Hatra
The number of Wikipedia languages with an article is our measure of how widely known a site is. Counts of visitors and wishes will appear once enough people use the app.
Seals, want-to-go and the year you stood here are recorded in the iPhone app.
How it came to be
Hatra in northern Iraq grew from a small village in the 1st century BC into a large kingdom by the mid-2nd century AD. It was the capital of what was perhaps the first Arab-ruled kingdom, on the western edge of the Parthian Empire, and its later rulers called themselves king of the Arabs. It is considered the best-preserved city of the Parthian period.
The round city was enclosed by an earthen bank about 9 km around and a stone wall about 2 km across with 171 towers. The walls held against Roman armies under Trajan in 116 and Septimius Severus in 198. Seven temples stood in the central sanctuary, and the temple of the sun god Shamash was called the House of God in Aramaic inscriptions.
Shapur I of the Sasanian Empire took and destroyed the city in 241. Hatra was inscribed in 1985. ISIL occupied the area in 2014, destruction of the monuments was reported in March 2015, and the site was placed on the danger list that July. The city was retaken in April 2017.
Data: Wikidata (CC0). Photos: Wikimedia Commons, under each photo’s license. Prototype; may contain errors. We measure usage anonymously to improve the app (PostHog, EU).