Syria Trails › Places

Palmyrene Gate, Dura-Europos

البوابة التدمرية في دورا أوروبوس

The main gate of Dura-Europos facing the desert, from which roads led towards Palmyra.

The Palmyrene Gate is the main entrance of Dura-Europos on the Euphrates, set in the western wall facing the desert, where the road to Palmyra began.

Founded by the Macedonians at the end of the 4th century BC, Dura passed to the Parthians and then the Romans, until the Sasanians took it in the mid-3rd century AD and it was abandoned. Flanked by two massive towers, the gate opens onto the main street; its walls carry multilingual graffiti by travellers, soldiers and merchants.

Seleucus I Nicator founded Dura-Europos around 300 BC on an escarpment some 90 metres above the south-western bank of the Euphrates near Salhiyé; it began as a fortress ("Dura" in Aramaic), and the Greeks named it Europos after Seleucus's birthplace in Macedonia, while the combined name was coined by Franz Cumont in 1922. The Parthians took it in 113 BC and held it, apart from a brief Roman interlude in AD 114, until the Romans decisively captured it in 165 and made it their easternmost stronghold in Mesopotamia; the Sasanians took it after a siege in 256–257 and its population was deported, so nothing was built over it, earning it the name "Pompeii of the Desert".

With its grid plan, temples to many gods, a synagogue and an early church, Dura is called the "Pompeii of the desert".

Note: photos may not reflect the site's current condition.

For the visitor

Photos

Photos: Heretiq — via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA) · Marina Milella — via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA) · Gianfranco Gazzetti — via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA) · anonymous — via Wikimedia Commons (CC0)