During the siege of Dura Europos in 256, a complete Christian house church, or domus ecclesiae was entombed in a defensive bank, surviving when excavated, in places to wall-top height. The Dura church had been converted out of a large urban courtyard house of standard form, in which two rooms had been knocked together to make an assembly hall, capable of holding 60-75 standing; while a tank had been inserted in a room on the opposite side of the courtyard as a baptistery, with rich wall paintings above it. The large room was indeed found to have a raised pulptum at one end, big enough for one person in turn to read, preach and preside from; but too low to have been surmounted by a throne, and too small to have contained an altar.