Hatra: Exploring an ancient city in Iraq

To contact us Click HERE


I'm fortunate enough to get to meet and work with some very adventurous people. One of them is writer Sean McLachlan, who contributes regular travel and adventure stories at Gadling.com just like I do. Sean has recently returned from a visit to Iraq, which is one of those places steeped in history and culture, but is viewed by many as far too dangerous to actually go and visit themselves. He's been posting stories of that amazing journey over on Gadling for the past few days, but he has also graciously offered to share one with Adventure Blog readers as well. You'll find that story, about a visit to an ancient Arab city below. Enjoy!


Hatra: Exploring an ancient city in Iraq
By Sean McLachlan

Iraq is rich with ancient heritage. Babylon, Ur, and Uruk are famous as urban centers of the Cradle of Civilization. One of the most impressive sites, however, is little known outside the country.

The city of Hatra was founded in the third century BC byArab tribes. Archaeologists believe it was the first Arab city. In ancienttimes it sat on an important trade route and the only good water supply formiles of desolate wasteland. Hatra served as a vassal state to the ParthianEmpire of Iran and thus ended up on the front line of its war against the RomanEmpire. Roman legions besieged the city in 116 and 198 AD and were pushed backboth times. The Hatrans had built four miles of strong city walls and usedcatapults to bombard the attackers with flaming balls of bitumen and jarsfilled with scorpions.
Nowadays Hatra lies in an underpopulated region in northernIraq, about 180 miles northwest of Baghdad. Our bus sped for hours along aSaddam-era highway through featureless desert, escorted by a pickup truckpacked with Kalashnikov-toting Iraq police. While we had had no serious troubleso far (other than my almostgetting arrested) the police insisted on coming along. As I gazed out thewindow at the hypnotic expanse of brown sand and pale green scrub, I couldn’timagine any terrorist wanting to bother with the place.
The first thing you see as you approach Hatra is a giantcrane looming over a Greek-style temple. The crane was from a reconstructionproject during the Saddam era, finished now just like Saddam. Our guide told usthe crane has been standing there rusting for more than a decade. What shouldhave been an eyesore seemed, upon reflection, to be an appropriate addition—anotherrelic of dead imperial ambition.
Hatra’s kingdom has little left above the surface except atthis site. As we approached, we passed low mounds that may have been Romansiege works like those at Masada, Israel. Then we came to the walls, which twothousand years of desert winds couldn’t entirely destroy. Even now they lookformidable, and I wasn’t surprised that the Romans, parched under the MiddleEastern sun, failed to take them.
We parked in front of the main temple, which in fact housedtemples to several gods and goddesses. Being located between several cultures,the Hatrans adopted many different deities—the Akkadian death god Nergal, asold as civilization itself; the Greek messenger god Hermes; even the new godMithras, whose mystery religion was Christianity’s main competitor for convertsin the first few centuries after Christ. The buildings had a mixed quality tothem too, with the balance and symmetry of Greek architecture and the elaborateOriental decoration of Mesopotamia and Persia.
Our guards seemed as impressed as I felt. None of them spokeEnglish, so we relied on my 200-word vocabulary of badly pronounced Arabic.They found my repertoire vastly amusing and soon I had a small crowd of themfollowing me around the ruins. They kept calling friends on their cell phonesand having me try to talk to them. One guy called up his wife. All she heardwas some foreign voice saying salaamaleykum and her husband laughing in the background.She hung up.
We discovered a dark staircase piercing the cyclopean wallsof the main temple. Treading carefully, we ascended and came out on top, oureyes blinking at the harsh sunlight. From there we looked out at the crumbledfoundations of temples and homes. The Iraqi police filmed the scene with theircell phones and had me wave at the camera.
One stood next to me at the edge of the wall, smiling as hesurveyed the ruins.
“Zeen,” I said.“Good.”
“Ha ha,” helaughed and nodded. “Zeen zeen.”
Our guide had told me that during the Saddam era the schoolsdidn’t teach ancient history, instead only teaching the history of the Baathparty and Saddam’s life. I wondered if this policeman knew anything about thisplace, knew that he was standing in the first great city of his people. Iwondered what he thought about that.
I never found out. I lacked the words.

Sean McLachlan is theauthor of numerousbooks, including the Civil War novel AFine Likeness. Visit him on his blog and read more about his travels inIraq in the special series on Gadling, Destination: Iraq.