor of the Seventy-Fifth Birthday of Dr. Richard Barnett ), pp. 131-136.
- ↑ Tayfun Bilgin: Tell Ahmar. Monuments of the Hittities. Photos of the weather god stele.
- ↑ Georg Gerster and Ralf-B. Wartke: Aerial images from Syria. From ancient to modern. Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 2003, p. 148.
- ^ Trevor Bryce: The World of the Neo-Hittite Kingdoms; A Political and Military History . Oxford, New York 2012, pp. 115-121, pp. 168-169, pp. 304.
- ^ Til Barsip. The Palestine Exploration Fund photo of the 8th century BC Assyrian city walls BC, in the background the Euphrates flooded land.