The exploration of Dura-Europos

Dura was intensively surveyed and excavated in a series of campaigns between 1920 and 2011. While starting in the colonial era, this has evolved into a truly international effort.

The first archaeologist to work at the site, for a single day when the Indian troops found the Terentius painting in 1920, was the American James Henry Breasted. Within a couple of years, with the site now part of French-ruled Syria, exploration of the city began in earnest.

The Belgian scholar Franz Cumont conducted important initial excavations (1922-23) , which discovered texts mentioning Dura's other name: Europos.

Cumont's pioneering work was followed by a major Franco-American project (the French Academy and Yale University) which saw ten seasons of excavations from 1928 to 1937. The expedition was the brainchild of the exiled Russian scholar Mikhail Rostovtzeff, who had settled at Yale. It was this large-scale project, sometimes involving over 300 local workers, which made most of the famous discoveries.

Little further work was conducted at the site until a new Franco-Syrian project was initiated in the mid-1980s by Pierre Leriche, la Mission Franco-Syrienne d’Europos-Doura (MFSED) and running annually until civil war broke out in 2011. On a more modest scale than the pre-war campaigns, it had the advantage of more sophisticated modern technology and techniques--and of fully involving Syrian scholars in the study of their own heritage. It made major achievements in conserving and presenting the site, and in further developing our knowledge of the history and development of the city through survey, renewed excavation, and analysis of finds and chronology.

My own involvement with Dura began with a study of the military artefacts in the French Academy-Yale expedition collection and archive at Yale University Art Gallery. More recently I was an associate researcher with MFSED, undertaking new survey and publication of the archaeology of the Roman military base in the city.