It lay upon the Euphrates, the winding of the river protecting it on its southern and south-eastern sides, while around its northern front ran a deep stream, its defence being further completed by a double ditch across the intervening region. Like Qodshu, it was thus situated in the midst of an artificial island beyond the reach of the battering-ram or the sapper. The encompassing wall, which tended to describe an ellipse, hardly measured two miles in circumference; but the suburbs extending, in the midst of villas and gardens, along the river-banks furnished in time of peace an abode for the surplus population. The wall still rises some five and twenty to thirty feet above the plain. Two mounds divided by a ravine command its north-western side, their summits being occupied by the ruins of two fine buildings—a temple and a palace.* Carchemish was the last stage in a conqueror’s march coming from the south.
* Karkamisha, Gargamish, was from the beginning associated
with the Carchemish of the Bible; but as the latter was
wrongly identified with Circesium, it was naturally located
at the confluence of the Khabur with the Euphrates. Hincks
fixed the site at Rum-Kaleh. G. Rawlinson referred it
cursorily to Hierapolis-Mabog, which position Maspero
endeavoured to confirm. Finzi, and after him G. Smith,
thought to find the site at Jerabis, the ancient Europos,
and excavations carried on there by the English have brought
to light in this place Hittite monuments which go back in
part to the Assyrian epoch. This identification is now
generally accepted, although there is still no direct proof
attainable, and competent judges continue to prefer the site
of Membij. I fall in with the current view, but with all
reserve.
Reproduced by Faucher-Gudin, from a cut in the Graphic.
For an invader approaching from the east or north it formed his first station. He had before him, in fact, a choice of the three chief fords for crossing the Euphrates. That of Thapsacus, at the bend of the river where it turns eastward to the Arabian plain, lay too far to the south, and it could be reached only after a march through a parched and desolate region where the army would run the risk of perishing from thirst.
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
from a photograph.