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Table of Contents
Antioch of Pisidia Archaeologists had long been fascinated by the discovery of sixty fragments
of a copy of the famous Res Gestae Divi Augusti at Antioch, a military
base and eastern outpost of Roman civilization under the Emperor Augustus.
The original inscription had been set up in bronze in front of the mausoleum
of the Emperor Augustus in Rome to commemorate his noble deeds but had
been lost in the passage of time. The copy at Antioch of Pisidia had apparently
been inscribed in stone in a prominent position in the ancient town to
extol Augustus to his subjects in the Eastern Roman Empire. The University
expedition recovered some 200 additional fragments in 1924. In tracing
the exact placement of the inscription, archaeologists also discovered
the entrances to the temple area, the city square, enormous masses of
sculptural and architectural fragments, and ruined Roman and early Christian
buildings thought to have been brought down by successive earthquakes.
They recovered a fine marble portrait head of Augustus, a cast of which
is now at the Kelsey Museum. At the close of the season the staff uncovered
a monumental gateway, about 50 meters wide and 13 meters high in the southwest
part of the site and explored a stone aqueduct with many of its massive
arches still standing.
In 1925 Francis W. Kelsey conducted an investigation of the site of Carthage,
the ancient city-state founded by the Phoenicians in the middle of the
9th century B.C. and destroyed by Rome in 146 B.C. in the last Punic War.
The Washington Archaeological Society had asked Professor Kelsey and his
staff to investigate working conditions and to determine whether to invest
large sums of money for a complete excavation.
Before the University began its excavation at Kom Aushim, the site of ancient Karanis, the sebkheen (diggers for fertilizer) had plundered the mound looking for black dirt for their cotton crops. The heart of the mound had been dug to bedrock and resembled an extinct volcano. Yet these diggers had unearthed the glass and papyri that led the University expedition to believe that the site would prove rich in archaeological material. The first season convinced the staff that the site would, in fact, be the most productive of the three surveyed. In the ensuing years, archaeologists laid bare the plan of this Graeco-Roman town to the minutest detail in house construction and decoration, and peopled the houses and temples, the streets and passageways, by revealing the objects used long ago in daily life. According to Enoch Peterson:
In addition to providing archaeologists with a documentary history of the people who occupied this Egyptian city between Ptolemaic and Christian times, Karanis also offered a wealth of material for the economist, historian, sociologist, art historian, and linguist. A review of the research resulting from the Karanis excavation does, in fact, provide an excellent overview of what a major excavation offers scholars in many fields. According to the Topographical and Architectural Report of Excavations during the Season 1924-28 by A.E.R. Boak and E.E. Peterson, the crew and staff uncovered enough in the first season to show three strata of houses, differing in construction and separated somewhat by layers of sand and rubbish. The upper, middle, and lower layers were not, however, always clear-cut. But by the end of the second season occupation levels were shown to cover foundations of houses belonging to the Ptolemaic period; houses from the mid-1st through the close of the 3rd (Roman) century; and, at the top level, buildings representing the 4th and 5th Christian centuries. The staff developed a nomenclature for different levels of occupation and for the buildings, streets, and sectors of each level. Areas and levels were dated by such evidence as papyri, ostraca, coins, and pottery. The distribution of written evidence, when combined with the study of household architecture, helped the archaeologists understand how the town had changed through periods of prosperity and depression, and how patterns of daily life mirrored these larger economic fluctuations. Research on the many thousands of objects recovered at Karanis revealed how these ancient people cultivated their crafts, carried on their business, and conducted their domestic life. Three examples will suffice. In Ancient Textiles from Egypt in the University of Michigan Collection (1933) by Lilian M. Wilson, we learned what looms and techniques these ancient weavers used, what quality of textiles they produced and where the cloth was woven and used. Ms. Wilson studies over 3,000 fabric samples found at Karanis and, after determining the typical weaves, patterns, and workmanship, was able to establish which pieces were of local and which of foreign manufacture. The local fabrics lacked experimentation and fine work. They were produced not as a domestic activity but by an elementary factory system, and were used both locally and in trade. Similarly, in Roman Glass from Karanis by Donlad B. Harden, we learn that glass from Roman Egypt was a luxury and likely to be handed down for generations. Even when a vessel was broken, it was sometimes refashioned and reused. (This, of course, makes dating the glass difficult.) The rich finds at Karanis offered a wide range of information on the history of glass and provided a sequence of shapes, types, and fabrics. The