A few years later he had a fleet of ships built near Birejik on the Euphrates by his Phoenician captives; these were manned by Ionians and transported from Opis overland to the Euphrates and so to the Persian Gulf.
A little south of Samarra are found remains of the Median Wall, which stretched south-west towards the Euphrates near Sahlawych, marking the edge of the Babylonian alluvial plain.
A prolonged battle took place in July 657 in the plain of Siffin (Suffein), near the Euphrates; the fighting was at first, it is said, in favour of Ali, when suddenly a number of the enemy, fixing copies of the Koran to the points of their spears, exclaimed that "the matter ought to be settled by reference to this book, which forbids Moslems to shed each other's blood."
A road also leads northward, by Sinjar, to Mosul, crossing the river on a stone bridge, built in 1897, the only permanent bridge over the Euphrates south of Asia Minor.
A shorter form of this name is Khani, which it is difficult not to connect with Khana, the capital of which at one time was Tirqa, on the Euphrates, below the Khabur (see § 4).
Abu-Habba lies south-west of Bagdad, midway between the Euphrates and Tigris, on the south side of a canal, which may once have represented the main stream of the Euphrates, Sippara of the goddess Anunit, now Der, being on its opposite bank.
According to the Chaldean Nabonidus (553) all the kings from Gaza to 'the Euphrates assisted in his buildings, and the Chaldean policy generally appears to have been favourable towards faithful vassals.
Across it were drawn seven parallels, running through Meroe, Syene, Alexandria, Rhodes, Lysimachia on the Hellespont, the mouth of the Borysthenes and Thule, and these were crossed at right angles by seven meridians, drawn at irregular intervals, and passing through the Pillars of Hercules, Carthage, Alexandria, Thapsacus on the Euphrates, the Caspian gates, the mouth of the Indus and that of the Ganges.
After his coronation he carried on three successful campaigns against the Saracens and Seliuk Turks, whom he drove beyond the Euphrates; in a fourth he was disastrously defeated by Alp Arslan on the banks of the Araxes and taken prisoner.
After rejoining the main army at Marash, he received an invitation from an Armenian named Pakrad, and moved eastwards towards the Euphrates, where he occupied Tell-bashir.
After several encounters there ensued (637) the battle of Kadisiya (Qadisiya, Cadesia), fought on one of the Euphrates canals, where the fate of the Sassanian Empire was decided.
After the conquest of the Euphrates and Tigris provinces it was imperative that the royal residence should be fixed there.
Again the Euphrates bore a Roman fleet.
Ahmar (on left bank of Euphrates); large stela with sculpture and long relief inscription, found in 1908 with several sculptured slabs and two gateway lions, inscribed in cuneiform.
Aleppo is about midway between the sea and the Euphrates, a little nearer the latter.
All this drainage, collected into two rivers, the Belikh and the Khabur, is towards the left bank of the Euphrates, for the Mesopotamian watershed seems to be only some 15 m.
Along the Shatt el-Arab and the lower reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates there are vast plantations of date-palms, which produce the finest dates known.
Along with this mountainous district went a fertile low tract of country on the western side, which also included the marshes at the mouths of the Euphrates and Tigris and the north-eastern coast land of the Gulf.
Anciently the country on both sides of the Euphrates was habitable as far as the river Khabur; at the present time it is all desert from Birejik downward, the camping ground of Bedouin Arabs, the great tribe of Anazeh occupying esh-Sham, the right bank, and the Shammar the left bank, Mesopotamia of the Romans, now called elJezireh or the island.
Another of his foundations was Vologesias (the Arabian Ullaish), situated near Hira on the Euphrates, south of Babylon, which did appreciable damage to the commerce of Seleucia and is often.
As far as the Khabur Mesopotamia seems to have been a wellinhabited country from at least the 15th century B.C., when it constituted the Hittite kingdom of Mitanni, down to about the 12th century A.D., and the same is true of the country on the Syrian side of the Euphrates as far as the eastern limit of the Palmyrene.
As the most direct line of transit between the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf, offering an alternative means of communication with India not greatly inferior to the Egyptian route, the Euphrates route early attracted the attention of the British government.
At an early age he entered the cloister; and in 423 he became bishop of Cyrrhus, a small city in a wild district between Antioch and the Euphrates, where, except for a short period of exile, he spent the remainder of his life.
At Bagdad the Tigris and Euphrates are less than 35 m.
At Kut-el-Amara, approximately half way from Bagdad to Korna, the bed of the Tigris is higher than that of the Euphrates, and accordingly from this point downward its waters flow into the Euphrates and not vice versa.
At Nasrieh the Shattel-Hal, at one time the bed of the Tigris, and still navigable during the greater part of the year, joins the Euphrates.
At the point of entering the alluvial plain the bed of the Tigris seems to be lower than that of the Euphrates, so that the canals run from the latter to the former stream.
At the present time it extends from a point just below Kut el-Amara to a point somewhat above Tekrit on the Tigris, and from a point somewhat below Samawa to a point a little above Anah on the Euphrates.
At the time of Chesney's survey of the Euphrates in 1838 this canal was still navigable for craft of some size.
At this point the Tigris and the Euphrates approach each other most nearly, the distance between them being little more than 25 m.
Away from the banks of the rivers, between the Euphrates and the Tigris and between the latter and the Persian mountains, are tribes of wandering Arabs, some of whom possess great herds of horses, sheep, goats, asses and camels, while in and by the marshes other tribes, in the transition stage from the nomadic to the settled life, own great herds of buffaloes.
Babylon itself came to be recognized as the real centre of the entire Euphrates valley.
Bagdad also lies on a natural line of communication between Persia and the west, the ancient caravan route from Khorasan debouching from the mountains at this point, while another natural caravan route led up the Euphrates to Syria and the Mediterranean and still another up the Tigris to Armenia and the Black Sea.
Balak, king of Moab, alarmed at the conquests of Israel, sends the princes of Moab to Balaam at Pethor on the Euphrates, that he may come and curse Israel.
Behind them tower the massive ridges of the Niphates and Zagros ranges, where the Tigris and Euphrates take their rise, and which cut off Assyria from Armenia and Kurdistan.
Below the bifurcation the river of Babylon was again divided into several streams, and indeed the most famous of all the ancient canals was the Arakhat (Archous of the Greeks and Serrat and Nil of the Arabs), which left that river just above Babylon and ran due east to the Tigris, irrigating all the central part of the Jezireh, and sending down a branch through Nippur and Erech to rejoin the Euphrates a little above the modern Nasrieh.
Below the junction of the two arms the Euphrates flows south-west past the lead mines of Keban Maden, where it is 120 yds.
Between Salahiya and Deir, on an old canal, known in Arabic times as Said, leaving the Euphrates a little below Deir and rejoining it above Salahiya, stand the almost more picturesque ruins of the once important Arabic fortress of Rahba.
