THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO ORIENTAL INSTITUTE PUBLICATIONS VOLUME I 1] ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS 33, OF BYZANTINE PAINTING | JAMES HENRY BREASTED e sa -" Mle cop (sy ee “Uae Oe | ' Tor } ale F { 1 ena oY lla + } af fe th 1 oe ¢ rt W * i Tae fe, + oe Oey . la : 4,’@ .) ; ren i Bi a } : a ¥ as 3 t / Ln . ' a d Me se c j i, ‘ ay a8) 4: “f ° } : 2 oe y py pF ale nab FP sig | 7 cet Y. a Pht Ga Ge 0 Ce? ee ay 7 1 ry * ai Sars ee Ue ; . F ‘ F 7 Wee p Wiha + E ih ‘ Shi 4 J. : hie . ; rt * — ; “* of a . + a - ‘ ’ s « - 4 ws * ¥ - \ i af THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO ORIENTAL INSTITUTE PUBLICATIONS Edited by JAMES HENRY BREASTED ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING _ Ls FR os = oe, es = ae THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS CHICAGO, ILLINOIS THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY | New York ce r THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS — THE MARUZEN-KABUSHIKLKAISHA Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Fukuoka, Sendai THE MISSION BOOK COMPANY Shanghai Pl. X. — The Wall of Bithnanaia in Hall II : Head of the Second figure THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO ORIENTAL INSTITUTE PUBLICATIONS VOLUME I ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING FIRST-CENTURY WALL PAINTINGS FROM THE FORTRESS OF DURA ON THE MIDDLE EUPHRATES By JAMES HENRY BREASTED SS Niji | i) \\\ THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS | CHICAGO, ILLINOIS > Coryrianr 1924 By Tue Universrry or Curcaco | — All Rights ‘Reserved Ses oad Published March, 1924 ei 7 Se: i rem @— 45) BS | aT ae + j * Pa . ‘ ' . . ) * r = ‘ ‘ + » . ‘ : ; ' 4 e i , - ? : Ld a? . rn iy ce 7 ¢ 7 : 4 = ae 7 ‘ A ys te ae " } —_ . > > wat - ‘ PE ge eae ae ' 7 ’ ADMIRATION A i aes | PREFACE Our only archaeological predecessors at the ancient frontier stronghold of the Seleucids on the middle Euphrates, with which this volume deals, called it ‘the nameless city.”! Three years ago, indeed, the name of Dura was known to us only in a few unnoticed passages of Greek and Latin sources, and it is safe to affirm that few if any students of the ancient world knew that such a place ever existed. Buried in the heart of the Syrian Desert, the ruin to which this name once belonged had been forgotten fifteen hundred years ago. Its situation, 140 miles beyond the desert metropolis of Palmyra, saved it from the destruction which overtook the latter city at the hands of Aurelian in A.D. 273, and at the same time left it so far beyond the reach of modern archaeological observation that it has remained a lost city for fifteen centuries. In this lost city on the outer fringes of the Roman Empire in Asia were thus pre- served the only surviving oriental forerunners of Byzantine painting, out of which arose the pre-Renaissance painting of Europe. Moreover, the city of Dura itself is a unique survival. A city left like a wave-mark on the oriental desert by the receding tide of Graeco-Macedonian invasion under Alexander and his successors, it became an oriental home of Hellenistic culture, a center of Graeco-Syrian civilization, too inacces- sible and too far from the Mediterranean to be built over and engulfed by later Roman structures. Untouched, therefore, by the Roman demolition so common in cities of its age, the Hellenistic strata lie almost on the surface, unaltered by Roman or Byzantine occupation. Forsaken at last and buried under a protecting mantle of desert sand, its monuments and works of art have suffered little from the relatively scanty rainfall, which did not penetrate deep enough to do any damage below. Dura lies in the debatable ground between Syria and the Mediterranean world on the west and Mesopotamia on the east and north. It was the good fortune of the University of Chicago expedition to make the first dash undertaken by white men _after the Great War across this desert region and the newly proclaimed Arab state, from Baghdad to Aleppo and the Mediterranean. The story of this journey has been briefly told in the first bulletin of the new Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.2 Creeping up the Euphrates as quietly and as expeditiously as we could, and making every effort to elude the treacherous and hostile Beduin, we reached 1“Tie namenlose Stadt,” Sarre and Herzfeld, Archaeologische Reise im Euphrat- und Tigris- Gebiet, II, 394f. Berlin, 1920. 2 See the present writer’s report, ‘The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago: A Begin- ning and a Program,” Oriental Institute Communications No. 1. University of Chicago Press, 1922. : 1 2 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING Dura-Salihtyah just as the British were about to begin their retirement down river. After a hasty preliminary inspection for which we ran up by automobile from the British headquarters at Albu Kamal, we found ourselves at Dura with but a single day which we could devote to making our records of the place. Without the protection of the British Indian troops it was not safe to remain a moment longer at Dura, and this first publication of the Oriental Institute therefore represents a single day’s field work of the expedition. Notwithstanding the unavoidably hurried character of our records at Dura, the ancient wall paintings which we found there have aroused an interest which has called for some report of them. The further fact that the most important of the wall