Raqqa to Resafa along the Roman frontier: Heraqla, Sura and Tetrapyrgium

This day runs from the bank of the Euphrates into the desert, and its four stops show how Rome’s eastern frontier worked. It starts with an Abbasid monument: Heraqla, which Harun al-Rashid built 6 kilometres west of Raqqa to mark a victory over Byzantium. Then comes Sura, a Late Roman legionary city and the seat of the commander of the Legio XVI Flavia Firma. From there you head south to Tetrapyrgium, a small fort on the Strata Diocletiana, a military road. It measured 38 metres a side and held a garrison of 65-70 soldiers. The last stop is Resafa, the pilgrimage city whose walls still stand. The day comes to about 187 kilometres; you need a car, and it is long.

The route

Head west out of Raqqa. Heraqla is 11 kilometres from Bab Baghdad, in the middle of farmland; the turning is narrow, so ask the way. Carry on along the Aleppo road: Sura stands beside the village of al-Mansura on the Euphrates, about 32 kilometres by road. After Sura, turn south. Tetrapyrgium lies 12500 metres south of Sura, on the old line to Resafa. The measured road distance is 16 kilometres, but the fort’s position rests on a single source and the approach needs local knowledge. From the fort you cross the desert to Resafa. It is 20 kilometres as the crow flies, yet the mapped roads do not link the two directly and the measured route is close to 60 kilometres. Ask in Raqqa which track is usable. The drive back from Resafa to Raqqa is about 69 kilometres.

Timing

Leave Raqqa at 06:30. Spend 07:00 to 08:00 at Heraqla: climb onto the platform to see the line of the circular wall. Reach Sura around 08:45 and give it an hour. At Tetrapyrgium, which you reach around 10:15, 45 minutes is enough; the fort is small. Aim to arrive at Resafa by 13:00 at the latest. Part of the two-hour visit is spent in the underground cistern, and it is cool down there. Set off again around 15:00 and be in Raqqa before dark. Between November and February the days are too short for this plan.

Take care

The present state of three of the four stops could not be confirmed. There is no current source on Sura’s surface, guard or road access; nobody knows whether Heraqla is watched over; and no source shows what remains at Tetrapyrgium after 2011, whose page has no map. Sura and Tetrapyrgium are full of looters’ and grave robbers’ pits with undercut edges. Unexploded ordnance is reported in the area, so do not enter the sites without a local guide. The stretch between Tetrapyrgium and Resafa is deep in the Raqqa desert. None of the stops has shade, water or fuel; fill the tank in Raqqa. Ask in Raqqa about the state of the route before you set out, take no photographs at checkpoints, and do not drive the desert road after dark. The route does not pass through the Tell Abyad strip, and there is nowhere to stop for a meal along it.