DURA EUROPOS

ruins of the Church House in Dura Europos, courtesy, Wikipedia

Dura-Europos is an ancient archaeological site of the Aramean Syriacs, the indigenous people of the area, located in, what is today, the southeastern part of Arab-occupied Syria near the west bank of the Euphrates River. Famous as the site of a 3^rd century synagogue, in a remarkable state of preservation when discovered by archaeologists in the 1930s, the area is also home to other sites which pre-date the synagogue. Today, Dura Europos is located adjacent to the illegal Arab settlement of al-Salihiya. But religiously, it is under the jurisdiction of the Syriac Orthodox Church. Until the 11^th century, the nearest church bishopric was at Circesium, 40 miles to the north.

Originally a fortress, Dura Europos was founded in 303 BC on Aramean Syrian land by settlers from, what is today, Greece and Macedonia in southeastern Europe, under Emperor Seleucus I Nicator, a former general in the army of Alexander the Great. The Greeks called the place “Dura”, located on the east-west and Euphrates trade routes. Indeed, Dura controlled the river crossing on the route between the newly founded cities of Antioch and Seleucia on the Tigris. Because of the city’s importance in location, it became a regional capital and a great caravan city and had close ties with nearby Palmyra. (The Palmyrene Gate was the principal entrance to the city.) Soon, the population became cosmopolitan and allowed for a co-mingling of cultural traditions. Aside from the original Greek and Syriac inhabitants, the general population was also made up of Romans, Israelites, Palmyrenes, Persians, and south Semitic peoples but the local social system continued to have the descendants of the original Macedonian/Greek settlers as the aristocracy. Even though the Greeks were eventually outnumbered by people of Semitic stock by the first century BC, and the city became eastern in character, this social system remained intact until the city’s abandonment in the middle of the 3^rd century. The mix of populations was also reflected in the area's sacred architecture. For instance, by the 1^st century, citizens from Palmyra, an important trade center, built temples to their gods Aphlat and Azzanathkona, and later (168-9) built the Mithraeum to honor the sun god Mithras. At the same time, citizens from nearby Anah built the Temple of Zeus Kyrios. In the first half of the 3^rd century, the indigenous Syriacs built the Christian Church House, one of the oldest churches in the world outside of Israel. Inside of the church is the earliest known baptismal font as well as what is thought to be the earliest depiction of Jesus dating back to 235.

In 113 BC, the Parthians from Persia conquered the city, and held it, with one brief Roman intermission (114), until 165 when the Romans decisively conquered the city and built a military camp adjacent to it. The Romans added “Europos” to the city name because of its long-time European Macedonian/Greek aristocracy. Through an agreement with the new overlords, Dura Europos retained its status as regional headquarters for the section of the Euphrates between the Khabur and modern Abu Kemal and the local inhabitants would retain considerable freedom. In exchange the city’s military role was abandoned.  

In 256, Dura Europos was conquered by the Persian Sassanid Empire and the town was laid siege for a year. Most of the population was deported. The rest were marched off to Ctesiphon and there sold as slaves. Afterwards, it was bereft of any population at all and over time, the site was covered over by sand and mud and disappeared from sight.

Since then, the existence of Dura-Europos had long been known through literary sources. In 1885, it was rediscovered by the American "Wolfe Expedition" when the Palmyrene Gate was photographed by John Henry Haynes. British troops under Capt. Murphy in the aftermath of World War I and the Arab Revolt also explored the ruins. On March 30, 1920, a soldier digging a trench uncovered brilliantly fresh wall-paintings in the Temple of Bel. Afterwards, major excavations were carried out by French and American teams. Archaeological activity continued until renewed hostilities in the area caused the site to be closed. In 1933, excavations resumed. Sites uncovered included: the Temple of the Oriental Gods; the Temple of Adonis; the Temple of the Gadde; the Temple of Zeus Theos; and the Dura-Europos Route map, the fragment of a specialty map discovered in 1923.

Since 1986, joint excavations were established between French and Syrian Arab archaeologists under the direction of Pierre Leriche but the site was looted and mostly destroyed between 2011 and 2014 by the Islamic State during the Syrian Arab Civil War.