Hatra

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Hatra

Hatra is an ancient ruined city in the Ninawa Governorate

Ninawa Governorate

Ninawa is a Governorates_of_Iraq in northern Iraq, and the Arabic name for the Bible city of Nineveh in Assyria. It has an area of and an estimated population of 2,453,000 people in 2003....
and al-Jazira region

Al-Jazira, Mesopotamia

For other uses, see the disambiguation, Jazira.Al-Jazira is the traditional Arabic name for the modern-day regions of northwestern Iraq and northeastern Syria....
of Iraq

Iraq

Iraq , officially the Republic of Iraq , is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros Mountains, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
. It is today called al-Hadr, and it stands in the ancient Persian province of Khvarvaran

Khvarvaran

Khvarvaran, also known as Iraq or Mesopotamia, was a province of the Iranian Persian Empire, which ruled the region since the time of Cyrus the Great....
. The city lies 290 km (180 miles) northwest of Baghdad

Baghdad

Baghdad is the Capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate, with which it is also coterminous. With a municipal population estimated at 6.5 million, it is the largest city in Iraq, and the second largest city in the Arab World....
and 110 km (68 miles) southwest of Mosul

Mosul

Mosul is a city in northern Iraq and the capital of the Ninawa Governorate, some 400 km northwest of Baghdad. The original city stands on the west bank of the Tigris River, opposite the ancient city of Nineveh on the east bank, but the metropolitan area has now grown to encompass substantial areas on both banks, with five bridges linkin...
.

Hatra was founded as an Assyria

Assyria

Assyria was a political state centered on the Upper Tigris river, in Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times in history....
n city by the Seleucid Empire

Seleucid Empire

The Seleucid Empire /s?'lus?d/ was a Hellenistic empire, i.e. a successor state of Alexander the Great's empire. The Seleucid Empire was centered in the near East and at the height of its power included central Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Persia, today's Turkmenistan, Pamir Mountains and parts of Pakistan....
some time in the 3rd century BCE

3rd century BC

The 3rd century BC started the first day of 300 BC and ended the last day of 201 BC. It is considered part of the Classical era, epoch, or historical period....
. A religious and trading centre of the Parthian empire

Parthian Empire

The Arsacid Empire , was a significant political and cultural power in the ancient Near East, and a counterweight to the Roman Empire in the region....
, it flourished during the 1st and 2nd centuries BCE.

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Hatra is an ancient ruined city in the Ninawa Governorate

Ninawa Governorate

Al-Jazira, Mesopotamia

For other uses, see the disambiguation, Jazira.Al-Jazira is the traditional Arabic name for the modern-day regions of northwestern Iraq and northeastern Syria....
of Iraq

Iraq

Khvarvaran

Baghdad

Mosul

Assyria

Assyria was a political state centered on the Upper Tigris river, in Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times in history....
n city by the Seleucid Empire

Seleucid Empire

3rd century BC

Parthian Empire

Arab

An Arab is a person who Identity as such on linguistic or cultural grounds. The plural form, Arabs , refers to the Ethnocultural group at large....
Kingdom in the chain of Arab cities running from Hatra, in the northeast, via Palmyra

Palmyra

Palmyra was in ancient times an important city of central Syria, located in an oasis 215 km northeast of Damascus and 120 km southwest of the Euphrates....
, Baalbek

Baalbek

Baalbek is a town in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon, altitude 1,170 m , situated east of the Litani River. It is famous for its exquisitely detailed yet monumentally scaled temple ruins of the Roman Empire period, when Baalbek, known as Heliopolis was one of the largest sanctuaries in the Empire....
and Petra

Petra

Petra is an Archaeology site in the Arabah, Ma'an Governorate, Jordan, lying on the slope of Mount Hor in a Depression among the mountains which form the eastern flank of Arabah , the large valley running from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba....
, in the southwest. The region controlled from Hatra was the Kingdom of Araba

Kingdom of Araba

The Kingdom of Araba was a second-century, semi-autonomous buffer kingdom between the Roman Empire and the Parthian Empire, mostly under Parthian influence, located in modern Iraq....
, a semi-autonomous buffer kingdom on the western limits of the Parthian Empire

Parthian Empire

The Arsacid Empire , was a significant political and cultural power in the ancient Near East, and a counterweight to the Roman Empire in the region....
, governed by Arabian princes.

