oa The Ruins that Remain. Remembering Dura-Europos in Salhiyeh

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The legacy of Dura-Europos is well known through hundreds of scholarly publications and continuing work in the archives of the excavations held by Yale University Art Gallery. The absences in the traditional accounts of Dura’s excavation history are also increasingly evident, including the role of local archaeological labour, and the relationship between local Syrian communities such as that of Salhiyeh — the settlement on the Euphrates immediately beneath the plateau on which Dura sits — and the archaeological site. This chapter presents oral history research which attempts to address such archival absences and speaks to alternative legacies. Our research, conducted through interviews, examines the strong but complex relationship between local people of Salhiyeh and al Athar (‘the ruins’). That relationship is one which was often forged in childhood, and sometimes involved mixed feelings of pride and alienation. The recent damage to the site was, for some local people, only one in a long line of losses, with the site’s artefacts, and knowledge related to the site, inaccessible long before the most recent conflict began.