Dura-Europos

Temple of Bel at Dura-Europos
Shown within Syria
Location	near Salhiyah, Syria
Region	Middle East
Coordinates	34.747°N 40.730°E
Type	settlement
Area	Syrian Desert
History
Material	Various
Founded	c. 300 BC
Abandoned	256–257 AD
Periods	Classical antiquity
Cultures	Hellenistic, Parthian, Roman
Site notes
Excavation dates	1922–1937 1986–present
Archaeologists	James Henry Breasted Franz Cumont Michael Rostovtzeff Pierre Leriche
Condition	Destroyed during the Syrian Civil War
Ownership	Public
Public access	No, closed due to the war

 

A view of the southern wadi and part of the walls of the city of Dura Europos.

Dura-Europos (Greek: Δοῦρα Εὐρωπός), also spelled Dura-Europus, was a Hellenistic, Parthian and Roman border city built on an escarpment 90 metres (300 feet) above the right bank of the Euphrates river. It is located near the village of Salhiyé, in today's Syria. In 113 BC, Parthians conquered the city, and held it, with one brief Roman intermission (114 AD), until 165 AD. Under Parthian rule, it became an important provincial administrative center. The Romans decisively captured Dura-Europos in 165 AD and greatly enlarged it as their easternmost stronghold in Mesopotamia, until it was captured by Sassanians after a siege in 256–57 AD. Its population was deported, and after it was abandoned, it was covered by sand and mud and disappeared from sight.

Dura-Europos is extremely important for archaeological reasons. As it was abandoned after its conquest in 256–57 AD, nothing was built over it and no later building programs obscured the architectonic features of the ancient city. Its location on the edge of empires made for a co-mingling of cultural traditions, much of which was preserved under the city's ruins. Some remarkable finds have been brought to light, including numerous temples, wall decorations, inscriptions, military equipment, tombs, and even dramatic evidence of the Sassanian siege.

It was looted and mostly destroyed between 2011 and 2014 by the Islamic State during the Syrian Civil War.^[4][5]

History[edit]

 

The Palmyrene Gate, the principal entrance to the city of Dura Europos.

Originally a fortress,^[6] it was founded in 303 BC with the name Dura by Seleucus I Nicator on the intersection of an east-west trade route and the trade route along the Euphrates.^[7] Dura controlled the river crossing on the route between his newly founded cities of Antioch and Seleucia on the Tigris. Its rebuilding as a great city built after the Hippodamian model, with rectangular blocks defined by cross-streets ranged round a large central agora, was formally laid out in the 2nd century BC. The traditional view of Dura-Europos as a great caravan city is becoming nuanced by the discoveries of locally made manufactures and traces of close ties with Palmyra (James). Instead, Dura Europos owed its development to its role as a regional capital.^[6]

In 113 BC, the Iranian Parthians conquered Dura-Europos, and held it, with one brief intermission, until 165 AD, when it was taken by the Romans.^{[8][9][10][11][12]} The Parthian period was a phase of expansion at Dura Europos—an expansion favored by abandonment of the town's military function. All the space enclosed by the walls gradually became occupied, and the installation of new inhabitants with Semitic and Iranian names alongside descendants of the original Macedonian colonists contributed to an increase in the population,^[6] which was a multicultural one, as inscriptions in Greek, Latin, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac, Hatrian, Palmyrene, Middle Persian, Parthian, and Safaitic testify. In the 1st century BC, it served as a frontier fortress of the Parthian Empire.^[13]

The entirely original architecture of Dura Europos was perfected during the Parthian period. This period was characterized by a progressive evolution of Greek concepts toward new formulas in which regional traditions, particularly Babylonian ones, played an increasing role. These innovations affected both religious and domestic buildings. Although Iranian influence is difficult to find in the architecture of Dura Europos, in figurative art the influence of Parthian art is evident.^[6]

In 114 AD, the Emperor Trajan occupied the city for a couple of years: the Third Cyrenaica legion erected a "Triumphal Arch" to the west of the Gate of Palmyra. Upon the death of Trajan in 117, Rome relinquished Mesopotamia to the Parthians. Dura was retaken by the Roman army of Lucius Verus during the Roman–Parthian War of 161–166.^{[8][9][10][11]}

The townspeople however retained considerable freedom as a regional headquarters for the section of the river between the Khabur and modern Abu Kemal.^[11] As historian Ross Burns states, in exchange the city's military role was abandoned. Its population, originally based on the Greek settler element, were increasingly outnumbered by people of Semitic stock and by the first century BC, the city was predominantly eastern in character.^[11] The Romans called the city with the name Dura Europus, because the local aristocracy was made of Macedonians descendants (pinpointing so that the city was ruled by "Europeans" from Macedonia).

