WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.140 So, we are going to listen in to our keynote speaker, Todd Keisner. 00:00:04.280 --> 00:00:05.600 Thank you so much for coming. 00:00:07.120 --> 00:00:11.760 He is going to talk about the managing cultic variety in the Pompeii of the Sea 00:00:11.761 --> 00:00:14.296 and River, communication of religious difference and on 00:00:14.297 --> 00:00:17.340 the middle of protest in Parthian and Roman Dura-Europos. 00:00:17.440 --> 00:00:18.036 Thank you. 00:00:18.060 --> 00:00:19.560 Thank you very much, Beatrice. 00:00:20.800 --> 00:00:21.820 Good morning, everybody. 00:00:22.680 --> 00:00:27.680 It's an honor and a pleasure to speak at this conference on cultural difference 00:00:27.681 --> 00:00:30.559 management in religious communication within 00:00:30.560 --> 00:00:33.140 Hellenistic and Roman coastal settlements. 00:00:33.520 --> 00:00:39.340 And my talk will explore the astounding religious variety attested in the small 00:00:39.341 --> 00:00:44.440 town of Dura-Europos, situated in Syria on the Middle Euphrates. 00:00:45.380 --> 00:00:48.400 Here is Dura, Lyra I will mention. 00:00:49.880 --> 00:00:57.880 Now, I hear you wonder already, should Dura really count as a coastal? 00:00:58.280 --> 00:01:04.300 It could indeed be argued that it is neither, and now I cite from your outline, 00:01:04.480 --> 00:01:09.720 neither a long-distance maritime trade city nor a medium-sized regional port hub, 00:01:09.880 --> 00:01:13.180 at least not in the traditional sense of the word coastal. 00:01:13.360 --> 00:01:19.020 But when I received the invitation and asked the organizers whether they were 00:01:19.021 --> 00:01:23.660 willing to accept Dura-Europos as a proxy for port cities and coastal settlements, 00:01:23.860 --> 00:01:28.400 even though it is river-based, Beatrice and Pablo responded, Dura 00:01:28.401 --> 00:01:30.799 reassured me that Dura was in fact very much on their 00:01:30.800 --> 00:01:33.180 minds when they first contacted me, so I'm safe. 00:01:35.620 --> 00:01:40.800 In terms of a site that offers evidence for the study of cultural variety, 00:01:41.220 --> 00:01:45.500 a site where gods and goddesses coming from different cultural spheres of 00:01:45.501 --> 00:01:48.859 influence met, it would certainly be hard to find 00:01:48.860 --> 00:01:52.180 a more appropriate case study than Dura-Europos. 00:01:52.820 --> 00:01:58.120 The town was home to more than 20 places of worship, and basically anything on this 00:01:58.121 --> 00:02:02.360 map that is green is a religious site or a sanctuary. 00:02:02.840 --> 00:02:05.000 I'll just quickly take you through them. 00:02:05.100 --> 00:02:07.620 Some of them we will go in detail through afterwards. 00:02:07.840 --> 00:02:09.139 Temple of Aflat. 00:02:11.160 --> 00:02:15.660 J9 is Temple of Baal, Temple of the Pomeranian Gods, Temple of yet another Zeus. 00:02:15.940 --> 00:02:17.900 I'll refer to it as Temple of Baal here. 00:02:18.780 --> 00:02:19.780 Mithraeum. 00:02:20.140 --> 00:02:21.116 Synagogue. 00:02:21.140 --> 00:02:22.340 Temple of Adonis. 00:02:23.920 --> 00:02:24.920 Church. 00:02:25.300 --> 00:02:27.080 No, Church, sorry. 00:02:27.200 --> 00:02:30.740 This is another Temple of Baal at M5. 00:02:31.140 --> 00:02:32.720 This is the Tuchaion. 00:02:33.400 --> 00:02:34.216 Artemis. 00:02:34.240 --> 00:02:35.156 Atargatis. 00:02:35.180 --> 00:02:37.820 Degade, which is the Aramaic plural for Tucai. 00:02:38.360 --> 00:02:43.220 Zeus Megistos, I'll mention, and I will talk quite a bit about Zeus Theos. 00:02:43.300 --> 00:02:47.960 And then there are some other Roman military temples we'll see later. 00:02:48.420 --> 00:02:49.420 So... 00:02:52.960 --> 00:02:54.700 Around 20 places of worship. 00:02:54.900 --> 00:02:58.166 And of the numerous deities that received cult and 00:02:58.246 --> 00:03:00.940 that I've just listed, some came from the Greek world. 00:03:01.180 --> 00:03:03.980 Some were typically Syrian, like Atargatis. 00:03:04.200 --> 00:03:07.843 Some were imported from the caravan city Palmyra, circa 200 00:03:07.844 --> 00:03:10.440 kilometers to the west in the heart of the Syrian steppe. 00:03:10.800 --> 00:03:15.520 Some traveled to Dura from their original cult center elsewhere along the river. 00:03:15.620 --> 00:03:17.240 And now I realize that I forgot to say. 00:03:17.840 --> 00:03:20.460 Asanafcona, which will be relevant when I talk about Afla. 00:03:20.700 --> 00:03:22.560 Asanafcona and Afla, they come from the river. 00:03:25.420 --> 00:03:28.440 And some were the particular focus of the Roman military. 00:03:29.460 --> 00:03:33.980 Now, in addition to the many traditional polytheistic cults, Dura hosted a 00:03:33.981 --> 00:03:37.088 synagogue that was famously decorated with scenes from 00:03:37.089 --> 00:03:40.000 the Hebrew Bible and the earliest preserved house church. 00:03:40.220 --> 00:03:42.540 And neither of them I will really talk about today. 00:03:43.360 --> 00:03:46.620 Large parts of the ruins, as you can see, were never excavated. 00:03:46.621 --> 00:03:48.640 So these numbers are probably not complete. 00:03:48.900 --> 00:03:53.300 And I'm obviously not counting the clandestine digging that has ruined the 00:03:53.301 --> 00:03:56.140 site in more recent years following the Syrian civil war. 00:03:58.310 --> 00:04:03.640 Dura Europos was situated on the plateau of Salahiyya, overlooking the Euphrates to 00:04:03.641 --> 00:04:07.120 its east, with ravines to the north and the south, 00:04:07.121 --> 00:04:10.980 and opening to the large Syrian steppe to its west. 00:04:11.060 --> 00:04:13.560 The only site that was fully dependent for its 00:04:13.561 --> 00:04:16.019 protection on the surrounding fortifications. 00:04:16.020 --> 00:04:17.660 Dating from the Hellenistic period. 00:04:17.860 --> 00:04:20.240 So the Western city wall there. 00:04:23.940 --> 00:04:28.740 The various temples and shrines were nearly all firmly embedded in the gridiron 00:04:28.741 --> 00:04:31.383 Hippodamian city plan, which was implemented 00:04:31.384 --> 00:04:34.140 around the middle of the second century BC. 00:04:35.120 --> 00:04:38.040 By then, Dura Europos seems to have developed. 00:04:38.280 --> 00:04:41.060 This is a map from Pierre Lariche's work. 00:04:41.320 --> 00:04:44.400 Seems to have developed into a proper little Greek polis. 00:04:44.520 --> 00:04:46.000 Grown out of an aglomeration. 00:04:46.001 --> 00:04:49.454 At the foot of the fortress that was founded in 00:04:49.455 --> 00:04:52.440 the early Hellenistic period under Seleucus I. 00:04:53.500 --> 00:04:57.620 Very little is actually known from Dura's first 200 years. 00:04:57.800 --> 00:05:02.060 And nearly all buildings and dated materials come from the period in which 00:05:02.061 --> 00:05:06.360 the town was first under Persian control from around 113 BC. 00:05:06.680 --> 00:05:12.020 And finally, part of the Roman world, traditionally counting from AD 165, 00:05:12.080 --> 00:05:15.140 but more intensively from the early third century. 00:05:16.000 --> 00:05:17.000 Onwards. 00:05:17.720 --> 00:05:20.706 Possibly with representatives from Palmyra stepping 00:05:20.707 --> 00:05:23.300 into a local power vacuum during the second century. 00:05:24.480 --> 00:05:29.160 The town was eventually captured and destroyed by the Sasanians around 256. 00:05:31.480 --> 00:05:35.589 Its unique archaeological history has assured the brilliant 00:05:35.590 --> 00:05:38.920 preservation of its monuments and documents for posterity. 00:05:38.960 --> 00:05:41.880 Apart from the religious buildings and the fortifications. 00:05:42.000 --> 00:05:45.980 They include inscriptions and graffiti in at least nine ancient languages. 00:05:45.981 --> 00:05:47.080 And dialects. 00:05:47.680 --> 00:05:50.201 Sculptures and frescoes which uniquely combine 00:05:50.202 --> 00:05:52.400 elements of classical and oriental art. 00:05:52.680 --> 00:05:55.240 Commonly known by the misnomer Parthian art. 00:05:55.940 --> 00:06:00.780 The most important papyrological dossier of any military unit in the Roman world. 