In 1928, Leroy Waterman was looking for the much-disputed site of Babylonian Opis and the older Sumerian Akshak, capital of one of the oldest kingdoms in Mesopotamia. Classical sources such as Strabo, Pliny, and Xenephon had placed the site on the narrowest point between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The mounds chosen for each excavation turned out to conceal the ruins of Seleucia. There was still the possibility that the Babylonian Opis lay beneath.
Seleucia was founded by Seleucus Nicator, the general of Alexander the Great who, after the death of Alexander in 323 B.C., secured for himself the Middle East from the Mediterranean to India. He located his new Hellenistic city on the Tigris and it became the eastern capital of the Seleucid Empire. In 141 B.C., the Parthians under Mithridates conquered the city, and Seleucia became the western capital of the Parthian Empire. In subsequent centuries, the ruins, like those of Karanis, were buried under mounds of desert sand.
In the preliminary excavation of the site, archaeologists uncovered three levels of occupation and over a thousand objects, plus signs of the older Babylonian occupation. At the same time, airphotos and airmaps of the regions - in one of the earliest applications of aerial photography to archaeology - confirmed the rectangular pattern of streets indicating a major city. After verifying the site as Seleucia, Waterman and his expedition began extensive excavations.
By the 1929-30 season, they had cleared a block of houses in Level I (200 A.D. - 116 A.D.) and a more elaborate building, dedicated to Seleucus as founder of the empire. It contained twenty-one rooms around three sides of a quadrangular court. Waterman's Second Preliminary Report (1928-32) describes the work on the block in the Parthian period Level II (116 A.D.-43 A.D.); in Level III (43 A.D. - 141 B.C.) when the Hellenistic city was autonomous under Parthian rule; and Level IV, which goes back to earlier Hellenistic times. The period from 141 B.C. to 43 A.D. marked the close of the autonomous city and the ascendance of Oriental influence. Archaeologists recovered over 3,500 objects of great variety and value. These included inscriptional material such as a cuneiform tablet, fragments of Greek inscriptions, stamped and inscribed objects, Parthian and Seleucid coins, over 259 bitumen seal impressions or "bullae," figurines, pottery, and other objects of everyday use. (While most of these objects could be dated between 290 B.C. and 200 A.D., the 1932 excavation of Tel Umar, the most prominent mound at Seleucia, brought to light in an outer wall of the Parthian period a reused brick dated by stamp to 821 B.C., during the Neo-Babylonian period.) Since archaeological materials abounded, it was possible to reconstruct private life, the business, and the arts and crafts of the ancient city. Of preponderant interest to scholars at Seleucia, however, was its position in the historical meeting of cultures from the West and East.
In the Near East, the birthplace of so many forces still active in current affairs, the lack of knowledge of the Parthian and of the Sassanian periods had long blocked attempts to recontruct a continuous history for the region. Discoveries at Seleucia have done much to illuminate these "Dark Ages" of the Middle East. In studying the history of oriental architecture during the centuries after Alexander's conquest, for example, art historians turn to Seleucia on the Tigris, since for generations it remained the most important center of post-Alexandrian Greek civilization in the Middle East. It is, according to Dr. Waterman, a "missing link" between Hellenistic and Sassanian architecture and shows the results of blending Greek with Eastern elements.
Decorative stucco illustrates this cultural blend. In Seleucia, decorative plaster was employed in and about courtyards, important rooms, and building entrances, and was, in fact, one of the most common decorative surfaces. Scholars such as Nelson C. Debevoise in "The Origin of Decorative Stucco" and Bernard Goldman in "The Overall Pattern of Mesopotamian Stuccowork" have analyzed how stucco was used, what it was made of, and how it was fixed to surfaces. In the matter of style, while some motifs at Seleucia clearly derive from Graeco-Roman designs common to the Near East, other motifs show the strong influence of Eastern design. The four or six petalled circle rosette cut into a flat surface, for example, indicates the Parthian influence. The deep overall repeat of the rosette pattern was particularly adaptable to plaster, and was, by Parthians, translated into the stucco grillwork now so commonly associated with the Middle East. While the presence of Hellenistic motifs in shallow relief might suggest a western origin, scholars agree, on the basis of excavation of Seleucia, that the use of decorative stucco in designs of light and shadow probably entered Mesopotamia with the Parthians, who early adapted it to the traditional Hellenistic house plans and decorative themes.
