Dura Europos
Coordinates: 34 ° 44 ′ 51 ″ N , 40 ° 43 ′ 48 ″ E
Dura Europos , also Dura-Europos ( Greek Δοῦρα Εὐρωπός , Arabic Qal'at es-Salihiye ), was a Greek- Hellenistic city in present-day Syria . It was founded in the time of the eastern Diadochian empire that arose there after the death of Alexander the Great - called Seleucid empire after its first king Seleucus I (358–281 BC, king from 306 BC) . Dura Europos was on the Euphrates , just before today's Syrian- Iraqi border.
It has not yet been clarified whether there was an indigenous predecessor settlement. Dura Europos got a strongly fortified citadel, was expanded to a larger place in Greek architectural style and developed - especially in the later Parthian period - to the administrative and economic center of the region. The city had belonged to the Roman Empire as a border fortress at least since the Severans , was conquered and destroyed by the Sassanids in 256/57 and was probably abandoned for good in 273.
The ruins were therefore well preserved; the arid desert climate also preserved many organic materials. The site, about 40% excavated by archaeologists in the 20th century, is for this reason often referred to as the " Pompeii of the East" or "Pompeii of the desert". The most outstanding finds include the house church of Dura Europos , the oldest church that can be understood as such, and the synagogue of Dura Europos , which is painted with figurative scenes .
In 2013 the archaeological site was looted by fighters from the IS terrorist militia ; the extent of the destruction is currently (June 2019) still unknown.
location
The city was built on a flat plateau on a steep bank of the Euphrates Valley, so that Dura Europos was slightly above the river. In the north and south there were deep ravines that gave the town natural boundaries and protection on the plateau. Only to the west did the city open up to the desert. There were several gorges and wadis within the urban area . These separated the actual urban area from the citadel and the acropolis . The plateau sloped slightly towards the gorges. The streets here were partly continued by steps. The whole city was surrounded by a wall, which was specially developed on the west side, while the other sides were easier to defend through the ravines and the bank. When the city wall was reinforced before the last attack by the Sassanids, it was logical that this was mainly done on the west side.
While the Euphrates Valley is fertile and offers a lot of farmland, the actual city was in the desert.
history
Dura , Duru , Dur , Der or Dor is a common place name in the Babylonian and Assyrian world and may indicate a pre-Hellenistic settlement. There are some late Babylonian seals and a cuneiform tablet from the city, which was built into the wall of the temple of Atargatis and calls a place Da-wa-ra . However, architectural evidence from the pre-Hellenistic period is still missing. The first settlers in Hellenistic times were probably long- serving Macedonian veterans, the Kleruchoi , who had received a piece of land here as thanks for their services. Isidorus von Charax mentions a certain Nikanor as the actual founder . Two important people with this name are from around 300 BC. When the city was founded. A certain Nikanor is attested as a satrap of Cappadocia , he was 311 BC. Defeated in a battle by King Seleucus I. Another Nikanor was the nephew of Seleucus I and was governor of Mesopotamia. He founded the city of Antioch in Arabia. Perhaps Nikanor is also Seleukos I. Nikator, so the reference for Isidoros von Charax should be improved from Nikanor to Nikator. In fact, there is a relief in the city that shows Seleucus I as the city's founder.
The foundation was initially named Europos , probably after the hometown of Seleukos I. The initially small town received a strongly fortified citadel. Under Antiochus I , coins were minted here for a short time. The place was later expanded considerably and, following the tried and tested scheme of the Greek builder Hippodamos, received a right-angled street network with 37 × 70 m large blocks of houses. Although it was well fortified, the Parthians took control of the city around 114 BC. To conquer. In Parthian times it was given the possibly old name Dura again . The name connection Dura Europos, however, is modern and not documented in the ancient sources. The city also became the seat of a military unit. Although the city was now Parthian, Greek traditions lived on. The upper class in particular continued to be Hellenistic at first, and even the cult of Seleucid kings continued.
The city experienced its heyday especially in the first and second centuries AD. The entire urban area within the walls was now completely settled. Dura Europos lost its military character. The wealthy citizens built or expanded the numerous temples and decorated them with statues and paintings. These temples are evidence of the considerable wealth of the residents. The population consisted of a mixture made up of a small Greek upper class, who over time adopted Parthian customs, a Syrian majority and numerous other ethnic and linguistic groups, including numerous Jews . Economically, the city was closely linked to the Roman Empire . Especially Roman coins dominated over Parthian coins. Culturally, however, the city was more Parthian.
