Seleukia ctesiphon

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Archaeological Map of Seleukia Ctesiphon

Seleukia Ctesiphon ( Arabic المدائن, DMG al-Madāʾin  'the cities'; in Aramaic and Hebrew sources Mahuza ( Māḥōzē ) with the same meaning) was a twin city in present-day Iraq , which consists of the merging cities of Seleukia on the Tigris (today Tell ʿUmar ) and Ctesiphon ( Persian تيسفون, Tīsfūn ), to which other parts of the city such as Veh-Ardaschir ( Veh-Ardašīr ) were added over time. The double metropolis was already important under the Seleucids , before it subsequently became the main residence of the Arsacids and the Sassanids . The origin of the name Ktesiphon (actually a Greek personal name ) is unclear. The city existed around the 4th century BC. Until the 8th century AD

history

Seleukia

Seleukia am Tigris (Greek: Σελεύκεια, Seleukeia ), located on the right bank of the Tigris River, was founded around 305 BC. Founded by Seleukos I near the old city of Opis and - next to Antioch on the Orontes - made the main residence of the Seleucid Empire. Greeks and Macedonians were settled in the new foundation; in the first decades the citizenship of the city was largely limited to these. In the 2nd century BC The place came under Parthian rule. The city is described by Tacitus ( Annals , 6, 42) and Pliny the Elder , among others . Tacitus noted above all that Seleukia was a powerful walled Greek city. 300 citizens of the city formed a council ( bulé ) of the Greek type (see Polis ), which was faced with a popular assembly ( ekklesía ); there were also officials who changed every year.

Initially, this did not change after the Parthian conquest. The city remained largely Greek and continued to flourish due to its favorable location. The population is said to have gone into the hundreds of thousands, with Greeks and Macedonians soon living there mainly Jews and Syrians, and later increasingly Iranians. But there were always unrest, especially after the Arsakid Parthian kings, who did not reside in Seleukia but in Ctesiphon, founded and promoted Vologesias in the vicinity of Seleukia . King Artabanos II then apparently intervened considerably in the self-government of the city in AD 38 after Seleukia met his rival Tiridates III. had supported (see below), even if the polis nominally retained its autonomy. In the later 1st century AD the city then apparently lost its Greek character and turned into a largely Parthian city. Seleukia was, among other things, the birthplace of Diogenes of Babylon and Seleucus of Seleukia .

In the autumn of 165 AD, Seleukia was stormed and sacked by Roman troops under the command of Avidius Cassius , which marked the definitive end for the former center of Hellenism in Mesopotamia . On his Parthian campaign, Septimius Severus found the remains of the city practically undefended about 30 years later; nevertheless were in the city still at the time of Vologaeses' VI. (V.) Coins minted. The focus now finally shifted to the other bank of the river to Ctesiphon.

Ctesiphon

Ctesiphon - the name is purely Greek (Κτησιφῶν), but possibly a corruption of a local toponym - which was on an important trade route, was about 35 km southeast of today's Baghdad on the left bank of the Tigris, directly across from Seleukia (see above). The Arsacids raised the Ctesiphon, which was known since the time of the Seleucids , probably as early as the 2nd century BC. BC as a counterpart to the Greek Polis Seleukia to their winter and main residence. Eventually they fortified it, even if Seleukia initially continued to play an important role. According to Ammianus Marcellinus (23, 6, 23) this is said to have happened under Vardanes (38 to approx. 45 AD). However, Tacitus ( Annalen , 6, 44) already describes the city as the residence of Tiridates III. (a Parthian usurper who temporarily occupied Mesopotamia in 36).

The city (one would have to say more precisely: cities, since it was a conglomerate of various places) flourished under the Sassanids , who also used Seleukia-Ctesiphon as capital from 226 onwards ( Istachr and other places were sometimes used in summer when the climate became too uncomfortable in Seleukia-Ctesiphon, but Seleukia-Ctesiphon remained the main residence). The Sassanids enlarged Ctesiphon into a veritable big city, which eventually had perhaps up to 500,000 inhabitants. It was conquered by the Romans in 283 and besieged repeatedly (last time in 591), but could never be held by them. The last (Eastern) Roman advance towards the Ctesiphon was carried out by Emperor Herakleios in 628.

After the Persian defeat in the battle of Kadesia (see Islamic expansion ), the city (probably 638) was conquered by the Arabs and partially destroyed, but in the Umayyad period it was a center of the Shia alongside the new Islamic foundation of Kufa . The Islamic governor Seleukia-Ktesiphons, Salmān al-Fārisī , is an important figure in Islamic Gnosis . Since the founding of Baghdad in 762, however, the Seleukia Ctesiphon quickly fell into disrepair.

