Inhabited since the Neolithic period, Carchemish was a city located in what is now southern Turkey, near its border with Syria. Coveted for its location on the western bank of the Euphrates River, the city changed hands among the Mitanni, Hittite, and Assyrian Empires over the span of the 2nd and 1st millennia BCE, and Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II defeated the Egyptians there in a battle recorded in the Bible. What delayed archaeological excavations of Carchemish’s extensive ruins? Discuss