Between the Euphrates and the Arabian plateau lie the sacred cities of Kerbela or Meshed-Hosain, and Nejef or Meshed Ali, with a population of 20,000 to 60,000 each, while a number of towns, varying in population from 3000 to 10,000, are found along the Euphrates (Anah, Hit, Ramadieh, Musseyib, Hilla, Diwanieh and Samawa) and the Tigris (Tekrit, Samarra and Kut elAmara).
Bir on the Euphrates, crossed the stream, by the sultan's orders, and advanced on Damascus.
Blanckenhorn the boundary between the two regions runs from the Bay of Jebele along the Afrin River to Aintab, and thence to the Euphrates above Birejik.
Blanford, lions are still numerous in the reedy swamps, bordering the Tigris and Euphrates, and also occur on the west flanks of the Zagros mountains and the oak-clad ranges near Shiraz, to which they are attracted by the herds of swine which feed on the acorns.
Both arms of the Euphrates have their rise in this country as well as the Aras (Araxes) and the Chorokh (Acampsis).
Buhturi [al-Walid ibn `Ubaid] (820-897), Arabian poet, was born at Manbij (Hierapolis) in Syria, between Aleppo and the Euphrates.
But in heading an attack on Harran, in 1104, he was severely defeated at Balich, near Rakka on the Euphrates.
But the gorges of the Euphrates and Tigris, and their tributaries, cannot be surpassed in wildness and grandeur.
By 886 Mowaffaq found it expedient to grant Khomaruya the possession of Egypt, Syria, and the frontier towns for a period of thirty years, and ere long, owing to the disputes of the provincial governors, Khomgruya found it possible to extend his domain to the Euphrates and even the Tigris.
By the victory he gained at Bassora in 1605 he extended his empire beyond the Euphrates; sultan Ahmed I.
Chesney was sent out at the head of an expedition with instructions to transport two steamers from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates, and, after putting them together at Birejik, to attempt the descent of the river to the sea.
Commercial intercourse with Asia Minor, Arabia, Tarshish (probably in Spain) and Ophir filled his coffers, and his realm extended from the Euphrates to the border of Egypt.
Down to this point, the bed of the Euphrates being higher than that of the Tigris, the canals run from the former to the latter, but below this the situation is reversed.
During a conflict with the Saracens of the Euphrates (856-63), the emperor sustained a personal defeat (860), which was retrieved by a great victory on the part of his uncle Petronas in Asia Minor.
During the Napoleonic wars, indeed, and up to the time when the introduction of steam navigation rendered the Red Sea accessible at all seasons of the year, the political correspondence of the home and Indian governments usually passed by the Euphrates route.
During the period (c.2600-2400B.C.) that Ur exercised a large measure of supremacy over the Euphrates valley, Sin was naturally regarded as the head of the pantheon.
During this process of growth the kingdom stood in relation to two sects of powers - the three Frankish principalities in northern Syria, and the Mahommedan powers both of the Euphrates and the Nile - whose action affected its growth and character.
Eastward rose the mountains of Elam, southward were the sea-marshes and the Kalda or Chaldaeans and other Aramaic tribes, while on the west the civilization of Babylonia encroached beyond the banks of the Euphrates, upon the territory of the Semitic nomads (or Suti).
Euphrates (see Hittites).
Following on this first experiment, the East India Company, in 1841, proposed to maintain a permanent flotilla on the Tigris and Euphrates, and set two vessels, the " Nitocris " and the " Nimrod," under the command of Captain Campbell of the Indian navy, to attempt the ascent of the latter river.
For some five or six centuries before1908-1909the junction with the Euphrates was at Korna, some 30 m.
Formerly Bagdad was intersected by innumerable canals and aqueducts which carried the water of both the Euphrates and the Tigris through the streets and into the houses.
From Garmat Ali, where the Tigris and Euphrates at present unite,' under the title of Shattel-Arab, the river sweeps on to Basra, Ex p o yds.
From Patala the admiral Nearchos was to sail round the coast to the Euphrates, while Alexander himself marched through the wilds of Gedrosia, or modern Makran.
From the latitude of Bagdad southward the country is entirely alluvial soil, deposited by the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, possessing great possibilities of fertility, but absolutely flat and subject to inundations at the time of flood of the two rivers.
From this time Rome formally entered upon the heritage of Alexander as far as the Euphrates, but many of the dynasties which had arisen in the days of Macedonian supremacy were allowed to go on for a 'time as client states.
Further, we know that in the 8th century B.C., there were observatories in most of the large cities in the valley of the Euphrates, and that professional astronomers regularly took observations of the heavens, copies of which were sent to the king of Assyria; and from a cuneiform inscription found in the palace of Sennacherib at Nineveh, the text of which is given by George Smith,5 we learn that at that time the epochs of eclipses of both sun and moon were predicted as possible - probably by means of the cycle of 223 lunations or Chaldaean Saros - and that observations were made accordingly.
Gabinius crossed the' Euphrates (54); but the command was assumed by Crassus, who, though he seized Ichnae, &c., and Raqqa (Rakka), fell near Carrhae (53), and the Parthian dominion was confirmed.
Gradually settlements were made, the names of many of which are given by the various Assyrian kings who had at one time or another to assert or reassert supremacy over them - such as Chindanu, Laqe, Sulhi along the South Euphrates boundary of Mesopotamia, and various districts bearing names compounded with Bit = settlement (see above), such as Bit-Adini (nearly equal the later Osroene; see Edessa), or Bit-Zamani in the north near Diarbekr.
Hadrian, however, abandoning Trajan's forward policy in favour of a Euphrates boundary, restored it as a dependency of Rome.
Hadrian's first important act was to abandon as untenable the conquests of Trajan beyond the Euphrates (Assyria, Mesopotamia and Armenia), a recurrence to the traditional policy of Augustus.
Half a day's journey beyond, at a point where two great wadis enter the Euphrates, on the Syrian side, stands Jabriya, an unidentified ruined town of Babylonian type, with walls of unbaked brick, instead of the stone heretofore encountered.
Harlan confirmed him in his post, and, after having received the chiefs of Tabaristan who came to tender their submission, returned through Bagdad to Rakka on the Euphrates, which city was his habitual residence.
Hatra successfully withstood siege, however, and Hadrian abandoned Mesopotamia, setting the boundary at the Euphrates.
Hatred of these impious foreigners, of which there is some trace in more than one text, aroused amongst the Egyptians (as nothing ever did before or since) that martial spirit which carried the armies of Tethmosis to the Euphrates.
Having crossed the Euphrates he hastened to make himself master of Parthia; but he was defeated at Carrhae (53 B.C.) and taken prisoner by Surenas, the Parthian general, who put him to death by pouring molten gold down his throat.
He fell upon the victorious Persians returning home after the sack of Antioch, and before they could cross the Euphrates inflicted upon them a considerable defeat.
He may have belonged to the people known as the Kassites who at the beginning of the 18th century B.C. entered Babylonia from Elam, and obtained control of the Euphrates valley.
