Resafa ( Reṣafa), also sometimes spelled Rusafa, and known in the Byzantine era as Sergiopolis (in greek Σεργιούπολις, Σεργιόπολις, "city of Saint Sergius") and briefly as Anastasiopolis (Αναστασιόπολις, "city of Anastasius"), was a city located in the Roman province of Euphratensis, in modern-day Syria. It is an archaeological site situated southwest of the city of Raqqa and the Euphrates. Procopius describes at length the ramparts and buildings erected there by Justinian. The walls of Resafa, which are still well preserved, are over 1600 feet in length and about 1000 feet in width; round or square towers were erected about every hundred feet; there are also ruins of a church with three apses. Names Resafa corresponds to the Akkadian Raṣappa and the Biblical Rezeph (Septuagint; ), where it is mentioned in ; cuneiform sources give Rasaappa, Rasappa, and Rasapi. Ptolemy calls it Rhesapha (). In the late Roman Tabula Peutingeriana, it is called Risapa. In the Notitia dignitatum, it is Rosafa. Procopius write that it was called Sergiopolis after the Saint Sergius. History The site dates to the 9th century BC, when a military camp was built by the Assyrians. During Roman times, it was a desert outpost fortified to defend against the Sasanian Empire and a station on the Strata Diocletiana. It flourished as its location on the caravan routes linking Aleppo, Dura-Europos, and Palmyra was ideal. Resafa had no spring or running water, so it depended on large cisterns to capture the winter and spring rains. Resafa was located in the area of the Roman–Persian Wars, and was therefore a well-defended city that had massive walls that surrounded it without a break. It also had a fortress. In the 4th century, it became a pilgrimage town for Christians coming to venerate Saint Sergius, a Christian Roman soldier said to have been martyred in Resafa during the Diocletianic Persecution. A church was built to mark his grave, and the city was renamed Sergiopolis. Indeed, it became, after Jerusalem, "most important pilgrimage center in Byzantine Orientis in [the] proto-Byzantine period", with a special appeal to the local Arabs, especially the Ghassanids. By the late 6th century, the Ghassanids’ tribal Arab ally the Bahra’ were tasked with guarding Resafa and its shrine from nomadic marauders and the Lakhmids of Mesopotamia. The city was lost by the Byzantines in the 7th century when the Arabs won the final victory at the Battle of