Dura

dura (dura mater, pachymeninx) (dewr-ă) n. the thickest and outermost of the three meninges surrounding the brain and spinal cord.
—dural adj.

dura mater outermost envelope of brain and spinal cord. XV. — medL., lit. ‘hard mother’, tr. Arab. al-'umm al-jalīda or al-jāfiya ‘the hard mother’; so called because it was thought to be the source of every other membrane in the body; cf. PIA MATER.
Hence dural XIX.

Dura
1. A place in Babylon (Dan. 3: 1) of uncertain location, where a golden image was erected.

2. Dura-Europos, beyond the eastern border of Syria, on the right bank of the River Euphrates, where excavations in 1934 revealed the ruins both of a Jewish synagogue, and of the first known Christian church, constructed out of two rooms of a private house (232 CE). One of these was a rectangular room entered from a central court and adapted for baptisms. In it was a receptacle shaped like a coffin; it was the font in which the believer was ‘buried with Christ’ and raised to new life. At the east end there had been placed a raised platform, possibly for the use of the president.