Alalakh Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
Alalakh was an ancient city in southern Turkey, located in the Hatay region near Antioch (today Antakya ).The city was founded during the Bronze Age in the 4th millennium BCE, as one of the first great cities of the Fertile Crescent. The first palace at Alalakh was built ca 2000 BCE, contemporary with the Third Dynasty of Ur. It was the capital of the Mukish kingdom, a vassal to the kingdoms of Yamhad (today Aleppo) during the 18th century BC through to the 16th century BC, and to Mitanni during the 15th century BC through to the 14th century BC. Alalakh's commercial relations with Syria, Babylonia and Cyprus, documented in cuneiform tablets, was temporarily interrupted when it was sacked by the Hittite king Hattushili I; later it was sacked again, by Suppiluliuma I and incorporated into the Hittite Empire. In line with the other cities of the Levant, there is a gap in structures, writing or works of art at Alalakh between 1200 and 850 BCE, the Dark Ages of the Ancient Near East.
The buried ruins of the city under the Tell 'Atshanah, were excavated by the British archaeologist Leonard Woolley in 1935-1939 and 1946-1949, during which palaces, temples, private houses and fortification walls were discovered. They were briefly re-investigated by a University of Chicago team in 2000.
Excavations at Alalakh have also produced a body of written material that is second in importance only to that from Ugarit. The inscribed statue of Idrimi, a king of Alalakh after ca 1500 BCE, has given a unique autobiography of Idrimi's youth, his rise to power, and his military and other successes (now in the British Museum). Akkadian texts from Alalakh include word lists, astological omens and conjurations, as well as economic records that attest intense trading with othcr cities including Ugarit and the Hittite capital Hattusas involving grain, wine and olive oil.
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