Tell Hadidi (Ancient Azu)

Tell Hadidi is a Bronze Age town on the west bank of the Euphrates, now on the shore of Lake Assad. Its ancient name was Azu. It covers about 135 hectares; it was founded around 3300 BC and lived on, much reduced, until around 1200 BC. Tell es-Sweyhat stands on the opposite bank, Ekalte (Tell Munbaqa) is 5 kilometres to the south and Emar about 30 kilometres to the south. The town’s name came from tablets found in a house that burned down in the 15th century BC.

Where it is and can you go?

The site lies in the Maskanah-Hafsa sector of Manbij district, on the west shore of the lake. The area was declared a military zone on 13 January 2026 and has been under government control since 17 January 2026. No source from the last 12 months was found on the state of the road to the site, so access could not be confirmed. This was a front line until January 2026 and there is a risk of unexploded ordnance: ask in Maskanah or Manbij before setting out, and do not leave the road or the track. Sources disagree on the exact position of the mound, so this page has no map.

How the town grew and ended

The site is made up of two mounds. The upper mound to the west covers 55 hectares, with a Middle Bronze layer at the surface and Early Bronze below it. The lower mound to the east dates mostly to the end of the 3rd millennium BC, when it was protected by a wall; robbed shaft-and-chamber tombs were found there. The first settlement goes back to Early Bronze I, around 3300 BC, and there are nine architectural levels. The town reached its greatest extent around 2300 BC and was destroyed around 2000 BC. In the Late Bronze Age it lived on only on the upper mound, much reduced, and for a time was under the control of Mitanni, the Hurrian kingdom of northern Mesopotamia. There are also Roman (1st–3rd century) and Islamic (12th–14th century) remains.

What the Tablet Building tells us

The key find is the “Tablet Building” from the 15th century BC, destroyed by fire. The tablets say the building was the house of a man named Yaya and that the town was called Azu. Azu is otherwise known only from the records of Alalakh. 11 complete tablets were found, eight of them inside a jar, along with 3 almost complete tablets and 3 fragments. They include five sale documents, three lists of names, two legal documents, a letter and Yaya’s will (Had-9). Tablet Had-8 is an official Mitanni order letter and helps match up the dates of Azu, Ekalte and Emar. Four people named on the tablets also appear on the Ekalte tablets. The god named most often is Dagan, followed by forms of the Storm God, including the Hurrian Teshub.

What else was found

About 200 Early Bronze clay figurines, an inscribed stone plaque, the front part of a toy chariot and an intact Late Bronze tomb, 12 metres long with six rooms. All the tablets went to the National Museum of Aleppo; whether they are on display today could not be confirmed.

Who excavated it

Rihaoui visited the site in 1963 and Maurits van Loon in 1964. As part of the Tabqa Dam rescue programme, Henk Franken of Leiden University dug here in 1972-1974, and Rudolph H. Dornemann for the Milwaukee Public Museum in 1974-1977. Some of the reports are still unpublished. After the excavations the site, especially the south-eastern slope, was looted with hand tools, and barley is now planted on it without permission.

Do not miss

The traces of ancient roads. Clear hollow ways, old tracks worn down into the ground, run between the mound and Tell es-Sweyhat, Tell Othman and Tell Jouweif. Sweyhat on the far bank and Hadidi together held a river crossing, and the tracks show why the two towns faced each other.