Seleucia on the Tigris
Italian excavations
From 1964 several campaigns followed one another uninterruptedly for over a decade, until 1976. Thanks to geomagnetic and topographical prospections, the city’s urban layout, which to this day is reconstructed as a Hippodamean plan consisting of huge 144.70 x 72.35m (equal to 500 x 250 feet) blocks and thanks to the extensive excavations carried out in different parts of the city, essential information was collected on architecture, handicrafts and art.
After a hiatus, the excavations in Seleucia resumed in 1985 and continued until 1989. The recovered archaeological materials made (and are still making) a decisive contribution to the reconstruction of over five centuries of Near Eastern history; some of them were displayed in the exhibition “Twenty Years of Italian Archaeology” held in Turin, Florence and Rome in 1985/86, and they are still the object of several research projects conducted by the Centro Ricerche Archeologiche e Scavi di Torino.
Processed satellite images: b/w, pseudocolour, colour (Digital Globe)
The results of the research conducted on the ground were very positive, as they allowed residential and craftmen’s quarters, large public buildings and especially the archives, the only Seleucid building we have extensive knowledge of, to be brought to light.
Four areas were investigated:
- between 1964 and 1968, a vast trench, dug on Tell ‘Omar under the direction
of A. Invernizzi, allowed the identification of the Sasanian phases of
the structure, which at the time consisted of a large tower;
- during the same period, a large excavation was conducted in the so-called “South Square” area, initially under the direction of G. Graziosi and then of M. M. Negro Ponzi, at the city’s southern limits, which allowed the identification of dwellings and artisans’ shops dating mostly to the Parthian period;
- in 1967 a trench was dug in order to examine the west side of the vast open area extending to the south of Tell ‘Omar; initially it was little more than a sounding, but it eventually led to extremely interesting discoveries. In fact, the excavation, still under the direction of A. Invernizzi, allowed the clay sealings which, due to the presence of impressions of administrative stamps, should date back to the Seleucid period, to be brought to light. The initial trench was eventually widened until it reached an extension of 145x20 m and revealed, in addition to Parthian structures, the largest Hellenistic Archive building known so far, inside which over 25,000 clay sealings were found. The Archive was a public institution for storing documents, destroyed by a great fire in the last quarter of the 2nd century B.C.;
- from 1985 to 1989, an excavation led by E. Valtz was opened on the west side of the area at the foot of Tell ‘Omar, by now definitely identified as one of the main city agoras; this enabled the discovery of a portico, i.e. a stoa, that in the Hellenistic period faced the archive building on the other side of the square.