00:06:00.940 --> 00:06:06.266 And a large amount of written and material sources 00:06:06.267 --> 00:06:10.140 relating to the workings of a vibrant local economy. 00:06:10.700 --> 00:06:14.380 The combination of a man made embankment. 00:06:14.381 --> 00:06:17.960 Built by the Romans to defend the town against the Sasanians. 00:06:18.260 --> 00:06:21.796 And helpful climatological conditions allowing 00:06:21.797 --> 00:06:24.320 for the preservation of perishable materials. 00:06:24.840 --> 00:06:29.720 Has facilitated the study of life in an ancient provincial small town to a degree 00:06:29.721 --> 00:06:32.740 that archaeology and history do not usually allow. 00:06:34.420 --> 00:06:37.580 The unique preservation of the ruins of Dura-Europos. 00:06:37.860 --> 00:06:40.688 Combined with the disastrous death of much of its 00:06:40.689 --> 00:06:42.900 population at the time of the town's destruction. 00:06:42.901 --> 00:06:46.546 Led the great Russian Yale professor Mikhail Rostovtsev 00:06:46.547 --> 00:06:50.160 to come up with the moniker Pompeii of the Syrian desert. 00:06:50.660 --> 00:06:54.120 In his review of Frans Cumont's Fruits de Dura-Europos. 00:06:54.260 --> 00:06:57.300 Published in the American Historical Review of 1927. 00:06:57.880 --> 00:07:02.880 Rostovtsev stated that in some respects Dura is a Syrian Pompeii. 00:07:03.280 --> 00:07:06.640 Like Pompeii, it is primarily a Hellenistic city. 00:07:07.120 --> 00:07:09.954 Like Pompeii, it shows the gradual absorption 00:07:09.955 --> 00:07:12.140 and modification of Hellenistic civilization. 00:07:12.141 --> 00:07:14.000 By a non-Greek population. 00:07:14.400 --> 00:07:15.900 The Italians in Pompeii. 00:07:15.980 --> 00:07:17.340 The Syrians in Dura. 00:07:19.180 --> 00:07:22.433 Ten years later, Rostovtsev used the label again as the title 00:07:22.434 --> 00:07:26.200 of an article published in the Italian journal Le Via del Mondo. 00:07:26.240 --> 00:07:28.460 La Pompeii del deserto syriaco. 00:07:29.020 --> 00:07:33.060 By then, the theme had been picked up by many other scholars. 00:07:33.180 --> 00:07:34.820 Really until the current day. 00:07:35.420 --> 00:07:38.580 Not all scholars, however, have thought the appellation suitable. 00:07:38.880 --> 00:07:41.560 And Jen Baird from Birkbeck, London. 00:07:42.140 --> 00:07:47.820 Its most recent and ardent critic, called it Yes, useful for publicity 00:07:47.821 --> 00:07:50.520 purposes, but otherwise profoundly misleading. 00:07:51.500 --> 00:07:56.500 Since the Dura Europos revealed from under the sand, different from the Pompeii 00:07:56.501 --> 00:08:02.180 revealed from under the ashes, was by no means a snapshot of urban life, 00:08:02.360 --> 00:08:05.566 but instead a picture of what had become a place undergoing 00:08:05.567 --> 00:08:10.300 full military occupation on the eve of the Sasanian onslaught. 00:08:11.440 --> 00:08:16.740 That said, the relevance of Dura Europos for modern scholarship does not mirror the 00:08:16.741 --> 00:08:21.300 role played by the town in antiquity, as is indeed the case also for Pompeii. 00:08:21.560 --> 00:08:26.540 And from that perspective at least, the conventional nickname has some functionality. 00:08:28.220 --> 00:08:32.360 But you will of course have noticed that my own playful use of the label in the 00:08:32.361 --> 00:08:36.059 title of my talk is slightly deviating from the conventional presentation. 00:08:36.860 --> 00:08:40.280 Not Pompeii of the Syrian desert, but Pompeii of the desert. 00:08:40.299 --> 00:08:44.840 From a geographical perspective, certainly more correct. 00:08:45.500 --> 00:08:50.900 Even if, by leaving the city gate in Dura's western wall, one immediately 00:08:50.901 --> 00:08:54.100 embarks on the route through the steppe leading to Palmyra. 00:08:54.280 --> 00:08:56.580 This is the desert approach to Dura. 00:08:59.000 --> 00:09:05.000 I cannot claim to be the first one to emphasise Dura's riparian location in this 00:09:05.001 --> 00:09:10.440 context, since the great Belgian medieval historian Henri Pirenne, who also reviewed 00:09:10.441 --> 00:09:15.020 his compatriot Cumont's book, characterised Dura in the Economic History 00:09:15.021 --> 00:09:19.440 Review of 1928 as a sort of Pompeii on the Euphrates. 00:09:20.540 --> 00:09:24.840 But there is a particular reason for my accentuating it today. 00:09:25.480 --> 00:09:29.660 When it comes to analysis and interpretation of the coexistence in the 00:09:29.661 --> 00:09:34.600 town of deities from different cultural spheres of influence, Dura's location on 00:09:34.601 --> 00:09:37.300 the river has often been treated as secondary. 00:09:38.260 --> 00:09:42.720 The most famous discoveries at Salahije were made along the desert wall, 00:09:42.920 --> 00:09:45.942 and much scholarly attention has furthermore gone to the 00:09:45.943 --> 00:09:49.700 well-documented presence of the many palmyrene cults. 00:09:49.840 --> 00:09:52.996 And those palmyrene cults obviously reached Dura-Europos 00:09:52.997 --> 00:09:56.180 from the west through the steppe, and not via the river. 00:09:58.660 --> 00:10:04.300 The common city map, based on an aerial view from the south, looking towards the 00:10:04.301 --> 00:10:07.820 north, which distorts, I believe, the approach from the Euphrates, 00:10:08.120 --> 00:10:15.300 this traditional view highlights the splendid discoveries made both along Wall 00:10:15.301 --> 00:10:21.020 Street and in the centre of the Hippodamian grid in the area near the Agora. 00:10:22.500 --> 00:10:27.460 A cross section of the western city wall and the street running parallel to it, 00:10:27.540 --> 00:10:32.820 the so-called Wall Street, but that's an archaeological label, explains the 00:10:32.821 --> 00:10:35.560 exceptional preservation of the adjacent buildings. 00:10:35.561 --> 00:10:41.180 The Roman soldiers who defended Dura-Europos against the neo-Persian siege 00:10:41.181 --> 00:10:47.140 first strengthened the embankment by filling Wall Street, then constructed 00:10:47.141 --> 00:10:51.520 artificial slopes both on the outside of the wall and inside the houses and temples 00:10:51.521 --> 00:10:56.060 that bordered on the street, and finally demolished those parts of these buildings 00:10:56.061 --> 00:10:58.662 that were still exposed in order to create a rampart that 00:10:58.663 --> 00:11:01.800 could be accessed without problems from within the town. 00:11:02.620 --> 00:11:05.540 And it was indeed here that the most famous findings were found. 00:11:05.541 --> 00:11:09.331 The temple of Baal, with its wall paintings that 00:11:09.332 --> 00:11:13.220 spurred the original discovery in 1920, top left. 00:11:13.500 --> 00:11:18.580 The temple of Baal or of the Pomeranian gods with its wall paintings, that's... 00:11:18.581 --> 00:11:20.460 sorry, I just said that. 00:11:20.700 --> 00:11:23.347 Secondly, top right, the synagogue with its 00:11:23.348 --> 00:11:25.740 decorated walls illustrating the Hebrew scriptures. 00:11:26.240 --> 00:11:31.640 And there you can really see splendidly how the slopes from the side of the 00:11:31.641 --> 00:11:33.780 building go, and the same is happening on that side. 00:11:34.680 --> 00:11:35.520 This is now the main building. 00:11:35.540 --> 00:11:36.700 We construct it in Damascus. 00:11:37.440 --> 00:11:43.840 The Mithraeum, bottom right, and the Baptisterium with the house church, 00:11:43.960 --> 00:11:45.100 top bottom left. 00:11:45.620 --> 00:11:51.382 But also sanctuaries to Aflat, relief at the middle top, 00:11:51.383 --> 00:11:54.620 and Zeus Kurios Baal Shamin, the Lord of the Heavens. 00:11:55.960 --> 00:12:00.360 In the center of the grid, to the south of the Agora, were the large temples of 00:12:00.361 --> 00:12:03.864 Artemis, commonly treated by scholars as one 00:12:03.865 --> 00:12:06.660 of the main civic temples of Dura-Europos. 00:12:06.760 --> 00:12:11.480 And next door to it, that of Atargatis, the Syrian goddess whose main cult center 00:12:11.481 --> 00:12:15.147 at Hierapolis became the subject of a well-known treatise 00:12:15.148 --> 00:12:18.100 by the satirist Lucian of Samosata in the second century. 