He relates the rise and persecution of a prophet and preacher, the catastrophe of a falling mountain and submergence of a great city, followed by a general inundation, and the claim of the prophet to have foretold these disasters; adding physical descriptions of the Euphrates river and the marvellous effects of sunset light on the Taurus range.
He spent his earlier years as a monk at the convent of Ken-neshre on the upper Euphrates; and when this monastery was destroyed by fire in 815, he migrated northwards to that of Kaisum in the district of Samosata.
He then (according to his highly fabulous narrative) visited the territory of Issachar, in the mountains of Media and Persia; he also describes the abodes of Zabulon, on the "other side" of the Paran Mountains, extending to Armenia and the Euphrates; of Reuben, on another side of the same mountains; of Ephraim and Half Manasseh, in Arabia, not far from Mecca; and of Simeon and the other Half of Manasseh, in Chorazin, six months' journey from Jerusalem.
He went the same year to Carchemish on the Euphrates, as assistant in the British Museum's excavation of that ancient Hittite site.
Hepatoscopy in the Euphrates valley can be traced back to the 3rd millennium before our era, which may be taken as sufficient evidence for its survival from the period of primitive culture, while the supreme importance attached to signs read on the livers of sacrificial animals - usually a sheep - follows from the care with which omens derived from such inspection on occasions of historical significance were preserved as guides to later generations of priests.
Here must have stood the capital of some great empire connected with its extremities, Sardis or Ephesus on the west, Sinope on the north, the Euphrates on the east, the Cilician Gates on the south, by roads so well made as to continue in use for a long time after the centre of power had changed to Assyria, and the old road-system had become circuitous and unsuitable.
Here the Belikh (Bilechas) joins the Euphrates, flowing southward through the biblical Aram Naharaim from Urfa (Edessa) and Harran (Carrhae); and from this point to el-IKaim four days' below Deir, the course of the river is south-easterly.
Here the roads from Damascus, by way of Palmyra, and from Mosul, by way of the Khabur, reach the Euphrates, and here there must always have been a town of considerable commercial and strategic importance.
His "new palace" there was built in fifteen days; temples were erected to the gods, the great walls of the city were constructed with a moat surrounding them, the Euphrates was lined with brick and a strong fortress erected.
His authority was before his death recognized all over Syria (with the exception of the few cities still in the power of the Franks), over Arabia, with the exception of Yemen, on the Euphrates from Birah to Kerkesia (Circesium) on the Chaboras (Khabur), whilst the amirs of north-western Africa were tributary to him.
His first campaign was against the Moschi who had occupied certain Assyrian districts on the Upper Euphrates; then he overran Commagene and eastern Cappadocia, and drove the Hittites from the Assyrian province of Subarti north-east of Malatia.
His reign was marked by a troublesome war with the Paulician heretics, an inheritance from his predecessor; the death of their able chief Chrysochir led to the definite subjection of this little state, of which the chief stronghold was Tephrice on the upper Euphrates, and which the Saracens had helped to bid a long defiance to the government of Constantinople.
His successors retained the designation, little as it corresponded to the facts, for the single non-Iranian land governed by the Sassanids was, as under the Parthians, the district of the Tigris and Euphrates as far as the Mesopotamian desert; western and northern Mesopotamia remained Roman.
If, as most critics agree, it is a historical romance (cf., e.g., the book of Judith), it is possible that a writer, preferably one who lived in the post-exilic age and was acquainted with Babylonian history, desired to enhance the greatness of Abraham by exhibiting his military success against the monarchs of the Tigris and Euphrates, the high esteem he enjoyed in Palestine and his lofty character as displayed in his interview with Melchizedek.
In 1176 he conquered Saif-ud-din of Mosul beyond the Euphrates and was recognized as sovereign by the princes of northern Syria.
In 1801 Saud, son of the amir Abdul Aziz, led an expedition to the Euphrates, and on the festival of Bairam, the 10th of April, stormed Kerbela, put the defenders to the sword, destroyed the sacred tomb, scattered the sacred relics and returned laden with the treasures, accumulated during centuries in the sanctuary of the Shia faith.
In 1867 an outbreak of plague was reported in Mesopotamia (Irak), among the marshes of Hindieh bordering on the lower Euphrates.
In 296, at the beginning of the Persian War, he was removed from the Danube to the Euphrates; his first campaign ended in a crushing defeat, near Callinicum, but in 2 97, advancing through the mountains of Armenia, he gained a decisive victory over Narses and compelled him to make peace.
In 57 1 a new war with Rome broke out about Armenia, in which Chosroes conquered the fortress Dara on the Euphrates, invaded Syria and Cappadocia, and returned with large booty.
In 63, with a strong army, he crossed the Euphrates, but Tiridates declined to give battle and concluded peace.
In a long inscription which he caused to be engraved on hundreds of stone vases dedicated to El-lil of Nippur, he declares that his kingdom extended " from the Lower Sea of the Tigris and Euphrates," or Persian Gulf, to " the Upper Sea " or Mediterranean.
In Armenia they reformed their ranks about 821 at Thonrak (Tendarek) near Diadin, and were numerous all along the eastern Euphrates and in Albania.
In Asia Minor, Syria and Mesopotamia there is little to record of progress in material development beyond the promises held out by the Euphrates Valley railway concession to a A s i a German company.
In compiling his map he was able to avail himself of the information obtained by the bematists (surveyors who determined distances by pacing) who accompanied Alexander the Great on his campaigns; of the results of the voyage of Nearchus from the Indus to the Euphrates, and of the " Periplus " of Scylax of Caryanda, which described the coast from between India and the head of the Arabian Gulf.
In consequence of the revolt of Zenobia Mesopotamia was lost to Rome, and the Euphrates became the frontier.
In early times the Euphrates was important as a boundary.
In fact, it has been thought that Agade-Akkad was situated opposite Sippar on the left bank of the Euphrates, and was probably the oldest part of the city of Sippar.
In January 1902 the German group holding the Anatolian railway concession was granted a further concession for extending that railway from Konia, then its terminus, through the Taurus range and by way of the Euphrates, Nisibin, Mosul, the Tigris, Bagdad, Kerbela and Nejef to Basra, thus establishing railway communication between the Bosporus and the Persian Gulf.
In spite of this vigorous coercion Cassius came to terms with Alexander, before he returned to the Euphrates to hold it against the Parthians.
In the cuneiform letters from Tell el-Amarna in Egypt (1400 B.C.), we find among the princelings of Syria and Palestine names like Artamanya, Arzawiya, Shuwardata, a name terminating in -warzana, &c.; while the kings of Mitanni on the Euphrates are Artatama, Shutarna, Artashumara, and Dushratt anames too numerous and too genuinely Iranian to allow of the hypothesis of coincidence.
In the extreme north (Commagene) the highlands are almost entirely held by Kurds who entered from beyond Euphrates in comparatively recent times.
In the meantime Sheik Mubarak had found useful allies in the Muntafik Arabs from the lower Euphrates, and the Wahhabis of Riad; the latter under the amir Ibn Saud marched against Ibn Rashid, who at the instigation of the Porte had again threatened Kuwet (Koweit), compelled him to retire to his own territory and took possession of the towns of Bureda and Aneza.