specimens prove, for example, that although Egyptians were still producing some hand-molded bowls at the start of the second century, fine, colorless, blown glass flasks were prevalent. This dates the change from the modeling-molding-pressing to the blowing process in the 1st century. During the 3rd century new types of fabric were used and the mass production of cheap glass began. Thereafter, a steady coarsening of decoration and technique continued until Karanis evidence comes to an end in the 5th century. In an even more specific way do the 27,000 coins documented in Coins from Karanis by R. A. Haatvedt and E. E. Peterson bear witness to the general economic plight of residents of Karanis. Like the glass, the coins attest that Karanis had attained its greatest growth by the middle or end of the second century, when it also had its greatest prosperity. The coins also reflect the great economic insecurity people felt before the Diocletian currency reform, as proven by the great numbers of coins hoarded away. Before this reform, all money in circulation in Egypt was minted in Alexandria, and money from other provinces was not considered legal tender. Among the coin hoards found, for example, was a treasure of Roman Aurei in mint condition. "Perhaps," speculate the authors, "the hoard was the treasure of a Roman officer who brought it with him when he left Italy for his station in Egypt. He may have concealed it awaiting the day of his return to his homeland, since it could not be spent locally." In addition to illuminating the daily lives of these ancient people, the research on objects from Karanis provides scholars with systematic indices and appraisals of material from the site. Coins from Karanis, for example, presents a complete catalogue of every coin found, arranged by period and containing all known information about a given coin as well as a precise description of its obverse and reverse surfaces. For anyone doing research on the Roman Empire during the Karanis period, the volume provides a ready index. Concurrent with the excavation at Karanis, Dr. Peterson led a preliminary expedition to the Ptolemaic-Roman site of Soknopaiou Nesos (the modern Dimé) in 1931 and to Terenouthis in 1935. Peterson chose Soknopaiou Nesos to compare its chronology with that of Karanis and to see if it would yield results indicating its value as an independent excavation in the future. The finds were not particularly noteworthy, the levels obscure, and the difficulties of managing transportation and supplies immense. Three small groups of objects did, however, lend themselves to publication; "Customs Seals and Reciepts" and "Greek Inscriptions" by A.E.R. Boak, and "Coins of Dimé" by R.A. Haatvedt are included in the volume Soknopaiou Nesos; The University of Michigan Excavation at Dimé: 1931-32, published by the University of Michigan Press in 1935. Terenouthis, the modern Kom Abou Billou, was excavated during one short season. The site produced two hundred funerary stelae of the late 3rd and early 4th centuries, as dated by inscriptions and coins. The stelae belong to the last centuries of paganism in Egypt and suggest relationships between later materials and the earlier funerary art in Egypt. In general, they are crude and carelessly executed monuments, reflecting the decline and artistic stagnation of Egypt during this period. They do, however, point ahead in certain respects to the Christian art which followed. As published in Funerary Stelae from Kom Abou Billou by F.A. Hooper, the stelae reveal information not only about pagan and early Christian symbolism and craftsmanship, but also about sociological factors. The average age of death, for instance, at Kom Abou Billou was 32.88, with a much lower percentage of women than men surviving between 15 and 45 years. In fact, the average age of those who escaped an especially dangerous childhood was 28.49 for women and 36.89 for men. The most common epitaph read "died prematurely." Connected with these expeditions to Karanis and nearby sites was the purchase of papyri in Egypt. While much of this material dealt with Roman administrative matters and day-to-day affairs (see Research News, April, 1964), there were also fragmentary early papyrus codices containing Biblical texts. The Gospel of John in the Fayumic dialect of Coptic is of particular importance both for the study of Coptic versions of the New Testament and for a better knowledge of the history of the development of Coptic dialects. The text has been transcribed from the manuscript line for line in The Gospel of John in Fayoumic Coptic edited by Elinor M. Husselman. The fragments were deeply discolored and the writing faint and frequently much abraded, but 29 folios represented by fragments of greater or lesser extent were identified. The painstaking work of deciphering the lines on each page; of comparing the text with others already known; of dating by comparison with other papyri; and of understanding irregularities in dialect, text, and paleography, made the task arduous. The work was further complicated because standardization and purification of dialect in Biblical texts came at a much later date than these papyri, and only as a result of work in monastic scriptoria. A discussion of the dialect, a list of readings from texts in three other dialects of Coptic, and indices of Coptic and Greek words and proper names make the publication extremely useful in the study of early Biblical texts.