00:12:19.540 --> 00:12:23.900 As regards the dominant evidence for religious behavior of migrants from 00:12:23.901 --> 00:12:29.260 Palmyra in Dura-Europos, their places of worship included, but were not restricted 00:12:29.261 --> 00:12:35.260 to, an extra mural temple dedicated to Baal and Yarchebol, the already mentioned 00:12:35.261 --> 00:12:40.580 Temple of Baal, at least in the final Roman period phase, when it was also known 00:12:40.581 --> 00:12:45.140 as the Temple of the Palmyrene Gods by scholars, the small shrine of Zeus Kurios 00:12:45.141 --> 00:12:49.760 slash Baal Shamin, and a larger complex with a part religious function 00:12:49.761 --> 00:12:53.300 conventionally labeled as the Temple of the Gade, next to the Agora. 00:12:53.840 --> 00:12:55.560 Another misnomer, by the way. 00:12:56.520 --> 00:13:00.000 The fact that the Palmyrene evidence has received more attention, more than its 00:13:00.001 --> 00:13:04.560 fair share of scholarly attention, is due in the first place because it 00:13:04.561 --> 00:13:07.582 clearly stands out thanks to its use of a separate 00:13:07.583 --> 00:13:10.780 dialect and script and of an idiosyncratic art style. 00:13:11.700 --> 00:13:17.360 I have argued elsewhere that the actual impact by the sizable community of 00:13:17.361 --> 00:13:20.442 migrants from Palmyra on the local character of 00:13:20.443 --> 00:13:24.720 Dura-Europos has simply been overstated thus far. 00:13:25.300 --> 00:13:30.260 That is not to say that the available evidence for contact between Dura and 00:13:30.261 --> 00:13:34.500 Palmyra should be downplayed, but that those contacts had more bearing on this 00:13:34.501 --> 00:13:38.960 specific community of Palmyrenes than on their adopted residence Dura-Europos. 00:13:40.400 --> 00:13:45.040 And again, the perspective of the common view of this over the city through aerial 00:13:45.041 --> 00:13:50.520 photography and the resulting north viewing map has exacerbated the importance 00:13:50.521 --> 00:13:54.640 of the route opening up to the desert or rather the Syrian steppe. 00:13:55.440 --> 00:13:59.137 From the main gate that has unsurprisingly, long 00:13:59.138 --> 00:14:01.780 been baptized by scholars as the Palmyra Gate. 00:14:02.120 --> 00:14:06.600 You can see why all this emphasis has gone on the western wall and the palmyrenes. 00:14:08.500 --> 00:14:12.660 The story of the excavations itself also plays a role in all of this. 00:14:13.380 --> 00:14:17.020 More than that of any other site in the Hellenistic and Roman Near East, 00:14:17.200 --> 00:14:21.056 the study of Dura-Europos is embedded in and 00:14:21.057 --> 00:14:24.360 often steered by its own modern historiography. 00:14:25.180 --> 00:14:29.720 The study of the first finds by James Henry Breasted, was a 00:14:29.721 --> 00:14:32.380 1924 monograph on the wall paintings in the Temple of Baal. 00:14:33.540 --> 00:14:38.400 Cumont published his monograph Fouille de Dura in 1926 following two seasons of 00:14:38.401 --> 00:14:40.956 excavations that focused on the same Temple of 00:14:40.957 --> 00:14:43.340 Baal and on the Temple of Artemis near the Agora. 00:14:44.300 --> 00:14:48.400 Highlighting also the apparently strong connection between Dura-Europos and Palmyra. 00:14:49.820 --> 00:14:55.040 The spectacular finds made by the Yale campaign in the 1920s and 1930s on the 00:14:55.041 --> 00:15:00.300 Rostovtsev leadership, including Church, Synagogue and Mithraeum, they received the 00:15:00.301 --> 00:15:04.420 lion's share of attention in the resulting preliminary and final reports. 00:15:05.060 --> 00:15:09.320 So in the remainder of my talk, in order to offer some sort of 00:15:09.321 --> 00:15:13.100 counterbalance and also because it suits the theme of the conference nicely, 00:15:13.380 --> 00:15:18.340 I believe, I will focus instead on Dura-Europos from the perspective of its 00:15:18.341 --> 00:15:24.520 river location to investigate the impact on the river's perspective on the local 00:15:24.521 --> 00:15:27.960 patterns of worship and on the way in which these could be experienced. 00:15:30.320 --> 00:15:35.260 I am of course not suggesting that the so-called Palmyra Gate did not function as 00:15:35.261 --> 00:15:38.420 a major access point for traffic arriving from the Syrian steppe. 00:15:38.920 --> 00:15:44.040 But approaching the town from different angles, with the help of other air 00:15:44.041 --> 00:15:47.180 photographs, one gains quite a different perspective. 00:15:48.200 --> 00:15:52.960 Arrivals from the steppe to the west notwithstanding, Dura-Europos was of 00:15:52.961 --> 00:15:59.040 course above all a Euphrates stronghold founded by the Seleucids as a furion, 00:15:59.260 --> 00:16:01.020 a fortress overlooking the river. 00:16:01.140 --> 00:16:05.140 And this is what the other air photographs convey marvellously. 00:16:05.740 --> 00:16:09.087 So this is looking, you still see the desert bit 00:16:09.088 --> 00:16:12.560 here, but this is looking from the north to the south. 00:16:12.800 --> 00:16:14.740 Already get a slightly different angle. 00:16:15.000 --> 00:16:19.320 And here we have an air view from the river. 00:16:19.360 --> 00:16:23.800 And you immediately see that this western wall with all the major finds there is 00:16:23.801 --> 00:16:26.320 quite far away when you come from this side. 00:16:27.940 --> 00:16:35.460 Here we have one again looking north-east, south-west. 00:16:36.380 --> 00:16:40.000 You can again see the river perspective. 00:16:40.280 --> 00:16:46.680 This was the welcome picture from a Christmas card by Fjellerich many years ago. 00:16:46.840 --> 00:16:49.220 Hence Aeropost Dura instead of Dura-Europos. 00:16:49.300 --> 00:16:50.920 This is utter nonsense of course. 00:16:50.980 --> 00:16:52.320 It should be Dura-Europos. 00:16:52.840 --> 00:16:53.860 Different paper. 00:16:55.440 --> 00:16:57.060 And another air photograph. 00:16:57.061 --> 00:16:59.720 Really looking straight over the fortress. 00:17:01.540 --> 00:17:05.079 And here we have some of the various air photographs compared. 00:17:05.859 --> 00:17:08.394 So you can see that from whatever angle you look, you really 00:17:08.395 --> 00:17:13.560 get a very different idea of how the town can be approached. 00:17:16.839 --> 00:17:22.440 Unfortunately, access from the river in the form of the so-called river gate there 00:17:25.200 --> 00:17:26.740 is no longer preserved. 00:17:26.741 --> 00:17:29.538 Preserved as the remains of that river gate over 00:17:29.539 --> 00:17:32.440 time collapsed down the gradient towards Euphrates. 00:17:33.160 --> 00:17:37.440 In any case, from the point of view of daily life centred upon the river, 00:17:37.800 --> 00:17:41.820 the many temples and other buildings that were erected along the so-called Wall 00:17:41.821 --> 00:17:44.880 Street were therefore in reality quite peripheral. 00:17:45.740 --> 00:17:49.957 The temples of Aflaat, of Suscurios and of Baal 00:17:49.958 --> 00:17:53.160 all made active use of a tower or part of the wall. 00:17:53.640 --> 00:17:58.760 But also the temples of Adonis, the synagogue, the church, the Mithraeum, 00:17:58.880 --> 00:18:01.480 were built as far from the river as possible. 00:18:02.000 --> 00:18:07.480 And as I noted already, location from a riparian point of view could always be 00:18:07.481 --> 00:18:10.020 even more peripheral than along Wall Street. 00:18:10.560 --> 00:18:16.760 The extra mural sanctuary dedicated to the Pomeranian gods Baal and Jargibal may have 00:18:16.761 --> 00:18:19.020 been the first temple that arrived from the west. 00:18:19.060 --> 00:18:20.800 So from Palmyra came across. 00:18:21.240 --> 00:18:25.440 And here you have a view from the cellar towards Dura Europa. 00:18:25.441 --> 00:18:27.900 So we're here in the step in that temple. 