The last gates to the East: the Roman army outpost of Biğān on the Euphrates revisited

Abstract

The army outpost on Biğān Island on the Euphrates (in Iraq) was excavated in the early 1980s, but it is only now that a thorough examination of the material from the Roman layers has been completed, giving grounds for a revisiting of issues related to the site’s chronology, function and role in the frontier zone between Rome and the empires of the East. The archaeological sources, mainly pottery and coins, are discussed in light of the army post’s island location and its role in interregional and long-distance trade. Of greatest interest in the pottery category are the transport/storage vessels that seem to belong to the same family as the broadly discussed so-called Mesopotamian Torpedo Jars.

Keywords

• Roman pottery
• Brittle Ware
• Bijan
• long-distance trade
• North Mesopotamia
• Roman pottery