As a border town between Rome and the Parthians , it changed hands repeatedly during the Roman-Persian Wars and was of great administrative and economic importance for the region. Around 115 it was conquered by Trajan , but shortly afterwards, apparently before the death of the emperor, it fell back to the Parthians, and then shortly after 165 again to the Romans, who initially controlled the place only indirectly. Dura was then incorporated into the new province of Mesopotamia or Syria Koile around 200 under Emperor Septimius Severus . Under the Romans, a military camp was set up in the north of the city, which included a praetorium . The Cohors XX Palmyrenorum and the Cohors II Ulpia Equitata were stationed here. Since around 210, individual departments of the Legio IIII Scythica and the Legio IIII Flavia Felix were also present in the city. For this purpose, large parts of the residential town were rebuilt and surrounded by a wall. In the Roman period, the place apparently experienced a certain economic stagnation. No new, large temples were built, while most of the new buildings were of a military nature. Underneath, however, there was a small amphitheater and several thermal baths, some of which were decorated with mosaics and built from fired bricks. Neither is otherwise documented in the city.
Perhaps around the year 253 the city was briefly conquered by the Sassanids , but then fell back to the Romans. The city received the status of a colony (colonia) after the year 254 AD . This title is attested in an inscription. It was probably during this time that the civilian population left the place. Around 256/7 AD, however, the city was finally conquered by the Persian Sassanids (for the background, see Roman-Persian Wars ). These had inherited the Parthians. The fighting can be archaeologically well understood, as the Persian attack tunnels and the Roman counter trenches have been preserved. The time of the conquest is deduced from coin finds. There is no coinage from the city from the years after AD 257. The event is not mentioned in literary sources. In 273 Dura was abandoned for good, apparently because the Euphrates had changed its course.
In Parthian times, Dura Europos was administered by a strategos who was responsible for civil and military administration. Although it is a Greek office, it has not yet been documented for the Seleucid period. The office of strategos seems to have been in the hands of a family for a long time. The attested office holders are Seleucus (approx. 33/32 BC), Seleucos, son of Lysias (approx. 51/52 AD), Seleucos, son of Lysanias (approx. 135/136 AD) , Lysisas (died in AD 159) and Lysias, the latter's successor. Around 121 AD, a certain Manesus was in office, who did not come from the Seleucus family and was perhaps installed by the Parthian central administration after the city and all of Mesopotamia had been conquered by the Romans. Around 135/136 AD, members of the Seleucus family are again occupied. The office was continued under Roman rule. Three incumbents are attested: Seleucus (169/170 AD), Heliodorus (approx. 180 AD) and Septimius Lusias (approx. 200 AD). In the 3rd century a Bule , a city assembly, is attested in the city .
In Roman times, according to many researchers, the Dux Ripae had its seat in Dura Europos. He was responsible for the defense of the border with Syria, but also the administration of the city in Roman times, since there are no other officials who could have performed this task for this period.
Residents, languages and texts
A large number of languages are attested in the inscriptions and texts from the city. This suggests that the city's residents come from different regions. However, ethnicity cannot be inferred simply from the languages used in correspondence. The following languages have been recorded in the city so far: Greek , Latin , Hebrew , various Aramaic dialects ( Palmyrian , Hatran , Syriac , Jewish-Central Aramaic ), Safaitic , Parthian and Middle Persian .
Dura Europos was founded by Greece and it is therefore not surprising that the vast majority of the inscriptions are in Greek. About 800 Greek texts are known so far. These are dedicatory inscriptions, graffiti and documents on papyrus and parchment . Greek was primarily the language of business documents and seems to have gained in importance, especially after the Roman occupation. It is believed that the city's upper class was still Greek in Parthian times. Palmyric is known from various inscriptions on monuments from 33 BC. BC with certainty. It is believed that a small number of Palmyric traders lived in the city. In Roman times soldiers from Palmyra were added. Parthian is not well documented and the few Parthian inscriptions seem to date from Roman times. Middle Persian is attested primarily by two parchments. There are also numerous Middle Persian graffiti in the synagogue. The texts must date from the short time when the city was ruled by the Sassanids.
