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Alexandria on the Tigris, a port founded by Alexander the Great in 324 BC in what is now southern Iraq, is being mapped street by street. Drone photographs, surface survey and geophysics have revealed its walls, canals, temples and some of the largest city blocks known from the ancient world.

Charax Spasinou

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The story behind the card

After floods ruined Alexander's city, it was rebuilt around 166 BC under the Seleucid king Antiochus IV. His governor Hyspaosines later made it the capital of his own kingdom, Characene, and it took his name as Charax Spasinou. For about 550 years it was a hub of long-distance trade linking Mesopotamia, the Gulf and India. The ruins, a site called Jabal Khuyabir, were identified in the 1960s by the British researcher John Hansman. Fieldwork resumed in 2016 with a British-German team, first reported by the University of Manchester and joined by Stefan Hauser of the University of Konstanz, whose results drew wide attention in early 2026. Magnetometer survey, which finds buried walls through small changes in the soil's magnetism, showed a grid of blocks about 185 by 85 metres.

Türkçe oku
Dicle'deki İskenderiye, Büyük İskender'in MÖ 324'te bugünkü Irak'ın güneyinde kurduğu bir liman kentiydi ve şimdi sokak sokak haritalanıyor. Dron fotoğrafları, yüzey araştırmaları ve jeofizik ölçümler kentin surlarını, kanallarını, tapınaklarını ve antik dünyanın bilinen en büyük yapı adalarından bazılarını ortaya çıkardı.

Seller İskender'in kentini harap edince, kent MÖ 166 dolaylarında Selevkos kralı IV. Antiokhos döneminde yeniden kuruldu. Kralın valisi Hyspaosines daha sonra burayı kendi krallığı Harakene'nin başkenti yaptı; kent de onun adıyla Charax Spasinou diye anılmaya başladı. Yaklaşık 550 yıl boyunca Mezopotamya'yı Körfez'e ve Hindistan'a bağlayan uzak mesafe ticaretinin merkezlerinden biri oldu. Bugün Jabal Khuyabir denen yerdeki kalıntıları 1960'larda İngiliz araştırmacı John Hansman tespit etti. Saha çalışmaları 2016'da, ilk raporunu Manchester Üniversitesi'nin yayımladığı bir İngiliz-Alman ekiple yeniden başladı. Ekibe katılan Konstanz Üniversitesi'nden Stefan Hauser'in sonuçları 2026'nın başında geniş yankı uyandırdı. Topraktaki küçük manyetik farklardan gömülü duvarları bulan manyetometre taramaları, yaklaşık 185'e 85 metrelik yapı adalarından oluşan bir ızgara planı gösterdi.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Charax Spasinu
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