Roman Roads

New Evidence - New Perspectives

Anne Kolb, Anne Kolb

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9783110636314
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia dell'Europa medievale

This volume aims to present the current state of research on Roman roads and their foundations in a combined historical and archaeological perspective. The focus is on the diverse local histories and the varying degrees of significance of individual roads and regional networks, which are treated here for the most important regions of the empire and beyond.
The assembled contributions will be of interest to historians, archaeologists and epigraphers, since they tackle matters as diverse as the technical modalities of road-building, the choice of route, but also the functionality and the motives behind the creation of roads. Roman roads are further intimately related to various important aspects of Roman history, politics and culture. After all, such logistical arteries form the basis of all communication and exchange processes, enabling not only military conquest and security but also facilitating the creation of an organized state as well as trade, food supply and cultural exchange. The study of Roman roads must always be based on a combination of written and archaeological sources in order to take into account both their concrete geographical location and their respective spatial, cultural, and historical context.

IIThe Roads of the Empire

Anthony Comfort

Travelling between the Euphrates and the Tigris in Late Antiquity

Abstract: The paper discusses roads in the eastern Roman provinces, especially in south-eastern Anatolia, with material obtained by the author during visits between 1996 and 2008. It examines the presence of milestones, paving, forts and cisterns using specific examples, which are illustrated also with satellite images.

Zusammenfassung: Der Beitrag behandelt Straßen in den römischen Ostprovinzen, besonders im südöstlichen Anatolien. Dafür legt der Autor Material vor, das er während Besuchen zwischen 1996 und 2008 selbst erhoben hat. Anhand mehrerer Beispiele wird geprüft, ob Meilensteine, Pflasterung, Kastelle und Zisternen vorhanden sind. Alle Beispiele werden durch Satellitenbilder illustriert.

Introduction

There is not much new evidence in regard to this part of the Roman world for reasons connected principally with the security situation. In 1966 FREYA STARK published a book intended for a popular audience on this area (‘Rome on the Euphrates’).246 It would be wrong to say that there has been no public interest at all since then concerning the Roman presence in Northern Mesopotamia, but the conditions for working in that area have always been difficult and are now almost impossible. Those difficulties have not prevented a few scholarly books from being written on this subject while some excavations and surveys have taken place before the present crisis, for example in the northern Jazira. But for 60 years little research that is new has emerged in northern Mesopotamia which is of relevance to roads during the period from the birth of Christ to the Arab invasions – apart from the work of JÖRG WAGNER247 and DAVID and JOAN OATES.248 There have been studies of the churches and monasteries of the Tur Abdin249, reports of rescue excavations at Zeugma250 and further to the south sites of great importance have been excavated at Dura Europos (Euphrates) and Se Qubba (Tigris),251 but little has emerged concerning roads since LOUIS DILLEMANN’S ‘Haute Mésopotamie orientale et pays adjacents’ of 1962. However, TONY WILKINSON’S work on landscapes in the Near East, especially on the ‘hollow ways’, has helped to inspire further research, including studies of that part of northern Mesopotamia south of the Tur Abdin.252 He conducted surveys in the northern Jazira and many other areas of the Near East; although his work concerns landscape studies in the first instance, it is of great importance for the history of the region and of its roads.

Although in recent decades study of the Roman road network has rarely been possible, in the 1930s investigations were carried out by the Reverend Poidebard in what is currently north-eastern Syria and by SIR AUREL STEIN in northern Mesopotamia, both using aerial photography, then in its infancy as a tool for archaeology. The former’s results were published in ‘La Trace de Rome dans le desert de Syrie’,253 but the latter’s had to await 1985 for publication as ‘Sir Aurel Stein’s Limes report’.254 Both STEIN and POIDEBARD were looking at areas in Syria and Iraq which have for the most part not been visited by this writer.255 This paper is concerned mainly with roads located in SE Turkey.

Currently, of course, research on the ground throughout south-east Turkey and northern Syria is not possible, although various surveys are under way in Iraqi Kurdistan on the east side of the Tigris. Flights of low-flying aircraft for archaeological research have not been possible since the 1930s – except in Jordan where DAVID KENNEDY has been able to carry out research with a helicopter of the Jordanian air force.256 But the ready availability of satellite imagery has re-awakened interest in the road network throughout the region. Corona imagery from the 1960s and 1970s is especially helpful in analyzing routes in use before the arrival of modernity (see http://corona.cast.uark.edu).

Thus, the study of the roads beyond the Tigris is now beginning in the context of survey work being conducted in northern Iraq by the universities of Tübingen (Eastern Habur Archaeological Survey) and Udine (Land of Nineveh Archaeological Survey). The whole course of the upper Tigris from Mosul up to Diyarbakır has recently been discussed in COMFORT/MARCIAK 2018. This monograph places particular emphasis on transport and the road network; for south-east Turkey it draws substantially on a survey led by GUILLERMO ALGAZE in the late 1990s.257 For sites of the Roman period found by this survey, LIGHTFOOT examined several in detail but he did not discuss the road network as such, although he did find traces of three pre-modern roads along the Tigris valley near a rock relief sculpture.258

The Roads

The physical evidence for Roman roads in the region is often poor, partly because the hard ground often required little construction; there are few extant milestones or written texts concerning roads. However, the Peutinger Table and, for the most western part of Mesopotamia (also known as Osrhoene), the Antonine Itinerary constitute important sources.259 The historians Ammianus Marcellinus and Procopius of Gaza sometimes refer to trade or to the use of wagons, but infrequently. Bridges are the main type of physical evidence, but in this paper attention is paid especially to some examples of milestones, paving, forts and cisterns.

The paper discusses examples of ancient roads around the northern sections of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris; my research for a doctoral thesis concerning roads and bridges of the three late Roman provinces of Euphratesia, Osrhoene and Mesopotamia covered a wide area and included the hilly areas north of the Mesopotamian plain as far as Diyarbakır, ancient Amida.

The three case studies discussed here have been chosen to illustrate different aspects of the road network east of Antioch. They were investigated in the period 199...