Progress in Doliche: The excavation work 2024
From 29/07/2024 to 15/09/2024, excavations took place again this year in Doliche in south-east Turkey. The aim of the work was to continue the exploration of the Roman city centre in the south-east of the ancient city area. The main focus was on investigating the monumental temple from the 2nd century AD and the city archives. On the other hand, work continued in the area of the hillside church of Doliche, an early Christian basilica from the 4th century AD. In total, we investigated 12 excavation sections with a total area of 285 m2. At the same time, thousands of artefacts were processed. 39 students and specialists as well as 21 Turkish assistants were involved.
This was possible thanks to the support of the German Research Foundation, the Carl Humann Foundation, the University of Pisa, the University of Münster and, last but not least, the Historisch-Archäologischer Freundeskreis, which supported the work with 4,000 euros. The funding from the Friends is of particular importance because it makes it possible to strengthen the infrastructure and equipment of the project and make it fit for the future. I would like to thank you very much for this.
1. the work in the area of the Roman temple
In 2021, parts of a monumental temple from the Roman imperial period were discovered west of the thermal baths in the center of Doliche, the exploration of which continued in 2022 and 2023. It is one of the most important discoveries in Doliche. The temple is characterized not only by its size, but also by its unusual architecture, especially by a large apse in the west of the cella. Unfortunately, the building was almost completely demolished after its destruction, so that only the foundation trenches are still visible in most areas. Nevertheless, following the completion of this year’s work, it is now possible to largely reconstruct the temple. The focus was on examining the western apse, the south-eastern corner and the front of the building.
Exposure of the western apse
With the excavation of the western part of the apse, which closed off the temple to the west, the western side of the building has now been excavated. In the new section, the edge of the rock was uncovered, which also served as the rear wall of the temple. It is slightly curved and thus echoes the curvature of the apse. Surprisingly, two narrow ashlars have also been preserved, which stand on the edge of the rock and belong to the rising section of the rear wall.
The interior of the apse, on the other hand, was almost completely destroyed by large-scale excavations. No traces of the original floor of the apse are visible. However, the uncovering of a medieval wall, which divided the apse into two halves, provided important evidence of a later reuse. A reused column base on a pedestal also indicates that the apse was given a new function in the Middle Ages.
An interesting area behind the apse was rich in finds. Here, just below the surface, large quantities of late Hellenistic and early Imperial pottery were recovered. These finds are associated with the remains of an older building that was apparently destroyed during the construction of the temple. Such discoveries open up new perspectives on the development of the city center of Doliche.
The south-eastern corner and the temple front
In order to reconstruct the ground plan of the temple, the work concentrated primarily on the south-eastern corner and the front of the temple. The foundations of both the south-east corner of the cella wall and the surrounding column position were successfully archaeologically verified. Although only the lowest layers of the foundations are generally preserved, they allow precise conclusions to be drawn about the design of the temple. There were also important clues about the structure of the front of the temple. The foundation of the temple front is 9.2 m wide and is divided into three strips. The western strip was made of limestone blocks and supported the cella wall, while the substructure of the middle strip was made of opus caementitium. This is followed by another foundation made of limestone blocks. The two eastern strips indicate that the temple front was designed with two rows of columns.
Also important was the discovery of the imperial paving of the square directly in front of the temple. Carefully laid polygonal limestone slabs with a drainage channel have been preserved there. From the ground level of the square, it can be concluded that the podium of the temple must have been 3.6 m high.
Coins from the 4th century AD, which were found above the pavement, show that the ruins of the temple had already been largely dismantled by this time.
The reconstruction of the temple
The work carried out in 2024 enables a preliminary reconstruction of the apsidal temple in the city center of Doliche. This is mainly thanks to building researcher Theresa Pommer from the TU Braunschweig, who is working on the temple as part of her doctoral thesis.
The cella, around 25 m wide and 41 m long, was divided by two rows of columns into a central nave (15.6 m) and two narrower side aisles (4.9 m each). Differences in the floor design emphasized the hierarchy of the rooms. The central nave was probably covered with marble slabs, while the side aisles were decorated with mosaics. The apse (14 m wide, 5 m deep) was covered by a half-dome made of cement. The cult images were placed there. Only priests were allowed to enter this area, while the spacious cella was open to visitors. The temple was around 57 m long and 36.5 m wide, with an outer colonnade and a podium that was around 3.5 m high due to the uneven terrain on the east side.
In the regional context, the temple of Doliche is characterized by its monumentality and its unusual structure. With a cella measuring 25 m x 53 m, it clearly exceeds the dimensions of the Bel Temple in Palmyra (14 m x 39.5 m) and is almost as large as the Temple of Jupiter Heliopolitanus in Baalbek (27 m x 60 m). Particularly noteworthy is the three-aisled cella with a domed apse in the west, flanked by side rooms – a floor plan that distinguishes it from most Roman temples.
