Dura-Europos under Parthian Rule
*No excuse is needed for returning again to the extraordinary series of dis-
coveries made at Dura-Europos in the s and s. Whatever reserva-
tions we may have as regards the presuppositions of those who undertook
these investigations, about their methods and procedures, and about the still
incomplete publication of their results, the work done there still represents
one of the most wonderful and creative chapters in the whole history of
archaeology.
It is perhaps worth briefly repeating the main lines of the story of exca-
vation at Dura, and subsequent publication, largely told in the posthumous
book by Clark Hopkins.^1 It began, with a single day’s visit, under the pro-
tection of British forces, by the Chicago Oriental Expedition of —the
visit which provided the only record of the then still undamaged frescoes in
what is now known (without any textual justification) as the ‘‘temple of Bel,’’
and which resulted in J. H. Breasted’s wonderfully evocative book of .^2
Already we can see what is at once the strength and the weakness of all the
work done at Dura—the determination of all the participants to interpret
(and to interpret immediately) whatever they found.
Breasted’s book, which so eloquently records the dangers of travel along
the Euphrates in the post-war period, had an introduction by Franz Cumont,
and it was he who in , and now under the protection of the French
*First published in J. Wiesehöfer, ed.,Das Partherreich und seine Zeugnisse(Historia-Einzel-
schriften , ), –.
.The Discovery of Dura-Europos().
. J. H. Breasted,Oriental Forerunners of Byzantine Painting: First-Century Wall Paintings
from the Fortress of Dura on the Middle Euphrates().