The Temple of Artemis Azzanathkona was a sacred space located in block E7 at Dura Europos dedicated to a syncretic belief of Artemis and the Syrian deity named Azzanathkona. While established as a religious structure, portions of the temple were requisitioned by the Roman military after the Romans captured the city in 165 CE.
The Yale French-American excavation team began excavating the temple complex in 1931–32. Smaller subsequent excavations took place between 2007 and 2010.
The French-American excavation team unexpectedly discovered the Temple of Artemis Azzanathkona during the fifth season of excavations (1931-32) and excavated the temple alongside the southward adjacent structure known as the principia. [1] New and supplementary artifacts and information from the temple continued to be discovered during the sixth season of excavations (1932-33). [2]
Archaeologist David Clark assigned a numbering system to the temple's 31 rooms, distinguished by the letter "W" for rooms along the wall line, and "D" for spaces in the interior of the block. This system likely emerged because Clark's team excavated both zones simultaneously before realizing they were the same entity. [3] The earliest inscription is dated to ca. 12-13 CE and was discovered in Room W9, also known as the salle aux gradins or stepped room for its tiered interior structure. [4] The temple's rooms contain over 100 inscriptions in Greek and Latin, as well as a so-called "magic alphabet" in Room W14. [5] The majority of these inscriptions bear names of individuals. In the case of the inscriptions discovered in Room W9, enough genealogical information was available that archaeologist Susan M. Hopkins was able to construct family trees of the individuals attested in the inscriptions. [6]
An inscription discovered in Room D8 (inscription 453) corroborates the dedication of the temple to "Artemis the goddess called Azzanathkona." This goddess is believed to be the syncretic deity of the Greek Artemis and the Semitic Azzanathkona, whose name is unknown outside of Dura-Europos. [7] However, Michael Rostovtzeff claims Artemis Azzanathkona is one name the Syrian goddess Atargatis was worshipped under. [8] The frequency of inscriptions in Room W9 bearing feminine names suggests a cult to which only women were initiated. [9]
Circa 160-165 CE, Roman military authorities requisitioned portions of the temple, forming a military compound in the western half. However, the compound appears to be intentionally designed to minimize interference with the temple as a functioning place of worship and gathering, leading the excavation team to believe there was continued civilian access to the temple alongside Roman military occupation. [10] The temple became the headquarters for the Cohors XX Palmyrenorum, a Roman infantry and cavalry unit recruited from Palmyra. [11] [12] There were numerous papyri discovered in Room W13 documenting various activities in the life of the Cohort, thus becoming of great value for the study of Roman military organization in this period. [13] When evidence of military presence in the temple was uncovered, excavators Clark Hopkins, Henry T. Rowell, and Rostovtzeff speculated that the principia served as headquarters for the Roman legionaries, while the Temple of Artemis Azzanathkona served as the headquarters for the auxiliaries. [14] Likely in preparation for the final siege in 256, mud brick walls were erected through rooms to strengthen the ramparts. [15] The temple shows substantial evidence of destruction by fire, as the floor of Room W9 was covered with ashes upon discovery and fire marked the walls of many rooms. [16]
Atargatis was the chief goddess of northern Syria in Classical antiquity. Primarily she was a fertility goddess, but, as the baalat ("mistress") of her city and people she was also responsible for their protection and well-being. Her chief sanctuary was at Hierapolis, modern Manbij, northeast of Aleppo, Syria.
Dura-Europos was a Hellenistic, Parthian, and Roman border city built on an escarpment 90 metres above the southwestern bank of the Euphrates river. It is located near the village of Salhiyé, in present-day Syria. Dura-Europos was founded around 300 BC by Seleucus I Nicator, who founded the Seleucid Empire as one of the Diadochi of Alexander the Great. In 113 BC, Parthians conquered the city, and held it, with one brief Roman intermission, until 165 AD. Under Parthian rule, it became an important provincial administrative centre. The Romans decisively captured Dura-Europos in 165 AD and greatly enlarged it as their easternmost stronghold in Mesopotamia, until it was captured by the Sasanian Empire after a siege in 256–257 AD. Its population was deported, and the abandoned city eventually became covered by sand and mud and disappeared from sight.
The Dura-Europos synagogue was an ancient Jewish former synagogue discovered in 1932 at Dura-Europos, Syria. The former synagogue contained a forecourt and house of assembly with painted walls depicting people and animals, and a Torah shrine in the western wall facing Jerusalem. It was built backing on to the city wall, which was important in its survival. The last phase of construction was dated by an Aramaic inscription to 244 CE, making it one of the oldest synagogues in the world. It was unique among the many ancient synagogues that have emerged from archaeological excavations as the structure was preserved virtually intact, and it had extensive figurative wall-paintings, which came as a considerable surprise to scholars. These paintings are now displayed in the National Museum of Damascus.