00:18:28.460 --> 00:18:34.600 But this was probably not really on the itinerary of most citizens and certainly 00:18:34.601 --> 00:18:37.602 not of visitors who arrived at Dura and were 00:18:37.603 --> 00:18:40.100 less inclined to venture into the step zone. 00:18:41.460 --> 00:18:47.080 Now, to be fair, for some gods and their worshippers who beyond a shadow of doubt 00:18:47.081 --> 00:18:50.612 arrived at Dura Europa from the river, the town's 00:18:50.613 --> 00:18:53.340 periphery was still going to be their focus. 00:18:53.960 --> 00:18:58.480 Two deities who received the cult on the plateau of Salahiyye, and who are not 00:18:58.481 --> 00:19:03.360 known from anywhere else than Dura Europa, came from a place further downstream the 00:19:03.361 --> 00:19:08.900 river, with both the god Aflat and the goddess Azanathcona originating from the 00:19:08.901 --> 00:19:12.480 same island settlement in the Euphrates called Anat. 00:19:13.540 --> 00:19:17.980 This is the temple of Aflat, so in the in the south west of the ruins. 00:19:19.360 --> 00:19:22.480 In the case of Aflat, the connection is made epigraphically. 00:19:22.481 --> 00:19:25.040 And rather explicitly. 00:19:25.800 --> 00:19:29.460 A relief from around the middle of the first century AD. 00:19:29.880 --> 00:19:31.320 You have to believe me for now. 00:19:31.440 --> 00:19:34.700 We will see later why that is mid first century AD. 00:19:36.320 --> 00:19:40.940 Depicting a deity outfitted in a Hellenistic cuirass, standing on top of 00:19:40.941 --> 00:19:44.280 two griffins with a priestly figure burning incense in front of him, 00:19:44.380 --> 00:19:48.384 is accompanied by a Greek inscription which spells out the 00:19:48.385 --> 00:19:51.140 deity's identity in what I think is astonishing detail. 00:19:51.141 --> 00:19:56.660 It records how Hadadiabos, son of Zabdibelos, son of Silos, set up this 00:19:56.661 --> 00:20:02.220 image, this aphidrusis, from the sanctuary of the god named Aflat of Anat, 00:20:02.580 --> 00:20:06.363 the village on the Euphrates, as a vow for his own 00:20:06.364 --> 00:20:09.800 salvation and that of his children and of his whole house. 00:20:10.560 --> 00:20:15.040 I added the commas which are not there in Greek for a rhetorical effect. 00:20:15.600 --> 00:20:20.640 The deity's name is commonly explained as a combination of the Akkadian word aplu, 00:20:20.641 --> 00:20:24.600 son and ada, meaning together son of Hadad. 00:20:25.060 --> 00:20:29.480 It is transcribed differently in the available Greek inscriptions from the temple. 00:20:29.960 --> 00:20:37.020 Aflat, Apallados, Afallados, which in itself is a reflection of the fact that 00:20:37.021 --> 00:20:40.300 the divine name was originally spelled in a different language than Greek. 00:20:40.900 --> 00:20:46.180 It also fits well with the fact that in older times texts written in cuneiform had 00:20:46.181 --> 00:20:49.220 connected the son of Hadad to the middle Euphrates region. 00:20:50.640 --> 00:20:54.920 The term used here, aphidrusis, seems to claim that the image set up in 00:20:54.921 --> 00:20:59.540 the temple of Aflat at Dura was an actual copy of an original cult statue, 00:21:00.200 --> 00:21:04.000 assumingly set up at his home sanctuary at Anat. 00:21:05.420 --> 00:21:09.940 Whether that means that the god Aflat was therefore subject to an orthodoxy of 00:21:09.941 --> 00:21:14.500 iconography in the same way as the much more famous examples of the nearly 00:21:14.501 --> 00:21:18.820 canonical toponymic Jupiters of Heliopolitanus and Jupiter of Dolica, 00:21:18.940 --> 00:21:20.340 that cannot be known. 00:21:20.640 --> 00:21:23.880 Since any comparative imagery for Aflat is lacking. 00:21:24.620 --> 00:21:30.640 But it is pertinent to realize that in most cases a traveling deity would undergo 00:21:30.641 --> 00:21:35.880 at least some modifications with regard to worship patterns, even if originally he or 00:21:35.881 --> 00:21:40.260 she was thought to replicate a prototype better known from elsewhere. 00:21:41.380 --> 00:21:46.040 Now, above all, the fact that in the more ancient Near East, the deity known as the 00:21:46.041 --> 00:21:50.980 son of Hadad was worshipped in this same region, as suggested by the cuneiform 00:21:50.981 --> 00:21:54.860 tablet that I just mentioned, that means that there must have been, at least at 00:21:54.861 --> 00:21:59.600 some point, a form of representation of the god that was different from this one 00:21:59.601 --> 00:22:02.360 where he is dressed in Hellenistic cuirass. 00:22:04.940 --> 00:22:09.440 Perhaps that older image continued alongside this one. 00:22:09.520 --> 00:22:10.520 We don't know. 00:22:11.080 --> 00:22:14.001 Now, the cult of Aflat has often been the subject of discussions 00:22:14.002 --> 00:22:17.520 about religious participation and interaction at Dura. 00:22:17.521 --> 00:22:21.820 For Kevin Butcher, for example, it was the key example of what he 00:22:21.821 --> 00:22:27.400 described as the exclusive and inward looking cultic patterns at Dura Europos. 00:22:27.700 --> 00:22:31.120 Exclusive and inward looking, Kevin Butcher's words. 00:22:31.440 --> 00:22:35.467 In contrast, I have expressed doubt as to whether this cult 00:22:35.468 --> 00:22:39.160 at Dura was indeed adhered to only by villagers from Anat. 00:22:40.120 --> 00:22:43.700 Surely there would have been no need for such meticulous description. 00:22:44.060 --> 00:22:49.220 In other words, how can an inscription written in Greek, referring explicitly to 00:22:49.221 --> 00:22:55.340 the god named Aflat of Anat, the village on the Euphrates, how can that not have 00:22:55.341 --> 00:22:58.100 been meant to communicate information to a wider audience? 00:22:59.080 --> 00:23:00.460 But not everybody agrees. 00:23:00.760 --> 00:23:07.460 So Lucinda Dierver has argued, contra me, that the phrase did indeed 00:23:07.461 --> 00:23:11.700 imply that the cult of Aflat was confined to people from the village of Anat. 00:23:12.140 --> 00:23:15.468 And she stated that the stress on the god's origin 00:23:15.469 --> 00:23:18.500 functions as an identity marker for the group from Anat. 00:23:19.340 --> 00:23:23.000 She goes on by saying this formulation is well known in the Roman Near East, 00:23:23.080 --> 00:23:24.860 and it does not follow from this that people 00:23:24.861 --> 00:23:26.600 from other places worship the god as well. 00:23:28.340 --> 00:23:32.360 Now, I'm, of course, happy to accept that the emphasis on the roots of a deity can 00:23:32.361 --> 00:23:35.500 be perceived as an identity marker for a benefactor. 00:23:35.640 --> 00:23:42.260 But I would still argue that the specific explanation of Anat's very location in the 00:23:42.261 --> 00:23:47.620 epigraphic formula indicates that the information was at least not solely aimed 00:23:47.621 --> 00:23:51.080 at those worshipers who themselves came from the god's hometown. 00:23:52.340 --> 00:23:56.720 Robert Parker contributed to the debate by calling the peculiar way in which the 00:23:56.721 --> 00:24:00.860 inscription specifies what is supposed to be Aflat's original cult center, 00:24:01.340 --> 00:24:07.220 Anat, the village on the Euphrates, as, Parker's words, a rare epigraphic 00:24:07.221 --> 00:24:12.820 example of such an apologetic formula in recognition of the levels, the level in 00:24:12.821 --> 00:24:17.640 which observers were expected to be unaccustomed to an unfamiliar deity. 00:24:18.700 --> 00:24:23.740 A separate target audience on the one hand, and attendance to the cult who 00:24:23.741 --> 00:24:28.020 originally came from Manat on the other, are, of course, not mutually exclusive. 00:24:28.560 --> 00:24:32.820 And in fact, there are other inscriptions from the sanctuary, commonly overlooked, 00:24:33.060 --> 00:24:37.980 that confirm that citizens of Dura-Europos, specified as Europaioi, 00:24:38.160 --> 00:24:42.880 could participate in the cult as well, while the original villagers, as we will 00:24:42.881 --> 00:24:45.771 see now, could still succeed to keep a 00:24:45.772 --> 00:24:48.820 distinctive status through their own association. 00:24:50.040 --> 00:24:53.660 And this is clear from another Greek inscription found at the same temple, 00:24:54.480 --> 00:24:59.520 which is dated to AD 54 and gives a list of names of members of a cult association 00:25:00.180 --> 00:25:02.540 that erected a banqueting hall for Aflat. 