The site was inhabited as early as the Neolithic period, but it is the remains of the Iron Age city which is the most important settlement at Tell Ahmar. It was known in Hittite as Masuwari. The city remained largely Neo-Hittite up to its conquest by the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the 856 BC and the Luwian language was used even after that. Til Barsip was in the area of the Aramean-speaking Syro-Hittite state of Bît Adini. After being captured by the Assyrians the city was then renamed as Kar-Šulmānu-ašarēdu, after the Assyrian kingShalmaneser III, though its original name continued in use. It became a prominent center for the Assyrian administration of the region due to its strategic location at a crossing of the Euphrates river.
Archaeology
The tell was first examined by David George Hogarth, who proposed the identification as Til Barsip. The site was visited in 1909 by Gertrude Lowthian Bell who also took squeezes from some of the inscriptions there. The site of Tell Ahmar was excavated by the French archaeologist François Thureau-Dangin from 1929 to 1931. He uncovered the Iron Age city and an Early Bronze Agehypogeum burial with a large amount of pottery. Three important steles were also discovered at the site. These record how the 8th century BCAramean king Bar Ga'yah, who may be identical with the Assyrian governor Shamshi-ilu, made a treaty with the city ofArpad. Recent excavations at Tell Ahmar were conducted by Guy Bunnens from the University of Melbourne in the late 1980s and through to the present. Excavations ended in 2010. Many ivory carvings of outstanding quality were discovered and these were published in 1997. Current excavations are under the auspices of the University of Liège, Belgium.
Among the early Iron Age monuments discovered in the area was a particularly well-preserved stele known as the Ahmar/Qubbah stele, inscribed in Luwian, which commemorates a military campaign by king Hamiyatas of Masuwari around 900 BC. The stele also attests to the continued cult of the deity 'Tarhunzas of the Army', whom Hamiyatas is thought to have linked with Tarhunzas of Heaven and with the Storm-God of Aleppo. This stele also indicates that the first king of Masuwari was named Hapatila, which may represent an old Hurrian name Hepa-tilla.
