by
Damien F. Mackey
‘Is not Calno like Carchemish?’
Isaiah 10:9
‘Have I not taken the country above Babylon and Chalanes,
where the Tower was built?’
Isaiah 10:9 (Septuagint)
For a long time I had felt that the Babylon of the famous king Hammurabi, an Amorite, ought more appropriately be located well further to the west.
This suspicion was greatly strengthened when I read Royce (Richard) Erickson’s earth-shaking article (2020):
A PROBLEM IN CHALDAEAN AND ELAMITE GEOGRAPHY
(3) A PROBLEM IN CHALDAEAN AND ELAMITE GEOGRAPHY | Royce Erickson - Academia.edu
calling for a dramatic geographical shift for Chaldea and Elam - and whose conclusions for these two countries I have since embraced.
Now, with the land of Chaldea shifted far from southern Mesopotamia, to NW Syria, then the related Babylon(ia) would likewise need to be shifted to somewhere within range. A Jewish correspondent from the US raised that very point with me, that I would now have to identify a revised Babylon, to correspond with the massively shifted Chaldea. But I had already realised this necessity and had galloped off and newly identified ancient Babylon, and Babel, with Byblos.
I had, previously, newly identified Nimrod’s Akkad with Ugarit (Egyptian IKAT), a Mediterranean port, so why not another famous port for Nimrod’s Babel?
It seemed so obvious.
At least at first.
However, it has turned out to be a ‘poplar’ tree (cf. Psalm 136:2 Douay; 137:2) which has not produced any fruit flowers, unlike correct new identifications which always tend to be bountiful.
So I have returned to another early choice that I had as a candidate for Babel/Babylon, and that is CARCHEMISH. Does not the Septuagint Isaiah 10:9 virtually tell us that Carchemish was Babylon, or Babel, with its Tower, by replacing the usual reading, “Carchemish”, with “Babylon”?: ‘Have I not taken the country above Babylon and Chalanes, where the Tower was built?’
Here we have connected together two of Nimrod’s cities, Babel (the Tower) and Calneh (Genesis 10:10).
And that choice of Carchemish for Babel/Babylon now seems to be a poplar tree that is capable of producing fruit flowers.
To begin with, we have the Isaian testimony above.
With the Babel/Calneh connection.
But there is also the important element, that seems lacking to Byblos, of “rivers” (Psalm 136:2 Douay): “Upon the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept: when we remembered Sion”.
Byblos was built near the Sea, but does not appear to sit on, or by, any rivers.
It has a famous spring (Ain el-Malik, or King’s Spring) – but so does Jericho, which is never described as sitting by a river, or rivers.
Carchemish, on the other hand, rests by, or near, two well-known rivers, the Euphrates and the Khabur: https://www.biblicalcyclopedia.com/C/carchemish.html
“At the point where the Khabur (the ancient Chebar) joins the Euphrates, there are large mounds on both banks of the former river, marking the sites of old cities, or perhaps of different sections of one great city. The mound on the right bank is crowned with a modern Arab village, called Abu Serai, or "Father of Palaces" (Chesney, Euph. Exp. 1:118). It stands on a narrow wedge-shaped plain, in the fork of the two rivers. This corresponds exactly to Procopius's description of Circeslum, who says that its fortifications had the form of a triangle at the junction of the Chabur and Euphrates (Bell. Pers. 2:5). This seems to be the true site of Carchemish”.
This leads us to another feature, greatly in favour of Carchemish as being Babylon.
The Book of Ezekiel opens with the prophet “by the river Kebar [Chebar]” amongst the Babylonian exiles (Ezekiel 1:1-2):
In my thirtieth year, in the fourth month on the fifth day, while I was among the exiles by the Kebar River, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God. On the fifth of the month—it was the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin— the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, by the Kebar River in the land of the Babylonians.
The Chebar (כְּבָ֑ר) river here must surely be the Chabur (Khabur) near Carchemish.
In the conventional geographical setting, though, with Babylon set in southern Mesopotamia, this river cannot be identified (my emphasis):
https://www.biblicaltraining.org/library/kebar
KEBAR (kē'bar). A river or canal beside which Ezekiel saw visions (Ezek.1.1; Ezek.3.23; Ezek.10.15, Ezek.10.20, Ezek.10.22; Ezek.43.3); in Babylonia (Ezek.1.3), at Tel Aviv (Ezek.3.15). It has not yet been identified.
Then there is the name.
Admittedly, Byblos had, in this regard, an intriguing likeness to Babel/Babylon (BBL).
Amazingly, Carchemish may trump Byblos here. Though “its meaning is doubtful” (https://biblehub.com/topical/c/carchemish.htm), one of its suggested meanings is ‘Tower of Chemosh” – the Tower again.
But I am even more intrigued by its acute likeness to Karduniash, another ancient name for Babylon!
I had already proposed that Karduniash was to be equated with both Tarḫuntašša and Kar Nuhašše. See my article:
Land of Nuhašše by other names
(4) Land of Nuhašše by other names | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
Tar ḫ un t ašš [a]
Kar d un i ash
Kar n u h ašš [a]
and now I think that we can satisfactorily add to this list Carchemish.
Carchemish, of variant name renderings (e.g., Karkamış, Kargamiş, Gargamis), can be reconstructed from the above list, with minimal tweaking, as, approximately:
Kar ḫ un i ash
So we may by now be getting an idea of the “bountiful” to which I referred above when one is fortunate enough to identify, in a revised context, a geographical location or an historical event.
And, on that last point, I would like to add what I consider to be a bountiful historical connection, with Babylon paralleling Carchemish.
Before I can do this, I need to recall that I have, in my folding of ‘Middle’ Assyrian chronology into ‘Neo’ Assyrian chronology, identified Tukulti-ninurta as Sargon II/ Sennacherib:
Tukulti-Ninurta I and Sargon II-Sennacherib
(4) Tukulti-Ninurta I and Sargon II-Sennacherib | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
In parallel fashion – which I regard as being just the one historical event – we have Tukulti-ninurta attacking Babylon and removing its Kassite king, Kastiliash so-called IV, in chains to Assyria; and we have Sargon II attacking Carchemish and removing, its Hittite king, Piyashili (Pisiri), in chains to Assyria.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashtiliash_IV
Tukulti-Ninurta petitioned the god Šamaš before beginning his counter offensive.[7] Kaštiliašu was captured, single-handed by Tukulti-Ninurta according to his account, who “trod with my feet upon his lordly neck as though it were a footstool”[8] and deported him ignominiously in chains to Assyria. The victorious Assyrian demolished the walls of Babylon, massacred many of the inhabitants, pillaged and plundered his way across the city to the Esagila temple, where he made off with the statue of Marduk.[9] He then proclaimed himself “king of Karduniash, king of Sumer and Akkad, king of Sippar and Babylon, king of Tilmun and Meluhha.
https://scielo.org.za/pdf/ote/v22n3/09.pdf
In 717 B.C.E. Sargon II accused Pisiri, the last king of Carchemish, of breaking oaths and conspiring with other kings against him. Sargon II attacked and captured Carchemish. Pisiri and his family were carried in chains to Assyria along with his partisans and a large booty. Thereafter, Assyrian colonists were settled in the city and the territory was transformed into an Assyrian province under the aegis of a governor. ….
Spelt out, Tukulti-ninurta/Sargon II attacks and takes the city of Babylon/Carchemish and captures the Kassite/Hittite king, Kashtiliash/Piyasili, taking him in chains to Assyria.
Kasht ili ash
Piy ash ili
Comments