Of incomporable value to the historian of the Near East has been research on pottery. The Kelsey Museum has the largest collection of Parthian ceramics outside Iraq. Parthian Pottery from Seleucia on the Tigris by Nelson C. Debevoise treats the nearly 1,600 Seleucian vessels that remained intact or sufficiently complete to provide a drawing shape. Debevoise records the history of Parthian ceramics in a city that was for two centuries the cultural center of Hellenistic life in "the land of the two rivers." Second only to coins as dating material, the products of the potter's wheel provide one of the best chronological scales for archaeologists. Owing to the very nature of the material, however, pottery seldom remains intact and rarely bears a date. Archaeologists must therefore depend on catalogues of comparative material, none of which existed in the field of Parthian ceramics before the University's expedition to Selucia. To devise a satisfactory system of chronology for dating the pottery, Debevoise first reviewed the coins (see Coins from Seleucia on the Tigris, by Robert H. McDowell), some 30,000 of which were found at Seleucia, half with a definite provenance. Since these were datable and occurred with pottery at all levels, they provided a fairly accurate chronological index for the Parthian period. Debevoise also referred to McDowell's research on dated clay seals pertaining to taxes, salt, and slaves. Once the chronology of the ceramics was established, it was possible to deduce other information. Research revealed that Seleucian pottery was made from local clay on a true potter's wheel, with the exception of a few pot covers and certain irregular shapes that were made by hand. When completed, the pot was removed with a piece of string from the wheel and was set aside to dry before firing. Some very thin ware was reworked before firing, and handles were stuck on after drying had progressed to a certain point. Kilns were probably fired with bundles of camel thorn, a bush that still grows in the region. In manufacture, great care in technique is apparent in the earliest levels excavated. Seleucia reached the peak of its prosperity under the Hellenistic Greeks and its economic wealth was reflected in careful workmanship. With the growth in political and economic importance of the Parthian city of Ctesephon across the river, Seleucia probably suffered a slow decline, reflected in the increasing carelessness of manufacture and glazing and even in a decline in the amount of pottery in use. Similarly, changes in shape of cooking pots and storage jars are easily observable at different levels of excavation. The greater part of the pottery from Seleucia was discovered where the inhabitants left it, discarded and broken, when they fled from some invasion; only a small percent was taken from graves.
The tombs of the dead of Seleucia were in the abodes of the living. The research of S. Yeivin showed that some bodies were disposed of in walls or under floors without protection of any sort, but the great majority were covered by some kind of superstructure or placed in pottery coffins or jars or, for children and infants, in ordinary cooking pots. The interior materials, workmanship, and cheap, drab appearance of the pottery coffins throughout the uppermost level corroborate other evidence that this was a period of great economic and cultural decline. Some cultural change in the burials between levels II and III is evident, thought mortuary customs appeared relatively consistent, reflecting the belief that the dead would require the pottery, glassware, jewelry and other articles of daily use in the thereafter, and that a coin, usually placed in the palm or on the mouth, would be necessary to pay the captain of the ferry to the underworld. Close examination of burial practices has led to a somewhat more detailed understanding of the history of the ancient city.
Further knowledge of how the people of Seleucia lived and how their city was arranged came from an unexpected source. In "A Birds-Eye View of Opis and Seleucia," Clark Hopkins used the aerial photographs of Seleucia as an aid interpreting the overall topographical arrangement of the city, and the conduct of its business and trade. The photographs suggest where the old bed of the Tigris touched the city, where the docks were, and where the canal from the Euphrates may have connected the city to traffic on that river. "Not only do the carefully formed streets form a regular network," writes Hopkins, "but the whole city exhibits a balanced plan of a master architect." Excavation has disclosed very little change in the general aspect of the city in the course of its history. Despite varying styles in arts, crafts, and architectures, and despite the city's many vicissitudes, the general Hellenistic plan as reproduced by aerial photography has remained intact. Further definitive information on the city is available in "The Topography and Architecture of Seleucia on the Tigris," edited by Clark Hopkins. It includes sections on "The Architecture Decoration" by Bernard Goldman, and "The History of Seleucia from Classical Sources" by Robert G. McDowell.
