Dura Europos horse armor

 Salvete Omnes,

some years ago I posted about prof. Rostovtzeff's reports on the excavations at Dura Europos, a Roman fortress on the Euphrates frontiers that was captured, after a siege, by the Sassanians and never again functioned as a town & fortress. 
Dura Europos site is the sources of the Graffito of the heavy cavalryman 

and the horse armor that was preserved there within the destroyed town.

 Nowadays it is being preserved at the Yale University. 

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Sassanian helmet from Dura

enjoy

Valete

Dura Europos and recent research - podcast

 Salvete Omnes,

 

just a link to a podcast on the ancient military history and archaeology in context of the famous archaeological site of the Roman  fortress of Dura known as Dura-Europos, in present day Syria. 

I came across this podcast - The Ancients.
and one of their interviews includes a conversation/interview with Simon James, professor from the university of Leicester, author of the The Roman military base at Dura-Europos, Syria: an archaeological visualisation. (2019) - the review on .

 

The conversation is quite interesting, and easy to follow, even for many a person with rather little or no knowledge on the ancient world of this area and period.
Prof. James makes references to the present state of affairs, i.e., tremendous looting of the ancient sites during the current Syrian wars.
I am going to read the book, meantime you can read prof. James' article on the combat, stratagems, and chemical warfare aspects of the siege of Dura (from Academia).

ps

and if you like to read some good story telling - Harry Sidebottom's novel - 'Fire in the East' centered on the fictional siege of a Roman fortress on Euphrates, based on Dura and Amida sieges, is a very engaging historical novel - including lots of horse riding, fighting, old fashioned martial fidelity and passion, and last but not the least hunting lions on horseback in the desert. 

Valete

NG list of looted, damaged and destroyed sites in the Middle East

Salve,
a sad list here - the National Geographic published a tentative list of the damaged, looted and destroyed
I always wonder if without the invasion of Iraq and the Arab Spring/Syrian Civil War these places would have survived and been preserved like before the war.

The ancient city of Palmyra tops the list, I wrote about the site and dr Khaled Asaad,the archaeologist who died, AD 2015, defending the integrity of this place on my blog in the past since they recaptured the town and site from the Syrian government troops, and recently they lost it again to ISIS.
there are many places on this list:
Dura Europos - wrote about the horsemen from this ancient fortress.
St. Elian Monastery - desecrated and destroyed , also another monastery Mar Behnam fell prey to the barbarians - in short the ISIS is waging a very successful war against the oldest Christian communities in the world ( aside from Turkish Anatolia and Armenia).
Apamea - in photos from 2015,
Khorsabad
Hatra - very important in the Parthian and pre-Islamic Arabia
Niniveh et al
eh... time of the barbarians - but we should not overlook that looting is done for profit, to be passed to some clients, and some of these objects might be eventually sold to our own Western universities, museums and collectors.
Interesting article here 

I do have hope -  the new American leadership,(the former being a total failure, including the gender politics played within the Armed Forces and allowing the Putin's  Russia annexation of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine) - I am thus optimistic especially since the new team includes the new secretary of defense, James Mattis  (I wonder if he is of Polish descent - from the immigrants arriving in the late XIX century) - look at his reading list for the Marine Corps from 2007.

Sun Tzu wrote -  "Know the enemy, know yourself, and victory is never in doubt, not in a hundred battles," (The Art of War.")
ps
some of my quick watercolor sketches on the Parthian (Tang-e-Sarvak) and Hatrene theme of the armored warriors.

Hippotoxotai from Dura Europos' Mithraeum I

Salve,
 I have this weakness for the eastern neighbours of the Greeks and Romans, the Persians, Medes and Sakas.
Well, for a long while I have been looking at the images from the Syrian desert found at the fortress city of Dura Europos, that was a frontier outpost under the Parthians and in  AD165  Dura was captured permanently by the Romans (note that emperor Trajan's army captured Dura during his Parthian campaign), who kept it for about a century until the fateful siege of AD 256.  Then the Sassanian warrior-king Shapur's forces captured the fortress and thus ended its history and because it was left as a ruined site then the sands of time covered the ruins and preserved its rich culture to our times, early XX century.
Interesting scholarly article on the siege's technical aspects, including the death of some Roman defenders and how it came about.
On a lighter side you could travel to Dura during the siege via some historical fiction eg British writer Harry Sidebottom wrote his series' first novel Fire in the East )Warrior of Rome)   about the siege of Dura Europos, although he changed the name of the fortress and some topography.
Also, you can get a glimpse of Dura art and culture from this short museum exhibit film
A student made mini-documentary

At Dura,  during the previous rulers and under the Roman governance, there were various temples and religious sites -  Roman, Greek, Palmyrene, Jewish and even a small Christian church and one of them was the Mitraeum - excellent site here - place of worship of Mithraism. There, during the excavations, several paintings were discovered, including a painting of Mithra on horseback, circa AD 200.
In that linear painting, Mithra, the hunter, is riding a horse, hence a horse archer -  hippotoxotai. He is painted wearing a standard Parthian costume (well, he is not wearing the typical Median coat or kantus, like the two personages at the Dura Synagogue are painted wearing. )

My own quick sketch of the original mural painting

A sketch, in progress, of a warrior with his horse

A horse - that will eventually carry the shooting hippotoxotai, just shooting at some wooden target etc. ..

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