The temple thus belongs to the group of apsidal temples known from southern Syria, for example in Burqush, Rahle or Mismiyeh. These temples show a variation of the Middle Eastern temple type with a prominent adyton, a separate area reserved for cult images. However, the temple of Doliche is the first known apsidal temple in northern Syria, and it is also significantly larger than all other examples from Syria. This suggests that it was not inspired by southern Syrian models, but rather took up contemporary Roman architectural trends. The introduction of the apse, which served as a monumental frame for cult images in Roman temples from the first century AD, was combined with the local Adyton concept in Syria, creating a new spatial hierarchy.
The building in Doliche also reflects Roman construction techniques, in particular the use of cement for the apse dome. These techniques distinguish it from the southern Syrian temples. With regard to the function of the temple, the architectural features suggest that it was dedicated to the Roman imperial cult. Financing such an elaborate project in a comparatively small town like Doliche would hardly have been possible with local resources. It is likely that the emperor sponsored the project, inspired by the importance of the cult of Jupiter Dolichenus in the 2nd century AD.
The temple, like the entire city center, was then destroyed in 253 AD when the Persians conquered the city. The city center was then abandoned and used as a quarry. Only in the west of the temple can later phases of use be recognized.
2. work in the Dolichen city archive
To date, there is archaeological evidence of only three archive buildings from the Roman imperial period in the eastern Mediterranean. Against this background, the opportunity to investigate another archive in Doliche is of great scientific relevance. Excavations in the area of the archive were carried out in 2017, 2019 and 2023. These revealed the archive room to be part of a north-south oriented wing, which is divided into at least three rooms by tongue walls. A total of 6000 seal impressions were recovered from the backfill of the wing. As all the soil from the cuts has to be sieved under running water in order to find the seal impressions, work is progressing very slowly.
In the summer of 2024, two new sections were created, which adjoin the areas excavated in the previous year to the south. A total area of 50 m² was investigated.
The new excavations revealed a length of at least 15.5 m. The tongue walls are each 2 m long, so that the passages between the room units are 3 m wide. The dimensions of the individual room units are not uniform. The northern room measures 7 m x 4 m, the middle one 7 m x 3.35 m and the southern one 7 m x 5.20 m.
An important new discovery is a door sill that was found in situ in section 24-04 in the eastern wall of the building. It shows that, contrary to previous assumptions, the wall is not a foundation but already rising masonry. This is supported by the fact that it was discovered during subsequent excavations this year that the wall stands on a deeper foundation of larger limestone blocks. This gives rise to new approaches for the interpretation of the building findings. On the one hand, the rammed earth floor in the southern spatial unit must be the imperial period walking horizon. However, as this is significantly deeper than the bedrock in the northern spatial unit, the individual rooms of the archive must have had different levels of footings. It is also interesting that the walking level in the area of the newly discovered door threshold is almost two meters below the floor level of the adjacent imperial bath. It can therefore be assumed that the buildings in the town center east of the baths were terraced in order to structure the increasingly steep slope. It can also be assumed that the archive wing was at least two storeys high.
It is not certain whether the southern end of the archive wing has been reached with the new sections. In front of the southern profile, a foundation layer running to the west adjoins the eastern wall of the building. However, the foundations of the east wall run into the south profile, so that it cannot be ruled out that the turning foundation layer belongs to another tongue wall. The results of further excavations must be awaited here.
Another important observation is that the foundations of the archive building to the north were laid in the heavily compacted backfill of a very large rectangular basin dug into the rock. The function of this basin cannot be determined at present, but it must be significantly older than the archive wing and the adjacent baths.
Restoration and documentation of the seal impressions
A further 1500 seal impressions were recovered from the backfill of the rooms. This required extensive sieving of the entire overburden, as the very small (0.5-2 cm) and often fragmented seal impressions are otherwise unrecognizable. In order to be able to process the seal impressions scientifically, they must first be cleaned and consolidated. Then all the impressions are recorded and photographed. The aim is to make the impressions publicly accessible in a database as soon as possible.
The majority of the impressions are official seals, i.e. seals of city officials or institutions. These are characterized by their particular size and show images closely associated with Doliche, e.g. the city’s main gods. They differ from the private seals above all in that they exist in numerous impressions. The private seals, of which many well-preserved examples were recovered this year, generally show motifs that were widespread throughout the Mediterranean world, especially deities of the Greco-Roman world. Depictions of the goddess Nike are particularly common. In contrast, motifs with a local connection are almost completely absent.