In these valleys are narrow strips of very advanced cultivation, the dates of Panjgur being generally reckoned superior even to those of the Euphrates.
In this part of its course the Euphrates runs through an open, treeless and sparsely peopled country, in a valley a few miles wide, which it has eroded in the rocky surface.
In three arduous campaigns, the two first of which were conducted by the emperor himself while the third was directed by Manuel Comnenus, the Turks were defeated in detail and finally (1070) driven across the Euphrates.
In view of historical and geographical facts there is much to be said for applying the name Mesopotamia to the country drained by the Khabur, the Belikh, and the part of the Euphrates connected therewith.
Indeed, the lower course of the Tigris, even more than that of the Euphrates, has always been subject to change.
It begins among those peoples which occupied the area lying between the Nile on the one side and the Tigris and the Euphrates on the other.
It includes the great marshy districts of the lower Euphrates and Tigis, and of their joint stream, the Shatt el-Arab, and a sanjak on the western shore of the Persian Gulf.
It is alleged to have been found growing wild between the Euphrates and the Tigris; but the discovery has never been authenticated, and unless the plant be sedulously cared for, the species p dies out in a surprisingly short space of time.
It is believed that the ultimate origin of the constellation figures and names is to be found in the corresponding systems in vogue among the primitive civilizations of the Euphrates valley - the Sumerians, Accadians and Babylonians; that these were carried westward into ancient Greece by the Phoenicians, and to the lands of Asia Minor by the Hittites, and that Hellenic culture in its turn introduced them into Arabia, Persia and India.
It is connected with Sivas by a chaussee, prolonged to the Euphrates.
It is no wonder that the godless Korrishites thought these stories of the Koran not nearly so entertaining as those of Rostam and Ispandiar, related by Nadr the son of Harith, who had learned in the course of his trade journeys on the Euphrates the heroic mythology of the Persians.
It is not as yet possible to fix the exact boundaries of the original home of the Chaldaeans, but it may be regarded as having been the long stretch of alluvial land situated at the then separate mouths of the Tigris and Euphrates, which rivers now combine to flow into the Persian Gulf in the waters of the majestic Shatt el `Arab.
It is not improbable that Assyria and Babylon, with their splendid rivers, the Euphrates and Tigris, may have taken the idea from the Nile, and that Carthage and Phoenicia as well as Greece and Italy may have followed the same example.
It is now that we get definite evidence as to the reach of Alexander's designs; for Darius opened negotiations in which he ultimately went so far as to offer a partition of the empire, all west of the Euphrates, to be Alexander's.
It is situated at an altitude of 3900 ft., near the western end of a rich well-watered plain through which runs the Kara Su or western Euphrates.
It is situated at one of the most important crossings of the Euphrates, where there was, in ancient times, a bridge of boats, and is now a ferry on the road from Aleppo to Urfa, Diarbekr and Mosul.
It is situated on both banks of the Euphrates, the two parts of the town being connected by a floating bridge, 450 ft.
It lay on the ancient trade route from Sinope to the Euphrates, on the Persian "Royal Road" from Sardis to Susa, and on the great Roman highway from Ephesus to the East.
It lay on the northern trunk-road to the Euphrates and was built round a strong fortress whose ruins crown the rocky hill west of the town.
It seems that Valens 1 crossed the Euphrates in 373, and in Mesopotamia his troops drove back the king of Persia to the farther bank of the Tigris.
It was in a town on the left bank of the Euphrates, at the end of a bridge of boats (zeugma).
It was not only the very existence of the Ottoman empire that seemed to be at stake, but Egypt itself had become more than ever an object of attention, to British statesplen especially, and in the issue of the struggle were involved the interests of Great Britain in the two routes to India by the Isthmus of Suez and the valley of the Euphrates.
It was of fundamental importance that the Sassanian Empire could not make good its claim to world dominion; and, in spite of the title of its kings, it always remained essentially the kingdom of Iranor rather west Iran, together with the districts on the Tigris and Euphrates.
It was situated on both sides of the Shatt-en-Nil canal, one of the earliest courses of the Euphrates, between the present bed of that river and the Tigris, almost roo m.
Its adoption by the languages of Europe cannot apparently be traced farther back than the 4th century of our era, at which date it was employed to designate an imaginary animal living on the banks of the Euphrates.
Its hopes, based on a Euphrates valley railway, which was to have started from its port of Suedia (Seleucia), were doomed to disappointment, and it has suffered repeatedly from visitations of cholera; but it has nevertheless grown rapidly and will resume much of its old importance when a railway is made down the lower Orontes valley.
Its kings governed the western shore of the lower Euphrates and of the Persian Gulf, their kingdom extending inland to the confines of the Nejd.
Its northern or land boundary is more difficult to define; most authorities, however, agree in taking it from El Arish on the Mediterranean, along the southern border of Palestine, between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Akaba, then bending northwards along the Syrian border nearly to Tadmur, thence eastwards to the edge of the Euphrates valley near Anah, and thence south-east to the mouth of the Shat el Arab at the head of the Persian Gulf, - the boundary so defined includes the northern desert, which belongs geographically to Arabia rather than to Syria; while on the same grounds lower Mesopotamia and Irak, although occupied by an Arab population, are excluded.
Jerabis on the Euphrates, and wrote a commentary on the Song of Songs, a number of hymns and a biography of Severus, the Monophysite patriarch of Antioch (512-519).
Korna, at the junction of the two great rivers; Amara on the Tigris; Shatra on the Shatt el-Hai canal, connecting the Tigris and Euphrates; Nasrieh, at the junction of that canal with the Euphrates and Suk esh-Sheiukh, on the lower reaches of the Euphrates, are the principal settlements, with a population varying from 3000 to ro,000 or somewhat less.
Lack of time alone prevented him from carrying into effect such projects as the piercing of the Isthmus of Corinth, whose object was to promote trade and intercourse throughout the Roman dominions, and we are told that at the time of his death he was contemplating the extension of the empire to its natural frontiers, and was about to engage in a war with Parthia with the object of carrying Roman arms to the Euphrates.
Later on we find Kheta focused farther north, on the middle Euphrates (Carchemish), and more or less cut off from Egypt by the Hebrew state.
Lying to the east of the Euphrates, at once in close contact with the Armenians, and in near proximity to the great route of trade which came up the Euphrates to Rakka, and thence diverged to Antioch and Damascus, the county of Edessa had an eventful if brief life.
Measured on the Euphrates, this would be from the place where the river, having bored its way through the rocks, issues on to the high plain a little above Samsat (Samosata) only 1 500 ft.
Moawiya stood then with a large army in Maskin, a rich district lying to the north of the later West Bagdad, watered by the Dojail, or Little Tigris, a channel from the Euphrates to the Tigris.
Moreover, it is hardly probable that a great leader like Moses remained unaffected by the higher conceptions tending towards monotheism which prevailed in the great empires on the Nile and on the Euphrates.
