Archaeology Magazine - September 1959 - 5

reached Western Europe, it caused deep emotion and
precipitated the Second Crusade.
The story of Edessa from the fourth to the thirteenth
century is well documented by Syriac chronicles; less is
known of the earlier period. We learn a little from the
monuments remaining in present-day Urfa. On the precipitous Citadel mount, southwest of the city, among
heaps of fallen masonry, stand two sixty-foot columns
with Corinthian capitals. In the third and fourth centuries they were, it appears, crowned with gleaming
statues of Abgar the Great and his queen; indeed, a
Syriac inscription on one column still records the dedication to the queen. Below, due north of the Citadel mount,
near the site of Abgar's palace, are two fish pools. In
ancient times the carp of these pools, like the sacred fish
of other Mesopotamian cities, were probably sacred to
the goddess of fertility. The pilgrim abbess Aetheria of
Aquitania describes them in her fourth-century Latin
"
journal as shining and succulent." Even today the
people of Urfa do not kill the carp in these pools for
food but treat them as pets; the fish will leap several
inches out of the water to snatch at morsels of bread. A
large portion of the city walls may still be traced, and
they are in excellent condition from the Citadel mount
eastward to the Bey (formerly the Great) Gate, which
was the scene of bitter carnage during the First Crusade.
The channel that today conducts the river Kara Koyun
through the center of the town was the work of the
Emperor Justinian : it was built to divert the troublesome
stream (well described by its Syriac name of Daisan, "the
leaper") from its natural bed on the west and southwest
of the city (see plan on opposite page) .
The decipherment of inscriptions at Edessa, notably
in the village of Kirk Magara west of the city, by Sachau,
Pognon and other scholars has added to our knowledge
THE AUTHORis Readerin Aramaicand Syriacin the Universityof London,and is on the staff of the Schoolof Oriental
and AfricanStudies,London.He holds the degreesof M.A.,
Cambridge,and D.Phil., Oxford. He was at one time in the
SudanGovernmentand has traveledwidelyin the MiddleEast.
This past summerhe has been carryingout a new campaignat
Edessa(Urfa).
The 1956 campaignwas made possibleby the generousassistanceof the PilgrimTrust administeredby the BritishAcademy and of the Central ResearchFund of the Universityof
London.The courtesyand help of the Turkish Departmentof
Antiquitiesand of the British Institute of Archaeologyat
Ankaragreatlyfacilitatedour work in the field. Specialthanks
are due to Dr. D. S. Rice,Readerin IslamicArt and Archaeology in the Universityof London,who participatedin this expedition,and to his assistants,Dr. Donald Strongof the British Museumand Mr. MichaelBallanceof the British School
at Rome.
The colorplates were madepossibleby a grant from the Central ResearchFund of the Universityof London.

of the city's history during the first centuries of the
Christian era. Most of these memorial texts are in
Syriac; a few are in Hebrew or Greek. From them we
learn that paganism lingered in Edessa long after the
introduction of Christianity there, and from them we
also learn something of the topography of the town at
that period. Yet our information remains meager, and
additional sources of data are welcomed by students of
the history of Mesopotamia.
In 1952 I was enabled to shed some fresh light on
early Edessa by the discovery of the "Family Portrait"
Mosaic in a tomb in a wadi due south of the Citadel
mount. In the summer of 1956 I conducted a second
season at Urfa. The Syriac inscriptions and two pieces of
sculpture found then are discussed in an article in the
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies
XXII (1959) 23-40. Here I offer for the first time an
account of four new mosaics found on the outskirts of
Edessa during that campaign.
The first mosaic - which I call the Tripod Mosaicwas found in the area north of the city, §ehitlik Mahallesi, the district of the Martyrs' Grave. This name recalls
an event in the early history of Edessa. Outside the North
Gate (formerly the Gate of Hours, or of the Sundial)
stood Ramath Dauqe, the Hill of Watchmen. Here in
the fourth century was a cemetery where malefactors and
the poor were buried. The three Christian martyrs of
Edessa were interred in this cemetery, probably in 309-

The Funerary Couch Mosaic. The color transcription on the cover is by Mrs. Seton Lloyd, of the
British Institute of Archaeologyat Ankara, from
rubbingsand notes by J. B. Segal.
153

Archaeology Magazine - September 1959

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