Because of the dry desert climate, numerous documents have been preserved on papyrus and parchment, materials that otherwise have little chance of surviving thousands of years. The documents were found under the brick ramp built on the western wall, where they were specially protected. In the temple of Azzanathana there were documents of the Cohors XX Palmyrenorum stationed here, where a room obviously served as an archive. The texts offer a unique view of the organization of the Roman army on the eastern border of the empire. The texts that have been preserved include a religious festival calendar, various letters, some of which are in Latin, daily reports on troop movements and various lists of names.
In addition, some literary and religious texts were found in the city, but mainly administrative and business documents. Only a few documents can be dated with certainty to the time of Parthian rule. Only seven of them are definitely dated. They are written in Greek and also use the Seleucid calendar. Among the literary texts there is a Herodotus fragment and one by Appian . The Herodotus fragment comes from his 5th book and is written with extremely beautiful script. C. Bradford Welles describes the book as de luxe and dates the copy to the 2nd century AD. P.Dura 10 , the fragment of a Gospel harmony , is particularly interesting . It is perhaps a fragment of Tatian's Diatessaron . The languages used are Latin (the administrative documents) and Greek for the business documents. There was also a prayer in Hebrew . The texts shed light on daily life in the city. In Parthian times, documents were dated after the Arsacian era and after the Seleucian era , which was introduced as in the previous species . Interesting is the appearance of women in the legal documents of the Parthian and Roman periods. They acted independently and did not need a male advocate as in the Mediterranean region.
The language of the Greek documents is Attic and has few errors. Since most of the texts are legal documents, this shows that most of the writers had a good education in the Greek language. A letter from the third century that was sent by a person from the village of Ossa, on the other hand, shows more deviations from the classic Attic.
Important buildings
The main building material in the city was rammed earth. Only special buildings and individual components were erected in stone. Only a few building remains from the Seleucid period have survived. The city map is undoubtedly from this period. In the middle of the city was a large agora. Greek temples of Artemis and Apollo were also located here . The temple of Artemis was very simple at first and consisted only of a temenos with an altar in the middle. To the east was the Acropolis , which was not an actual mountain, but a part of the city separated by a wadi. Here stood a palace and a temple, probably for the Olympian Zeus . On the bank of the Euphrates there was a citadel, a castle that was specially fortified again. There was also a palace here, in which the city's strategos may have resided. The fortifications from Greek times were built in stone, but never completed.
The Parthian city seems to have changed little at first. Over time, however, Greek buildings were replaced by those in the Parthian style. The temple of Artemis was developed into a real temple in the Greek style. However, the building was never completed and replaced by a Parthian-style building. The city now had an extremely large number of important temples in which very different deities were worshiped. These came from the Greek and Syrian Parthian regions and, in their diversity, reflect the cosmopolitan character of the city. Semitic deities were often worshiped under Greek, or Greek under Semitic names. The cult and temple architecture, however, were usually purely oriental.
Most of the temples were probably built and decorated by the citizens of the city. The paintings show the deities revered here and the proud donors and their families at the sacrifice (see picture: the sacrifice of Konon). In some temples there does not seem to have been a fully sculptural cult image, but a painted image of the deity fulfilled this function. The painters of the pictures also often signed them.
temple
The Temple of Artemis Nanaia is perhaps the oldest sanctuary in the city. In the Seleucid period there was a temenos (a walled, sacred area) with a Doric colonnade and an altar in the middle. At the end of the second century it burned down and a naiskos was built, but it was never finished. In the middle of the first century the temple was redesigned again. A courtyard complex was created. In the middle stood the temple with an anteroom and three-aisled cella. The temple was rebuilt several times before the city fell. There were a number of rooms on the perimeter wall.
The Temple of Baal (also known as the Temple of the Palmyric Deities ) was built in one corner of the city wall. A distinction can be made between several construction phases. There were various rooms around a courtyard. The actual temple stood in the north and was later marked by four columns. Beyond that were two rooms, the back of which was the Holy of Holies. This was once richly decorated with wall paintings. There was also a shrine here, which probably contained the cult image.
The temple of the Atargatis in the center of the city was built on roughly the same principle . The temple had a large courtyard in the middle, a monumental entrance and a sanctuary with three naoi. There were numerous small rooms around the courtyard, some of which were probably shrines that were consecrated to various deities. Atargatis , was the wife and mother of Adonis and Hadad . The other two of the Naoi certainly belonged to these deities.