paintings recorded has since been so seriously damaged by the Arabs that our records are now the capital source for knowledge of it, has emphasized the need of a publication of these unique documents for the use of historians, archaeologists, and art students. Their chief importance lies in their evident character as cultural links between the Orient and later Europe. The reader who will examine the mosaics from the church of San Vitale at Ravenna (Plate X XII) and compare them with the largest of the Dura wall paintings (Plate VIII), will not long be in doubt that we have in these Dura paintings a part of the heretofore lost oriental ancestry of Byzantine art. At the invitation of the Académie des Inscriptions, therefore, the present writer read a communication before its members at the session of July 7, 1922, briefly report- ing on the paintings, and at the same time exhibiting enlarged photographs in colors. The editors of Syria expressed such interest in the discovery that it seemed appropriate to give to them the manuscript of this communication read before the Académie for publication, together with the colored photographs. From the beginning the eminent Belgian scholar Franz Cumont, a foreign member of the Académie, had displayed the greatest interest in the whole question of the Dura documents, which I had previously showed to him on his last visit to America. With his customary generosity he gave the enterprise unlimited time and placed his encyclopedic knowledge unreservedly at my disposal. He translated into French the text of my communication to the Académie, and added valuable suggestions and observations of hisown. He also wrote a Note additionnelle further discussing the subject, and the whole was published with the color plates in Syria (III, 177-218, and Plates XXXI-L).! For all his kindness and invaluable aid it is a pleasant duty to express here my sincere thanks to my friend, M. Cumont. 1The color plates were also published in Les Travaux Archéologiques en Syrie de 1920 a 1922 (Service des Antiquités et des Beaux-Arts) ‘‘Publication faite 41’ occasion de l’Exposition de Mar- seille’’ (1922), Paul Geuthner, Paris, 1923, accompanied by a discussion furnished by M. Cumont, entitled: ‘‘Les Fresques d’Epoque Romaine Relevées par M. Breasted 4 Es-Salihtye sur |’ Euphrate,” pp. 48-54. An account of his first campaign of excavation at the place was also appended by M. Cumont, “Les Fouilles de Salihtyeh sur l’Euphrate,” ibid., pp. 55-75. These essays of M. Cumont will be referred to herein as Les Travaux Archéologiques. PREFACE 3 Interest in the matter did not stop here. I had asked the now lamented Clermont- Ganneau whether he thought it would be possible for us to secure an air photograph of the great Dura fortress by the aid of the French Air Force in Syria. He at once wrote to General Gouraud at Beirfit and raised the question of the possibility of further investigation of the whole ruin at Dura-Salihiyah. At the same time M. Cumont was also very active in promoting interest in the matter, especially in the possibility of excavating and recovering the other paintings of Dura, of which we had seen traces but which we had not been able to excavate, as well as the wall of the tribune which we had not been able to record satisfactorily because of our enforced departure. General Gouraud responded with an offer to send troops to the fortress to aid in excavation and also to protect the archaeologists in their study of the place. My friend Cumont cordially urged me to go and gave me every opportunity to continue the work which our hurried passage had only permitted us to begin. Obligations in Egypt, however, did not permit me to accept the invitation, and M. Cumont, therefore, undertook alone the commission of the Académie des Inscriptions to proceed to Dura under the protection of French troops. With adequate time, and with the French infantry available not only for doing the actual work of excavation, but also for the military protection indispensable in this turbulent region, M. Cumont took up the work at Dura with great success. He cleared a part of the Hellenistic city within the fortifications; he found three more public buildings; he actually found a parchment fragment containing a portion of the Hellenistic laws of the place; he found inscriptions dating the temple paintings with certainty; and he excavated the other painted wall which our hurried departure did not permit us to investigate. On these results of his work at Dura he is to be heartily congratulated. He has published three reports on this work preliminary to fuller publication. I am indebted to his kindness for sending me in manuscript his report in Syria in advance of publication, from which I have drawn valuable new facts resulting from his excavations. While on his return journey from Dura-Salihiyah, M. Cumont sent me the following letter which is of importance to readers of this book. BETWEEN HAMA AND Homs 23 November, 1922 My Dear FRIEND: At the moment of passing Kadesh it occurs to me to give you a few details of my work at Salihtyah, whence I am returning. On my arrival there the 7th of November, I found 250 soldiers camped in the enclosure which you have described and before my arrival they had already cleared the whole chapel. I found the great sacrificial scene (wall of Bithnanaia) published by you, already terribly injured. The sand with which the Indian soldiers had 1 Comptes rendus Acad. des Inscr. (1923), pp. 12-41; Syria, IV (1923), 38-58; and Les Travaux Archéologiques (see preceding note), pp. 55-75. 