Turkish & Italian Archaeologists Dig at Karkemish

Archaeology Magazine ^ | Monday, November 17, 2014 | unattributed

[SunkenCiv]

Nicolo Marchetti of the University of Bologna is project director of the excavation at Karkemish, a 5,000-year-old city located along the Turkey-Syria border. About one-third of the site lies inside Syria and is off-limits. The site is also very close to Jarablous, a Syrian city that is now ISIS-controlled territory. “Still, we have had no problem at all.…We work in a military area. It is very well protected,” Marchetti told the Associated Press. This year his team has recovered sculptures from the palace of King Katuwa that date to 900 B.C., and a 700 B.C. mosaic floor in the palace of Sargon II. They also examined the ruins of the expedition house used by Lawrence of Arabia between 1911 and 1914. Karkemish could open to tourists next spring.

[SunkenCiv]

Turkish-Italian Archaeological Expedition

[SunkenCiv]

One of *those* topics. Site of Ramses II's battle of Kadesh.

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[SunkenCiv]

[SunkenCiv]

http://www.varchive.org/ce/baalbek/carchemish.htm
http://www.varchive.org/ce/baalbek/baw.htm
http://www.varchive.org/ce/baalbek/kadeshjudah.htm
http://www.varchive.org/ce/theses.htm (search Carchemish)

[Prospero]

T E Lawrence was in on the first dig at this site, and co-authored in 1918, so he must have written prior to the Great War.

[onedoug]

I’m surprised the authorities would allow anything pre-islamic. Unless they assume everything to have been islamic even before the so-called prophet arrived to give muslims over to such madness, and 1400 years of inbreeding.

[Veto!]

ISIS will be there soon. They are plundering the past all over Syria according to many articles including this from National Geographic:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/06/140626-isis-insurgents-syria-iraq-looting-antiquities-archaeology/

[SunkenCiv]

There’s probably nothing but inscribed stones on and in the site, no buried treasure.

[Katya]

Turkey is full of pre-Islamic sites... including the world’s oldest sites Göbekli Tepe which dates back to the 10th millenium BC and Çatalhöyük which dates to 7000 BC. Turkey is not your typical Islamic country... even with Erdogan’s changes, it still reveres the modern western perspective Atatürk ushered in.

[fatez]

This stela or wall carving had to be inside the building. Look at the condition of it, very little weathering. Interesting in that the guy on the bottom right looks to be wearing a hat from the neo-Hittite culture which makes sense given where it was found and the time.

Real cool post. What are you currently studying?