Orontes River

The Orontes (

In the 9th century BCE, the ancient Assyrians referred to the river as Arantu, and the nearby Egyptians called it Araunti.^[2] The etymology of the name is unknown,^[2] yet some sources indicate that it might be derived from Arnt which means "lioness" in Syriac languages;^[a] others called it Alimas, a "water goddess" in Aramaic.^[3] However, Arantu gradually became "Orontes" in Greek.

In the Greek epic poem Dionysiaca (circa 400 CE), the river is said to have been named after Orontes, an Indian military leader who killed himself and fell into the river after losing to Dionysus in single combat.^[4] According to the Greek geographer Strabo (in Geographica, circa 20 CE), the river was originally named Typhon, because it was said that Zeus had struck the dragon Typhon down from the sky with thunder, and the river had formed where Typhon's body had fallen;^[5] however, the river was later renamed Orontes when a man named Orontes built a bridge on it.^[5][b]

In contrast, Macedonian settlers in Apamea named it the Axius, after a Macedonian river god. The Arabic name العاصي (al-‘Āṣī) is derived from the ancient Axius. The word coincidentally means "insubordinate" in Arabic, which folk etymology ascribes to the fact that the river flows from the south to the north unlike the rest of the rivers in the region.^[8][9]

The part of the river flowing from Lake Homs to Homs is known as al-Mimas,^[10][11] after the sanctuary of Deir Mimas situated there in honor of Saint Mamas.^[12]

Course

The Orontes rises in the springs near

Leaving this gorge, it expands into the

Two major tributaries, the southward-flowing Afrin River on the west and the Karasu on the east, join the Orontes through the former Lake Amik via an artificial channel (Nahr al-Kowsit). Passing north of Antakya (ancient Antioch), the Orontes dives southwest into a gorge (compared by the ancients to Tempe), and falls 50 metres (160 ft) in 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) to the sea just south of Samandağ (former Suedia, in antiquity Seleucia Pieria), after a total course of 450 kilometres (280 mi).^[1]

History

The Orontes is not easily navigable and the valley derives its historical importance as a road for north–south traffic; from Antioch south to Homs and thence to Damascus via al-Nabek.^[1] The Orontes has long been a boundary marker. For the Ancient Egyptians it marked the northern extremity of Amurru, east of Phoenicia. On the Orontes was fought the major Battle of Kadesh (circa 1274 BCE) between the Egyptian army of Ramesses II from the south and the Hittite army of Muwatalli II from the north. The river was also the site of the Battle of Qarqar fought in 853 BCE, when the army of Assyria, led by king Shalmaneser III, encountered an allied army of 12 kings led by Hadadezer of Damascus.

Pinarus river near modern İskenderun and north of modern Antakya). After his death in 323 BCE, it became part of the Seleucid Empire

.

Seleucid cities founded on the Orontes included

Tyche of Antioch

with a male swimmer personifying the Orontes at her feet.

In 64 BCE Pompey took the Orontes river valley and made it part of the new Roman province of Syria with Antioch as its capital. Lake Homs Dam was built by the Roman emperor Diocletian in 290 CE.^{[citation needed]} In addition to Lake Homs, further Roman dams and dykes would be built along the Orontes river around Apamea, to better irrigate the Ghab plain. In 198 CE the province was split with the lower Orontes in the new province of Coele Syria and the upper Orontes from Emesa (modern day Homs) south in Syria Phoenice. Emesa was later raised to co-capital of the latter.

In 637 CE the Battle of the Iron Bridge near Antioch was fought between the forces of the Rashidun Caliphate and the Byzantine Empire near the Iron bridge and won by the former which shortly took control of the whole of the river valley.

For the

Crusaders in the 12th century, the Orontes River became the permanent boundary between the Principality of Antioch and that of Aleppo

.

The construction of a

Syrian Civil War. The war has also seen the siege of Homs

from May 2011 until May 2014.

In art

The French writer Maurice Barrès purportedly transcribed in Un jardin sur l'Oronte (1922) a story that an Irish archaeologist had translated for him from a manuscript one evening in June 1914 at a café in Hama by the Orontes.

See also

• Al-Mina – archaeological site at the mouth of the Orontes
• Baalbek – a town and archaeological site just to the south of the source of the Orontes
• Tell Atchana
  – archaeological sites near each other in Hatay
• Water resources management in Syria

Notes

1. ^ The source of the river Orontes is the village of Labweh, which also means "lioness".
2. al-Ghab plain near Apamea.^[7]

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i} "Asi-Orontes Basin". Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. 2016. Retrieved 18 March 2018.
2. ^ ^{a b} Gaston Maspero. History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia and Assyria (Complete). p. 1348.
3. ISBN 9789230000172
   .
4. ^ Nonnos of Panopolis (20 July 2015). Delphi Complete Dionysiaca of Nonnus (Illustrated). Delphi Classics. pp. book 17.
5. ^ ^{a b} "LacusCurtius • Strabo's Geography — Book XVI Chapter 2". penelope.uchicago.edu. Retrieved 2017-02-03.
6. ^ "Marsyas". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography.
7. ^ Richard Pococke (1743). A description of the East, and some other countries Vol. II. William Bowyer. p. 140.
8. ^ Fitchett, Joseph; Deford, McAdams (1973). "A River Called Rebel". Aramco World (May/June): 12–21. Retrieved 15 February 2015.
9. ^ Getzel M. Cohen. The Hellenistic Settlements in Syria, the Red Sea Basin, and North Africa. p. 100.
10. ^ Dussaud, René. Topographie historique de la Syrie antique et médiévale (in French). p. 103.
11. ^ عمر فاروق الطباع (2016). ديوان البحتري 1/2 Diwan of Buhturi (in Arabic). Beirut: دار الارقم بن ابي الارقم. p. 169.
12. ^ مصطفى الصوفي (2017). طقوس احتفالات المواسم والأعياد الربيعية (in Arabic). ktab INC.
13. ISBN 0-89577-087-3
    .

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Orontes River.

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Orontes".

• Pop-up map of the Orontes River available at: Alhajji, E.; Ismail, I.M. (2011). "Trace elements concentration in sediments of Orontes River using PIXE technique". Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms. 269 (16): 1818–1821.
  doi:10.1016/j.nimb.2011.05.006
  .
• Map of the Orontes River Basin: "Inventory of Shared Water Resources in Western Asia: Orontes Basin" (PDF). United Nations. 2012. Retrieved 21 March 2018.