4 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING covered it had not withstood the desert winds and the rains. The officers told me that on their arrival they found all the faces mutilated by the Bedawin and the rest of the scene had faded considerably in two years under the action of the sun and the rains. We found practi- cally intact only the small figures in the lower part of the scene. Your plates in color will remain the capital documents for the study of this painting and it is fortunate that you were in a position to make such good reproductions of it before it was destroyed. Of the picture of the Roman tribune, which you photographed in unfavorable circumstances, we were able to obtain better reproductions. In addition we were able to study, photograph and copy in color a large fresco, unfortu- nately in rather poor condition, which occupies in the first hall the wall corresponding to that of Bithnanaia (four personages sacrificing). We also carefully recorded all the little pictures which you saw in the evening near the tribune. There are inscriptions which throw new light on the question of the date of these paintings. One in Greek commemorates either the foundation of the sanctuary itself, or rather that of one of its dependent structures. It is of the year 114 (4.p.) and states expressly that this is a temple of Zeus(-Baal). The other dedication is in Latin and was placed in honor of Alexander Severus by a Palmyrene cohort. In the middle of the temple court rose an altar. This court was surrounded by the habitations of the priests and hierodules and was contiguous to a large outer court or square surrounded by a portico. It is evident—and this is the chief result of our excavations—that the enceinte of Salihtyah contained a Greek city which can only be Dura-Europos. The city is laid out with streets at right angles (already the ‘‘block” system) and several of its buildings have been brought to light: a sort of small theater or audience hall, a sanctuary furnished with steps each of which bears the name of him who had the right to occupy it, ete. Near this point two statues were brought to light of which one, of marble, is very fine. The earliest date which was recorded is a.p. 31. The most interesting of the graffiti contain lists of objects belonging to the temple. They show that along with Zeus the Palmyrene gods Aglibol and Yarhibol were also worshipped. Among the various objects found the most unexpected were some fragments of parchment bearing the remains of writing which were exhumed in the course of a tour of the fortifications. The necropolis lay outside the city beyond the west wall and contained a large number of burial caves originally surmounted by circular or rectangular superstructures. This in a few words constitutes what new facts we have learned about Dura. You can see that our investigations have not rendered yours valueless but that on the contrary they complete the results that you were able to obtain two years ago. I wanted to inform you at once in these few lines of the result of my journey. As soon as I reach Paris I shall make a report of my expedition to the Académie and I shall send it to you as soon as it is printed. I hope to find on my return the number of Syria containing your article and I hope that the color plates may be equal to our hopes. Believe me always Your cordially devoted friend, FRANZ CUMONT P.S.: The frescos were carefully covered this time under a layer of sand retained by a stone wall. PREFACE 5 In a second Jetter M. Cumont adds several more important items: Certainly your color plates [of Dura] ought to be republished with a commentary in English.- They are the only documents which we have that show the condition of the great fresco at the time of its discovery. If you wish to publish my letter I put it entirely at your disposition, but it does not mention some of the most important things. I wrote it on the train before having studied carefully the notes which I had made. I should add that one of the new frescos is signed and that the name of the artist is Semitic and not Greek. His name is Jlasamsos, “‘the Sun is god.’ There are also other points which you will perhaps wish to mention in the English article. For example Clermont-Ganneau has expressed the opinion that in the frescos of the tribune the three statues are not those of emperors but of the three Palmyrene gods, Baal, Aglibol, and Yarhibol in war panoply, and I am inclined to think that he is right. It will be seen, therefore, that the lamentable destruction of the great painting (wall of Bithnanaia, Plate VIII) has made it impossible to secure any fuller or more accurate records of it than we were able to make in the single day which the impending British evacuation permitted us to make. Following M. Cumont’s recommendation, therefore, the Oriental Institute is issuing as full a publication as possible of the work it was able to do at Dura, and adding also the new data resulting from M. Cumont’s excavations. Students of art and history will find in these documents a new vista leading back from Byzantine art to an earlier oriental background. It reveals at the same time with increased clearness the position of the Roman Empire on the Euphrates both before and after the advance of Trajan, and especially the ceaseless interpenetra- tion of Orient and Occident especially evident after the campaigns of Alexander the Great, although evident to the orientalist as far back at least as the dawn of the Age of Metal in Europe (about 3000 B.c.), and with hardly a doubt even much earlier. These unique documents, therefore, illustrate very clearly the process which it is the duty and function of the Institute to investigate and as far as possible to recover. It would seem appropriate, therefore, that this first volume of the Oriental Institute Publications should offer in this connection a brief statement concerning the origin and purpose of the Institute itself. Founded by the generosity of Mr. