Artuqids

Also known as Artukids, Artuklu Beyliği

Turkmen dynasty of the upper Tigris and Diyarbakır region whose victory over Roger of Antioch at the Field of Blood in 1119 was one of the most damaging Frankish defeats in the principality's history.

The Artuqids descended from Artuq Bey, an Oghuz Turkmen commander in late-Seljuk service who briefly held Jerusalem itself for the Seljuk sultanate in the 1080s before the Fatimid recovery of 1098. After his death his sons carved out independent emirates in the upper Mesopotamian frontier — chiefly at Hisn Kayfa, Mardin, and Mayyafariqin — which became a constant northern threat to the Frankish principality of Antioch and the county of Edessa.

Their most famous moment came on 28 June 1119, when Ilghazi of Mardin caught Roger of Salerno's Antiochene field army in a marching column at Sarmada and annihilated it in a single morning's fight. The Crusader sources called the place Ager Sanguinis — the Field of Blood — and Antioch lost its prince and most of its knighthood in the same hour; only a forced relief march by King Baldwin II of Jerusalem prevented the principality from collapsing entirely.

After Ilghazi the dynasty fragmented into smaller branches and was progressively absorbed by Zengids, Ayyubids, and finally the Aq Qoyunlu Turkmens. The Artuqid emirate of Mardin survived as a tributary into 1409. Modern travellers know them best for the spectacular bridge over the Batman river at Hasankeyf, built by Fakhr ad-Din Qara Arslan in 1116 and one of the great surviving works of medieval Islamic engineering.

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