Abstract
Abstract. Traditionally polygonal tower tombs dating from the Greco-Roman era, especially found in the area of Syro-Mesopotamia, have only been treated as funerary structures without discussion of their other possible purposes. In this paper we wish to inquire whether they had other functions as well. The most famous examples of these types of tombs are situated in Palmyra in Syria. They are built of limestone, follow a square layout, and some exceed the height of 20 m. Similar structures are found in the Euphrates valley of Syria. The Finnish project SYGIS that worked in the neighbourhood of the Euphrates and Palmyra during the previous decade studied some of the structures in the region. As far as the tower tombs are concerned, our research suggests that new structural, topographical and spatial aspects can be raised, and GIS (Geographic Information Systems) can be applied for analysing their properties for visibility. The tendency to locate tower tombs along roads and the entrance areas of a city as well as at a mountain edge seems to indicate that the tombs may have had observational functions serving as watch towers. The aspects of the location in terrains are emphasized in the present study, and digital terrain models were utilized using SRTM DEM (Digital Elevation Model) data for carrying out viewshed analyses in order to survey the observational qualities of the towers in Palmyra, on Halabiya, on Jebel Bishri in Syria and Hatra in Iraq.
Highlights
We decided to provide digital elevation data (DEM) and apply GIS (Geographic Information Systems) to carry out viewshed analyses based on the locations of the tombs in their terrains and study their qualities for surveillance
Some strategic use for the towers in Syria can be assumed, the defensive wall reinforces this additional functional aspect of the free-standing tower tombs at the entrances of the cities and fortresses, as well as at the mountain edge
Our study on the tower tombs in the Syro-Mesopotamian sphere has provided some information of the choice of the terrain and location connected with the roads and the entrance areas of the cities
Summary
Tower tombs represent a particular type of funerary structures that are especially known to have been preferred in Palmyra in Syria during the Greco-Roman period, from the 1st century BC to the 2nd century AD (see, e.g., Henning, 2013). The sites of caravan cities of Hatra, Palmyra and Petra dating from the Roman period, follow Parthian ideals adapted into the Greco-Roman art and architecture (see Rostovtzeff, 1932, Anadol, 2008). We decided to provide digital elevation data (DEM) and apply GIS (Geographic Information Systems) to carry out viewshed analyses based on the locations of the tombs in their terrains (see Wheatley 1995, Wheatley and Gillings, 2000) and study their qualities for surveillance. Because of the astral religions in the region at that time, the tombs as towers and ritual monuments may have been used for star gazing as well
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