Archaeology Magazine — March-April 2018

18 ARCHAEOLOGY • March/April 2018

SEALS OF APPROVAL

FROM THE TRENCHES

A

rchaeologists working in the ancient city of Doliche,

now Dülük in modern-day Turkey, have uncovered

a large collection of 1 , 800 -year-old clay seals called

bullae, which date to the period when the city was part of the

Roman province of Syria. Many of the bullae appear to have

been used for official government business and show various

deities, including depictions of Roman emperors shaking hands

with Jupiter Dolichenus, a thunder and war god indigenous

to the area, whose cult spread across the Roman Empire in

the second and third centuries A.d. “It is one of the great

enigmas in the history of Roman religion that the main local

god from a second-tier city of the north Syrian hinterland

developed into one of the best attended cults of the empire,”

says Michael Blömer, codirector of the University of Münster

excavations. According to Blömer, “In one seal, the emperor

is actually shown worshipping Jupiter Dolichenus. This close

bond between a local deity and the emperor is a very peculiar

motif and points to a special connection between Doliche and

the imperial center.” This connection may partly explain how

the god became so popular.

—MarLey brown

Clay seals, Doliche, Turkey

Doliche, Turkey