Qarqur (, also spelled Qarqar or Karkour) is a village in northern

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

, administratively part of the

Hama Governorate Hama Governorate ( / ALA-LC: ''Muḥāfaẓat Ḥamā'') is one of the 14 Governorates of Syria, governorates of Syria. It is situated in western-central Syria, bordering Idlib Governorate, Idlib and Aleppo Governorates to the north, Raqqa Gove ...

, located northwest of

Hama Hama ( ', ) is a city on the banks of the Orontes River in west-central Syria. It is located north of Damascus and north of Homs. It is the provincial capital of the Hama Governorate. With a population of 996,000 (2023 census), Hama is one o ...

. It is situated in the al-Ghab plain, on the eastern bank of the

Orontes River The Orontes (; from Ancient Greek , ) or Nahr al-ʿĀṣī, or simply Asi (, ; ) is a long river in Western Asia that begins in Lebanon, flowing northwards through Syria before entering the Mediterranean Sea near Samandağ in Hatay Province, Turk ...

. Nearby localities include Jisr al-Shughur 6 kilometers to the north,Lipinsky, p. 264. Farikah to the northeast, Qastun to the southeast, al-Ziyarah 7 kilometers to the south, Sirmaniyah to the southwest and al-Najiyah to the northwest. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics, Qarqur had a population of 2,356 in the 2004 census, making it the largest locality in the al-Ziyarah sub-district (''

nahiyah A nāḥiyah ( , plural ''nawāḥī'' ), also nahiyeh, nahiya or nahia, is a regional or local type of administrative division that usually consists of a number of villages or sometimes smaller towns. In Tajikistan, it is a second-level divisi ...

'').General Census of Population and Housing 2004
Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). Hama Governorate. Qarqur is situated one kilometer west of the archaeological site of Tell Qarqur, which is also on the eastern bank of the Orontes River.

History

Qarqur, or the nearby '' tell'' ("artificial mound"), is identified with the

Aramean The Arameans, or Aramaeans (; ; , ), were a tribal Semitic people in the ancient Near East, first documented in historical sources from the late 12th century BCE. Their homeland, often referred to as the land of Aram, originally covered ce ...

town of ''Qarqara'' which was captured in

battle A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or size. A war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and force co ...

Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , ''māt Aššur'') was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed as a city-state from the 21st century BC to the 14th century BC and eventually expanded into an empire from the 14th century BC t ...

n emperor

Shalmaneser III Shalmaneser III (''Šulmānu-ašarēdu'', "the god Shulmanu is pre-eminent") was king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 859 BC to 824 BC. His long reign was a constant series of campaigns against the eastern tribes, the Babylonians, the nations o ...

in 853 BCE. The town was later burned down by Assyrian emperor

Sargon II Sargon II (, meaning "the faithful king" or "the legitimate king") was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 722 BC to his death in battle in 705. Probably the son of Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727), Sargon is generally believed to have be ...

in 720 BCE. Archaeological findings from excavations in 1993 indicate that Tell Qarqur had been settled from the

Early Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

through the

Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

with gaps of no settlement in between. Tell Qarqur continued to be inhabited through the

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

period (late 4th-6th centuries CE), early Islamic rule (7th-11th centuries), the Crusader period (12th-century), until

Ayyubid The Ayyubid dynasty (), also known as the Ayyubid Sultanate, was the founding dynasty of the medieval Sultan of Egypt, Sultanate of Egypt established by Saladin in 1171, following his abolition of the Fatimid Caliphate, Fatimid Caliphate of Egyp ...

rule (12th-13th centuries.) Coins from the Crusader and Arab and Muslim periods were discovered on the site, as well as some pieces of

Mamluk Mamluk or Mamaluk (; (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural); translated as "one who is owned", meaning "slave") were non-Arab, ethnically diverse (mostly Turkic, Caucasian, Eastern and Southeastern European) enslaved mercenaries, slave-so ...

-era pottery. Muslim rule continued in the modern settlement of Qarqur on the eastern bank of the Orontes.

Modern era

In 1953 the Syrian government commenced what was known as the "Ghab Project" to drain the waters of the al-Ghab plain in order to sufficiently distribute water from the Orontes River to the various communities of the area. Of the infrastructural works included in the project,De Miranda, p. 267. was the construction of a dam at Qarqur between 1963-1965. The Qarqur Dam blocks the Orontes on one side, while it supplies water to the other side when necessary. However, it lacks an artificial basin. When the nearby

Zeyzoun Dam The Zeyzoun Dam is a failed embankment dam near Zayzun, Hama Governorate, Syria. It impounded water pumped from the nearby Orontes River, which has been used for irrigation of the surrounding countryside for centuries. The dam was completed in 1 ...

collapsed, mass flooding resulted in hundreds of homes being damaged and destroyed in Qarqur, al-Ziyarah, Zaizoun and Qastun.

Syrian Civil War

On 22 October 2023, 6 civilians were killed in SAA artillery attacks in the village.

References

Bibliography

* * * {{Hama Governorate, suqaylabiyah Populated places in al-Suqaylabiyah District Populated places in al-Ghab Plain