[Illustration: X. The Citadel Mound of Carchemish from the north-west. After Hogarth, Carchemish, Pl. 1A] Carchemish lies out of the direct road from Babylon to Northern Syria, and it is remarkable that any trace of early Babylonian influence should have been found so far to the north as the mouth of the Sajûr. It is farther down stream, after the Euphrates has turned eastward towards its junction with the Khâbûr, that we should expect to find evidence of a more striking character; and it is precisely there, along the river route from Syria to Akkad, that we have recovered definite proof, at the time of the First Dynasty of Babylon, of the existence of Amorite or West-Semitic settlements with a culture that was Babylonian in its essential features. The evidence is drawn mainly from one district, the kingdom of Khana, which lay not far from the mouth of the Khâbûr. One of the chief towns, and probably the capital of the kingdom, was Tirka, the site of which probably lay near Tell 'Ashar or Tell 'Ishar, a place situated between Dêr ez-Zôr and Sâlihîya and about four hours from the latter. The identification is certain, since an Assyrian inscription of the ninth century was found there, recording the rebuilding of the local temple which is stated in the text to have been "in Tirka."[15] From about this region three tablets have also been recovered, all dating from the period of the First Dynasty of Babylon and throwing considerable light on the character of West Semitic culture in a district within the reach of Babylonian influence. One of these documents records a deed of gift by which Isharlim, a king of Khana, conveys to one of his subjects a house in a village within the district of Tirka.[16] On a second document is inscribed a similar deed of gift by which another king of the same district, Ammi-baïl, the son of Shunu'-rammu, bestows two plots of land on a certain Pagirum, described as "his servant," evidently in return for faithful service;[17] and, as one of the plots was in Tirka, it is probable that the deed was drawn up in that city. The third document is perhaps the most interesting of the three, since it contains a marriage-contract and is dated in the reign of a king who bears the name of Hammurabih. This last ruler has by some been confidently regarded as identical with Hammurabi of the First Dynasty of Babylon, and it has been assumed that it was drawn up at a time when Khana had been conquered and annexed by that monarch, of whose advance into that region we have independent evidence.[18] But since the tablet appears to be the latest of the three, it is clear that Khana had been subject to Babylonian influence long before Hammurabi's conquest. And, even if we regard Hammurabih as no more than a local king of Khana, the document has furnished us with a West-Semitic variant of Hammurabi's name, or one that is closely parallel to it.