TV-GPS: URKESH THEN AND NOW

'Forever'

"The King Of Columbus Circle"

This week's case investigated by Dr. Henry Morgan, one of the medical examiners for the NYPD, was the murder of the deposed king of Urkesh.

From Wikipedia:

Urkesh or Urkish (modern Tell Mozan‎) is a tell, or settlement mound, located in the foothills of the Taurus Mountains in Al-Hasakah Governorate, northeastern Syria. It was founded during the fourth millennium BC possibly by the Hurrians on a site which appears to have been inhabited previously for a few centuries.

Urkesh was an ally of the Akkadian Empire through what is believed to have been a dynastic marriage tradition. Tar'am-Agade the daughter of the Akkadian king, Naram-Sin, is believed to have been married to the king of Urkesh. During the early second millennium BC the city passed into the hands of the rulers of Mari, a city a few hundred miles to the south. The king of Urkesh became a vassal (and apparently an appointed puppet) of Mari. The people of Urkesh evidently resented this, as the royal archives at Mari provide evidence of their strong resistance; in one letter, the king of Mari tells his Urkesh counterpart that "I did not know that the sons of your city hate you on my account. But you are mine, even if the city of Urkesh is not." 

In the middle of the millennium, Tell Mozan was the location of a Mitanni religious site. The city appears to have been largely abandoned circa 1350 BC, although the reason for this is unknown to archaeologists at this time.

But that's the real world.

Although the King of Urkesh and his entourage were on the Orient Express in Romania back in 1955, and their style of dress suggested Europe, I think Urkesh should still be located in that northern area of Syria, but the kingdom should be a larger territory carved out of the existing country.  

As to why the Royal Family of Urkesh was on the train from Bucharest to Istanbul, along with Dr. Morgan and his wife, the King was on his way to depositing his son elsewhere to keep him safe from the revolution that was soon to come.

Urkesh still exists in Earth Prime-Time but it's no longer a monarchy.  It's more like an old-style Stalinist state with totalitarian tactics.

BCnU!