Barak , Turkey

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right on the Syrian border visitors to the site require a special permit from the local military and must be accompanied by an escort. The use of cameras is banned.

The earliest reference to Karkamish is as a prosperous trading settlement around the turn of the 18th or 19th century B.C. After a short period of Hittite rule it then became part of the Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni until finally recovered by the Hittite King Suppiluliuma I (1385-45 B.C.). He deported some of its inhabitants to Hatti and installed his son as viceroy. The new Hittite dominion soon achieved an extraordinary position in northern Syria and was one of the Late Hittite principalities to survive the collapse of the Empire. It finally fell to the conquering Assyrians under Sargon II (722-05 B.C.). The great battle between the Babylonians under Nebukadnezar and the Egyptians under Necho II, in which the Egyptians were defeated, took place at Karkamish in 605 B.C.

In Greco-Roman times a major military road crossed the Euphrates at this point. With the decline of the Roman Empire the town's fortunes also waned until eventually it disappeared completely, even from memory.

The team of archeologists responsible for excavating the site included for a while T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia"). The finds are now in the Hittite Museum in Ankara.

In the late Hittite period the town consisted of a fortified citadel on the hill by the river, a walled inner town to the south and west, with three gates, and an outer town, also walled. On the citadel hill there was a palace. Stone slabs were used to protect the base of the walls of larger structures and gates. Many of these were carved with reliefs and bore inscriptions in Hittite hieroglyphs. Finds have shown that the area of the later citadel was already settled in the fifth millennium B.C. Most of the major finds, which include chariot scenes, statues and inscriptions, are in the Hittite Museum in Ankara.