In the southeast, separated from the rest of the city by a wadi, apparently stood the acropolis of the Greek city. Hardly anything has survived from the temples of that time.
The Temple of Zeus Theos was built in the second century. It is one of the most important temples in the city. The building had a monumental courtyard and in it a large naos. Its paintings could largely be recovered. The cult figure of the god was depicted on the back wall. She stood next to a chariot and was crowned by two niks . On the side walls of the hall are the pictures of the donors and their family members who financed this temple in three registers.
The Temple of Gadde was a double temple dedicated to the patron deities (gaddē) of the city and Palmyra. The building is located near the agora. It is a court temple that was built in the last years of the Parthian rule. A propylon led into a courtyard. Opposite was the cella with other rooms. On the right side, a hall with benches on the walls led to another courtyard. There was another cella here. The exact age of the temple complex is unknown. It has been expanded again and again over time. Two consecration reliefs were found in the temple. One of them shows the female patron deity of Palmyra in the pose of the Tyche of Antioch . She sits between two figures. It has a wall crown and a Greek robe. A priest stands on the left, a Nike on the right. On the other hand, the male patron deity of Dura Europos is depicted on the other relief. She is bearded and wears a tunic. It is very likely to be Zeus Megistus. On his right stands Seleukos Nikator , on the other side the one consecrating the relief. The city was founded under Seleukos Nikator, so that the ruler enjoyed a special veneration here. According to an inscription, the reliefs were dedicated to a certain Hairan in AD 159. It is probably Palmyric work.
The Adonis Temple was built in Parthian times. It occupies half of an insula, with the adjacent residential buildings at the same time representing the delimitation of the Temenos. It is again a temple complex that is grouped around a courtyard. The actual temple was in the south with the vestibule and actual cella. There were wall paintings.
The temple of Artemis Azzanathkona was in the north of the city and had two naoi. The temple has stood here since at least 13 AD. In Roman times, the complex was partly integrated into the military camp, although the actual cult was continued. The archive of the Cohors XX Palmyrenorum was found in one room of the temple .
Other important temples were the Dolicheneum and the temple of Zeus Megistos (second century) on the Acropolis, which probably replaced a Greek temple for Zeus Olympius. The Temple of Zeus Kyrios is a small sanctuary built against the city wall.
In addition to the large temples in the city, there were various small shrines belonging to different religious groups. A sanctuary of Bel consisted of a single hall. Mithras was worshiped in a mithraeum , the mithraeum of Dura Europos , whereby this oriental god was not worshiped by the Parthians, but was brought to Dura Europos by the Roman soldiers. There was also a richly furnished synagogue ; the Dura Europos synagogue testifies to the prosperity of the Jewish community in this city. The wall decorations in the assembly hall of the synagogue caused a sensation, as it is the largest cycle of paintings that has survived from antiquity. The find is of significance in terms of religious history, as the Jewish communities there were generally viewed as hostile to images. The Christian house church of Dura Europos , which was built into a private house around 230 AD, was comparatively modest and was poorly preserved.
Palaces
A large peristyle house also stood on top of the Acropolis, tentatively identified as the Strategion (Palace of Strategos) by Dura Europos. The first building dates back to the third century BC and was then expanded and rebuilt several times. The palace largely retained its Greek character.
On top of the citadel stood another large palace, in which perhaps a Parthian strategos resided and who replaced the strategion. Unfortunately, this building is poorly preserved, as a significant part of the river slipped into the Euphrates. After all, there seems to have been a peristyle in the middle of the complex. There was possibly Iwane facing the river .
In the north of the city was the so-called Palace of Dux Ripae . In Roman times it was the largest building in the city and consisted of a large palaestra and the actual building, which had a peristyle in the middle.
Residential buildings
A large number of residential buildings have been excavated. Most of these date to the Parthian period of the city; hardly any of them can be classified as belonging to the Hellenistic period, only a few new houses were built under the Romans. The houses vary in size and furnishings. The largest belonged to a family that had been the strategos for several generations. The names Lysisas and Lysanias appear on a graffito that dates back to 159. The house had two courtyards, one for the men, the other for the women's quarters. There were stables, toilets and a bathroom.
Other houses are smaller, but mostly built according to the same scheme. You have an open yard. Most of the rooms in the house, such as the kitchen and a reception room, opened onto the courtyard. The stables and storage rooms were located here. There were often benches around the courtyard. A flight of stairs led to a flat roof. The walls of the houses were sometimes painted, mostly with imitations of marble. The few figurative representations show banquets, hunting and war scenes.
