Resumen
Hatra stands in the middle of the Iraqi desert, 110 km southwest of Mosul in the Jazirah plateau, surrounded by semi-arid steppe. It was the capital of a short-lived Parthian vassal state known as Araba (or Arba), which flourished from roughly the 1st century BCE to 241 CE, when it was destroyed by the Sasanian emperor Shapur I.
The city's circular plan — defined by two concentric rings of massive defensive walls encompassing an area of roughly 3.5 km in diameter — is its most immediately striking feature, visible from satellite as a perfect double circle in the desert. The outer ring is 7 km in circumference; the walls stand up to 10 m high and are reinforced by more than 160 towers. This fortification system repelled two major Roman assaults: Trajan besieged the city in 116 CE and withdrew after summer heat and harassment by archers; Septimius Severus besieged it twice (197 and 199 CE) and was driven off both times, the second siege lasting 20 days.
At the center of the city stood a large sacred precinct (the temenos) surrounded by its own high walls, containing a series of temples dedicated to a syncretic pantheon that combined Mesopotamian, Iranian, and Greek deities. The main temple complex — the Grand Temple or Great Iwans — consisted of a series of large iwan halls (open-vaulted porticoes of Iranian origin) facing a central courtyard, flanked by smaller temples dedicated to Maran ('Our Lord'), Martan ('Our Lady'), and a sun god, Shamash. The architectural vocabulary of Hatra was itself a cultural hybrid: the iwan halls are Iranian in origin, the column capitals and architectural ornament are Hellenistic, and the iconographic program of the carvings blends Parthian, Mesopotamian, and Greco-Roman conventions. Sculptures of gods, priests, and Araban kings found at Hatra — now divided between the Iraq Museum in Baghdad and formerly the Mosul Museum — were among the finest examples of Parthian art known.
In February and March 2015 ISIS systematically destroyed much of the standing sculpture at Hatra with sledgehammers and bulldozers, demolishing statues documented and photographed over the preceding century. A substantial portion of the architecture survives.