Zeugma ( grc-gre, Ζεῦγμα; syr, ܙܘܓܡܐ) was an ancient

Hellenistic era In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in 3 ...

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

and then

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

city of

Commagene Commagene ( grc-gre, Κομμαγηνή) was an ancient Greco-Iranian kingdom ruled by a Hellenized branch of the Iranian Orontid dynasty that had ruled over Armenia. The kingdom was located in and around the ancient city of Samosata, which s ...

; located in modern

Gaziantep Province Gaziantep Province ( tr, ) is a province in south-central Turkey. It is located in the westernmost part of Turkey's Southeastern Anatolia Region and partially in the Mediterranean Region. Its capital is the city of Gaziantep. It neighbours Ad ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

. It was named for the

bridge of boats The interior of the bridge of the Sikuliaq'', docked in Ketchikan, Alaska">RV_Sikuliaq.html" ;"title="Research Vessel ''RV Sikuliaq">Sikuliaq'', docked in Ketchikan, Alaska file:Wheelhouse of Leao Dos Mares.jpg, Wheelhouse on a tugboat, topp ...

, or , that crossed the

Euphrates The Euphrates () is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Tigris–Euphrates river system, Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia ( ''the land between the rivers'') ...

at that location.

Zeugma Mosaic Museum Zeugma Mosaic Museum, in the town of Gaziantep, Turkey, is the biggest mosaic museum in the world, containing 1700 m2 of mosaics. It opened to the public on 9 September 2011. The museum features of mosaic and replaces the Bardo National Mu ...

contains mosaics from the site, and is one of the largest mosaic museums in the world.

History

Zeugma was founded in the early 3rd century BC as the city of Seleucia by

Seleucus I Nicator Seleucus I Nicator (; ; grc-gre, Σέλευκος Νικάτωρ , ) was a Macedonian Greek general who was an officer and successor ( ''diadochus'') of Alexander the Great. Seleucus was the founder of the eponymous Seleucid Empire. In the po ...

, a Diadochus (successor) to

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, wikt:Ἀλέξανδρος, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Maced ...

and

Hellenistic Greek Koine Greek (; Koine el, ἡ κοινὴ διάλεκτος, hē koinè diálektos, the common dialect; ), also known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek or New Testament Greek, was the common supra-reg ...

founder of the

Seleucid Kingdom The Seleucid Empire (; grc, Βασιλεία τῶν Σελευκιδῶν, ''Basileía tōn Seleukidōn'') was a Greek state in West Asia that existed during the Hellenistic period from 312 BC to 63 BC. The Seleucid Empire was founded by the M ...

, on the site where he had the first bridge over the

built. In 64 BC, the

Roman Republic The Roman Republic ( la, Res publica Romana ) was a form of government of Rome and the era of the classical Roman civilization when it was run through public representation of the Roman people. Beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Kin ...

gained control of the city. Zeugma was of great importance to the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...

as it was located at a strategically important place. Up to 70,000 people lived in the city, and it became a center for the military and commerce for the

ancient Romans In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom ...

. In 253 AD, it was destroyed by the

Sassanids The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the History of Iran, last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th cen ...

, but was later rebuilt. In

late antiquity Late antiquity is the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, generally spanning the 3rd–7th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin. The popularization of this periodization in English ha ...

, Zeugma was a

diocese In Ecclesiastical polity, church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided Roman province, pro ...

of the early Roman church, but the place seems to have been abandoned in the 7th century due to Sassanid Persian and then Arab raids by the

Umayyad Caliphate The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE; , ; ar, ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, al-Khilāfah al-ʾUmawīyah) was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by th ...

Arabs The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Wester ...

lived there temporarily in the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

. By the 17th century the

Ottoman Turk The Ottoman Turks ( tr, Osmanlı Türkleri), were the Turkic founding and sociopolitically the most dominant ethnic group of the Ottoman Empire ( 1299/1302–1922). Reliable information about the early history of Ottoman Turks remains scarce, ...

ish village of Belkis was built near the ruins.

Preservation

Initially the site was excavated sporadically, but in 2000, the site would be flooded due to construction of the

Birecik Dam The Birecik Dam, one of the 21 dams of the Southeastern Anatolia Project of Turkey, is located on the Euphrates River downstream of Atatürk Dam and upstream of Birecik town west of Province of Şanlıurfa in the southeastern region of Turke ...

. With only a fraction of the site excavated, archeologists feared that many mosaics would be permanently lost. After reading about it in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', and with only few months left, American philanthropist David W. Packard donated USD 5 million to fund an emergency excavation of the archeological site, allowing archeologists to preserve the mosaics that would otherwise be inundated by the dam. The mosaics that were excavated were initially stored at the Gaziantep Museum, and are nowadays displayed at the

. Zeugma has been on the UNESCO World Heritage Site tentative list since 2012. Extant archaeological remains at the site include "the Hellenistic Agora, the Roman Agora, two sanctuaries, the stadium, the theatre, two bathhouses, the Roman legionary base, administrative structures of the Roman legion, the majority of the residential quarters, Hellenistic and Roman city walls, and the East, South and West necropoles." Three large glass mosaics were discovered at Zeugma in 2014, including one depicting the nine

muses In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Muses ( grc, Μοῦσαι, Moûsai, el, Μούσες, Múses) are the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the p ...

. In February 2020, it was reported that the Zeugma Mosaic Museum attracted a record 340,569 visitors in 2019, according to the Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry.

Gallery

File:Zeugma dec 2008 7417.jpg, Zeugma The lake File:Zeugma dec 2008 7410.jpg, Zeugma Excavations File:Zeugma dec 2008 7369.jpg, Zeugma Excavations and dam File:Zeugma dec 2008 7368.jpg, Zeugma The dam nearby File:Zeugma dec 2008 7367.jpg, Zeugma Excavations File:Zeugma dec 2008 7376.jpg, Zeugma Excavations File:Zeugma dec 2008 7378.jpg, Zeugma Excavations File:Zeugma dec 2008 7380.jpg, Zeugma Excavations File:Zeugma dec 2008 7382.jpg, Zeugma Excavations File:Zeugma dec 2008 7383.jpg, Zeugma Excavations File:Zeugma dec 2008 7393.jpg, Zeugma Excavations File:Zeugma dec 2008 7405.jpg, Zeugma Excavations

References

External links

*
"Zeugma, A Roman Town in Anatolia"
a short documentary video

Pictures of the Zeugma site

a
Livius.org
article and photos
BBC: The Secret Treasures of Zeugma

UWA Classics and Ancient History Research: Zeugma on the Euphrates

Gaziantep Archaeology Museum

Some photos from the Zeugma Museum (Gaziantep, Turkey)

Description of Zeugma on Gaziantep website
{{Authority control Archaeological sites in Southeastern Anatolia Populated places along the Silk Road Populated places in ancient Commagene Ancient Greek archaeological sites in Turkey Seleucid colonies in Anatolia Roman fortifications in Cappadocia Roman legionary fortresses in Turkey Twin cities Former populated places in Turkey History of Gaziantep Province World Heritage Tentative List for Turkey Euphrates Submerged places

History

Preservation

Gallery

See also

References

Further reading

External links