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and the enlightened co-operation of the Trustees of the University of Chicago, the Oriental Institute is a laboratory for historical research. It is intended to furnish a means of organizing the members of the teaching staff of the Department of Oriental Languages, together with members of the Institute from the outside, into a body of investigators and at the same time to make accessible to them all the original documents which can be made available, either by purchase, by copying, or by any feasible method of collecting and gathering into the archives of the Institute the surviving records of the ancient Orient. The region to which the Oriental Institute purposes to devote its chief attention is commonly called the Near East, by which we mean the eastern Mediterranean world and the adjacent regions eastward, at least through Persia. It is now quite evident that civilization arose in this region and passed 6 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING thence to Europe. In the broadest general terms, therefore, the task of the Oriental Institute is the study of the origins of civilization, the history of the earliest civilized societies, the transition of civilization to Europe, and the relations of the Orient to the great civilizations of Europe after the cultural leadership of the world had passed from the Orient to European peoples. In illustration of the foregoing program, I may be permitted to mention some of the enterprises which the Institute thus far has undertaken. In the winter of 1919-20 the Institute undertook a preliminary inspection of the accessible regions of the Near East, for the collection of original monuments and documents and the study of the monuments in situ. The journey included the voyage of the Nile as far as Thebes, and in Western Asia a reconnaissance of the Babylonian Plain, the upper Tigris as far as the mountains north of Mosul, where the party was stopped by the hostile Kurds, the return to Baghdad, the ascent of the Euphrates and the return to the Mediterranean via Aleppo, the coast of Phoenicia, and parts of Palestine. On this journey a considerable body of valuable original sources, both written and unwritten, was acquired by purchase. The study of the documents of Western Asia is in pressing need of an exhaustive Babylonian and Assyrian dictionary. With a resident staff of five people and with the co-operation of a number of outside scholars the Institute has been engaged for over two years in the compilation of this much needed dictionary, which is progressing at the rate of nearly 100,000 cards a year. At present the files contain about 300,000 cards. It is hoped that the dictionary may be completed within eight years more. At the same time the administrative staff of the Institute has been at work endeav- oring to organize the existent sources of knowledge regarding the ancient history of the Near East. These materials take the form of a subject catalogue alphabetically arranged on cards, and filed in drawers like a library catalogue. This project, there- fore, aims at an encyclopedic organization of subjects which if completed would enable the investigator to turn to any important subject in the range of Near Eastern civilization and history, and to find collected under that subject all the material throw- ing light upon it, whether in modern books and treatises or in ancient original docu- ments and monuments. That such completeness never will be wholly attainable is obvious, but even in an incomplete stage such an organization of materials is indis- pensable to the purposes of the Institute. These archives now contain about 35,000 cards. In view of our lack of a sufficient Egyptian dictionary, one of the specialized sections of these archives is devoted to a collection of all Egyptian words which have anywhere been especially discussed by particular scholars in oriental journals and treatises. Among the great bodies of original documents surviving from the ancient Orient none is more important or difficult than the religious compositions. The study of such documents is still in its infancy. Our understanding of the Egyptian Book of PREFACE ve the Dead is conditioned by our knowledge of the older Egyptian literature out of which the Book of the Dead was built up. The current translations of the Book of the Dead are quite worthless for this reason. It is necessary, therefore, to collect and study the religious documents which were the predecessors of the Book of the Dead. Of the Pyramid Teats, the archaic religious documents which are written in the chambers and passages of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasty pyramids, and which contain the oldest religious literature available in any language, we have had an adequate edition since 1910. On the other hand the Coffin Texts, the extraordinary mortuary literature inscribed in ink on the