APAMEA

The ancient town of Apamea (modern Afamia) is located in the Syrian Orontes Valley. The settlement consisted of a citadel, now occupied by the modern village of Qal'at el-Mudiq, and a lower town (Figure 48). The earliest archaeological phases on the citadel are prehistoric, but the site is best known as a (re)foundation by Seleucus Nicator in 300/299 BCE, when it was named after his wife. Little is left from this period, and the development of the site remains largely uncertain until the 2nd c. CE. A funerary stele found in Beirut (T. 75) mentions a census conducted around 6 CE recording 117 000 people in the territory of Apamea. The rebuilding phase after the destructive earthquake of 115/116 CE appears prominently in the archaeological record. In the first half of the 3rd c. CE, the winter camp of the Legio II Parthica and two auxiliary cavalry units were garrisoned at Apamea. At its largest extent, the city covered around 250 ha. The Sasanian king Shapur briefly conquered Apamea in 256 CE, after which the fortification walls of the city were reinforced using, among other things, funerary stelae as building material (see later). The construction of several churches, as well as large houses with lavish mosaic floors, indicates that Apamea's wealth was not diminished in the Byzantine period. At least two ecclesiastic buildings contained tombs.

The Cemeteries

Investigations at Apamea have yielded a total of sixty-three graves dating between the 1st and 4th c. CE, with a concentration in the 3rd c. CE (Online Appendix Apamea 1). The cat. 2 assemblage includes over 128 tombs, many of which stem from excavations in the cemetery area in the 1930s (Online Appendix Apamea 2). Fires during and shortly after the Second World War destroyed the records of these excavations. The North Cemetery stretched out on both sides of the main road leaving the North Gate. Excavations yielded thirty-two tombs, thirteen of which were included in the cat.1 database, dating between the 1st and 4th c. CE and perhaps later. No dimensions or maps exist for the entire burial ground, but a section published by Vandenabeele extended over at least 53 m along the road and 5 m from the road.