𒂍𒈥 | |
 View from the Byzantine Tower at Meskene, ancient Barbalissos | |
  Shown within Syria | |
| Alternative name | Tell Meskene (Arabic:تل مسكنة) |
|---|---|
| Location | NearMaskanah,Aleppo Governorate,Syria |
| Region | Lake Assad shoreline |
| Coordinates | 35°59′12.63″N38°6′40.95″E / 35.9868417°N 38.1113750°E /35.9868417; 38.1113750 |
| Type | settlement |
| History | |
| Abandoned | 1187 BC |
| Cultures | Amorite |
| Satellite of | Ebla,Yamhad,Carchemish |
| Site notes | |
| Excavation dates | 1972–1976 1996–2002 |
| Archaeologists | Jean-Claude Margueron |
| Ownership | Public |
| Public access | Yes |
Emar (Akkadian:𒂍𒈥,É-mar),[1] is anarchaeological site atTell Meskene in theAleppo Governorate of northernSyria. It sits in the great bend of the mid-Euphrates, now on the shoreline of the man-madeLake Assad near the town ofMaskanah.
It has been the source of manycuneiformtablets, making it rank withUgarit,Mari andEbla among the most importantarchaeological sites ofSyria. In these texts, dating from the 14th century BC to the fall of Emar in 1187 BC,[2] and in excavations in several campaigns since the 1970s, Emar emerges as an importantBronze Age trade center, occupying a liminal position between the power centers of Upper Mesopotamia and Anatolia–Syria. Unlike other cities, the tablets preserved at Emar, most of them inAkkadian and of the thirteenth century BC, are not royal or official, but record private transactions, judicial records, dealings in real estate, marriages, last wills, formal adoptions. In the house of a priest, a library contained literary and lexical texts in the Mesopotamian tradition, and ritual texts for localcults. The area of Emar was fortified by the Romans, Byzantines, and medieval Arabs asBarbalissos orBalis but that location is slightly removed from the more ancient tell and is dealt with in its separate article.
Emar was strategically sited as a trans-shipping point where trade on the Euphrates was reloaded for shipping by overland route.
In the middle of the third millennium BC Emar came under the influence of the rulers ofEbla; the city is mentioned in archives at Ebla.
InMari texts of the eighteenth century BC, (Middle Bronze Age), Emar was under the influence of the neighboringAmorite state ofYamhad. There was no local tradition of kingship at Emar.[3]
From 1760 BC onwards, the Kingdom of Mari ruled by Zimri-Lim had been destroyed by Hammurabi, and a new polity arose at Terqa as the Kingdom of Khana to the immediate east of Emar.
In the Late Bronze, the region came under the control of theMitanni. Following the fall of Aleppo, the royal family took refuge with the maternal line at Emar where princeIdrimi would emerge.
For the thirteenth and the early twelfth centuries BC (Late Bronze Age), there is written documentation from Emar itself, mostly in theAkkadian language, and also references in contemporaneous texts fromHattusa,Ugarit, and in Assyrian archives; at the time Emar was within theHittite sphere of influence, subject to the king ofCarchemish, a Hittite client-king. It was the chief city of a Hittite border province known asthe Land of Astata (Ashtata) which includedTell Fray. Correlating the kings of Emar with the known king-list of Carchemish provides some absolute dating.[3]
Archaeological and written documentation come to an end in the late twelfth century BC as a result of theBronze Age collapse. The actual date of destruction has been placed at 1187 BC in the 2nd regnal year of kingMeli-Shipak II ofBabylon[4]
The site remained desolate at the unstable eastern borders of theRoman Empire, resettled nearby asBarbalissos. In 253, it was the site of theBattle of Barbalissos between the Sassanid Persians underShapur I and Roman troops.
The initial salvage excavations in advance of the rising waters of the SyrianTabqa Dam project impounding Lake El Assad were undertaken by two French teams, in 1972-76, under the direction of Jean-Claude Margueron.[5]
Excavations revealed a temple area comprising the sanctuaries of theweather godBa’al and possibly of his consortAstarte of the Late Bronze Age (thirteenth and early twelfth century BC).[citation needed]
After the conclusion of the French excavations the site was left unguarded and was systematically looted, bringing many cuneiformtablets onto the antiquities gray market stripped of their context. In 1992, the SyrianDirectorate-General of Antiquities and Museums took charge of the site, and a fresh series of campaigns revealed earlier strata, of the Middle and Early Bronze Ages (second half of the third millennium and the first half of the second millennium BC) theImar that was mentioned in the archives ofMari and elsewhere. Beginning in 1996, the Syrian effort was joined by a team from theUniversity of Tübingen Germany.[6][7]
So far, around 1100 tablets inAkkadian have been recovered from the site,800 from the excavation and around 300 emerging on the antiquities market. Inaddition 100 tablets inHurrian and 1 inHittite have alsobeen found. All but one of the tablets are from the Late Bronze Age.
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