Karamenderes is a river located entirely within the Çanakkale Province of Turkey. It flows west from Mount Ida and empties into the Aegean Sea near the Troy Historical National Park. According to the Iliad, the battles of the Trojan War were fought in the lower courses of Karamenderes.
Known in antiquity as Scamander, Scamandrus or Skamandros (Ancient Greek: Σκάμανδρος), it was according to Homer called Xanthus or Xanthos (Ξάνθος) by the gods and Scamander by men; though it probably owed the name Xanthus to the yellow or brownish colour of its water. Notwithstanding this distinct declaration of the poet that the two names belonged to the same river, Pliny the Elder mentions the Xanthus and Scamander as two distinct rivers, and describes the former as flowing into the Portus Achaeorum, after having joined the Simoeis.