00:25:02.660 --> 00:25:07.160 And one of the members of this association was the dedicant of the relief, 00:25:07.340 --> 00:25:10.051 therefore it must be middle, therefore the 00:25:10.052 --> 00:25:12.640 relief must date roughly from the same time. 00:25:13.640 --> 00:25:17.760 Now, this group is explicitly referred to as a hetairaia, a brotherhood, 00:25:17.880 --> 00:25:21.035 and its members built and dedicated an androna, 00:25:21.095 --> 00:25:24.600 supposedly for their own main, if not exclusive, use. 00:25:25.040 --> 00:25:28.660 The inscription is set up for the salvation of a local magistrate, 00:25:28.680 --> 00:25:32.520 in addition to that of the dedicant's family, as the standard formula, 00:25:32.660 --> 00:25:35.080 added at the end of the text, makes explicit. 00:25:36.040 --> 00:25:40.280 Evidently, I believe, with the aim to communicate this information to a wider public. 00:25:42.540 --> 00:25:46.660 The other deity known from Dura-Europos, whom scholars have been willing to connect 00:25:46.661 --> 00:25:50.020 to the island settlement of Anat, is the goddess Azanath-Kona. 00:25:52.020 --> 00:25:56.280 It was worshipped in a temple in the northern section of the town, the part 00:25:56.281 --> 00:26:01.380 that was in the late second and first century, late second and first half of the 00:26:01.381 --> 00:26:04.140 third century, sorry, taken over by the Roman military. 00:26:04.460 --> 00:26:07.293 And it was in this temple that the famous Feriala 00:26:07.313 --> 00:26:10.260 Duranum, the military calendar, was founded. 00:26:10.261 --> 00:26:14.050 In the case of Azanath-Kona, any association with 00:26:14.051 --> 00:26:17.540 the perceived original cult center is less clear-cut. 00:26:17.760 --> 00:26:21.600 And the notion is based on the common explanation of the divine name, 00:26:21.700 --> 00:26:27.580 Azanath-Kona, as Kona, the power of Anat, which I find the most convincing solution, 00:26:27.900 --> 00:26:30.840 though some scholars have tried to give a different meaning to the name, 00:26:30.940 --> 00:26:36.640 some proposing it, for example, as meaning chief magistrate of the creatrix. 00:26:37.340 --> 00:26:42.160 Anyway, I think Kona, the power of Anat, is most convincing, but it's debated. 00:26:42.960 --> 00:26:48.960 In any case, in a Greek inscription from AD 161, Azanath-Kona is explicitly 00:26:48.961 --> 00:26:53.760 associated with the classical Artemis, a goddess who also, as we have seen, 00:26:53.860 --> 00:26:56.540 had her own sanctuary at Dura, to the south of the Agora. 00:26:57.440 --> 00:27:02.080 The relevant inscription from the temple of Azanath-Kona records a dedication to 00:27:02.081 --> 00:27:08.740 Artemis, the goddess Thei-Kalumene, who is also called Azanath-Kona. 00:27:09.300 --> 00:27:17.300 And the use of Kalumene served to express a case of what Robert Parker called simple 00:27:17.301 --> 00:27:20.385 identification or equivalence between two theonyms 00:27:20.386 --> 00:27:23.120 coming from different cultural spheres of influence. 00:27:24.020 --> 00:27:28.900 It is certainly notable that by this time the Greek divine name had achieved primacy 00:27:28.901 --> 00:27:32.220 over the indigenous one, under which the goddess was solely known 00:27:38.740 --> 00:27:43.280 and possibly also Azanath-Kona are deities who came to Dura from the Euphrates, 00:27:43.560 --> 00:27:47.420 but whose new places of worship were still far from the river. 00:27:48.260 --> 00:27:52.760 With a view, therefore, to those gods whose deities were, in contrast, 00:27:52.840 --> 00:27:56.820 directly visible to those people arriving at the town from the Euphrates, 00:27:57.060 --> 00:27:58.160 we must look elsewhere. 00:27:58.460 --> 00:28:02.620 Above all, to a divine figure conventionally known among scholars 00:28:02.621 --> 00:28:07.680 working on Dura-Europos as Zeus Theos, Zeus the god. 00:28:08.740 --> 00:28:12.280 This sanctuary occupying the northern half of block B3 00:28:15.710 --> 00:28:19.050 stood on the eastern edge of the plateau opposite the 00:28:19.051 --> 00:28:22.490 citadel, rising above the inner wall that led to the town. 00:28:23.130 --> 00:28:25.890 Here a picture with my back to the Euphrates. 00:28:26.250 --> 00:28:28.870 You can kind of see the city wall in the 00:28:28.871 --> 00:28:31.710 horizon and here you can see that even better. 00:28:33.590 --> 00:28:40.510 And this is a picture not mine but by courtesy of Julian Buchmann who took this 00:28:40.511 --> 00:28:45.330 picture while walking up from the river to the temple of Zeus Theos. 00:28:45.610 --> 00:28:50.130 And of course, you can see how high it would have risen when it was still complete. 00:28:53.210 --> 00:29:01.030 Its conventional scholarly label, the temple of Zeus Theos, is based on one 00:29:01.031 --> 00:29:07.710 Greek inscription from AD 120 which records a dedication of the Naos to Zeus the god. 00:29:07.930 --> 00:29:12.263 And there was a memento from seven years earlier found in 00:29:12.264 --> 00:29:16.550 the same temple which refers to Zeus but without the Theos. 00:29:17.630 --> 00:29:21.570 And discussions of these temples have nearly all centered around a very 00:29:21.571 --> 00:29:28.510 questionable reconstruction by Frank Brown of the wall painting on the rear wall from 00:29:28.511 --> 00:29:31.803 fragments which have only been partly published and which 00:29:31.804 --> 00:29:34.790 have been thought to show a non-classical looking deity. 00:29:35.250 --> 00:29:38.490 This is really debated, this reconstruction. 00:29:39.450 --> 00:29:45.010 The sanctuary has also commonly been interpreted as a sort of private place of 00:29:45.011 --> 00:29:48.340 worship again, according to Kevin Butcher's idea 00:29:48.341 --> 00:29:51.610 frequented only by a small part of the town's upper class. 00:29:52.370 --> 00:29:57.530 Now the fact that members of two leading clans the Lysias family and the Bagates 00:29:57.531 --> 00:30:01.970 family seem to have been jointly responsible for the cult in this temple 00:30:01.971 --> 00:30:05.390 does only say so much about its clientele, I believe. 00:30:06.150 --> 00:30:09.660 Monopolization of sponsorship will not necessarily have been 00:30:09.661 --> 00:30:13.710 at the detriment of participation in the worship by others. 00:30:14.370 --> 00:30:18.130 Its location per se is no argument for or against. 00:30:18.410 --> 00:30:24.250 One might of course indeed expect that local aristocracy occupied prime positions 00:30:24.251 --> 00:30:29.950 but the tension was recently drawn by Julian Buchmann to the fact that it 00:30:29.951 --> 00:30:35.810 concerns a building complex full of rooms with stone benches and an interesting 00:30:35.811 --> 00:30:39.190 hypothesis that the temple was an important civic religious center for the 00:30:39.191 --> 00:30:42.650 town as a whole and a first meeting point for those arriving from the river. 00:30:50.770 --> 00:30:55.130 The persistent scholarly practice to designate the main god of the temple as 00:30:55.131 --> 00:31:00.054 Zeus Theos does not only seem rather odd it has also contributed 00:31:00.055 --> 00:31:03.390 to the idea of yet another inward-looking exclusive cult. 00:31:05.390 --> 00:31:09.090 It is sometimes thought to have been introduced to distinguish the Zeus who 00:31:09.091 --> 00:31:13.830 received the cult here from the other Zeuses attested in the town 00:31:20.210 --> 00:31:28.210 whereas Megistus Soter and Kurios are all established epithets emphasizing specific 00:31:28.211 --> 00:31:33.330 divine qualities Theos of course just means god and would indeed seem a very 00:31:47.210 --> 00:31:51.441 peculiar Now, obviously, no inhabitant of 00:31:51.442 --> 00:31:55.850 Dura-Europos needed to be told that Zeus was a god. 00:31:56.370 --> 00:32:00.790 A similar practice is attested in Aramaic inscriptions from the Near East in 00:32:00.791 --> 00:32:05.050 general, notably from Palmyra, where the respective label Allaha, 00:32:05.290 --> 00:32:10.190 the Aramaic equivalent of Theos, was often used for well-known deities 00:32:10.191 --> 00:32:12.890 whose divinity cannot have been in question. 