Muller, on the other hand, rendering Kreislauf, explains it of the Euphrates water system as a whole, thought of as encompassing Naharin.
Near Tokat copper pyrites, with iron and manganese, kaolin and coal are found; but most of the copper worked here comes from the mines of Keban Maden and Arghana Maden, on the upper Euphrates and Tigris.
Necho did not succeed, like his great XVIIIth dynasty predecessor, in crossing the Euphrates.
Necho went forward to the Euphrates, put the land to tribute, and, in the case of Judah at any rate, filled the throne with his own nominee (see JEH0IAKIM).
Occidental geographers, however, have followed the Greek use, and so to-day we call the river of Babylon or Nahr Sura the Euphrates and the older westerly channel the Hindieh canal.
On his sole initiative, without consulting his ministers or the council of the empire, he sent instructions to Hafiz Pasha, commanding the Ottoman troops concentrated at Bir on the Euphrates, to advance into Syria.
On the 8th of Dhu'l-Hijja Hosain set out from Mecca with all his family, expecting to be received with enthusiasm by the citizens of Kuf a, but on his arrival at Kerbela west of the Euphrates, he was confronted by an army sent by Obaidallah under the command of Omar, son of the famous Sa`d b.
On the east, no natural boundary separates it from the Armenian plateau; but, for descriptive purposes, it will suffice to take a line drawn from the southern extremity of the Giaour Dagh, east of the Gulf of Alexandretta along the crest of that chain, then along that of the eastern Taurus to the Euphrates near Malatia, then up the river, keeping to the western arm till Erzingan is reached, and finally bending north to the Black Sea along the course of the Churuk Su, which flows out west of Batum.
On the Mesopotamian side there would seem, from the accounts of Xenophon and Ptolemy, to have been an affluent which joined the Euphrates between Deir and `Ana, called Araxes by the former, Saocoras by the latter; but no trace of such a stream has been found by modern explorers and the country in general has always been uninhabited.
On the north-east and east the plateau shelves gradually to the Euphrates and the Persian Gulf; only in the extreme east is this general easterly slope arrested by the lofty range of Jebel Akhdar, which from Ras Musandan to Ras el Had borders the coast of Oman.
On the west side, however, there are the remains of several canals or channels, some still carrying water, one of which, the Shattel-Hai, leaving the Tigris at Kut-el-Amara, and emptying into the Euphrates at Nasrieh, is still navigable.
One of the first acts of the new king was to lead an army into Syria, where revolt was again rife; he reached and perhaps crossed the Euphrates and returned home to Thebes with seven captive kings of Tikhsi and much spoil.
Or from the Persian Gulf wares might be taken up the Euphrates and carried across to Antioch; this route lay altogether in the Seleucid sphere.
Paddan has been connected phonetically with Patin, west of the Euphrates, and explained by others as a synonym for Harran.
Pop. about 20,000, fairly equally divided between Armenian Christians and Moslems. It is picturesquely situated in a theatre of lofty, abrupt rocks, on the right bank of the western Euphrates, which is crossed by a wooden bridge.
Sarsar, the modern Abu-Ghurayb, leaves the Euphrates three leagues lower down and enters the Tigris between Bagdad and Ctesiphon.
Sassanid, king of Persia, on the east bank of the Euphrates, just south of the Nahr Isa, or Sakhlawieh canal, the northernmost of the canals connecting that river with the Tigris, in lat.
Shamshi-Adad's claims extend over the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates, and he says that he erected memorials of himself on the shore of the Great Sea.
Shortly afterwards he handed over the provinces east of the Euphrates to his son Antiochus, who, in the following years, till 282, exercised in the East a very energetic and beneficial activity, which continued the work of his father and gave the new empire and the Oriental Hellenistic civilization their form.
Sidetes was destroyed in 130 B.C., and the Syrian kings did not again seriously attempt to assert their rule beyond the Euphrates.
Since the Euphrates valley has no mountains, En-lil would appear to be a god whose worship was carried into Babylonia by a wave of migration from a mountainous country - in all probability from Elam to the east.
Sirhan is continuous with the depression known as the Jauf, situated on the northern edge of the Nefud or Nafud, and the halfway station between Damascus and Hail; and it is possible that this depression continues eastward towards the Euphrates along a line a little north of the thirtieth parallel, where wells and pasturages are known to exist.
Skene and George Smith at Jerablus, on the middle Euphrates, led to excavations being undertaken there, in 1878, by the British Museum, and to the discovery of certain Hamathite inscriptions accompanying sculptures, a few of which were brought to London.
Small native princes ruled as vassals of Egypt which, after expelling the Hyksos from its borders, had entered upon a series of conquests as far as the Euphrates.
Snipe and various species of wild fowl are found in the marshes, and pelicans and storks abound along the banks of the Euphrates and Tigris.
So far as is known no Egyptian king penetrated a day's journey beyond the Euphrates or into Asia Minor, or touched the continent of Europe.
Such are Birejik, Jerablus, Tell Ahmar, IKa1 `at en-Najm, Balls, Karkisiya (Qargisiya, Circesium), on the Euphrates; Kuyunjik, Nimrud on the Tigris; Khorsabad on a small tributary; `Arban, Tell Khalaf, on the Khabur.
Syria happens to lie on the line of least resistance for communication between the early subtropic seats of civilization in the Nile and Euphrates valleys and the civilizations of Europe.
That empire had been founded by Jenghiz Khan in the first quarter of the century; it stretched from Peking on the east to the Euphrates and the Dnieper on the west.
That's a lovely story, but it is more likely that that the weeping willow was brought to England in 1748 by Mr. Vernon, who planted a tree from the Euphrates at his home, Twickenham Park.
The `Isa, which is largely identical with the modern Sakhlawiya, left the Euphrates a little below Anbar (Perisabora) and joined the Tigris at Bagdad.
The advent of the Persians, bringing with them a conception of religion of a far higher order than Babylonian-Assyrian polytheism (see Zoroaster), must also have acted as a disintegrating factor in leading to the decline of the old faith in the Euphrates Valley, and we thus have the interesting though not entirely exceptional phenomenon of a great civilization bequeathing as a legacy to posterity a superstition instead of a real achievement.
The Afghan war of 1878-80; the Russo-Afghan Boundary Commission of 1884-1885; the occupation of Gilgit and Chitral; the extension of boundaries east and north of Afghanistan, and again, between Baluchistan and Persia - these, added to the opportunities afforded by the systematic survey of Baluchistan which has been steadily progressing since 1880 - combined to produce a series of geographical maps which extend from the Oxus to the Indus, and from the Indus to the Euphrates.
The agriculture of the region bordering the Tigris and Euphrates, like that of Egypt, depended largely on irrigation, and traces of ancient canals are still to be seen in Babylonia.
The Arabian tribes began to take possession of the partly cultivated lands east of Canaan, became masters of the Eastern trade, gradually acquired settled habits, and learned to speak and write in Aramaic, the language which was most widely current throughout the region west of the Euphrates in the time of the Persian Empire (6th-4th century B.C.).
