Hidden less than half a meter beneath the surface, the ruins of Charax Spasinou pose an enormous challenge for archaeologists. “I have never experienced a place where digging is so difficult,” explains Stefan Hauser, an archaeologist from the University of Konstanz. The area north of Basra in southern Iraq is inhospitable: oil extraction and gas flaring pollute the air with noxious substances. The proximity to the Iranian border also carries the risk of encountering landmines from the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. But the greatest obstacle is the soil itself. While elsewhere a pickaxe can easily dislodge material, here, due to the extreme density of the soil, it simply bounces back.
Despite these adversities, Hauser is convinced that the effort would be worthwhile—or rather, could be worthwhile. Deep within the Iraqi soil lie the remnants of a once-global metropolis, founded by Alexander the Great as Alexandria on the Tigris. Later known as Charax Spasinou, it evolved into a pivotal hub for trade between India, China, and the West before its abandonment. These hidden ruins hold the potential to fundamentally revolutionize our understanding of antiquity. However, the future of their excavation remains uncertain.
“We are currently at a low point,” says Stefan Hauser, who leads the research on site. He recently received two rejections from the German Research Foundation, despite excellent reviews from experts. He is dependent on this funding. His time is limited: the scientist is set to retire at the end of 2029, and his chair for Mediterranean and Near Eastern Archaeology will likely not be refilled, Hauser states. In Iraq, authorities are questioning existing agreements, and now war rages in the neighborhood. What does this mean? “You never know what will happen,” Hauser remarks. The region is firmly controlled by Shiite militias, and it has been a war zone before. In the 1980s, Iraqi troops entrenched themselves on the site, building tank positions behind an earthen rampart, up to seven meters high in places, that stretches through the void, in the middle of nowhere.
It is doubtful whether the soldiers knew the significance of this wall. It is what remains of Charax’s ancient city fortifications, among the few structures that have not disappeared or been swallowed by the earth.
The city was flooded and rebuilt twice before becoming a metropolis
When and by whom was this wall constructed? This is one of many questions Stefan Hauser hopes to answer. He presumes the fortifications were not built under Alexander. The conqueror founded the city in 324 BC while en route from Susa to Babylon. The location was ideal for a port: the sea was nearby, and as the Euphrates increasingly became marshland, the Tigris gained importance as a waterway.
For Alexander, this new city was likely just one among many: the Macedonian founded over 20 cities during his campaign, most of which he named Alexandria, just like this one. And while Alexander died in Babylon just a year later, the great era of Alexandria on the Tigris was yet to come.
What do we already know about this largely forgotten city—and why does it hold such immense potential for research?
Ancient sources offer scant information about this Alexandria. Before it became a metropolis, the city was flooded and rebuilt twice, most recently under a ruler named Hyspaosines, who ordered dams to be built and named the city after himself, according to Pliny the Elder’s “Natural History”—”Charax Spasinou” meaning “the fortified palisade of Hyspaosines.” Pliny adds that the coastline shifted south over time, but little more is recorded.
“From Roman sources, we mainly know that the city existed,” says Stefan Hauser. For the rest, archaeology is essential. This applies to Charax as much as to the empire to which the city once belonged. The Romans called it the Parthian Empire, after the region of Parthia in the east of modern-day Iran, where the rise of the future Great King Arsaces I began in the third century BC. Scholars today prefer to speak of the Arsacids, named after the dynasty he founded. This is because Parthians neither lived everywhere in this empire nor were they the dominant group. It was a multi-ethnic state that stretched from Mesopotamia to the border of modern Uzbekistan. Individual provinces were governed by vassals of the Great Kings, by minor kings like Hyspaosines. The Arsacids themselves resided in Ctesiphon on the Tigris, a neighboring city of Seleucia, where, according to Pliny, up to 600,000 people lived. The seaport for these centers was Charax.
However, how this empire functioned precisely, how powerful the Great Kings were, and how much autonomy the minor kings had, all remains unknown today. Few written records from the Arsacid Empire have survived. Researchers are therefore primarily reliant on descriptions by the Romans—who had their own perspective on their neighbors.
