Death at Halmyris

The fabled Danube, Europe’s second longest river, has its source in Germany’s Black Forest and winds eastward 1,800 miles to Romania, where it empties into the Black Sea. Just south of where the Danube flows into the sea is a rocky strip of land that has been inhabited for more than four millennia, from the Bronze Age until present times. From the Greek period to the Byzantine period, this was the seat of ancient Halmyris, one of the most strategic outposts of the Roman Empire.

In 2001 our team, which had been excavating Halmyris for 20 years,^a made an extraordinary discovery: a fourth-century C.E. basilica containing the bones of two Christian martyrs previously known only from literary sources. If Halmyris had long been recognized for its role in Roman military history, now it had instant appeal to students of Christianity as well.