Concurrent with the excavation at Karanis, Dr. Peterson led a preliminary expedition to the Ptolemaic-Roman site of Soknopaiou Nesos (the modern Dimé) in 1931 and to Terenouthis in 1935. Peterson chose Soknopaiou Nesos to compare its chronology with that of Karanis and to see if it would yield results indicating its value as an independent excavation in the future. The finds were not particularly noteworthy, the levels obscure, and the difficulties of managing transportation and supplies immense. A summary of the expedition is included in Soknopaiou Nesos; The University of Michigan Excavation at Dimé: 1931-32 (University of Michigan Press, 1935)
Terenouthis, the modern Kom Abou Billou, was excavated during one short
season. The site produced two hundred funerary stelae of the late 3rd
and early 4th centuries, dated by inscriptions and associated coins. The
stelae continue the often syncretistic iconographic traditions of Egypt
and suggest relationships between later materials and the earlier funerary
art of Egypt. Although rudimentarily executed, the stelae reveal a wealth
of information not only about pagan and early Christian symbolism and
craftsmanship, but also about sociological factors. The average age of
death, for instance, at Kom Abou Billou was 32.88, with a much lower percentage
of women than men surviving between 15 and 45 years. In fact, the average
age of those who survived childhood was 28.49 for women and 36.89 for
men. The most common epitaph read "died prematurely."
The economic significance of this region, the juncture of the Iranian plateau with the two rivers of Mesopotamia, had been fully realized and exploited in the millennia prior to the existence of Seleucia. It was in search of one of her predecessors, Opis, that excavations at Seleucia were undertaken by Professor Leroy Waterman of the University of Michigan. In a survey of Babylonian topography, Professor Waterman's attention was drawn to two mounds on the west bank of the Tigris across the river from Ctesiphon. One of these mounds lay one mile northwest of the river, and its great size suggested that it was the site of an important city, and that, at one time, the river had flowed beside it. Professor Waterman's hypothesis was confirmed by aerial photographs taken by the Royal Air Force stationed in Baghdad. Believing that the site he was searching for, Opis, lay beneath the mound identified as Seleucia, Waterman began excavations December 29, 1927, and continued (interrupted at times by the depression) for six seasons until 1937. Under the auspices of the University of Michigan, the excavations were carried out on behalf of the American School of Oriental Research of Baghdad with funds supplied by the Toledo Museum of Art and the Cleveland Museum of Art. The first five seasons (1927-1932) were under the directorship of Professor Waterman, and in the final, sixth season, Professor Clark Hopkins, also from the University of Michigan, acted as General Director. (The University of Michigan excavations, incidentally, did not find Opis below Seleucia.) Seleucia was founded by Seleucus Nicator, a general of Alexander the Great who, after the death of Alexander in 323 BC, secured for himself the Middle East from the Mediterranean to India. He located his new Hellenistic city on the Tigris and it became the eastern capital of the Seleucid Empire. In 141 BC, the Parthians under Mithridates conquered the city, and Seleucia became the western capital of the Parthian Empire. In subsequent centuries, the ruins were buried under mounds of desert sand. In the preliminary excavation of the site, archaeologists uncovered three levels of occupation (later expanded to four) and over a thousand objects, plus signs of older Babylonian occupation. At the same time, airphotos and airmaps of the regions - in one of the earliest applications of aerial photography to archaeology - confirmed the rectangular pattern of streets indicating a major city. After verifying the site as Seleucia, Waterman and his expedition began extensive excavations. By the 1929-30 season, the team had cleared a block of houses from Level I (115-227 AD) and a more elaborate building, dedicated to Seleucus as founder of the empire. It contained twenty-one rooms around three sides of a quadrangular court. Waterman's Second Preliminary Report (1928-32) describes the excavation of the same block through three distinct levels of occupation, those being: A) The Parthian occupation level, known as Level II (43-116 AD), B) Level III (141 BC-43 AD) during which the Hellenistic city was autonomous under Parthian rule, and C) Level IV (307-141 BC), in which the city was a Seleucid capital. In the course of these excavations archaeologists recovered over 3,500 objects. These included inscriptional material such as a cuneiform tablet, fragments of Greek inscriptions, stamped and inscribed objects, Parthian and Seleucid coins, and