Amuq Valley Regional Projects

Alalakh (modern Tell Atchana) in the Amuq Valley of southern Turkey was the capital of the kingdom of Mukish that encompassed the valley during the Middle and Late Bronze Ages (ca. 2000–1200 B.C.). Mukish was a minor power, a vassal state within larger empires. Yet Alalakh and the Amuq region as a whole have proved to be uniquely informative about a number of important cultural developments over the long span of history from the Neolithic to the medieval period. This site and its hinterland have yielded a host of clues concerning innovations in agriculture, trade, metallurgy, and political organization in what was for millennia a prime zone of settlement and a crucial corridor of communication between the Euphrates River and the Mediterranean Sea. The first archaeological survey of the Amuq Valley — the plain of Antioch in classical times — was conducted by Robert Braidwood in the 1930s on behalf of the Oriental Institute. Braidwood’s site no. 136 was Tell Atchana, which was subsequently excavated by the noted AMUQ VALLEY REGIONAL PROJECTS