
Contents
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Introduction Introduction
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Sources Sources
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History of Research History of Research
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Road Network Road Network
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Movement Corridors and Movement Obstacles Movement Corridors and Movement Obstacles
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Itineraries of Northern Syria Itineraries of Northern Syria
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Itineraries of Southern Syria Itineraries of Southern Syria
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Desert Itineraries Desert Itineraries
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Waterways Waterways
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Development of Transport Networks Development of Transport Networks
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Acknowledgements Acknowledgements
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Bibliography Bibliography
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17 Road and Transport Networks in Hellenistic and Roman Syria
Get accessAdam Pažout is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action fellow at the Universtitat Autònoma de Barcelona with project ‘VIA-TARIQ: Analysing the long-term change and persistency of the Roman road system in the Levant’. He earned his PhD in archaeology at the University of Haifa, Israel, for his dissertation on spatial analysis of rural fortifications and road system in the region of the city of Hippos. Between 2014–2019 he was involved in the Hippos-Sussita Excavation Project as an area supervisor. In 2017–2019 he co-directed several small-scale excavations in the context of Hippos Regional Research, together with Michael Eisenberg and Mechael Osband. Between 2021-2024, he was part of the MINERVA project, headed by Tom Brughmans, at the Centre for Urban Network Evolutions, Aarhus University, headed by Rubina Raja, focusing on the Roman road and transport network in the Eastern Mediterranean. His research interests include Hellenistic and Roman southern Levant, Roman roads and transportation, rural and urban fortifications, landscape archaeology, and application of GIS in archaeology.
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Published:22 April 2025
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Abstract
Main travel corridors were defined by the topography of Syria on the north–south axes with several east–west connections between them. Some of these east–west corridors are extensions of main commercial routes connecting Syria with Mesopotamia (through Palmyra) and Arabia (through Bostra and Petra). Waterways played only a secondary role in the transport network; even the Euphrates was navigable without obstacles only when it entered the Syrian Desert. The Roman impact is visible mainly in the improved road- and bridge-building that survives to this day. New roads were constructed for military purposes in certain areas where no roads existed before (e.g., Strata Diocletiana). The continuity/persistence of itineraries was as much a function of change of settlement patterns over centuries as of intervention of imperial authorities that promoted or diverted certain itineraries. With political circumstances changed, some itineraries were abandoned in the transition to the Islamic Middle Ages.
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