Hama

Hama

The Tell at Hama

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Names

Transliterated Name	Source	Name
Hama	Arabic	حَمَاة
Hmt	Syriac	ܚܡܬ
Emathoùs	Byzantine Era Greek	Εμαθούς
Emath	Byzantine Era
Epiphaneia	Ancient Greek	Ἐπιφάνεια
Epiphaneia Syriae	Ancient Greek
Epiphaneia ad Orontem	Ancient Greek
Hamat	Biblical Hebrew	חֲמָת
Hamath the Great	Amos 6:2 in the Hebrew Bible
Amat	Assyrian
Hamata	Assyrian

Introduction

Situated along the Orontes at a natural crossing, Hama developed as a regional hub linking interior Syria with the Mediterranean coast and the northern plains. The city is often identified with ancient Hamath, noted in first-millennium BCE sources, and it continued to flourish through Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, and Islamic periods, reflecting its strategic position and fertile riverine setting.

Hama is renowned for its historic wooden waterwheels (norias), which lifted Orontes water to elevated aqueducts and gardens. Together with its citadel mound and layered urban fabric, these features illustrate long-term continuity of settlement and water management along the river corridor.

Description, History, and Excavations

from Rudolph H. Dornemann in Meyers et al (1997)

Hama is a city on the Orontes River, between the barren Syrian steppe to the east and the well-watered western Mediterranean highland zone to the west (35°08' N, 36°44' E). The highlands include the Jebel Ansariye, which separates the Orontes Valley from the Mediterranean littoral. Hama is located 146 km (91 mi.) south of Aleppo, about 140 km (87 mi.) to the east of Banias on the Mediterranean coast, about 47 km (29 mi.) north of Homs and 209 km (130 mi.) north of Damascus. The course of the Orontes River moves through Hama in a northwesterly direction from the desert toward the Ghab, an area of exceptionally rich, dark soil from Asharneh to Qarqur that until recently was a marshy area. Hama has a long history, documented for thousands of years by written, cultural, and archaeological remains. The extended modern city, whose emblem is the nouria, or "water wheel," traces its history back to the Early Islamic city. Islamic buildings and building remains are still visible throughout the modern urban configuration, which supports almost 200,000 people and includes the classical city (Epiphaneia Syriae or Epiphaneia ad Orontem) and still earlier ones.

Medieval and classical remains were encountered in the highest levels of the ancient tell excavated by a Danish expedition supported by the Carlsberg Foundation between 1930 and 1938. An Iron Age acropolis, in phases E and F of the site's sequence, contains monumental buildings most likely associated with the capital city of the biblical land of Hamath (2 Sm. 8:9). In the Bronze Age, the site is identified with an Ematu mentioned in the Ebla texts and possibly with the Imat or Amata mentioned in Egyptian texts. After the Islamic conquest, the name reverted from its classical name to the earlier form.

Aerial Views

The Tell at Hama in Google Earth

The Tell at Hama

click on image to explore this site on a new tab in Google Earth

Archaeoseismic Chronology

Wall Repairs Earthquake ? - 8th century CE

Discussion

Archaeoseismic Effects

Wall Repairs Earthquake ? - 8th century CE

Effect	Location	Image(s)	Description
Wall Damage ?	Mound at Hama The Tell at Hama click on image to explore this site on a new tab in Google Earth		Walmsley (2013:89) reports possible earthquake evidence in Hamah in the 8th century CE. Citing Ploug (1985:109–111), he notes that the "mound at Hamah apparently was walled (or re-walled) in the eighth century." Although Ploug (1985:109–111) favored a Byzantine date, Walmsley (2013:89) suggests that an Umayyad one "fits better."

Archaeoseismic Intensity Estimates

Wall Repairs Earthquake ? - 8th century CE

Earthquake Archeological Effects chart

Earthquake Archeological Effects (EAE)

Rodríguez-Pascua et al (2013: 221-224)

of Rodríguez-Pascua et al (2013: 221-224)

Effect	Location	Image(s)	Description	Intensity
Wall Damage ?	Mound at Hama The Tell at Hama click on image to explore this site on a new tab in Google Earth		Walmsley (2013:89) reports possible earthquake evidence in Hamah in the 8th century CE. Citing Ploug (1985:109–111), he notes that the "mound at Hamah apparently was walled (or re-walled) in the eighth century." Although Ploug (1985:109–111) favored a Byzantine date, Walmsley (2013:89) suggests that an Umayyad one "fits better."	VII+

The archeoseismic evidence requires a minimum Intensity of VII (7) when using the Earthquake Archeological Effects chart of Rodríguez-Pascua et al (2013: 221-224).