3. work in the hillside church of Doliche
Since 2015, research into the hillside church of Doliche, an early Christian basilica built in the late 4th century AD on the southern slope of Keber Tepe, has been a focus of the work in Doliche. The church illustrates the development of Christian sacred architecture in late antiquity. Impressive mosaic floors, numerous alterations and remnants of the furnishings make it a valuable testimony to the cultural heritage of ancient northern Syria. The church is a three-aisled basilica and measures around 45 meters in length. Particularly impressive are the mosaic floors, which were laid in various phases between the 4th and 6th centuries AD and impressively document the changes in mosaic art during this period. The aim of this year’s work was to further excavate the central nave in order to uncover the entire bema – a platform in the center of the central nave where the clergy sat during the service. To this end, three adjoining sections with a total area of 90 m2 were created.
Dabei ist es gelungen, den westlichen Abschluss des Bemas vollständig freizulegen. Wie zu erwarten, ist es halbrund. In its first phase, the bema was 8.4 m long and 4.7 m wide. The floor is decorated with a mosaic featuring an intricate geometric pattern. The tesserae have an edge length of only 5-6 mm and are therefore significantly smaller than the tesserae in the other mosaic floors of the church. Around 480,000 tesserae were used for the approx. 20 m2 mosaic. The semi-circular end of the bema, on the other hand, does not appear to have been mosaicked. Its design can no longer be determined, as both the border and the floor are completely missing. However, it can be assumed that this area was made entirely of stone and raised. The side enclosures of the bema, which must have consisted of barriers, have also been completely removed apart from the foundations on the eastern end. The fact that no remains of either the brick semicircle or the side barriers have survived is due to a reconstruction project during which the bema was enlarged. New barriers were placed directly on the mosaic floor of the central nave in order to enlarge the inner surface of the bema. At the same time, the bema was significantly lengthened. However, only a trace of mortar on the mosaic behind the original bema remains of the new semi-circular finial. It is no longer possible to say with certainty how this new bema was designed, but it can be assumed that fragments of opus sectile, which were found in large numbers in the two cuts, belonged to the base of the extended bema.
Where the barriers of the first bema phase were missing, the older mosaic floor, which was part of the church’s original furnishings, was uncovered. It shows a complex sequence of meanders and geometric ornaments, but surprisingly ends with a straight edge in the west. This is followed by another narrow mosaic field, which also shows geometric ornamentation. However, this is followed by the bare rock. It therefore appears that the church was not fully decorated with mosaics in the first phase. The question of how the floor at the back of the church was designed cannot yet be answered.
It was also found that the rear part of the central nave was separated from the front part of the central nave by barriers that ran from the bema to the north and south. The foundations of these barriers have been preserved on both sides of the bema.
The mosaic of the central nave behind the bema was created at the same time as the bema. The main field shows a complex sequence of intersecting shields (scuta) with concave ends. The corners of the shields touch further shield crosses, creating circular and diamond-shaped surfaces, while the inner surfaces of the intersecting shields are hexagonal. The surfaces are filled with geometric or abstract plant motifs. The pattern has a close parallel in the south aisle of the Martyrdom of Babylon (Kaoussie), which is dated to 387 AD, the presumed construction period of the church of Doliche.
The excavations in the area of the church have not only brought to light magnificent new mosaics, but have also provided important new clues as to their development, while at the same time raising new questions that have yet to be answered. As far as the design of the central nave is concerned, three main phases can be clearly distinguished. The first phase includes the lower, first mosaic floor in the central nave. A bema did not yet exist in this phase. The mosaic ends in the area of the later bema, followed by the smoothed rock to the west. How this change in the floor design is to be interpreted must be left open for the moment. In the second phase, the bema was installed. At the same time, the entire central nave was covered with new mosaics. The new excavations also reveal a clear separation between the rear western and front eastern half of the central nave.
In a third expansion phase, the Bema was significantly enlarged once again. The old barriers to the south, west and north were removed for the expansion.
The large number of opus sectile finds that may have adorned the floor of the new bema are probably connected with this third phase.
It is planned to complete the excavations in the temple and archive in 2025. At the same time, search sections will clarify whether it is possible to investigate the remains of residential buildings from the Imperial period and Late Antiquity in the area of the southern slope between the church and the Roman city center.
Find Processing
As every year, special attention was paid to the complete and professional documentation, restoration and processing of all finds (beautiful photo from the finds processing). Experts in ceramics, glass, metal and stone finds were deployed for this purpose. One focus was the scientific processing of the architectural ornamentation from the imperial temple. A new focus of work is also the examination of animal bones. The first osteological studies were carried out by Prof. Abu B. Siddiq from the University of Mardin. Animal bones not only help to reconstruct the diet of the ancient population, but also provide insights into the climate and environmental conditions of antiquity. They provide information on how people adapted to their environment and what resources they used. In addition, animal bones in waste pits provide information about the way of life and waste disposal in the city.
