The road from Damascus led to a point south of Quodshu, while that from Phonicia came right up to the town itself or to its immediate neighbourhood. The dyke of Bahr el-Kades served to keep the plain in a dry condition, and thus secured for numerous towns, among which Hamath stood out pre-eminently, a prosperous existence. Beyond Hamath, and to the left, between the Orontes and the sea, lay the commercial kingdom of Alasia, protected from the invader by bleak mountains.*
* The site of Alasia, Alashia, was determined from the Tel
el-Amarna tablets by Maspero. Niebuhr had placed it to the
west of Cilicia, opposite the island of Eleousa mentioned by
Strabo. Conder connected it with the scriptural Elishah, and
W. Max Millier confounds it with Asi or Cyprus.
On the right, between the Orontes and the Balikh, extended the land of rivers, Naharaim. Towns had grown up here thickly,—on the sides of the torrents from the Amanos, along the banks of rivers, near springs or wells—wherever, in fact, the presence of water made culture possible. The fragments of the Egyptian chronicles which have come down to us number these towns by the hundred,* and yet of how many more must the records have perished with the crumbling Theban walls upon which the Pharaohs had their names incised! Khalabu was the Aleppo of our own day,** and grouped around it lay Turmanuna, Tunipa, Zarabu, Nîi, Durbaniti, Nirabu, Sarmata,*** and a score of others which depended upon it, or upon one of its rivals. The boundaries of this portion of the Lower Lotanû have come down to us in a singularly indefinite form, and they must also, moreover, have been subject to continual modifications from the results of tribal conflicts.
* Two hundred and thirty names belonging to Naharaim are
still legible on the lists of Thûtmosis III., and a hundred
others have been effaced from the monument.
** Khalabu was identified by Chabas with Khalybôn, the
modern Aleppo, and his opinion has been adopted by most
Egyptologists.
*** Tunipa has been found in Tennib, Tinnab, by Noldoke;
Zarabu in Zarbi, and Sarmata in Sarmeda, by Tomkins;
Durbaniti in Deîr el-Banât, the Castrum Puellarum of the
chroniclers of the Crusades; Nirabu in Nirab, and Tirabu in
Tereb, now el-Athrib. Nirab is mentioned by Nicholas of
Damascus. Nîi, long confounded with Nineveh, was identified
by Lenormant with Ninus Vetus, Membidj, and by Max Millier
with Balis on the Euphrates: I am inclined to make it Kefer-
Naya, between Aleppo and Turmanin.
We are at a loss to know whether the various principalities were accustomed to submit to the leadership of a single individual, or whether we are to relegate to the region of popular fancy that Lord of Naharaim of whom the Egyptian scribes made such a hero in their fantastic narratives.*
* In the “Story of the Predestined Prince” the heroine is
daughter of the Prince of Naharaim, who seems to exercise
authority over all the chiefs of the country; as the
manuscript does not date back further than the XXth dynasty,
we are justified in supposing that the Egyptian writer had a
knowledge of the Hittite domination, during which the King
of the Khâti was actually the ruler of all Naharaim.
Carchemish represented in this region the position occupied by Megiddo in relation to Kharû, and by Qodshu among the Amorites; that is to say, it was the citadel and sanctuary of the surrounding country. Whoever could make himself master of it would have the whole country at his feet.