over 259 bitumen seal impressions or "bullae". Figurines, pottery, and other objects of everyday use were also recovered in abundance. While most of these objects could be dated between 290 BC and 200 AD, the 1932 excavation of Tel Umar, the most prominent mound at Seleucia, brought to light in an outer wall of the Parthian period a reused brick dated by stamp to 821 BC, during the Neo-Babylonian period. Since archaeological materials abounded, it was possible to reconstruct private life, the business, and the arts and crafts of the ancient city. Of preponderant interest to scholars, however, was Seleucia's role as a zone of cultural mediation and exchange between East and West. In the Near East, the birthplace of so many forces still active in current affairs, the lack of knowledge of the Parthian and of the Sassanian periods had long blocked attempts to reconstruct a continuous history for the region. Discoveries at Seleucia have done much to illuminate these regional "Dark Ages". In studying the history of oriental architecture during the centuries after Alexander's conquest, for example, art historians turn to Seleucia on the Tigris, since for generations it remained the most important center of post-Alexandrian Greek civilization in the Middle East. Its architecture, according to Dr. Waterman, represents a "missing link" between Hellenistic and Sassanian styles which shows the results of blending Greek with Eastern elements. One type of object which is highly illustrative of such cultural blending is the Seleucid decorative stucco. In Seleucia, decorative plaster was employed in and about courtyards, important rooms, and building entrances, and was, in fact, one of the most common decorative materials. In terms of the style of such stucco, while some motifs at Seleucia clearly derive from Graeco-Roman designs common to the Near East, other motifs show the strong influence of Eastern design. The four or six petalled circle rosette cut into a flat surface, for example, indicates Parthian influence. The deep overall repeat of the rosette pattern was particularly adaptable to plaster, and was, by Parthians, translated into the stucco grillwork now so commonly associated with the Middle East. While the presence of Hellenistic motifs in shallow relief might suggest a western origin, scholars agree, on the basis of excavation of Seleucia, that the use of decorative stucco in designs of light and shadow probably entered Mesopotamia with the Parthians, who early adapted it to the traditional Hellenistic house plans and decorative themes. Of incomparable value to the historian of the Near East has been the research conducted on the pottery of Seleucia. The Kelsey Museum has the largest collection of Parthian ceramics outside Iraq. Parthian Pottery from Seleucia on the Tigris by Nelson C. Debevoise treats the nearly 1,600 Seleucian vessels that remained intact or sufficiently complete to provide a drawing shape. Debevoise records the history of Parthian ceramics in a city that was for two centuries the cultural center of Hellenistic life in "the land of the two rivers". Second only to coins as dating material, the products of the potter's wheel provide one of the best chronological scales for archaeologists. Owing to the very nature of the material, however, pottery seldom remains intact and rarely bears a date. Archaeologists must therefore depend on catalogues of comparative material, none of which existed in the field of Parthian ceramics before the University's expedition to Seleucia. To devise a satisfactory system of chronology for dating the pottery, Debevoise first reviewed the coins (see Coins from Seleucia on the Tigris, by Robert H. McDowell), some 30,000 of which were found at Seleucia, half with a definite provenance. Since these were datable and occurred with pottery at all levels, they provided a fairly accurate chronological index for the Parthian period. Debevoise also referred to McDowell's research on dated clay seals pertaining to taxes, salt, and slaves in order to obtain further points of chronological reference vis-a-vis the Parthian pottery. Once the chronology of the ceramics was established, it was possible to deduce other information. Research revealed that Seleucian pottery was made from local clay on a true potter's wheel, with a few pot covers and certain irregular shapes that were made by hand being the exception. When completed, the pot was removed with a piece of string from the wheel and was set aside to dry before firing. Some very thin ware was reworked before firing, and handles were stuck on after drying had progressed to a certain point. Kilns were probably fired with bundles of camel thorn, a bush that still grows in the region. In manufacture, great care in technique is apparent from the earliest levels excavated. Seleucia reached the peak of its prosperity under the Hellenistic Greeks and this economic