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Home > Magazines > Archaeology Odyssey > November/December 2004

Death at Halmyris

Two Christian Martyrs at a Roman Outpost on the Danube

By Mihail Zahariade, Michael Phelps

The fabled Danube, Europe’s second longest river, has its source in Germany’s Black Forest and winds eastward 1,800 miles to Romania, where it empties into the Black Sea. Just south of where the Danube flows into the sea is a rocky strip of land that has been inhabited for more than four millennia, from the Bronze Age until present times. From the Greek period to the Byzantine period, this was the seat of ancient Halmyris, one of the most strategic outposts of the Roman Empire. In 2001 our team, which had been excavating Halmyris for 20 years,a made […]

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Footnotes

1.

Mihail Zahariade has led the excavations since 1981. Since 1999, the Earthwatch Institute of Boston has provided workers during each excavation season. Myrna K. Phelps joined the expedition after serving as an Earthwatch volunteer in 1999.

2.

The Historia Augusta, a collection of biographies of Roman emperors of the second and third centuries C.E., was probably compiled no earlier than the fourth century C.E.

3.

Since the discovery of the crypt in 2001, the site has come under the protection of the Romanian Ministry of Culture.