The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1881-05-11

that In the days OF Its greatness the chief
gateway. the place Of meeting and as
sembly OF this important city, was mas
sive structure, fanked by towers, and
with wide portals. Through this gate
way In the southern wall have passed
the Hittite rulers in the days of the con
quest of the Fort of Chemosh'' by those
northern barbarians, the Egyptians, under
Thothmes (B. @. 1889, and possibly the
armies of the grandson of this monarch.
the Alexander the Great of Egypt
Thothmes III (16OO B. c.. Can we
picture the ambassadors of the great
Sesostris, Rameses II, who passed beneath
It's portal, bearing the offer of marriage
made by the Pharaoh to the daughter of
Kheta SRA, the king of the Kheta +?
Through this gateway passed the VIC
torious Assyrian ruler, Assurnazirpal
(B. Q. $3.50, and his victorious son, Shall
manesar II (B. G. $500, the contempt
laTy of Ahab and Jehu, to levy tribute
from Sanger, king of Carchemish; Tie-
lathpileser II (B. G. 742): and, lastly,
Sargon (B. @. 7l6), who defeated here
the allied armies of the Hittites, and de-
posed Pisiris, the king, annexing the city
to the rule of Assyria. A record of this
important event has been found amid the
ruins, on brick inscribed in cuneiform
characters with the name and titles of
Sargon, the king of Assyria, thus con-
firming the records given in the Khorsa-
bad inscriptions. The governor of Carche
mish in B. G. 500, Bel-salal-ani, was
the eponym of Nineveh. Before the
walls of this city took place the great
battle which finally decided the supre-
macy of the Oriental world between the
great empires of Egypt and Babylonia.
In this battle the young Prince Ne
buchadnezzar acted as the general for
his father, and in B. G. COZ defeated the
hosts of Pharaoh Necho (II Chron. xxxv,
2O). Such are some Of the events which
are called to mind as we stand within
the shadow of the mounds which mark
the ruins of the ancient gate of the Hit
tite capital through which so many con-
querors armies have passed.
On two sides, the north-east and south
east, the city is bounded by the broad
stream of the Euphrates, which formed
IN the days of its greatness so important
a commercial highway for Western Asia.
On both these sides of the city there are
to be seen traces of strongly built quay
wall. The upper courses Of this wall are
of Roman construction; but the lower
courses, as revealed by the shafts sunk,
exhibit work of the early period, in the
huge blocks of stone heaped regardless of
size, and In most cases of the hardest
black basalt or granite. The works in
these and other portions of the city call
to mind the colossal stones in the walls
of Baalbek and the temples in the
Lebanon, and future explorations may
reveal that these wonders of the con
structive art of the past are the work of
the Hlttite or Ruten, occupants of the
Orontes or Litany Valley.
1t was evident that the quay on the
southeast face of the city was the great
landingplacA for the merchandise which
was brought by the Euphrates. This
broad quay was once washed by the
river; but the accumulation of the
alluvium has caused the river to recede
some distance eastward. An examina-
of the ruins in the neighborhood of this
quay shows some interesting facts regard
ing the ruins in this quarter. A number
OF mounds running parallel from the in
terror OF the city toward the quay at
tracted attention, and an examination of
the debris showed that these mounds In
dlcated the streets which ran down to
the great rendezvous of the merchants
This arrangement of the streets remind
us of the streets of Babylon, as described
by Herodotus. From this mercantile
quarter Of the city departed the RATS
and kelleks, laden with the products OF
Syria Armenia and Asia Minor, which
they bore to Babylon and Chadea. The
commercial Importance of this city is
shown by the fact that one of the com
mercial standard weights, the mana or
maneh of Carchemish, derived It's name
from this city. This weight was used in
Nineveh in the time of the later kings:
but the commercial instincts Of the PEG
pie of Carchemish had spread it as far as
the shores of the Egean, as shown by
the discoveries Of DR.. Schlemann at
Hlssarlik.-(See Ilios," p. All )-Inde
dependent.