This is a paperback reprint of the first edition, which  appeared in 2004, published by British Museum Press. The ancient  city of Dura-Europos, destroyed by a Sasanian Persian siege in  the AD 250s, was an important regional centre of commerce,  government and military control under the Seleucid, Parthian and  Roman empires. During excavations in the 1920s and 1930s it  became famous for finds such as a painted synagogue and early  Christian chapel. Not the least spectacular of the discoveries in  this 'Pompeii of the Syrian Desert' were the remains of the  town's garrisons and siegeworks and massive quantities of  military artefacts. The latter comprise perhaps the most  important single collection of arms, armour and other equipment  to survive from the Roman period, a collection which is  exceptional in its size, diversity and state of preservation. Its  colourful painted shields and horse armour, for example, are  unequalled in the vast Roman empire or in neighbouring lands. It  also holds vital importance for our knowledge of the material  culture of the military in the eastern frontier lands of the  Roman world.

 

This book provides a complete catalogue of the military  artefacts, most of which are now housed in Yale University Art  Gallery, and analyses and assesses their cultural affiliations  and uses. The archaeological evidence from the site is combined  with the equally rich and rare textual and representational  evidence in the form of papyri, graffiti and wall-paintings, not  to mention the buildings of the city themselves, to examine the  ways in which material culture actively creates and expresses  identity, in this case of Roman soldiers of Syrian origin.