Romans used the city as a starting point for the conquest of the territories of Osroene and as outpost for expeditions against the Parthian empire and their Tigris capital in 198 AD. The city later was a border post of the Roman "Kingdom of Palmyra".

In A.D. 194, Emperor Septimius Severus divided the province of Syria to limit the power of its previously rebellious governors. As a result, Dura became part of the new province of Syria Coele. In its later years, it also attained the status of a Roman colonia, which, by the third century, was what James (Henry Breasted) calls an “honorary title for an important town.” He suggests that the “Roman authorities wanted to present Dura as an important city of the Roman province.” Dura-Europos: Crossroad of Cultures, by Carly Silver ^[14]

The military importance of the site was confirmed after 209 AD: the northern part of the site was occupied by a Roman camp, isolated by a brick wall; soldiers housed between the civilians, among others in the so-called "House of Scribes". Romans built the palace of the commander of the military region, on the edge of a cliff. The city then has several sanctuaries beside the temples dedicated to the Greek gods (Zeus and Artemis); there were shrines dedicated to Mithra, to Palmyrene gods and local deities (Aphlad, Azzanathkôna) dating from the 1st century AD.

In 211 AD the emperor Septimius Severus granted the title of "Colonia" to Dura Europos.

Later in 216 AD, a small amphitheater for soldiers was built in the military area, while the new synagogue, completed in 244 AD, and a house of Christians were embellished with frescos of important characters wearing Roman tunics, caftans and Parthian trousers. These splendid paintings that cover the walls testify to the richness of the Jewish and Christian community. The population of Dura Europos, at the rate of 450–650 houses grouped to eight per island, is estimated at about 5000 people per maximum.

Around 256 AD, the city was taken by the Sassanids led by Shapur I, who deported the entire surviving population after killing all the Roman defenders.

The good state of preservation of these buildings and their frescoes was due to their location, close to the main city wall facing west, and the military necessity to strengthen the wall. The Sassanid Persians had become adept at tunneling under such walls in order to undermine them and create breaches. As a countermeasure the Roman garrison decided to sacrifice the street and the buildings along the wall by filling them with rubble to bolster the wall in case of a Persian mining operation, so the Christian chapel, the synagogue, the Mithraeum and many other buildings were entombed. They also buttressed the walls from the outside with an earthen mound forming a glacis and sealed it with a casing of mud brick to prevent erosion.

There is no written record of the siege of Dura. However, the archaeologists uncovered quite striking evidence of the siege and how it progressed.^[15]

The buttressing of the walls would be tested in AD 256 when Shapur I besieged the city. True to the fears of the defenders, Shapur set his engineers to undermine what archaeologists called Tower 19, two towers north of the Palmyrene Gate. When the Romans became aware of the threat, they dug a countermine with the aim of meeting the Persian effort and attack them before they could finish their work. The Persians had already dug complex galleries along the wall by the time the Roman countermine reached them. They managed to fight off the Roman attack, and when the city defenders noticed the flight of soldiers from the countermine, it was quickly sealed. The wounded and stragglers were trapped inside, where they died. (It was the coins found with these Roman soldiers that dated the siege to AD 256.) The countermine was successful, for the Persians abandoned their operations at Tower 19.

Next, the Sassanids attacked Tower 14, the southernmost along the western wall. It overlooked a deep ravine to the south and it was from that direction that it was attacked. This time the mining operation was successful in that it caused the tower and adjacent walls to subside. However the Roman countermeasure which bolstered the wall prevented it from collapsing.

This brought a third approach to entering the city. A ramp was raised again attacking Tower 14, but, as it was being built and the garrison fought to stop the progress of the ramp, another mine was started near the ramp. Its scope was not to cause a collapse of the wall — the buttress had been successful — but to pass under it and penetrate the city. This tunnel was built to allow the Persians four abreast to move through it. It eventually entered the city and pierced the inner embankment and, when the ramp was completed, Dura's end had come. As Persian troops charged up the ramp, their counterparts in the tunnel would have invaded the city with little opposition, as nearly all the defenders would have been on the wall attempting to repel the attack from the ramp. The few city survivors would have been marched off to Ctesiphon and there sold as slaves.^{[citation needed]} The city was eventually abandoned.

In January 2009, researchers claimed they had found evidence that the Persian Empire used poisonous gases at Dura against the Roman defenders during the siege. Excavations at Dura have discovered the remains of 19 Roman and 1 Persian soldiers at the base of the city walls.^[16] An archaeologist at the University of Leicester suggested that bitumen and sulphur crystals were ignited to create poisonous gas, which was then funnelled through the tunnel with the use of underground chimneys and bellows.^[17] The Roman soldiers had been constructing a countermine, and Sassanian forces are believed to have released the gas when their mine was breached by the Roman countermine. The lone Persian soldier discovered among the bodies is believed to be the individual responsible for releasing the gas before the fumes overcame him as well.^[18]