Halabiye Castle

Halabiye (Arabic الحلابيا) a fortress is found on the shores Euphrates, 58 kilometers north of Der Ezzor city in the district of al-Tibni, and 165 kilometers northeast of Palmyra whose trade it long administered.

Halabiye site first mentioned in the lists of the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal I ("Ashur Guards the Heir", c. 1050-1031 B.C.), son of Shamshi-Adad IV and grandson of the great Tiglath-Pileser I.

The following construction probably related to the revered fortress city-state of Dur Karbani, c. 877 B.C., built at the command of Ashurnasirpal's namesake, Ashurnasirpal II, son of Tukulti-Ninurta II. Dur Karbani was looked on at one point to have been the seat of the god Assur, and per se, a burial site for Assyrian royal family. Certainly tombs, from the Assyrian period as well as the Palmyrene, were noticeable in the cliff walls facing the river.

Ashurnasirpal II extended Assyrian power farther than his father ever had. He crossed the Euphrates, reached the Mediterranean and received tribute from states as far south as Tyre.

The site witnesses living of many kingdoms and civilizations, Babylonian, Assyrian, Arameans. When Alexander arrived there were remains of several construction phases in the Halabiye pass, all destroyed. Alexander thought of building dams to keep river's water. In Seleucid period, the Parthians were dominants on the river basin. The trading centers they had established in Halabiye, and downriver in Dura-Europos, were finally, on the other hand, committed to Palmyrene management for the shipment of the goods that traveled between the markets of Iraq and Central Asia on the one hand, and Damascus and the Mediterranean on the other. Later Palmyrenes found refuge there when were attacked by Mark Anthony in 41 B.C., who demolished the Halabiye and Zalabiye sites.

The spectacular ruins still visible in Halabiye mostly stand for the Byzantine era. They were wisely raised during Justinian's policy of securing the Euphrates against the Persians, but the site, known to the Assyrians as Ninqoshaborat, and having been destroyed during the Aramean period, was revived during its Palmyrene days. It was, actually, renamed in honor of the creative and defiant Queen Zenobia (al-Zabba'a), before again being destroyed by the Romans.

Resources

[http://www.syriagate.com/Syria/about/cities/Deir_Ezzor/halabiye-cm.htm Syria Gates]

[http://www.syritour.com/content/en/allsites.asp Syritour]

[http://www.syriatoday.ca/halabiye.htm Halabi Halabiye and Zalabiye The Syrian Honorary Consulate Site]

[http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g294010-d324300-Reviews-Halabiye_and_Zalabiye-Syria.html Syria - Reviews of Halabiye and Zalabiye]

External links

[http://syrialooks.blogspot.com/2007/05/halabiye-historical-site-on-euphrates.html Pictures from Syria Looks]

[http://syalp.blogspot.com/2007/04/halabiye-ruins-on-euphrates.html Pictures from Syria Winks]

See also

Euphrates

Dura-Europos

List of castles in Syria