insides of the Middle Kingdom wooden coffins dating from the half millennium of which the middle falls at about 2000 B.c., has been but little collected and studied. The Institute has, therefore, undertaken the collection, editing, and publication of all these materials. The work began in the winter of 1922-23 in the great collection of the Cairo Museum. The task of making a complete photographic record of the Cairo coffins is nearly finished and a considerable beginning on the accompanying hand copies has been made. The European and American museums will be included later, until all the known Coffin Texts have been incorporated in the Institute records. Out of this complete body of copies a standard edition of the Coffin Texts will be made, on the basis of which an understanding of the Book of the Dead will be possible. This will, of course, be a work of years. Another important class of documents consists of those which embody proverbial wisdom in animal stories. Probably few readers of the delectable Uncle Remus tales have realized that these seemingly American stories found their way into the cabins of our southern negroes from the slave markets of eastern Africa, whither they had wandered from a remoter and an earlier Orient. Besides the East Indian sources, the oriental originals are at present chiefly Arabic and Syriac manuscripts; but such tales circulated as early as the Assyrian Empire in Western Asia, and fragments of them are still found in cuneiform tablets, while in their oldest known form they have survived in delightful sketches on papyrus by Egyptian artists who cleverly depict human relations in the animal world. These amusing caricatures probably go back to the fourteenth or fifteenth century B.c. Besides the line of descent to us through the African slave markets, there is another through England, where the oriental animal tales were translated by Sir Thomas North from Spanish and Italian versions in 1570. The English translator is doubtless more familiar to most English or American readers as the author of the version of Plutarch’s lives used by Shakespeare. This literature of animal tales from the Orient has been translated into more languages than any other book except the Bible and is a striking illustration of how culture influences have passed from the Orient to the West. The Institute is now having photographed all the known oriental manuscripts, chiefly Arabic, in which these Tales of Kalila and - Dimna, as they are called, have survived to us. 8 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING Parallel with this project in the field of literature the Institute is also at work in the realm of the history of natural science. The extraordinary ancient Egyptian surgical and medical treatise, now known as the Edwin Smith Papyrus, in the collec- tions of the New York Historical Society, is really the earliest surviving scientific document known to us. Its content has proved to be an epoch-making revelation, and the Institute is preparing the translation and final scientific publication for the New York Historical Society. A fuller account of the plans and activities of the Institute and the scope of its work will be found in its first Communication! issued last year. The researches and discoveries recorded in this volume were made possible solely by the generous support of the Oriental Institute by Mr. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. The second volume of this series, entitled The Annals of Sennacherib, by Professor D. D. Luckenbill, is already on the press. It will contain all Sennacherib’s records, including a full publication of the superb prism obtained by our expedition of 1919-20. It is an agreeable privilege to express here, on behalf of the members of the Institute, our sincere appreciation of the liberal contributions which have enabled us to begin this series of volumes as a tangible evidence of the debt of science to the founder of the Oriental Institute. It is a matter of gratification to tts members that the first volume of a series to be known as the Oriental Institute Publications? should contain these materials which so unequivocally illustrate the process of culture transition from the Orient to Europe. The recognition of this transition is daily revealing to modern men that there is no sharp cleavage between the Near Orient and Europe. The successive rise of both from prehistoric savagery has been one evolutionary process, the recovery of which will enable us to write the coherent and unified story of mankind. Writing these words, as I do, overlooking the hills of Tuscany but a few hours away from Ravenna, and contemplating the roofs and towers of Florence spread out below this historic villa where it is believed by many that Boccaccio found the scene of his immortal Decamerone tales, it seems peculiarly fitting that these prefatory words should be penned in the midst of surroundings which reveal at every turn how great a part in the revival of European culture was played by the men of Tuscany. For the art which developed so richly here in Florence, and especially the art of painting, was based to no small extent upon that of Byzantium, of which we must evidently recognize the ancestry in the wall paintings of Dura. JAMES HENRY BREASTED VILLA PALMIERI FLORENCE, ITALY June 1, 1923 1 Oriental Institute Communications No. 1 (to be abbreviated as O.I.C. 1). University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1922. 