The Graeco-Roman city of Zeugma (Seleucia on the Euphrates) has been called a ‘Turkish Pompeii’. The comparison is valid in so far as Zeugma was abruptly destroyed – not by a volcano, but by a Sassanian army in ad 252–3 – and never recovered its former prosperity, despite sporadic occupation in the late Roman and Byzantine periods. Moreover, the circumstances of its burial and the dry climatic conditions have meant that (as at Dura-Europus, further to the east) artefacts and materials that would have perished on most archaeological sites are here remarkably well preserved. But what has really prompted the analogy between Zeugma and Pompeii is the modern tragedy that has befallen Zeugma: its submersion by the waters of a hydroelectric reservoir.

News of the impending disaster came out in the early 1990s, and rescue excavations were mounted from then onwards by teams of archaeologists from various nations, notably Turkey itself and France (the University of Nantes). But the situation became most desperate in the summer of 2000, when the final stage of the flooding was taking place. This is when the Packard Humanities Institute (PHI) became involved, funding an intensive programme of excavation and conservation, managed respectively by Oxford Archaeology and the Centro di Conservazione Archeologica di Roma. Since 2000 there has been further work on the excavation archives and finds, while a temporary fall in the water level allowed some more investigations along the shoreline. But the main imperative has been the publication of the rescue excavations undertaken in advance of the flooding. Here, unfortunately, it has proved impracticable to co-ordinate the efforts of the different teams involved, and they continue to operate independently. Already we have had the first volumes on the French and Turkish excavations (Barbet Reference Barbet2005; Abadie-Reynal and Ergeş Reference Abadie-Reynal2012). For the PHI programme a taster was provided by a volume of essays that appeared in 2003 (Early and Humphrey Reference Early and Humphrey2003); now comes the final publication in the form of the three volumes here reviewed.

These volumes are in most respects exemplary. For a start, unlike the French and Turkish volumes, they deal not just with the architecture and decorations (primarily wall paintings and mosaic pavements) but also present all the various classes of artefacts recovered in the excavations. The history and basic structural elements, including accounts of the houses and other buildings, the mosaics and wall paintings, graffiti, inscriptions on stone and a major relief sculpture come in Volume I. Pottery, terracotta figurines, clay seals and glass are in Volume II. Coins and metal objects, bone and ivory, milling and weaving equipment and textiles are in Volume III together with chapters on the evidence for military activity (of crucial relevance in the study of a city commanding a strategically important river-crossing on Rome’s eastern frontier); there are also analyses of environmental evidence, including faunal and vegetal remains. All this material is not simply assembled in formal catalogues but rather examined from social and historical standpoints in accordance with the latest research agendas.

We must be profoundly grateful to William Aylward and his many collaborators for a splendid publication. At the same time, it is necessary to draw attention to some of the limitations of their undertaking. The areas excavated were deliberately situated along the reservoir’s projected water line because this was the area most vulnerable to wind and wave action: the lower slopes of the city were abandoned to their fate (ironically they will be relatively safe from erosion under the water), while the upper slopes are still available for investigation. This means that the excavations represent only a narrow transect across the city: none of the buildings was completely exposed and, despite some tantalising hints obtained from geophysical survey, little has been revealed about Zeugma’s urban plan. Other teams of excavators, including the French and Turks, had more time in the field and excavated larger and more meaningful areas (they also found more of the spectacular figure-mosaics for which Zeugma is rightly famed). More problematically, several of the authors of specialist reports were not present during the excavations and have clearly had difficulty working from the site records. This is particularly true of the contributors writing on the architecture, mosaics and paintings. Jennifer Tobin, on the houses, has performed a tour de force in presenting her material (though her descriptions tend to be difficult to follow, because of confusions and inconsistencies in giving orientations), but Bettina Bergmann on the paintings seems to have struggled to make sense of inadequate drawings and photographs of what was often fragmentary and poorly preserved plaster.

However, it ill behoves us to be too critical. The largesse of the PHI, the skills of the excavators and conservators, the expertise of the authors of the three volumes – all have contributed to an immensely important rescue project. Without their efforts far less information would have been salvaged from the destruction of Zeugma.