The summer residences of the Hittite princes were on the eastern bank of the Halys.

Here the roads of Asia Minor converged, and here we still see the sculptured bas-reliefs of a Hittite palace and long rows of Hittite deities.
The Hittite empire broke up into a multitude of small principalities.

Of these Carchemish, now Jerablus, on the Euphrates, was perhaps the most important.

It commanded the ford across the river, and the high-road of commerce from east to west.

Its merchants grew rich, and "the mina of Carchemish" became a standard of value in the ancient world.