For the Romans, the Arsacids were primarily enemies in the East. The triumvir Marcus Licinius Crassus had attacked them in 53 BC and suffered a devastating defeat, being killed himself. For centuries, the Romans sought revenge. They were mainly interested in the enemies’ lancers and mounted archers and weaknesses they could exploit. Their reports thus paint a picture of a state plagued by internal conflicts and weak central authority. Yet, that empire was not only militarily superior to them but also remarkably stable: the Arsacids maintained power for over 500 years. Such consistency was never seen in the Roman Empire.
A weak, subservient empire? Archaeological research contradicts this view
According to Stefan Hauser, the Romans’ ignorance led to a lack of interest from modern historical scholarship. Research on the region focused mainly on the early cuneiform cultures of Assyria and Babylon, as well as the later rise of Islam, he says. “For a period of 1000 years between Alexander and Muhammad, however, hardly anyone cared.”
And so, it was only in recent years that archaeological research has corrected the image conveyed by the Romans. At Rabana-Merquly, for instance, more than 500 kilometers north of Charax, a massive fortress was excavated, which completely defies the notion of a weak central power. Another example, Hauser notes, are the coins: minor kings like Hyspaosines minted their own money, thus managing their own economies. This was long seen as an indicator of the Great Kings’ weakness. However, there is now evidence that these coins were also recognized in neighboring provinces, Hauser explains. The Arsacids apparently simply organized their empire in a decentralized manner.
Charax, in turn, was previously considered primarily an intermediate stop for Roman traders from Palmyra who conducted business with India and China. However, the typical long-distance trade routes for Romans for this purpose actually ran via Egypt and the Red Sea; the Bubastis Canal even existed as a precursor to the Suez Canal. In reality, traders from Palmyra in Charax were just one group among many. The city was a meeting point for merchants from India and Syria, from Petra and Babylon. And the bulk of goods, instead of going to Rome, went primarily to Ctesiphon and Seleucia, as well as to Susa and other cities of the Arsacid Empire.
These trade routes could likely be reconstructed if Charax were excavated, as could who lived in this city, and perhaps even the prosperity of its inhabitants. These would be further pieces of the mosaic, eventually allowing us to understand this enigmatic empire not through the eyes of the Romans, but on its own terms.
What slumbers in the ground is only vaguely known, as the research is still young. It was not until the 1960s that British archaeologist John Hansman discovered the city’s outlines in aerial photographs. In 2014, researchers first visited the site; while the terrorist group Islamic State raged in northern Iraq, a British team led by Jane Moon, Robert Killick, and Stuart Campbell surveyed the site in the south under the protection of the Iraqi military. Hauser later joined them, as one of the world’s few experts in Near Eastern archaeology of classical antiquity.
In the initial years, the scientists gained an overview: they mapped parts of Charax, scanned the ground, recorded surface finds, and conducted test excavations at specific points.
What they found were traces of one of the largest known ancient cities. Charax Spasinou stretched over almost seven square kilometers. A 30-meter-wide road ran through the city. There were house blocks 156 meters long and 78 meters wide; these are among the largest whose traces have ever been found in ancient sites. Charax had an inner-city harbor and canals. There was a representative building, perhaps a palace, as well as temples in the Greek style.
Lacking natural stone, the buildings were constructed from mud; there were no stone horizontal beams on the columns, but rather arches. Along the sides of the roads, researchers found structures in the ground made of bottomless jars, which apparently served to drain water during floods.
There are places where Stefan Hauser would very much like to dig now. At one spot, his team’s equipment recorded strange patterns in the ground, he says, possibly gypsum stucco, perhaps a frieze. It would be a treasure waiting to be unearthed. What is also missing are dates. From what period did which building originate, how did the city develop? What is clear is how Charax declined: in the third century AD, the coastline had already shifted south, but now the riverbed of the Tigris also moved west. The city lost its raison d’être and was abandoned. The dams were no longer maintained, Charax was flooded again and eventually forgotten.
For archaeologists, this sounds like a promise, because it means: large parts of the ancient city are still present. They lie merely in the earth, waiting.
