Tomb garden at Tyre

Wed, 21 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Province Description

In 64 BCE, after his successes in Armenia, Pompey the Great added Syria to the list of annexed eastern provinces of the growing Roman Empire. The conquest of Syria had not been difficult, because the remnants of the once dominant Seleucid Empire had weakened following the defeats of king Antiochus III at Thermopylae in 191 and Magnesia in Asia shortly after. Ultimately, the Seleucids could not withstand the powers of the Nabatean kingdom to the south, the Hasmonean kingdom to the west, and the new threats of Roman hegemony. With the fall of the Seleucids, Rome inherited the majority of Alexander the Great's former conquests, and the Syrian desert would become a stage for Roman emperors to settle civil conflicts and win triumphs. Smaller Arab settlements sprang up across the region, re-inhabiting Seleucid sites and establishing new ones, and cities such as Palmyra grew in power by taking over the wealthy trade routes of the Nabateans in the second century CE. The Syrian city of Antioch, formerly Seleucia, would become one of the greatest cities of the Roman empire. Although Macedonian presence in the region introduced western styles in art and architecture before the arrival of the Romans, the cities remained Syrian in culture, population and character.

Covering the substantial central part of the Fertile Crescent, the province of Syria sat in an advantageous position between the mountain ranges of eastern Anatolia, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Arabian deserts, and it served as an area of expansion for the larger kingdoms around it. Important trans-Asian trade routes made Syria a key component in the Roman imperial economy, and large navigable rivers, such as the Euphrates and the Orontes, were exploited to connect the Persian Gulf with northern cities. The climate, although arid in the inland mountainous areas, was quite conducive to cultivation. River valleys in the mountain chains skirting the coast provided fertile terrain for agriculture, and the Orontes and Euphrates created well-watered plateaus in the steppe and desert regions of the southeast.

An irrigation system based around the qanat, an underground water channel, was used in Syria during the Roman period to water fields and gardens. Although qanats were likely introduced to the region via the earlier Achaemenid Persian dynasty, it was during the Roman and Byzantine periods that irrigation technology improved, and the majority of known qanats date to this time. The water could flow from these channels into canals, small reservoirs known today as birkas, or large wells. The ancient field systems of Syria have been well studied in areas such as the Hauran, a basalt region in the south. Cereals, olives and grapes were important crops, and were cultivated in either the broad fields on the lowland plains, or long, segmented plots on terraces in the rocky highlands. These terraced plots would have held fruit trees or vineyards.

Location

Location Description

Tyre, an ancient Phoenician port city (est. 2750 BCE), became part of the Roman Empire in 64 BCE. It was legendary as the birthplace of the goddess Europa and queen Dido, founder of Carthage.

Garden

Tomb garden at Tyre

Keywords

Garden Description

A tomb garden (Tomb Complex 15) has been found in a cemetery complex dating to the fourth century CE. (Fig. 1) Excavated by Maurice Chéhab, it features an enclosed garden (18x21 m) surrounded by a wall. The west wall supports a water channel which fed a rectangular basin in the apsidal hall and a large square basin in the northeast corner of the garden. (Fig. 2) A small square basin was installed by the great basin to catch the water and transmit it to channels in the garden itself. Along the central axis of the garden postholes were found, suggesting a free-standing trellis, or perhaps some form of fence. Other features of the walls include decorative niches, possibly for sculpture. No evidence for plants has been recovered, but from the structural arrangement, it is clearly a garden. Such tomb gardens provided a gracious place for visiting the dead and perhaps for growing produce for offerings and subsidizing the maintenance of the complex.

Plans

Fig. 1: Plan of Tomb Complex 15 showing garden beds, basins, water channels and post holes (Chéhab, Fig. 42).

Images

Fig. 2: Photograph of Tomb Complex 15 showing the garden, basins and adjacent rooms (Chéhab, Pl. XLVIII).

Dates

fourth century CE

Bibliography

M. H. Chéhab, Fouilles de Tyr: La Necropole. Paris: Bulletin du Musée de Beyrouth XXXIV (1984): 270-280. (worldcat)
L. De Jong, "Performing Death in Tyre: The Life and Afterlife of a Roman Cemetery in the Province of Syria. AJA 114.4 (Oct. 2010) pp. 597-630. (jstor)

Gardens of the Roman Empire

Tomb garden at Tyre

Province Description

Location

Location Description

Garden

Keywords

Garden Description

Plans

Images

Dates

Bibliography

Places