00:32:14.270 --> 00:32:18.750 And it may also be compared with the use, similarly widespread and similarly applied 00:32:18.751 --> 00:32:24.070 arbitrarily, of an enigmatic symbol attested on various palmyra and tesserae, 00:32:26.750 --> 00:32:34.750 which Rubina Raja and I have proposed to interpret as a symbol to indicate 00:32:34.751 --> 00:32:39.670 notional, unnecessary indication of notional divinity. 00:32:43.370 --> 00:32:47.630 So it is therefore not only awkward, but I think actually misleading to refer 00:32:47.631 --> 00:32:50.430 to this temple in B3 as that of Zeus Theos. 00:32:50.730 --> 00:32:54.728 It was the temple of Zeus, and as its location would 00:32:54.729 --> 00:32:57.470 suggest, I think a rather important one for that. 00:32:58.590 --> 00:33:01.930 Now, the second temple... And there I will finish. 00:33:01.931 --> 00:33:06.150 That I would consider of particular topographic importance from the riparian 00:33:06.151 --> 00:33:10.010 perspective is a sanctuary complex in block C4. 00:33:11.510 --> 00:33:16.550 Not immediately visible from the river as such, to be honest, but located on the 00:33:16.551 --> 00:33:20.650 so-called Redoubt Spur in between the Strategaion and the House of Lysias, 00:33:20.930 --> 00:33:24.630 which was home to what was Dura's leading family for many generations. 00:33:24.990 --> 00:33:28.930 So right in between the town's main official's office and its residence. 00:33:29.410 --> 00:33:35.510 The temple in C4 is known among scholars as that of Zeus Megistos, although in this 00:33:35.511 --> 00:33:39.050 case the idea of a dedication of the whole building to Zeus is more problematic. 00:33:39.690 --> 00:33:44.230 The divine name with its epithet appears only once in the context of the temple, 00:33:44.530 --> 00:33:48.082 namely in a Greek inscription from AD 169, nine 00:33:48.083 --> 00:33:50.910 years after Dura suffered a major earthquake. 00:33:52.190 --> 00:33:57.030 This inscription records how the main officeholder of the town, the Strategos 00:33:57.031 --> 00:34:01.330 Cai Epistates, rebuilt the arch and the portico in this stone building. 00:34:01.331 --> 00:34:06.550 To the left is the site of the There is no evidence to suggest that the preceding 00:34:06.551 --> 00:34:10.570 temple, the one in need of rebuilding following the natural disaster, 00:34:10.750 --> 00:34:15.630 was dedicated as a whole, or in part for that matter, to Zeus Megistus, 00:34:15.949 --> 00:34:19.874 and other deities including the Palmyrene god Arzu and a 00:34:19.875 --> 00:34:23.070 Herakles figure are also attested within this temple complex. 00:34:24.370 --> 00:34:27.581 Zeus Megistus, on the other hand, as a name, 00:34:27.582 --> 00:34:30.050 does appear in other temples in the town. 00:34:30.969 --> 00:34:36.290 Whether one ought to think of the greater Zeus as a specific individual deity set 00:34:36.291 --> 00:34:39.850 apart from other forms of appearance of Zeus in Dura remains unclear. 00:34:40.750 --> 00:34:46.550 Sometimes the context makes clear that Zeus is really another deity, as I believe 00:34:46.551 --> 00:34:50.449 is clear in the case of Zeus Kurios, who is identified in a bilingual 00:34:50.450 --> 00:34:53.710 Greek-Aramaic inscription with the Palmyrene god Balshamin. 00:34:53.889 --> 00:34:56.855 So here the starting point is that it is a Palmyrene 00:34:56.856 --> 00:34:59.250 god Balshamin, translated in Greek, Zeus the Lord. 00:35:01.330 --> 00:35:03.770 But sometimes Zeus is just Zeus. 00:35:04.970 --> 00:35:09.890 So is Zeus Megistus altogether distinct from Zeus Theos? 00:35:10.530 --> 00:35:13.203 Was either of these designations in fact concealing 00:35:13.204 --> 00:35:16.750 an indigenous god through Interpatio Graeca? 00:35:16.910 --> 00:35:20.018 Or is this simply a case of the main deity from the 00:35:20.019 --> 00:35:23.090 Greek pantheon receiving a particular sobriquet? 00:35:25.050 --> 00:35:28.590 Once the Roman soldiers took control over the northern part of the town, 00:35:28.591 --> 00:35:32.570 other sanctuaries were added to the northeastern section of Dura Europos. 00:35:32.930 --> 00:35:34.630 But I'm not going to talk about them. 00:35:34.930 --> 00:35:37.170 The X9, about which we know nothing. 00:35:37.410 --> 00:35:41.690 We have the Temple of the Roman Archers, about which we know nothing. 00:35:41.950 --> 00:35:47.330 We have a new, it's not even on the map, citadel temple with free graffiti to Zeus. 00:35:47.550 --> 00:35:53.350 And we have the temple believed to be the Temple of Jupiter Dolicanus. 00:35:55.090 --> 00:35:59.570 But until then, until these Roman temples were built, the first places of worship 00:35:59.571 --> 00:36:01.855 encountered when entering the town from the Euphrates 00:36:01.856 --> 00:36:06.650 remained the temple of which one was dedicated to Zeus, Theos. 00:36:07.210 --> 00:36:11.950 And the other, at least in a later phase, also received an important cult of Zeus, 00:36:12.890 --> 00:36:13.890 Megistus. 00:36:14.750 --> 00:36:19.010 Together with the major temples in the vicinity of the Agora, notably the Temple 00:36:19.011 --> 00:36:23.230 of Artemis, about which I'm not talking today, these must have presented an 00:36:23.231 --> 00:36:26.590 overarching picture of the religious life of Dura Europos. 00:36:26.591 --> 00:36:31.950 And this topographically suggested relevance matches the appearance of a 00:36:31.951 --> 00:36:36.330 priesthood of Zeus alongside priesthoods of Apollo, of the ancestors and of 00:36:36.331 --> 00:36:41.410 Seleucus Nicator in the peculiar dating formula of a deed of sale dated to AD 180. 00:36:42.010 --> 00:36:43.690 And this is a separate paper. 00:36:43.750 --> 00:36:44.990 I'm not going to give that now. 00:36:45.730 --> 00:36:50.470 To what degree this then implies continuity from the early Hellenistic 00:36:50.471 --> 00:36:54.010 period or whether it is a reinvention of tradition later on. 00:36:56.590 --> 00:37:00.910 How the multiple places of worship that were relatively hidden away towards the 00:37:00.911 --> 00:37:04.270 western city wall were perceived in this context remains to be debated. 00:37:04.790 --> 00:37:10.130 That Dura Europos offers, as the late Simon Price noted, wonderful evidence for 00:37:10.131 --> 00:37:13.410 people and cults living side by side is uncontroversial. 00:37:13.850 --> 00:37:18.130 But how the different deities and their temples were perceived in relation to each 00:37:18.131 --> 00:37:21.085 other and how these respective cults were experienced by 00:37:21.086 --> 00:37:24.470 Dura's inhabitants and visitors alike is more difficult to say. 00:37:24.471 --> 00:37:29.670 With a view to the town's religious topography, I have tried to make the case 00:37:29.671 --> 00:37:34.890 today that the division between a desert site and a river site both between 00:37:34.891 --> 00:37:38.670 inverted commas ought to be taken into account more when thinking about 00:37:38.671 --> 00:37:43.330 attendance patterns for the Durean sanctuaries and about how they were experienced. 00:37:43.630 --> 00:37:48.230 And perhaps one ought to give more priority to those temples that have 00:37:48.231 --> 00:37:52.330 received less scholarly attention simply because they were not quite as well 00:37:52.331 --> 00:37:54.450 preserved as those covered by the embankments. 00:37:54.470 --> 00:37:55.470 Thank you. 00:38:02.840 --> 00:38:03.960 Thank you so much. 00:38:04.400 --> 00:38:06.920 We have a few minutes for questions now. 00:38:07.160 --> 00:38:09.920 Thank you, some of you, to ask. 00:38:10.080 --> 00:38:11.320 Also, online... 00:38:15.090 --> 00:38:18.430 Those online, we have a few minutes for questions. 00:38:18.610 --> 00:38:20.770 You want to ask something. 00:38:27.390 --> 00:38:28.910 So, may I start? 00:38:31.150 --> 00:38:32.410 I don't see... 00:38:40.330 --> 00:38:41.330 Let's see... 00:38:46.090 --> 00:38:48.010 They haven't seen the PowerPoint? 