Archaeologists Unearthed 149 Artifacts from Abbasid Era in Syria

posted on: Mar 28, 2010

Director of al-Raqqah Department of Archeology Mohammad Sarhan al-Ahmad said the findings include chinaware plates, lanterns, chinaware and clay cups and glasses, clay pots painted green and turquoise, clay pegs, and furnaces for making pottery and glass.

Al-Ahmad noted that this discovery points out to the role of al-Raqqah in metallurgy, the production of pottery and glass and exporting them to Arab and Islamic cities during the Abbasid era.

Tel el-Fakhar is located 7 kilometers east of the city of al-Raqqah.

al-Raqqah is a city in north central Syria located on the north bank of the Euphrates River, about 160 km east of Aleppo. It is the capital of the Ar Raqqah Governorate and one of the main cities of the historical Diyār Muḍar, the western part of the Jazīra. Modern population is about 191,784 (2008 estimate).

The Seleucid king Seleucos II Kallinikos (reigned 246-225 BC) founded ar-Raqqah as the eponymous city of Callinicum or Kallinikos. In the Byzantine period, the city was briefly named Leontupolis by the emperor Leo I (reigned 457-474 AD), but the name Kallinikos prevailed. In 542, the city was destroyed by the invasion of the Persian Sasanid Shahanshah Khusrau I Anushirvan (reigned 531-579), but was subsequently rebuilt by the Byzantine emperor Justinian I (reigned 527-565).

In the 6th century, Kallinikos became a center of Syriac monasticism. Deir Mār Zakkā, or the Saint Zacchaeus Monastery, sited on the tell just north of the city, today’s Tall al-Bi’a, became renowned. A mosaic inscription there is dated to the year 509, presumably from the period of the foundation of the monastery. Deir Mār Zakkā is mentioned by various sources up to the 10th century. The second important monastery in the area was the Bīzūnā monastery or ‘Dairā d-Esţunā’, the ‘monastery of the column’. In the 9th century, when ar-Raqqah served as capital of the western half of the Abbasid empire, this monastery became the seat of the Syriac Patriarch of Antioch.

Global Arab Network