wealth was reflected in careful workmanship. With the growth in political and economic importance of the Parthian city of Ctesiphon across the river, Seleucia probably suffered a slow decline, reflected in the increasing carelessness of manufacture and glazing and even in a decline in the amount of pottery in use. Similarly, changes in shape of cooking pots and storage jars are easily observable at different levels of excavation. The greater part of the pottery from Seleucia was discovered where the inhabitants left it, discarded and broken; only a small percent was taken from graves. The tombs of the dead of Seleucia were in the abodes of the living. Samuel Yeivin's research showed that some bodies were disposed of in walls or under floors without protection of any sort, but the great majority were covered by some kind of superstructure or placed in pottery coffins or jars or, for children and infants, in ordinary cooking pots. The inferior materials, workmanship, and cheap, drab appearance of the pottery coffins throughout the uppermost level corroborate other evidence that this was a period of great economic and cultural decline. Some cultural change in the burials between levels II and III is evident: otherwise, mortuary customs appeared relatively consistent reflecting the belief that the dead would require the pottery, glassware, jewelry and other articles of daily use in the thereafter, and that a coin, usually placed in the palm or on the mouth, would be necessary to pay the captain of the ferry to the underworld. Close examination of burial practices has led to a somewhat more detailed understanding of the history of the ancient city. Further knowledge of how the people of Seleucia lived and how their city was arranged came from an unexpected source. In "A Birds-Eye View of Opis and Seleucia", Clark Hopkins used the aerial photographs of Seleucia as an aid in interpreting the overall topographical arrangement of the city, and the conduct of its business and trade. The photographs suggest where the old bed of the Tigris touched the city, where the docks were, and where the canal from the Euphrates may have connected the city to traffic on that river. "Not only do the carefully formed streets form a regular network", writes Hopkins, "but the whole city exhibits a balanced plan of a master architect". Excavation has disclosed very little change in the general aspect of the city in the course of its history. Despite varying styles in arts, crafts, and architecture, and despite the city's many vicissitudes, the general Hellenistic plan as reproduced by aerial photography has remained intact. Further definitive information on the city can be found in The Topography and Architecture of Seleucia on the Tigris, edited by Clark Hopkins. It includes sections on "The Architectural Decoration" by Bernard Goldman, and "The History of Seleucia from Classical Sources" by Robert G. McDowell.
In the autumn of 1930, with private funds provided for excavation in Palestine, Leroy Waterman left Seleucia, visited Palestine, and secured a concession to excavate at the modern Arab village of Suffuriyye (the ancient Sepphoris). It is situated on a rocky mound above the adjoining plains four miles northwest of Nazareth. The historic fame and associations of Sepphoris had given it a high rank in antiquity, and its archaeological interest lay in the progression of civilizations that had made use of the site. Since the area most available for excavation consisted of the grounds of the village school, work was conducted during the summer recess in 1931. The school had once been a fort commanding the summit of the hill and incorporated a large stone wall assigned to the period of the Crusades (c. 1200). But stones for this wall were from still older buildings and cemeteries. In fact, according to a report by N.E. Manasseh, most of the cornerstones were Roman sarcophagi filled with rubble and dressed to adapt to Crusader masonry. In clearing away debris from around the fort, the traces of an older and larger building which appeared to be Jewish were uncovered. In addition, archaeologists found the ruins of an old Christian church, the floor of which rested on bedrock. Manasseh dates the basilica, apse, and baptismal font from the time when Christianity was still unrecognized and its rites practiced in secret. One of the chief architectural results of the expedition was the discovery and partial excavation of a very well-built Graeco-Roman theater on the northwest side of the citadel which in its time seated from 4,000 to 5,000 people. Coins were found during work at the site dating from the second century B.C. to the ninth century A.D. and there was some archaeological evidence of pre-Hellenic occupation. The two months' work on the site, according to Dr. Waterman's Preliminary Report, was to have been only a beginning, but the Depression prevented further excavation.