The attempt made by the British Euphrates expedition in 1841 to connect Aleppo with the sea by steamer through the nearest point on the Euphrates, Meskine, failed owing to the obstructed state of the stream and the insecurity of the riparian districts.
The battle at Siffin (657), near the Euphrates, which lasted two months and consisted principally in, sometimes bloody, skirmishes, with alternate success, ended by the well-known appeal to the decision of the Koran on the part of Moawiya.
The Black Sea was practically a Turkish lake, only the Circassians on the east coast retaining their independence; and as a result of the wars with Persia the whole Euphrates valley, with Bagdad, had fallen into the sultan's power, now established on the Persian Gulf.
The command of the high road to the Mediterranean was secured by the possession of the Hittite town of Pethor at the junction of the Euphrates and Sajur, and at Arvad he received presents, including a crocodile, from the Egyptian king, and, embarking in a ship, killed a dolphin in the sea.
The conservatism which is a feature of proper names everywhere, in consequence of which the archaic traits of a language are frequently preserved in them, just as they are preserved in terms used in the ritual and in poetic diction, is sufficient to account for the interesting fact that the Semitic settlers of the Euphrates valley in handing down their names from one generation to another retained the custom of writing them in " Sumerian " fashion, or, as we might also put it, in "ideographic" form.
The countries west of the Euphrates never owned its dominion, and even of Iran itself not one half was subject to the Arsacids.
The course leads naturally into either Palestine or Babylonia, and, following the Euphrates, northern Syria is eventually reached.
The course of the Tigris is much shorter than that of the Euphrates, about 1150 m.
The date of Sargon is placed by Nabonidus at 3800 B.C. He was the son of Itti-Bel, and a legend related how he had been born in concealment and sent adrift in an ark of bulrushes on the waters of the Euphrates.
The development of the religion of Babylonia, so far as it can be traced with the material at hand, follows closely along the lines of the periods to be distinguished in the history of the Euphrates valley.
The downfall of the great Greek city sealed the fate of Hellenism in the countries east of the Euphrates.
The earliest legend as to his later labours, one of Syrian origin, places them in the Parthian kingdom, where it represents him as dying a natural death at Hierapolis (= Mabog on the Euphrates).
The Euphrates Valley (or Bagdad) railway scheme, which had previously been discussed, was brought forward prominently in 1899, and Russian proposals to undertake it were rejected.
The Euphrates was crossed at Birejil (Til Barsip ?), or Jerablus (Carchemish?), or Tell Ahmar (unidentified), or Thapsacus.
The expedition of Cyrus the Younger, with which Xenophon has made us so familar, only skirted the left bank of the Euphrates.
The ferry over an unusually deep and narrow part of the Euphrates has been used from time immemorial in the passage from North Syria to Haran (Charrae), Edessa and North Mesopotamia, and was second in importance only to that at Thapsacus, by which crossed the route to Babylon and South Mesopotamia.
The first mention of Mitanni, as we saw, is under Tethmosis III., who clearly crossed the Euphrates.
The great trade route from the Euphrates and the interior passed to it through Apamea.
The history of this region is the history of the advance of the Roman Empire towards the Euphrates.
The Imgur-Bel of Sargon's time has been discovered by the German excavators running south of the Qasr from the Euphrates to the Gate of Ishtar.
The impetus to the purification of the old Semite religion to which the Hebrews for a long time clung in common with their fellows - the various branches of nomadic Arabs - was largely furnished by the remarkable civilization unfolded in the Euphrates valley and in many of the traditions, myths and legends embodied in the Old Testament; traces of direct borrowing from Babylonia may be discerned, while the indirect influences in the domain of the prophetical books, as also in the Psalms and in the so-called "Wisdom Literature," are even more noteworthy.
The importance of IIarran was doubtless due not only to its fame as a seat of the Moon-god Sin, honoured also west of the Euphrates, and to its political position, but also to its trade relations.
The kingdom of Hira (Hira) was established in the boundary land between the Euphrates and the Arabian desert, a district renowned for its good air and extr a ordinary fertility.
The latter had besides 20, 000 of his own south Shammar tribesmen, the whole strength of the Harb Bedouins, some io,000 men, and an additional support of r000 mounted men from his kinsmen, the northern Shammar from the Euphrates, while the Muter and Ateba tribes took part with the allies.
The length of its western side from Port Said to Aden is 1500 m.; its base from the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb (or Bab al Mandab) to Ras el Had is 1300 m., its northern side from Port Said to the Euphrates 600 m.; its total area approximately 1,200,000 sq.
The length of the Euphrates from its source at Diadin to the sea is about 1800 m., and its fall during the last 1 zoo m.
The length of the Frat is about 275 m.; of the Murad, 415 m.; and of the Euphrates from the junction to Samsat, 115 m.
The little town of Eregli, some 190 kilometres distant from Konia, presented the only excusable locality for the terminus of the first section, and even that place is 90 kilometres distant from Karaman, the last town of any importance for some hundreds of miles on the way to the Euphrates valley, the country between the two towns being desolate and sparsely inhabited.
The middle Euphrates, from Samsat to Hit, is to-day an avenue of ruins, of which only the more conspicuous or important have been indicated here.
The modern town lies in the open treeless valley of the Sajur, a tributary of the Euphrates, and on the right bank, 65 m.
The Mongol invasion, in the latter part of that century, wrought their ruin, however, and from that time to the present there has been a steady decline in the commercial importance of the Euphrates route, and consequently also of the towns along its course, until at the present time it is only an avenue of ruins.
The motives of German intervention in the Eastern Question were ostensibly commercial; but the Bagdad railway concession, postulating for its ultimate success the control of the trade route by way of the Euphrates valley, involved political issues of the highest moment and opened up a new and perilous phase of the question of the Middle East.
The mud brought down by it, calculated at 7150 lb an hour at Bagdad, is not deposited in marshes to form alluvium, as in the case of the Euphrates, but although in flood time the river becomes at places an inland sea, rendering navigation extremely difficult and uncertain, the bulk of the mud is deposited in banks, shoals and islands in the bed of the river, and is finally carried out into the Persian Gulf.
The Nahr Malk or royal river, modern Radhwaniya, leaves the Euphrates five leagues below this and joins the Tigris three leagues below Ctesiphon; while the Kutha, modern Habl-Ibrahim, leaving the Euphrates three leagues below the Malk joins the Tigris ten leagues below Ctesiphon.
The next important canal, the Dujayl (Dojail), left the Euphrates on the left, about a league above Ramadiya (Ar-Rabb), and flowed into the Tigris between Ukbara and Bagdad.
The numerous objects of bronze and other metals brought to light by the excavations in the Tigris and Euphrates valleys, though mostly on a small scale, bear witness to the great skill and artistic power of the people who produced them; while the discovery of some bronze statuettes, shown by inscriptions on them to be not later than 2200 B.C., proves how early was the development of this branch of art among the people of Assyria.
