Melid

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Melid (modern Arslantepe, near Malatya, Turkey) was a Hittite city at the Tohma River, the ancient name of a tributary of the upper Euphrates rising in the Taurus Mountains.

[edit] History

The site has been inhabited since the development of agriculture in the fertile crescent. It was called Maladiya, Melid, Milid or Meliddu by the ancient people. From the Bronze Age the site became an administrative center of a larger region in the kingdom of Isuwa. The city was heavily fortified, probably due to the Hittite threat from the west. The Hittites conquered the city in the fourteenth century BC. In the mid 14th century BC, Melid was the base of the Hittite king Suppiluliuma I on his campaign to sack the Mitanni capital Wassukanni.

After the end of the Hittite empire, from the 12th to 7th century BC, the city became the center of an independent Luwian Neo-Hittite state of Kammanu. A palace was built and monumental stone sculptures of lions and the ruler erected.

The encounter with the Assyrian king of Tiglath-Pileser I (1115-1077 BC) resulted in the kingdom of Melid being forced to pay tribute to Assyria. Melid continued to prosper however until the Assyrian king Sargon II (722-705 BC) sacked the city in 712 BC. At the same time the Cimmerians and Scythians invaded Anatolia and the city declined.

[edit] Archaeology

Arslantepe was first excavated by the French archaeologist Louis Delaporte in the 1930s. Since 1961 an Italian team of archaeologists, today led by Marcella Frangipane, have been working at the site.