00:38:48.390 --> 00:38:49.106 No. 00:38:49.130 --> 00:38:50.130 That's okay. 00:38:50.350 --> 00:38:52.050 Well... Thank you so much. 00:38:52.290 --> 00:38:55.910 I think the documentation of the Duru-Ropos is incredible. 00:38:56.350 --> 00:38:58.230 I'm always fascinated to hear about it. 00:38:59.430 --> 00:39:02.430 I have questions or remarks. 00:39:02.650 --> 00:39:06.757 I was impressed by the contrast between the first 00:39:06.758 --> 00:39:09.870 inscription you mentioned and the temple of... 00:39:11.390 --> 00:39:12.650 A flood? 00:39:12.770 --> 00:39:13.746 A flood. 00:39:13.770 --> 00:39:14.770 Eh... 00:39:14.890 --> 00:39:16.090 Because the worshippers... 00:39:16.670 --> 00:39:21.550 Because of the worshippers' insistence on the identity of the god and his 00:39:21.551 --> 00:39:27.970 provenance, and that makes a contrast in relation with the other temples that you 00:39:27.971 --> 00:39:34.070 mentioned about the seers, the different seers, Kyrios, Theos, or Megistus, 00:39:34.170 --> 00:39:36.030 because they are, like, very generic, right? 00:39:36.510 --> 00:39:39.643 We have that insistence on the identity of the god 00:39:39.663 --> 00:39:42.930 and the worshippers, and then, like, that generity. 00:39:44.670 --> 00:39:45.950 That's interesting. 00:39:46.370 --> 00:39:50.590 And I was wondering if we have the testimonies about the 00:39:50.591 --> 00:39:54.210 worshippers of these different seers, or their provenance. 00:39:54.850 --> 00:40:00.636 Can we identify their provenances, ethnic belongings, 00:40:00.637 --> 00:40:05.710 or do they give us a clue on how mixed they are? 00:40:05.950 --> 00:40:08.370 I mean... So, thank you. 00:40:08.490 --> 00:40:12.510 Any questions on the different forms of seers, I'm going to pass on to... 00:40:13.210 --> 00:40:13.530 Sorry. 00:40:13.531 --> 00:40:14.531 This is unfair. 00:40:16.130 --> 00:40:17.130 No, joking. 00:40:19.410 --> 00:40:24.330 So, the various things I want to say, but keep it short in my answer. 00:40:24.590 --> 00:40:30.510 So, the temple of Aflaat, I think two things are happening there. 00:40:32.310 --> 00:40:38.250 This inscription would suggest that a group of people with indigenous names, 00:40:38.430 --> 00:40:43.730 generally believed to be connected to Anat, because the god comes from Anat, 00:40:43.950 --> 00:40:50.190 had their own brotherhood and met separately. 00:40:50.430 --> 00:40:54.875 But inscriptions from the same temple, in Greek, are 00:40:54.876 --> 00:40:59.350 also showing the presence in the building by Ahopaioi. 00:40:59.770 --> 00:41:06.370 So, this inscription is only a partial picture. 00:41:07.770 --> 00:41:09.970 The Ahopaioi inscription should not be forgotten. 00:41:09.971 --> 00:41:17.170 And, yeah, I agree with Lucien Nadir for that. 00:41:17.730 --> 00:41:20.270 Aflaat of Anat is just an identity marker. 00:41:20.390 --> 00:41:22.750 But at the moment, they're going to explain where Anat is. 00:41:24.510 --> 00:41:30.350 If I'm going to tell you that I live in Durham, I will tell you where it is. 00:41:31.030 --> 00:41:34.871 If I talk to someone else from the north-east of the 00:41:34.872 --> 00:41:38.390 UK, I don't have to say precisely where Durham is. 00:41:38.510 --> 00:41:42.470 So, the fact is... The fact that it's the village on the Euphrates, I think that's... 00:41:42.471 --> 00:41:46.410 You wouldn't say that if this was just meant for people from that village. 00:41:47.610 --> 00:41:49.970 Anyway, that's debatable, but... 00:41:51.730 --> 00:41:59.730 So, this is clearly a specific deity whose cult is open to people from elsewhere, 00:42:00.130 --> 00:42:08.130 which fits in with my belief how religious life in Dura-Europos in general works. 00:42:08.630 --> 00:42:13.790 Polytheism works only when temples are, in principle, open to anyone. 00:42:13.970 --> 00:42:16.990 It doesn't mean that everybody goes to each temple all the time. 00:42:17.130 --> 00:42:21.390 But with the exception of the Mithraeum, and obviously the synagogue and the 00:42:21.391 --> 00:42:24.990 church, I don't believe you would be stopped at the gates. 00:42:25.030 --> 00:42:26.590 I'm sorry, you're not a member of this. 00:42:26.650 --> 00:42:29.730 You cannot... I mean, you cannot join the banqueting room. 00:42:29.810 --> 00:42:31.590 Yes, but surely you can go into the temple. 00:42:31.810 --> 00:42:34.410 Now, with the different forms of Zeus... 00:42:37.710 --> 00:42:41.490 So, you used the word generic, and I think that's actually really spot on. 00:42:41.590 --> 00:42:44.190 And that's one of the points I was making with Zeus-theos. 00:42:44.310 --> 00:42:45.186 It's just Zeus. 00:42:45.210 --> 00:42:51.170 I mean, it's not that Zeus-theos is not an epithet. 00:42:51.210 --> 00:42:55.930 It's just a label meaning God, like one does in Aramaic with Baal-alaha. 00:43:00.170 --> 00:43:03.590 Dura-Europos, as far as I see it, is a very typical small town. 00:43:04.530 --> 00:43:07.670 This was challenged by Simon Price, who said, no, it's an exception. 00:43:07.850 --> 00:43:09.310 What happens in Dura is exceptional. 00:43:09.650 --> 00:43:14.916 I believe what happens in Dura is extremely typical, 00:43:14.917 --> 00:43:17.890 with the exception of what the Pomeranians are doing. 00:43:18.590 --> 00:43:22.578 My argument would be that what makes Dura look 00:43:22.579 --> 00:43:25.810 different is the evidence for the Pomeranians. 00:43:26.210 --> 00:43:29.070 But that's because the Pomeranians are very different. 00:43:29.970 --> 00:43:33.470 Because if you study Palmyra, that's exceptional. 00:43:35.450 --> 00:43:37.910 Everything in Palmyra is looking west and east. 00:43:38.090 --> 00:43:41.184 Dura is, I think, a very typical small town with 00:43:41.185 --> 00:43:44.370 lots of Artemis Zeus and then village temples, etc. 00:43:45.490 --> 00:43:50.830 So it's the Pomeranian evidence that makes Dura look exceptional, not Dura itself. 00:43:52.170 --> 00:43:53.770 Anyway, that would be a different paper. 00:43:54.050 --> 00:43:59.650 So, but the main point is, and I'm sorry to disappoint there, because I'm well 00:43:59.651 --> 00:44:03.450 aware that I haven't really said a lot about the interaction between those cults. 00:44:03.451 --> 00:44:07.590 But for that, we really lack the evidence. 00:44:07.970 --> 00:44:15.490 Even with the most famous synagogue from antiquity and the earliest house church in 00:44:15.491 --> 00:44:19.210 the same street, we have no evidence for interaction. 00:44:19.370 --> 00:44:23.170 We assume that they must have known about each other's existence, but they can't. 00:44:23.310 --> 00:44:24.350 There's nothing. 00:44:25.230 --> 00:44:26.230 Thank you. 00:44:27.530 --> 00:44:28.386 Greta? 00:44:28.410 --> 00:44:29.346 Thank you so much. 00:44:29.370 --> 00:44:30.370 That's fascinating. 00:44:30.710 --> 00:44:32.270 And I was completely confused. 00:44:32.271 --> 00:44:39.610 Can you tell me a bit more about the descriptions, because I want the... 00:44:54.360 --> 00:44:59.300 Yes, so thank you for a very good question. 00:44:59.500 --> 00:45:00.980 Greek is the common language in Dura. 00:45:03.500 --> 00:45:04.400 Another paper. 00:45:04.401 --> 00:45:09.440 Another paper would be to emphasize that when we talk about... 00:45:09.441 --> 00:45:11.161 We always talk about Palmyra in scholarship. 00:45:11.300 --> 00:45:16.580 But Palmyra is, as Fergus Miller called it, a direct citation, Palmyra was the 00:45:16.581 --> 00:45:19.720 only publicly bilingual city in the Roman Near East. 00:45:20.660 --> 00:45:22.680 Page 470 in the Roman Near East. 00:45:23.080 --> 00:45:25.752 This is a running joke with my students that I know that 00:45:25.753 --> 00:45:27.793 that specific page name, but only that one by heart. 00:45:27.880 --> 00:45:29.640 But Palmyra is publicly bilingual. 00:45:29.860 --> 00:45:31.960 We never say it's not more Palmyra. 00:45:31.961 --> 00:45:34.260 We only say Palmyra, because that's the convention. 00:45:34.800 --> 00:45:39.080 Whereas we always say Dura-Europos, and Leviticus insists on Aeropos-Dura or 00:45:39.081 --> 00:45:44.120 Aeropos, and we abbreviate it to Dura, which is the indigenous label. 