Seleucia on the Tigris: a Hellenistic city in four levels

The explanations distinguish finds, interpretations and open questions. Sources appear at the end of the page.

What the source says

The Kelsey Museum of Archaeology at the University of Michigan describes Seleucia-on-the-Tigris, 29 km south of modern Baghdad, as a city "which rose, flourished, and dwindled away between 307 BCE and 215 CE". According to the page, it was founded on the Tigris by Seleucus Nicator, a general of Alexander the Great, and became the eastern capital of the Seleucid Empire. In 141 BCE the Parthians under Mithridates conquered the city, and Seleucia became the western capital of the Parthian Empire. Source 1.

The excavation

According to the page, Leroy Waterman began excavations on 29 December 1927, and they continued for six seasons until 1937, under the auspices of the University of Michigan with funds from the Toledo Museum of Art and the Cleveland Museum of Art. The preliminary excavation uncovered three levels of occupation, later expanded to four, over a thousand objects and signs of older Babylonian occupation, including a cuneiform tablet, fragments of Greek inscriptions and over 259 bitumen seal impressions. Air photos confirmed the rectangular pattern of streets of a major city. Source 1.

Four levels

The page names four levels: Level IV (307-141 BCE), "in which the city was a Seleucid capital"; Level III (141 BCE-43 CE), during which the Hellenistic city was autonomous under Parthian rule; Level II (43-116 CE), "the Parthian occupation level"; and Level I (115-227 CE). The dates do not fit exactly: Level I begins a year before Level II ends and runs past 215 CE, which the page gives as the end of the city. Level IV falls in the site's Macedonian and Seleucid period and Levels III to I in its Parthian period, so the article is placed in both; the boundary between them is 141 BCE on the Kelsey page and ca. 138 B.C. in the Met's chronology list. Level I crosses the 224 CE boundary and is not trimmed, but the source describes no Sasanian phase, so the article is not placed in the Sasanian period. Sources 1, 2.

How the levels were dated

To devise a chronology for the pottery, Nelson C. Debevoise first reviewed the coins - some 30,000 were found at Seleucia, half with a definite provenance. According to the page, since the coins were datable and occurred with pottery at all levels, they provided "a fairly accurate chronological index for the Parthian period". An object's date is not always the date of its context: in an outer wall of the Parthian period at Tel Umar a reused brick was found, dated by its stamp to 821 BCE, a year the page assigns to the "Neo-Babylonian period" in the wide sense that the Met also gives the name (ca. 1000-539 B.C.). Sources 1, 2.

A Greek city?

The Met's timeline says that the new cities of the Seleucid empire "are laid out after the Greek style" and largely populated by Macedonian and Greek colonists, and the Kelsey page states that the general Hellenistic plan, as reproduced by aerial photography, has remained intact. That supports a city planned on a Greek model, but not what houses looked like in each level, since the page gives no plans by level. And Level III is described as a Hellenistic city under Parthian rule: "Greek" and "Parthian" are not successive alternatives here. Sources 2, 1.

Scope of reading: the Kelsey Museum's project page on Seleucia was read on 24 October 2026, together with the Met timeline page for 1000 B.C.-1 A.D. The excavation reports and the publications on the coins, seal impressions and pottery that the page mentions were not read, so there are no plans, finds by level or analysis of the vessels here.