Tell el Fakhariya

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

In the area exist 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.

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 "Sikan" is believed to be an Assyrianized version of its Hurrian, or Indo-Aryan original, becoming "(Wa-)Sikan(-ni)". The site has not been fully excavated and no discoveries from the expected Hurrian occupation of the site have yet been found.

Washukanni

Washukanni, or "Waššukanni" (also spelled Washshukanni, Wassuganni, Vasukhani, or variants) was the capital of the Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni from c.1500 BC. The name is similar to the Sanskrit phrase "Vasu-khani", "a mine of wealth," [However, compare [Luwian "vasu-", "good".] In modern Kurdish "w/bashkani" means "the good spring (of water).

Washukanni flourished as a capital city for two centuries. The city is known to have been sacked by the Hittites under Suppiluliumas I (ruled ca. 1358 - 1323 BC). whose treaty inscription [ [http://www.geocities.com/farfarer2001/hittite_letters/suppiluliuma_shattiwaza_treaty.htm Suppilulium-Shattiwaza treaty exerpts] ] relates that he installed a Hurrian vassal king, Shattiwaza. The city was sacked again by the Assyrian king Adad-nirari I around 1290, but very little else is known of its history.

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 Adad-it'i/Hadd-yith'i, the king of Guzana and Sikan was discovered in the 1970s, with a bilingual inscription in the Assyrian dialect of Akkadian and Aramaic, the earliest Aramaic inscription. [A. R. Millard and P. Bordreuil, "A Statue from Syria with Assyrian and Aramaic Inscriptions" "The Biblical Archaeologist" 45.3 (Summer 1982:135-1410, and Abu Asaf, Pierre Bordreuil and Alan R. Millard, "La statue de Tell Fekherye et son inscription bilingue assyro-arameenne" (Paris) 1982.] The statue was inscribed as a votive object to Hadad, whose name the donor bore.

References

* [http://www.fecheriye.de/ "The Official Website of the new dig at Tell Fecheriye"] . Retrieved June 17, 2006.