It is recorded as 𐣧𐣨𐣣𐣠 (ḥṭrʾ, vocalized as: Ḥaṭrāʾ) in Hatran Aramaic inscriptions, probably meaning "enclosure, hedge, fence".

[6] The traditional stories of the fall of Hatra tell of al-Nadirah, daughter of the King of Araba, who betrayed the city into the hands of Shapur as she fell in love with him.

The city was famed for its fusion of Greek, Mesopotamian, Canaanite, Aramean and Arabian pantheons, known in Aramaic as Beiṯ Ĕlāhā ("House of God").

The city had temples to Nergal (Assyrian-Babylonian and Akkadian), Hermes (Greek), Atargatis (Syro-Aramaean), Allat, Shamiyyah (Arabian), and Shamash (the Mesopotamian sun god).

[2] According to John M. Rosenfield, the statuary of Hatra belong to the Parthian cultural sphere, with numerous similarities in terms of clothing, decorative elements or posture, which tend to be massive and frontal, with feet often splayed.

From the 1980s, the Italian Archaeological Expedition,[13] directed by R. Ricciardi Venco (University of Turin), made major discoveries at Hatra.

[20] Actions by the forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which occupied the area in mid-2014, were a major threat to Hatra.

In early 2015 they announced their intention to destroy many artifacts, claiming that such "graven images" were un-Islamic, encouraged shirk (or polytheism), and could not be permitted to exist, despite the preservation of the site for 1,400 years by various Islamic regimes.

[21][22] After the bulldozing of Nimrud on March 5, 2015, "Hatra of course will be next" said Abdulamir Hamdani, an Iraqi archaeologist from Stony Brook University.

[26] UNESCO and ISESCO issued a joint statement saying "With this latest act of barbarism against Hatra, (the IS group) shows the contempt in which it holds the history and heritage of Arab people.

PMF units also stated that the group had mined the site's eastern gates, thus temporarily preventing any assessment of damage by archaeologists.

Layla Salih, head of antiquities for Nineveh Governorate, stated that most of the buildings were intact and the destruction didn't compare with that of other archaeological sites of Iraq.