Notes and Further Reading

References

Articles and Books

Walmsley, A. (2013). Early Islamic Syria. United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Publishing.

Zaqzouq, A. "Fouilles preliminaires a Hama" (in Arabic). Annales Archeologiques Arabes Syriennes 33.2 (1983): 141-178.

Excavation Reports

Ploug, G., 1985. Hama: fouilles et recherches, 1931-1938; 3, pt. 1. The Graeco Roman town (Copenhague: Nationalmuseet) 109-111

Papanicolaou Christensen, Aristea, and Charlotte Friis Johansen. Hama, fouilles et recherches, 1931-1938, vol. 3.2, Les poteries hellenisliques el les terres sigillees orientales. Copenhagen, 1971.

Papanicolaou Christensen, Aristea, et al. Hama, fouilles el recherches, 1931-1938, vol. 3, The Graeco-Roman Objects of Clay, the Coins, and the Necropolis, Copenhagen, 1986.

Ploug, Gunhild, et al. Hama, fouilles el recherches, 1931-1938, vol. 4.3, Les perils objels medievaux sauf les veneries el poteries. Copenhagen, 1969.

Riis, P. J. Hama, fouilles et recherches, 1931-1938, vol. 2.3, Ixs cimelieres a cremation. Copenhagen, 1948.

Riis, P. J., et al. Hama, fouilles el recherches, 1931-1938, vol. 4.2, IJCS verreries et poteries medievales. Copenhagen, 1957.

Websites

Ancient Hama timeline from The History files

Bibliography from Meyers et al (1997)

Buhl, Marie-Louise. "Hamath." In The Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 3, PP- 33-3S- New York, 1992. Excellent summary.

Fugmann, Ejnar. Hama, fouilles et recherches, 1931-1938, vol. 2.1, L'architecture des periodes pre-hellenistiques. Copenhagen, 1958. Standard reference work for the pre-Hellenistic remains.

Modderman, P. J. R. "On a Survey of Palaeolithic Sites near Hama." Annales Archeologiques de Syrie 14 (1964): 51-66.

Papanicolaou Christensen, Aristea, and Charlotte Friis Johansen. Hama, fouilles et recherches, 1931-1938, vol. 3.2, Les poteries hellenisliques el les terres sigillees orientales. Copenhagen, 1971.

Papanicolaou Christensen, Aristea, et al. Hama, fouilles el recherches, 1931-1938, vol. 3, The Graeco-Roman Objects of Clay, the Coins, and the Necropolis, Copenhagen, 1986.

Ploug, Gunhild, et al. Hama, fouilles el recherches, 1931-1938, vol. 4.3, Les perils objels medievaux sauf les veneries el poteries. Copenhagen, 1969.

Ploug, Gunhild. Hama, fouilles et recherches, 1931-1938, vol. 3.1, The Graeco-Roman Town. Copenhagen, 1985.

Riis, P. J. Hama, fouilles et recherches, 1931-1938, vol. 2.3, Ixs cimelieres a cremation. Copenhagen, 1948.

Riis, P. J., et al. Hama, fouilles el recherches, 1931-1938, vol. 4.2, IJCS verreries et poteries medievales. Copenhagen, 1957.

Riis, P. J., and Marie-Louise Buhl. Hama, fouilles et recherches, 1931 - 1938, vol, 2.2, Les objets de la piriode dite syro-hiltite (Age du Per). Copenhagen, 1987. The Iron Age objects from the citadel at Hama.

Thuesen, Ingolf. Hama, fouilles et recherches, 1931-1938, vol. 1, The Pre and Protohistoric Periods. Copenhagen, 1988. Detailed presentation of the earliest remains from the tell at Hama.

Zaqzouq, A. "Fouilles preliminaires a Hama" (in Arabic). Annales Archeologiques Arabes Syriennes 33.2 (1983): 141-178. The most recent excavations on the tell at Hama.

Wikipedia pages

Hama

from wikipedia

Norias of Hama

from wikipedia