Resafa (Sergiopolis)

A city alone in the steppe, walled on all four sides. The wall runs about 500 metres one way and 300 the other, with towers every thirty metres, and much of it is still standing. Inside are church facades, ranks of arches and what is left of a caravanserai. The place became Sergiopolis in the 4th century. A church went up over the grave of Sergius, a Roman soldier killed here in the persecution under Diocletian. The town then grew into the busiest pilgrimage centre in the Byzantine East after Jerusalem.

Getting there

Some 45 kilometres south-west of Raqqa, on the west side of the road between Raqqa and Ithriya. There is no public transport; you hire a car and driver in Raqqa and the round trip takes a day. The site was held by ISIS until June 2017, so ask locally about the road and the site before you set out.

How long it takes

Two hours. That covers entering by the north gate, walking the line of the wall, and seeing the three churches and the cisterns. There is no shade and no water; bring your own.

What to see

The north gate is the most worked piece of building on the site: the column capitals and the carved vine running over the arch are still in place. Inside, the largest of the three churches keeps the long arcaded front that faces the steppe. Outside the wall, to the east and south, lie the remains of palaces built by the Umayyad caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik, who made this his preferred residence between 724 and 743.

What most people miss

The underground cisterns. Resafa had no spring; the city lived entirely on huge reservoirs that caught the winter and spring rain. The largest, in the south-west corner, is the size of a cathedral, vaulted in stone, and you go down into it by a stair. Most visitors walk between the wall and the churches and never see it — and it holds the answer to how the place existed at all.