In the north of the city, south of the Principia, an entire insula has been excavated. The houses here were converted into residential units for soldiers in Roman times. Doors were bricked up, walls torn down and in other cases, new walls were built. However, it is difficult to identify a specific system. Three houses were merged in the south of the block. One room apparently served as a shrine and was painted with classical-style pictures depicting the muses.
Military buildings
In the north of the city (Insula E7) south of the temple of Artemis Azzanathkona are the Principia . The building is possibly on the site of an older temple complex and partly used its walls. The building consists of a large courtyard decorated with columns. The main entrance is in the south. In the north, exactly opposite the entrance, is the Aedes, the place where the military badges and standards were stored. There are various other rooms around the inner courtyard. Based on an inscription, the building was completed between February 211 and February 212. The inscriptions under construction name only legions ( Legio III Cyrenaica , Legio III Gallica , Legio IIII Scythica and Legio X Fretensis ). The headquarters of the cohorts stationed in the city must have been elsewhere. In Roman times at least three thermal baths were built, the walls of which are made of burnt clay bricks, two of them are partly decorated with mosaics. Otherwise there is no evidence of mosaics in the city.
graveyard
In contrast to many other ancient sites, there is no evidence that the city expanded beyond the city walls. Only a few temples were left here and, above all, the necropolis. The cemetery was almost as big as the city proper. Two types of graves could be distinguished. There were underground family graves with a large central room and chambers extending from it, in which the dead were buried ( loculus ) and there were burial towers. Inside the tomb towers had a staircase leading to the roof, where a fire might burn, so that the towers were in the end gigantic altars. Burial chambers were not found in, but next to them. One of the tomb towers could be reconstructed in full, as its entire length of the facade had already fallen into the sand in antiquity and was found there by the excavators. The graves as a whole still contained numerous grave goods.
Other buildings
The Parthian Dura Europos had remarkably few public buildings compared to the Roman-Greek cities of Syria. Although the ruling upper class sometimes presented itself as Greek and at least used their language in correspondence, there are no splendid theaters, baths or forums here. Most of the few non-religious public buildings date from the time of the Roman occupation.
From the time of the Trajan conquest a Roman triumphal arch comes from , which was built by the Third Cyrian Legion , which must therefore be regarded as the conqueror of Dura Europos. The arch stands just outside the city and celebrated the victory over the Parthians. Interestingly, it was not destroyed after the Parthian reconquest.
In Roman times the city also had an amphitheater , but it was quite undemanding and was more of a free space between residential buildings than a monumental building. Inscriptions show that games actually took place here. There is evidence of some bathhouses in the city. Most of them were probably built by and for the Roman soldiers, although there is at least one bathhouse that was not only visited by soldiers. It may have existed before the Roman occupation.
Sūqs were also located inside the city . In the center of the city in particular, there was a shopping street with small and large shops built close together. These Sūqs are so far unique for this time. The city also had a caravanserai , where travelers and traders could certainly rest and then move on.
exploration
The site remained abandoned and buried under sand until it was rediscovered in the 1920s. First excavations took place in 1921 under the direction of Captain Gerald Murphy of the British Army. In the following years, two campaigns by the Belgian Franz Cumont followed , and finally there were systematic excavations by Yale University with the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres under the leadership of Michael Rostovtzeff (1928–1937). A Franco-Syrian team led by Pierre Leriche has been digging here since 1986 , while a British expedition has been digging here in recent years, albeit on a much smaller scale than at the beginning of the century. With the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, these expeditions came to an end.
Like no other place in the "Roman Orient", the place allows an insight into the everyday life of the population. During the Sassanid siege, part of the city wall was considerably reinforced. For this purpose, houses that stood directly on the wall were filled with bricks. These buildings and their decorations were extremely well preserved during the excavations.
The frescoes of what is proven to be the oldest Christian church ( house church of Dura Europos ) are now in the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven . The city's paintings as a whole are the best preserved examples of this genre in Parthian art . They are therefore of particular importance for art history.
The arid desert climate has saved a lot of organic matter from decay. There are many fabrics and painted Roman shields underneath. Well-preserved horse armor from cataphracts or clibanaries and numerous helmets were found, which were probably lost during the last battles for the city.