Clark Hopkins was an American archaeologist. During the 1930s he led the joint French-American excavations at Dura Europos. In later years he was professor of art and archeology at the University of Michigan.
The Dura-Europos route map, also known as stages map, is the fragment of a speciality map from Late Antiquity discovered 1923 in Dura-Europos. The map had been drawn onto the leather covering of a shield by a Roman soldier of the Cohors XX Palmyrenorum between AD 230 and AD 235. The fragment is considered the oldest map of Europe preserved in the original.
The Cohors XX Palmyrenorum was an auxiliary cohort of the Roman Imperial army. It was a cohors equitata milliaria, mixed infantry and cavalry regiment, originally recruited from the inhabitants of Palmyra in Roman Syria. There were also a small number (32–36) of dromedarii forces attached to the infantry.
Parthian art was Iranian art made during the Parthian Empire from 247 BC to 224 AD, based in the Near East. It has a mixture of Persian and Hellenistic influences. For some time after the period of the Parthian Empire, art in its styles continued for some time. A typical feature of Parthian art is the frontality of the people shown. Even in narrative representations, the actors do not look at the object of their action, but at the viewer. These are features that anticipate the art of medieval Europe and Byzantium.
Yarhibol or Iarhibol is an Aramean god who was worshiped mainly in ancient Palmyra, a city in central Syria. He was depicted with a solar nimbus and styled "lord of the spring". He normally appears alongside Bel, who was a co-supreme god of Palmyra, and Aglibol, one of the other top Palmyrene gods.
The Temple of the Gadde is a temple in the modern-day Syrian city of Dura-Europos, located near the agora. It contained reliefs dedicated to the tutelary deities of Dura-Europos and the nearby city of Palmyra, after whom the temple was named by its excavators. The temple was excavated between 1934 and January 1936 by the French/American expedition of Yale University, led by Michael Rostovtzeff.
The Temple of Bel, also known as the Temple of the Palmyrene gods, was located in Dura Europos, an ancient city on the Euphrates, in modern Syria. The temple was established in the first century BC and is celebrated primarily for its wall paintings. Despite the modern names of the structure, it is uncertain which gods were worshipped in the structure. Under Roman rule, the temple was dedicated to the Emperor Alexander Severus. In that period, the temple was located within the military camp of the XXth Palmyrene cohort.
The Temple of Zeus Cyrius stood in the city of Dura-Europos (Syria) and The construction of the original temenos is dated by the inscriptions above its altar and on its cult reliefs to the end of the second decade of the first century after Christ. It was excavated in 1934 by a joint French-American expedition.
The Temple of Zeus Theos at Dura Europos was built in the second century AD and was among the most important sanctuaries of the city. The structure was located in the centre of the settlement. It had an area of around 37 m2 and took up half an insula. It was excavated by an American-French team between December 1933 and March 1939.
The Temple of Adonis in Dura-Europos was discovered by a French-American expedition of Yale University led by Michael Rostovtzeff and was excavated between 1931 and 1934.
The so-called Dolicheneum is a temple in Dura Europos in the east of today's Syria, where Jupiter Dolichenus and god called Zeus Helios Mithras Turmasgade may have been worshiped. The remains of the temple were excavated in 1935/36, but results were never fully published.
The so-called necropolis temple was in the north of Dura-Europos, outside the city walls, about 150 m northwest of the main gate.
The Mithraeum of Dura Europos was found during excavations in the city in 1934. It is considered to be one of the best-preserved and best-documented cult buildings of Mithraism.
The Temple of Aphlad was an ancient temple located in the southwestern corner of Dura Europos, and dedicated to the god Aphlad. Aphlad was originally a Semitic Mesopotamian god from the city of Anath, and presence of his cult in Dura is revealing of its religious and cultural diversity. The temple itself consists of an open courtyard with multiple scattered rooms and altars, similar to the Temple of Bel, which was located in an analogous position in the northwestern corner of Dura.
The Temple of Atargatis in Dura-Europos was one of the main temples of the city. The temple was built in the first century AD, when the city was under Parthian rule, and excavated in 1928–1929 under the direction of Maurice Pillet.
The building that is referred to as the Priests' House, or House of Priests, at Dura-Europos near the village of Salhiyah in eastern present-day Syria, is one of three buildings that was excavated in block H2. It is hypothesized to be the home of priests from the Temple of Atargatis based on its proximity to the two neighboring temples and graffiti found in the third Excavation season.
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