The Oronte , in Arabic Nahr Al 'ESA (“the river rebels”), is a Fleuve the Middle East.

It takes its source in the center of the Lebanon, crosses the Western Syria and is thrown in the the Mediterranean close to the port of Samandağ, in the area of Hatay, in the south-east of the Turkey (area asserted by the Syria). It is long 571 km and its natural flow (in the north of the valley of the Bekaa) is of 420 million m ³ /an (1100 million m ³ /an on the level of its mouth).

Source of Oronte

As the crow flies, the source of Oronte is located at less than 50 km of the Mediterranean, from which it is separated by the Mont Lebanon (Qurnat ace Sawda, 3083 m). It is located in the area of Hermel, in the Anti Lebanon, desert plate connecting the Lebanese Bekaa to Syria, in which the Oronte river dug true a Canyon from 50 to 90 m of depth. The source itself is at Lebanon, to 660 m of altitude.

The source of Oronte, called Ain be Zarqa, is in fact emergence, in the bed even of an old drained river, of powerful a Artesian source. Its water goes up, with the favor of a fault recutting the axis of a Synclinal, through the sediments Calcaire S of the plate. The zone of food of the tablecloth captivates is on the Mont Lebanon and water thus comes from the snow melt of this last.

As of its birth, the source of Oronte has a powerful and regular flow, from 12 to 15 m ³ /s, which will feed the many cultures of its higher course (fruit trees primarily, in particular of the Noyer S). After having received water of two affluents, the Afrin and the Kara Known, on the level of the Lake Antioche in Turkey, the flow reaches 32 m ³ /s with its mouth on the the Mediterranean.

Dispute hydropolitic

As for the close rivers, the Tiger, the Euphrate or the the Jordan, none the countries which it crosses succeeded in giving a legal status to water of Oronte, thus generating tensions and confrontation in an area marked by the lack of water. An agreement however was signed between Syria and Lebanon (under its control) to distribute water of Oronte to a total value of 90% for Syria and 10% for Lebanon. This agreement excludes the Turkey from this division because the property of the Turkish province of Hatay is disputed by Syria (see the article on the Sandjak d' Alexandrette). The river feeds pumping stations and irrigation canals especially in Syria: the medium flow passes from 370 million m ³ at the syro-Lebanese border, to 170 million at the syro-Turkish border.

Oronte in Antiquity

Oronte is the principal river of the ancient Syria. Its Arab name is Nahr-el- “ESA , which means the “recalcitrant river”, which would come owing to the fact that contrary to the other rivers from the area, it runs south towards north. According to the same explanation, it also bore the Arab name of El Maqloub , i.e. “reversed” or that which runs with back.

In antiquity Oronte was also known under the names of Typhon , Dracon , Ophite and Axios . According to Malalas, under Tibère (of 14 with 37 after J. - C.) the name of current Oronte passed from Dracon to Orente (with E ). According to Strabon, the final name of Oronte would have been allotted to him to remember a manufacturer of bridge it.

Oronte spouts out between the solid masses of the Lebanon and the Anti Lebanon, with the height of Héliopolis (current the Baalbek). It sprinkles over a 600 km length (comparable during the the Garonne) the towns of Émèse (Homs), Aréthuse , Épiphania (Hama), Larissa and Antioche to throw itself in the Mediterranean with the height of Séleucie de Piérie .

According to Strabon, Oronte, on a distance of 8 km, would run under ground between Apamée and Antioche; in fact, it does nothing but just pass by an almost inaccessible throat strongly embedded after Epiphaneia (current the Hama).

Oronte would have been, contrary to today, navigable between its mouth (Séleucie de Piérie) and Antioche during Antiquity, as the writings of Strabon and Pausanias attest it.

Antiochos XI Philadelphe, king séleucide, drowned there in 90 av. J. - C.

In the literature

Juvénal makes of it a symbol of the East in one of its Satires , which denounces the drifts of the Roman Syncrétisme: “in Tiberim defluxit Orontes” , “Oronte flowed in the the Tiber” (III, 62) Oronte at the time of the Croisades is described in a novel of Maurice Barrès, a garden on Oronte .

Bonds and references

• Collective, illustrated Dictionary of the natural wonders of the world, Reader' S Digest, 1982, Source of Oronte

• Google Satellite image of the ''' sources of Oronte '''