In 1956 a reconnaissance expedition set out from the University of Michigan to look for promising sites to excavate in the Near East. The expedition was directed by Professor George Forsyth, who, until 1961, was Chairman of the Department of History of Art. After traveling through five Near Eastern countries, the staff spent five days at St. Catherine's Monastery at Mt. Sinai, the Mount of Moses. The Monastery, an isolated stronghold the size of a city block, lies against one slope of a steep-sided wadi, or watercourse. Behind the Monastery's ramparts a small band of monks continues the tradition of retirement from this world and preparation for the next. St. Catherine's is one of the oldest active monasteries in existence - a timeless miniature town from another age. The Monastery's splendid art and architecture so impressed the reconnaissance party that they undertook to interest the University of Michigan in a full-scale study and publication of the original buildings and art they contain. The University was then joined in the enterprise by Princeton University and the University of Alexandria. Since excavation proved to be impossible for religious reasons, this was to become a unique expedition for the Kelsey Museum - one that consisted entirely of description, measurement, and photography. The Monastery and its church are among the finest surviving examples of Byzantine architecture, housing collections of priceless Byzantine religious art and manuscripts. The Byzantine Emperor Justinian the Great erected the Monastery in the 6th century as a fortress and shrine on the traditional site of the Burning Bush of Moses. The Monastery church has undergone little basic change since that time. Its great western portal is still closed by the original wood door, fourteen hundred years old, which functions perfectly on its first pins and hinges. The wood roof of the nave, also of 6th-century date, rests on beams that bear inscriptions honoring Justinian and his famous wife Theodora. These inscriptions had been reported by travelers as far back as the 18th century, but not until the 1958 expedition was a careful study made of them in relation to the church structure. The inscriptions mention "our most pious Emperor" Justinian and his "late Empress" Theodora. Theodora died in 548 and Justinian in 565, so that the church was completed between those years. Thus the expedition guaranteed the authenticity of the inscriptions and also narrowed the traditional 6th-century date for the completion of the church to a 17-year band of time. Under the supervision of Professor Forsyth, the first large-scale, scientific drawings of the church and Monastery were prepared for publication. Also of outstanding importance as works of art and as historical documents are the icons, mosaics, wall paintings, and miniatures. The most famous of them is the mosaic of the Transfiguration in the apse over the high altar, one of the noblest monuments of early Byzantine art. Careful study of the mosaic's surface revealed that it had not been seriously tampered with since its completion 1400 years ago and that centuries of incense and candle smoke had given it a beautiful patina of age. During examination from the scaffolding, however, the precarious state of the whole figure of Christ became apparent. The "skin" of tessarae - the small cubes of glass set in mortar - had become detached from the vault of the apse and was hanging so loosely that the touch of a finger would indent it. The whole thing might have collapsed at any moment. Mosaic restorers were hastily summoned from Istanbul, and the incipient calamity was averted by injecting a new mortar bed behind the "skin." Later the entire mosaic was cleaned, so that it now appears as it did in Justinian's time. These expeditions were widely heralded in journals and in such magazines as National Geographic (January 1964), and in Research News (August 1962), and preliminary specialized articles appeared in the Papers published by the Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies. Professor Forsyth presented a paper at the 1967 Dumbarton Oaks Symposium devoted to the age of Justinian and lectured extensively on this subject in the United States. Representatives of the three collaborating universities are Professor Ahmed Fikry of Alexandria, Professor George Forsyth of Michigan, and Professor Kurt Wietzmann of Princeton. The Sinai Archive currently resides within the University of Michigan department of the History of Art. Inquiries can be addressed in writing directly to the department.
The excavation of Qasr al-Hayr Sharqi, a medieval Islamic town partially buried under Syrian sand, provided Near Eastern scholars with important information about the history of a region previously considered barren. The site lies in the center of the semi-arid zone between the fertile Euphrates Valley and Damascus. By its placement at the foot of one of the few mountain passes in the central Syrian desert, it commanded a commercial and strategic position of importance between settled and nomadic groups. The site consisted of an outer wall nearly 12 miles long, with round towers, two enclosures, a mosque, olive presses, a large bath, an elaborate canalization and water-control system, and an artificially developed area for agriculture. Excavation of the four main units - the outer wall, small enclosure, bath, and large enclosure - provided basic architectural evidence and an abundance of ceramic, stucco, glass, and bronze materials. The stout outer wall appeared to have safeguarded residents from animals and marauders, with a sluice system to protect against natural floods. It also produced a very elaborate water supply system, but certain questions remain about how the water was conducted. (It is known that the surrounding land was kept fertile through irrigation.) The large enclosure was apparently an administrative and aristocratic living center with axial streets connecting four main gates. Within were the mosque, two olive press rooms, a large cistern with an elaborate system of canalization leading to regions outside