Dura-Europos: The 'Pompeii of the Desert' and the Oldest Known House Church

On a high cliff above the Euphrates, south-east of Deir ez-Zor, lie the ruins of a city archaeologists nicknamed "the Pompeii of the Desert". No volcano buried it — its own soldiers did, and the sand kept what they buried for more than sixteen hundred years.

A frontier city

The Macedonians who succeeded Alexander founded the city around 300 BC; then the Parthians ruled it, and later it became a Roman fortress on the frontier with Persia. Greeks, Semitic peoples, Jews, Christians and worshippers of many gods lived there, and each built their own temple.

The fall in 256

As the Sasanian Persians advanced, the Roman defenders filled the street along the western wall with earth and sand to strengthen it, burying the houses and temples next to the wall. The city fell anyway, around 256, and was abandoned. But the buried buildings survived, painted walls and all, until they were uncovered in the twentieth century.

The oldest known house church

Among what survived is a house converted into a church around the 230s — the oldest precisely identified Christian place of worship in the world. It has a baptistery and some of the earliest Christian paintings: the Good Shepherd, the healing of the paralytic, Christ walking on water. These paintings went to Yale University in the United States, which took part in the excavations.

The painted synagogue

Close by stood a synagogue whose walls were entirely covered in coloured paintings of scenes from the Hebrew Bible — something unknown before its discovery. The synagogue was moved to the National Museum of Damascus and reassembled in its own hall, one of the museum's greatest treasures.

The site today

Dura-Europos was heavily looted during the war years and is not set up for visits at present. The best way to see its treasures today is to visit the National Museum in Damascus — check its hours and which halls are open.

See also Ugarit and the oldest alphabet and Ebla and its archive.

Site

Salhiyeh, south-east of Deir ez-Zor

Founded

c. 300 BC

Fell

c. 256 AD

See its treasures

National Museum, Damascus