Tell Beydar (1992-2010) – A Seleucid-Parthian Settlement in Northeastern Syria

Maria da Conceição Lopes is an archaeologist, associate professor at the University of Coimbra, and Scientific Coordinator of CEAACP (Center of Studies in Archaeology, Arts and Heritage). Apart from her vast work in Portugal, for the past two decades she has been involved with many archaeological projects worldwide, particularly in Angola, Brazil, Syria and Iraq. In Brazil she is currently Associate Researcher at the Ceara Foundation for Scientific and Technological development (FUNCAP). She was also nominated by the Portuguese government as Expert for the World Heritage Committee between 2011 and 2017.

While her scientific inquiries have touched upon a diversity of subjects, she has been more interested in researching the dynamics of landscapes, urban and rural, over the long term. Her PhD thesis (2000, Coimbra), for instance, is an essay on the Roman colony of Pax Iulia, in the province of Lusitania.

In Syria she was the responsible for the Portuguese mission at Tell Beydar. In the context of this grant she will coordinate a publication of the data pretraining to the Seleucid-Parthian period, part of it retrieved by her and her team which will be able to provide an important picture of the rural settlement of Tell Beydar in the last centuries of the first millennium BCE.