Tell el Fakhariya

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Tell el Fakhariya, or Tell el Fecheriyeh with variants, is an ancient site in the Khabur River basin in northern Syria. It is the alleged site of Washukanni, the capital of Mitanni.

In the area exists several mounds called:

Tell el Fakhariya
Ras el 'Ayn
Tell Halaf - see the separate Tell Halaf article about the Neolithic site and the Halafian culture, and the Aramean and Neo-Assyrian city of Guzana.

1 The identification of Tell el Fakhariya with Washukanni
2 Washukanni
3 Sikan
4 References

[edit] The identification of Tell el Fakhariya with Washukanni

The Neo-Assyrian city of Sikan is identified with the Hurrian capital of Mitanni; Washukanni. The name is believed to be a later Assyrianized version from its Hurrian, or Indo-Aryan, original into (Wa-)Sikan(-ni). The site has not been fully excavated and no discoveries from the Hurrian occupation of the site have yet been found.

[edit] Washukanni

Washukanni, or Waššukanni (also spelled Washshukanni, Wassuganni, Vasukhani, or a combination of these variants) was the capital of the Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni from c.1500 BC. The name is similar to the Sanskrit phrase for "a mine of wealth."

Washukanni flourished as a capital city for two centuries. The city is known to have been sacked by the Hittites under Suppiluliumas I who installed a Hurrian vassal king, Shattiwaza. The city was sacked again by the Assyrian king Adad-nirari I around 1290 BC, but very little else is known of its history.

[edit] Sikan

The ancient Neo-Assyrian city of Sikan is on the southern edge of the mound at Ras el 'Ayn. Its location is near the modern-day Tell el Fakhariya, where a famous Neo-Assyrian statue of Adadit'i, the king of Guzana and Sikan was discovered in the 1970s.