2 This series may be referred to as O.J.P. I, etc. TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION BY FRANZ CUMONT. ; : : : P 2 : : ee lS I. Tue History or Dura-SALiniyaH. , : : : : age Il. THe Discovery or THE Dura-SAuiniyan PAlNTINGS eee II. Tae Criry anp Fortress or Dura . , : : ; : : wt 404 IV. THe Temple or Zevus-BAau IN THE FortTRESS OF DurRA . ; , ; a eco V. Tur WALL PAINTINGS OF THE ZEUS-BAAL TEMPLE . : ; : : pees Hau IJ, Souta Watt, C-D (Plates VITI-XIX) ; ae OKs Haut IJ, West Watt, D-E (Plate XX, 1). : : oe Bc Hau IJ, East Watt, B-C (Plate VIII) . : ; : : A as! Haut I, Nort Watt (Plate XXT) : : , : ~, 94 PLATE LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PLATES I. Fortress or SALIBfyAH II. III. IV. VI. VII. oly XIII. 1. Looking Southwest in Northwest Wadi 2. Gate near Middle of Southwest Wall Fortress or SALIniyaAn 1. Looking Northwest along Southwest Wall 2. View along Inside of Same Wall Fortress or SALisiyaw 1. Inside View Looking East along Massive Castellum and North Wall 2. Northwest Angle of Castellum Fortress or SALIniYAH 1. Outside View of North End of Castellum, Looking East 2. Northwest Bastion of the Castellum, Looking Northeast to the Euphrates . Fortress oF SALIniYAH 1. Cross-Section of Wall, Showing Evidences of Two Structural Stages 2. Outside View of Extreme West Angle Containing Chapel, Looking Southeast Fortress or SALIBiYAH 1. Outside View of Extreme West Angle Containing Chapel, Looking West 2. Shrine in Hall II, Looking Southwest CHAPEL oF SALInfYAH 1. The Two Columns at West Side of Court 2. Steps Leading into North End of Hall IT . THe WALL OF BITHNANAIA IN Hatt II - Genera View (Color Plate) . THe WALL oF BITHNANAIA IN HALt II Tue THREE MInistrRants (Color Plate) . Tue WALL OF BITHNANAIA IN Hatt II HEAD OF THE SECOND Figure (Color Plate, frontismece) Tue WALL oF BITHNANAIA IN Hatt II BITHNANAIA AND Her Group (Color Plate) . Tae WALL oF BiTHNANAIA IN Hatt II HEAD OF THE SECOND Ficure, SHowine Insury To Lerr Eye (RESTORED IN PLATE X) Tur WALL oF BITHNANAIA IN Hatt II ‘Tue THREE MINISTRANTS 11 12 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING PLATE XIV. Tae WALL or BiTHnanata IN Hatt IT BITHNANAIA AND HER GRouP XV. THe WALL oF BirHnanataA IN Haut II Upper Part or FiGuRE oF BITHNANAIA XVI. Tae WALL oF BITHNANAIA IN Hatt II Ricut Enp: THE Four MEN witH GREEN BRANCHES XVII. Tae Watt or Birananata In Hatu IT Nints Ficur#, THE First Boy In THE FOREGROUND XVIII. Tae Watt or Birananata IN Hatt II TENTH FIGURE, THE GIRL IN THE FOREGROUND XIX. THe WALL or BiTananata IN Hatt II ELEVENTH FIGURE, THE SECOND Boy IN THE FOREGROUND XX. CHAPEL or SALInfyAu 1. West Wall of Hall II with Desert West of Fortress on Right 2. Partly Excavated North Wall of Court, Looking Northeast to the Plain of Khana- Mari XXI. Tor WALL oF THE TRIBUNE XXII. Srxtu-Century Mosaics 1N THE BasiLica OF S. VITALE AT RAVENNA 1. Emperor Justinian with Bishop Maximian and Suite 2. Empress Theodora and Suite XXIII. Syrian RELIEFS 1. Priest Offering Sacrifice to the God Bel 2. Mortuary Relief from Palmyra MAPS MAPS PAGE 1. WesterRN Asia, SHOWING THE ROUTE OF THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE EXPEDITION OF 1919-20 AND THE SITUATION OF DURA AND THE PLAIN oF KHana-MarIi following 20 2. ‘Tm PLAIN OF KHANA-MARI <9.) 8c. 0)0. 9 eee following 24 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS TEXT FIGURES 1. TyprcaL Virw or EurpHRATES VALLEY IMMEDIATELY ABOVE SANAH 2. Typical WALL OF THE DESERT PLATEAU ALONG THE EHUPHRATES . 3. TyprcaL Desert VALLEY ‘‘WaApD1” on Riaut BANK oF EUPHRATES BELOW DEIR Ez- ZOR 4. Moprrn Hirt, tap Cuassicau Is, rae ANcrENT Source or BrruMEN 5. Tar BrruMeEn Basin at Hirt. 6. A Brrumen WELL at Hit 7. LOOKING UP THE EUPHRATES AT HapiTHaH 8. Scanty Fietps aLona THE HupHrates Two Mites aABsove Hapirnan. 9. IrRIGATION WaTER WHEEL IN THE HUPHRATES AT HapiTHaH 10. TH VALLEY OF THE EUPHRATES AT ‘ANAH 11. IsLAND CULTIVATION IN THE EUPHRATES AT SANAH . 12. TamMarisk THICKETS ALONG THE EUPHRATES AT EL-Karm 13. THe EuPHRATES AT TIBNI 14, THz EupHRATES VALLEY AT HALABiYAH 15. UNCULTIVABLE TAMARISK THICKETS ALONG THE H}UPHRATES AT SABKHAH 16. THe EupHRATES AT MESKENAH 17. Tot EUPHRATES AND THE PLAIN OF DEIR Ez-ZOR 18. THe PLAIN AND City oF DEIR E£z-Z6r. 19. SaHrep FrEepING ON THE UNCULTIVATED TRACTS OF THE DEIR Ez-ZOR PLAIN 20. A Woot CARAVAN IN THE STREETS OF DEIR Ez-ZOR. 21. Across THE Roors or DEIR £z-ZOR 22. THe BripGe at Derr 5z-Z6r. 23. A CorNniER oF DEIR £Z-ZOR AND THE GARDENS ON THE ISLAND 24. AraB Boys or DEIR £2z-ZOR . 25. Mmyapin AND THE PLAIN or KHANA-MARI 26. Tue Arip PLAIN oF KHAnNA-MARI AND THE PLATEAU HoRIZON 27. THE EUPHRATES AND THE PLAIN oF KHana-MarI FROM THE PLATEAU AT SALIHTYAH 28. GLIMPSE OF THE BAZAARS IN BAGHDAD 29. Tur BripGe or Boats OVER THE TIGRIS AND PALM GROVES AT BAGHDAD 30. British GUNBOAT ON THE LOWER EUPHRATES AT FALLOJAH . 31. Tue Seven Cars oF OuR CARAVAN BETWEEN FALLOJAH AND RAMADI ON THE LOWER EUPHRATES 32. BEGINNING OF THE PLATEAU ABOVE RAMADI AND BELOW Hit. 13 PAGE 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 3l 32 33 35 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 54 55 56 14 33. 34. 30. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. dl. 52. 53. 54. 50. 56. 57. 58. ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING Our Cars STALLED NEAR HapiTHAH IN A DESOLATE STRETCH BETWEEN HiT AND SANA. Our British Convoy Hautine at NAHiYAH JUST ABOVE ‘ANAH CAMELS OF THE BritisH Minirary TRANSPORT BELOW ALBU KAMAL British HEADQUARTERS AT ALBU KAMAL STARTING FOR AN AIRPLANE EXAMINATION OF THE KHANA-Marti PLAIN Our Waacons DRAWN UP FOR DEPARTURE FROM THE ForRTRESS OF DuRA Our Wacons LoaDING FoR DEPARTURE FROM Meryapin, AFTER THE First Day’s Marcu SHEIKH RamMADAN-Bzc [Bn SHALLASH AND A GROUP OF His TRIBESMEN OF THE ALBU SARAI ABOVE DEIR £z-ZOR A Group oF AraB RIFLEMEN oF SHEIKH RaMApAN-Bue [BN SHALLASH Tue Heap or OuR CARAVAN DESCENDING FROM THE PLATEAU TO THE EUPHRATES NEAR TIBNI Our WAGONS IN THE KHAN AT SABKHAH SHEIKH SuwAN OF THE SABKHAH ARABS ABOVE DEIR EZ-ZOR ON THE UPPER EUPHRATES Our Horses Being WATERED IN THE EUPHRATES FOR THE Last TIME, ABOVE Mus- KENAH, Two Days’ JOURNEY FROM ALEPPO MopERN ALEPPO AND THE MOUND OF THE ANCIENT CITY THE Court oF A MosQuE IN ALEPPO . Tue VALLEY OF THE ORONTES IN NorTH SYRIA. Tue WELCOME MEDITERRANEAN SHORES NortH OF BEIROT . Recorps oF MopERN CONQUEST AMONG THE MEMORIALS OF ANCIENT CONQUERORS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN CLIFFS AT THE Doc River Nort or Berrtt GENERAL CUNNINGHAM WITH OFFICERS AND PART OF OUR EXPEDITION AT THE SOUTH- WEstT GATE OF THE DuRA FORTRESS Our. Camp IN THE ANCIENT FortTRESS OF DuRA Our First GLIMPSE OF THE PAINTINGS British East Inp1An Troops at Our Disposition FOR EXCAVATING THE GROUND PLAN OF THE TEMPLE IN THE ANCIENT FortTRESS OF DuRA AIRPLANE VIEW OF THE ANCIENT Fortress oF DurRA-SALIHiYAH . PLAN oF THE ZEUS-BAAL TEMPLE IN THE ForRTRESS OF DuRA CoLLar, NECKLACE, AND PECTORAL ORNAMENTS OF THE Lapy BITHNANAIA INSCRIPTIONS ON THE WALL OF BITHNANAIA PAGE 57 58 59 60 64 65 66 69 70 71 72 73 76 77 78 80 81 82 85 87 89 91 93 95 99 101 INTRODUCTION By FRANZ CUMONT The discovery of which Mr. Breasted gives an account in the following pages is one whose importance can hardly be exaggerated. It throws a vivid light upon numerous questions of which science still awaits the solution. It raises also new and perplexing questions, and it may be predicted that it will provoke abundant com- mentary. In these preliminary remarks, I would like simply to indicate briefly in what particulars it especially deserves our attention. In the first place, this discovery is of great interest for our knowledge of the political history of ancient Syria. It furnishes us with authentic proof that the Romans established a military stronghold in a region which we have not heretofore known to have been permanently occupied by the legions. A massive fortress com- manded the passage of the Euphrates at the point where the route from Palmyra crossed the river (see p. 26). This post was the most advanced of all those which are known along its banks. To what epoch must we carry back the establishment of - a Roman garrison at Salihtyah? It is certainly not to be dated before the conquests of Trajan. Before the reign of this emperor neither Palmyra nor Damascus nor Petra were subject to the imperial legates, and the desert of Syria was left outside the limits of their jurisdiction. But after the reduction of Mesopotamia to the condition of a province (114-16), Rome necessarily experienced the need of holding a strategic position which up to that time had been without value to her. ‘The troops stationed there were able to assure the communications across the desert with the newly annexed territory, and to guard the transports descending the Euphrates against the enterprises of pillaging Arabs. Nevertheless, the occupation of Mesopotamia by Trajan was only ephemeral. Hadrian abandoned it immediately after the death of his predecessor and we do not know whether he constructed a fortress here, as he did elsewhere, for guarding the frontier and observing the hostile country on the other shore. It is therefore possible that the fortress of Sdlihtyah is subsequent to the expedition of Lucius Verus against the Parthians (162-65), or even to that of Septimius Severus (197-99).1 It was only then that a large portion of Mesopotamia became definitely Roman. There is the same uncertainty as to the duration of the occupation. While awaiting new excavations we can do no more than suggest hypotheses as to the circum- stances by which it was terminated. But we know that Dura was desert in the time 1 This was written before the date of the paintings was established. Their date has important bearing on the date of the fortress. See pp. 88 and 64-65.—J. H. B. 15 16 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING of Constantine (p. 48). It is probable that it had been abandoned when Diocletian fixed the frontier of the Empire at the course of the Khabfr and fortified Circesium at its mouth. It was at this time, one might suppose, that the legionaries evacuated their camp in the forsaken town.! None of the places mentioned in the Notitia Dignitatum (Or. xxxii) seems to be identifiable with Salihiyah. The paintings of Salihtyah have even greater value for the history of religion than has the castle for political history. The scene (Plate VIII), in which one sees the family of Konon assisting at a double sacrifice offered by two Syrian priests, is unique in its kind and all its details will deserve to be studied. I confine myself here to a few rapid remarks. The two celebrants are clad in white robes and wear conical caps of the same color. This headdress, which seems to be of Hittite origin, and the long robe gathered at the waist, appear like those of the king, Abd-Hadad, pictured sacrificing as far back as the fourth century before our era on the coins of Hierapolis, and Lucian informs us that in his time the priests of that city? were