Staying at Home or Taking Away: Palmyrene Priestly Iconography as Expressions of Local Religious Traditions and Societal Status
New publication by Rubina Raja.
The publication appeared in the edited volume Dura-Europos: Past, Present, Future (Studies in Classical Archaeology 16), edited by Lisa Brody and Anne Hunnell Chen.
About Dura-Europos: Past, Present, Future:
This volume brings together an international and interdisciplinary host of scholars to reflect on the complicated legacies of exploration at the archaeological site of Dura-Europos, situated on the western bank of the Euphrates River near modern Salihiyeh (Syria). A chance discovery after World War I kicked off a series of excavations that would span the next century and whose finds are today housed in collections worldwide, including the Yale University Art Gallery, the Louvre, and the National Museum in Damascus. Dura-Europos exemplifies a multiethnic frontier town at the crossroads of major trade routes. Its textual remains and remarkably-preserved Christian, Jewish, and polytheist religious sanctuaries provide key resources for the study of antiquity and attest to the cross-cultural interconnectivity that was demonstrably central to the ancient world but which has been too often obscured by Eurocentric historiographic traditions and siloed disciplinary divisions.
Raja, R. (2025). "Staying at Home or Taking Away: Palmyrene Priestly Iconography as Expressions of Local Religious Traditions and Societal Status", in: Brody, L. R. & Chen, A. H. (eds.), Dura-Europos: Past, Present, Future, Studies in Classical Archaeology 16, Turnhout: Brepols, 171-184.