In early September, the ancient city of Hatra in northern Iraq welcomed visitors, opening a new chapter in the two-thousand-year-old ruins that were ravaged by terrorist attacks.
In early September, visitors were greeted to the ruins of the ancient city of Hatra in northern Iraq
The ancient city of Hatra is located in Iraq's Nineveh Province, 290 km northwest of the capital Baghdad and 110 km southwest of Mosul. The origins of Hatra city are not definitively documented, but the city was founded by the Seleucid Empire around the 3rd century BC and influenced by the later Parthian Empire, transforming it from a miniature Assyrian settlement into a fortress and trading center, covering an area of 299 hectares at its peak. According to UNESCO, hatra flourished in the 2nd century BC as a major transit point on the famous Eastern Silk Road, becoming another great Arab city in addition to Palmyra in Syria, Petra in Jordan and Baalbek in Lebanon.
Ruins of the ancient city of Hatra in northern Iraq
The ancient city of Hatra is a powerful military town with a double-decker walled ringing with majestic fortifications such as castles and towers, and in 116 and 198 AD, the ancient city resisted the invasion of the Romans. In 1985, the ancient city was inscribed on the World Heritage List, and UNESCO commented: "The ruins of the city, especially its temple architecture, which combines Greco-Roman architectural styles and oriental decorative features, show the splendor of the Parthian civilization."
In 2015, the ancient city was violently occupied by the Islamic State, and extremist militants used explosives and bulldozers to wreak havoc on the site, and in April 2017, the Iraqi Shiite militia group Popular Mobilization Group finally recaptured the ancient city of Hatra after fierce battles with extremists. Hatra officials have noted that nearly 15 percent of the area of the region was destroyed during the conflict, and as Hamid Jabri, director of the Archaeology Department at the University of Mosul, put it, Islamic State militants have inflicted "irreparable damage" on the ruins of the ancient city of Hatra, committing crimes against all of humanity.
Islamic State militants inflict "irreparable damage" on the ruins of the ancient city of Hatra
After the tragedy, Iraqi experts collaborated with the Italian International Society for Mediterranean and Oriental Studies on restoration. In February 2022, the first phase of restoration work on the ancient city of Hatra was completed, and the authorities announced the current results, which included a life-size Romanesque sculpture and a relief on the side of the Grand Temple. People held ceremonies in the ancient city, hoping that the ancient city would be reborn.
In February 2022, the first phase of restoration of the ancient city was completed
In February 2022, the first phase of the restoration of the ancient city was completed and a commemorative ceremony was held
In September 2022, the Mosul Heritage House, a private museum in Mosul, launched the Hatra Tour project, which museum representatives believe aims to showcase the heritage and identity of Mosul and Nineveh, and will also contribute to the recovery and development of tourism in the region.
On Saturday, the first 40 visitors, most of them Iraqis, visited the monument at dusk, taking selfies in front of the colonnade to witness reliefs destroyed by extremist groups. A Hatra man named Luna Batota, who first returned and took part in the tour after 24 years away from home, had mixed feelings in an interview with AFP, "You see bullet holes, you see many empty bullets... It (Hatra) has a long history and can glimpse an ancient civilization. ”
Tourists visit the ruins of the ancient city
Hatra Mayor Basman Ahmed al-Sultan said that although the COVID-19 pandemic has slowed down reconstruction, Hatra has made positive progress on recovery and reconstruction projects. The reconstruction of local administrations, parliaments, municipal councils and public health centres has also been completed, and some of the schools damaged in the disaster have reopened.
"Mosul is more than war, terrorism," Beriar Bahaa Al-Din, a PhD student in anthropology at the University of Exeter in the UK, said during a visit to Hatra, "Mosul is a civilization, heritage, culture, and this impressive place should be full of tourists from all over the world."