<< Our Photo Pages >> Hama. - Ancient Village or Settlement in Syria
Submitted by AlexHunger on Tuesday, 21 November 2006 Page Views: 6676
Multi-periodSite Name: Hama. Alternative Name: HamathCountry: Syria Type: Ancient Village or Settlement
Nearest Town: Hama Nearest Village: Hama
Latitude: 35.136158N Longitude: 36.749382E
Condition:
5 | Perfect |
4 | Almost Perfect |
3 | Reasonable but with some damage |
2 | Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site |
1 | Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks |
0 | No data. |
-1 | Completely destroyed |
5 | Superb |
4 | Good |
3 | Ordinary |
2 | Not Good |
1 | Awful |
0 | No data. |
5 | Can be driven to, probably with disabled access |
4 | Short walk on a footpath |
3 | Requiring a bit more of a walk |
2 | A long walk |
1 | In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find |
0 | No data. |
5 | co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates |
4 | co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map |
3 | co-ordinates scaled from a bad map |
2 | co-ordinates of the nearest village |
1 | co-ordinates of the nearest town |
0 | no data |
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Ancient Village or Settlement in Syria. GPS position for Hama Citadel where archeological excavations where carried out. City inhabited since Neolithic until inhabitants forcibly resettled elsewhere by the Assyrians in 720 BCE. Only repopulated by The Seleucids in the 4th Century BCE. Artifacts placed in Aleppo Museum.
The ancient settlement of Hamath was occupied from the early Neolithic to the Iron Age. Remains from the Chalcolithic era have been uncovered by Danish archaeologists on the mount on which the former citadel once stood. The excavation took place between 1931 and 1938 under the direction of Harald Ingholt. The stratigraphy is very generalised, which makes detailed comparison to other sites difficult. Level M (6 m or 20 ft thick) contained both white ware— vessels made from lime-plaster— and true pottery. It may be contemporary with Ras Shamra V (6000-5000 BC). The overlying level L dates to the Chalcolithic Halaf-period.
The site is inside a tight curve of the Orontes, which made it relatively easy to defend, and was the original place of the settlement; later on, as the town grew beyond it, the mound became the military center of Hama.
The Amorite people colonized the area during the third millennium B.C. The Amorites came from Mari on the River Euphrates, some 250 miles to the east of Hama, and they colonized many parts of what is now Syria and Iraq.
Around 1500 BC, Hama enjoyed great prosperity; during this time it was an Amorite dependency of the Mittannian Empire, the imperial base of which was situated in the deserts of northeastern Syria.
Virtually nothing is known of Hama during the latter part of the second millennium BC: the Mittannians were overthrown by the Hittie forces, who gained control of most of Syria, including Hama, after the Battle of Kadesh, fought against the Egyptians (under Ramses II) near Hims in 1285. After Hittie power waned the city came under Assyrian control. Then as the power of the Assyrians also began to decline, the Aramaean peoples moved in. The Aramaeans were a nomadic group that originated from the Syrian desert and gradually moved into the more fertile areas of western Syria over the course of the closing decades of the second millennium B.C.
By the turn of the millennium Hama was the capital of a prosperous Aramaean and neo-Hittie kingdom known as Hamath, which traded extensively, particularly with what is now Israel. The Aramaean and neo-Hittie peoples lived comparatively peacefully, co-existing with other states in the region, such as Carchemish. The most significant of all the Aramaean states was Damascus, which became the leader of the federation of Aramaic states, of which Hamath was a member. Gradually Aramaic became the most widely used language of the Near East.
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