Dura-Europos: The Syrian Pompeii

The Ancients

History Hit

History

4.7 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 29 November 2020

⏱️ 51 minutes

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Summary

When we think of Pompeii, we remember the city which became frozen in time after a natural catastrophe. Well, in 1920, exactly 100 years ago, another 'frozen city' was rediscovered. This time it was Dura-Europos, and rather than falling victim to a volcano, this city was destroyed after a bloody siege in 256 AD. Whilst there is no historical record of life in the Hellenistic, Parthian and Roman border city and garrison, its remains have proven to be a rich source for archaeologists since the 1920s. Between the only complete example of the semi-cylindrical Roman legionary shield and the perfect oval shields with beautiful paintings of Greeks and Trojans or Greeks and Amazons; beyond the regimental records and complete horse armour and the Palmyrene Gate; archaeologists have uncovered the story of the city.

Tristan was joined on the podcast by Simon James from the University of Leicester, who talked through what we now know about life in Dura-Europa and the relationships between the Roman garrison, their dependents and the other inhabitants. He also offers a play-by-play of the battle which brought this city to a halt, and possibly one of the earliest examples of chemical warfare, all discovered through archaeology.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	It's the ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes your host and in today's podcast
0:07.1	we are talking about a site that has been described as the Syrian Pompeii, an ancient settlement
0:14.2	that was frozen in time after a catastrophic event in antiquity. I'm talking about the
0:21.0	ancient city of Durat, Europa. A city that witnessed a siege, a remarkable, extraordinary
0:28.8	siege that determined its later history. To talk about the story, the fascinating history
0:35.3	of Durat, I was delighted to be joined by Professor Simon James from the University of
0:40.3	Leicester. Simon is a leading expert on Durat Europa. He has done excavations at the site.
0:46.3	He has written a book about it and it was brilliant to get him on the show to talk
0:50.0	through this extraordinary history of Durat, including one of the most insane sieges
0:57.7	of ancient history. Here is Simon James. Simon, thank you so much for joining me today.
1:07.3	My pleasure, thanks for inviting me. Now the story of Durat Europa, this ancient city,
1:12.2	seems so remarkable. I mean, can we say that this ancient ruin, this is the Syrian Pompeii?
1:18.5	It's been described as that really since the 1920s when it was first identified and there
1:24.0	are some kinds of similarities. When we talk about Pompeii, we think of a city that
1:28.0	suddenly through a natural catastrophe frozen in time. And Durat was similarly kind of
1:34.3	frozen in time, but by a man-made catastrophe of a catastrophic siege. Well, we will definitely
1:39.8	get on to that during this podcast, but first of all, let's start with the background.
1:44.6	When does this city, when does it merge? The place name of Durat actually is a local
1:50.1	Semitic word, and we're in eastern Syria here. These were Aramaic speaking people at the time.
1:54.6	The word Durat actually means something like stronghold. So the natural formations of the land
1:59.8	there created this chunk of rock which overlooked a narrow path to allow people to get up from
2:04.6	the river valley up onto the plateau nearby. That was then turned around 300 BC into a fortress
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