Hatra became an important fortified frontier city and withstood repeated attacks by the Roman Empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the Roman Republic phase of the Ancient Rome, characterised by an autocracy form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
, and played an important role in the Second Parthian War. It repulsed the sieges of both Trajan

Trajan

Marcus Ulpius Nerva Traianus, commonly known as Trajan , was a Roman Emperors who reigned from 98 until his death in 117. Born Marcus Ulpius Traianus into a nonpatrician family in the Hispania Baetica province , Trajan rose to prominence during the reign of emperor Domitian, serving as a general in the Roman army along the Limes G...
(116/117) and Septimius Severus

Septimius Severus

Lucius Septimius Severus was a Roman Empire general, and Roman Emperor from April 14 193 to 211. He was born in what is now the Libyan part of Rome's historic Africa Province, making him the first emperor to be born in the Roman province of Africa Province....
(198/199). Hatra defeated the Persians at the battle of Shahrazoor in 238

238

Events...
, but fell to the Sassanid Empire

Sassanid Empire

The Sassanid Empire or Sassanian Dynasty is the name of the last pre-Islamic Iranian empire. It was one of the two main powers in Western Asia for a period of more than 400 years....
of Shapur I

Shapur I

Shapur I was the second Sassanid King of the Sassanid Empire. The dates of his reign are commonly given as 241 - 272, but it is likely that he also reigned as co-regent prior to his father's death in 241....
in 241 and was destroyed. The traditional stories of the fall of Hatra tell of an-Nadira, daughter of the King of Araba, who betrayed the city into the hands of Shapur. The story tells of how Shapur killed the king and married an-Nadira, but later had her killed also.

Hatra is the best preserved and most informative example of a Parthian city. It is encircled by inner and outer walls nearly 4 miles (6.4 km) in circumference and supported by more than 160 towers. A temenos surrounds the principal sacred buildings in the city’s centre. The temples cover some 1.2 hectares and are dominated by the Great Temple, an enormous structure with vaults and columns that once rose to 30 metres. The city was famed for its fusion of Greek, Mesopotamian, Syrian and Arabian pantheons, known in Aramaic

Aramaic language

Aramaic is a Semitic languages with a 3,000-year history. It has been the language of administration of empires and the language of divine worship....
as ("House of God"). The city had temples to Nergal

Nergal

The name Nergal refers to a deity in Babylonia with the main seat of his cult at Kutha represented by the mound of Tell-Ibrahim. Nergal is mentioned in the Hebrew bible as the deity of the city of Kutha : "And the men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, and the men of Cuth made Nergal" ....
(Sumerian and Akkad

Akkad

The Akkadian Empire was an empire centered in the city of Akkad Sumerian language: Agade KUR A.GA.D?KI "land of Akkad". ; Biblical Accad) and its surrounding region Akkadian URU Akkad KI in central Mesopotamia....
ian), Hermes

Hermes

Hermes is the messenger of the gods in Greek mythology. An Twelve Olympians, he is also the patron of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of thieves and road travelers, of orators and wit, of literature and poets, of athletics, of weights and measures, of invention, of general commerce, and of the cunni...
(Greek

Ancient Greek religion

Greek religion encompasses the collection of beliefs and rituals practiced in ancient Greece in the form of both popular public religion and cult ....
), Atargatis

Atargatis

Atargatis, in Aramaic ?Atar?atah, was a Syrian deity, "the great mistress of the North Syrian lands" Michael Rostovtzeff called her, commonly known to the ancient Greece by a shortened form of the name, Derceto or Derketo and as Dea Syria, "Goddess of Syria", rendered in one word Deasura....
(Syro-Aramaean

Elohim (gods)

This article is about the Canaanite gods. For other uses see Elohim .In the Levantine pantheon, the 'Elohim' are the sons of El the Ancient of Days assembled on the divine holy place, Mount Zephon ....
), Allat

Allat

Al-Lat was a pre-Islamic Arabian goddess who was one of the three chief goddesses of Mecca. She is mentioned in the Qur'an ,Descriptions...
and Shamiyyah (Arabian

Arabian mythology

Arabian mythology comprises the ancient, pre-Islamic beliefs of the Arabs.Prior to Islam on the Arabian Peninsula in 622, the physical centre of Islam, the Kaaba of Mecca, the Kaaba was covered in symbols representing the myriad demons, Genie, demigods and other assorted creatures which represented the profoundly polytheistic environment of...
) and Shamash

Shamash

Shamash was the common Akkadian language name of the Solar deity and god of justice in Babylonia and Assyria, corresponding to Mesopotamian mythology Utu....
(the Mesopotamian

Mesopotamian mythology

Mesopotamian mythology is the collective name given to Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian, and Babylonian mythologies from the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq....
sun god).

The Al Hadr Hotel, located within a kilometer of the Hatra ruins, was the Division HQ for the 101st ABN during the beginning of the 2003 invasion of Iraq

2003 invasion of Iraq

The 2003 invasion of Iraq, from March 20 to May 1, 2003, was spearheaded by the United States, backed by United Kingdom forces and smaller contingents from Australia, Spain, Poland and Denmark....
.

Hatra is one of the ten Legendary Lost Cities of Tayyab.
The site was used as the setting for the opening scene in the 1973 film The Exorcist
The Exorcist (film)

The Exorcist is a 1973 in film United States horror film, adapted from the 1971 The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty, dealing with the demonic possession of a young girl, and her mother?s desperate attempts to win back her daughter through an exorcism conducted by two priests....
.
Hatra is a UNESCO
UNESCO

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations established on 16 November 1945....
World Heritage Site
World Heritage Site

A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a site that is on the list maintained by the international World Heritage Programme administered by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, composed of 21 Sovereign state which are elected by their General Assembly for a four-year term....
.

Hatra

See also

External links