New interpretations of the bench-lined rooms in the temples of Dura-Europos

This thesis seeks to reevaluate the archaeological and archival evidence of the temples at Dura-Europos in order to better understand their construction and significance. The city of Dura-Europos, at the edge of the Seleucid, Parthian, and Roman empires, is well-known for the remarkable variety and preservation of its religious buildings. Many of these buildings have only been published in Preliminary Reports by the original French-American joint excavation campaigns which took place in the 1920s and 30s. The scholarship on Dura-Europos’ temples, therefore, has been heavily influenced by the biases of the original excavators and outdated frameworks including Orientalism, culture-historical archaeology, and a top-down concept of Romanization. I have focussed my study by examining one aspect of Dura’s religious architecture: the phenomenon of the bench-lined rooms. These rooms are usually arranged around a central temple courtyard and are modest in size with low benches against two or more walls, providing space to gather, sit, recline, eat, and partake in other ritual activities. Previous scholarship has often considered them to be subsidiary to larger, more highly decorated “naos” spaces, and there is no clear consensus as to how they were used. Through the examination of two case studies, the temples named for Adonis and Zeus Theos, I argue that the bench-lined rooms were in fact highly customized spaces which served as focal points for religious and social activities. The ways that the bench-lined rooms were built, dedicated, inscribed, furnished, and decorated indicate how the occupants constructed and negotiated their individual and group identities within their temples.