Recent destruction
Since the territorial occupation by the Salafist terrorist militia Islamic State (IS), the ground monuments of Dura Europos have been destroyed in an unprecedented manner through systematic robbery excavations . The extent of the devastation is documented by comparing satellite images from August 4, 2011 and April 2, 2014 from WorldView-2 . The settlement area within the city walls resembled a crater landscape (as of November 2013). The finds were offered as stolen goods on the international antique market. In addition to casual thieves, the proceeds were also used to finance the terrorist organization IS. According to the Disaster Relief Task Force (DRTF) of the International Council of Museums, the Dura Europos museum has also been "completely looted".
Individual references, comments
- ↑ The older view that it was an important trading town on the way from Palmyra to the Euphrates and thus on the Silk Road is not supported by the written sources.
- ↑ Ancient History, Modern Destruction: Assessing the Status of Syria's Tentative World Heritage Sites Using High-Resolution Satellite Imagery , aaas.org, American Association of he Advancement of Science (AAAS). Geospatial Technologies Project, (November or December) 2014, accessed August 23, 2015. - The latest satellite image used is from November 11, 2014. English.
- ^ Baird: Dura-Europos , p. 18
- ^ Parthian stations
- ↑ Paul J. Kosmin, in: Brody, Hoffman (ed.): Dura Europos. Pp. 95-97.
- ↑ Paul J. Kosmin, in: Brody, Hoffman (ed.): Dura Europos. P. 101.
- ↑ James: The Roman Military Base at Dura-Europos, Syria , 241-250
- ↑ This first Sassanid conquest is controversial; see. the entry in the Encyclopædia Iranica .
- ^ Baird: The Inner Lives of Ancient Houses , p. 23
- ^ Baird: The Inner Lives of Ancient Houses , p. 26
- ↑ Summer: Rome's oriental steppe border. P. 298.
- ↑ Summer: Rome's oriental steppe border. Pp. 299-300.
- ↑ Summer: Rome's oriental steppe border. P. 306.
- ^ Baird: Dura-Europos , 30
- ↑ The existence of such an office has recently been vehemently denied; see. Peter Edwell: Between Rome and Persia. London 2008, p. 128 ff.
- ↑ Jean Gascou: The Diversity of Languages in Dura-Europos , Jennifer Y. Chi, Sebastian Heath (ed.): Edge of Empiries, Paganz, Jews, and Christians at Roman Dura-Europos , New York, ISBN 978-0-691 -15468-8 . Pp. 74-96
- ^ Welles, Fink and Gilliam: The Parchments and Papyri. Pp. 191-412.
- ↑ Baird: Dura-Europos , pp. 65-66
- ^ Welles, Fink and Gilliam: The Parchments and Papyri. Pp. 69-70.
- ↑ the text and English translation .
- ^ Welles, Fink and Gilliam: The Parchments and Papyri. Pp. 73-74.
- ^ Welles, Fink and Gilliam: The Parchments and Papyri. Pp. 74-75.
- ^ Welles, Fink and Gilliam: The Parchments and Papyri. P. 6.
- ^ Welles, Fink and Gilliam: The Parchments and Papyri. P. 12.
- ^ Welles, Fink and Gilliam: The Parchments and Papyri. P. 47.
- ↑ Summer: Rome's oriental steppe border. Pp. 277-278.
- ↑ Summer: Rome's oriental steppe border. P. 284.
- ↑ Summer: Rome's oriental steppe border. Pp. 279-280.
- ↑ Summer: Rome's oriental steppe border. Pp. 285-287.
- ↑ Summer: Rome's oriental steppe border. Pp. 288-289.
- ↑ Michael Sommer: The Roman Orient. Between the Mediterranean and the Tigris. Stuttgart 2006, p. 142.
- ↑ James: The Roman Military Base at Dura-Europos, Syria , 78-90
- ↑ photo .
- ↑ Ancient History, Modern Destruction: Assessing the Status of Syria's Tentative World Heritage Sites Using High-Resolution Satellite Imagery , aaas.org, American Association of he Advancement of Science (AAAS). Geospatial Technologies Project, (November or December) 2014, accessed August 23, 2015. - The latest satellite image used is from November 11, 2014. English.
