Dura-Europos and Gerasa: Archaeological Collections at the Yale University Art Gallery

The archaeological site of Dura-Europos, in modern Syria, is a fascinating crossroads of ancient cultures. It is perhaps best known for the important finds unearthed during the excavations in the 1920s and 1930s sponsored by Yale University and the French Academy of Inscriptions and Letters. These discoveries included a shrine to the god Mithras, a synagogue whose assembly room walls were covered with painted biblical scenes, and one of the earliest Christian house churches. The paintings and sculptures from these buildings—and the thousands of artifacts of daily life excavated by the archaeologists now preserved at the Yale University Art Gallery—present a vivid picture of life in a Roman city in the third century A.D. At the same time as the Dura excavations, Yale also participated in excavations at Gerasa, whose mosaics represent the best of early Byzantine church-mosaic production in Jordan. This tour of Yale's archaeological collections is presented by Lisa Brody, Associate Curator of Ancient Art.