Al-'Amk (plain of Antioch)

Al-'Amk is a large alluvial plain of northern Syria, north-east of Antioch, lying in the tectonic depression between the Amanus (Elma Dagh) and the Kurd Dagh, and stretching towards the lower spurs of the Taurus. ²

Most of the plain is covered by a lake fringed with marshes, called Buhayrat Antakiyya ('the lake of Antioch') or Buhayrat Yaghra, and in Turkish Ak Deniz. It is fed from the north by the 'Afrin and the Kara Su, and its waters flow towards the Orontes. The marsh supports buffalo and fishing (eels and silurus), which is why it is also called Buhayrat al-Sillawr, the name that appears as Casal Sellorie in Crusader sources. The areas that stay flooded around the marsh are cultivated for cereals. ²

Assyrian inscriptions of about the ninth century BC point to a kingdom centred on the plain, named 'Unki. The toponym Cami, Semitic in origin and attested in the Aramaic stele of King Zakir, derives from a common noun meaning depression. In the Hellenistic era, under the name Amykes Pedion, the plain was the site of important battles. ²

After the Muslim conquest the plain was part of the zone disputed between Arabs and Byzantines, and by the treaty of 359/969 it was given to the Byzantines. Forts such as Artah, Imm, Harim and Tizin cut it off from the Syrian hinterland. The Muslims reoccupied it for a time, then ceded it to the Crusaders; Nur al-Din finally recovered it in 543/1149 after a battle near Yaghra, north of the lake. Sultan Kaytbay later camped there during his tour of the Syrian territories. ²

The 'Amk formed part of the province of Aleppo. The routes from Antioch to Aleppo (via Djisr al-Hadid, south of the lake) and from Antioch to Mar'ash crossed it, and the post road Ayas-Baghras-Aleppo passed north of the marsh after crossing the Amanus by the Baylan pass. ²

Projects under the French mandate to raise the value of the plain and to drain the lake all failed. The return of the sanjak of Alexandretta, which included the 'Amk, to Turkey in 1939 ended the plain's role as a corridor region, which explains its neglected state since. ¹