- ↑ Fabian von Poser: World Heritage sites bombed, cultural treasures hawked , Die Welt, November 5, 2013, accessed August 23, 2015. - Text for picture 24.
literature
- Jennifer A. Baird: Dura-Europos , Bloomsbury Academic, London 2018, ISBN 978-1-4725-2211-5
- Jennifer A. Baird: The Inner Lives of Ancient Houses: An Archeology of Dura-Europos , Oxford 2014 ISBN 9780199687657
- Lisa R. Brody, Gail L. Hoffman (Eds.): Dura Europos, Crossroads of Antiquity. Boston 2011, ISBN 978-1-892850-16-4 .
- Lucinda Dirven: The Palmyrenes of Dura-Europos. A Study of Religious Interaction in Roman Syria. Brill, Leiden 1999, ISBN 90-04-11589-7 .
- Peter Edwell: Between Rome and Persia . Routledge, London 2008, ISBN 978-0-415-42478-3 .
- Clark Hopkins: The Discovery of Dura-Europos . Yale University Press, New Haven 1979, ISBN 0-300-02288-3 .
- Simon James: The Roman Military Base at Dura-Europos, Syria , Oxford University Press, Oxford 2019, ISBN 978-0-19-874356-9 .
- Ted Kaizer (Ed.): Religion, Society and Culture at Dura-Europos , Yale Classical Studies 38, Cambridge 2016, ISBN 978-1-107-12379-3
- Pierre Leriches, Mathilde Gelin (ed.): Doura-Europus. Études IV 1991-1993 , Beyrouth 1997, ISBN 2-7053-0566-1
- Pierre Leriches, Mathilde Gelin, Alain Dandrau (eds.): Doura-Europos: Études. V 1994-1997 , Paris 2004, ISBN 9782705337612
- Ulrich Mell : Christian house church and New Testament. The iconology of the Baptistery of Dura Europos and the Diatessaron Tatians. NTOA 77, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-525-53394-9 .
- Ann Perkins: The art of Dura-Europos. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1973, ISBN 0-19-813164-X .
- Michael Rostovtzeff : Dura-Europos and its Art . Clarendon Press, Oxford 1938, OCLC 459957915 .
- Helga Scholten : Acculturation processes in the Euphrates region using the example of the Greek-Macedonian settlement Dura-Europos . In: Historia 54 (2005), pp. 18-36.
- Michael Sommer : Rome's oriental steppe border. Palmyra - Edessa - Dura-Europos - Hatra. a cultural history from Pompey to Diocletian . (= Oriens et occidens. Volume 9). Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-515-08724-9 .
- Excavation reports
Preliminary reports of the excavations appeared in the series The Excavations at Dura-Europos, Preliminary Report of the First to Ninth Seasons. in the years 1929–1952.
The excavation publications appear in the series: The excavations at Dura-Europos, conducted by Yale University and the French Academy of Inscriptions and Letters. Final report . This series has not yet been completed.
- Volume 3: Sculpture, figurines, and painting.
- Volume 3, 1, 1: Susan B. Downey: The Heracles sculpture. 1969.
- Volume 3, 1, 2: Susan B. Downey: The stone and plaster sculpture. 1977.
- Volumes 4, 1, 1: Nicholas P. Toll, Frederick R. Matson: The green glazed pottery. 1943.
- Volumes 4, 1, 2: Dorothy H. Cox: The Greek and Roman pottery. 1949.
- Volumes 4, 1, 3: Stephen L. Dyson: The commonware pottery; the brittle ware. 1968.
- Volume 4, 2: R. Pfister, Louisa Bellinger: The textiles . Yale University Press, New Haven 1945.
- Volume 4, 3: Paul. VC Baur: The lamps . Yale University Press, New Haven 1947.
- Volumes 4, 4, 1: Teresa Grace Frisch, Nicholas P. Toll: The bronze objects: Pierced bronzes, enameled bronzes, and fibulae.
- Volumes 4, 5: Christoph W. Clairmont: The glass vessels. 1963.
- Volume 5, 1: C. Bradford Welles, Robert O. Fink, Frank Gilliam: The Parchments and Papyri. New Haven 1959.
- Volume 6: Alfred R. Bellinger: The coins. 1949.
- Volume 7: Simon James: Arms and armor and other military equipment . London 2004.
- Volume 8, 1: Carl H. Kraeling : The synagogue . Yale University Press, New Haven 1956.
- Volume 8, 2: Carl H. Kraeling: The Christian building. with a contribution by C. Bradford Welles. Dura-Europos Publications, New Haven 1967.
