Monuments and Memory at Dura-Europos

معالم وذكرى في دورا-أوروبوس

Ted Kaizer

This paper will focus on the creation of various kinds of memories at Dura-Europos through monuments that are mainly preserved from the Parthian and Roman periods. Together, they have built up modern notions of culture and society at the Euphrates small town. But different monuments create different memories for different groups of people at different moments in time. Thus, memory creations regarding a Macedonian foundation (through the relief of the Gad of Dura, crowned by Seleucus Nicator), Trajan’s conquest (through the arch located outside the city walls), religious benefactions (through dedicatory inscriptions and murals in the temples), the Palmyrene homeland (through reliefs depicting Palmyrene deities), or the Jewish past (through the painted walls of the synagogue), will have acted as catalysts in different degrees. This paper will therefore ask questions as to the way in which these and other instances served to exhibit perceptions of the town’s historicity, in recognition of the fact that not all memory creations will have had similar impact on Durene society.

Staying at Home or Taking Away: Palmyrene Priestly Iconography as Expressions of Local Traditions

البقاء في المنزل أو الابتعاد عنه: الأيقنة الكَهَنوتيّة البالميريّة باعتبارها تعبيرًا عن العادات المحلّيّة

Rubina Raja

Within the corpus of the Palmyrene sculpture, consisting of about 4,000 objects, more than 350 objects depicting priests or their attributes are known. Only four objects depicting Palmyrene priests, however, have been found outside of Palmyra, all of them in Dura-Europos. Three of these objects are today in the collection at Yale University Art Gallery. This paper will focus on the overall consistent iconography used to represent Palmyrene priesthood across almost 300 years, but will also delve into the changes encountered over time, changes which underline the high awareness of trends and fashions and shifting attitude in Palmyrene elite society. The few objects depicting Palmyrene priests found in Dura-Europos enter the discussion as such outliers, symbolising that despite a strict focus on local religious practices in Palmyra, the depiction of priesthood could in some cases travel – at least as far as Dura-Europos – most likely since priesthood was as much a status symbol underlining high social standing as it was an actual office.

Local, Regional, and Long-Distance Economic Activity in Dura

النشاط الاقتصاديّ المحلّيّ والإقليميّ والنشاط الاقتصاديّ عن بُعد في دورا

Sitta von Reden

The role of Dura-Europos in long-distance trade has been debated since Michael Rostovtzeff’s influential description of Dura as a “caravan city” located at a strategic position on the Euphrates. More recent research has questioned this role by pointing to the almost complete absence of explicit evidence for the city’s involvement in long-distance trade. In 2016, Kai Ruffing established a middle ground by arguing that, in the third century at least, some Roman landowners of Dura with considerable spending power were involved in regional exchange that might have been interconnected with long-distance networks extending to the Gulf, and beyond.
This paper will aim to take the discussion further by analysing the evidence of the economic connectivity of Dura into the concepts of globalisation theory. This might help to break down unhelpful distinctions between local, regional, and long-distance economic activity in a cosmopolitan city like Dura-Europos.

The Problem of the “Semitic” World at Dura and in Ancient History

مشكلة العالم “الساميّ” في دورا وفي التاريخ القديم

Kevin van Bladel

A pervasive theme throughout the modern historiography of Dura is a putative enduring contrast between colonizers and natives, conceived as Greek and Semitic respectively. One finds, for example, historians writing about the Semitic speech of Dura, the Semitic gods of the place, the Semitic alphabets in use there. Although more recent scholars rightly distance themselves from the explicitly racial approaches of research on Dura of one half-century ago, some of the terms in use have endured sometimes without reflection. Without tedious scolding about Orientalism, this paper will investigate and historicize the term Semitic and other key-terms by which modern scholars have sought to answer the question, “Who were the people of Dura?” (and other inhabitants of Syria under Roman rule).