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Dara (ancient name Anastasiopolis) was built by the Eastern Roman Emperor Anastasius I in 505-507 CE as a garrison city to protect the empire's eastern border against the Sassanid Empire. It quickly became the administrative and military center of Upper Mesopotamia; under Emperor Justinian I the walls were strengthened and massive cisterns were added.
The city was also the site of Byzantine general Belisarius's victory over the Sassanids in 530. In later centuries it changed hands between Sassanid, Byzantine, Umayyad, Abbasid, Seljuk, and Ottoman rule. Today only about 10% of the city is above ground; most of it still lies buried.
Highlights
Massive water cisterns
One of the rock-cut cisterns (known locally as the "dungeon") has a capacity of about 10,000 m³ — deeper than Istanbul's Basilica Cistern.
Water as a weapon of defense
The Roman garrison used the water in the cisterns to withstand long sieges; the Sassanids, in turn, tried to divert the river's flow to leave the city without water.
4-km wall system
A two-layered defensive line of inner and outer walls with 28 towers.
Gallery graves (necropolis)
Multi-story, rock-cut tomb structures holding the skeletal remains of thousands of people.