Dura-Europos: Excavating Antiquity

Historical Background

Dura-Europos, located near the village of Salihiyah in modern Syria, was founded by the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire around 300 B.C. Geographically protected, it is bordered on the east by the Euphrates river plain and on the north and south by deep ravines, leaving only the west side of the city open to attack. This vulnerability was remedied in the second half of the second century B.C. by the construction of a large wall that became one of the city’s salient features.

The crossroads between a major East–West trade route and the trade route that ran along the Euphrates, Dura-Europos was home to a confluence of Eastern and Western civilizations and an extremely multicultural population. Originally called “Europos,” the city later came to be known by local inhabitants as “Dura,” or “the fortress,” because of the strategic military role that it would play in the defense of the Parthian and Roman empires. The hyphenated name is a modern construct, one that conveys the complexity of the city’s historical background and cultural diversity.

During the second century B.C., Dura-Europos was captured by the Parthians, whose huge empire was located just to the east. The Parthians made the city into a fortress to protect their empire’s western border. The Parthian era at Dura-Europos lasted for almost three centuries, but unfortunately very few archaeological artifacts from the period have survived. In the middle of the second century A.D., the city was captured by the Romans and became an important garrison on their empire’s eastern frontier. Much more is preserved from this final phase of the city’s history. Remains of parchment, papyri, and carved inscriptions attest to the numerous languages spoken and understood in ancient Dura-Europos, including Greek, Latin, Palmyrenean, Hebrew, Hatrian, Safaitic, and Pahlavi. The religions that coexisted in the city speak to an equally complex culture, with temples to Greek, Roman, and Palmyrene gods, as well as dedicated places of worship for Christians and Jews.

In the mid-third century A.D., Sasanians besieged the city. In response, the Roman soldiers garrisoned at Dura-Europos attempted to strengthen the western fortification wall with a huge earthen embankment.

The Sasanians then created a complex series of siege mines under the western wall near Tower 19 to destabilize the wall. Recent reanalysis of excavation records suggests that the invaders utilized chemical warfare in their attack, burning naphtha and sulfur to overcome the Roman soldiers. The city was ultimately conquered, around A.D. 256, and subsequently abandoned. 

The fact that the site was never reoccupied contributed significantly to the extraordinary level of preservation of the artifacts and architectural remains. The architecture along the western wall that was buried by the embankment was particularly well preserved and even paintings that decorated the interiors were intact. The buried buildings included a synagogue painted with biblical scenes (something thought impossible given the prohibition against figural images in Jewish law); one of the first Christian house-churches, with the earliest-known baptistery; and a place of worship for the mystery religion of Mithraism. Such discoveries fundamentally altered our understanding of religious practice in antiquity.

Excavation History

The story of the excavation of Dura-Europos begins in 1920, when British troops under the command of Captain M. C. Murphy stationed at Salihiyah, near Dura-Europos, made a surprising and fortuitous discovery. The troops uncovered several well-preserved ancient wall paintings under a large dirt embankment and immediately recognized their archaeological significance. The paintings were brought to the attention of American archaeologist James Henry Breasted, who was working in Syria at the time.

Breasted’s analysis and publication of the wall paintings sparked an international interest in the site and a broad realization of its historical significance. Motivated by these initial discoveries, the French Academy of Inscriptions and Letters decided to proceed with sponsoring the first systematic excavation at Dura-Europos in 1922. Since Breasted was unavailable to serve as field director for the excavation, the Academy turned to one of its own members, Belgian archaeologist and historian Franz Cumont.

Cumont worked at the site for two seasons, until the region’s political unrest halted the project. After relative peace was eventually established in 1925–26, it became feasible for institutions to consider resuming archaeological investigations.

Yale University’s involvement in the exploration of Dura-Europos was motivated by Russian scholar Michael I. Rostovtzeff, who had been appointed the Sterling Professor of Ancient History and Classical Archaeology at Yale in 1925. Although not a field archaeologist himself, Rostovtzeff was so enthusiastic about the project’s potential that he petitioned the Yale Committee on Excavations to collaborate with the French Academy to investigate the site. With the approval of the committee and the University’s president, James R. Angell, the collaboration between the French Academy and Yale began officially on January 15, 1928, and continued for ten fruitful years of excavation. The Dura-Europos project was overseen initially by French field director Maurice Pillet (1928–31), then by Clark Hopkins of Yale (1932–35), and finally by Frank E. Brown, also of Yale (1936–37).

Rostovtzeff, although not involved in the day-to-day progress of the excavations, was the face of Dura-Europos on the Yale campus and lectured extensively on the results of the fieldwork. The discoveries that came out of Dura-Europos made a dramatic impact on both the University community and the general public back in the United States. “Treasure of Untold Value Found in Lost City” proclaimed the Philadelphia Public Ledger in one of the many newspaper headlines that chronicled the success of the excavation. Hopkins’s published account of the entire ten-year expedition, The Discovery of Dura-Europos, is an invaluable and personal record of the campaigns, the team, and daily life during the excavation.

The expedition at Dura-Europos was terminated after its tenth year. Although Yale did request and receive a renewed concession to excavate at Dura-Europos for another six years, beginning October 1, 1939, the necessary financial support never came through. For decades no new excavations were undertaken.

In the mid-1980s, a new Franco-Syrian project was begun under the direction of archaeologist Pierre Leriche. Under these auspices, work at Dura-Europos continues to this day, involving a truly international team of scholars from Syria, Europe, and North America.

The British Academy has also sponsored a complete magnetometric survey of the entire Roman military base area, which has provided critical information about the layout of the city and the architectural relationship between the preexisting Macedonian city and the Roman garrison.

Collaborative research on Dura-Europos conducted in recent years has resulted in numerous publications, including books, articles, and doctoral dissertations, as well as public lectures, papers, symposia, and sessions at academic conferences. Public interest in the site continues to be as intense as ever.

In 2012 the Yale University Art Gallery’s renovated Egerton Swartwout building will display a large number of objects from Dura-Europos in an exhibit devoted to the ancient city. This permanent installation will focus on the discovery of the site, its extraordinary level of preservation, and its historical and archaeological significance. The exhibit will include both physical and virtual reconstructions of major monuments at Dura-Europos. Archives and field records that are part of the Gallery’s collection will also be on display, allowing the works of art to be presented in their full thematic context, not only as objects of individual aesthetic value but also as puzzle pieces that together give us a picture of an important cultural crossroads.