Tell es-Sinn (Tall as-Sin)

Tell es-Sinn is a walled Byzantine town and its necropolis, standing on an old river terrace on the left bank of the Euphrates. The wall encloses 25 hectares, an area of 550 by 500 metres. The necropolis outside the wall covers 7 hectares and is estimated to hold more than 1000 tombs, of which between 163 and 170 have been excavated. It was fully published in 2008 in a monograph of 402 pages; few Byzantine cemeteries in Syria are documented in such detail. Access today could not be confirmed.

Where it is and can you go?

The site lies about 10 kilometres south-east of Deir ez-Zor, 10 kilometres from Busayra and 1500 metres from the town of Merat. Only a single source gives a point for it, so this page has no map.

The administration of the region changed in January-February 2026. No dated source specific to the site from the last 12 months was found. North Press Agency (NPA) reports of 26 March and 4 June 2026 say mine deaths are continuing in rural Deir ez-Zor. The rock-cut tomb chambers were left open after excavation; their present condition, and whether they have been looted, is unknown. The Ifpo atlas lists the site as under threat. This page is not a suggestion to visit; the authorities in Deir ez-Zor should be asked first.

When was the town lived in?

Tell es-Sinn was part of the Euphrates frontier line that ran from the emperor Diocletian to Justinian. Ifpo dates the settlement from the period of rivalry between the Severan emperors and the Sasanian Persians. The town grew markedly in the 6th century under Justinian. Its ancient name is unknown; Ifpo tentatively suggests Beonan.

How the tombs were made

The necropolis lies north and north-east of the wall. Almost all the tombs follow the same type: an open dromos, an entrance passage, or a stepped descent, leading to a square or rectangular chamber cut into the rock. Each chamber has three arcosolia, arched burial niches cut into the wall; in one example there are five. Inside the niches are trough-shaped graves. Five single pit graves older than these underground tombs were also found. Decoration is very sparse; apart from a few painted crosses there is none.

What not to miss

The children’s graves. Children were buried not in the chambers but in small niches cut into the side walls of the dromos. This detail, showing how adults and children were separated within one tomb, is the part of a plain necropolis that says the most. Tomb E2 at Tell al-Kasra is also compared with this tomb type.

Who excavated it

The Syrian Directorate-General of Antiquities and the Deir ez-Zor Museum carried out surface surveys in 1978 and 2000. From 2005 a joint Syrian-Spanish team excavated the site under the PAMES project of the Directorate-General and the University of A Coruña. Only a little over a fifth of the 7-hectare necropolis has been investigated. The monograph edited by Montero Fenollos and al-Shbib was published in Madrid in 2008. In 2021, 3D models of the tombs were printed for an exhibition on five years of archaeology in Syria.