the wall, and seven similar large living units. The small structure, with its massive facade, was originally thought to have been a princely palace, but Dr. Grabar challenged this conception in "Three Seasons of Excavations at Qasr al-Hayr Sharqi" (Ars Orientalis, Vol. 8, 1970). Because of the total lack of architectural detail and artwork, and because the internal arrangement of the building was undifferentiated, relatively unlighted, and lacking in such features as entranceways with benches and other waiting areas, he suggested that it was less likely a palace than a Khan, a trade enclosure of monumental proportions. Such an establishment would be expected at a commercially important site. A large bath nearby with partly preserved mural paintings served the needs of both travelers and of local inhabitants. Architectural evidence and ceramics, stucco decorations, and other materials reflect a development and decline at Qasr al-Hayr Sharqi that closely coincides with that of the general area. The buildings appear to have been completed over a 75-year period before and during the 8th century, after which there is evidence of decline and destruction by fire in the 10th century, a renaissance in the 11th century, and final abandonment in the 14th century. Thereafter the site was used only as a temporary shelter in the desert. Scholars from a variety of disciplines have found the excavation at Qasr al-Hayr valuable. For Near Eastern scholars, it has provided an opportunity to reconstruct and study the physical setting of the urban civilization of Medieval Islam. Some known sites, such as Damascus and Aleppo, have been occupied without interuption and have undergone so many alterations that their early Islamic character can be ascertained only partially. Others, such as the Abbasid "Round City" of Baghdad or the palace-cities of Sammarra and Raqqa, have symbolic plans and special functions. Still others, especially in Iran, are so extensive in size that a detailed archaeological investigation is hardly possible. To outline the main features of the early Islamic urban setting, it is therefore necessary to compile data from several diffferent towns of this period. One such town is Qasr al-Hayr Sharqi. For the cultural historian, the site has provided an excellent source for establishing a profile of an urban type on the edge of the desert. In this regard, Qasr al-Hayr exemplifies a regional center with a minimal permanent population and a supporting agricultural population that made good use of irrigated land. For the archaeologist, the town furnished a ceramic sequence for comparison with other Syrian and Mesopotamian sites, and its elaborate water establishments offered a useful dictionary of techniques of water control, conduction, storage, and utilization. For the architectural historian, the site yielded a completely new type of commercial establishment. And, since there has been no occupation of the town over the past six centuries, scholars from other fields have an unprecedented opportunity to study an early Islamic urban site. The site was excavated under the sponsorship of the Kelsey Museum with additional funds from the Center for Near Eastern and North African Studies, the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies, the Roy-Neuberger and Laird-Norton Foundations, and a grant from Harvard University.
Libyan Apollonia, the modern Marsa-Susa, was the seaport of ancient Cyrene. It lies on the North African coast almost directly south of the western end of Crete. The modern village is composed largely of descendants of Moslem refugees from Crete who settled in Cyrenaica in 1897. The ancient city is, however, free from occupation and its heavy Hellenistic walls lie along the shore some one hundred yards from the present beach. Outlines of ancient harbors exist in the offshore islands and the underwater remains, but the sea has battered down the wall, engulfed many of the harbor installations, and encroached some fifty meters on the old seaport. According to Clark Hopkins, "the University of Michigan was attracted to the site in part by its size, commensurate with a limited budget, and was not deterred by the (archaeological) work already done. Apollonia has a history of a thousand years, and it was our hope to aid in piecing together the evidence for the various periods in her long career. We were very much interested in the Byzantine period but hoped we might aid especially in filling out the background in Roman and Hellenistic times." In fact, the history of Apollonia ranges from the 6th century B.C. to the 6th century A.D., and while early investigations dealt with the harbor, sea gate, and city walls of pre-Hellenistic and early Hellenistic periods, the site also commanded interest as the capital of the Byzantine pentapolis. The ducal palace and the three churches attracted the research attention of scholars working on the Byzantine period. During the first year, Professor Hopkins concentrated on the area of the sea gate which lies beside the round tower on the shore of the city, and also did underwater work on the sunken early harbor. The ancient road was cleared in hopes that the strata above and below would give clues to the date of the founding of the city, or at least its earliest period. But Hopkins and his staff found that the paving stones had been torn up in the later period and no clear strata remained. During the following years of excavation, however, when professors Pedley and White concentrated on the perimeter fortifications, an "unknown structure" within the city walls, and the site of the extra-mural Doric temple, evidence appeared to suggest a founding date. In several test trenches sunk against the bases of the tower and in front of the blocked gate, potsherds retrieved from the lowest strata suggested a date no earlier than the last quarter of the 4th century B.C. for the construction of the round tower, a date consistent with evidence provided by excavation elsewhere around the perimeter. The entire defensive wall system of towers and walls was constructed at the same time. The "unknown