The old sultan thirsted to crush his rebel ous vassal, at any cost; and on the 21st of April 1839 the Ottoman army, stationed at Bir on the Euphrates, crossed the stream and invaded Syria.
The only considerable tributary of the Euphrates which comes within our region is the Tokhma Su, which rises in Uzun Yaila and flows south-east to the main river not far from Malatia.
The origin of the name is suggested by the Euphrates being called "the water of Naharin," - on the Karnak stele more fully "the.
The Pallacopas, called Pallukkatu in the NeoBabylonian texts, started from Pallukkatu or Faluja, and running parallel to the western bank of the Euphrates as far as Iddaratu or Teredon (?) watered an immense tract of land and supplied a large lake near Borsippa.
The Parthian king, however, preferred a treaty with Rome to a treaty with Armenia, and desired simply to have the Euphrates recognized as his western boundary.
The persistent prominence which astrology continued to enjoy down to the border-line of the scientific movement of our own days, and which is directly traceable to the divination methods perfected in the Euphrates valley, is a tribute to the scope and influence attained by the astral theology of the Babylonian and Assyrian priests.
The population of the southern part of Mesopotamia - the strip of land enclosed between the Tigris and the Euphrates - was, according to Graetz, mainly Jewish; while the district extending for about 70 m.
The primitive seaport of the country, Eridu, the seat of the worship of Ea the culture-god, was a little south of Ur (at Abu Shahrain or Nowawis on the west side of the Euphrates).
The proud old civilizations of the Euphrates and the Nile might ignore it, but the ruder barbarian peoples in East and West, on whose coasts the Greek colonies had been planted, came in various degrees under its spell.
The reason of this preference for the eastern bank of the Tigris was due to its abundant supply of water, whereas the great Mesopotamian plain on the western side had to depend upon the streams which flowed into the Euphrates.
The rest of the northern borderland is covered by the Syrian desert, extending from the borders of Palestine to the edge of the Euphrates valley.
The rivalry of Great Britain and Russia in Persia had not yet raised the question of the Middle East; still less any ambitions of Germany in the Euphrates valley.
The rivers are the Euphrates, Tigris, Aras, Churuk Su (Chorokh) and Kelkit Irmak, all rising on the plateau.
The route along the banks of the Euphrates from south to north was so frequently taken by migrating tribes that the tradition has nothing improbable in itself, but the prominence given in the older narratives to the view that Haran was the home gives this the preference.
The scene of action is laid in Cappadocia and the district of the Euphrates.
The seaports wrested at the same period from the Saracens along the Spanish and Barbary coasts became important Genoese colonies, whilst in the Levant, on the shores of the Black Sea, and along the banks of the Euphrates were erected Genoese fortresses' of great strength.
The settled population lies entirely along the banks of these streams and the canals and lagoons westward of the Euphrates, between Kerbela and Nejef.
The son of a physician of Jewish descent, Bar-Hebraeus was born in 1226 at Malatiah on the upper Euphrates.
The southern boundary of both basins is a low chain which leaves the Euphrates near the mouth of the Sajur tributary, and runs west towards Mt Amanus, to which it is linked by a sill whereon stood the ancient fortified palace of Samal (Sinjerli; see Hittites).
The success with which Nearchus accomplished this arduous enterprise led to his selection by Alexander for the more difficult task of circumnavigating Arabia from the mouth of the Euphrates to the Isthmus of Suez.
The Sumerians and Accadians, the non-Semitic inhabitants of the Euphrates valley prior to the Babylonians, described the stars collectively as a " heavenly flock "; the sun was the " old sheep "; the seven planets were the " old-sheep stars "; the whole of the stars had certain " shepherds, " and Sibzianna (which, according to Sayce and Bosanquet, is the modern Arcturus, the brightest star in the northern sky) was the " star of the shepherds of the heavenly herds."
The three chief of them carried off the waters of the Euphrates to the Tigris above Babylon, - the Zabzallat canal (or Nahr Sarsar) running from Faluja to Ctesiphon, the Kutha canal from Sippara to Madain, passing Tell Ibrahim or Kutha on the way, and the King's canal or Ar-Malcha between the other two.
The tiger is exclusively Asiatic, but has a very wide range in that continent, having been found in almost all suitable localities south of a line drawn from the river Euphrates, passing along the southern shores of the Caspian and Sea of Aral by Lake Baikal to the Sea of Okhotsk.
The town has suffered much from the periodical breaking of the Hindieh dam and the consequent deflection of the waters of the Euphrates to the westward, as a result of which at times the Euphrates at this point has been entirely dry.
The town was in the October following recovered by Suleiman Pasha, who encountered the sheikh on the banks of the Euphrates and put him to flight; it has since remained in the hands of the Turks.
The tragedy of the Ides of March saved Mesopatamia and the East from a great campaign by Julius Caesar, and it was at the hands of Ventidius Bassus, and west of the Euphrates, at Gindarus (north east of Antioch), that the Parthians received the check that put an end to any real rivalry with Rome.
The two great empires, Assyria and Babylon, which grew up on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, can be separated as little historically as geographically.
The two sources together drain the region south as the Euphrates drains the region north of the Taurus mountains.
The upper Euphrates consists of two arms, which, rising on the Armenian plateau, and flowing west in long shallow valleys parallel to Mount Taurus, eventually unite and force their way southward through that range to the level of Mesopotamia.
The vilayet of Diarbekr extends south from Palu on the Euphrates to Mardin and Nisibin on the edge of the Mesopotamian plain, and is divided into three sanjaks - Arghana, Diarbekr and Mardin.
The voyage of Nearchus from the Indus to the Euphrates was intended to link India by a waterway with the Mediterranean lands.
The XXXII.-3 Euphrates and Tigris have within historical times silted up their mouths to an extent that has materially altered the coast-line of the Gulf and these rivers seem destined in the future to unite El Hasa to Fao, just as in the past they produced the fertile plains of Mesopotamia.
Their caravans (auvoeiac) travelled right across the desert to the great entrepots on the Euphrates, Vologesias, about 55 m.
Their first monastery was established on the Euphrates, in the beginning of the 5th century, and soon afterwards one was founded in Constantinople.
Then, in the thirty-third year of his reign, he marched through Kadesh, fought his way to Carchemish, defeated the forces that opposed him there and crossed over the Euphrates into the territory of the king of Mitanni.
There is no getting back to the beginning of astronomy by the shores of the Euphrates.
There is proof of its culture in the Euphrates valley and in Syria four hundred years before Christ.
There is, however, little travel of this sort on the Euphrates in comparison with the amount on the Tigris.
There were indeed vassal states on every hand, but the actual possessions of the kingsthe provinces governed by their satrapsconsisted of a rather narrow strip of land, stretching from the Euphrates and north Babylonia through southern Media and Parthia as far as Arachosia (north-west Afghanistan), and following the course of the great trade-route which from time immemorial had carried the traffic between the west of Asia and India.
They probably came from the steppe country to the south of the Euphrates.
