Ba'uda
Ba'uda , also Baude, Baouda; was an early Byzantine settlement in the Dead Cities area in western Syria . One of the few remaining pyramid tombs in the country is located in the village.
location
The ruins of Ba'uda are located in the Idlib Governorate in the Jebel Zawiya area, the southern part of the northern Syrian limestone massif. The sparsely populated, karst hilly areas at an altitude of around 700 meters can be reached from Ariha in the north or from Maarat an-Numan in the west. From the latter, a road leads over Kafr Nabl (10 kilometers to the west) after 5.5 kilometers past the small remains of the ancient village of Btirsa and, branching off to the north, reaches Ba'uda after another 2.5 kilometers. The two larger and better known ruins of Serjilla and al-Bara are 2 kilometers east and 4 kilometers to the northwest. There are numerous other, mostly small ruins from the late Roman and early Byzantine times scattered around the area.
The place is in an open field, there are no modern buildings nearby. In the surrounding area , grapes thrive on smaller plots delimited by stone walls with red soil.
Ba'uda should not be confused with the "Dead City" of the same name , which is located in the central part of the limestone massif on the northern slope of the Jebel Barisha.
Cityscape
Most of the remaining house ruins of the Dead Cities date from the 4th to 6th centuries. In Ba'uda, some wall parts of residential buildings (residences) and a ruined church are still upright at two-storey height. The single-nave church with double masonry shows the early building tradition of the 4th century. This included a closed west facade - with a sanctuary usually located in the east - and entrances on the southern long side. Markianos Kyris is known as an architect, to whom five churches from around 390 to 420 or 430 can be assigned.
The specialty of the place is a very well preserved pyramid tomb of a rich family from the 6th century. In the south of the limestone massif there are only two such tombs in al-Bara, another is in Dana (south) , four kilometers east of Ruweiha . Between the houses there are some stone sarcophagi with heavy stone lids, which were set up at ground level, and at least one underground burial chamber .
literature
- Frank Rainer Scheck, Johannes Odenthal: Syria. High cultures between the Mediterranean and the Arabian desert. DuMont, Cologne 1998, p. 311
Individual evidence
- ↑ Christine Strube : The "Dead Cities". Town and country in northern Syria during late antiquity. Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1996, p. 38