Young workman in House of Nebuchelus next to shelves for papyrus rolls
YUAG, Dura-Europos Collection, negative number dura-d120~01
Many of the excavation photographs include workers posed in buildings to indicate scale, and numerous boys were employed on the site, earning half of the men’s wages. The House of Nebuchelus is also called the House of the Archive due to the extensive graffiti on its walls, many of which refer to commercial transactions including the shipping of consignments of wine.
Greek, Latin, Persian, Palmyrene Aramaic, Safaitic, Hatrean, and Hebrew were all used at Dura, and documents discovered include a large collection of parchments and papyri as well as inscriptions on stone and graffiti: most of the documents were not recovered from the original shelves, but rather from the fill used to create the defensive rampart along the western wall.