They were crossing the Euphrates, not far from the castle of Jaber, when the drowning of their leader by accident threw confusion into their ranks.
This ancient system of canalization was inherited from the Persians (who, in turn, inherited it from their predecessors), by the Arabs, who long maintained it in working order, and the astonishing fertility and consequent prosperity of the country watered by the Euphrates, its tributaries and its canals, is noticed by all ancient writers.
This association of Marduk and Ea, while indicating primarily the passing of the supremacy once enjoyed by Eridu to Babylon as a religious and political centre, may also reflect an early dependence of Babylon upon Eridu, not necessarily of a political character but, in view of the spread of culture in the Euphrates valley from the south to the north, the recognition of Eridu as the older centre on the part of the younger one.
This canal, the Sakhlawieh (formerly Isa), leaves the Euphrates a few miles above Feluja and the bridge of boats, near the ruins of the ancient Anbar.
This double method of writing words arises from the circumstance that the cuneiform syllabary is of non-Semitic origin, the system being derived from the non-Semitic settlers of the Euphrates valley, commonly termed Sumerians (or Sumero-Akkadians), to whom, as the earlier settlers, the origin of the cuneiform script is due.
This earlier Marduk, however, was effaced by the reflex of the political development through which the Euphrates valley passed and which led to imbuing him with traits belonging to gods who at an earlier period were recognized as the heads of the pantheon.
This makes the Euphrates the main eastern limit, with radii to the north-east angle of the Levant and the south-east angle of the Black Sea, and roughly agrees with the popular conception of Asia Minor as a geographical region.
This province, which skirts the Persian Gulf from the mouth of the Euphrates to the frontiers of Oman, is low and hot; its shores are flat, and with the exception of Kuwet at the north-west corner of the gulf, it possesses no deep water port.
This pseudonym served to protect the book against the fate that overtook the writings of heretics, and in a Syriac version it was preserved in the Euphrates valley where the followers of Nestorius settled.
This script, together with the general Sumerian culture, was taken over by the Babylonians upon their settlement in the Euphrates valley and adapted to their language, which belonged to the Semitic group. In this transfer the Sumerian words - largely monosyllabic - were reproduced, but read as Semitic, and 1 Cf.
Through an error, in many recent maps and Assyriological publications Eridu is described as located in the alluvial plain, between the Tigris and the Euphrates.
Thus the Aramaic languages may be geographically defined as the Semitic dialects originally current in Mesopotamia and the regions extending south-west from the Euphrates to Palestine.
To defend himself from the enraged Shammar `Ali summoned the `Anaza from across the Euphrates.
To thoroughly overpower the troublesome Bit-Adini (see above, § 3, viii.), which had naturally been aided by the states west of the Euphrates, Shalmaneser II.
Turning next to Syria, Tethmosis carried his arms as far as the Euphrates.
Twenty-five miles below Basra the river Karun from Shushter and Dizful throws off an arm, which seems to be artificial, into the Euphrates.
Two days' journey beyond Rakka, where the Euphrates breaks through the basalt dike of el-IIamme, are two admirably preserved ruins, built of gypsum and basalt, that on the Mesopotamian side called Zelebiya (Chanuga), and that on the Syrian, much the finer of the two, Halebiya or Zenobiya, the ancient Zenobia.
Two other walls ran along the banks of the Euphrates and the quays with which it was lined, each containing 25 gates which answered to the number of streets they led into.
Under Midhat Pasha, governor-general of Bagdad from 1866 to 1871, an attempt was made by the Turkish authorities to establish regular steam navigation on the Euphrates.
Under the Arabs the old designation again prevailed and the Euphrates is always described by the Arabian geographers as the river which flows direct to Kufa, while the present stream, passing along the ruins of Babylon to Hillah and Diwanieh, has been universally known as the Nahr Sura.
Unpleasant, but not dangerous, is another disease, the so-called "Bagdad date-mark," known elsewhere as the "Aleppo button," &c. This disease extends along the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, and the country adjacent from Aleppo and Diarbekr to the Persian Gulf, although there are individual towns and regions in this territory which seem to be exempt.
Water traffic on the Euphrates and canals was early very considerable.
When Aramaic began to take the place of Assyrian in written documents is not known; but just across the Euphrates the change had occurred as early as the 8th century B.C. (Zengirli, Hamath; see also Pognon).
When Breasted renders "Great Bend" of the Euphrates he is probably thinking of the great.
When it became evident that, under present conditions at least, the navigation of the middle Euphrates was impracticable, attention was turned, owing to the peculiarly advantageous geographical position of its valley, to schemes for connecting the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf by railway as an alternative means of communication with India, and various surveys were made for this purpose and various routes laid out.
When Justinian came to the throne, his troops were maintaining an unequal struggle on the Euphrates against the armies of Kavadh I.
When Tigranes had submitted, Pompey received him into favor and extended the Roman supremacy over the vassal states of Gordyene and Osroene; though he had allured the Parthian king with the prospect of the recovery of his old possessions as far as the Euphrates.
Wherever there is any pretence at irrigation, along the banks of the two great rivers and by the few canals which are still in existence, the yield is enormous, and the shores of the Tigris and Euphrates in the neighbourhood of Bagdad and Hilla seem to be one great palm garden.
While the political movement represented by Khammurabi may have been proceeding for some time prior to the appearance of the great conqueror, the period of c. 2250 B.C., when the union of the Euphratean states was effected by Khammurabi, marks the beginning of a new epoch in the religion as well as in the political history of the Euphrates valley.
While the Tigris never played the same role historically as the Euphrates, numerous remains of antiquity are to be seen along its course.
Willcocks discovered (1909) that from Suk-eshSheiukh the Euphrates had formed a new channel through the marshes.
With Iran Antioch was connected most directly by the road which crossed the Euphrates at the Zeugma and went through Edessa and Antioch-Nisibis to the Tigris.
With respect to the origin of this epidemic, the possibility of its having originated on the spot, as in Resht and on the Euphrates in very similar situations, is not to be denied.
With the hope of acquiring immense booty in the rich church of St Basil in Caesarea, the capital of Cappadocia, he placed himself at the head of the Turkish cavalry, crossed the Euphrates and entered and plundered that city.
With this battle the Seleucid dominion over the countries east of the Euphrates was definitely lost.
Yule, from Chinese annals of the 7th and 8th centuries, says that Chinese ships came as far as Siraf (Tahiri) and the Euphrates, where they lay at Hira near Kufa, and adds that this trade fell off in A.D.
Zarib, whose name is associated with Tadmor and with a town on the right bank of the Euphrates, which is no doubt the Zenobia of which Procopius speaks as founded by the famous queen.
Zbtieir frontier obliquely from the Gulf of Akeba to Rakka (Raqqa) on Euphrates, and thus placed the Hamad in Arabia.
Zenos account is that a son named Allamur (called also, Alamut, Alvante, El-wand and Aiwung Bey) was the next king, who, Anaithy besides, Persia, possessed Diarbekr and part of greater Armenia near the Euphrates.