Tell Munbâqa (Ekalte)

 archaeological site, prehistoric, tell (mound)

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pre-historic settlement: from early bronze age 2700 BC till the late bronze age town of Ekalte around 1500 BC, when the town saw its greatest prosperity. It vanished completely after the Egyptian Pharao Tutmosis III had destroyed the city in 1446 BC. The site was researched for the first time by the famous Gertrude Bell in 1907 and from 1968 till the late 1990ies by several teams of German Archeological societies.
After the construction of the Euphrates Dam in 1975, Lake Assad submerged small parts of the ancient town in the west, but the largest part is not endangered by the water. After the IS took control of the region in 2013, the site is endangered by looting like all the other archaelogical sites in the IS controlled territory.