home  shooting plan   journal  locations  panoramas  team  documentaries

ZEUGMA

The Birecik dam on the river Euphrates was completed in December 1999. The dam is located on the boundary between Gaziantep and Sanli Urfa provinces in Southern Turkey, about 30 km North of the border with Syria. It now provides electricity which will assist in the economic development of Southern Turkey, as well as water for irrigation. The dam has created a reservoir which will drown an area rich in history and in archaeological sites. In particular, the waters of the dam cover much of the site of Zeugma, a Greek and Roman city on both sides of the Euphrates.

Responsibility for excavation and survey work in that part of Zeugma which will be inundated lay with a French mission, in collaboration with the Museum of Gaziantep. Teams from Spain, Germany and Switzerland were also active in the area to be flooded, as well as a second French team. The Director of the French Archaeological Mission to Zeugma (a body depending from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris) was Catherine Abadie-Reynal.

Much useful information about Zeugma may be obtained from another website established by David Kennedy of the University of Western Australia, an archaeologist who has also excavated there. This site aims to address in particular the issue of remote sensing and the use of satellites to aid archaeology in the Middle East, as well as providing a brief visual record of the region.

- WWW-Team & Anthony Comfort  -