Dura

Dura (meaning a circle, walled place, or enclosure—from the Akkadian dūru) was the plain near Babylon in the province of Babylon where Nebuchadnezzar erected a golden image ninety cubits high and six cubits wide and summoned all his officials, satraps, governors, and regional administrators to bow before it at the sound of the royal orchestra (Dan. 3:1). The episode of the three men—Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—who refused to bow and were cast into the furnace heated to extraordinary intensity became one of the most celebrated narratives of faith under imperial coercion in the entire Old Testament.

The exact location of the plain of Dura has not been definitively established; excavations near Hillah in Iraq have uncovered a large square brick structure (approximately fourteen meters on each side) that some archaeologists identify with the pedestal for the golden image, though certainty remains elusive. Multiple sites in Babylonia bore the name Dura, as the term was common in Akkadian topography. The Dura of Daniel is now generally located south of Babylon on the Euphrates plain.