Seleukia-Ctesiphon was also the center of the Christian Church of Persia ( Assyrian Church of the East ) under the Sassanids . In 410 at the latest, the bishop, as a major metropolitan of the Church of Persia, held the title of Catholicos . All metropolitans of Mesopotamia and all the churches of the East (Persia, India, later Central Asia and China) were subordinate to him. In the late 8th century, the seat of the Catholicos was also moved to Baghdad.

Excavations

A Kassitian clay tablet with a recipe for lead glaze, which is now in the British Museum, is said to come from Tell ʿUmar. The text on the clay tablet is dated to the first year of Gulkišar's reign , but Landsberger considers it to be a Kassite forgery.

Ruin of Taq-e Kisra in Ctesiphon in 1864
The Taq-e Kisra in 1932
The Taq-e Kisra in 1990

The site of the ancient city has only been insufficiently archaeologically developed. During the First World War , the ruins were further badly damaged in fighting between troops of the Ottoman Empire and British troops. Excavations took place in Seleukia 1927–1932 and 1936–1937 by the University of Michigan , with a large insula being examined in particular . In this block of houses there were some very richly furnished residential units. Four layers (from approx. 300 BC to 200 AD) could be distinguished. The excavation results have been presented in several volumes, and finds are on display in the Kelsey Museum at the University of Michigan. An Italian mission from the University of Turin also dug here from 1964 to 1989 . Among other things, they found a building that appears to have been used as a state archive in the Seleucid period. 30,000 seal impressions in clay could be excavated there, almost all in a purely Greek style. The building apparently went down during the Parthian conquest around 150 BC. In flames. Excavations have also shown that the city was crossed by two canals, one in an east-west and one in a north-south direction.

Even the identification of the ruins of Ctesiphon is controversial. Right next to Seleukia there is a large round city complex, which is usually referred to as a ctesiphon. German excavations at the site have so far only uncovered Parthian graves, but no Parthian settlement layers. Italian excavations found an artisan quarter. All remains of the settlement found here date back to the Sassanid era, including the remains of an early Christian church. This city (or this district) is therefore with Veh-Ardashir , a creation of Ardashir I. been identified. However, definitive evidence for this identification is still pending. This also applies to Chosroeantiochia or Rumagan , a district in which around 540 Roman prisoners of war were settled and which has not yet been identified. The situation is further complicated by the fact that the course of the Tigris has repeatedly changed in the past. Many ancient buildings are likely to have been destroyed or buried under layers of sediment several meters thick.

Somewhat north of the round town complex of Veh-Ardaschir , early Islamic houses were found during Iraqi excavations, some of which were richly decorated with stucco and document a high standard of living for this time.

The only ruin that can be seen today is the Sassanid palace Taq-e Kisra (probably built or completed by Chosrau I ) , which is particularly remarkable for its vault. The palace is located in a settlement area outside the large, round city complex.

See also

literature

  • Stefan Hauser: Vēh Ardashīr and the Identification of the Ruins at Al-Madā'in , in: A. Hagedorn / A. Shalem (eds.): Facts and Artefacts. Art in the Islamic World , Leiden / Boston 2007, pp. 461–486.
  • Clark Hopkins (Ed.): Topography and Architecture of Seleucia on the Tigris. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan 1972.
  • Jens Kröger: Ctesiphon . In: Encyclopædia Iranica . Vol. 6, pp. 446-448.
  • Vito Messina: Seleucia al Tigri: l'edificio degli archivi, lo scavo e le fasi architettoniche ( Missione in Iraq 3; Monograph di Mesopotamia 8). Florence 2006. ISBN 88-6087-031-3
  • Vito Messina: Seleucia al Tigri: il monumento di Tell 'Umar, lo scavo e le fasi architettoniche ( Missione in Iraq 4; Monograph di Mesopotamia 13). Florence 2010. ISBN 978-88-6087-399-6
  • Mariamaddalena Negro Ponzi: Al-Ma'in: Problemi di Topografia . In: Mesopotamia XL (2005), pp. 145-169.
  • Donald N. Wilber:  Seleucia or Seleucia on the Tigris (Tel Umar) Iraq . In: Richard Stillwell et al. a. (Ed.): The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1976, ISBN 0-691-03542-3 .

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ BM 120960
  2. ↑ Benno Landsberger, Assyrian King List and "Dark Age". In: Journal of Cuneiform Studies 8/2, 1954, p. 69
  3. ↑ Past fieldwork: Seleucia on the Tigris ( Memento of the original from September 12, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at the Kelsey Museum of Archeology at the University of Michigan @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.lsa.umich.edu

Coordinates: 33 ° 5 ′ 37 ″  N , 44 ° 34 ′ 51 ″  E