structure" within the city walls turned out to be an elaborate bathing establishment that was never completed. The foundation, the floor of the heating system, the furnaces, and the general intended plan of the dressing room, cold, tepid, hot, and plunge baths were apparent. But while the masonry within did not seem contemporary Byzantine by comparison with the masonry of the palace of the Byzantine duke close by, Pedley believes it unlikely that the baths would have been begun during the lifespan of the Roman bath in Apollonia, which was in use until severely damaged by the great earthquake of 365. Why work was stopped before the plumbers went in and why this Late Roman building was never completed remain mysteries. The shell of the building survived untouched, according to Pedley, until it was decided to fill in the yawning gaps with debris. Coins, pottery, and glass were recovered in great quantities from this fill, and coins of Heraclius (610-641) from the lowest levels of this fill were the objects of latest date retrieved. It appeared to the archaeologists that the fill had all been deposited at the same time, in the first quarter of the 7th century. After the fill had been shoveled in, squatters appeared on the scene. They laid irregular floors and closed doorways connecting units whose walls still projected above the fill. Circular stones set in the floors perhaps served to support poles for a rickety roof. These shabby squatters were the last inhabitants of Byzantine Apollonia. About one kilometer to the west of the city, between the Moslem cemetery and the sea, members of the expedition came upon the leveled platform of an ancient temple. The temple was oriented east-west, and the approach, now as in the past, rose obliquely from the road that links Apollonia with Cyrene. After clearing, the temple area revealed cuttings in bedrock to receive the lowest course of the temple's substrate and several architectural members, among them an almost intact Doric captial. The capital has been studied thoroughly and Pedley believes it will prove invaluable in reconstructing the elevation. As for the temple plan, mathematical calculations, pending further investigation, suggest that it was hexastyle. The excavation was extremely successful in establishing the date of the city wall, the identification of the bath, and Apollonia's first pagan religious structure, the extra-mural Doric temple. In addition, the expedition traced the water supply system and produced a complete and precise plan of the site. While University archaeologists were working at Apollonia in the spring of 1966 the Libyan government was constructing houses for workers in what was intended to be the new village of Shahat (Modern Cyrene). The old Shahat spreads over much of the ancient Hellenistic city of Cyrene, which the government hoped to save for archaeological research. While digging foundations for the new village, construction workers discovered a small ancient aqueduct, a hillock with plain stone sarcophagi, a small circular monument, and, in a quarry, what appeared to be very ancient statues and bronzes. They called in archaeologists working at nearby Apollonia to examine the site and thus began the Kelsey Museum's involvement at Cyrene. The quarry produced a sculptured body of a Greek sphinx, the torso of a youth (Kouros), a headless statue of a maiden (Kore I), and three fragments constituting a second maiden (Kore II). The Kouros was a life-size marble torso, with head and lower legs missing. Comparison with dated forms of the same type places it at 540 B.C. Both Kore I, the most complete statue, of very formal design, and Kore II are dated at about 560-550 B.C. The Cyrene sphinx and its capital and column, found in eight fragments, are placed at between 570 and 500 B.C. Restoration of the sphinx, its capital, and the column had begun in 1967, but in June of 1968 workmen found, to their amazement and to the delight of archaeologists, the head of the sphinx, producing a rare example of very early Greek sculpture in North Africa, and one of the best preserved and largest of a small, select company of archaic, columnal dedications. Dr. White wrote in The American Journal of Archaeology (January 1971) that it is likely that the Sphinx and other statues came from the earliest Sanctuary of Zeus at Cyrene and that the burial in the quarry may have been undertaken after their mutilation by a hostile agency. This would coincide with the attack by the Persians, recorded by Herodotus to have occurred in 515-514 B.C. Thus the statues, produced about 550 B.C., may have been mutilated and buried only thirty-five years later.
The Kelsey Museum undertook two seasons of excavation in Cyrene under the direction of Donald White. The excavations actually took place outside the city walls across a steep wadi from Cyrene at the sanctuary of Demeter. Survey and clearance showed that the sanctuary was built on at least four major terraces constructed in cut stone against the south slope of the wadi. Surveys in the sanctuary's environs brought to light a narrow staircase leading down the cliff face on the city side, with bridge foundations at the wadi bottom, indicating the route for worshippers to enter the lower terrace from some point in the southern wall of the city. In his preliminary description of the archaeological work in progress, Dr. White described the excavation as follows:
After a preliminary survey in 1971 by Professor George Mendenhall of the University's center for Near Eastern Studies, the Kelsey Museum in conjunction with Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., undertook the excavation of the primarily late Roman-Byzantine-Islamic site at Dibsi Faraj, Syria. Because the site would be inundated in early 1974 through the construction of the dam at Raqqa on the Euphrates, archaeologists scheduled a spring and fall season for both 1972 and 1973. The expedition included members of the staff of Dumbarton Oaks, of the University of Michigan, and students of Classical Art and Archaeology who hold Ford Foundation Archaeological Traineeships. |