clad in a garment all of white, and that they wore on the head the z?tdos,? that is to say, a felt cap of conical shape. In a bas-relief from Ciliza on the north of Aleppo, the priest Gaios appears after the same fashion making an offering to the god Bel for himself and his family, exactly as at Sdlihtyah.4| The tall white cap has, furthermore, remained to the present day as part of the costume of the dervishes. In the same way the nakedness of the feet, which distinguishes the two officiants from the mere assistants, reminds us of the Old Testament and of Islam. ‘‘Take the shoes from off thy feet, for the place where thou standest is holy ground,’ commands the voice which speaks to Moses from the burning bush,> and the interpreters of this verse see in it the origin of the obligation imposed on the priests, of fulfilling the cere- monies of the cult and of offering sacrifice with bare feet. In reality the custom of removing the shoes before entering the temple is derived from the practice still common in the Orient, of removing them at the door of the house in order to avoid defiling the interior with mud and filth, and the Jewish proscription of shoes is likewise found in many cults of antiquity.’ It is common knowledge that even today the Moslems still demand this mark of respect of all who cross the threshold of a mosque. 1 This conjecture has been confirmed by Cumont’s further excavations.—J. H. B. 2 Babelon, Monnaies de la Bibliotheque nationale. Perses Achéménides, 1893, Plate LIII; Dussaud, Notes de mythol. syrienne, p. 97. Cf. my Etudes syriennes, 1917, p. 261. 8 Lucian, De Dea Syriae, c. 42: ’Eo6is 5& abréovot waca evK? Kal widov érl rH Keypads Exovow. 4 Gtudes syriennes, p. 257. 5 Exod. 3:5; ef. Vigouroux, Dict. de la Bible, s.v. ‘‘Chaussures,” p. 634. 6 Theodoret, Ad Ex. quaest., 7 (Patrologia graeca, LX XX, p. 231): Tupvots iepets oat ras Necroupyias érerédouv Kal Tas Oualas. 7 Notably in that of the Great Mother (Prudentius, Peristeph., X, 154 ff.). Cf. Graillot, Culte de Cybéle, 1912, p. 139, n. 3. Some other examples are cited by Gruppe, Griechische Mythologie, p. 912. INTRODUCTION 17 We are reminded of still another ceremony of Judaism by the branch or palm carried in the left hand by the four men, while they raise the right hand as a sign of adoration. It naturally suggests comparison with the lulab,? a bouquet composed of a palm and twigs of myrtle and willow carried by the Jews at the Feast of Tabernacles, which was an ancient agricultural feast of the vintage. At the present day the branches of myrtle and willow are still distributed to the assistants at the feasts of the Nosairis, and an analogous custom exists among the ?Ahle Haqq of Kurdistan.’ The ceremony depicted on the wall of the chapel (Plate VIII) is exceedingly curious. At one side a priest who holds a ewer plunges a plant into a vase filled with water. This water is probably that of the Euphrates,‘ a sacred river already invoked in the ancient litanies at Babylon, whose waters were prescribed in preference to all others and were as holy as those of the Nile in Egypt. Beside this priest, a second makes an offering on an altar, whereon a fire is burning. We find here united the cults of the two opposed elements; for the adoration of the elements, and in particular that of water and fire, is characteristic of the religion of Mesopotamia in the Roman period as it was practiced by the ‘‘Chaldeans” or the Magi, and it is this worship which the polemic of the Christian apologists especially attacks.® It is surprising to find this ceremony, wholly oriental—as is also the plan of the temple according to the remark of Mr. Breasted—close by the other, wholly Roman, of the tribune offering sacrifice to the emperors® before his legionaries and in the presence of the flag—a picture which calls up before our eyes with a vivacity singularly striking a scene from the life of the Roman military camps such as learned research enabled us to reconstruct in thought. How could these two cults fundamentally so different coexist in the same chapel?’ The explanation which first suggests itself to one’s mind is that the garrison of Salihtyah was made up of legionaries and a numerus 1 This gesture, of which Mr. Breasted has given the significance (p. 85), is found also in Syria, for example on one of the stelae of Nerab (at the Museum of the Louvre). 2 Cf. Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. ‘ Lulab.” 3 Dussaud, Les Nosaires, p. 89 ff.; Minorsky, Notes sur la secte des >Ahlé-Haqq, p.93. Paris, 1922. 4 On the cult of the Euphrates in the Roman epoch and the use of its waters, cf. Etudes syriennes, pp. 251 ff. 5 Cf. my Textes et monuments figurés relatifs aux mystéres de Mithra, I, 105 (n. 1), 108. The mysteries of Mithra drew this cult of the elements from the religion of Babylonia. 6 As M. Cumont in agreement with Clermont-Ganneau now holds, the statues depicted in the paintings are militarized Syrian gods and not emperors, a conclusion with which I agree.—J. H. B. 7 This is true of an epoch well anterior to that of Odenathus and Zenobia. M. Réné Dussaud calls my attention to an inscription of Palmyra (Répertoire d’épigr. sémit., I, 285) which is a dedication made in 132 by a Nabatean cavalryman in the camp of‘Anah. This camp is situated on the Euphrates, down-river from Dura, and was undoubtedly abandoned by the Romans along with the rest of Mesopo- tamia in 117. The Nabatean cavalryman must have been in the service of Palmyra, which was holding