00:45:44.280 --> 00:45:49.000 But Dura hyphen Aeropos, or indeed Aeropos hyphen 00:45:49.001 --> 00:45:52.440 Dura, the main language in the town is Greek. 00:45:52.720 --> 00:45:55.620 And the Aramaic is only used... 00:45:55.621 --> 00:45:59.180 Well, Palmyra in Aramaic is used by the Palmyranes in Dura-Europos. 00:45:59.400 --> 00:46:01.880 There are a few inscriptions in Hartreen Aramaic. 00:46:01.881 --> 00:46:05.220 There's one or two in Syriac, so Edesse in Aramaic. 00:46:07.120 --> 00:46:10.074 Then there's quite a bit of Latin for the 00:46:10.075 --> 00:46:12.480 military, two Parsian dialects, some Saffaetic. 00:46:12.700 --> 00:46:17.060 So Dura has evidence for much more languages than Palmyra has. 00:46:17.640 --> 00:46:21.040 But in terms of public language, the city is Greek. 00:46:21.180 --> 00:46:23.300 Again, that's a point that Fergus Miller already made. 00:46:23.680 --> 00:46:27.060 Pars-Parsian Dura, there's nothing Parsian about Parsian Dura. 00:46:27.200 --> 00:46:30.540 When we look epigraphically, Parsian Dura is Greek. 00:46:30.541 --> 00:46:33.980 And even Roman Dura is Greek, apart from the military. 00:46:34.200 --> 00:46:40.360 So the fact that this inscription and also this one... 00:46:40.361 --> 00:46:45.740 So Selaikos, the name of the strategos, is a traditional Greek Macedonian name. 00:46:46.600 --> 00:46:51.257 But the fact that an inscription set up by people with 00:46:51.258 --> 00:46:54.880 indigenous names is in Greek is not surprising at all. 00:46:55.280 --> 00:46:58.080 That's the common language in Dura. 00:46:58.081 --> 00:47:00.960 What would be surprising is if they set up an inscription in Aramaic. 00:47:01.440 --> 00:47:04.860 We would like that to happen, but this is completely common. 00:47:05.160 --> 00:47:08.520 The public language in Dura, in Dura-Europos, is Greek. 00:47:09.240 --> 00:47:13.700 So from that perspective, we should call it Greek. 00:47:13.860 --> 00:47:14.980 But that's not his argument. 00:47:15.180 --> 00:47:16.380 So we should call it Aeropos. 00:47:17.440 --> 00:47:18.880 But that's not his argument. 00:47:21.560 --> 00:47:22.560 Oh, yeah. 00:47:23.620 --> 00:47:24.620 . 00:47:28.820 --> 00:47:29.820 That's good. 00:47:29.920 --> 00:47:32.260 Sorry, I was thinking how did you... Sorry. 00:47:32.360 --> 00:47:33.480 No, no, you're controlling it. 00:47:33.500 --> 00:47:33.756 Excellent. 00:47:33.780 --> 00:47:34.036 Sorry. 00:47:34.060 --> 00:47:35.060 This one? 00:47:37.870 --> 00:47:38.430 . 00:47:38.431 --> 00:47:41.370 You said the epiphysis from the sanctuary. 00:47:44.730 --> 00:47:49.750 So I don't really understand how you understand this exit. 00:47:50.150 --> 00:47:53.763 Because I studied this inscription in my thesis, and 00:47:53.764 --> 00:47:57.750 I thought it was like the epiphysis of the sanctuary. 00:47:57.990 --> 00:47:59.570 So for me, it was a lack of foundation. 00:47:59.571 --> 00:48:01.290 Of the sanctuary. 00:48:01.610 --> 00:48:04.470 I don't know if you would really want to see that. 00:48:04.610 --> 00:48:10.030 And also in relation to the sanctuary, to the archaeological sanctuary. 00:48:11.330 --> 00:48:13.630 Can we see this as a foundation? 00:48:15.690 --> 00:48:23.690 Also because Aramaic was founded for his own house. 00:48:24.590 --> 00:48:27.150 So it's like, it looks like a family home. 00:48:27.530 --> 00:48:28.530 . 00:48:29.110 --> 00:48:30.110 Thank you. 00:48:30.130 --> 00:48:30.346 Thank you. 00:48:30.370 --> 00:48:31.530 There's two different things. 00:48:32.490 --> 00:48:40.490 So the dedication, he sets this up as a vow for his own salvation and that of his 00:48:40.491 --> 00:48:46.890 children and of his whole house is the Greek version of, for the life of in 00:48:46.891 --> 00:48:51.910 Aramaic inscriptions from Hathrop or Myron and Edessa and Nabatea. 00:48:51.990 --> 00:48:57.890 So that is just, I set this up for myself, for my life, for my salvation. 00:48:57.891 --> 00:49:00.090 And that of my family and my household. 00:49:00.170 --> 00:49:02.490 That doesn't mean that therefore the cult is a family cult. 00:49:03.930 --> 00:49:05.090 I'm insistent on that. 00:49:05.550 --> 00:49:07.670 Your other, your first part of the question. 00:49:08.190 --> 00:49:08.846 Yes. 00:49:08.870 --> 00:49:11.990 So you say you would insist on of rather than from. 00:49:12.710 --> 00:49:13.586 Yeah. 00:49:13.610 --> 00:49:14.126 Sorry. 00:49:14.150 --> 00:49:19.990 To be honest, I, yeah, I'm not sure it makes that much of a difference. 00:49:20.110 --> 00:49:25.250 I am happy to go with what you say about that. 00:49:25.370 --> 00:49:26.890 This would be a foundation. 00:49:26.891 --> 00:49:28.710 A foundation of this cult. 00:49:29.030 --> 00:49:31.130 I think that's correct. 00:49:32.870 --> 00:49:37.730 The point is that a phaedrus is, and this is, this was long ago argued by 00:49:37.731 --> 00:49:42.799 Louis Robert, that that term implies that it's an actual 00:49:42.800 --> 00:49:49.010 copy of the cults, of the cults, cult relief in Anat. 00:49:49.230 --> 00:49:51.930 And I'm not, I'm not convinced by that either. 00:49:53.230 --> 00:49:54.230 Seriously? 00:49:54.330 --> 00:49:54.590 Yes. 00:49:54.591 --> 00:49:58.790 Because even if they claim this is a, I mean, it would only be true if we're 00:49:58.791 --> 00:50:03.248 dealing with a cult that is, that has an orthodoxy of 00:50:03.249 --> 00:50:09.270 iconography like Jupiter Lolicanus, like Jupiter Heliopolitanus. 00:50:09.370 --> 00:50:13.930 And the thing is, we know nothing about Aflaat apart from what we know from Douro. 00:50:14.690 --> 00:50:17.560 So it would be really nice if we found the cult, 00:50:17.561 --> 00:50:20.030 the centre of Aflaat on the island of Anat. 00:50:21.010 --> 00:50:24.070 And it has been, well, people have excavated on Anat. 00:50:24.590 --> 00:50:25.590 But not found anything. 00:50:25.790 --> 00:50:27.750 So it's not that large. 00:50:27.870 --> 00:50:28.826 So, but no, no. 00:50:28.850 --> 00:50:32.694 But yeah, I agree with you that this is, so I should 00:50:32.774 --> 00:50:35.690 have said of instead of from, that it's a foundation. 00:50:35.910 --> 00:50:36.446 Yeah. 00:50:36.470 --> 00:50:43.870 But that still doesn't mean that therefore it is indeed a direct copy of, it could be. 00:50:44.150 --> 00:50:49.970 I can say that I studied a little bit this term in my thesis and it's related to 00:50:49.971 --> 00:50:52.590 foundation, but it's not necessarily a copy of the statue. 00:50:53.090 --> 00:50:54.550 I could have understood it. 00:50:54.551 --> 00:50:59.550 It was like transferring some kind of material from the original sanctuary to 00:50:59.551 --> 00:51:01.733 the other one in relation with the foundation, 00:51:01.734 --> 00:51:04.110 but not necessarily a strict copy of the statue. 00:51:04.450 --> 00:51:08.750 It could be also remains of sacrifices or other substance. 00:51:09.310 --> 00:51:11.450 That's what I could understand. 00:51:11.710 --> 00:51:17.050 And I already, it sounds like related to the foundation, this act, this expression. 00:51:17.430 --> 00:51:18.430 Yeah. 00:51:20.990 --> 00:51:23.210 It's a shame that we have this term. 00:51:23.810 --> 00:51:29.470 In the context of a god who comes from Anat and we have no information about Anat. 00:51:30.490 --> 00:51:37.030 Whereas we have lots of information from Palmyra and from Pomeranian temples in 00:51:37.031 --> 00:51:43.090 Dura, where if this claim was made for a so-called Pomeranian temple in Dura, 00:51:43.190 --> 00:51:46.190 we could test it because we have the information back home in Palmyra. 00:51:46.390 --> 00:51:48.610 But then, yeah. 00:51:50.690 --> 00:51:52.490 But again, there would be different papers as well. 00:51:52.491 --> 00:51:53.491 Yes. 00:51:54.110 --> 00:51:55.410 Well, thank you so much. 00:51:55.530 --> 00:51:56.530 I think we can move on. 00:51:56.590 --> 00:51:59.490 Later on, we will have a longer discussion today. 00:51:59.670 --> 00:52:02.910 So we're going to start the first session. 00:52:04.170 --> 00:52:06.390 And the first participant is online. 00:52:06.610 --> 00:52:07.610 So see.